The Great Republic by the Master Historians John Brown and the Raid Upon Harper's Ferry byBancroft, Hubert H.
[The first blood shed in the war between freedom and slavery was that spilled
upon the soil of Kansas. In this conflict one of the most active and earnest of
the Free State party was the afterwards famous John Brown, a man whose hatred of
slavery reached the height of fanaticism. Four of his sons had settled in
Kansas, near the site of the village of Osawatomie, in 1854. Finding themselves
greatly harassed by the invading Missourians, they wrote to their father for
arms. Instead of sending them, he brought them, and quickly placed himself at
the head of an armed opposition to the invaders.
On August 30, 1856, the village of Osawatomie was attacked by a large body of
well-armed Missourians. It was defended by about thirty Free State men. John
Brown led this little party, and posted them in an advantageous position on the
banks of the Osage River. In the fight that ensued the invaders suffered
severely, while the defenders lost but five or six, one of Brown's sons being
killed. His party was driven out, and the village burned. Six weeks after,
another encounter took place, near Lawrence, in which Brown succeeded in
repelling a greatly outnumbering force of assailants.
He afterwards returned to the East, where he held conferences with the leading
abolitionists, to some of whom he made known a purpose to invade Virginia, with
the design of arousing the slaves to an effort to obtain their freedom. A
committee was appointed to procure the means for this enterprise. Shortly after
Brown held a secret convention of white and black abolitionists at Chatham,
Canada, which adopted a "Provisional Constitution" embodying regulations for the
proposed invasion. In a meeting of the committee, on May 24, 1858, it was agreed
to raise funds and to supply Brown with rifles. As nothing could be done at that
time, he returned to Kansas, for the purpose of aiding the Free State settlers.
Here, learning that a family of slaves, just beyond the Missouri border, were
about to be sold and sent to Texas, he invaded that State with twenty men, and
liberated these and some others. During this raid a Missourian, who had resisted
the invaders, was killed. This event roused a strong feeling of indignation, the
more moderate Free State men disavowed all sympathy with the act, and Brown soon
found Kansas too hot to hold him. He left the Territory in January, 1859,
accompanied by four white men and three negroes, with some women and children.
He was sharply pursued by thirty pro-slavery men from Lecompton. Brown took
possession of two log huts, and faced his adversaries, who were soon joined by
twelve additional men from Atchison. On these forty-two Brown and his seven
companions made a sudden sally, when the assailants turned and fled without
firing a shot,-probably aware of the fact that reinforcements were hastening to
Brown's aid. Four only of them stood their ground. These were made prisoners,
and forced to deliver their horses to Brown's negroes. At this they swore so
profusely that the stern old Puritan ordered them to kneel and pray, his
presented pistol overcoming their scruples against this exercise. They swore no
more, though he held them prisoners for five days, compelling them, by the same
potent argument, to kneel and pray night and morning.
On reaching the East again he received from the secret committee about two
thousand dollars. The whole amount raised for the expedition was about four
thousand dollars in money and nearly twice that value in arms, most of it given
with full knowledge of the purpose intended. Being now prepared for the
execution of his desperate scheme, Brown repaired to Harper's Ferry, near which
he rented, under the name of Smith, three unoccupied houses on a farm. Here he
was gradually joined by the companions whom he had enlisted for the enterprise.
Most of these kept out of sight during the day, while arms and munitions were
brought from Chambersburg in well-secured boxes. The time originally fixed for
the assault on Harper's Ferry was the night of October 24, 1859, but it was made
on the 17th, for reasons satisfactory to the leader. The arsenal at this place
held a large store of government arms, on which account, and probably from its
natural strength, it was selected as a good central point for the rallying of
the slaves who Brown must have felt assured would immediately join him. An
account of the circumstances which followed we select from the historical work
of a prominent advocate of anti-slavery, the "American Conflict" of Horace
Greeley.]
On Saturday, the 15th, a council was held, and a plan of operations discussed.
On Sunday evening another council was held, and the programme of the chief
unanimously approved. He closed it with these words: "And now, gentlemen, let me
press this one thing upon your minds. You all know how dear life is to you, and
how dear your lives are to your friends; and, in remembering that, consider that
the lives of others are as dear to them as yours are to you. Do not, therefore,
take the life of any one if you can possibly avoid it; but, if it is necessary
to take life in order to save your own, then make sure work of it." ..
The forces with which Brown made his attack consisted of seventeen white and
five colored men, though it is said that others who escaped assisted outside, by
cutting the telegraph-wires and tearing up the railroad-track. The entrance of
this petty army into Harper's Ferry on Sunday evening, October 16th, seems to
have been effected without creating alarm. They first rapidly extinguished the
lights of the town, then took possession of the Armory buildings, which were
only guarded by three watchmen, whom, without meeting resistance or exciting
alarm, they seized and locked up in the guard-house. It is probable that they
were aided, or, at least, guided, by friendly negroes belonging in the village.
