JOHN BROWN
JOHN BROWN
1800 — 1859
: a 33tO£rapf)p jftft? gears after
BY
OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD
A.M., LITT.D.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
iontoon
CONSTABLE & CO. LIMITED
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1910
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
•i
TO THE MEMORY OF
MY BELOVED AND HIGH-MINDED FATHER
HENRY VILLARD
PREFACE
"THERE never was more need for a good life of any man
than there was for one of John Brown," wrote Charles Eliot
Norton in March, 1860, in expressing in the Atlantic Monthly
his dissatisfaction with the first biography of the leader of
the attack upon Harper's Ferry. Twenty-six years later, in
the same publication, Mr. John T. Morse, Jr., wrote that "so
grand a subject cannot fail to inspire a writer able to do jus-
tice to the theme; and when such an one draws Brown, he
will produce one of the most attractive books in the lan-
guage. But meantime the ill-starred 'martyr' suffers a pro-
longation of martyrdom, standing like another St. Sebastian
to be riddled with the odious arrows of fulsome panegyrists."
Since 1886 there have appeared five other lives of Brown, the
most important being that of Richard J. Hinton, who in his
preface gloried in holding a brief for Brown and his men.
The present volume is inspired by no such purpose, but is
due to a belief that fifty years after the Harper's Ferry tragedy,
the time is ripe for a study of John Brown, free from bias,
from the errors in taste and fact of the mere panegyrist, and
from the blind prejudice of those who can see in John Brown
nothing but a criminal. The pages that follow were written
to detract from or champion no man or set of men, but to put
forth the essential truths of history as far as ascertainable,
and to judge Brown, his followers and associates in the light
thereof. How successful this attempt has been is for the
reader to judge. That this volume in nowise approaches the
attractiveness which Mr. Morse looked for, the author fully
understands. On the other hand, no stone has been left un-
turned to make accurate the smallest detail ; the original docu-
ments, contemporary letters and living witnesses have been
examined in every quarter of the United States. Materials
never before utilized have been drawn upon, and others dis-
covered whose existence has heretofore been unknown. Wher-
ever sources have been quoted, they have been cited verbatim
et literatim, the effort being to reproduce exactly spelling,
viii PREFACE
capitalization and punctuation, particularly in John Brown's
own letters, which have suffered hitherto from free-hand
editing. If at times, particularly in dealing with the Kansas
period of John Brown's life, it may seem as if there were a
superfluity of detail, the explanation is that already a hun-
dred myths have attached themselves to John Brown's name
which often hinge upon a date, or the possibility of his pre-
sence at a given place at a given hour. Over some of them have
raged long and bitter controversies which give little evidence
of the softening effects of time.
So complex a character as John Brown's is not to be dis-
missed by merely likening him to the Hebrew prophets or to
a Cromwellian Roundhead, though both parallels are not
inapt; and the historian's task is made heavier since nearly
all characterizations of the man have been at one extreme or
another. But there is, after all, no personality so complex that
it cannot be tested by accepted ethical standards. To do this
sincerely, to pass a deliberate and accurate historical judg-
ment, to bestow praise and blame without favor or sectional
partisanship, has been the author's endeavor.
His efforts have been generously aided by the friends, rela-
tives and associates of John Brown, whenever approached,
and by many others who pay tribute, by their deep interest,
to the vital force of John Brown's story. It would be impos-
sible to mention all here. But to Salmon Brown and Henry
Thompson is due the writer's ability to record for the first
time the exact facts as to the happenings on the Pottawatomie,
and the author is also particularly indebted to Jason Brown,
Miss Sarah Brown, Mrs. Annie Brown Adams, and Mrs.
John Brown, Jr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, F. B. San-
born, Horace White, George B. Gill, Luke F. Parsons, Mrs.
Emma Wattles Morse, Mrs. Rebecca Spring, Jennie Dunbar
(Mrs. Lee Garcelon) and R. G. Elliott, of Lawrence, are a few
of the survivors of John Brown's time who have aided by
counsel or reminiscence. Special thanks are due to George
W. Martin, Miss Adams and Miss Clara Francis, of the Kan-
sas Historical Society, for valuable assistance, as well as to
the Historical Department of Iowa, the Western Reserve
Historical Society, the Department of Archives and History
of the Virginia State Library, the Pennsylvania and Massa-
PREFACE ix
chusetts Historical Societies, and to Louis A. Reese, lately of
Brown University, who generously placed at the author's
disposal the manuscript of his admirable work on "The Ad-
mission of Kansas as a State." Mrs. S. L. Clark, of Berea,
Kentucky, Mrs. S. C. Davis, of Kalamazoo, Miss Leah Talia-
ferro, of Gloucester County, Virginia, Miss Mary E. Thomp-
son, Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger, Mrs. J. B. Remington, of
Osawatomie, Kansas, Dr. Thaddeus Hyatt, the family of the
late Joshua R. Giddings, Dr. Frederick C. Waite, of Western
Reserve University, Dr. Henry A. Stevens, of Boston, Cleon
Moore, of Charlestown, West Virginia, William E. Connel-
ley, of Topeka, Kansas, and Edwin Tatham, of New York,
have placed the author under special obligations here grate-
fully acknowledged.
Dr. Thomas Featherstonhaugh, of Washington, has been
most generous in giving the author free access to his rich
collections of books, pamphlets and photographs, and they
have been largely drawn upon. The author also gladly records
his lasting indebtedness to Miss Katherine Mayo, whose jour-
neys in search of material for his use have covered a period of
more than two years and many thousands of miles. But for
her judgment, her tact and skill, and her enthusiasm for the
work, it could hardly have approached its present compre-
hensiveness. Finally, without the approval, generous aid and
encouragement of his uncle, Francis Jackson Garrison, of
Boston, the author could not have undertaken or completed
this book.
NEW YORK, August i, 1910.
CONTENTS
I. THE MOULDING OF THE MAN i
II. "His GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT" 42
III. IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 79
IV. THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 112
V. MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 148
VI. CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 189
VII. THE FOE IN THE FIELD 225
VIII. NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 267
IX. A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 310
X. SHUBEL MORGAN, WARDEN OF THE MARCHES . . .346
XI. THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 391
XII. HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 426
XIII. GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 467
XIV. BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 511
XV. YET SHALL HE LIVE 558
NOTES 591
APPENDIX
A. " Sambo's Mistakes," by John Brown 659
B. John Brown's Covenant for the Enlistment of his Volunteer-
Regular Company, August, 1856 66 I
C. John Brown's Requisition upon the National Kansas Com-
mittee, for an outfit for his proposed Company, January,
1857 664
D. John Brown's Peace Agreement 665
E. Shubel Morgan's Company 666
F. John Brown's Wills 667
G. John Avis's Affidavit as to his Association with John Brown 670
H. A Chronology of John Brown's Movements from his depar-
ture for Kansas, August 13, 1855, to his death, December
2, 1859 672
I. John Brown's Men at Arms 678
xii CONTENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. Manuscript Collections 689
II. Biographies 689
III. Magazine and Other Articles 690
IV. Authorities on the Kansas Period 694
V. Books, Pamphlets and Periodicals relating particularly to the Har-
per's Ferry Raid 697
VI. Reports of Important Meetings dealing with the Raid and Execu-
tion 700
VII. Important Speeches and Addresses on John Brown, as separately
published 701
VIII. Some Typical Sermons 702
IX. Biographies, Autobiographies and Reminiscences of Correlated or
Important Persons 703
X. Local and General Histories with Special References to John Brown
and his Men 7°7
INDEX 7"
JOHN BROWN Frontispiece
From a painting by Nahum B. Onthank in the Boston Athenaum. This
was based on a photograph from life by J. W. Black, of Boston, in May,
1859, and the artist had the benefit of the criticisms and suggestions of Mrs.
Brown, John Brown, Jr., and other members of the family. Onthank made
two paintings, one of which was purchased by Thaddeus Hyatt and presented
by him to the People of Hayti, through President Geffrard. The second was
purchased by subscription and given to the Athenceum.
OWEN BROWN, FATHER OF JOHN BROWN 14
From a photograph
FOUR OF JOHN BROWN'S SONS IN LATER YEARS : JOHN BROWN,
JR., JASON, SALMON AND OWEN BROWN 166
From photographs.
THE OSAWATOMIE BATTLEFIELD, LOOKING TOWARD THE RIVER 244
From a photograph.
PART OF THE BLACK JACK BATTLEFIELD 244
From a photograph.
MAIN STREET OF TABOR, IOWA 268
From a photograph.
THE PUBLIC SQUARE AT TABOR 268
From a photograph.
JOHN BROWN 282
Photogravure from a daguerreotype (1857?) kindly loaned by Mrs. Charles
Fairchild, Cambridge, Mass.
HOUSE OF REV. JOHN TODD, TABOR, IOWA .316
Where John Brown stored his guns and ammunition.
From a photograph.
THE SCHOOL-HOUSE AT SPRINGDALE 316
Where the Mock Legislature met.
From a photograph.
JOHN BROWN 338
Photogravure from a photograph taken (probably in June, 1858) by J. J.
Hawes, of Boston
JOHN BROWN'S NORTHERN SUPPORTERS: GEORGE L. STEARNS,
GERRIT SMITH, FRANK B. SANBORN, THOMAS WENTWORTH
HIGGINSON, THEODORE PARKER, SAMUEL G. HOWE . . .396
From photographs.
xiv ILLUSTRATIONS
THE HOUSE AT KENNEDY FARM, MARYLAND 404
From a woodcut.
THE CABIN ACROSS THE ROAD FROM THE FARMHOUSE . . . 404
From a woodcut.
SCHOOL-HOUSE GUARDED BY JOHN E. COOK 404
From a woodcut.
MAP OF THE HARPER'S FERRY REGION 414
GENERAL VIEW OF HARPER'S FERRY, WEST VIRGINIA . . .428
From a photograph kindly furnished by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.
HARPER'S FERRY: THE FIGHTING AT THE ENGINE-HOUSE . 444
From a woodcut.
VICTIMS OF HARPER'S FERRY: JOHN H. KAGI, AARON D. STE- '
YENS, OLIVER BROWN AND WATSON BROWN 448
From photographs.
THE STORMING OF THE ENGINE-HOUSE 452
From a woodcut.
THE PRISON, GUARD-HOUSE. AND COURT-HOUSE, CHARLES-
TOWN, WEST VIRGINIA 486
From a woodcut.
ONE OF JOHN BROWN'S LETTERS FROM PRISON 542
Fac-simile from the original in possession of Mr. Theodore P. Adams, of
Plymouth, Mass.
JOHN BROWN'S LAST PROPHECY 554
Fac-simile from the original in possession of Mr. Frank G. Logan, of
Chicago.
THE NORTH ELBA FARMHOUSE 562
From a photograph.
JOHN BROWN'S GRAVE 562
From a photograph.
NOTE. — The Osawatomie and Black Jack battlefields, the Todd house at
Tabor, and school-house at Springdale, were photographed by the author in
1908; the views of Kennedy Farm, of the fighting at Harper's Ferry, and of the
Charlestown Court-House and Prison are reproduced from woodcuts in Frank
Leslie's Illustrated Paper (New York) for October and November, 1859; the por-
traits of Owen Brown (father of John Brown), Kagi, Stevens, Oliver and Watson
Brown, and the views of the Farmhouse and Grave at North Elba, are from
photographs kindly lent by Dr. Thomas Featherstonhaugh, of Washington, D. C.;
the portraits of John Brown, Jr.. and of Salmon and Owen Brown are from photo-
graphs belonging to Mrs. John Brown, Jr., Put-in Bay, Ohio; that of Jason Brown,
from a photograph made in 1908, for Mr. Earl E. Martin, editor of the Cleve-
land Press.
JOHN BROWN
All through the conflict, up and down
Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown,
One ghost, one form ideal;
And which was false and which was true,
And which was mightier of the two,
The wisest sibyl never knew,
For both alike were real.
O. W. HOLMES.
JOHN BROWN
CHAPTER I
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN
RED ROCK, IOWA isth July, 1857
MR. HENRY L. STEARNS.
MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND I have not forgotten my pro-
mise to write you ; but my constant care, & anxiety : have
obliged me to put it off a long time. I do not flatter myself
that I can write anything that will very much interest you :
but have concluded to send you a short story of a certain boy
of my acquaintance : & for convenience & shortness of name,
I will call him John. This story will be mainly a naration of
follies and errors ; which it is to be hoped you may avoid; but
there is one thing connected with it, which will be calculated
to encourage any young person to persevereing effort ; & that
is the degree of success in accomplishing his objects which to
a great extent marked the course of this boy throughout my
entire acquaintance with him ; notwithstanding his moderate
capacity ; & still more moderate acquirements.
John was born May Qth, 1800, at Torrington, Litchfield Co.
Connecticut ; of poor but respectable parents : a decendant on
the side of his Father of one of the company of the Mayflower
who landed at Plymouth 1620. His mother was decended
from a man who came at an early period to New England from
Amsterdam, in Holland. Both his Fathers and his Mothers
Fathers served in the war of the revolution : His Father's
Father ; died in a barn at New York while in the service, in
1776.
I cannot tell you of anything in the first Four years of
John's life worth mentioning save that at that early age he
was tempted by Three large Brass Pins belonging to a girl who
lived in the family & stole them. In this he was detected by
his Mother ; & after having a full day to think of the wrong ;
2 JOHN BROWN
received from her a thorough whipping. When he was Five
years old his Father moved to Ohio ; then a wilderness filled
with wild beasts, & Indians. During the long journey which
was performed in part or mostly with an Oxteam; he was
called on by turns to assist a boy Five years older (who had
been adopted by his Father & Mother) & learned to think he
could accomplish smart things in driving the Cows ; & riding
the horses. Sometimes he met with Rattle Snakes wrhich were
very large ; & which some of the company generally managed
to kill. After getting to Ohio in 1805 ne was for some time
rather afraid of the Indians, & of their Rifles; but this soon
wore off : & he used to hang about them quite as much as was
consistent with good manners ; & learned a trifle of their talk.
His father learned to dress Deer Skins, & at 6 years old John
was installed a young Buck Skin. He was perhaps rather
observing as he ever after remembered the entire process of
Eieer Skin dressing; so that he could at any time dress his
own leather such as Squirel, Raccoon, Cat, Wolf or Dog Skins;
and also learned to make Whip Lashes : which brought him
some change at times ; & was of considerable service in many
ways. At Six years old John began to be quite a rambler in the
wild new country finding birds and Squirrels and sometimes a
wild Turkeys nest. But about this period he was placed in the
School of adversity; which my young friend was a most neces-
sary part of his early training. You may laugh when you come
to read about it ; but these were sore trials to John : whose
earthly treasures were very few, & small. These were the be-
ginning of a severe but much needed course of dicipline which
he afterwards was to pass through ; & which it is to be hoped
has learned him before this time that the Heavenly Father
sees it best to take all the little things out of his hands which
he has ever placed in them. When John was in his Sixth year
a poor Indian boy gave him a Yellow Marble the first he had
ever seen. This he thought a great deal of ; & kept it a good
while ; but at last he lost it beyond recovery. // took years to
heal the wound & I think he cried at times about it. About
Five months after this he caught a young Squirel tearing off
his tail in doing it ; & getting severely bitten at the same time
himself. He however held on to the little bob tail Squirrel ; &
finally got him perfectly tamed, so that he almost idolized his
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 3
pet. This too he lost; by its wandering away; or by getting
killed ; & for a year or two John was in mourning; and looking
at all the Squirrels he could see to try & discover Bobtail, if
possible. I must not neglect to tell you of a verry bad & foolish
habbit to which John was somewhat addicted. I mean telling
lies ; generally to screen himself from blame ; or from punish-
ment. He could not well endure to be reproached ; & I now
think had he been oftener encouraged to be entirely frank;
by making frankness a kind of atonement for some of his faults ;
he would not have been so often guilty in after life of this
fault ; nor have been obliged to struggle so long with so mean
a habit.
John was never quarrelsome ; but was excessively fond of the
hardest & roughest kind of plays ; & could never get enough [of]
them. Indeed when for a short time he was sometimes sent
to School the opportunity it afforded to wrestle, & Snow ball
& run & jump & knock off old seedy Wool hats ; offered to
him almost the only compensation for the confinement, & re-
straints of school. I need not tell you that with such a feeling
& but little chance of going to school at all : he did not become
much of a schollar. He would always choose to stay at home
& work hard rather than be sent to school; & during the
Warm season might generally be seen barefooted & bareheaded :
with Buck skin Breeches suspended often with one leather
strap over his shoulder but sometimes with Two. To be sent
off through the wilderness alone to very considerable distances
was particularly his delight ; & in this he was often indulged
so that by the time he was Twelve years old he was sent off
more than a Hundred Miles with companies of cattle ; & he
would have thought his character much injured had he been
obliged to be helped in any such job. This was a boyish kind
of feeling but characteristic however. At Eight years old,
John was left a Motherless boy which loss was complete &
permanent for notwithstanding his Father again married to
a sensible, inteligent, and on many accounts a very estimable
woman; yet he never adopted her in feeling; but continued
to pine after his own Mother for years. This opperated very
unfavorably uppon him ; as he was both naturally fond of
females; &, withall, extremely diffident; & deprived him of a
suitable connecting link between the different sexes ; the want
4 JOHN BROWN
of which might under some circumstances, have proved his
ruin. When the war broke out with England : his Father soon
commenced furnishing the troops with beef cattle, the collect-
ing & driving of which afforded him some opportunity for the
chase (on foot) of wild steers & other cattle through the woods.
During this war he had some 'chance to form his own boyish
judgment of men & measures : & to become somewhat famil-
iarly acquainted with some who have figured before the coun-
try since that time. The effect of what he saw during the
war was to so far disgust him with Military affairs that he
would neither train, or drill; but paid fines; & got along like a
Quaker untill his age finally has cleared him of Military duty.
During the war with England a circumstance occurred that
in the end made him a most determined A bolitionist : & led him
to declare, or Swear : Eternal war with Slavery. He was stay-
ing for a short time with a very gentlemanly landlord since a
United States Marshall who held a slave boy near his own age
very active, inteligent, and good feeling; & to whom John
was under considerable obligation for numerous little acts of
kindness. The Master made a great pet of John : brought him
to table with his first company ; & friends ; called their atten-
tion to every little smart thing he said or did : & to the fact of
his being more than a hundred miles from home with a com-
pany of cattle alone ; while the negro boy (who was fully if not
more than his equal) was badly clothed, poorly fed ; & lodged
in cold weather ; & beaten before his eyes with Iron Shovels
or any other thing that came first to hand. This brought John
to reflect on the wretched, hopeless condition, of Fatherless
& Motherless slave children: for such children have neither
Fathers or Mothers to protect & provide for them. He some-
times would raise the question is God their Father ? At the age
of Ten years, an old friend induced him to read a little history,
& offered him the free use of a good library; by; which he
acquired some taste for reading: which formed the principle
part of his early education : & diverted him in a great measure
from bad company. He by this means grew to be verry fond of
the company & conversation of old & inteligent persons. He
never attempted to dance in his life ; nor did he ever learn to
know one of a pack of Cards from another. He learned nothing
of Grammer ; nor did he get at school so much knowledge of
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 5
comm[on] Arithmetic as the Four ground rules. This will give
you some general idea of the first Fifteen years of his life;
during which time he became very strong & large of his age &
ambitious to perform the full labour of a man ; at almost any
kind of hard work. By reading the lives of great, wise & good
men their sayings, and writings ; he grew to a dislike of vain &
frivolous conversation & persons; & was often greatly obliged
by the kind manner in which older & more inteligent persons
treated him at their houses: & in conversation; which was
a great relief on account of his extreme bashfulness. He very
early in life became ambitious to excel in doing anything he
undertook to perform. This kind of feeling I would recom-
mend to all young persons both Male &Jemale: as it will cer-
tainly tend to secure admission to the company of the more
inteligent; & better portion of every community. By all
means endeavour to excel in some laudable pursuit. I had
like to have forgotten to tell you of one of John's misfortunes
which set rather hard on him while a young boy. He had by
some means perhaps by gift of his Father become the owner
of a little Ewe Lamb which did finely till it was about Two
Thirds grown ; & then sickened and died. This brought an-
other protracted mourning season : not that he felt the pecun-
iary loss so heavily : for that was never his disposition ; but so
strong & earnest were his attachments. John had been taught
from earliest childhood to "fear God & keep his command-
ments;" & though quite skeptical he had always by turns felt
much serious doubt as to his future well being ; & about this
time became to some extent a convert to Christianity & ever
after a firm believer in the divine authenticity of the Bible.
With this book he became very familiar, & possessed a most
unusual memory of its entire contents.
Now some of the things I have been telling of; were just such
as I would recommend to you : & I would like to know that you
had selected these out ; & adopted them as part of your own
plan of life ; & I wish you to have some definite plan. Many
seem to have none ; & others never to stick to any that they do
form. This was not the case with John. He followed up with
tenacity whatever he set about so long as it answered his gen-
eral purpose : & hence he rarely failed in some good degree to
effect the things he undertook. This was so much the case
6 JOHN BROWN
that he habitually expected to succeed in his undertakings. With
this feeling should be coupled; the consciousness that our plans
are right in themselves.
During the period I have named, John had acquired a kind
of ownership to certain animals of some little value but as
he had come to understand that the title of minors might be a
little imperfect : he had recourse to various means in order to
secure a more independent; & perfect right of property. One
of these means was to exchange with his Father for some-
thing of far less value. Another was by trading with other per-
sons for something his Father had never owned. Older persons
have sometimes found difficulty with titles.
From Fifteen to Twenty years old, he spent most of his
time working at the Tanner & Currier's trade keeping Bach-
elors hall ; & he officiating as Cook ; & for most of the time
as foreman of the establishment under his Father. During
this period he found much trouble with some of the bad hab-
its I have mentioned & with some that I have not told you
of : his conscience urging him forward with great power in this
matter: but his close attention to business; & success in its
management ; together with the way he got along with a com-
pany of men, & boys ; made him quite a favorite with the seri-
ous & more inteligent portion of older persons. This was so
much the case ; & secured for him so many little notices from
those he esteemed ; that his vanity was very much fed by
it : & he came forward to manhood quite full of self-conceit ;
& self-confident ; notwithstanding his extreme bashfulness. A
younger brother used sometimes to remind him of this: &
to repeat to him this expression which you may somewhere
find, "A King against whom there is no rising up." The habit
so early formed of being obeyed rendered him in after life
too much disposed to speak in an imperious or dictating way.
From Fifteen years & upward he felt a good deal of anxiety
to learn ; but could only read & studdy a little ; both for want
of time ; & on account of inflammation of the eyes. He how-
ever managed by the help of books to make himself tolera-
bly well acquainted with common Arithmetic ; & Surveying ;
which he practiced more or less after he was Twenty years old.
At a little past Twenty years led by his own inclination &
prompted also by his Father, he married a remarkably plain;
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 7
but neat industrious & economical girl ; of excellent character ;
earnest piety; & good practical common sense; about one
year younger than himself. This woman by her mild, frank,
& more than all else; by her very consistent conduct ; acquired
& ever while she lived maintained a most powerful ; & good
influence over him. Her plain but kind admonitions generally
had the right effect ; without arousing his haughty obstinate
temper. John began early in life to discover a great liking to
fine Cattle, Horses, Sheep, & Swine; & as soon as circum-
stances would enable him he began to be a practical Shep-
herd : it being a calling for which in early life he had a kind of
enthusiastic longing : together with the idea that as a business
it bid fair to afford him the means of carrying out his greatest
or principal object. I have now given you a kind of general
idea of the early life of this boy ; & if I believed it would be
worth the trouble ; or afford much interest to any good feeling
person ; I might be tempted to tell you something of his course
in after life ; or manhood. I do not say that I will do it.
You will discover that in using up my half sheets to save
paper ; I have written Two pages, so that one does not follow
the other as it should. I have no time to write it over ; & but
for unavoidable hindrances in traveling I can hardly say when
I should have written what I have. With an honest desire for
your best good, I subscribe myself,
Your Friend,
J. BROWN.
P. S. I had like to have forgotten to acknowledge your con-
tribution in aid of the cause in which I serve. God Allmighty
bless you; my son.
J. B.
In this simple, straightforward, yet remarkable narrative 1
John Brown of Osawatomie and Harper's Ferry outlined his
youth to the thirteen-year-old son of his benefactor, George
Luther Stearns. It remains the chief source of knowledge as to
the formative period of one who for a brief day challenged the
attention of a great nation, compelled it to heart searchings
most beneficent in their results, and through his death of ap-
parent ignominy achieved not only an historical immortality,
8 JOHN BROWN
but a far-reaching victory over forces of evil against which he
had dared and lost his life. John Brown, a Puritan in the aus-
terity of his manner of living, the narrowness of his vision and
the hardships he underwent, came of a family of pioneers. But
he was not of those adventurers into the wilderness who are
content, after carving out with the axe a little kingdom for
themselves, to rule peacefully to the end of their days. His
early adventures, his contact with the American aborigines,
his boyish experiences with the flotsam and jetsam of armies
in the field, all bred up in him a restlessness not characteris-
tic of the original Puritans, but with him a dominant feature of
his whole career. To John Brown life from the outset meant
incessant strife, first against unconquered nature, then in the
struggle for a living, and finally in that effort to be a Samson to
the pro-slavery Philistines in which his existence culminated.
