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he would not be able to find him. Brown was very easily found, however, for with sixteen men he went out to meet Pate, and after a short fight at Black Jack, near the Santa Fé Road, in which a few were killed and wounded, Pate and his party surrendered to "Old Brown," with the exception of a Wyandot Indian by the name of Long, and a notorious murderer named Coleman. These two men, being well mounted, made their escape.

Upon another occasion a body of some 220 men were raised and equipped in Jackson county, and started into Kansas, under the command of General Whitfield, to attack and capture Brown, who, being always vigilant and wary, was possessed of secret means of intelligence, and had made full preparation to meet the Missourians. He was encamped with 160 men at a chosen point near the Santa Fé Road, which he knew his enemies would pass. He had fifty men with Sharpe's rifles, which would kill at half a mile, and which could be loaded at the breech and fired with great rapidity. His men he had concealed in a ravine, where they lay on the ground, and commanded the prairie for a mile before them. The residue of the party he had concealed in the timber, ready at the proper moment for an attack on the flank of those who might reach the ravine alive. Colonel Sumner, with a squad of dragoons, came down from Fort Leavenworth and prevented the fight, disbanding both parties, after which the colonel was heard to remark that his interposition was a fortunate event for the Missourians, as the arrangements and preparation made by Brown would have ensured their destruction.

It was at Harper Ferry, a singularly beautiful spot at the entrance of the Alleghanies, where the great rivers the Potomac and the Shenandoah form a junction, that the event occurred which terminated Brown's career, and may be said to have precipitated the struggle which only ended with the close of the American war. To Harper Ferry went the farmers of Western Virginia when they had to enter the lower world, and thither also went the Maryland and Lower Virginian slaveholders when they wanted to pass westwards or to seek a cool temperature in sum

mer. It is just within the Virginian frontier, and precisely where Maryland is narrowest, so that Pennsylvania could be reached in a few hours. Thither "Old Brown" went in 1857 or 1858, after having buried his sons and defeated his enemies in Kansas, and seen the soil there safe from the intrusion of slavery, and helped the Missouri people in getting rid of what remained of it in their territory. It appears that he believed it to be the duty of his life to go wherever he could most effectually repeat this kind of effort. So he went to Harper Ferry, whence, being close to Pennsyl vania, where the free blacks were in considerable numbers, he could operate at once upon Maryland and Virginia. Had he wished to raise a servile war he would have gone down into the cotton states; but, as he afterwards declared, he had no desire to kindle such horrors. He wished to free the slaves without bloodshed-that is, by running them off. For a year he lived, with two or three coadjutors, at a farm near Harper Ferry, maturing his schemes, and collecting arms and other resources for holding the ground while the negroes ran.

It was in the autumn of 1858 that he and his two surviving sons made their appearance at the place under the name of Smith. Brown's farm was on the Maryland side of the Potomac, and, the better to conceal his real objects, he pretended to make investigations for the discovery of minerals. He chose for his lieutenant a man named Cook, who belonged to the neighbourhood, and they selected for their confederates, men who, like themselves, had taken a prominent part in defending the soil of Kansas against slaveholding aggression. With the free negroes they originally formed a band of not more than twenty-two persons; but their numbers were ultimately increased by volunteers, and by slaves whom they seized on neighbouring plantations, but who voluntarily joined them. On the night of Sunday the 16th of October, 1859, the watchmen at Harper Ferry Bridge were seized by a body of insurgents, who were headed by Brown and Cook. A party under Cook then entered Maryland, and arrested at their own houses Colonel Washington and Mr. Allstadt, two

