During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was famous for his deep compassion, often stepping in to pardon soldiers from execution for things like falling asleep on duty or going AWOL. Time and again, Lincoln showed mercy, understanding the difficult circumstances faced by the men fighting for our nation. But in one very specific, very serious case, Lincoln refused to budge. He wouldn’t grant a pardon, no matter how many powerful voices pleaded with him. This decision would shine a light on a dark corner of American history and redefine justice.
Our story centers on Nathaniel Gordon, a man who became rich from the illegal transatlantic slave trade, kidnapping hundreds of innocent people. For decades, men like Gordon faced little to no punishment, shielded by lax laws and corrupt systems. But when Lincoln took office, everything changed. We’ll explore the shocking details of Gordon’s crimes, his capture, and the desperate efforts to save him from the gallows. Join us to hear how President Lincoln, amid his own personal tragedies, made a courageous stand, proving that even in the toughest times, true justice could prevail for America.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 1: And we returned to Our American Stories.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: A while back.
00:00:14
Speaker 1: On this show, we did the story of the Sleeping Sentinel, a man who fell asleep at his post during the Civil War and was sentenced to be executed before Abraham Lincoln stepped in and pardoned him. Lincoln was known for his pardons during the Civil War, getting men off the hook for going AWOL, being underage, jumping bounty. The President was empathetic despite the circumstances, but there was one man Lincoln refused to pardon. Here to tell the story is Jonathan W. White, and we’d like to thank the U.S. National Archives for allowing us to use this audio.
00:00:48
Speaker 2: Let’s get into the story.
00:00:50
Speaker 3: To tell a story, we actually have to go way back to 1787. The Constitution declared that the slave trade could continue for twenty years, and so after a twenty-year period, Congress abolished the Transatlantic Slave Trade. But unfortunately, the slave trade continued, and Africans were kidnapped on the West Coast of Africa and transported to the New World for years and years and years. After the slave trade was made illegal, and in August of 1860, Nathaniel Gordon went to the West Coast of Africa, and a ship called ‘the Eerie’ kidnapped 897 Africans, going for the most vulnerable that he could seize. Most of these people were women and children. And as he put them onto his ship, he used a knife, and he cut off all the clothing off of the adult men and women. They were completely naked, and he separated the men and women into different parts of the ship. It took him 45 minutes to do that. He was clearly an expert at the trade. This was probably at least his fourth voyage. This voyage, though, he was caught by a U.S. ship, sent to New York City, put into prison, and he awaited trial.
00:02:04
Speaker 2: He knew there was nothing to fear up until this point.
00:02:07
Speaker 3: For the previous 40 years, since 1820 to 1860, no one had ever really been punished for slave trading. They knew it was piracy; they knew they could be executed, but federal administrations decided that they just wouldn’t prosecute these.
00:02:22
Speaker 2: Cases very strongly.
00:02:24
Speaker 3: And the thing about New York City in the 1850s and 1860s was New York had become the financial hub of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. And so Gordon went to jail in New York City, but was put in what we would today consider a minimum-security prison, and he was allowed to go out of the prison and walk around New York City and have fancy dinners. And he acted like a gentleman and was not convicted.
00:02:51
Speaker 2: He had a hung.
00:02:52
Speaker 3: Jury, and it’s probably because members of the jury were bribed.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: But then.
00:03:00
Speaker 3: Abraham Lincoln was elected, and he put into place a new prosecutor in New York City, a…
00:03:06
Speaker 2: New U.S. Marshal.
00:03:07
Speaker 3: They moved Nathaniel Gordon to what we would today consider a maximum-security prison called the Tombs, or the Halls of Justice, in Midtown Manhattan, and they decided that they would prosecute.
00:03:19
Speaker 2: Him a second time.
00:03:21
Speaker 3: Then this time, Nathaniel Gordon was sentenced to be executed.
00:03:25
Speaker 2: Now you might think that.
00:03:26
Speaker 3: This is a great moment in the history of morality in this country, that a man who has been involved in the slave trade is finally going to get the punishment that he and so many others deserved. But believe it or not, thousands of Northerners wrote to Abraham Lincoln and asked him to pardon Gordon, or at least to commute the sentence so that he wouldn’t be executed. You shouldn’t execute a guy like this. Gordon was the husband of a young wife. She was devoted to him. She had a young son with him. He had a nice mother; he had some sisters; he had a lot of friends. Other people wrote to Lincoln and said, you know, Nathaniel Gordon never expected to be punished for this crime because no one else has been punished.