"I expect nothing but to endure hardness," he wrote to a
friend in an attempt to enlist him in the Harper's Ferry enter-
prise. It would have been surprising, indeed, had he expected
anything else, for to nothing else was he accustomed. From
the " school of adversity" in which he was placed, as he wrote,
at the age of six years, he graduated only at his death.
The picture which John Brown drew of his experiences in
the early settlement of Ohio, just a century ago, was by no
means over-colored. The American public is apt to think that
pioneering was difficult only in New England in the seven-
teenth century, in Kentucky and Tennessee in the eighteenth,
and in the far West in the nineteenth. But the story of the
settlement of the Middle West reads in no essential differ-
ently, if perhaps less dramatically, than the better known ex-
tensions of the ever-expanding frontier. There were the same
hardships, the same facing of death by disease or, at times, in
ambush, the same exhausting toil, the same terrifying loneli-
ness, the same never-ending battling against relentless ele-
ments. This struggle for existence Brown's family shared
with those fellow emigrants who ventured with them into the
Ohio forest primeval, destroying it with great labor, driving
the wolves, panthers and bears from their rude cabin doors,
and subsisting, penuriously enough, on the wild game of the
woods and such scanty crops as the squirrels, blackbirds, rac-
coons and porcupines permitted to grow to maturity among
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 9
the stumps of the cleared tracts. As late as 1817 there were
bears who helped themselves in this district of Ohio to the
settlers' pigs, and in 1819, in a great hunt, no less than one
hundred deer and a dozen and a half bears and wolves were
corralled and shot down by the hunters of four townships 2
around Hudson. These wild animals of the forest not only
supplied meat for the scantily furnished larders, but skins
wherewith to make clothing and caps for others besides John
Brown. Farms were bought and paid for in hard and bitter
experiences. The roads were but a pretence, rough log bridges
led across the swamps, and the only means of transportation
which could survive long were the roughest sleds, ox-carts
and stone-boats. In the summer of 1806, the year after John
Brown arrived, there were, according to an old settler,3 frosts
every month, "no corn got ripe, and the next spring we had
to send to the Ohio river for seed corn to plant." This was
the beginning of the "school of adversity" for John Brown,
and the next summer's session was one of the hardest that the
pioneers ever stored away in their recollections. But not the
worst; that John Brown thought the summer of 1817, which
he described as a period " of extreme scarcity of not only money,
but of the greatest distress for want of provisions known
during the nineteenth century." 4 He and three others were
destitute "between the seaside and Ohio," but they had
learned not to be afraid of "spoiling themselves by hard work,"
and they managed to keep body and soul together. Even in
times of plenty, provisions were hard to get, and were best
purchased by labor of those fortunate enough to have an
abundance, the rate being three and a half pounds of pork for a
day's service. Fortunately, the neighboring Indians, Senecas,
Ottawas and Chippewas, were well behaved and friendly,
rarely sinning, but often sinned against. It was in this atmos-
phere so friendly to the steeling of muscles, the training of eyes
and hands, the enduring of arduous labor and the cultivation
of the primal virtues, that John Brown grew up to self-reliant
manhood. Under these conditions was his character moulded
and forged, until there emerged a man of singular natural force,
direct of speech, earnest of purpose, and usually resolute, with
the frontiersman's ability to shift readily from one occupation
to another and an incurable readiness to wander.
io JOHN BROWN
' ' Although the time when a man comes into the world and the
place where he appears are in certain ways important and may
well begin his story," declared Professor N. S. Shaler in his all
too brief autobiography, " the really weighty question concerns
his inheritances and the conditions in which they were devel-
oped. That he brings with him something that is in a mea-
sure independent of all his progenitors, a certain individuality
which makes him distinct in essentials from like beings he
succeeds, is true — vastly true ; but the way he is to go is, to
a great extent, shaped by those who sent him his life." 5 The
conditions of early life in Ohio were precisely those for which
John Brown's inheritances should best have fitted him. He
came of simple, frugal, hard-working folk, deeply interested
in religion and the church into which they sent some of their
best, and, above all, imbued with a strong love of liberty.
His father's father, who died "in a barn in New York" while
a captain of the Ninth Company, or Train-band 9, in the
Eighteenth Regiment of the Connecticut Colony, likewise
bore the name of John Brown, and on the other side the
tradition of arms came down to him from his maternal grand-
father. The Revolutionary Captain John Brown was the son
and grandson of men of the same name, likewise citizens of
Connecticut, the senior of whom, born February 4, 1694, was
the son of Peter Brown, of Windsor, Connecticut. Through
this Peter Brown, John Brown of Osawatomie, like many
another of his patronymic, believed himself descended from
Peter Brown of the goodly Mayflower company, — errone-
ously, for modern genealogical research has proved that the
Mayflower Peter Brown left no male issue.6 But the posses-
sion of an actual Mayflower progenitor is not indispensable
to the establishment of a long line of ancestry, and so Peter
Brown of Windsor, born in 1632, can surely lay claim to being
among the earliest white colonists on this continent, — early
enough at least to make it plain that in John Brown of Osa-
watomie's veins ran the blood of solid middle-class citizens,
the bone and sinew of the early colonies, as of the infant
American republic.
It is not related of any of the colonial John Browns that
they were especially distinguished. When Captain John
Brown, of the Eighteenth Connecticut, gave his life for the
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN n
independence of his country, he left a wife and ten children
at West Simsbury, now Canton, Connecticut, and a posthu-
mous son came into the world soon after his father perished,
the oldest child, a daughter, being then about seventeen.
"The care and support of this family," wrote his son Owen
many years later, " fell mostly on my mother. The labor-
ing men were mostly in the army. She was one of the best
mothers; active and sensible. She did all that could be ex-
pected of a mother ; yet for the want of help we lost our crops,
then our cattle, and so became poor." In the "dreadful hard
winter" of 1778-79 they were deprived of nearly all their
sheep, cattle and hogs, and the spring found them in the
greatest distress. This was the "school of adversity" in which
John Brown's father was trained, he also beginning at the age
of six the lessons in hardship which made of him a sturdy,
vigorous, honest pioneer, and hardened his body for its long
existence of eighty-five years. In the autobiography 7 which
he wrote at his children's request, when nearly eighty years
of age, Owen Brown summed up his career in this sentence :
"My life has been of little worth, mostly filled up with van-
ity." In this harsh judgment his neighbors would not have
concurred. Owen Brown stood well with everybody, even
with those who had no liking for his militant son. Yet this
sentence gives a key to the piety which filled Owen's life, and
explains, too, whence the son received his own strong religious
tendency. In Owen Brown's last letter to his son, penned only
six weeks before his death, occurs this wish : " I ask all of you
to pray more earnestly for the salvation of my soul than for the
life of my body, and that I may give myself and all I have up
to Christ and honer him by a sacrifise of all we have." 8
Similar pious expressions are to be found in almost every
one of John Brown's letters to the members of his family.
Their salvation, their clinging to the orthodox Congregational
faith to which he held so tenaciously, their devotion to the
Scriptures, — these are things which ever concerned him.
Indeed, the resemblance of John Brown to his father appears
in many ways, not the least in their respective biographies.
Owen's is as characteristic a document as the one which
begins this volume. In it he relates his wanderings as an
apprentice and later as a full-fledged shoemaker and tanner.
12 JOHN BROWN
But if he moved about a good deal in the struggle to sup-
port himself, learn a trade and relieve the heavily burdened
mother of his support, when he finally reached Ohio, in 1805,
Owen Brown remained in one locality for fifty-one years, until
his death, May 8, 1856. Owen received, he narrates, consid-
erable instruction from the Rev. Jeremiah Hallock, the min-
ister of Canton, who was a connection of many of the Browns,
hiring out to this worthy pastor for six months in 1790. In
the spring of 1791 the family fortunes were again in the
ascendant. One brother, John by name, was for many years
an honored citizen of New Hartford, Connecticut; another,
Frederick, after serving in the Connecticut Legislature during
the War of 1812, moved to Wadsworth, Medina County, Ohio,
where he was long a highly respected county judge. Of this
Frederick's sons, two became successful physicians and one
a minister.
In the fall of 1790, Owen Brown became acquainted with
his future wife, Ruth Mills, "who was the choice of my affec-
tions ever after, although we were not married for more than
two years." He was, at this time, it appears, "under some
conviction of sin but whether I was pardoned or not God only
knows — this I know I have not lived like a Christian." The
beginning of his married life Owen Brown described thus :
" Feb I3th 1793 I was married to Ruth Mills in March begun to
keep House and here I will say was the begining of days with me.
I think our good Minister felt all the anxiety of Parent that we
should begin wright, he gave us good counsel and I have no doubts
with a praying spiret, here I will say never had any Person such an
assendence over my conduct as my wife, this she had without the lest
appearence of userpation, and if I have been respected in the World
I must ascribe it more to her than to any other Person. We begun
with but very little property but with industry and frugality, which
gave us a very comfortable seport and a small increas. We took in
children to live with us very soon after we began to keep House.*
Our first Child was born at Canton June 29th 1794 a son we called
Salmon he was a very thrifty forward Child, we lived in Canton about
two years, I worked at Shoemaking, Tanning and Farming we made
Butter and Chees on a small scale and all our labours turned to good
account, we had great calls [cause] for thanksgiven, we were at peace
with all our Neighbours, we lived in a rented House and I seamed
* Levi Blakeslee, early adopted by Owen and Ruth Brown, became the head
of a highly respected Ohio family.
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 13
to be called to build or moove. I thought of the latter and went
directly to Norfolk as I was there acquainted and my wife had kept
a school there one summer, the People of Norfolk incoureged me and
I bought a small Farm with House and Barn, I then sold what little
I had, and made a very suddon move to Norfolk, we found Friends
in deed and in kneed. I there set up Shoemaking and tanning, hired
a journaman did a small good business and gave good sattisfac-
tion. ... In Feb, 1799 I had an oppertunity to sell my place of Nor-
folk which I did without any consultation of our Neighbours who
thought they had some clame on my future servises as they had been
very kind and helpfull and questioned weather I had not been hasty
but I went as hastely to Torrington and bought a place, all though
I had but very little acquantence there. I was very quick on the
moove we found very good Neighbours I was somewhat prosperus
in my business. In 1800, May 9th John was born one hundred
years after his Great Grand Father nothing very uncommon. . . .
my determination to come to Ohio was so strong that I started
with my Family in Comp[any] [with] B Whedan Esq and his Family
all though out of health on the 9th of June 1805 with an Ox teem
through Pennsylvania here I will say I found Mr. Whedan a very
kind and helpfull Companion on the Road, we arived at Hudson on
the 27 of July and was received with many tokens of kindness we did
not come to a land of idleness neither did I expect it. Our ways were
as prosperious as we could expect. I came with a determination to
help to build up and be a help in the seport of religion and civil Order.
We had some hardships to undergo but they appear greater in history
than they were in reality. I was often calld to go into woods to make
devisians of lands sometimes 60 or 70 Miles [from] home and be gone
some times two week and sleep on the ground and that without in-
jery. When we came to Ohio the Indians were more numorous than
the white People but were very friendly and I beleave were a benifet
rather than injery there [were] some Persons that seamed disposed
to quarel with the Indians but I never had, they brought us Venson
Turkeys Fish and the like sometimes wanted bread or meal more
than they could pay for, but were faithfull to pay there debts. . . .
My business went on very well and was somewhat prosperious in
most of our conceirns friendly feelings were manfest the company
that called on us was of the best kind the Missionarus of the Gos-
pel and leading men traviling through the Cuntry call on us and I
become acquaint with the business People and Ministers of the
Gospel in all parts of the Reserve and some in Pennsilvany 1807 Feb
I3th Fredrick my 6th Son was born I do not think of anything to
notice but the common blessings of health peace and prosperity
for which I would ever acknowledge with thanksgiven I had a very
pleasent and orderly family untill December 9th 1808 when all my
earthly prospects appeared to be blasted My beloved Wife gave
birth to an Infent Daughter that died in a few ours as my wife
expresed [it] had a short pasage through time My wife followed in
I4 JOHN BROWN
a few ours after these were days of affliction I was left with
five (or six, including Levi Blakesley, my adopted son) small Chil-
dren the oldes but a little one 10 years old this scan all most makes
my heart blead now these were the first that were ever buried in
ground now ocupide at the Centre of Hudson."
Owen Brown was subsequently married twice, his second
wife being Sallie Root, and his third Mrs. Lucy Hinsdale. He
was the father of ten sons and six daughters, the most distin-
guished of them, next to John Brown, being Salmon Brown,
who died in New Orleans September 6, 1833, a lawyer of
standing, the editor of the New Orleans Bee, and a politician
bitterly opposed to President Jackson and his methods. Owen
Brown was early in life an Abolitionist, and in a quaint manu-
script left the story of his becoming one. A Mr. Thomson, a
Presbyterian or Congregational minister of Virginia, brought
his slaves to New Canaan, Connecticut, for safety during the
Revolution. In 1797 or 1798 he returned to move them back
to Virginia, at which they rebelled, one married slave run-
ning away. The owner declared that he would carry the wife
and children back to bondage without him. The situation was
complicated by Mr. Thomson's having been asked to preach.
He was finally requested not to appear in the pulpit; the
matter then came before the assembled church, and there
was a vigorous debate in Mr. Thomson's presence. What
happened is thus told by Owen Brown : 9
" An old man asked him if he could part man and wife contrary
to their minds. Mr. T. said he married them himself, and did not
enjoin obedience on the woman. He was asked if he did not consider
marriage to be an institution of God ; he said he did. He was again
asked why he did not do it in conformity of God's word. He ap-
peared checked, and only said it was the custom. He was told that
the blacks were free by the act of the Legislature of Connecticut ;
he said he belonged to another State, and that Connecticut had no
controle over his property. I think he did not get his property as
he calljed] it. Ever since, I have been an Abolitionist ; I am so near
the end of life I think I shall die an Abolitionist."
And this he did, as consistently as he had lived a voluntary
agent of the Underground Railroad, never failing to aid a
fugitive slave who appealed to him for food and forwarding
toward the North Star.10 Thus his son John had every incen-
tive to follow in his footsteps. How deeply Owen Brown felt
OWEN BROWN
Father of John Brown
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 15
appears from his withdrawal of his long-sustained and active
interest in Western Reserve College, when that institution
refused admission to a colored man.11 He then became a
supporter of Oberlin College, of which he was a trustee from
November 24, 1835, until August 28, i844.12
Of Ruth Mills, John Brown's mother, it is to be noted,
besides her premature death when her famous son was but
eight years old, that her ancestry goes as far back in the
colonial records as does her husband's. The Mills family is
descended from Peter Wouter van der Meulen, of Amsterdam,
whose son Peter settled in Windsor, Connecticut. He refused
to Anglicize his name, but his son Peter, born 1666, became
plain Peter Mills. Of the next generation, the Rev. Gideon
Mills graduated from Yale College, but died before the Revo-
lution, in which his son, Lieutenant Gideon Mills, served well.
When fifty-one years of age, in 1800, the latter removed to
Ohio, five years before his daughter Ruth and her husband,
Owen Brown, followed him into that wild territory. Through
his maternal grandmother, Ruth Humphrey, John Brown
of Osawatomie was connected with a well-known divine, the
Rev. Luther Humphrey, and was cousin also to the Rev. Dr.
Heman Humphrey, sometime president of Amherst College,
as well as to the Rev. Nathan Brown, long a missionary in
India and Japan. There was thus on both sides a family con-
nection of which John Brown might well be proud, that war-
ranted, in later Kansas days, his introduction to a committee
of the Massachusetts Legislature as a representative of the
best type of old New England citizenship. It is undeniable,
too, that the influence of his ancestry was a powerful one
throughout Brown's entire life. In some respects, as has been
often suggested, he seems to have belonged to the eighteenth
rather than to the nineteenth century, if not to a still earlier
one. It can hardly be doubted that, had he been brought face
to face with his ancestors, there would have been discovered
a marked resemblance in character, if not in looks; for the
main traits which marked the frugal, sober-minded, religious,
soil-tilling farmer-folk of New England were all in that de-
scendant who, so far as history records, was the first member
of the family to go to what is usually considered an infamous
death, as he was the first American to be hanged for treason.
16 JOHN BROWN
Of John Brown's boyhood but few incidents remain to be
told ; his early maturity is, perhaps, partly a reason for this.
For boys who at twelve assume such duties and responsibili-
ties as were his, there is but a brief childhood. He seems to
have had to his credit or discredit the usual number of rough
pranks. There is a story that he tried to explode some powder
under his step-mother, and that, when his father attempted
to punish him for this offence, a sheepskin carefully tucked
away in his clothes protected him from the force of the blows.
Again, it is variously said that he precipitated his father, or
his step-mother, from the hay-mow of the barn to the floor
beneath, by placing loose planks over an opening and then
enticing the victim across it. But these and even less authen-
ticated stories emanate often from prejudiced sources,13 and
if John Brown was guilty of unduly rough or dangerous horse-
play, it is a fact that he was always on the best of terms with
his father, as their letters show, and with his step-mother. It
is said of him that he was early one of the best Bible teachers
available, and therefore in demand in the Sunday Schools of
the communities in which he lived. To his steadfast perusal
of the Bible is undoubtedly due most of the directness, the
clearness and the force of his written English. It was, declared
in after years his daughter, Ruth Brown Thompson,14 his
favorite volume, "and he had such a perfect knowledge of it
that when any person was reading it, he would correct the
least mistake." His range of reading was, however, at no time
wide ; his taste was for historical works. Franklin's writings,
Rollin's Ancient History, ^Esop's Fables, Plutarch's Lives,
a life of Oliver Cromwell, and one of Napoleon and his Mar-
shals, all had their influence upon him. His Pilgrim's Progress
he naturally knew well, and Baxter's Saints' Rest was to him
a safe and sure guide to devout Christianity, while the works
of Edwards and Witherspoon were always on his shelves. In
all his letters, there is hardly a reference to any book save
the Bible.
As for John Brown's schooling, as his autobiography records,
it was fitful and scanty. The public schools of a newly occu-
pied region are not often of the best. The first one in Hudson
was established in 1 80 1, in a log-house near the centre of the
Hudson township, and it is probable that John Brown at-
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 17
tended this school, as Owen Brown's home was in this vicinity.
The Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, of New Haven, was a school-
mate of Brown's at Tallmadge, Ohio, in 1808, in a school
founded by Bacon's father. An old lady, years afterwards,
when Bacon shortly before his death revisited Tallmadge,
reminded him of a curious dialogue at a school exhibition
between himself as William Penn and John Brown as Pi-
zarro.15 When a tall stripling, either in 1816 or 1819, Brown
revisited Connecticut with his brother Salmon and another
settler's son, Orson M. Oviatt, with the idea of going to
Amherst College and entering the ministry. During his brief
stay in the East, he attended the well-known school of the
Rev. Moses Hallock at Plainfield, Massachusetts, and Morris
Academy in Connecticut.16 A son of Mr. Hallock, in 1859,
remembered him as a "tall, sedate and dignified young man.
He had been a tanner, and relinquished a prosperous business
for the purpose of intellectual improvement. He brought with
him a piece of sole leather about a foot square, which he him-
self had tanned for seven years, to resole his boots. He had
also a piece of sheepskin which he had tanned, and of which
he cut some strips, about an eighth of an inch wide, for other
students to pull upon." The schoolmaster confidently tried to
snap one of these straps, but in vain, and his son long remem-
bered "the very marked, yet kind, immovableness of the
young man's [Brown's] face on seeing his father's defeat." 17
But an attack of inflammation of the eyes put an end to
Brown's dream of a higher education, and he returned to
Hudson and the tanning business, living in a cabin near the
tan -yard, at first keeping bachelor's hall with Levi Blakeslee,
his adopted brother. John Brown was early a remarkably
good cook, with a strong liking for this part of housekeep-
ing which lasted throughout his life.18 The neatness of his
kitchen was surpassed by that of no housewife, and the pains
he took to sweep and sand the floor are still remembered.
It was while he was living thus that there occurred another
incident to confirm his opposition to slavery. To John Brown
and Levi Blakeslee came a runaway slave begging for aid. He
was at once taken into the cabin, where John Brown stood
guard over him while Blakeslee, when evening had come, went
up to the town for supplies. Suddenly the slave and his Sa-
18 JOHN BROWN
maritan heard the noise of approaching horses. John Brown
motioned to the slave to go out of the window and hide in the
brush. This he did. Soon the alarm proved to have been occa-
sioned only by neighbors returning from town, and Brown
went out into the dark to look for the negro. " I found him
behind a log," he said in telling the story, "and I heard his
heart thumping before I reached him. At that I vowed eternal
enmity to slavery." 19 Another story of John Brown's kind-
ness of heart probably belongs to this period. His uncle,
Frederick Brown, then judge of Wadsworth County, obtained
a requisition from Governor Trimble, of Ohio, on the Governor
of New York for the arrest of a young horse thief, and gave it
to his nephew in Hudson to serve. John Brown found the boy
and arrested him. Then Brown managed, because it was a
first offence and the boy was repentant, and because the peni-
tentiary would ruin his character, to save him from that fate,
and to have him, instead, indentured till his twenty-first year
to the man whose horse he stole. He got the neighbors to go
bond for the boy's good behavior during the period. This
was done, the boy reformed, and died a respected citizen in
old age.20 These and other incidents would seem to show that
when John Brown professed religion in 1816 and joined the
Congregational Church, to which he was ever after so devoted,
he had made up his mind to try to practise as well as to
profess the doctrines of Christianity.
Good cook that John Brown was, he had been having his
bread baked by Mrs. Amos Lusk, a widow living near by.
Soon he decided that it would be better if she moved into his
log-cabin with her daughter and took charge of the entire
housekeeping, now become serious by reason of the growth
of his tanning business and the increase in the number of
journeymen and apprentices. The propinquity of the young
home-maker and of the " remarkably plain " daughter of Mrs.
Lusk led promptly to matrimony. They were married June
21, 1820, when the husband lacked nearly eleven months of
being of age. If Dianthe Lusk was plain and rather short in
stature, she attracted by her quiet, amiable disposition. As
deeply religious as her husband, she was given to singing well,
generally hymns and religious songs, was neat and cheerful,
and without a marked sense of humor. In the twelve years of
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 19
their married life, Dianthe gave birth to seven children, dying
August 10, 1832, three days after the coming of a son. Of her
other six children, five grew to manhood and womanhood, all
of marked character and vigorous personality : John Brown,
Jr., Jason, Owen, Ruth and Frederick, the last named meeting
a cruel death in Kansas in his twenty-sixth year. Of these,
Jason alone survives at this writing, at the age of eighty-six.
Dianthe Lusk, too, could boast of an old colonial lineage, for
her ancestry traced back to the famous Adams family of Mas-
sachusetts. There was, however, a mental weakness in the Lusk
family which manifested itself early in her married life, as
it did in her two sisters.21 In two of her sons, John Brown,
Jr., and Frederick, there was also a disposition to insanity.
Devoted as he was to his wife, John Brown ruled his home
with a strong hand, in a way that seemed to some akin to
cruelty; but his children and an overwhelming mass of evi-
dence prove the contrary. He did not get on well with his
brother-in-law, Milton Lusk, who refused to attend the wed-
ding because John Brown the Puritan had asked him to visit
his mother and sister on some other day than the Sabbath.22
They were at no time congenial, though in later years Milton
Lusk bore no ill-will to his brother-in-law ; yet he always
disliked the rigor imposed upon his sister's household. But
the Brown children were devoted to both parents, and revered
always the memory of their mother. They remembered, too,
when symptoms of mental illness appeared, the kindliness and
tenderness with which the husband shielded and tended and
watched over his wife.
As to his children, John Brown at first believed in the use of
the rod, and he was particularly anxious that they should not
yield to the "habit of lying" which had worried him so much
in his own boyhood. "Terribly severe " is the way his punish-
ments were described, and he made no allowance for childish
imaginings. Once when Jason, then not yet four years old, told
of a dream he had had and insisted that it was the reality, his
father thrashed him severely, albeit with tears in his eyes.23
But in later years, it is pleasant to record, John Brown, after
travelling about the world, came to realize that there were
other methods of dealing with children, and softened consider-
ably, even expressing regret for his early theory and practice
20 JOHN BROWN
of punishments. There are instances in number of touching
devotion to this or that child ; of his sitting up night after night
with an ailing infant. Once he hurried to North Elba from
Troy on the rumor that smallpox had broken out in a near-by
village, in order that he might be on hand to nurse if the
scourge entered his family. He nursed several of his children
through scarlet fever without medical aid, and in consequence
became in demand in other stricken homes in the neighbor-
hood. " Whenever any of the family were sick, he did not often
trust watchers to care for the sick ones, but sat up himself and
was like a tender mother. At one time he sat up every night
for two weeks, while mother was sick, for fear he would over-
sleep if he went to bed, and the fire would go out, and she take
cold. No one outside of his own family can ever know the
strength and tenderness of his character," wrote Mrs. Ruth
Brown Thompson in her reminiscences of her father. His
character was not an unusual one in this respect ; the combi-
nation of iron discipline with extreme tenderness of heart is
often the mark of deep affection and high purpose in men of
power and rigid self-control, and so it was with him. Not
unnaturally, his children reacted from "the very strict con-
trol and Sunday School rules" under which they lived, and
used, as Salmon puts it, " to carry on pretty high," as some of
the neighbors who still live can tell the tale.
