Trinity Greene Earley

Of the 29 people who died during, as some referred to it, the infamous shooting at the Washington Navy Yard on October 4, 1863, there were no survivors of the crime, and so, no motive. None could for obvious reasons identify the gunman who came there. No one had reason to question the master hand of the fiend— he was so obviously a deranged evil that the shooters were almost certain to have been working for him, or else working for someone very similar.

Of the 29 people who died during, as some referred to it, the infamous shooting at the Washington Navy Yard on October 4, 1863, there were no survivors of the crime, and so, no motive. None could identify the gunman who came there. None had reason to question the master hand of the fiend— he was so obviously a deranged evil that the shooters were almost certain to have been working for him, or else working for someone very similar. With no motive we need to be very careful in looking at the politics of the war because one is never quite sure of motive in these events. The motive in this situation however, was clear as hell. Whether I would be so cool at the thought of blowing her brains out that I would sit around and talk to her about it for months, or whether I would get the shock of her young life and just stand up and shoot her in the head, was a matter of different laws.

Caught by surprise, I don't think it matters at the moment, but it is always a particular concern when a triggerman's bullets blow somebody apart. Although, as stated above it is rare to find someone willing to kill for money in that kind of situation, there were cases in which men would kill wives, sisters, sisters, even brothers. Most often when all these things are gone, no one will say the family is lost.

So many people around the country have been killed for money. While this was wartime and there was that kind of money involved, I thought it might be good for everyone to have an example... I thought it might be good to illustrate for the general public that these sorts of murders were frequently being committed, not by the shooters themselves, but by the random violence that would come from a man enraged by being forced to kill that much, or wanted the ability to kill more.