00:04:11
Speaker 2: For it before, and it wouldn’t be right to punish him.
00:04:16
Speaker 3: In February of 1862, Gordon’s wife and mother came to the White House to try to meet with Lincoln and try to persuade him, ‘You’ve got to please pardon Nathaniel,’ and Lincoln has to decide what to do.
00:04:29
Speaker 2: Lincoln refused to meet with them.
00:04:32
Speaker 3: The truth is, in February of 1862, at the time that Gordon’s wife and mother came to the White House, Lincoln was suffering very badly. His two younger sons, Willie and Tad, were both very ill. Willie mortally so; he would die before the end of the month. And so Lincoln just couldn’t deal with the thought of meeting with these women and talking to them about pardoning Gordon. Lincoln was dead set on in forcing the law, but Lincoln did make a decision that had an impact. He issued a two-week stay of execution — two weeks to prepare for what’s coming.
00:05:13
Speaker 4: Whereas it appears that at a term of the Circuit Court of the United States of America for the District Court of New York, held in the month of November, eighty, 1861, Nathaniel Gordon was indicted and convicted for being engaged in the slave trade. And whereas a large number of respectable citizens have earnestly besought me to commute the said sentence of the said Nathaniel Gordon to a term of imprisonment for life, which application I have felt it my duty to refuse. And whereas it has seemed to me probable that the unsuccessful application made to commute his sentence may have prevented the said Nathaniel Gordon from making the necessary preparation for the awful change which awaits him.
00:05:55
Speaker 3: Now.
00:05:55
Speaker 4: Therefore be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, have granted, and do hereby grant unto him a respite of the above-recited sentence until Friday, the twenty-first day of February, eighty, 1862. In granting this respite, it becomes my painful duty to admonish the prisoner that, relinquishing all expectation of pardon by human authority, he refer himself alone to the mercy of the common God and Father of all men. In testimony whereof I have hitherto signed my name and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done in the City of Washington, this fourth day of February, eighty, 1862, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-sixth. Signed, Abraham Lincoln.
00:06:43
Speaker 3: Lincoln said that Gordon needed to prepare for the awful change which awaits him. This is a pretty incredible statement for Lincoln to say. People like Nathaniel Gordon saw Africans and African Americans as subhuman.
00:06:57
Speaker 2: They were only merchandised to be tray.
00:07:00
Speaker 3: There was no value in them as far as Gordon was concerned.
00:07:03
Speaker 2: As people, only as labor.
00:07:07
Speaker 3: And Lincoln, in granting this respite — this two-week period — was saying, they are human beings who are part of humanity that have a common God and Father, and they deserve the dignity and respect that all people deserve. Nathaniel Gordon tried to commit suicide the night before the execution. Someone snuck some poison into the Tombs, and he took it, and the guards heard him wretching, and they rushed in and they saw what had happened, but they would not allow him to cheat the gallows. They got a doctor who pumped his stomach; he vomited out the poison, and then they walked him to the gallows the next day and made sure that justice was done.
00:07:52
Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery, and a special thanks to Jonathan W. White of ‘Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade Running, and the Slave Trade.’ And what a story we heard this! Nathaniel Gordon, well, he was about to be prosecuted for a second time, and this time was sentenced to execution. This is at a time when people simply weren’t punished. But the crime of breaking the laws regarding slave trade… Even Northerners sympathized and rallied around Nathaniel Gordon. And then came that fateful moment where the families tried to meet Lincoln, and Lincoln denied them. He didn’t have it in him. He was already dealing with his own grief, and I think he knew what the answer was. He knew what it was like to lose someone; he would soon lose his own son, Willie. What he wrote in that letter: he wrote that Gordon needed to prepare for the awful change that awaited him. What words to receive from the President: not to pardon, but quite the opposite — a death sentence. In a preparation to get himself set with the Lord, he tried to cheap his hanging, but that did not prevail. The story of Nathaniel Gordon. Here on Our American Stories.
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