Sabbath in the Brown family had all the horrors of the New
England rest day of several generations ago. There were strict
religious observances, and there was no playing and no pre-
tence at playing. Visiting was discouraged, as well as receiving
visits. The head of the family was not without humor, but as
Fowler, the phrenologist, correctly said of him, his jokes were
"more cutting than cute." He inclined to sarcasm, and "his
words were as sharp as his eyes to those who did not please
him." In the final drama at Harper's Ferry, Watson Brown
said to his father: "The trouble is, you want your boys to be
brave as tigers, and still afraid of you." "And that was per-
fectly true" is Salmon Brown's confirmation of the remark.
Similarly, John Brown wanted his children to be as true as
steel, as honest as men and women possibly can be and as
truthful, and yet afraid of him. As was often the case, the
intense religious training given to his children in the broaden-
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 21
ing period of the first half of the nineteenth century resulted
in a reaction. All his sons were strangers to church-ties. In
this their strong feeling in regard to slavery, to which they
came naturally from grandfather and father, played a great
part. Yet this dislike of slavery was never beaten into them ;
nor is it true that John Brown ever forced a son into one of
his campaigns. It is doubtful if he could often have com-
manded such strong natures. Dislike of human bondage, as the
children grew up, became as much a factor in the family's life
as the natural desire for food and clothing and shelter. It was
no more assumed than inculcated ; they hated it with a hatred
greater in some cases than their wish to live. Whatever else
may be said of the Brown family life, or of the father as a dis-
ciplinarian, it is a fact that the children grew up into honorable
men and women, not successful in accumulating worldly goods
in any degree, but as illustrative of the homely virtues as their
father and their grandfather. Temperate they all of them
were, like their father, yet not all or always total abstainers.
John Brown himself, though an abstainer after 1829, firmly
believed that "a free use of pure wines in the country would
do away with a great deal of intemperance, and that it was a
good temperance work to make pure wine and use it." 2* For
a time two of his sons devoted themselves to grape-growing
for wine purposes, until they finally came to have scruples
against it.
Of John Brown's early life after his marriage there is, for-
tunately, a reliable record. James Foreman, one of his jour-
neymen in 1820, wrote down his recollections of his employer
shortly after the latter's death in i859,25 for the benefit of
Brown's first biographer, who did not, however, utilize them.
"It was John Brown's fixed rule," wrote Mr. Foreman, "that
his apprentices and journeymen must always attend church every
Sunday, and family worship every morning. In the summer of 1824
a journeyman of his stole from him a very fine calfskin. Brown dis-
covered the deed, made the man confess, lectured him at length and
then told him he would not prosecute him unless he left his place ;
but, that, if he did leave, he should be prosecuted to the end of the
law.
"The journeyman staid about two months, through fear of pro-
secution ; and in the meantime all hands about the tannery and in
the house were strictly forbidden speaking to him, not even to ask a
22 JOHN BROWN
question ; and I think a worse punishment could not have been set
upon a poor human being than this was to him: But it reformed
him and he afterward became a useful man.
" In the fall of the same year his wife was taken sick under pecul-
iar circumstances, and Brown started for the Dr. and some lady
friends, from his residence i£ miles to the centre of Hudson. On his
way he espied two men tying up two bags of apples and making
ready to put them on their horses. Brown immediately tied his own
horse, went to the men and made them empty their apples, own up
to the theft, and settle up the matter before he attended to the case
of his wife. Such was his strict integrity for honesty and justice."
Once, Mr. Foreman remembered, Brown fell into a discus-
sion with a Methodist minister, who, being flippant and fluent,
seemed to talk the tanner down.
" [Brown] afterward commented on the man's manners and said he
should like a public debate with him. Soon after the preacher came
to enquire whether Brown desired, as was reported, a public debate,
and whether, also, if he had said the speaker was ' no gentleman, let
alone a clergyman.' Brown replied : ' I did say you were no gentle-
man. I said more than that, sir.' 'What did you say, sir? ' enquired
the preacher. 'I said, sir,' replied Brown, 'that it would take as
many men like you to make a gentleman as it would take wrens to
make a cock turkey ! ' The public debate, however, came off, con-
ducted in questions and answers, Brown first to ask all his questions,
which the other should answer and then the reverse. But John
Brown's questions so exhausted and confused his opponent, that the
latter retired without opening his side of the debate. ... So strict
was he that his leather should be perfectly dry before sold, that a
man might come ten miles for five pounds of sole leather and if the
least particle of moisture could be detected in it he must go home
without it. No compromise as to amount of dampness could be
effected. . . . He was jocose and mirthful, when the conversation
did not turn on anything profane or vulgar, and the Bible was almost
at his tongue's end. . . . He considered it as much his duty to help
a negro escape as it was to help catch a horse thief, and of a new
settler . . . [his] first enquiry . . . was whether he was an observer
of the Sabbath, opposed to slavery and a supporter of the gospel and
common schools ; if so, all was right with him ; if not, he was looked
upon by Brown with suspicion. In politics he was originally an
Adams man and afterwards a Whig and I believe a strong one. Yet
I do not believe the time ever was that he would have voted for
Henry Clay, for the reason that he had fought a duel and owned
slaves. . . . His food was always plain and simple, all luxuries being
dispensed with and not allowed in his family, and in the year 1830
he rigidly adopted the teetotal temperance principle.
" Hunting, gunning and fishing he had an abhorrence of as learn-
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 23
ing men and boys to idle away their time and learn them lazy habits,
and it was with the greatest reluctance that he would trust a man
with a piece of leather who came after it with a gun on his shoulder.
. . . He took great pains to inculcate general information among
the people, good moral books and papers, and to establish a reading
community."
In May, 1825, despite the success of his Hudson tannery
and his having built himself a substantial house the year
before, John Brown moved his family to Richmond, Crawford
County, Pennsylvania, near Meadville, where with note-
worthy energy he had cleared twenty-five acres of timber
lands, built a fine tannery, sunk vats, and had leather tan-
ning in them all by the 1st of October.26 The virgin forests
and cheap cost of transportation lured him to his new home.
Here, like his father at Hudson, John Brown was of marked
value to the new settlement at Richmond by his devotion to
the cause of religion and civil order. He surveyed new roads,
was instrumental in erecting school-houses, procuring preach-
ers and "encouraging everything that would have a moral
tendency." It became almost a proverb in Richmond, so Mr.
Foreman records, to say of an aggressive man that he was
"as enterprising and honest as John Brown, and as useful to
the county." This removal of his family gave its young mem-
bers just such a taste of pioneering as their father had had at
Hudson, and was the first of ten migrations under the lead-
ership of their restless head, prior to the emigration to Kansas
of the eldest sons in 1854-55. In Richmond the family dwelt
nearly ten years, until for business reasons the bread-winner
felt himself compelled to return to Ohio.27
In the year 1828 John Brown brought into Crawford County
the first blooded stock its settlers had ever seen. Being in-
strumental in obtaining the first post-office in that region,
he received this same year the appointment of postmaster
from President John Quincy Adams, January 7, serving until
May 27, 1835, when he left the State; and there are letters
extant bearing his franks as postmaster of Randolph, as the
new post-office was called. The first school was held alternately
in John Brown's home and that of a Delamater family, con-
nections of Dianthe Lusk, the Delamater children boarding
for the winter terms in Brown's home, and the Brown chil-
24 JOHN BROWN
dren spending the summer terms at the Delamaters', for
a period of four years, only a few other children attending.
George B. Delamater, one of the scholars, retained a vivid
impression of the early winter breakfasts in the Brown family,
"immediately after which Bibles were distributed, Brown
requiring each one to read a given number of verses, himself
leading ; then he would stand up and pray, grasping the back
of the chair at the top and inclining slightly forward," which
solemn moment, so Salmon Brown remembers, the elder chil-
dren frequently utilized for playing tricks on one another.
Sunday religious exercises were at first held in Brown's barn.
Of them Mr. Delamater says, "everything seemed fixed as
fate by the inspiring presence of him whose every movement,
however spontaneous, seemed to enforce conformity to his
ideas of what must or must not be done. . . . He was no
scold, did nothing petulantly ; but seemed to be simply an
inspired paternal ruler ; controlling and providing for the circle
of which he was the head," - testimony of value as showing
that even at this early age Brown had the compelling power
of masterful leadership.
Here in Richmond the first great grief came into John
Brown's life in the death of a four-year-old son, Frederick, on
March 31, 1831, and the demise in August, 1832, of Dianthe
Brown and her unnamed infant son who also had such a ' ' short
passage through time." 28 Their graves are still to be found
near the old, now rebuilt, tannery, and are cared for and pro-
tected out of regard for John Brown. Nearly a year later he
was married for the second time, to Mary Anne Day,29 daugh-
ter of Charles Day, of Whitehall, New York, who was then
a resident of Troy township, Pennsylvania. Her father was
a blacksmith, who had been fairly well-to-do, but had lost his
property by endorsing notes, so that Mary Day grew up with
narrow means and almost no schooling. For a time after the
death of Dianthe Brown, Mary's elder sister went to John
Brown's as housekeeper, and Mary, presently, was engaged to
come there to spin. She was then a large, silent girl, only six-
teen years of age. John Brown quickly grew fond of her, per-
haps saw the staying powers in her, and one day gave her a
letter offering marriage. She was so overcome that she dared
not read it. Next morning she found courage to do so, and
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 25
when she went down to the spring for water for the house, he
followed her and she gave him her answer there. A woman of
rugged physical health and even greater ruggedness of nature,
she bore for her husband thirteen children within twenty-one
years, of whom seven died in childhood, and two were killed
in early manhood at Harper's Ferry. Besides the lives of the
latter, Oliver and Watson, Mary Day Brown made cheerfully
and willingly many other sacrifices for the cause to which her
husband also gave his life, as will appear later. No one but a
strong character could have borne uncomplainingly the hard-
ships which fell to her lot, particularly in her bleak Adirondack
home in the later years. But she was as truly of the stuff of
which martyrs are made as was her husband — even if she had
had less advantages and opportunities for learning and culture
than he. If there ever was a family in which the mother did
her full share and more of arduous labor, it was this one. No-
thing but the complete faith he had in her ability to be both
mother and guardian of his flock made possible for John Brown
his long absences from home year after year, both when in
business and when warring against slavery in Kansas and
Virginia. And Mary Day Brown was a woman of few words,
even after the catastrophe at Harper's Ferry.
During part of the interval between Dianthe Brown's
death and her husband's remarriage, John Brown boarded
with Mr. Foreman, who had just married. Even in his first
grief, Mr. Foreman remembers, John Brown had a deep
interest in the welfare of his neighbors. Others remember
Brown as the organizer of an Independent Congregational
^-Society, which came into being on January n, 1832, its arti-
cles of faith being written out in his hand as clerk of the
society. It is recalled, too, that besides being postmaster he
had for some years the carrying of the mails between Mead-
ville and Riceville, a distance of twenty miles. Politically, he
was at this time an Adams man, and he was still as interested
in the fugitive slave as he had been in Hudson. There was
in the haymow of his barn a roughly boarded room, entered
by a trap-door, and ventilated and equipped for the use of
escaping slaves. The whole was always so cleverly concealed
by hay that a man might stand on the trap-door and yet
see no signs of the hiding-place. In striking contrast to John
26 JOHN BROWN
Brown's later development into a man of disguises, assumed
names and many plots, was his dislike of the Masonic orders.
He became a member of a lodge while residing either in Hud-
son or in Richmond, and for a while was an ardent disciple.
Then, however, he rebelled and withdrew. "Somewhere," so
John Brown, Jr., told the story in after years, "in an historical
museum, I think, is the first firearm that father ever possessed.
The way he came to get it was this: Father had been a Free
Mason for years. You have read about the great excitement
over the disappearance of Morgan, who had threatened to
expose the secrets of Masonry? Well, father denounced the
murder of Morgan in the hottest kind of terms. This was
when we lived over in Pennsylvania. Father had occasion to go
to Meadville. A mob bent on lynching him surrounded the
hotel, but Landlord Smith enabled him to escape through a
back entrance. Father then got a sort of pistol that was about
half rifle, and he became very adept in its use, killing deer with
it on several occasions." 30 It was in September, 1826, that
the country was so excited over the anti-Masonic revelations
of William Morgan which resulted in his murder.
After just ten years of residence in Richmond, John Brown
removed to Franklin Mills, Portage County, Ohio, to go into
the tanning business with Zenas Kent, a well-to-do business
man of that town. In a letter written to him on April 24, 1835,
John Brown thus details the financial distress he found him-
self in, which no doubt accentuated his desire for a new field
of activity: 31
"Yours of the I4th was received by last Mail. I was disappointed
in the extreme not to obtain the money I expected ; & I know of
no possible way to get along without it. I had borrowed it for a few
days to settle up a number of honorary debts which I could not
leave unpaid and come away. It is utterly impossible to sell any-
thing for ready cash or to collect debts. I expect Father to come out
for cattle about the first of May and I wish you without fail to send
it by him. It is now to late to think of sending it by mail. I was
intending to turn everything I could into shingles as one way to real-
ize cash in Ohio, before you wrote me about them. 25, dollars of the
money I want is to enable me to carry that object into effect. ..." *
* In spelling and punctuation these earlier letters are superior to the later
epistles; the handwriting is by this time the familiar one, full of character and
strength.
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 27
The partnership of Kent & Brown was not destined to be of
long duration, for the latter had no sooner completed the
tannery at Franklin than it was rented by Marvin Kent, a
son of the senior partner, even before the departments were
ready for operation and the vats in place, so that the business
of tanning hides was never actually carried on by the firm.32
John Brown then secured a contract for the construction of
part of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal, from Franklin Mills
to Akron, during which time he dealt chiefly with the Kents.
It was a year later that John Brown began some land specu-
lations which proved quite disastrous and did much to injure
his standing and business credit. With a Mr. Thompson he
purchased a farm of more than a hundred acres owned by a
Mr. Haymaker, which then adjoined Franklin village (now
the prosperous town of Kent), believing that the coming of
the canal and other changes would make Franklin a great
manufacturing town. For this -farm there was paid $7000,
mostly money borrowed of Heman Oviatt, who had acquired
large means as a trader with the Indians, and of Frederick
Wadsworth. The farm was quickly plotted by Brown as
" Brown and Thompson's addition to Franklin Village." But
he was far ahead of his time in this scheme, and within a
couple of years the land was foreclosed by Oviatt and Wads-
worth. This tract, crossed by three trunk-line railroads, is
now of great value, containing as it does an island park, the
shops of the Erie Railroad and some large manufactories. The
Haymaker house in which Brown lived is still standing.
About the same time, John Brown, with twenty-one other
prominent men of Franklin, Ravenna and Akron, formed the
Franklin Land company, and purchased of Zenas Kent and
others the water-power, mills, lands, etc., in both the upper
and lower Franklin villages. Through the cooperation of the
canal company, the two water-powers were combined mid-
way between the two villages. A new settlement was then
laid out between both places, and would undoubtedly have
been a successful enterprise, had the canal company lived up
to its agreement. Instead, it drew off largely the waters of
the Cuyahoga River, ostensibly for canal purposes, but in
reality, in the opinion of John Brown and his partners, for the
purpose of pushing Akron ahead at the expense of the new
28 JOHN BROWN
village, to which the Brown and Thompson addition was
planned before the town itself was well under way.
In these and other schemes John Brown became so deeply
involved that he failed during the bad times of 1837, lost
nearly all his property by assignment to his creditors, and
was then not able to pay all his debts, some of which were
never liquidated. His father also lost heavily through him.
While he says in his autobiography that he "rarely failed in
some good degree to effect the things he undertook," this can-
not apply to his business affairs in the 1835 to 1845 period of
his life, or even later, but must be taken as referring to those
philanthropic or public-spirited undertakings in which he had
won a name for himself a short time previous to that story of
his life. In 1842 he was even compelled to go through bank-
ruptcy. Naturally, all this greatly damaged Brown's business
standing, and created with some people who had lost money
through him that doubt of his integrity which so often follows
the loss of money through another. But the final verdict in
the vicinity of Franklin was summed up recently by the late
Marvin Kent. To him Brown was at this early period a man
of "fast, stubborn and strenuous convictions that nothing
short of a mental rebirth could ever have altered ; " a "man of
ordinary calibre with a propensity to business failure in what-
ever he attempted." * There is no allegation of dishonesty,
despite the unpaid accounts and protested notes still on
the books of Marvin Kent and his father. Heman Oviatt, of
Richfield, Ohio, who lent John Brown money and became in-
volved in lawsuits in consequence, testified to his integrity,
and so do many others. But there can be no question that
after leaving Richmond, Pennsylvania, he was anything but
successful in business, and his affairs became so involved as
to make it a matter of regret that he could not have devoted
himself exclusively to tanning and farming in Richmond. To
his son, John Brown, Jr., he in after years explained his mis-
fortunes by saying that these grew out of one root — doing
business on credit.38 "Instead of being thoroughly imbued
with the doctrine of pay as you go, I started out in life with
* "It is a Brown trait to be migratory, sanguine about what they think they
can do, to speculate, to go into debt, and to make a good many failures." — Jason
Brown, December 28, 1908.
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 29
the idea that nothing could be done without capital, and that
a poor man must use his credit and borrow; and this pernicious
notion has been the rock on which I, as well as many others,
have split. The practical effect of this false doctrine has been
to keep me like a toad under a harrow most of my business
life. Running into debt includes so much evil that I hope all
my children will shun it as they would a pestilence." The
purchase of four farms on credit seems to have been a chief
cause of Brown's collapse.34 Three of these Franklin farms
were said to be worth twenty thousand dollars before the
financial crash of 1837.
Brown quitted Franklin Mills in 1837, returning with his
family to Hudson, but only for a brief period. He seems to
have alternated between the two places until 1841. One of
his ventures at this period was breeding race-horses. In 1838
began his long years of travelling about the country. His first
recorded visit to New York, after reaching manhood, was on
December 5, 1838, when he drove some cattle from Ohio to
Connecticut. "My unceasing & anxious care for the present
and everlasting welfare of every one of my family seems to be
threefold as I get seperated farther and farther from them," he
wrote home from the metropolis.35 On this trip he negotiated
for the agency of a New York steel scythes house, and on
the 1 8th of January, at West Hartford, Connecticut, made
a purchase of ten Saxony sheep for one hundred and thirty
dollars, — this being the beginning of his long career as John
Brown the Shepherd.36 Other purchases of Saxony sheep fol-
low in quick succession, according to the entries in the first of
a series of notebooks which often did duty as rough diaries.
The sheep he seems to have taken by boat to Albany and
driven thence to Ohio; his notebook teems at this time with
hints for the care of sheep and such quaint entries as the fol-
lowing: "Deacon Abel Hinsdale left off entirely the use of
Tobacco at the age of 66 now 73 & has used none since that
time. No ba[d] consequnses have followed. Qery When will a
man become to old to leave off any bad habit."
In June, 1839, when his family was again in Franklin Mills,
he made another trip to the East on cattle business, the fol-
lowing being a typical home letter of this, for him, so trying
and disastrous period: 3V
30 JOHN BROWN
NEWHARTFORD i2th June 1839
MY DEAR WIFE & CHILDREN
I write to let you know that I am in comfortable health & that I
expect to be on my way home in the course of a week should nothing
befall me If I am longer detained I will write you again. The cattle
business has succeeded about as I expected, but I am now some' what
in fear that I shall fail of getting the money I expected on the loan.
Should that be the will of Providence I know of no other way but
we must consider ourselves verry poor for our debts must be paid,
if paid at a sacrifise. Should that happen (though it may not) I hope
God who is rich in mercy will grant us all grace to conform to our
circumstances with cheerfulness & true resignation. I want to see
each of my dear family verry much but must wait Gods time. Try
all of you to do the best you can, and do not one of you be discour-
aged, tomorrow may be a much brighter day. Cease not to ask Gods
blessing on yourselves and me. Keep this letter wholly to yourselves,
excepting that I expect to start for home soon, and that I did not
write confidently about my success should anyone enquire Edward
is well, & Owen Mills. You may shew this to my Father, but to no
one else.
I am not without great hopes of getting relief I would not have
you understand, but things have looked more unfavourable for a few
days. I think I shall write you again before I start. Earnestly com-
mending you every one to God, and to his mercy, which endureth
forever, I remain your affectionate husband and rather
JOHN BROWN
The friends here I believe are all well.
J. B.
Three days after writing this letter, John Brown received
from the New England Woolen Company, at Rockville, Con-
necticut, the sum of twenty-eight hundred dollars through
its agent, George Kellogg, for the purchase of wool, which
money, regrettably enough, he pledged for his own benefit and
was then unable to redeem.38 Fortunately for him, the Com-
pany exercised leniency toward him, in return for which
Brown promised, in 1842, after having passed through bank-
ruptcy, to pay the money from time to time, with interest, as
Divine Providence might enable him to do. This moral obli-
gation he freely recognized, as will appear from the follow-
ing letter to Mr. Kellogg, written in 1840, when Brown was
temporarily in Hudson again, and in such distressing cir-
cumstances that he had not the means to pay the postage for
forwarding two letters from Mr. Kellogg which had been
sent to him at Franklin Mills: 39
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 31
"That means are so very limited is in consequence of my being
left penyless for the time being, by the assignment and disposal of
my property with no less than a family of ten children to provide for,
the sickness of my wife and three of my oldest children since that
time, and the most severe pressure generally for want of money ever
known in this Country. Specie is almost out of the question and no-
thing but specie will pay our postage. ... I learned a good while
after the delivery of the Flour and Wool, to my further mortification
and sorrow that they had not been forwarded when I expected, but
was assured they should be immediately. I hope they have been
received safe, and I most earnestly hope that the Devine Providence
will yet enable me to make you full amends for all the wrong I have
done, and to give you and my abused friend Whitman (whose name
I feel ashamed to mention) some evidence that the injury I have
occasioned was not premeditated and intentional at least."
In pledging himself to pay, John Brown promised to prove
"the sincerity of my past professions, when legally free to act
as I choose." 40 At his death in 1859, this debt like many
another was still unpaid, and John Brown bequeathed fifty
dollars toward its payment by his last will and testament.
It was not only that he was visionary as a business man, but
that he developed the fatal tendency to speculate, doubtless
an outgrowth of his restlessness and the usual desire of the
bankrupt for a sudden coup to restore his fortunes.
In the intervals of sheep and cattle trading, he and his
father conceived the idea in 1840 of taking up some of the
Virginia (now in Doddridge and Tyler counties of West Vir-
ginia) land belonging to Oberlin College. He appeared April I ,
1840, before a committee of Oberlin trustees and opened nego-
tiations with it for the survey and purchase of some of the
Virginia possessions.41 Two days later, the full board con-
sidered a letter from John Brown in which he offered "to
visit, survey and make the necessary investigation respecting
boundaries, etc, of those lands, for one dollar per day, and a
modest allowance for necessary expenses." This communica-
tion also stated frankly that this was to be a preliminary step
towards locating his family upon the lands, "should the open-
ing prove a favorable one." The trustees promptly voted
to accept the offer, and the treasurer was ordered to furnish
John Brown with "a commission & needful outfit." This
was promptly done the same day, and by the 27th of April,
Brown thus wrote from Ripley, Virginia, to his wife and chil-
32 JOHN BROWN
dren: " I have seen the spot where, if it be the will of Provi-
dence, I hope one day to live with my family." He liked the
country as well as he had expected to, "and its inhabitants
rather better." Were they, he believed, "as resolute and in-
dustrious as the Northern people, and did they understand
how to manage as well, they would become rich; but they are
not generally so." That John Brown did not subsequently
settle on these Virginia lands is not, however, to be charged
to the will of Providence, but to himself. His surveys and
reports were duly received by the Oberlin trustees on July
14, 1840, and on August n they voted to address a letter
to him on the subject. Through his own fault, however, nego-
tiations dragged so that the whole plan fell through. This
appears from John Brown's letters to Levi Burnell, the trea-
surer of Oberlin, who had duly notified him that the Pruden-
tial Committee of the trustees had been authorized by the
board to perfect negotiations and convey to "Brother John
Brown of Hudson One Thousand acres of our Virginia Land
on conditions suggested in the correspondence . . . between
him and the Committee." On October 20, Mr. Burnell wrote
to Owen Brown asking for the status of the negotiations. He
received no answer from John Brown until January 2, 1841.
This reply shows that the latter had been vacillating through-
out the fall as to whether he should or should not move to
Virginia, and runs in part thus:
" I should have written you before but my time has been com-
pletely taken up, and owing to a variety of circumstances I have
sometimes allmost given up the idea of going to the south at all ; but
after long reflection, and consultation about it, I feel prepared to
say definitely that I expect Providence willing to accept the pro-
posal of your Board, and that I shall want every thing understood,
and aranged as nearly as may be, for my removal in the next Spring.
I would here say that I shall expect to receive a thousand acres of
land in a body that will includ a living spring of water dischargeing
itself at a heighth sufficient to accommodate a tanery as I shall
expect to pursue that business on the small scale if I go. It is my
regular occupation. I mentioned several such springs in my report,
but found them very scarce."