At half-past ten the watchman at the Potomac bridge was seized and secured. At
midnight his successor, arriving, was hailed by Brown's sentinels, but ran, one
shot being fired at him from the bridge. He gave the alarm, but still nothing
stirred. At a quarter-past one the western train arrived, and its conductor
found the bridge guarded by armed men. He and others attempted to walk across,
but were turned back by presented rifles. One man, a negro, was shot in the
back, and died next morning. The passengers took refuge in the hotel, and
remained there several hours, the conductor properly refusing to pass the train
over, though permitted, at three o'clock, to do so.
A little after midnight the house of Colonel Washington was visited by six of
Brown's men, under Captain Stevens, who captured the colonel, seized his arms,
horses, etc., and liberated his slaves. On their return Stevens and his party
visited the house of Mr. Alstadt and his son, whom they captured, and freed
their slaves. These, with each male citizen as he appeared in the street, were
confined in the Armory until they numbered between forty and fifty. Brown
informed his prisoners that they could be liberated on condition of writing to
their friends to send a negro apiece as ransom. At daylight the train proceeded,
Brown walking over the bridge with the conductor. Whenever any one asked the
object of their captors, the uniform answer was, "To free the slaves;" and when
one of the workmen, seeing an armed guard at the Arsenal gate, asked by what
authority they had taken possession of the public property, he was answered, "By
the authority of God Almighty!"
The passenger-train that sped eastward from Harper's Ferry, by Brown's
permission, in the early morning of Monday, October 17th, left that place
completely in the military possession of the insurrectionists. They held,
without dispute, the Arsenal, with its offices, workshops, and grounds. Their
sentinels stood on guard at the bridges and principal corners, and were seen
walking up and down the streets. Every workman who ignorantly approached, the
Armory, as day dawned, was seized and imprisoned, with all other white males who
seemed capable of making any trouble. By eight o'clock the number of prisoners
had been swelled to sixty-odd, and the work was still proceeding.
But it was no longer entirely one-sided. The white Virginians, who had arms, and
who remained unmolested in their houses, prepared to use them. Soon after day-
break, as Brown's guards were bringing two citizens to a halt, they were fired
on by a man named Turner, and, directly afterwards, by a grocer named Boerly,
who was instantly killed by the return fire. Several Virginians soon obtained
possession of a room overlooking the Armory gates, and fired thence at the
sentinels who guarded them, one of whom fell dead, and another -- Brown's son
Watson -- was mortally wounded. Still, throughout the forenoon, the liberators
remained masters of the town.
[Whatever the expectations of the invaders, they had already failed. The negroes
whom they must have looked for to flock to their standard did not come. To
remain in that position was suicidal. No hope was left but in flight. Yet Brown
held his ground. Meanwhile, the country was rising.]
Half an hour after noon a militia force, one hundred strong, arrived from
Charlestown, the county seat, and were rapidly disposed so as to command every
available exit from the place. In taking the Shenandoah bridge they killed on of
the insurgents, and captured William Thompson unwounded. The rifle-works were
next attacked, and speedily carried, being defended by five insurgents only.
These attempted to cross the river, and four of them succeeded in reaching a
rock in the middle of it, whence they fought with two hundred Virginians, who
lined the banks, until two of them were dead and a third mortally wounded, when
the fourth surrendered.
[The fight continued during the day, men being killed on both sides. The
Virginia militia was being hourly reinforced, and Brown, finding himself
strongly beleaguered, retreated to the engine-house, where he repulsed his
assailants, who lost two killed and six wounded.]
Still militia continued to pour in, the telegraph and rail-road having been
completely repaired, so that the government at Washington, Governor Wise at
Richmond, and the authorities at Baltimore were in immediate communication with
Harper's Ferry, and hurrying forward troops from all quarters to overwhelm the
remaining handful of insurgents, whom terror and rumor had multiplied to twenty
times their actual number. At five P. M. Captain Simms arrived, with militia
from Maryland, and completed the investment of the Armory buildings, whence
eighteen prisoners had already been liberated upon the retreat of Brown to the
engine-house. Colonel Baylor commanded in chief. The firing ceased at nightfall.
Brown offered to liberate his prisoners upon condition that his men should be
permitted to cross the bridge in safety, which was refused. Night found Brown's
forces reduced to three unwounded whites besides himself, with perhaps half a
dozen negroes from the vicinity. Eight of the insurgents were already dead;
another lay dying beside the survivors; two were captives mortally wounded, and
one other unhurt. Around the few survivors were fifteen hundred armed,
infuriated foes. Half a dozen of the party, who had been sent out at early
morning by Brown to capture slave-holders and liberate slaves, were absent, and
unable, even if willing, to join their chief. They fled during the night to
Maryland and Pennsylvania; but most of them were ultimately captured. During
that night Colonel [Robert E.] Lee, with ninety United States marines and two
pieces of artillery, arrived, and took possession of the Armory ground, very
close to the engine-house.
