Name Barclay Coppock | Died September 4, 1861 | |
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Barclay Coppock | Little Histories
Edwin Coppock, Barclay's brother, redirects here.
Barclay Coppock (January 4, 1839 – September 4, 1861) was a follower of John Brown and a Union Army soldier in the American Civil War. Along with his brother Edwin Coppock (June 30, 1835 – December 16, 1859), he participated in Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. In historic documents their last name was variously spelled "Coppock", "Coppoc", or "Coppac". The Coppock brothers were raised in Springdale, Iowa, where they met Brown while he was raising support for his Kansas anti-slavery raids. Edwin was hanged in Charlestown, Virginia and is buried in Hope Cemetery in Salem, Ohio. Barclay escaped, returning to Springdale and eventually escaping to Canada.
On January 23, 1860, about three months after the Harpers Ferry raid, Iowa governor Samuel Kirkwood received from a representative of the governor of Virginia a requisition "for one Barclay Coppock, reputed to be a fugitive from the justice of Virginia". Kirkwood found the requisition deficient in legal form and returned it to Virginia. Barclay was gone by the time Kirkwood received the corrected papers. Barclay later joined the Union Army during the American Civil War and served as a recruiting officer. He was killed in action when Confederate sabotage derailed his train over the Platte River, an incident called the Platte Bridge Railroad Tragedy.