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influential slaveholders, and these gentlemen | terms, and required that he should be per

they afterwards confined as prisoners in the Armoury at Harper Ferry. Cook, at the head of the captured negroes, and accompanied by two white men, marched in the early morning up the mountain road in the direction of Pennsylvania, probably intending to incite the slaves of Maryland to rebellion. Old Brown, on the other hand, returned to the town, took possession of the Armoury, and stationed bodies of armed men at various points, so that when the inhabitants arose the next morning they found, greatly to their surprise, that their town was in a state of siege, and that the trains had been stopped and the telegraphic wires broken. A species of guerilla warfare then commenced between the insurgents and the townspeople, and in this way several lives were sacrificed. In the course of the day troops arrived from the neighbouring towns of Charleston, Shepherdstown, and Martinsburgh; but before the arrival of these troops the insurgents had entrenched themselves in the Armoury grounds, which they prepared to defend. In the meanwhile the news of these events had reached Washington and Baltimore, and had created some consternation in those cities, and in fact throughout the United States. Colonel Lee was immediately despatched by the war department at Washington to take command of the troops, and to suppress the insurrection. He, together with a party of soldiers and marines from Baltimore, reached Harper Ferry in the course of the Monday night; and at once caused a number of the troops to surround the enginehouse, in which the insurgents had determined to make their final stand. Owing to the absence of windows from the building, and the impossibility of taking accurate aim through the holes which had been pierced through the walls and doors, the besieged could do but little mischief, while the besiegers, on their side, were afraid to use cannon lest they should injure the prisoners who were kept in confinement. Under these circumstances Colonel Lee at first refrained from an attack, but sent an officer with a flag of truce to demand of the enemy an unconditional surrender; but John Brown refused these

mitted to march out with his "men and arms, taking the prisoners with them; that they should proceed unpursued to the second tollgate, when they would free their prisoners; the soldiers would then be permitted to pursue them, and they would fight if they could not escape." This proposition was, of course, rejected, and Colonel Lee at once gave the signal for making the attack. The door was battered down, an entrance was forced, and after a brief but sanguinary struggle all the surviving insurgents were made prisoners. John Brown was found to be severely wounded, but was expected to recover; one of his sons received a mortal wound. The prisoners were removed to Charleston jail, to await their trial on the double charge of murder and high treason.

It was said that, in an interview with Governor Wise, Brown made a full confession, stating that the whole plot was well contrived and arranged as far back as 1856, and that he had reason to expect assistance of from 3000 to 5000 men-that he looked for aid from every state. The search of his house led to the discovery of a large number of rifles, pistols, and swords, and a great quantity of ammunition, together with various documents, one of which appointed Brown commander-in-chief and specified the rank of his followers, while another purported to be a provisional constitution for the United States -abolishing slavery, among other changes. In the fight six citizens and fifteen insurgents were killed, and several on both sides wounded.

Brown was put upon his trial at Charleston on the 27th, ten days after he was taken prisoner, and notwithstanding that appeals were made on account of his physical condition, a postponement was refused. He was taken into court on a bed, as he was severely wounded in four places, and was unable to sit up without assistance, to listen to his arraignment. A Virginian counsel had been appointed by the court for his defence, but though he declared that he could have no confidence in this arrangement, considering the excited state of the public mind in Charleston and the hostility exhibited towards him, he was

not granted two days' delay to enable him to procure legal aid from the Free States. The consequence was that the members of the Massachusetts and Ohio bar whom he employed did not make their appearance in court until all the evidence for the prosecution was in; and they were compelled to enter upon their duties without consultation with the prisoner, without any accurate knowledge of the facts, and little or none of the Virginian criminal code. On the Saturday night they had been without sleep for two nights-partly spent in travelling, partly in study-and pressed for an adjournment until Monday morning to enable them to recover from complete physical exhaustion. The prosecution fiercely opposed it, on the ground that all the women in Virginia "were harassed by alarm and anxiety as long as the trial lasted," and that the jurymen wanted to get home to their wives. The summing up was accordingly commenced after nightfall, and the prisoner's counsel only escaped having to address the jury through the extreme lateness of the hour.