Meanwhile, the college had experienced a change of heart,
apparently, because of Brown's procrastination, as appears
from his letter of Februarys, 1841, to Mr. Burnell:
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 33
HUDSON sth Feby 1841
BURNELL ESQR
DR SR: I have just returned from a journey to Pa, and have read
yours of 2Oth Jany, & must say that I am somewhat disappointed
in the information which it brings ; & considering all that has passed,
that on the part of the Institution I had not been called upon to
decide positively nor even advised of any hurry for a more definite
answer ; & that on my part I had never intimated any other than an
intention to accept the offer made ; nor called for my pay, I should
think your Committee would have done nearer the thing that is
right had they at least signified their wish to know my determina-
tion, before putting it out of their power to perform what they had
engaged. Probably I was not so prompt in makeing up my mind
fully, & in communicating my determination as I had ought to
be, & if Providence intends to defeat my plans there is no doubt
the best of reasons for it, & we will rejoice that he who directs the
steps of men knows perfectly well how to direct them ; & will most
assuredly make his counsel to stand. A failure of the consideration
I do not so much regard as the derangement of my plan of future
opperations. If the Virginia lands are, or are not disposed of, I wish
you would give me the earliest information, & in the event of their
still remaining on hand I suppose it not unreasonable for me still
to expect a fulfillment of the offer on the part of the Institution.
Should the land be conveyed away perhaps your Committee or
some of the friends might still be instrumental in getting me an
employment at the south. Please write me as soon as you have
any information to give
Respectfully your friend
JOHN BROWN.
To this letter no answer was returned. On March 26,
Brown again wrote from Hudson asking whether the lands
had been sold. If the committee no longer wished to nego-
tiate with him, they need only say so frankly and send him
thirty dollars (for which he had waited nearly a year),
upon receipt of which he would "consider the institution
discharged from all further obligation." Thus ended the first
plan for an exodus of the John Brown family.
As a result of this disappointment, Brown was compelled
to turn to sheep-herding, taking charge in the spring of 1841
of the flocks of Captain Oviatt at Richfield, Ohio, and speed-
ily becoming known as a remarkable shepherd, able to tell
at a glance the presence within his flock of a strange animal.
This partnership arrangement proving satisfactory, Brown
again moved his family, in 1842, to Richfield, where he had
34 JOHN BROWN
the great misfortune to lose, in 1843, four of his children, aged
respectively, nine, six, three and one years, three of them
being buried at one time, — a crushing family calamity.
The beginning of the family's stay in Richfield was marked,
too, by Brown's discharge as a bankrupt, stripped of every-
thing but a few articles which the court had decided on Sep-
tember 28, 1842, were absolutely necessary to the maintenance
of the family, — among them eleven Bibles and Testaments,
one volume entitled 'Beauties of the Bible,' one 'Church
Member's Guide,' besides two mares, two cows, two hogs,
three lambs, nineteen hens, seven sheep, and, last of all, three
pocket knives valued at 37^/2 cents.42 Gradually, Brown be-
came well known as a winner of prizes for sheep and cattle
at the annual fairs of Summit County, and before his removal
-from Richfield to Akron, April 10, 1844, he had established
a tannery which, at the beginning of that year, was unable
to keep up with the business offered to it. This change of
residence was due to the establishment of a new business
partnership, the longest and the final one of John Brown's
career. It was, to quote him:43
" a copartnership with Simon Perkins, Jr., of Akron, with a view to
carry on the sheep business extensively. He is to furnish all the feed
and shelter for wintering, as a set-off against our taking all the care
of the flock. All other expenses we are to share equally, and to divide
the profits equally. This arrangement will reduce our cash rents at
least $250 yearly, and save our hiring help in haying. We expect
to keep the Captain Oviatt farm for pasturing, but my family will
go into a very good house belonging to Mr. Perkins, — say from a
half a mile to a mile out of Akron. I think this is the most com-
fortable and most favorable arrangement of my worldly concerns
that I ever had, and calculated to afford us more leisure for im-
provement, by day and by night, than any other. I do hope that
God has enabled us to make it in mercy to us, and not that he
should send leanness into our souls. . . . This, I think, will be con-
sidered no mean alliance for our family, and I most earnestly hope
they will have wisdom given to make the most of it. It is certainly
indorsing the poor bankrupt and his family, three of whom were
but recently in Akron jail, in a manner quite unexpected, and proves
that notwithstanding we have been a company of ' Belted Knights,'
our industrious and steady endeavors to maintain our integrity
and our character have not been wholly overlooked. Mr. Perkins
is perfectly advised of our poverty, and the times that have passed
over us."
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 35
John Brown was within bounds in thus exulting; the most
trying financial periods of his life were now behind him, even
though the Perkins partnership resulted eventually in severe
losses and dissolution. At least it was a connection with a
high-minded and prosperous man, and it lasted ten years.
When it was over, the partners were still friends, but Mr.
Perkins did not retain a high opinion of John Brown's ability
or sagacity as a business man.
It was a lovely neighborhood, this about Akron, to which
Brown now removed his family. They occupied a cottage
on what is still known as Perkins Hill, near Simon Perkins's
own home, with an extended and charming view over hill
and dale, — an ideal sheep country, and a location which
must have attracted any one save a predisposed wanderer.
Here the family life went on smoothly, though not without
its tragedies, notably the death of his daughter Amelia, acci-
dentally scalded to death through the carelessness of an elder
sister. This brought forth from the afflicted father, who was
absent in Springfield, the following letter:44
SPRINGFIELD 8th Nov 1846
Sabbath evening
MY DEAR AFFLICTED WIFE & CHILDREN
I yesterday at night returned after an absence of several days from
this place & am uterly unable to give any expression of my feelings
on hearing of the dreadful news contained in Owens letter of the
3Oth & Mr. Perkins of the 3ist Oct. I seem to be struck almost
dumb.
One more dear little feeble child I am to meet no more till the
dead small & great shall stand before God. This is a bitter cup
indeed, but blessed be God : a brighter day shall dawn ; & let us not
sorrow as those that have no hope. Oh that we that remain, had
wisdom wisely to consider ; & to keep in view our latter end. Divine
Providence seems to lay a heavy burden ; & responsibility on you
my dear Mary ; but I trust you will be enabled to bear it in some
measure as you ought. I exceedingly regret that I am unable to
return, & be present to share your trials with you : but anxious as I
am to be once more at home I do not feel at liberty to return yet.
I hope to be able to get away before verry long; but cannot say
when. I trust that none of you will feel disposed to cast an unrea-
sonable blame on my dear Ruth on account of the dreadful trial we
are called [to] suffer ; for if the want of proper care in each, & all of
us has not been attended with fatal consequenses it is no thanks
to us. If I had a right sence of my habitual neglect of my familys
36 JOHN BROWN
Eternal interests ; I should probably go crazy. I humbly hope this
dreadful afflictive Providence will lead us all more properly to ap-
preciate the amazeing, unforseen, untold, consequences; that hang
upon the right or wrong doing of things seemingly of trifling account.
Who can tell or comprehend the vast results for good, or for evil ;
that are to follow the saying of one little word. Evrything worthy
of being done at all ; is worthy of being done in good earnest, & in the
best possible manner. We are in midling health & expect to write
some of you again soon. Our warmest thanks to our kind friends
Mr. & Mrs. Perkins & family. From your affectionate husband, &
father
JOHN BROWN
While Brown's self-accusation of "habitual neglect" is
no more to be borne out than his father's charging himself
with a wasted life, it is true that some of his neighbors won-
dered that he did not give more time to his family. That
Akron home he ruled, as he did the later one at Springfield,
with iron firmness and complete mastery, and as long as the
children were with him they were under strict discipline,
although the cane figured now but little. This was a relief to
him as well as to his sons, for it is related of him that after
he had given only a certain part of some blows he meant to
bestow, he gave his whip to his son and bade him strike his
father.45 Yet he exacted loyalty of his children as he did
fealty from his animals. It is a widely believed story in Akron
to this day that John Brown once shot — to the horror of
the children — a valuable shepherd dog, because it was so
fond of the Perkins children as to be unwilling to stay at
home. It is similarly narrated that he compelled his wife to
ride to church with him on a pillion on a young and unbroken
horse he wished to tame, with the result that she was twice
thrown.46 One thing is beyond doubt: but little reference
to his children's schooling appears in his letters, if we except
those written to his daughter Ruth while she was away at
school. Only John Brown, Jr., obtained special educational
advantages.
While the family life flowed on in this wise, the aftermath
of its head's business failure remained to plague him in the
shape of many lawsuits. On the records of the Portage
County Court of Common Pleas at Ravenna, Ohio, are no
less than twenty-one lawsuits in which John Brown figured
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 37
as defendant during the years from 1820 to i845.47 Of these,
thirteen were actions brought to recover money loaned on
promissory notes either to Brown singly or in company with
others. The remaining suits were mostly for claims for wages
or payments due, or for non-fulfilment of contracts. Judg-
ment against Brown was once entered by his consent for a
nominal sum, and another case was an amicable suit in debt.
In ten other cases he was successfully sued and judgments
were obtained against him individually or jointly with others.
In three cases those who sued him were "non-suited" as
being without real cause for action, and two other cases were
settled out of court. Four cases Brown won, among them
being a suit for damages for false arrest and assault and bat-
tery, brought by an alleged horse-thief because Brown and
other citizens had aided a constable in arresting him. A num-
ber of these suits grew out of Brown's failure and his real
estate speculations. A serious litigation was an action brought
by the Bank of Wooster to recover on a bill of exchange drawn
by Brown and others on the Leather Manufacturers Bank of
New York, and repudiated by that institution on the ground
that Brown and his associates had no money in the bank.
During the suit the original amount claimed was rapidly re-
duced, and when the judgment against Brown and his associ-
ates was rendered, it was for $917.65. In June, 1842, Brown
was sued by Tertius Wadsworth and Joseph Wells, in partner-
ship with whom he had been buying and driving cattle to
Connecticut. In 1845, Daniel C. Gaylord, who several times
had sued Brown, succeeded in compelling Brown and his as-
sociates to convey to him certain Franklin lands which they
had contracted to sell, but the title for which they refused
to convey. The court upheld Gaylord's claim. The only case
in which Brown figured as plaintiff was settled out of court
in his favor.
But the most important suit of Brown's business life, and
the one which has been oftenest cited to injure his business
reputation, was a complicated one which grew out of one
of these Ravenna cases.48 On July n, 1836, he applied to
Heman Oviatt, Frederick Brown, Joshua Stow and three
brothers of the name of Wetmore, to become security for him
on a note to the Western Reserve Bank for $6000. The note
38 JOHN BROWN
not being paid, the bank sued and obtained judgment against
all of them in May, 1837, and on August 2, 1837, they all
gave their joint judgment bond to the bank, payable in sixty
days. This not being paid, the bank again sued, and, an
execution being issued, Heman Oviatt was compelled to pay
the bank in full. He then in turn sued John Brown and
his fellow endorsers. The litigation which followed was
greatly complicated by Brown's actions in connection with
a piece of property known as Westlands, for which he had at
first not the title, but a penal bond of conveyance. Brown
gave this bond to Oviatt as collateral for Oviatt's having en-
dorsed the judgment bond to the bank. When the deed for
the Westlands property was duly given to Brown, he recorded
it without notifying Oviatt of this action. Later, he mortgaged
this property to two men, again without the knowledge of
Heman Oviatt. Meanwhile Daniel C. Gaylord had recovered
judgment against Brown in another transaction, and to sat-
isfy it, caused the sale of Westlands by the sheriff. At John
Brown's request, Amos P. Chamberlain, heretofore a warm
friend and business associate of Brown's, bought in the pro-
perty at the sheriff's sale, doubtless with the idea that Brown
would presently find the money to buy it back for himself.
But as soon as Oviatt was compelled to pay off the judgment
bond at the Western Reserve Bank, he naturally wished to
reimburse himself by the penal bond of conveyance of West-
lands, which, he felt, gave him the title to the property. Find-
ing that, through the land transactions already related, the
penal bond had become valueless, he brought suit to have
the sale of Westlands to Chamberlain set aside as fraudulent.
The Supreme Court of Ohio held that Chamberlain had a
rightful title and dismissed the suit. John Brown himself was
not directly sued by Oviatt, being, to use a lawyer's term,
"legally safe" throughout the entire transaction. From the
point of view of probity and fair play he does not, however,
escape criticism. He was morally bound to reimburse those
who had aided him to obtain the money from the bank and
had suffered thereby. Even after this lapse of years, his action
in secretly recording the transfer of the land and then mort-
gaging it bears an unpleasant aspect. It is quite probable that
this complication was due to the great confusion of Brown's
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 39
affairs, and his own poor business head. Moreover, it may
well be that in due course Oviatt and the other securities
were repaid in full by Brown during his period of prosperity
with Mr. Perkins. Certainly, as already stated, Heman Oviatt
bore Brown no grudge in after years. On the other hand,
Brown may have taken advantage of the bankruptcy pro-
ceedings to escape liability for these debts.
The story of this case does not, however, end here. John
Brown refused for a time to give up Westlands to Amos Cham-
berlain, believing that he had the right to pasture his cattle
there temporarily, and still, apparently, thinking that Cham-
berlain had purchased the farm not for occupancy but for
the purpose of turning it back to him. After having repeat-
edly summoned Chamberlain for trespass on the land which
Chamberlain had actually purchased, John Brown and his
sons held a shanty on the place by force of arms until com-
pelled to desist by the arrival of the sheriff summoned by
Chamberlain. According to the Chamberlain family, John
Brown ordered his sons to shoot Chamberlain if he set foot
on the farm, — a statement vigorously denied by John Brown,
Jr. Jason Brown recollects that "father put us all in the
cabin on the farm with some old-fashioned muskets and we
stayed in it night and day. Then Mr. Chamberlain sued
father and sent a constable and his posse to drive us out.
We showed them our guns. Then he got the sheriff of Port-
age County to come out and arrest us. Of course we could
not resist the sheriff." Finally the sheriff arrested John Brown
and two sons, John and Owen, who were thereupon placed
in the Akron jail. Chamberlain, having destroyed the shanty
which Brown had occupied and obtained possession of the
land, allowed the case to drop, and Brown and his sons were
released.49
Fortunately for John Brown's side of the case, there has
just come to light a letter he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain in
order to prevent, if possible, the carrying on of a long litigation.
It records the spirit in which John Brown acted, and proves
him to have been sincerely of the opinion that he had been
gravely wronged, and that, in holding his farm as he did, Mr.
Chamberlain not only injured Brown, but also the latter's
innocent creditors. No one can maintain, after the perusal
40 JOHN BROWN
of this communication, that Brown was unreasoning in the
matter, or that he was deliberately trying to defraud a neigh-
bor of land righteously purchased. It is altogether likely that
if similar documents in regard to the other cases cited, which
appear, on the surface, to make against John Brown's probity,
could be found, these other entanglements would also be
susceptible of a far better interpretation. The letter to Mr.
Chamberlain, offering peace or arbitration before war, reads
as follows:50
HUDSON 27th April 1841
MR. AMOS CHAMBERLAIN
DEAR SIR
I was yesterday makeing preparation for the commencement
and vigorous prosecution of a tedious, distressing, wasteing, and
long protracted war, but after hearing by my son of some remarks
you made to him I am induced before I proceed any further in the
way of hostile preparation: to stop and make one more earnest
effort for Peace And let me begin by assureing you that notwith-
standing I feel myself to be deeply and sorely injured by you, (with-
out even the shadow of a provocation on my part to tempt you
to begin as you did last October;) I have no conciousness of wish
to injure either yourself or any of your family nor to interfere with
your happiness, no not even to value of one hair of your head. I
perfectly well remember the uniform good understanding and good
feeling which had ever (previous to last fall) existed between us
from our youth. I have not forgotten the days of cheerful labour
which we have performed together, nor the acts of mutual kindness
and accomodation which have passed between us. I can assure you
that I ever have been and still am your honest, hearty friend. I
have looked with sincere gratification uppon your steady growing
prosperity, and flattering prospects of your young family. I have
made your happiness and prosperity my own instead of feeling
envious at your success. When I antisipated a return to Hudson
with my family I expected great satisfaction from again haveing
you for a neighbour. This is true whatever you may think of me, or
whatever representation you may make of me to others. And now
I ask you why will you trample on the rights of your friend and of his
numerous family? Is it because he is poor? Why will you kneed -
lessly make yourself the means of depriveing all my honest creditors
of their Just due? Ought not my property if it must be sacrifised to
fall into the hands of honest and some of them poor and suffering
Creditors? Will God smile on the gains which you may acquire at
the expence of suffering families deprived of their honest dues? And
let me here ask Have you since you bid off that farm felt the same
inward peace and conciousness of right you had before felt? I do
not believe you have, and for this plain reason that you have been
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 41
industrious in circulateing evil reports of me (as I believe) in order to
prevent the community from enquiring into your motives and con-
duct. This is perfectly natural, and no new thing under the sun. If
it could be made to appear that Naboth the Jezreelite had blas-
phemed God and the King, then it would be perfectly right for Ahab
to possess his vineyard. So reasoned wicked men thousands of years
ago. I ask my old friend again is your path a path of peace ? does
it promise peace? I have two definite things to offer you once and
for all. One is that you take ample security of Seth Thompson for
what you have paid and for what you may have to pay (which
D. C. Gaylord has ever wickedly refused) and release my farm and
thereby provide for yourself an honorable and secure retreat out of
the strife and perplexity and restore you to peace with your friends
and with yourself. The other is that if you do not like that offer,
that you submit the matter to disinterested, discreet, and good men
to say what is just and honest between us.
You may ask why do not you go to Thompson for your relief. I
answer that I should do so at once, but I cannot recover anything of
Thompson but the face of the note and interest, nothing for all the
costs, and expences, and penalties and sacrifise of my property.
All Thompson is either morally or legally bound to pay is the note
and interest. He is an inocent and honest debtor and when in his low
state of health, and the extreme pressure he could not pay the money
promptly came forward [and] offered his land as security. That
security is still kept for the purpose, as I positively know any state-
ments to the contrary notwithstanding.
I now ask you to read this letter calmly, and patiently, and often,
and show it to your neighbours, and friends, such as Mr. Zina Post
and many other worthy men and advise with them before you at-
tempt to force your way any further. I ask you to make it your first
business and give me without delay your final determination in
regard to it.
Respectfully your friend
JOHN BROWN.
This appeal to reason and friendliness ought to have soft-
ened Mr. Chamberlain's heart. No one now knows just what
the result was; but since there is no evidence of a "tedious,
distressing, wasteing, and long protracted war" between the
neighbors, it is likely that it had its effect. At any rate, it
closes a chapter of John Brown's business life which, besides
occasioning him deep and poignant distress, left its marks
upon him. Had he not, however, been withal a strong, seri-
ous and fundamentally honest character, he must have been
completely wrecked upon the shoals out of which, with Mr.
Perkins's aid, he was now to find his way.
CHAPTER II
"HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT"
WHEN was it that John Brown, practical shepherd, tanner,
farmer, surveyor, cattle expert, real estate speculator and
wool-merchant, first conceived what he calls in his autobio-
graphy "his greatest or principal object" in life — the forci-
ble overthrow, of slavery in his native land? The question
is not an idle one, since the object adopted as the magnetic
needle to guide his destiny eventually resulted in the rousing
of a nation to its smallest hamlet, and beyond doubt pre-
cipitated the bloody civil war which others besides John
Brown clearly foresaw. The mystery of individuality does
not lose anything of its spell with the passage of time; in
the case of this strongly marked character, there is nothing
concerning it of greater interest than the transformation of
the simple guardian of flocks and tiller of the soil, Spartan
in his rugged simplicity of living, into an arch-plotter, a
man of many disguises, a belligerent pioneer, a fugitive be-
fore the law at one moment and an assailant of a sovereign
government in the next. Psychologists must find in such an
evolution of spirit a field for inquiry and speculation without
end. Why should one who so hated the profession of arms be
the first to take it up in order to free the slave from his chains?
What was there in the humdrum life of an Ohio farmer to
cause him to espouse the role of a border-chieftain in the
middle of the nineteenth century? From what midnight star
did this shepherd draw his inspiration to go forth and kill?
What was there in the process of tanning to make a man who
had never seen blood spilt in anger ready to blot out the lives
of other beings whose chief crime was that they differed with
him as to the righteousness of human bondage? Why should
the restless iron spirit of the Roundhead suddenly have mani-
fested itself in this prosaic seller of town lots when he had
spent more than five decades in peace and quiet? Doubtless
the answer to some of these questions must be left to the new
science which would plot and chart the soul, and measure to
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 43
the hundredth of a degree each quivering emotion. But the
historian may properly inquire when it was that the "greatest
or principal object" of this militant reformer's life first began
to manifest itself in his acts and deeds.
John Brown's horror of the South's "peculiar institution,"
as it affected individuals, we know to have come to him, as
the autobiography again testifies, at^ the age of twelve, when,
he says, he declared, or swore, "eternal war with slavery."
But the oaths of a lad of such tender years do not often be-
come the guiding force of maturity; in John Brown's case,
not even his constant friendliness to fugitive slaves permits
the assumption that early in his manhood he had definitely
resolved upon the plan of overthrowing slavery by men and
arms which he finally chose. Not until his thirty-fifth year
is there direct documentary evidence that his mind was espe-
cially concerning itself with the welfare of the black man in
bondage, — that is, to any greater extent than were the minds
and consciences of hundreds, if not thousands, of Ohio farmers
who were later among the strongest enemies of human bond-
age, and even then were dauntless station-masters and con-
ductors on the rapidly expanding Underground Railroad. In
November, 1834, when John Brown's stay in Pennsylvania
was actually within six months of its close, when he was,
however, apparently to remain in Richmond as a successful
tanner and farmer, he first expressed on paper a wish to aid
his fellow- Americans in chains. It is in the following epistle
to his brother Frederick, unstamped because it bears the
frank of John Brown, then still postmaster at Randolph, of
which Richmond was a part: l
RANDOLPH, Nov. 21, 1834.
DEAR BROTHER, — As I have had only one letter from Hudson
since you left here, and that some weeks since, I begin to get uneasy
and apprehensive that all is not well. I had satisfied my mind about
it for some time, in expectation of seeing father here, but I begin to
give that up for the present. Since you left here I have been trying
to devise some means whereby I might do something in a practical
way for my poor fellow-men who are in bondage, and having fully
consulted the feelings of my wife and my three boys, we have agreed
to get at least one negro boy or youthjlan^-britig him up-as_»te~€k>
our own, — viz., give him a goooTEhglish education, learn him what
'we can about the history of the world, about business, about general
44 JOHN BROWN
subjects, and, above all, try to teach him the fear of God. We think
of three ways to obtain one: First, to try to get some Christian
slave-holder to release one to us. Second, to get a free one if no one
will let us have one that is a slave. Third, if that does not succeed,
we have all agreed to submit to considerable privation in order to
buy one. This we are now using means in order to effect, in the con-
fident expectation that God is about to bring them all out of the
house of bondage.
I will just mention that when this subject was first introduced,
Jason had gone to bed ; but no sooner did he hear the thing hinted,
than his warm heart kindled, and he turned out to have a part in
the discussion of a subject of such exceeding interest. I have for
years been trying to devise some way to get a school a-going here
for blacks, -and I think that on many accounts it would be a most
favorable location. Children here would have no intercourse with
vicious people of their own kind, nor with openly vicious persons
of any kind. There would be no powerful opposition influence
against such a thing; and should there be any, I believe the settle-
ment might be so effected in future as to have almost the whole in-
fluence of the place in favor of such a school. Write me how you
would like to join me, and try to get on from Hudson and there-
abouts some firstrate abolitionist families with you. I do honestly
believe that our united exertions alone might soon, with the good
hand of our God upon us, effect it all.
This has been with me a favorite theme of reflection for years.
I think that a place which might be in some measure settled with
a view to such an object would be much more favorable to such
an undertaking than would any such place as Hudson, with all its
conflicting interests and feelings; and I do think such advantages
ought to be afforded the young blacks, whether they are all to be
immediately set free or not. Perhaps we might, under God, in
that way do more towards breaking their yoke effectually than
in any other. If the young blacks of our country could once be-
come enlightened, it would most assuredly operate on slavery like
firing powder confined in rock, and all slaveholders know it well.
Witness their heaven-daring laws against teaching blacks. If once
the Christians in the free States would set to work in earnest in
teaching the blacks, the people of the slaveholding States would
find themselves constitutionally driven to set about the work of
emancipation immediately. The laws of this State are now such
that the inhabitants of any township may raise by a tax in aid of
the State school-fund any amount of money they may choose by
a vote, for the purpose of common schools, which any child may
have access to by application. If you will join me in this under-
taking, I will make with you any arrangement of our temporal
concerns that shall be fair. Our health is good, and our prospects
about business rather brightening.
Affectionately yours, JOHN BROWN.