Brown, of course, remained awake and alert through the night, discomfited and
beyond earthly hope, but perfectly cool and calm. Said Governor Wise, in a
speech at Richmond soon after, "Colonel Washington said that Brown was the
coolest man he ever saw in defying death and danger. With one son dead by his
side, and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one
hand, held his rifle with the other, and commanded his men with the utmost
composure, encouraging them to be firm, and to sell their lives as dearly as
possible." ..
At seven in the morning, after a parley which resulted in nothing, the marines
advanced to the assault, broke in the door of the engine-house by using a ladder
as a battering-ram, and rushed into the building. One of the defenders was shot,
and two marines wounded; but the odds were too great; in an instant all
resistance was over. Brown was struck in the face with a sabre and knocked down,
after which the blow was several times repeated, while a soldier ran a bayonet
twice into the old man's body. All the insurgents, it is said, would have been
killed on the spot, had the Virginians been able to distinguish them with
certainty from their prisoners. ..
On Wednesday evening, October 19th, the four surviving prisoners were conveyed
to the jail at Charlestown under an escort of marines. Brown and Stevens, badly
wounded, were taken in a wagon; Green and Coppoc, unhurt, walked between files
of soldiers, followed by hundreds, who at first cried, "Lynch them!" but were
very properly shamed into silence by Governor Wise.
[The legal proceedings which followed, and the conviction and sentence to death
of Brown and his companions, have been complained of as unduly hastened and
unfairly conducted, yet with little warrant. They were what might have been
expected anywhere under similar circumstances of excitement.]
Brown's conduct throughout commanded the admiration of his bitterest enemies.
When his papers were brought into court to be identified, he said, "I will
identify any of my handwriting, and save all trouble. I am ready to face the
music." When a defence of insanity was suggested rather than interposed, he
repelled it with indignation. [When brought into court to be sentenced, he
said,] "In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along
admitted,--the design on my part to free the slaves. I intended certainly to
have made a clear thing of that matter, as I did last winter when I went into
Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side,
moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to
have done the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I
never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to
excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection... Now, if it is
deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends
of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with
the blood of millions in this slave-country whose rights are disregarded by
wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done." ..
The 2d of December was the day appointed for his execution. Nearly three
thousand militia were early on the ground. Fears of a forcible rescue or of a
servile insurrection prevented a large attendance of citizens. Cannon were so
planted as to sweep every approach to the jail and to blow the prisoner into
shreds upon the first intimation of tumult. Virginia held her breath until she
heard that the old man was dead. ..
He [Brown] walked out of the jail at eleven o'clock,--an eye-witness said, "with
a radiant countenance, and the step of a conqueror." His face was even joyous,
and it has been remarked that probably his was the lightest heart in Charlestown
that day. A black woman, with a little child in her arms, stood by the door. He
stopped a moment, and, stooping, kissed the child affectionately. Another black
woman, with a child, as he passed along, exclaimed, "God bless you, old man! I
wish I could help you; but I can't." He looked at her with a tear in his eye. He
mounted the wagon beside his jailer, Captain Avis, who had been one of the
bravest of his captors, who had treated him very kindly, and to whom he was
profoundly grateful. The wagon was instantly surrounded by six companies of
militia. Being asked, on the way, if he felt any fear, he replied, "It has been
a characteristic of me from infancy not to suffer from physical fear. I have
suffered a thousand times more from bashfulness than from fear." The day was
clear and bright, and he remarked, as he rode, that the country seemed very
beautiful. Arrived at the gallows, he said, "I see no citizens here; where are
they?" "None but the troops are allowed to be present," was the reply. "That
ought not to be," said he: "citizens should be allowed to be present as well as
others." He bade adieu to some acquaintances at the foot of the gallows, and was
first to mount the scaffold. His step was still firm, and his bearing calm, yet
hopeful. The hour having come, he said to Captain Avis, "I have no words to
thank you for all your kindness to me." His elbows and ankles being pinioned,
the white cap drawn over his eyes, the hangman's rope adjusted around his neck,
he stood waiting for death. "Captain Brown," said the sheriff, "you are not
standing on the drop. Will you come forward?" "I can't see," was his firm
answer; "you must lead me." The sheriff led him forward to the centre of the
drop. "Shall I give you a handkerchief, and let you drop it as a signal?" "No; I
am ready at any time; but do not keep me needlessly waiting." In defiance of
this reasonable request, he was kept standing thus several minutes, while a
military parade and display of readiness to repel an imaginary foe were enacted.
The time seemed an hour to the impatient spectators; even the soldiers began to
murmur, "Shame!" At last the order was given, the rope cut with a hatchet, and
the trap fell, but so short a distance that the victim continued to struggle and
to suffer for a considerable time. Being at length duly pronounced dead, he was
cut down after thirty-eight minutes' suspension. His body was conveyed to
Harper's Ferry, and delivered to his widow, by whom it was conveyed to her far
Northern home, among the mountains he so loved, and where he was so beloved.