When, at the commencement of the trial, Brown was asked whether he had counsel, he addressed the court, saying:

"Virginians, I did not ask for any quarter at the time I was taken. I did not ask to have my life spared. The Governor of the State of Virginia tendered me his assurance that I should have a fair trial; but under no circumstances whatever will I be able to have a fair trial. If you seek my blood you can have it at any moment without this mockery of a trial. I have had no counsel-I have not been able to advise with any one. I know nothing about the feelings of my fellow-prisoners, and am utterly unable to attend in any way to my own defence. My memory don't serve me my health is insufficient, although improving. There are mitigating circumstances that I would urge in our favour, if a fair trial is to be allowed us; but if we are to be forced to put up with a mere form of trial-a trial for execution you might spare yourselves that trouble. I am ready for my fate--I do not ask a trial. I beg for no mockery of a trial-no insult-nothing but that which conscience gives, or cowardice would drive you to practise. I ask

again to be excused from the mockery of a trial. I do not even know what the special design of this examination is. I do not know what is to be the benefit of it to the commonwealth. I have now little further to ask, other than that I may not be foolishly insulted only as cowardly barbarians insult those who fall into their power."

The Democrats made strenuous efforts to show that Mr. Seward and the Republican party were implicated in Brown's attempt, but such a charge could not be sustained. At the same time men of influence and of pronounced opinions did not hesitate to declare sympathy with the prisoner, whose name was already becoming a watchword.

"As to the plot itself," wrote William Lloyd Garrison, "it is evident that few or none were privy to it, except the little band directly engaged in it; for though Captain Brown had many to sympathize with him in different parts of the country, in view of his terrible bereavements, perils, and sufferings in Kansas, in defence of the freedom of that territory against border ruffian invasion, and were disposed to contribute not only to relieve his necessities, but also to facilitate the escape of slaves through his instrumentality to Canada, still an enterprise so wild and futile as this could not have received any countenance in that direction.

"As to Captain Brown, all who know him personally are united in the conviction that a more honest, conscientious, truthful, brave, disinterested man (however misguided or unfortunate) does not exist; that he possesses a deeply religious nature, powerfully wrought upon by the trials through which he has passed; and he sincerely believes himself to have been raised up by God to deliver the oppressed in this country in the way he had chosen, as did Moses in relation to the deliverance of the captive Israelites; that when he says he aims to be guided by the golden rule, it is no cant from his lips, but a vital application of it to his own soul, 'remembering those that are in bonds as bound with them;' that when he affirms that he had no other motive for his conduct at Harper Ferry except to break the chains of the oppressed, by the

BROWN'S DEFENCE-HIS EXECUTION-ITS EFFECTS.

shedding of the least possible amount of human blood, he speaks the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth;' and that if he shall (as he will speedily, beyond a peradventure) be put to death he will not die ignobly, but as a martyr to his sympathy for a suffering race, and in defence of the sacred and inalienable rights of man, and will, therefore, deserve to be held in grateful and honourable remembrance to the latest posterity by all those who glory in the deeds of a Wallace, a Tell, or a Washington. It will be a terrible, losing day for all slavedom when John Brown and his associates are brought to the gallows. It will be sowing seed broadcast for a harvest of retribution. Their blood will cry trumpettongued from the ground, and that cry will be responded to by tens of thousands in a manner that shall cause the knees of the Southern slavemongers to smite together as did those of Belshazzar of old."

The Rev. Mr. Beecher, brother of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, said :—

"An old, honest, industrious man peacefully went to settle with his family in the west. His lot was cast in Kansas. A great slave state adjoining the territory marches her armed men in among the peaceful settlers to dragoon them to uphold slavery by force of arms. They cross the boundary and subvert the laws, and commence a civil war. They pollute the ballot-box and carry destruction among the harvests and death among the quiet cultivators of the soil. There were no marines, no militia, sent to oppose them. There were forces there, but they acted on their side-on the side of the wrong-doers, the invaders. It was here that Brown learned his first lesson on the slavery system-here that old man endured his first sufferings in the death of his first-born, who was dragged manacled across the country by the slaverymen in the heat of a broiling sun, and afterwards beaten by inhuman officers. Another son was shot down by them. Revolving the indignation in his mind against the system that would tolerate and countenance such cruelty and bloodshed, he is goaded by his own feelings to a mad but fixed determination to oppose it to the end of his life. And now,

VOL. IV.