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 45
It will be noticed, as has heretofore been pointed out,2 that
there is here a total absence of any belligerent intention
on the writer's part; he who afterwards became disgusted
with the Abolitionists because their propaganda involved talk
alone, and no violent physical action against slavery, was
planning, when nearly thirty-five, nothing more startling than
a school for blacks, confident in the belief that their educa-
tion in the North would shatter the whole system of slavery in
the South, and turning for aid exclusively to friends in his
former Ohio home. Again, he shows no knowledge of the pre-
judice in the North against teaching blacks which had resulted
in his native State in the suppression of schools for them in
New Haven in 1831, and in Canterbury in 1834. Throughout
his correspondence of these years, and later, there is little
to indicate that Brown was in touch with much of what was
going on in the nation. Indeed, as late as June 22, 1844, he
wrote to his family, "I am extremely ignorant at present of
miscellaneous subjects."3 It is the recollection of the family,
however, that before this time they were called upon by their
father to take a solemn oath to do all in their power to abolish
slavery, after hearing from him of his purpose of attacking
the institution. Jason Brown fixes the date of this event at
1839, the place as Franklin, and those who were party to it
as Mrs. Brown, a colored preacher, Fayette by name, and
the three sons, John, Jr., Jason and Owen. He specifies merely
that they were sworn "to do all in their power to abolish
slavery," and does not use the word " force." John Brown, Jr.,
writing to F. B. Sanborn in December, 1890, thus expressed
his opinion : 4
"It is, of course, impossible for me to say when such idea and
plan first entered his [John Brown's] mind and became a purpose;
but I can say with certainty that he first informed his family that
he entertained such purpose while we were yet living in Franklin,
O. (now called Kent), and before he went to Virginia, in 1840, to
survey the lands which had been donated by Arthur Tappan to
Oberlin College; and this was certainly as early as 1839. The place
and the circumstances where he first informed us of that purpose
are as perfectly in my memory as any other event in my life. Fa-
ther, mother, Jason, Owen and I were, late in the evening, seated
around the fire in the open fire-place of the kitchen, in the old
Haymaker house where we then lived ; and there he first informed
46 JOHN BROWN
us of his determination to make war on slavery — not such war as
Mr. Garrison* informs us 'was equally the purpose of the non-
resistant abolitionists,' but war by force and arms. He said that
he had long entertained such a purpose — that he believed it his
duty to devote his life, if need be, to this object, which he made us
fully to understand. After spending considerable time in setting
forth in most impressive language the hopeless condition of the
slave, he asked who of us were willing to make common cause with
him in doing all in our power to 'break the jaws of the wicked and
pluck the spoil out of his teeth,' naming each of us in succession,
Are you, Mary, John, Jason, and Owen? Receiving an affirmative
answer from each, he kneeled in prayer, and all did the same. This
posture in prayer impressed me greatly as it was the first time I
had ever known him to assume it. After prayer he asked us to raise
our right hands, and he then administered to us an oath, the exact
terms of which I cannot recall, but in substance it bound us to
secrecy and devotion to the purpose of fighting slavery by force
and arms to the extent of our ability. According to Jason's recol-
lections, Mr. Fayette, a colored theological student at Western
Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio, was with us at the time but of this
I am not certain."
It must be noted here that in this letter John Brown, Jr.,
gives the date of the oath as 1839; in his lengthy affidavit in
the case of Gerrit Smith against the Chicago Tribune, he
gave the date as 1836, three years earlier, and in an account
given in Mr. Sanborn's book he placed it at 1837; three dis-
tinct times for the same event. It can, therefore, best be
stated as occurring before i84O.5 At this time, John Brown,
Jr., was in his nineteenth year, Jason about sixteen years
old, and Owen between fourteen and fifteen. The only tes-
timony as to an early project akin to that of the final raid,
available from any one else outside the family, is that of
George B. Delamater,6 who says, "Having spent several days
and nights with Old John Brown at various times between
1840 and 1844, I enjoyed his society and was made acquainted
with his views in regard to American slavery and its rela-
tions at that time from various standpoints, and also with
the scheme which he had under consideration for freeing
persons held in bondage." Mr. Delamater at this period was
a mere stripling; it is an interesting contrast to his recollec-
tions that Mr. Foreman, in his long account of John Brown's
* Wendell Phillips Garrison, in The Preludes of Harper's Ferry.
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 47
stay at Richmond from 1825 to 1835, makes no mention of
having heard of any deliberate project; yet he was much
older and more intimate with Brown than was Mr. Delamater,
who, in this earlier Richmond period, was only a school-boy.
That the subject was undoubtedly much in his mind prior
to this appears again from an anecdote related by General
Henry B. Carrington, and placed by him in the year 1836,
although probably occurring in 1838, when there is the first
definite record of John Brown's having been in Connecticut
after his school days. General Carrington thus tells this inci-
dent of his boyhood:7
"When I was a boy and went to school in Torrington, there came
into the school room one day a tall man, rather slender, with gray-
ish hair, who said to the boys : ' I want to ask you some questions
in geography. Where is Africa?' 'It is on the other side of the
ocean, of course, 'said a boy. 'Why "of course," ' asked the man.
The boy could n't say why 'of course.' Then the man proceeded to
tell them something about Africa and the negroes, and the evil of
the slave trade, and the wrongs and sufferings of the slaves, and
then said, 'How many of you boys will agree to use your influence,
whatever it may be, against this great curse, when you grow up?'
They held up their hands. He then said that he was afraid that
some of them might forget it, and added, 'Now I want those who
are quite sure that they will not forget it, who will promise to use
their time and influence toward resisting this evil, to rise.' Another
boy and I stood up. Then this man put his hands on our heads
and said, 'Now may my Father in Heaven, who is your Father, and
who is the Father of the African; and Christ, who is my Master
and Saviour, and your Master and Saviour, and the Master and
Saviour of the African; and the Holy Spirit, which gives me strength
and comfort, when I need it, and will give you strength and com-
fort when you need it, and which gives strength and comfort to
the African, enable you to keep this resolution which you have
now taken.' And that man was John Brown."
Most important after that of the Brown family is the tes-
timony of Frederick Douglass, the colored leader, who states
in his autobiography 8 that Brown confided the Virginia plan
to him, without specifying Harper's Ferry or speaking of the
arsenal, "about the time" he began his newspaper enterprise
in Rochester in 1847, and among other details added that
Brown explained his frugal manner of living by his wish to
lay by money for this abolition project. Frederick Douglass
JOHN BROWN
visited Brown in his home in Springfield on this occasion.
" From this night spent with John Brown," said Mr. Douglass,
"... while I continued to write and speak against slavery,
I became all the same less hopeful of its peaceful abolition.
My utterances became more and more tinged by the color
of this man's strong impressions. Speaking at an anti-slavery
convention in Salem, Ohio, I expressed the apprehension that
slavery could only be destroyed by blood-shed, when I was
suddenly and sharply interrupted by my good old friend
Sojourner Truth with the question, ' Frederick, is God deadZl
'No/ I answered, 'and because God is not dead, slavery can
only end in blood.' '
If this testimony seems to show that the plan of using force
was then, in i8d7. taking shape in Brown's mind, — it may
have been delayed in coming to earlier maturity by his bank-
ruptcy and financial distress, — there is nothing in John
Brown's letters or diary to indicate so early an all-ruling
plan of applying force to slavery as John Brown, Jr., records.
It is said that his father first conceived the idea of using the
Allegheny Mountains as the scene for an armed attack on
slavery, and a means of running off freed slaves to the North,
when he surveyed the Oberlin lands.9 But his letter to his
family from Ripley, Virginia, April 27, 1840, 10 already cited,
is peaceable enough, and his hope of settling his family there
is hardly consistent with his anti-slavery policy of later years.
Indeed, while recording his pleasure that the residents of the
vicinity were more attractive people than he had thought,
he had nothing to say about the institution of slavery which
he then, for the first time, really beheld at close range. So
far as the evidence of contemporary documents goes, until
1840, at least, there is nothing to show that there was any-
thing more than a family agreement to oppose slavery, with-
out specification as to the precise method of assault.
The transformation of the peaceful tanner and shepherd
into a man burning to use arms upon an institution which
refused to yield to peaceful agitation would seem to have
taken place in the latter part of his fourth decade, as Mr.
Douglass testified. Gradually his plan took final shape. There
was nothing in the surroundings of pastoral Richfield or
Akron to suggest narrow defiles and mountainous passes
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 49
teeming with sharpshooters. But, little by little, visions of
this kind came into Brown's brain more and more as the years
passed, until in the early fifties his plan was clear to him in
its outlines, much as actually put into execution. Thejsalient
idea was. that mountains had throughout history Been the
means of enabling a few brave souls, whether gladiators, or
slaves, or free men, Swiss, Italians, or Spaniards, or Circas-
sians, to defy and sometimes to defeat armies of their op-
pressors. Into the mountain fastnesses regular troops pene-
trated, it was thought, with difficulty, and the ranges them-
selves afforded an easy line of communication even through
a wholly hostile country. Moreover, mountains were just
the place to assemble bondmen and to give them arms with
which to fight for liberty. For the project was now far dif-
ferent from that John Brown described to his brother in 1834;
slavery, it appeared, was, after all, not to be undone by edu-
cating the negroes already freed, but by the sword of Gideon
and a band as carefully chosen as was his. Gradually the
practical shepherd felt his blood stirring within him, but not
until after removal to Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1846,
when he had the opportunity to come into closer knowledge
of the militant Boston Abolitionists, is there written evi-
dence of this. He had seen the Liberator in his father's home,
for Owen Brown early became a subscriber to this and other
vigorous anti-slavery journals. John Brown's children also
remember to have received the Liberator in Ohio, when it
was still a youthful publication,11 and later in North Elba.
The Tribune, too, as it attained fame under Greeley, was as
welcome a visitor to this home as to so many thousands of
others. Its approval of the doctrine of opposing slavery with
Sharp's rifles commended it particularly in the Kansas days
to John Brown, who was by nature unable to sympathize
with the Garrisonian doctrine of non-resistance to force,
although there are some who would believe Brown to have
been a non-resistant as late as 1830. They cite in support
of their contention a garbled anecdote, according to which
he permitted himself to be cowhided without resisting his
assailant's fury.12 Brown's residence in Springfield gave him
the opportunity not only to attend anti-slavery meetings,
but also to meet many colored people; in the first written
50 JOHN BROWN
evidence of his growing aggressiveness towards slavery there
is reference to enlightenment at the hands of Abby Kelley
Foster,* Garrison "and other really benevolent persons."
This curious production of Brown's bespeaks the influence
upon him of Franklin's writings; throughout, it is an admo-
nition to the negroes to avoid their besetting sins, an incen-
tive to thrift, frugality and solidarity, and it is written as if
from the pen of a black man, Sambo. Contributed in 1848
or 1849 to a little-known Abolition newspaper, The Ram's
Horn, published and edited by colored men in New York,
this essay denounces the negroes for their supineness in the
face of wrong, instead of their "nobly resisting" brutal ag-
gressions.f
But for all its denunciation of the negro's "tamely sub-
mitting to every species of indignity, contempt and wrong,"
it cannot be maintained that this satirical article indicated
that Brown had gone very far along the path toward an armed
attack on slavery, although started in that direction. Nor
does it appear from this that he had as yet reached the
conclusion that the New England Abolitionists were to be
shunned because they were all talk. In 1851, however, the
policy of armed resistance becomes much more clearly de-
veloped; the man of war is now emerging from the chrysalis
of peace. On January 15 of that year there was organized in
Springfield a branch of the United States League of Gilead-
ites — the first and apparently the only one. It was Brown's
idea; he chose the title, and it was his first effort to^>rganize
the colored people to defend themselves and advance Uieir
interests. It was a practical application of the teachings ~of-
Sambo, and was inspired by the passage of the Fugitive
Slave Law, which made legal in the North the rendition of
negroes who had found their way to free States. The "Words
of Advice" for the Gileadites, "as written and recommended
by John Brown" and adopted as the principles of the new
organization, begin with the motto "Union is Strength,"
* "John Brown was strong for women's rights and women's suffrage. He
always went to hear Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelley Foster, even though it cost
him considerable effort to reach the place where they spoke." — Annie Brown
Adams.
t See Appendix.
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 51
and declare in the first sentence that "Nothing so charms
the American people as personal bravery."13 The object of
the Gileadites was not, however, to attack slavery on its
own territory, but to band the colored people together to re-
sist slave- catchers and make impossible the returning to the
South of a fugitive who had reached Northern soil. Brown
wrote:
"No jury can be found in the Northern States, that would con-
vict a man for defending his rights to the last extremity. This is
well understood by Southern Congressmen, who insisted that the
right of trial by jury should not be granted to the fugitive. Col-
ored people have more fast friends amongst the whites than they
suppose. . . . Just think of the money expended by individuals
in your behalf in the past twenty years! Think of the number
who have been mobbed and imprisoned on your account. Have
any of you seen the Branded Hand ? Do you remember the names of
Love joy and Torrey? Should one of your number be arrested, you
must collect together as quickly as possible so as to outnumber your
adversaries who are taking an active part against you. Let__np~
able-bodied man appear on the ground,,,un.equipped, or with, his
weapons exposed" to view; let that be understood beforehand. Your
plans must be known only to yourself, and withftKe understanding
that all traitors must die, wherever caught and proven to be guilty.
'Whosoever is fearful or afraid, let him return and depart early
from Mount Gilead.' (Judges, VII chap., 3 verse; Deut. XX Chap.
8 verse.) Give all cowards an opportunity to show it on condi-
tion of holding their peace. Do not delay one moment after you
are ready; you will lose all your resolution if you do. Let the first
blow be the signal for all to engage; and when engaged do not do
your work by halves; but make clean work with your enemies,
and be sure you meddle not with any others . . . Your enemies
will be slow to attack you after you have once done up the work
nicely. . . ."
All this has the characteristic ring of John Brown the
Kansas fighter, particularly the admonition to make "clean
work with your enemies." Here is the stern Puritan parent,
intolerant of childish fault, developed into a man urging not
only shedding the blood of one's enemies, but the making of
"clean work" of it, much as pirate captains advocated the
walking of the plank as a sanitarily satisfactory way of dis-
posing of one's captives. This advice, as will be seen later in
this narrative, recurs frequently in the days when the Round-
head was in the field at work. Certainly, when engaged,
52 JOHN BROWN
he always lived up to his doctrine of going at once to close
quarters with his enemy, after the manner of John Paul Jones.
The transformation of the practical shepherd was thus coming
on apace.
Characteristic, too, is Brown's suggestion in the "Words
of Advice," that a lasso might be "applied to a slave-catcher
for once with good effect." "Stand by one another, and by
your friends, while a drop of blood remains; and be hanged,
if you must, but tell no tales out of school," — this is another
solemn admonition which smacks of the Spanish Main, yet
accurately foreshadows his own conduct when overcome by
his enemies. Original is the hint to the colored people to
embroil their white friends in the event of trouble: "After
effecting a rescue, if you are assailed, go into the houses of
your most prominent and influential white friends with your
wives, and that will effectually fasten upon them the suspi-
cion of being connected with you, and will compel them to
make a common cause with you, whether they would other-
wise live up to their profession or not. This would leave them
no choice in the matter." These "Words of Advice" were
followed by an agreement and nine resolutions which practi-
cally restate the agreement. This was signed by forty-four
colored men and women of Springfield. It is typical of other
documents John Brown drew up on, to him, serious occa-
sions, and is in his best style : u
AGREEMENT
As citizens of the United States of America, trusting in a just
and merciful God, whose spirit and all-powerful aid we humbly
implore, we will ever be true to the flag of our beloved country,
always acting under it. We, whose names are hereunto affixed,
do constitute ourselves a branch of the United States League of
Gileadites. We will provide ourselves at once with suitable imple-
ments, and will aid those who do not possess the means, if any
such are disposed to join us. We invite every colored person whose
heart is engaged for the performance of our business, whether male
or female, old or young. The duty of the aged, infirm, and young
members of the League shall be to give instant notice to all mem-
bers in case of an attack upon any of our people. We agree to
have no officers except a Treasurer and Secretary pro tern., until
after some trial of courage and talent of able-bodied members shall
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 53
enable us to elect officers from those who shall have rendered the
most important services. Nothing but wisdom and undaunted cour-
age, efficiency, and general good conduct shall in anyway influence
us in electing our officers.
It is not of record that any members of the Gileadites
actually took a hand in a slave-rescue "with suitable imple-
ments." There is, on the other hand, no doubt that the de-
termined Springfield wool-merchant, in drafting these reso-
lutions in his fifty-first year, meant them to contain advice
which may briefly be summed up as forcible resistance to the
officers of the law, and an admonition to shoot to kill on all
such occasions. As long as he was in Springfield, John Brown
continued to concern himself with these colored friends. On
November 28, 1850, just before he organized the Gileadites,
he wrote to his wife: 15 "I of course keep encouraging my
colored friends to 'trust in God and keep their powder dry.'
I did so today, "at Thanksgiving meeting, publicly."
From the Gileadites to plans for guerrilla warfare was an
easy step. In his second memorandum- book, preserved in the
Boston Public Library, there is an entry which was probably
recorded early in 1855. It reads thus:
"Circassia has about 550,000
Switzerland 2,037,030
Guerilla warfare see Life of Lord Wellington Page 71 to Page 75
(Mina). See also Page 102 some valuable hints in same Book. See
also Page 196 some most important instructions to officers. See
also same Book Page 235 these words Deep and narrow defiles
where 300 men would suffice to check an army. See also Page 236
on top of Page."
The book in question is Joachim Hayward Stocqueler's
two- volume 'Life of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington,'
published in London in 1852, and the activity of the Spanish
guerrillas under their able leader Mina was what attracted
Brown's attention. The "most important instructions to
officers" related to discipline and cooking, and page 235 fur-
nished a description of the mountainous and broken topogra-
phy of Spain. Directly opposite the entry quoted above is a
list of Southern towns, with four Pennsylvania cities mixed in,
as if Brown were considering such strategic points as Little
Rock, Arkansas; Charleston, South Carolina; San Antonio,
54 JOHN BROWN
Texas; St. Louis, Missouri; Augusta, Georgia, and others, in
an elaborate plan -for assailing the slave-power and running
off its much cherished property. Some Ohio friends of Brown,
Colonel Daniel Woodruff, an officer of the War of 1812, his
son-in-law, Mr. Henry Myers and his daughter, according to
the recollections of the two latter (Colonel Woodruff having
died soon after), learned from John Brown the details of his
Virginia plan as early as the late fall of 1854 or the beginning
of 1855. 16 According to Mr. Myers, who heard the discussion
between John Brown and his father-in-law, the former's ob-
ject in visiting Colonel Woodruff was to persuade him to join
in a raid on Harper's Ferry, to take place at that time, if
it could be organized. He had seen active military service,
and Brown wanted the aid of his practical experience. Dur-
ing his stay, which he spent in urgent endeavor to persuade
Colonel Woodruff, Brown detailed his whole scheme, so that
all the Woodruff household came to understand it. He spoke
of the evil days in Kansas, then existing, and he wished to
relieve Kansas and to retaliate by striking at another point.
He wanted to attack the arsenal at Harper's Ferry: first, to
frighten Virginia and detach it from the slave interest; second,
to capture the rifles to arm the slaves; and third, to destroy
the arsenal machinery, so that it could not be used to turn
out more arms for the perhaps long guerrilla war that might
follow; and to destroy whatever guns were already store^T
there that he could not carry away.
That this revelation of his plan is not improbable appears
from other testimony. In August, 1854, John Brown wrote
to his sons, who were then planning to combat slavery by
settling in Kansas as Free State men, that he could not join
them because he felt a call to duty in another section of the
country. 1T Evidently, the practical shepherd now clearly real-
ized what was his greatest object in life and was devoting
himself to it. His daughter, Annie Brown Adams, says that
she first learned the plan of the raid the winter she was eleven
years old (in 1854) ; and then she heard of it as to take place
at Harper's Ferry.18 Later, in hearing other people's stories,
she found other places mentioned. Salmon explained this to
her by saying that their father several times changed his
plans, and that he had spoken of them to various other people
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 55
at these different times. "I think I may say," writes Mrs.
Adams, "without any intention of boasting, that I knew
more about his plans than anyone else, or at least anyone
else who 'survived to tell the tale.' He always talked freely
to me of his plans, from the time he first explained them to
me, the winter before he went to Kansas, when I was eleven
years old. He would say as if for a sort of apology to himself,
perhaps, 'I know I can trust you. You never tell anything
you are told not to,' after talking with me of his affairs."
During all the North Elba period from 1849 to 1851, so
Miss Sarah Brown thinks, she and all the children knew
that a blow was to be struck at Harper's Ferry. She clearly
remembers how, when Harper's Ferry came into the lesson
at school, her heart hammered and she shivered as with cold.
Yet she cannot recall that any of them were ever cautioned
to keep silence as to this. She thinks they all understood
the necessity of secrecy as to all their father's plans so well,
that warnings were known to be superfluous. She clearly
recalls standing behind her father's chair and watching him
draw diagrams of log forts, explaining how the logs were to be
laid, how the roofs were to be made, and how trees were to
be felled without, and laid as obstacles to attacking parties.
This was to be in the mountains near Harper's Ferry, and her
father was making the pictures and explaining his plans to one
Epps, a negro neighbor, who was looking on, and whom her
father was endeavoring — vainly — to induce to join the raid-
ers. Her father was so ready to trust others with his plans, with
sublime faith in their ability to keep a secret, that his visit
to Colonel Woodruff would have been entirely in keeping. It
is related, too, that he confided in Thomas Thomas, a negro
porter in the employ of Perkins & Brown in Springfield,
soon after his arrival there in i846,19 but there is no direct
confirmatory evidence of his having laid his plan before some
of the Gileadites. Thomas Thomas took no active interest in
Brown's plans, being neither conspicuous in the League, nor
a member of his employer's Chatham convention in 1858,
preceding the raid on Harper's Ferry.
As to the purposes behind the plan and the objects to be
obtained, it is probable that they may have varied as the
years passed, precisely as did the details of the programme
56 JOHN BROWN
and the actual place of starting his revolt. Thus, while he
first thought of Harper's Ferry, as Mrs. Annie Brown Adams
testifies, 20 other places were at times discussed ; even up to the
raid, it was thought by some of the Boston backers of Brown
that the place of striking the first blow would be some other
locality than Harper's Ferry,21 which, by its nearness to the
capital of the nation and its being on a railroad, was ren-
dered much less desirable for the purpose in hand than some
place nearer the Ohio boundary. So, too, the prime object
was at one time the terrorizing of the slaveholders and the
making of slaveholding less profitable, by reducing the value
of slaves along the border. Not until later was there thought
out a plan for capturing, controlling and governing a whole
section of the United States. Again, in the Kansas years, a
prime motive was to relieve the pro-slavery pressure upon
Kansas by attacking slavery elsewhere. At one time, as his
son Salmon points out, John Brown hoped to force a settle-
ment of the slavery question by embroiling both sections.
This was in line with his whole Kansas policy of inducing a
settlement by bringing armed pro-slavery and Free State forces
to close quarters, and letting them fight it out. After the
Kansas episode, John Brown planned agitation for the pur-
pose of setting the South afire. The Southern leaders in Con-
gress having continually threatened secession, John Brown
hoped to help them carry out their threat or force* them into
it, saying that the "North would then whip the South back
into the Union without slavery." Salmon Brown declares
that he heard his father and John Brown, Jr., discuss this by
the hour, and insists that "the Harper's Ferry raidjiad^that
idea behind it far more than any- ,o ther^ "_ ,tbe hi ogra rrtiersjjf
his father having failed heretofore to bring out this centraT
far-reaching idea to the extent it merits.22 But the main
motive was, after all, to come to close quarters with slavery,
and to try force where argument and peaceful agitation had
theretofore failed to break the slaves' chains. And so, shortly
before he reached the age of fifty, this unknown and incon-
spicuous wool-merchant and cattle-raiser had fully resolved
to be the David to the Goliath of slavery. He entertained
no doubt that he could accomplish that end, if he could but
command the funds necessary for the purchase of arms.
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 57
While all this metamorphosis of the man was going on,
John Brown's new business venture had really brought him
into smoother waters, even though it was not destined to be
lasting or a financial success. After tending the Perkins flocks
for two years, it was decided to establish a headquarters in
Massachusetts for the sale of the wool, and there followed
the residence in Springfield which meant so much for Brown's
development. It was in 1846 that he opened the office, and
the next year his family joined him there. Frederick Douglass,
after seeing the fine store of Perkins & Brown, was prepared
to find Brown's residence in Springfield similarly impressive.
"In fact," he wrote,23 "the house was neither commodious
nor elegant, nor its situation desirable. It was a small wooden
building, on a back street, in a neighborhood chiefly occupied
by laboring men and mechanics; respectable enough to be
sure, but not quite the place, I thought, where one would look
for the residence of a flourishing and successful merchant.
Plain as was the outside of this man's house, the inside was
plainer. Its furniture would have satisfied a Spartan. . . .
There was an air of plainness about it [the house] which almost
suggested destitution." The meal was "such as a man might
relish after following the plow all day, or performing a forced
march of a dozen miles over a rough road in frosty weather."
Everything in the home implied to Mr. Douglass "stern
truth, solid purpose, and rigid economy." "I was not long,"
he added, "in company with the master of this house before
I discovered that he was, indeed, the master of it, and was
likely to become mine too if I stayed long enough with him.
He fulfilled St. Paul's idea of the head of the family. His wife
believed in him, and his children observed him with reverence.
Whenever he spoke his words commanded earnest attention.
. . . Certainly I never felt myself in the presence of a stronger
religious influence than while in this man's house."
As for John Brown the man, he was then in his forty-eighth
year, without the stoop that a few years later made him seem
prematurely old. His attire, however simple, was always neat
and of good materials; in Ohio, the testimony is, he dressed
like a substantial farmer in the woolen suits of the time and
wore cowhide boots. Physically strong and sinewy, he was
not five feet eleven in height, with a disproportionately small
58 JOHN BROWN
head, an inflexible and stern mouth and a prominent chin.
His hair, already tinged with gray, was closely trimmed and
grew well over his forehead. But his bluish gray eyes were
what held and won people; they fairly shone when he talked.
Mr. Douglass remembers that they were "full of light and
fire." 24 His nose was somewhat prominent and of what is
known as the Roman type. With all, the face was vigorous,
shrewd and impressive. Once a visitor to the North Elba
homestead remarked to a family group: "I think your father
looks like an eagle." " Yes," replied Watson Brown, "or some
other carnivorous bird." 25 But the comparison was not meant
to be unflattering; it was the keenness of the eagle's looks,
the sharp watchfulness of his glance, even with half-shut eyes,
that suggested the comparison. On the prairies, those who
rode with John Brown were struck with the range and the
alertness of his vision, from which nothing escaped, while
those who saw him in the cities noticed the long springing
step and apparent deep absorption in his own reflections.
Yet all agreed upon the impressiveness of John Brown's bear-
ing; even in later years, when his appearance was so rural as
to attract attention on the streets of Boston, the earnestness
of his face and the vigor of his form prevented any disposition
to ridicule.
The object of the establishment of Perkins & Brown's
office in Springfield was to classify wools for wooT:grower^7in
order that they might thus obtain a better value for their
product than had been the case up to that time, and to
sell it on a commission of two cents per pound.26 Having
warehouses, Perkins & Brown received large shipments of
wool from farmers known to them, and then by carefully
sorting the fleeces were able to approach manufacturers of
cashmere, broadcloth, jeans or satinette, with the wools of the
grade they desired. In the first Springfield letter- book of
the firm, into which were laboriously copied in long-hand all
its letters,27 the first epistle bears the date of June 23, 1846,
and is a tribute to John Brown's probity in that it notifies
Mr. Marvin Kent that, if he should send wool to the firm to
sell, the amount of the commissions earned would be used to
liquidate John Brown's old debts to himself and his father.
The times were not, however, propitious for the new enter-
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 59
prise. The Walker tariff was just being passed by Congress, and
the war with Mexico was on. The legislative uncertainty made
the wool market dull and unstable, and when the Walker bill
was signed, the price of Saxony wool, in which Perkins &
Brown were especially interested, dropped from seventy-five to
twenty-five cents. Perkins & Brown were, however, able to
start off by selling the splendid wool of their own flocks for the
good price of sixty-nine cents, and early in July, in a letter in
Brown's handwriting, they asserted that "we receive at this
place more of the first class of American wools than any other
house in the country." 28 Many of the firm's letters are in
the handwriting of John Brown, Jr., who, having finished
an excellent schooling and being ready for business life, be-
came a clerk in the Springfield office, in which Jason Brown
also served. By August 26, John Brown was able to report,
cheerfully, to the senior partner in Ohio, as follows:29 "We
are getting in wool rapidly, generally from 50 to 80 bales per
day. We are selling a little and have very frequent calls from
manufacturers. Musgrave paid up our note at the Agawam
[bank] yesterday so that I now have our name clear of any
paper in this country. . . . We have had a big wool-growers
meeting at Springfield; Bishop Campbell presiding, in refer-
ence to sending wool hereafter to Europe."
This project of exporting wool to England and the Conti-
nent deeply interested Brown from the beginning of his
Springfield residence, particularly as he found himself, in the
fall of 1846, loaded up with other people's wool, unable to sell
it for them at fair figures, and quite unwilling to sacrifice it
at forced sales. On November 27, 1846, he wrote to a client30
that he would have gone across the Atlantic with a quan-
tity of wool save for unforeseen hindrances. He had sent to
England in 1845, from Ohio, some fleeces "which received
unqualified praise both for condition and quality," and, as he
said in this letter, the firm was bent on encouraging exporta-
tion "and in giving character to American wools in Europe."
Indeed, the sale of their higher grades of wool to an English-
man for export on December 21, 1846, was all that saved
Perkins & Brown from a disastrous ending to their first
season's business. They were being hard pushed by those who
had sent the wool and were in need of money, and who could
60 JOHN BROWN
not understand why the firm had not been able to sell a single
pound of fine wool from July to December. Moreover, some
customers had just grievances, for the letter-book contains far
too many apologies for failure to acknowledge letters and
shipments and to make out accurate accounts, for so young
a firm. To one of the protestants, John Brown explained the
situation thus: 31
" We have at last found out that some of the principal manu-
facturers are leagued together to break us down, as we have offered
them wool at their own price & they refuse to buy. . . . We hope
every wool-grower in the country will be at Steubenville [Ohio]
2d Wednesday of Feb'y next, to hear statements about the wool
trade of a most interesting character. There is no difficulty in the
matter as we shall be abundantly able to show, if the farmers will
only be true to themselves. . . . Matters of more importance to
farmers will then be laid open, than what kind of Tarriff we are to
have. No sacrifise kneed be made, the only thing wanted is to get
the broad shouldered, & hard handed farmers to understand how
they have been imposed upon, & the whole matter will be cured
effectually."
At this convention Brown made his peace with the Ohio
wool-growers who had shipped to him, but he did not find a
means of checkmating the cloth manufacturers. He read to
the convention a report on the best mode of making wools
ready for market and kindred subjects. It was resolved that
better care should be taken in preparing and washing the
wools, that commission-house depots be appointed, East and
West, for the sale of wools, Perkins & Brown to be the East-
ern house, and a committee of five, of which John Brown was
one, was appointed to obtain a foreign market for American
wools.32 The wicked manufacturers continued, however, to
make trouble for the wool-growers and the commission house
of Perkins & Brown, whose eventual retirement from the
wool business is still laid at their doors. They did not wish
the wool-growers to organize and unite ; but in all fairness to
the manufacturers, the final failure should as well be shared
by Perkins & Brown themselves.33 For, though the Spring-
field business continued in 1848 and 1849, as time passed it
was evident that John Brown, wholly lacking as he was in a
merchant's training, was not fitted for the work. He did not
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 61
know how to trade, being far too rigid in his prices. He waited
to make them until he had all his wool sorted ; then, when
the prices were finally fixed, the manufacturers had bought
elsewhere. It is related 34 that John Brown once declined
sixty cents a pound for the firm's own splendid Saxony fleeces
and insisted on shipping them to England for sale. The North-
ampton, Massachusetts, manufacturer who made the offer
bought this shipment in England, had it returned to Spring-
field, and showed it in triumph to John Brown as having cost
him in freight and all only fifty-two cents a pound, eight cents
less than he had first offered for it. Brown had apparently
put no restriction of price upon his London agent.
The idea of checkmating the manufacturers by sales abroad
continued to engross Brown, and he was finally able to carry
out his idea of a trip taJEuropeJinj^49. He sailed August 15,
1849, by the steamer CamBHaTarriving in London on the 27th,
on a journey which afterwards played a great part in his dis-
cussions of his military plans, for, aside from his business ven-
ture, he was by this time particularly anxious to study some
European fortifications. Finding on his arrival in London that
no sales could be effected until the middle of September, he
left for Paris on the 29th of August. Some of his first impres-
sions of England are thus set down in a letter to his son : 35
"England is a fine country, so far as I have seen; but nothing
so very wonderful has yet appeared to me. Their farming and
stone-masonry are very good ; cattle, generally more than middling
good. Horses, as seen at Liverpool and London, and through the
fine country betwixt these places, will bear no comparison with
those of our Northern states, as they average. I am here told that
I must go to the Park to see the fine horses of England, and I sup-
pose I must ; for the streets of London and Liverpool do not ex-
hibit half the display of fine horses as do those of our cities. But
what I judge from more than anything is the numerous breeding
mares and colts among the growers. Their hogs are generally good,
and mutton-sheep are almost everywhere as fat as pork."
Of the people and their institutions John Brown recorded
no impressions in the letters of this period now extant. Nor
is his entire Continental itinerary known. According to care-
fully saved hotel bills,36 he was in Calais on August 29 and 30,
and in Hamburg on September 5. Between these two dates
62 JOHN BROWN
he was in Paris, going thence to Brussels, where he visited
the battlefield of Waterloo on his way eastward. Various
surmises have been made as to where the other eleven or
twelve days between his visit to Hamburg and his return to
London were spent, but there is no documentary evidence
to prove the number of battlefields he visited, or that he
actually penetrated in so brief a time into Switzerland and
Northern Italy, as is sometimes alleged. As already stated,
this short trip to the Continent played a great part in his later
conversations, when he was called upon to defend the peculiar
features, from the military point of view, of his Harper's Ferry
plans. But obviously, no thorough military studies were pos-
sible in so scant a time as John Brown had in Europe.
He was in London again not later than September 17, when
an auction sale of some of his wool took place that set the seal
of disaster upon his business venture. The story was thus
related to his son by the traveller:37
LONDON [Friday] 2ist Sept 1849
DEAR SON JOHN
I have nothing new to write excepting that I [am] still well &
that on Monday last a lot of No. 2 wool was sold at the auction sale
at £ * to £ 2} or in other words at from .26 to .29 cents pr Ib. This
is a bad sale, & I have withdrawn all other wools from the public
sales. Since the other wools have been withdrawn I have discov-
ered a much greater interest amongst the buyers, & I am in hopes
to succeed better with the other wools but cannot say yet how it
will prove on the whole. I have a great deal of stupid, obstinate,
prejudice, to contend with as well as conflicting interests; both in
this country, & from the United States. I can only say that I have
exerted myself to the utmost ; & that if I cannot effect a better sale
of the other wools privately; I shall start them back. I believe that
not a pound of the No 2 wool was bought for the United States,
& I learn that the general feeling is now; that it was quite under-
sold. About 150 Bales were sold. I regret that so many were put
up; but it cannot be helped now, for after wool has been subjected
to a London examination for a public sale it is very much injured
for selling again. The agent of Thirion Maillard & Co has been
looking at them today, & seemed highly pleased, said he had never
seen superior wools; & that he would see me again. We have not
yet talked about price. I now think I shall begin to think of home
quite in earnest at least in another fortnight possibly sooner. I do
not think the sale made a full test of the opperation.
Farewell Your Affectionate Father
JOHN BROWN
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 63
On October 5, Brown had again returned to London, after
visiting "Leeds, Wortley, Branley, Bradford & other places,"
and wrote thus to his son John, Jr. : 38 " I expect to close up the
sale of wool here today, & to be on my way home One week
from today. . . . It is impossible to sell the wool for near its
value compared with other wools, but I expect to do better
some than in the first sale. I have at any rate done my utmost,
& can do no more. I do not expect to write again before I
leave. . . . My health is good but I have been in the midst
of sickness and death." During this interval, too, John Brown
visited in London the first of the long series of world's fairs,
and took advantage of it to exhibit some of the beautiful
Saxony wool he had brought with him. Long after his return
to his home, he received a bronze medal which the wool judges
awarded him for his exhibit. Here, too, must be recorded the
story early recorded by Redpath, of the attempt of some
English wool-merchants to play a trick on the rustic Yankee
farmer who came to them with wool to sell, by handing him
a sample and asking him what he would do with it: " His eyes
and fingers were so good that he had only to touch it to know
that it had not the minute hooks by which fibres of wool are
attached to each other. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'if you have
any machinery that will work up dogs' hair, I would advise
you to put this into it.' The jocose Briton had sheared a
poodle and brought the hair in his pocket, but the laugh
went against him ; and Captain Brown, in spite of some pecul-
iarities of dress and manner, soon won the respect of all he
met." It is also said that if given samples of Ohio and Ver-
mont wool, he could readily distinguish them when blind-
folded or in the dark.
Apparently he was able to despatch his business about as
he had hoped to, for he was in New York by the end of Octo-
ber, bringing back the wool that he was unable to sell. The
loss on this venture was probably as high as forty thousand
dollars.39 Not unnaturally this added neither to the standing
nor the progress of the firm, and the skies were much dark-
ened for the partners. Even before the trip to Europe, they
had talked of giving up the business. Nearly a year later,
John Brown thus described an interview with his financial
backer and partner:40
64 JOHN BROWN
BURGETTSTOWN PA I2th April 1850
DEAR SON JOHN, & WIFE
When at New York on my way here I called at Mess Fowlers
& Wells office, but you were absent. Mr. Perkins has made me a
visit here, & left for home yesterday. All well in Essex when I left.
All well at Akron when he left one week since. Our meeting to-
gether was one of the most cordial, & pleasant, I ever experienced.
He met a full history of our difficulties, & probable losses without
a frown on his countenance, or one sylable of reflection, but on the
contrary with words of comfort, & encouragement. He is wholly
averse to any seperation of our business or interests, & gave me
the fullest assurance of his undiminished confidence, & personal
regard. He expressed a strong desire to have our flock of sheep
remain undivided to become the joint possession of our families
when we have gone off the stage. Such a meeting I had not dared
to expect, & I most heartily wish each of my family could have
shared in the comfort of it. Mr. Perkins has in this whole business
from first to last set an example worthy of a Philosopher, or of a
Christian. I am meeting with a good deal of trouble from those
to whom we have over advanced but feel nerved to face any diffi-
culty while God continues me such a partner. Expect to be in New
York within 3 or 4 weeks.*
By November the firm's situation was much worse. "We
have trouble," wrote John Brown to his son on the 4th of
that month,41 "with Pickersgills, McDonald, Jones, Warren,
Burlington & Patterson & Ewing. These different claims
amount to $40 M ; [$40,000] & if lost will leave me nice & flat.
(This is in confidence.) Mr. Perkins bears the trouble a great
deal better than I had feared. I have been trying to collect
& am still trying." Just a month later, he informed his sons
that the prospect for the fine-wool business was improving.
"What burdens me most of all is the apprehension that Mr.
Perkins expects of me in the way of bringing matters to a
close what no living man can possibly bring about in a short
time, and that he is getting out of patience and becoming
distrustful. . . . He is a most noble-spirited man, to whom
I feel most deeply indebted ; and no amount of money would
atone to my feelings for the loss of confidence and cordiality
on his part." That this loss did not come to pass is attested
by a letter from Mr. Perkins's son, George T. Perkins, who
writes: f " My father, Simon Perkins, was associated with Mr.
* Signature missing.
t To the author, from Akron, Ohio, December 26, 1908.
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 65
Brown in business for a number of years, and always regarded
him as thoroughly honest and honorable in all his relations
with him. Mr. Brown was, however, so thoroughly imprac-
tical in his business management, as he was in almost every-
thing else, that the business was not a success and was dis-
continued. Their relations were afterwards friendly." On
the other side, the Browns felt that too much responsibility
had been put upon their father. While most successful as a
railroad man, Mr. Perkins was not as well fitted by experience
and aptitude for the wool business. But despite John Brown's
failures, he gave him one chance after another. "John Brown
was, however, entirely obstinate, insisted always on having
his own way, and at last Mr. Perkins broke the connection." 42
The senior partner did not, moreover, share the junior's antip-
athy to slavery.
The final winding up of the firm's affairs lasted for some
years, because of prolonged litigation growing out of the
trouble with some of the houses and customers John Brown
mentioned. Against one of them, Warren, his indignation
was never checked. As late as April 16, 1858, he warned his
family, when purchasing land from his daughter and son-in-
law, against the possibility of trouble from creditors of Per-
kins & Brown: 43
" Since I wrote you, I have thought it possible; though not prob-
able; that some persons might be disposed to hunt for any property
I may be supposed to possess, on account of liabilities I incurred
while concerned with Mr. Perkins. Such claims I ought not to pay
if I had ever so much given me; for my service in Kansas. Most of
you know that I gave up all I then had to Mr. Perkins while with
him. ... I also think that . . . all the family had better decline
saying anything about their land matters. Should any disturbance
ever be made it will most likely come directly or indirectly through
a scoundrel by the name of Warren who defrauded Mr. Perkins
and I out of several thousand dollars."
The trial of the Perkins & Brown suit against Warren took
place in Troy, New York, late in January, 1852; from a re-
port of John Brown to Mr. Perkins on the 26th of January,44
it looked as if the suit were going in the firm's favor. He did
obtain a verdict in this lower court, only to have it appealed
to a higher court, with the result, according to John Brown,
66 JOHN BROWN
that Warren was successful in his attempt to defraud the
firm. A more serious suit was one brought against Perkins
& Brown for no less than sixty thousand dollars damages,
for breach of contract in supplying wool of certain grades
to the Burlington Mills Company of Burlington, Vermont. It
finally came to trial January 14, 1853, and after progressing
somewhat it was settled out of court, his counsel deeming
it wiser to compromise than to face a jury.45 There were still
other suits brought by or against the firm to vex John Brown
during these years 1850 to 1854, and to add by their costli-
ness and tedious delays to the financial losses. This was the
unfortunate wind-up to John Brown's career as a wool-mer-
chant. Thereafter he lived first on the products of his farm-
ing in Ohio or in the Adirondacks, and then on gifts made to
maintain him as a guerrilla leader in Kansas, or as a prospective
invader of Virginia. From August, 1856, when he first re-
turned from Kansas, until October, 1859, he was thus main-
tained, without a regular business or regular labor of any
kind, while part of his family obtained a penurious living
in the Adirondacks, and the grown sons shared their father's
poverty and hardships in Kansas or worked and farmed at
intervals in Ohio, until the final disaster at Harper's Ferry.
Although unable to impress others with his fitness as a busi-
ness man, when he finally abandoned the career of a mer-
chant for that of a warrior against slavery, he had so little
difficulty in convincing friends and acquaintances of his abil-
ity, usefulness and sagacity as a guerrilla chief and leader of
a slave revolt, that he readily obtained thousands of dollars to
maintain him and his followers during at least three years of
their warring upon the South's cherished ownership of human
property.
It is only just to add that, while the financial losses of
Perkins & Brown's mercantile business were heavy, Mr. Per-
kins was not only willing to continue in the farming and
sheep-raising part of it with Brown, but insisted on it until
well into the spring of 1854. The last year of this phase of
their joint enterprise was "quite successful." "We have
great reason to be thankful," wrote John Brown in February,
" that we have had so prosperous a year, and have terminated
our connection with Mr. Perkins so comfortably and on such
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 67
friendly terms."46 Early in April, 1854, he again wrote: "I
had a most comfortable time settling last year's business and
dividing with Mr. Perkins and have to say of his dealings
with me that he has shown himself to be every inch a gen-
tleman." 47 The only drawback, in John Brown's mind, was
his inability to move his family back to North Elba. This he
had to put off for another year, during which he rented and
worked three farms near Akron, meanwhile turning every-
thing into cash that he could in preparation for the final
settlement in his new home in the Adirondacks.
For John Brown was content to stay neither in Akron nor
anywhere else in Ohio. The residence of his family in Spring-
field had lasted, all told, but two years, from 1847 to 1849;
then the restlessness of his nature dictated another move.
While in Springfield he occupied the house at number 31
Franklin Street, where Frederick Douglass found him, and in
which his daughter Ellen was born on May 20, 1848, only to
die a year later in her sorely tried father's arms. Still another
child, an infant son, he was yet to lose, — the seventh of the
thirteen children of his second marriage to die in childhood,
while two more were destined to perish at Harper's Ferry
before his eyes. It is still remembered that the parlor of this
Springfield house was not furnished, that the money it would
cost might be given to fugitive slaves.48 Indeed, Springfield
still abounds in anecdotes of the wool-dealer in whom, at the
time of his residence there, no one saw any signs of greatness.
The best known one concerns his attempt to prove that the
hypnotism practised by La Roy Sunderland, a well-known
hypnotist of this period, 1848 or 1849, was a fraud. So many
garbled versions of this story have appeared from time to
time that it is best to give it in Mr. Sunderland 's own words,
as he described it on December 9, 1859 :49
"His conduct in one of my lectures on Pathetism, in Springfield,
Mass., some twelve years since, has been referred to in the papers,
lately. That occasion offered a grand opportunity for the exhibi-
tion of his real character, as, at that time, he had not- engaged in
the defence of Kansas, and he had had no personal encounters
with Slavery. He had witnessed the surgical operation performed
on a lady whom I had rendered insensible to pain, as she alleged,
by Pathetism. This, with the other phenomena which he witnessed
in my lectures, was beyond his comprehension; and so he arose one
68 JOHN BROWN
evening, and pronounced my lectures a humbug, and he offered to
prove it, if I would only allow him to come upon my platform,
and test the consciousness of one of my patients. To this proposal-
I consented, on two conditions, namely, that his tests should not
endanger the health of my patient; and this to be determined by
the physicians of the town; and secondly, that Brown himself
should submit to the same processes which he should inflict upon
the entranced lady. To this he readily agreed, although it was
quite evident that when he at first proposed his test he had no idea
of going through with it himself. He had consulted a physician for a
process which should, beyond all doubt, demonstrate the conscious-
ness of pain, if any such consciousness existed in the lady who was
entranced. And so the next night, Brown and his physicians were
on hand, with a vial of concentrated ammonia and a quantity (q. s.)
of dolichos pruriens (cowhage). This 'cow itch,' as it is sometimes
called, is the sharp hair of a plant, and when applied to the skin, it acts
mechanically for a long time, tormenting the sufferer like so many
thistles or needles being constantly thrust into the nerves. No one,
I am sure, would willingly consent to suffer the application of cow-
hage to his body more than once. Brown bore it like a hero. But,
then, he had the advantage of the entranced lady — the skin of his
neck looking like sole leather; it was tanned by the sun, and looked
as if it was impervious. Not so, however, when the ammonia was
held to his nose; for then, by a sudden jerk of his head, it became
manifest that he could not, by his own volition, screw up his nervous
system to endure what I had rendered a timid lady able to bear
without any manifestation of pain. The infliction upon Brown was
a terrible one, for he confessed, three days afterwards, that he had
not been able to sleep at all since the cowhage was rubbed into his
neck. In submitting himself to that test, the audience declared him
'foolhardy,' as it proved nothing against the genuineness of my
experiments. It would not follow, that because he could endure
an extraordinary amount of physical pain, therefore another per-
son could do the same. The degree of COURAGE manifested by
John Brown made him the extraordinary man he was. ..."
The church Brown attended while in Springfield was natu-
rally the Zion Methodist, for it was formed by dissenters from
an older church because of their anti-slavery views. John
Brown found also a congenial friend in a Mr. Conkling, a
clergyman, who later became estranged from his congregation
by reason -of his Abolition opinions.50 While John Brown
himself never faltered in his religious faith, the backsliding
of his sons disturbed him not a little, so that he wrote to them
a number of pathetically earnest letters, endeavoring to recall
them to the ways of godliness. It was characteristic of him
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 69
that, strong as was his nature and intense as was his belief
in the orthodox Congregational faith, this difference of reli-
gious conviction never interfered with the affection which
existed between father and sons. To some of his children he
addressed the following letter on this subject while in Troy,
New York:51
TROY, N. Y., 23 Jan. 1852 •
DEAR CHILDREN:
I returned here on the evening of the I2th inst. and left Akron
on the I4th, the date of your letter to John. I was very glad to
hear from you again in that way, not having received anything from
you while at home. I left all in usual health and as comfortable as
could be expected; but am afflicted with you on account of your
little Boy. Hope to hear by return mail that you are all well. As
in this trouble you are only tasteing of a cup I have had to drink of
deeply, and very often ; I need not tell how fully I can sympathize
with you in your anxiety. My attachments to this world have been
very strong, and Divine Providence has been cutting me loose one
bond after another, up to the present time, but notwithstanding
I have so much to remind me that all ties must soon be severed ; I
am still clinging like those who have hardly taken a single lesson. I
really hope some of my family may understand that this world is
not the home of man; and act in accordance. Why may I not hope
this of you? When I look forward as regards the religious prospects
of my numerous family (the most of them) I am forced to say, and
to feel too ; that I have little, very little to cheer. That this should
be so, is I perfectly well understand, the legitimate fruit of my own
planting; and that only increases my punishment. Some ten or
twelve years ago I was cheered with the belief that my elder chil-
dren had chosen the Lord to be their God; and I valued much on
their influence and example in attoning for my deficiency and bad
example with the younger children. But, where are we now? Sev-
eral have gone to where neither a good or a bad example from me
will better their condition or prospects, or make them the worse.
The younger part of my children seem to be far less thoughtful and
disposed to reflection than were my older children at their age. I
will not dwell longer on this distressing subject but only say that
so far as I have gone; it is from no disposition to reflect on anyone
but myself. I think I can clearly discover where I wandered from
the Road. How to now get on it with my family is beyond my abil-
ity to see; or my courage to hope. God grant you thorough conver-
sion from sin, and full purpose of heart to continue steadfast in his
ways through the very short season of trial you will have to pass.
How long we shall continue here is beyond our ability to foresee,
but think it very probable that if you write us by return mail we
shall get your letter. Something may possibly happen that may
70 JOHN BROWN
enable us, or one of us, to go and see you but do not look for us. I
should feel it a great privilege if I could. We seem to be getting
along well with our business, so far ; but progress miserably slow.