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as he is in the depressing, the most trying circumstances, no one can fail to discover in this same old man a manly, straightforward, independent soul, which rises high above all those among whom he is at present, however insane he may be. I shrink from the folly of the bloody fray in which he was engaged; I shrink further from the bloody fray which will follow it: but while I do, I feel that by and by, when people will read the record of the whole tragic scene, they will wonder at and admire the bearing of the old man who, through all his misfortunes, woes, and suffering, maintained a dignity and independence, and a sentiment which only shines in full brilliancy when contrasted with the conduct of his accusers, who possess their reason."

Brown was sentenced to death, and several of the others concerned in the insurrection were sentenced at the same time.

When the verdict was pronounced Brown sat up in his bed and addressing the court, said:

"I have, may it please the court, a few words to say. In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted-of a design on my part to free slaves. I intended certainly to have made a clean 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, moving them through the country, and finally leaving them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again on a larger scale. That was all I intended to do. I never did intend murder or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion or to make insurrection. I have another objection, and that is that it is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved-for I admire the truthfulness and candour of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the socalled great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it

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would have been all right, and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment. This court acknowledges, too, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed, which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things whatsoever that I would that men should do to me I should do even so to them. It teaches me further to remember them that are in bonds as bound with me. I endeavour to act up to that instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted I have done, on behalf of his despised poor is no wrong, but right. 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 say let it be done. Let me say one word further. I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all the circumstances, it has been more generous than I expected. But I feel no consciousness of guilt. I have stated from the first what was my intention and what was not. I never had any design against the liberty of any person, nor any disposition to commit treason or excite slaves to rebel, or make any general insurrection. I never encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any idea of that kind. Let me say something also in regard to the statements made by some of those who were connected with me. I fear it has been stated by some of them that I have induced them to join me; but the contrary is true. I do not say this to injure them, but as regretting their weakness. No one but joined me of his own accord, and the greater part at their own expense. A number of them I never saw and never had a word of conversation with till the day they came to me, and that was for the purpose I have stated. Now I have done."

Mr. Chilton, one of his counsel, proposed to stay judgment on the ground of errors in the

indictment and in the verdict, but without effect. The laws of the state of Virginia would not allow the governor to pardon a person convicted of treason to the commonwealth except with the consent of the General Assembly declared by resolution. The legislature did not interpose, and it is was believed that even if the governor had been disposed to commute the punishment and spare Brown's life, public feeling in Virginia would have been too strong to allow him to do so.

Brown maintained the same unyielding and courageous bearing to the last. While he was in prison a Quaker lady wrote to him a letter of sympathy-telling him that though those who were non-resistants could not approve of bloodshed, yet they knew that he was animated by the most generous and philanthropic motives; that thousands prayed for him every day; that posterity would do him justice. He wrote a calm reply, declaring that he had acted under a conviction that a sword was put into his hand for the work he had to do, and God continued it so long as he saw best, and then kindly took it from him. He concluded by saying: "I always loved my Quaker friends, and I commend to their kind regard my poor bereaved, widowed wife, and my daughter and daughters-in-law, whose husbands fell at my side. One is a mother, and the other likely to become so soon. They, as well as my own sorrow-stricken daughter, are left very poor, and have much greater need of sympathy than I, who, through infinite grace and the kindness of strangers, am ‘joyful in all my tribulations.' Dear sister, write them at North Elba, Essex Co., N.Y., to comfort their sad hearts. Direct to Mary A. Brown, wife of John Brown. There is also another—a widow, wife of Thompson, who fell with my poor boys in the affair at Harper's Ferry, at the same place. I do not feel conscious of guilt in taking up arms; and had it been in behalf of the rich and powerful, the intelligent, the great-as men count greatness

of those who form enactments to suit themselves and corrupt others, or some of their friends, that I interfered, suffered, sacrificed, and fell, it would have been doing very well. But enough of this. These light afflictions,

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