My journeys back and forth this winter have been very tedious.
If you find it difficult for you to pay for Douglas paper, I wish you
would let me know as I know I took some liberty in ordering it con-
tinued. You have been very kind in helping me and I do not mean
to make myself a burden.
Your Affectionate Father
JOHN BROWN.
On the 6th of August of the same year he again took up the
religious question with his son John in this fashion:52
AKRON, Ohio 6th Aug 1852
DEAR SON JOHN
One word in regard to the religious belief of yourself, & the ideas
of several of my children. My affections are too deep rooted to be
alienated from them, but 'my Grey Hairs must go down to the grave
in sorrow,' unless the 'true God' forgive their denyal, & rejection
of him, & open their Eyes. I am perfectly conscious that their ' Eyes
are blinded' to the real Truth, & minds prejudiced by Hearts un-
reconciled to their maker & judge; & that they have no right appre-
ciation of his true character, nar of their Own. 'A deceived Heart
hath turned them aside.' That God in infinite mercy for Christs
sake may grant to you & Wealthy, & to my other Children 'Eyes
to see ' is the most earnest and constant prayer of your Affectionate
Father
JOHN BROWN.
Just a year later, John Brown returned to the charge and
spent a month writing a letter of pamphlet length, mostly
composed of Scriptural quotations strung together.53 "I do
not feel 'estranged from my children,' " he wrote, "but I cannot
flatter them, nor cry peace when there is no peace." He was
particularly pained because, as he said of his younger sons:
"After thorough and candid investigation they have discovered
the Bible to be all a fiction ! Shall I add that a letter received
from you sometime since gave me little else than pain and
sorrow? 'The righteous shall hold on his way:' 'By and by
he is offended."
It was his all-impelling desire to help the colored people
that led him early to plan for the removal of his family to the
Adirondacks. Gerrit Smith, of Peterboro, had offered to give,
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 71
on August I, 1846, no less than one hundred and twenty
thousand acres of land of his vast patrimony in northern
New York to worthy colored people, whom he aided in many
other ways as well.54 By April 8, 1848, John Brown had fully
decided to settle his family in the midst of the negro colonists,
in order to aid them by example and precept. He later visited
his brother-in-law, Orson Day, who was then living in White-
hall, New York, and from Mr. Day's home went on into the
Adirondack wilderness as far as the little negro settlement
of North Elba, where he became convinced that this was the
place for him to settle. He was at once charmed with the
superb scenery which has made this region of late such a
highly prized summer resort. The great mountains appealed
irresistibly to him, and the negro colony offered an opportu-
nity for training men in the armed warfare against slavery
which was now taking shape in his mind. Gerrit Smith, whom
Brown had visited on April 8, 1848, before seeing North Elba,
was greatly pleased at the prospect of having so sturdy and
experienced a farmer settle on his land, and became forthwith
a warm friend of his visitor from Springfield.55 Thus began a
relationship of enormous value to John Brown as the years
passed, without which it is by no means certain that he could
have obtained the "greatest or principal object" of his life to
the extent he did. No one in the North was more earnest in
his opposition to slavery than Gerrit Smith, and none could
reinforce their opinions with such princely generosity, or gave
as readily and as unselfishly. Chosen a member of Congress
in 1852, as an independent candidate, Gerrit Smith had long
been no mean figure in State politics. Indeed, in commenting
on his going to Congress, Horace Greeley thus described Mr.
Smith to his readers:56 "We are heartily glad that Gerrit
Smith is going to Washington. He is an honest, brave, kind-
hearted Christian philanthropist, whose religion is not put
aside with his Sunday cloak, but lasts him clear through the
week. We think him very wrong in some of his notions of
political economy, and quite mistaken in his ideas that the
Constitution is inimical to slavery, and that injustice cannot
be legalized ; but we heartily wish more such great, pure, loving
souls could find their way into Congress. He will find his seat
there anything but comfortable, but his presence there will do
72 JOHN BROWN
good, and the country will know him better and esteem him
more highly than it has yet done." Of this philanthropist
Brown purchased several farms, paying for them as rapidly as
his circumstances permitted.
The first removal of his family to North Elba or Timbucto,
as it was called in its early days, occurred in the spring of 1849,
the year of his European trip. As there was no home on his
land and he could not himself reside much in North Elba,
because of the necessity of carrying on the business in Spring-
field, John Brown hired for two years the farm of a Mr. Flan-
ders, on the road from Keene to Lake Placid.57 It had a good
barn on it, but only a tiny one-story house. " It is small," said
Brown to his family, "but the main thing is all keep good
natured." Some fine Devon cattle bought in Connecticut
were driven to the new home by three sons, Owen, Watson and
Salmon, and with these animals Brown won, in September,
1850, a prize at the Essex County Fair by an exhibition of cat-
tle which, according to the annual report of the exhibition so-
ciety in control, "attracted great attention and added much
to the interest of the fair." 88 He was able, also, to buy an ex-
cellent pair of horses; the driver, Thomas Jefferson, a colored
man, who at the same time moved his family from Troy to
North Elba, was in Brown's employ until the first stay in this
bleak mountain home came to an end. That Brown felt deeply
his responsibility towards his negro neighbors appears from
the following extract from a letter, one of many written to
Willis A. Hodges, who was likewise active in settling negroes
on the Smith lands: 59
SPRINGFIELD, MASS. January 22, 1849.
FRIEND HODGES — DEAR SIR: Yours of the nth January reached
me a day or two since. We are all glad to hear from you again and
that you were getting along well with the exception of your own
ill health. We hope to hear better news from you in regard to that
the next we get from you. . . .
Say to my colored friends with you that they will be no losers by
keeping their patience a little about building lots. They can busy
themselves in cutting plenty of hard wood and in getting any work
they can find until spring, and they need not fear getting too much
wood provided. Do not let anyone forget the vast importance of
sustaining the very best character for honesty, truth, industry and
faithfulness. I hope every one will be determined to not merely
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 73
conduct as well as the whites, but to set them an example in all
things. I am much pleased that your nephew has concluded to hang
on like a man.
With my best wishes for every one, I remain,
Yours in truth
JOHN BROWN
P. S. I hear that all are getting through the winter middling well
at Timbucto, for which I would praise the Lord. J. B.
The original settlers were not particularly pleased at the
arrival of so many colored people, and were reluctant at first
to supply them with provisions, charging, when they did
so, exorbitant prices. So rapidly were the new arrivals'
means exhausted that there was some danger of famine. When
John Brown came on the scene, he at once defended them
against those who sought to injure them, saving to one col-
ored man the farm of which he was being cheated. Seeing
their destitution, he sought in every way to provide work
for them, and on each Sabbath when he was there, he called
the negroes together for instruction in the Scriptures. On
October 25, 1848, before he had moved to North Elba, he
bought five barrels of pork and five of flour, and shipped
them to Mr. Hodges; the contents of at least four of these
barrels were distributed among the needy colored at Tim-
bucto.60 But even with all of the supervision and aid John
Brown and Hodges gave, these settlements were not a success.
Beautiful as the region was and is, it is not a farming coun-
try. To live required the most arduous labor in the brief
summer season. There were few tourists to help out the set-
tlers' income, and the cold, desolate and bleak winters bore
heavily upon all, but particularly upon the negroes, many of
whom were there by virtue of their having fled from slavery
in the warm Southern States, where they had known hitherto
no stimulus to labor save the lash. There were good common
schools, and a church at which, in summer, visiting ministers
of note preached.61 But with all that, North Elba was a dreary
and an inaccessible place, particularly in winter. On one occa-
sion, strong as he was, John Brown nearly lost his life in the
deep snow in endeavoring to walk in from Keene. "Before he
came within several miles of home," so his daughter Ruth re-
membered the story,62 " he got so tired and lame that he had to
74 JOHN BROWN
sit down in the road. The snow was very deep and the road but
little trodden. He got up again after a little while, went on as
far as he could, and sat down once more. He walked a long
distance in that way, and at last lay down with fatigue, in the
deep snow beside the path, and thought he should get chilled
there and die. While lying so, a man passed him on foot, but
did not notice him. Father guessed the man thought he was
drunk, or else did not see him. He lay there and rested a while
and then started on again, though in great pain, and made out
to reach the first house, Robert Scott's. ..."
Shortly after the Brown family moved into the Flanders
house at North Elba, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., of Boston, and
two friends came to their home, June 27, 1849, in a state
of utter exhaustion, having lost their way in the woods and
been for twenty-four hours without food. They were kindly
received and cared for. Fortunately, Mr. Dana kept an exten-
sive diary, which enabled him in after years to publish the fol-
lowing account from it of his impressions of the Brown family
in the Adirondacks : 63
"The place belonged to a man named Brown, originally from
Berkshire in Massachusetts, a thin, sinewy, hard-favored, clear-
headed, honest-minded man, who had spent all his days as a frontier
farmer. On conversing with him, we found him well informed on
most subjects, especially in the natural sciences. He had books,
and had evidently made a diligent use of them. Having acquired
some property, he was able to keep a good farm, and had confess-
edly the best cattle and best farming utensils for miles around.
His wife looked superior to the poor place they lived in, which was a
cabin, with only four rooms. She appeared to be out of health. He
seemed to have an unlimited family of children, from a cheerful,
nice healthy woman of twenty or so, and a full sized red-haired son,
who seemed to be foreman of the farm, through every grade of boy
and girl to a couple that could hardly speak plain. . . . June 29,
Friday — After breakfast, started for home. . . . We stopped at
the Browns' cabin on our way, and took affectionate leave of the
family that had shown us so much kindness. We found them at
breakfast, in the patriarchal style. Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their
large family of children with the hired men and women, including
three negroes, all at the table together. Their meal was neat,
substantial, and wholesome."
John Brown was at North Elba in January, 1851, soon after
the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, which stirred him to
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 75
the depths and had just led him to organize his Springfield
Gileadites. He at once went around among his colored friends
who were fugitives and urged them to resist the law at all costs.
Men and women, he declared, should arm themselves and re-
fuse to be taken alive. He told his children of this wicked bill,
and commanded them to join in resisting any attempt that
might be made to drag back into Southern chains their neigh-
bors who had been slaves, and to give no thought to possible
fines and imprisonment. "Our faithful boy, Cyrus," wrote
Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson afterwards, "was one of that
class and it aroused our feelings so that we would all have
defended him, if the women folks had had to resort to hot
water. Father said 'Their cup of iniquity is almost full.' '
The reasons for John Brown's abandonment of North Elba
in 1851, after only two years there, were the burden of the law-
suits of Perkins & Brown, which kept him travelling about
from one place to another, and the necessity of continuing in
partnership with Mr. Perkins in the farming and sheep-raising
side of their business. It was in March, 1851, that he again
moved his family, now so accustomed to shifting its domicile,
back to Akron, the sons driving overland the prize Devon cat-
tle.64 As we have seen, the partnership with Mr. Perkins could
not be terminated as quickly thereafter as John Brown had
hoped, and when it was, he was compelled to work the three
hired farms for another year before he had accumulated suffi-
cient money to move back to North Elba and to make possible
his venture to Kansas. Throughout 1854 he was busily plan-
ning for his removal to North Elba and for the purchase of an-
other small farm there. The record-breaking drought of 1854
ruined many farmers in Ohio, but he fared much better, accord-
ing to a letter to his children of August 24, 1854, than most
people. His two sons, Jason and Owen, were living on a large
farm belonging to Mr. Perkins near Tallmadge; they with
John Brown, Jr., had, as already stated, made up their minds
to seek new homes in Kansas, in order to help stem the slave-
power which, with the opening of that Territory by the Kan-
sas and Nebraska act of May 30, 1854, was now seeking to
make Kansas its own. On February 13, 1855, John Brown
felt certain that he could get off to North Elba with his
immediate family in March; to accomplish this purpose he
76 JOHN BROWN
was willing, if necessary, to sacrifice some of his Devon cat-
tle.65 Not until June, 1855, however, was he able to make the
move:
ROCKFORD ILL 4th June 1855
DEAR CHILDREN
I write just to say that I have finally sold my cattle without mak-
ing much sacrifise; & expect to be on the way home Tomorrow.
Oliver expects to remain behind & go to Kansas. After I get home
I expect to set out with the family for North Elba as soon as we
can get ready: & we may possibly get off this Week; but hardly
think we can. I have heard nothing further as yet from the Boys
at Kansas All were well at home a few days since.
Your Affectionate Father
JOHN BROWNM
When he and his charges finally arrived at North Elba, they
moved into an unplastered four-room house, the rudest kind
of a pioneer home, built for him by his son-in-law, Henry
Thompson, who had married his daughter Ruth. Here the
family still lived when the disaster at Harper's Ferry deprived
it of its head and two of his most promising sons. But though
John Brown was so attracted by North Elba as to buy three
farms there,67 and though the very pioneering aspect of the
new life appealed to him, his restlessness left him no peace.
He was now ready to abandon the field to which in the year
before he had felt himself committed to operate, and to follow
his sons to Kansas. So strong was the call to duty there that
he was impelled to leave everything at North Elba, — the un-
completed house, the newly arrived family with no fixed means
of support and the severest of winter climates to contend with,
his activity among his colored neighbors, and his still unpaid
debts in Ohio and elsewhere. Besides his sons, Owen, Oliver,
Salmon, Frederick, Jason and John Brown, Jr., Henry Thomp-
son, too, yielded to the desire to aid in carving out with axe
and rifle Kansas's destiny. There remained at North Elba
of the grown sons only Watson, then in his twentieth year, to
aid their brave mother and home-keeper. But she was quite
ready to fight cold and privation, if thereby her husband and
sons could live up to what they as truly considered the call of
duty as did their Revolutionary ancestor, who gave up his life
in New York City, the appeal to arms in 1777.
HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 77
Thenceforth John Brown could give free rein to his Wander-
lust; the shackles of business life dropped from him. He was
now bowed and rapidly turning gray; to everyone's lips the ad-
jective " old " leaped as they saw him. But his was not the age
of senility, nor of weariness with life ; nor were the lines of care
due solely to family and business^anxieties, or the hard labor of
the fields. They were rather the marks of the fires consuming
within ; of the indomitable purpose that, was the mainspring of
every action; of a life devoted, a spirit inspired. Emancipa-
tion from the counter and the harrow came joyfully to him at
the time of life when most men begin to long for rest and the
repose of a quiet, well-ordered home. Thenceforth he was free
to move where he pleased, to devote every thought to his bat-
tle with the slave-power he staggered, which then knew no-
thing of his existence.
The metamorphosis was now complete. The staid, sombre
merchant and patriarchal family-head was ready to become
Captain John Brown of Osawatomie, at the mere mention of
whose name Border Ruffians and swashbuckling adherents
of the institution of slavery trembled and often fled. Kansas
gave John Brown the opportunity to test himself as a guerrilla-
leader for which he had longed; for no other purpose did he
proceed to the Territory ; to become a settler there, as he had
hoped to in Virginia in 1840, was furthest from his thoughts.
Leadership came readily to him; to those who fell under his
sway, it seemed as natural that he should become the com-
mander as that there should be a President in Washington.
Even those who walked not in his ways respected him as a
captain of grim determination, of iron will. Of no particular
distinction as an executive in his business enterprises, he had
somehow or other acquired in the home circle, in the marts
of trade, in the quiet fields and woods, that something which
makes some men as inevitably leaders as others are predes-
tined to become satellites or lieutenants of those of stronger
will, greater imagination and clearer prevision. Imagination
our wool-merchant had, even if its range was not great; for
when the hour came to act, he was on hand with his nerves
under control, his head clear, his courage unbounded, ready
to meet emergencies. Indeed, one may ask if he really had
nerves, so complete was their subordination to the ego, to the
78 JOHN BROWN
will that forced its own way, either when it was a matter of
convincing rebellious followers of the wisdom of the plan they
revolted against, or of standing steadily on the scaffold trap-
door to eternity. Yet this man was the product of piping
times of peace; of the counting-room and the petty life of the
rural follower of a trade, which are so widely supposed to
weaken the fibre, attenuate the blood and develop the craven.
The secret of this riddle lies not merely in the Puritan inher-
itances of John Brown, nor in his iron will, nor in his ability
to visualize himself and his men in a mountain stronghold of
the Alleghenies. To all these powers of an intense nature were
added the driving force of a mighty and unselfish purpose,
and the readiness to devote life itself to the welfare of others.
However one may dislike the methods he adopted or the
views he held, here is, after all, the explanation of the forging
of this rough, natural leader of men. "Why," said one of his
abolition co-workers, who believed in very different means
of attacking slavery, "it is the best investment for the soul's
welfare possible to take hold of something that is righteous
but unpopular. . . . It teaches us to know ourselves, to know
what we are relying on, whether we love the praise of men,
or the praise of God." The essentially ennobling feature of
John Brown's career, that which enabled him to draw men
to him as if by a magnet, was his willingness to suffer for
others, — in short, the straightforward unselfishness of the
man.
As John Brown left for Kansas, he turned once more
to the members of his family and said: "If it is so painful
for us to part with the hope of meeting again, how of poor
slaves?"68
CHAPTER III
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD
"Ir you or any of my family are disposed to go to Kansas or
Nebraska, with a view to help defeat Satan and his legions in
that direction, I have not a word to say; but I feel committed
to operate in another part of the field. If I were not so com-
mitted, I would be on my way this fall," — thus it was that
John Brown wrote to his son John on August 21, 1854.* The
latter and his brothers had, as we have seen, grown restless
in Ohio, where they then resided with but indifferent prospects
for material success, particularly because of the great damage
done by the drought of 1 854 ;2 and the emigration of their
uncle, the Rev. Samuel Lyle Adair, to Osawatomie, Kansas,
had determined their settling in that locality.3 To Kansas
they would, however, have gone had he not preceded them,
for their inherited antipathy to slavery made them earnest
observers of the exciting political conditions resulting from
the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which left to the settlers them-
selves the decision whether slavery should or should not exist
within those Territories. This abrogation of the Missouri
Compromise of 1820, which had prohibited slavery north of
36° 30' north latitude, roused its enemies in the North to
unwonted efforts. If, they reasoned, the South could thus
abrogate a sacred agreement which had for thirty-four years
prevented the growth of slavery toward the North, it might
within a few years permit the extension of its favorite institu-
tion to still other portions of the original Louisiana purchase
acquired from France in 1803. Only seven years had then
elapsed since the unholy war with Mexico had made possible
the annexation of the great State of Texas and the other Terri-
tories acquired by the peace treaty of 1848. That tremendous
expansion to the south and southwest would, it was thought,
satisfy the slaveholders for years to come. But the wasteful-
ness and short-sightedness of their methods of cotton-culture,
the uneconomic and shiftless character of slave labor itself,
made the appetite for virgin lands insatiable.
8o JOHN BROWN
Moreover, Southern leaders were blind neither to the danger
to their political supremacy involved in the carving of new
free States out of the great West, whose possibilities were now
beginning to be understood because of the rush to Califor-
nia, nor to the peculiarly dangerous position of their outpost
State, Missouri.4 With Illinois on the east and Iowa on the
north, if Kansas and Nebraska should become free territory,
Missouri would be surrounded on three sides by Abolitionists,
and the safety of her unpaid labor system would be gravely
menaced. Since the popular indignation in the North had
failed to prevent the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill,
for which forty-four Northern Democrats voted in the House
and fourteen in the Senate, under the lead of Stephen A.
Douglas, the North could revenge itself only by preventing
the return to Washington of thirty-seven out of the forty-
four Congressmen,5 and by throwing itself heartily into the
work of beating the South at its own game of colonization.
By emigrant aid societies, by widespread appeals to the
liberty-loving citizens of the North to settle Kansas, by mass
meetings and public subscriptions to the funds raised to for-
ward settlers in large parties to the new Territories, — in a
hundred different ways, some of the necessary thousands were
induced to become a living bulwark to the extension of slav-
ery. Fortunately for them, the propagandists were aided enor-
mously by the rich character of the Kansas soil, the beauty
of its prairies, the charm of its climate, and the promise of its
streams. Had there been no question of slavery or freedom
involved, there must have been the same prompt taking up
of the public lands which has inevitably followed the throwing
open of new territory to settlement. The sons of John Brown
were no more unmoved by the "glowing accounts of the
extraordinary fertility, healthfulness and beauty of the terri-
tory of Kansas," than were thousands of others who sold off
their homes in New York, Ohio and Illinois to better their
fortunes beyond the Missouri River. To many of them, as to
the Browns, the opportunity to help save Kansas from the
curse of slavery was heartily welcome; to multitudes of others
this was a subsidiary issue, which interested them but little
until they suddenly found themselves in the maelstrom of
Kansas political passions and compelled to take sides, what-
ever their original opinions or desires.
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 81
Owen, Frederick and Salmon Brown left Ohio for Kansas,
all unsuspicious of the tragedies before them, in October, 1854,
taking eleven head of cattle and three horses, their joint
property, to Chicago by water, and driving them thence to
Meridosia, Illinois. Here men and animals wintered until the
arrival of spring made it possible for them to cross the Mis-
souri.6 On April 20, 1855, they entered Kansas, and on May
7, Jason and John were also at Osawatomie,7 having left Ohio
with their families at the opening of navigation.* Theirs was
a typical Kansas settler's journey; to hundreds of other
Kansas home-seekers would John Brown, Jr.'s narrative of
this migration read almost as if written of their own experi-
ences after leaving St. Louis :
"At this period there were no railroads west of St. Louis; our
journey must be continued by boat on the Missouri at a time of
extremely low water, or by stage at great expense. We chose the
river route, taking passage on the steamer 'New Lucy,' which too
late we found crowded with passengers, mostly men from the South
bound for Kansas. That they were from the South was plainly in-
dicated by their language and dress; while their drinking, profanity,
and display of revolvers and bowie-knives, openly wearing them as
an essential part of their make-up, clearly showed the class to which
they belonged and that their mission was to aid in establishing
slavery in Kansas.
"A box of fruit-trees and grape-vines which my brother Jason
had brought from Ohio, our plow and the few agricultural imple-
ments we had on the deck of that steamer, looked lonesome, for
these were all we could see which were adapted to the occupations
of peace. Then for the first time arose in our mind the query: Must
the fertile prairies of Kansas, through a struggle at arms, be first
secured to freedom before free men can sow and reap? If so, how
poorly were we prepared for such work will be seen when I say that
for arms for five of us brothers we had only two small squirrel rifles
and one revolver. But before we reached our destination other
matters claimed our attention. Cholera, which then prevailed to
some extent at St. Louis, broke out among our passengers, a num-
ber of whom died. Among these, Brother Jason's son, Austin, aged
four years, the elder of his two children, fell a victim to this scourge,
and while our boat lay by for repair of a broken rudder at Waverley,
Mo., we buried him at night near that panic-stricken town, our
* Mrs. Annie Brown Adams states that Salmon and Oliver Brown, as well as
their father and Henry Thompson, went to Kansas only to fight, not to settle;
the others were home-seekers. (See her letter of September 5, 1886, to the Kan-
sas Historical Society.)
82 JOHN BROWN
lonely way illumined only^by the lightning of a furious thunder-
storm.
"True to his spirit of hatred of Northern people, our captain,
without warning to us on shore, cast off his lines and left us to make
our way by stage to Kansas City, to which place we had already
paid our fare by boat. Before we reached there, however, we be-
came very hungry, and endeavored to buy food at various farm-
houses on the way; but the occupants, judging from our speech
that we were not from the South, always denied us, saying, 'We
have nothing for you.' The only exception to this answer was at
the stage-house at Independence, Mo.
"Arrived in Kansas, her lovely prairies and wooded streams
seemed to us indeed like a haven of rest. Here in prospect we saw
our cattle increased to hundreds and possibly to thousands, fields
of corn, orchards, and vineyards. At once we set about the work
through which only our visions of prosperity could be realized. Our
tents would suffice for shelter until we could plow our land, plant
corn and other crops, fruit-trees, and vines, cut and secure us hay
enough of the waving grass to supply our stock the coming winter."8
But if they were thus apparently bent on the occupations of
peace, they were from the beginning keeping an eye out for
the clash of arms. In his very first letter from the Territory
to his father, dated " Brownsville," May 21, 1855, Salmon,
while mentioning his "very pleasant trip through Missouri,"
added :
"We saw some of the curses of slavery and they are many. . . .
The boys have their feelings well worked up so that I think that
they will fight, there is a great lack of arms here in Brownsville.
I feel more like fight now than I ever did before and would be glad
to go to Alabama."
He reported further that he had no doubt of the success of
their emigration, for they had as many as five good claims,
had planted considerably and could already behold the first
tender shoots pushing their way into the air. Their claims
were eight miles from Osawatomie, on the very outskirts of
which stood and yet stands the picturesque log-cabin which
for nearly fifty years served as the homestead of the Adair
family, and is still prized by them beyond all other earthly
possessions. Here the Browns were certain of a hearty wel-
come from their father's half-sister Florilla and her husband,
the Rev. Mr. Adair.
On May 20 and 24, John Brown, Jr., wrote a long,
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 83
minutely detailed letter to his father, in which appear clearly
the mixed motives that had led to the emigration. The char-
acter of the country, the weather encountered, the planting
operations and the implements in use are all set forth, as well
as the low financial condition to which their frontier venture
had already brought them, and their almost general satisfac-
tion with the change:9
"... Salmon Fredk and Owen say that they never was in a coun-
try that begun to please them as well. And I will say, that the
present prospect for health, wealth, and usefulness much exceeds
even my most sanguine anticipations. I know of no country where
a poor man endowed with a share of common sense & with health,
can get a start so easy. If we can succeed in making this a free State,
a great work will be accomplished for mankind."
But the really important part of the letter deals with the
political impressions already acquired by the new settlers of
four weeks' standing:
"And now I come to the matter, that more than all else I intended
should be the principal subject of this letter. I tell you the truth,
when I say that while the interest of despotism has secured to its
cause hundreds and thousands of the meanest and most desperate
of men, armed to the teeth with Revolvers, Bowie Knives, Rifles
& Cannon, — while they are not only thoroughly organized, but
under pay from Slave-holders — the friends of freedom are not one
fourth of them half armed, and as to Military Organization among
them it no where exists in this territory unless they have recently
done something in Lawrence. The result of this is that the people
here exhibit the most abject and cowardly spirit, whenever their
dearest rights are invaded and trampled down by the lawless bands
of Miscreants which Missouri has ready at a moment's call to
pour in upon them. This is the general effect upon the people here
so far as I have noticed, there are a few, and but a few exceptions.
Of course these foreign Scoundrels know what kind of 'Allies' they
have to meet. They boast that they can obtain possession of the
polls in any of our election precincts without having to fire a gun.
I enclose a piece which I cut from a St. Louis paper named the St.
Louis 'Republican;' it shows the spirit which moves them. Now
Missouri is not alone in the undertaking to make this a Slave State.
Every Slaveholding State from Virginia to Texas is furnishing men
and money to fasten Slavery upon this glorious land, by means no
matter how foul. . . .
"Now the remedy we propose is, that the Anti slavery portion
of the inhabitants should immediately, thoroughly arm and organize
84 JOHN BROWN
themselves in military companies. In order to effect this, some per-
sons must begin and lead in the matter. Here are 5 men of us who
are not only anxious to fully prepare, but are thoroughly deter-
mined to fight. We can see no other way to meet the case. As in
the language of the memorial lately signed by the people here and
sent to Congress petitioning help, ' it is no longer a question of negro
slavery, but it is the enslavement of ourselves.'
"The General Government may be petitioned until the people
here are grey, and no redress will be had so long as it makes slavery
its paramount interest. — We have among us 5, I Revolver, I Bowie
Knife, I middling good Rifle I poor Rifle, I small pocket pistol
and 2 slung shot. What we need in order to be thoroughly armed
for each man, is I Colts large sized Revolver, I Allen & Thurbers'
large sized Revolver manufactured at Worcester, Mass, I Minnie
Rifle — they are manufactured somewhere in Mass or Connecticut
(Mr. Paine of Springfield would probably know) and I heavy Bowie
Knife — I think the Minnie Rifles are made so that a sword bayo-
net may be attached. With these we could compete with men who
even possessed Cannon. The real Minnie Rifle has a killing range
almost equal to Cannon and of course is more easily handled, per-
haps enough so to make up the difference. Now we want you to
get for us these arms. We need them more than we do bread. Would
not Gerrit Smith or someone, furnish the money and loan it to us
for one, two or three years, for the purpose, until we can raise
enough to refund it from the Free soil of Kanzas? ..."
This appeal for arms John Brown could not have resisted
had he desired to. He subsequently recorded that on the
receipt of this letter he was "fully resolved to proceed at once
to Kansas; and join his children." 10 The wish to "operate
elsewhere" had disappeared early in 1855. Indeed, before the
second detachment of his sons had started, he had begun to
arrange his affairs so that he too might emigrate. On February
13 he notified John W. Cook, of Wolcottville, Conn., of his
intentions:
"Since I saw you I have undertaken to direct the opperations of
a Surveying, & exploring party, to be employed in Kansas for a
considerable time perhaps for some Two or Three years; & I lack
for time to make all my arrangements, & get on to the ground in
season." n
Labor as he might, he was not able to dispose of his cattle,
wind up odds and ends of his business in Illinois, Ohio and
New England, collect arms for his sons, take leave of his
family at North Elba and start for the West, until the middle
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 85
of August. On June 28 he was at Syracuse, attending a con-
vention of anti-slavery men who called themselves Radical
Political Abolitionists. Frederick Douglass, Gerrit Smith,
Lewis Tappan and Samuel J. May were among the speakers,
as well as John Brown, and the convention unanimously
resolved that its members should do what they could to
prevent the return of fugitives. There was, however, con-
siderable difference of opinion in consequence of the proposal
to raise money for John Brown, that he might collect arms
for his sons. Douglass, of course, spoke earnestly in Brown's
behalf. Others were unwilling to encourage violence, but, as
Douglass afterwards reported : "The collection was taken up
with much spirit, nevertheless; for Capt. Brown was present
and spoke for himself; and when he spoke men believed in the
man."12 He received in all about sixty dollars in cash, twenty
dollars being from Gerrit Smith, and five dollars from an old
British Army officer, Charles Stuart. By April 24 he was able
to ship from Springfield to Cleveland a box of firearms and
flasks, which he subsequently picked up in Cleveland on his
way West.13
Ex-Sheriff S. A. Lane, of Akron, testified, in an interview
printed in the Akron Beacon-Journal of February I, 1898,
that during his visit to Akron, on his way West in August,
Brown held open meetings in one of the public halls of the
village. Because of their interest in the Kansas crisis, and
in the Browns, their former neighbors, the people were quickly
roused by Brown's graphic words, and liberally contributed
arms of all sorts, ammunition and clothing. Committees of
aid were appointed, and Lane was deputed to accompany
Brown in a canvass of the village shops and offices for contri-
butions. Several cases of guns belonging to the State of Ohio,
then being collected from the disbanded militia companies
of Akron and Tallmadge, were "spirited away" to the same
end. General Lucius V. Bierce later testified to his own gift
of broadswords, the property of a defunct filibustering com-
pany. On the 1 5th of August, Brown reported to those remain-
ing at North Elba that he was leaving Cleveland via Hudson,
and would have been off before had he not met with such suc-
cess in obtaining "Guns Revolvers, Swords, Powder, Caps,
& money, " that he thought it best to "detain a day or Two
86 JOHN BROWN
longer on that account." He had raised nearly two hundred
dollars in that way in the two previous days, principally
in arms and ammunition.14 But the harvest being gathered,
he and his son-in-law, Henry Thompson, arrived in Chicago
August 18, after stopping at Cleveland and Detroit, where they
met Oliver Brown and at once prepared for the overland jour-
ney by buying a "nice young horse for which we paid here
$120, but have so much load that we shall have to walk a good
deal; enough probably, to give opportunity to supply our-
selves with game. We have provided the most of what we need
on our outward march " — so Brown wrote to his " Dear Wife
and Children; every one" on August 23, the day of leaving
Chicago, with solemn injunctions to write often and to direct
the letters to Oliver, since Oliver's name was "not so common
as either Henry's or mine."15 The heavily loaded one-horse
wagon was in obedience to advice from John Brown, Jr., who
opined that his father would find it just what he wanted in
Kansas to carry on the business of surveying. Moreover, this
method of reaching Osawatomie was, if the slowest, the best
and cheapest way of travelling, particularly because the
navigation of the Missouri River was, as the son put it, "a
horrid business in a low stage of water which is a considerable
portion of the year."16
Not that roughing it could discourage John Brown, as we
know. There was found, after his capture in Virginia, in his
papers, the beginnings of an autobiographical volume en-
titled: ' A brief history of John Brown, otherwise (old B) and
his family: as connected With Kansas ; By one who knows.' n
This was composed early in August, 1858, for on the 9th
of that month he wrote to his son John from Moneka, Kansas,
asking that certain letters and other material be sent him
for this book, which, had it been completed, would have been
sold for "the benefit of the whole of my family, or to promote
the cause of Freedom as may hereafter appear best for both
objects." * 18 In this all too brief fragment, written in the third
person, appears the story of his trip to Kansas, including
* "I am certain," he added, "from the manner in which I have been pressed
to narrate, and the greedy swallowing everywhere of what I have told, and com-
plaints in the newspapers voluntarily made of my backwardness to gratify the
public, that the book would find a ready sale."
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 87
fresh assurance from his own pen that "with the exposures,
privations, hardships, and wants, of pioneer life he was
familiar; & thought he could benefit his Children and the
new beginners from the older parts of the country and help
them to shift."
The nice, stout young horse had all he could do, so Brown
records, to drag the load when he and his son and son-in-law
left Chicago behind them. Hence, continues his own narra-
tive, just cited:
"Their progress was extremely slow; & just before getting into
Missouri their horse got the distemper: after which for most of
the journey they could only gain some Six to Eight miles in a day.
This however gave them great opportunity for seeing & hearing
in Missouri. Companies of armed men, and individuals were con-
stantly passing and repassing Kansaswise continually boasting of
what deeds of patriotism; & chivalry they had performed in Kansas;
& of the still more mighty deeds they were yet to do. No man of
them would blush when telling of their cruel treading down & ter-
rifying of defenceless Free State men ; they seemed to take peculiar
satisfaction in telling of the fine horses, & mules they had many
of them killed in their numerous expeditions against the d — d
Abolitionists. The -coarse, vulgar, profane, jests, & the bloodthirsty
brutual feelings to which they were giving vent continually would
have been a most exquisite treat to Ears; and their general appear-
ance to the Eys of the past and the present Administration. Of
this there cannot be the slightest doubt or of the similiarly refined
feeling amongst their truly Democratic supporters and the dough
faces. Witness the rewards of such men as Clark and others.
" On the way at Waverly Missouri he took up the body of his little
grandson who had died of cholera . . . thinking it would afford
some relief to the broken hearted Father and Mother they having
been obliged to leave him amidst the ruffian-like people by whom
(for the most part) they were themselves so inhumanly treated in
their distress. The parents were almost frenzied with joy on being
told that the body of their dear child was again with them. On his
arrival at the place where his sons had located he found all the com-
pany completely prostrate with sickness (Chill fever, and Fever
and Ague) except the wife of John Jr and her little boy of some three
years old. The strongest of all the five men scarcely able to bring
in their Cows, cut their fuel, bring the water, and grind the little
corn which with a little dried fruit they had left ; a very few Potatoes
they had raised and a small supply of milk. ..."
One picturesque and characteristic incident of the crossing
of the enemy's territory John Brown himself did not record,
88 JOHN BROWN
since fate intervened here and prevented the addition of
another word to what was to have been his first venture
into literature. His son-in-law, Henry Thompson, relates that
when they reached the Missouri River at Brunswick, Missouri,
they set themselves down to await the ferry. There came to
them an old man, frankly Missourian, frankly inquisitive after
the manner of the frontier. "Where," said he, "are you go-
ing?" "To Kansas," replied John Brown. "Where from?"
asked the old man. " From New York," answered John Brown.
" You won't live to get there." "We are prepared," said John
Brown, "not to die alone." Before that spirit and that eagle
eye, the old man quailed ; he turned and left. 19
It was on October 6 that the advance guard of the car-
avan reached the family settlement at Osawatomie. Brown
himself, being very tired, did not cover the last mile or two
until the next day. They arrived in an all but destitute con-
dition, with but sixty cents between them, to find the little
family settlement in great distress, not only because of the
sickness already noted, but because of the absence of any
shelter save tents. The bitterly cold and cutting winds, which
did much to disillusionize so many of the emigrants, kept
the Browns shivering over their little fires, and the exposure
added to their ill-health. The crops that had been raised were
not cared for; there was no meat, little sugar, and nothing
to make bread with, save corn ground by great labor in a
hand mill two miles off.20 The men, enfeebled by the chills
and ague which racked, sooner or later, all the new arrivals
in Kansas, had lost their initiative and vigor, and needed the
resolute sternness of the head of the family to stimulate them
to new efforts. By postponing the building of cabins, they
had been able to devote themselves to the crops; and the
abundance of excellent corn, potatoes, pumpkins, squashes,
melons, beans, etc., which had earlier constituted their fare,
compensated them for most of the inconveniences they had
been compelled to put up with, so wrote Mrs. John Brown, Jr.,
to her mother-in-law at North Elba.21
But the time had more than arrived when they should
devote themselves to home-building. On October 25 there
was the "hardest freezing" John Brown had ever witnessed
south of North Elba at that season of the year, as he reported
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 89
to his wife, in order that she should know, "in that misera-
ble Frosty region" of North Elba, that "those here are not
altogether in Paradise." 22 Indeed, nobody in Kansas that
unusually cold winter of 1855-56 knew what comforts were.
Had there been no political anxieties to vex them, the frightful
hardships of pioneering and the acclimating sicknesses would
have made that period truly dreadful to look back upon.
While the Browns paid the penalty for living on low ground
in a ravine and in tents, that first summer, their bitter experi-
ence was yet vastly better than that of many another family.
Starvation and death looked in at many a door where parents
lay helpless, while famished children crawled the unbearded
floors crying for food, shrieking with fear if any footstep
approached, lest the comer be a Border Ruffian instead of a
friend. For pure misery and heart-breaking suffering, these
pioneer tales of Kansas in 1855-58 are not surpassed by any
in the whole history of the winning of the West.*
By November 2, Jason's and John's "shanties" were well
advanced; by the 23d, their father reported these two fam-
ilies so well sheltered that they would not suffer any more,
and that he had made some progress in preparing another
house, in the face of icy rains and freezing nights. "Still,"
wrote the indomitable directing spirit, "God has not 'for-
saken us;' & we get 'day by day our dayly Bread;' & I wish
we had a great deal more gratitude to mingle with our unde-
served blessings." 23 One dread that had worried them prior
to their departure from home proved unnecessary. "You
recollect we used to talk a great deal about the Indians,"
wrote Mrs. John Brown, Jr., "and how much I feared them
- they are the least of my troubles — there is scarcely a day
but they go along in sight of us in droves of from 30 to 40,
sometimes more and sometimes less, and frequently four or
five of them will come galloping up to see us; they have always
treated us perfectly civil and I believe if we treat them the
* See, for instance, Mrs. M. D. Colt, Went to Kansas, Watertown, New York,
1862; Mrs. Sara T. L. Robinson's Kansas, its Interior and Exterior Life, Bos-
ton, 1858; Thaddeus Hyatt's MS. Journal of Investigations in Kansas, 1856-57,
Kansas Historical Society; Six Months in Kansas, by a Lady (Hannah Anderson
Ropes), Boston, 1856; ' Memoir of Samuel Walker,' in Kansas Historical Society
Collections, vol. 6, pp. 249-274; Three Years on the Kansas Border, by a Clergy-
man of the Episcopal Church, New York, 1856.
90 JOHN BROWN
same they will do us no harm." 24 Her prophecy was a correct
one. It was not the red but the white men of the border they
had to fear. Terrified as they were when the first big band
of Sacs and Foxes in war-paint surrounded their tents, whoop-
ing and yelling, the Browns had the good sense to ground their
arms, and the Indians did likewise. Thereafter both sides were
great friends. John, Jr., went often to visit their old chief;
once, when, in the following summer, the Indians came to call
in numbers, they were "fought" with gifts of melons and
green corn. "That," says Jason Brown, "was the nicest party
I ever saw."
John Brown, Jr., used to ask the old chief questions, as:
"Why do you Sacs and Foxes not build houses and barns like
the Ottawas and Chippewas? Why do you not have schools
and churches like the Delawares and Shawnees? Why do you
have no preachers and teachers?" And the chief replied in a
staccato which summed up wonderfully the bitter, century-
long frontier experience of his people: "We want no houses
and barns. We want no schools and churches. We want no
preachers and teachers. We bad enough now." 25
The men really to be feared were not long in putting in
appearance. A few days after the arrival of the Brown ad-
vance guard in April, six or eight heavily armed Missourians
rode up and inquired if any stray cattle had been seen in that
neighborhood. On receiving a prompt negative, in the ver-
nacular of the border they inquired how the newcomers were
"on the goose." "We are Free State," was the answer, "and
more than that, we are Abolitionists." The visitors rode away
at once and, says Jason Brown, "from that moment we were
marked for destruction. Before we had been in the Territory
a month, we found we had to go armed and to be prepared
to defend our lives." The leader of that band of Missourians
might not have been allowed to ride away, had the outspoken
Northerners before them realized the sinister part the Rev.
Martin White was to play in their lives, — if they could have
dreamed that he was to shoot down one of their number in
cold blood within a twelvemonth.26
It must be said, however, that the Browns were aggressive
from the beginning. They not only nailed their colors to the
mast and let all who would behold them, but they gave play
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 91
to those feelings which, as Salmon reported, had been so well
worked up in crossing Missouri. John Brown, Jr., Jason,
Frederick and Owen eagerly attended Free State settlers'
meetings,27 and the first-named figured soon in the political
history of the Territory. On the afternoon of Monday, June
25» J855, he was elected a vice-president of the Free State
convention which, then in session at Lawrence, solemnly
urged all the people of Kansas to throw away their differences
and make the freedom of Kansas the sole issue. Its mem-
bers called upon Free State representatives to resign from
the bogus Shawnee Legislature chosen by Missouri votes,
declared that the convention did not feel that its members
should obey any laws of the Legislature's exacting, and finally
resolved, with a spirit that must have gratified every Brown,
''That in reply to the threats of war so frequently made in our
neighbor state, our answer is, 'WE ARE READY.' " 28 Natu-
rally, John Brown, Jr.'s participation in this expression of
feeling — he was a member of the committee on resolutions
- did not improve his standing with his Southern neighbors,
of whom a good many were soon to be free with their threats
and boasts that they would drive off every Yankee.29 But
this did not deter him in the least from attending the radical
Lawrence gathering of August 15, in which, according to the
Herald of Freedom, he was a member of the steering, or busi-
ness committee, nor from becoming a member of the first
Territorial Executive Committee, an outgrowth of the Big
Springs convention of September 5.30
When the fraudulent Pawnee Legislature convened, July
2, 1855, it enacted, true to its lawless inception, a code of
punishments for Free State men that must always rank as
one of the foremost monuments of legislative tyranny and
malevolence in the history of this country. Under that code
no one conscientiously opposed to slavery, or who failed to
admit the right of everybody to hold slaves, could serve as a
juror; and the right to hold office was restricted to pro-slavery
men. Five years at hard labor was to be the fate of any one
introducing literature calculated to make a slave disorderly
or dangerous or disaffected. Death itself was the penalty for
raising a rebellion among slaves or supplying them with
literature which advised them to rise or conspire against any
92 JOHN BROWN
citizen. The mere voicing of a belief that slavery was illegal
in Kansas was made a grave crime, in the following words:
"Sec. 12: If any free person, by speaking or writing, assert ormain-
tain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in this Territory,
print, publish, write, circulate, or cause to be introduced into the
Territory, any book, paper, magazine, pamphlet or circular, con-
taining any denial of the right of persons to hold slaves in this
Territory, such persons shall be deemed guilty of felony, and pun-
ished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term of not less than
five years." 31
This clause was obviously aimed at the New York Tribune
and other anti-slavery journals, and was meant to be an
effective padlock upon free speech. General J. H. String-
fellow, a resident of Atchison and the Speaker of the House
that passed this gag-law, boasted that it and other legislation
"will be enforced to the very letter." 32 This challenge John
Brown, Jr., promptly accepted. The code from which we
have quoted became operative on September 15, 1855. What
he did on that day, John Brown, Jr., recorded on the next in
a letter to his mother:
"Yesterday I told a man who I since learn has a slave here that
no man had a right to hold a slave in Kansas, that I called on him
to witness that I had broken this law and that I still intended to
do so at all times and at all places, and further that if any officer
should attempt to arrest me for a violation of this law and should
put his vilainous hands on me, I would surely kill him so help me
God. He made no reply but rode off. — Nothing is now wanting
but an attempt to enforce this Law with others of like import, which
Gov. Shannon has declared he will do, and we shall have war here
to the knife."33
"Perhaps," wrote Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to her brother-in-
law, Watson, then at North Elba, "we shall all get shot for
disobeying their beautiful laws, but you might as well die here
in a good cause as freeze to death there."34 The belligerent
attitude of the men of her party might well have given her
anxiety. It was as if they had intended from the first to make
Osawatomie the storm centre of southeastern Kansas, and
to bring down upon them the special attentions of the most
radical men on the other side of the border, men of the type
of General Stringfellow, a brother of B. F. Stringfellow, who
93
declared on August 28, 1855, in his newspaper, the Squatter
Sovereign, published at Atchison, Kansas, on the Missouri line:
' ' We can tell the impertinent scoundrels of the [New York] Tribune
that they may exhaust an ocean of ink, their Emigrant Aid Societies
spend their millions and billions, their representatives in Congress
spout their heretical theories till doomsday, and his excellency
Franklin Pierce appoint abolitionist after free-soiler as governor,
yet we will continue to tar and feather, drown, lynch and hang
every white-livered abolitionist who dares to pollute our soil."35
With those and other threats ringing in their ears, the sons
of John Brown unloaded the arms donated by friends of free
Kansas in the East and hauled by that stout young horse
across Illinois and Missouri, while John Brown himself sur-
veyed the settlement of Osawatomie, whose name was hence-
forth to be linked with his and thus obtain an imperishable
place in American history, although his own stay in the simple
frontier settlement was to be brief indeed, — not eleven
months in all.
To Kansas John Brown came with no thought of settling.
Surveying was to give him a livelihood while he remained,
but he came to fight, prepared to battle along that Kansas-
Missouri line for two or three years, by which time he felt
the victory should be won, and he be free to assail slavery at
another point.36 The Kansas country delighted him. Indeed,
he told his children that, if a younger man, he would certainly
stay with them, but that so long as he had a good farm at
North Elba, he felt that by common industry he could main-
tain his wife and daughters there while his sons settled where
fancy led them.37 He went so far, on his arrival, as to think
of taking a claim near his sons' settlement, but the battles
and tragedies of the immediate future prevented his consider-
ing the matter further.38 In March, 1859, he wrote to John
Teesdale that "it has been my deliberate judgment since 1855
that the most ready and effectual way to retrieve Kansas
would be to meddle directly with the peculiar institution."
He arrived ready to grapple with it, to meet violence with
violence, to do to the Border Ruffians what they were doing
to Free Soilers. To accomplish this, he was ready to take from
the pro-slavery men their chattels, whether living or immo-
bile, and even their lives.
94 JOHN BROWN
Until well into the spring of 1855 the drift of affairs in
Kansas had been wholly against the Free Soilers, despite the
emigration from New England.39 Bona fide Missouri settlers
were naturally first in the field, by reason of their proximity
to the newly opened lands, and were quicker in organizing,
under the leadership of Atchison and of the Stringfellow
brothers and their allies. They were on hand at the first elec-
tion held in the Territory, November 29, 1854, for a delegate
to Congress, and to their aid came hundreds of residents of
Missouri, on horseback and in wagons, with guns, bowie-
knives, revolvers and plenty of whiskey. Encamping near the
polling places,40 on election day, these visitors cast 1729 fraud-
ulent votes41 to the satisfaction of their leaders, thus electing
the pro-slavery candidate, General J. W. Whitfield. Atchi-
son, on November 6, had pointed out in a speech at Weston,
Missouri, how easily the trick could be turned: "When you
reside in one day's journey of the Territory, and when your
peace, your quiet and your property depend upon your action,
you can without an exertion send five hundred of your young
men who will vote in favor of your institutions. Should each
county in the State of Missouri only do its duty, the question
will be decided quietly and peaceably at the ballot-box. If we
are defeated, then Missouri and the other Southern States
will have shown themselves recreant to their interests and
will deserve their fate."42 As it happened, "some of the lead-
ing men of Missouri, comprising merchants, doctors and law-
yers, were recognized among the ballot-box stuffers." Judges,
too, were there, and the city attorney of St. Joseph. There
was nothing concealed about the transaction. The coming
of the Missourians was foretold by Free Soil correspond-
ents.43 When the visitors had closed the polls, they gayly
shouted, "All aboard for Kansas City and Westport," and
drove or rode away.44 In one district, the seventh, seventy-
five miles from the Missouri line, — which had three months
afterward only 53 voters according to the official census, -
there were cast 604 votes. The Howard Committee * reported
that fully 584 of these were illegal.45
* Authorized by the House of Representatives, March 19, 1856, to investigate
the Kansas situation. It consisted of William A. Howard, of Michigan, John
Sherman, of Ohio, and Mordecai Oliver, of Missouri.
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 95
This invasion, curiously enough, was quite unnecessary
to carry the day for Missouri, for the Free Soilers were then
in a numerical minority to the bona fide Missouri settlers, as
also when the official census was taken three months later,
in February, 1855. 46 Indeed, for fully eight months after the
opening of the Territory on July I, 1854, the Missourians
bade fair to overrun Kansas. Moreover, at the time of the
election, the Free Soilers were divided in their counsels, with-
out recognized leaders or a definite policy, and took little inter-
est in the voting, not one-half of them going to the polls.47 But
the appetite for illegal interference in a sister State grew with
its indulgence. The victory of November 29 was proclaimed
as a great and lasting triumph for the slavery forces. The
Kansas Herald of Leavenworth announced that "the triumph
of the pro-slavery party is complete and overwhelming, . . .
Kansas is saved,"48 and its jubilation was echoed throughout
Missouri. The St. Louis Pilot rejoiced "at this decisive result,
— as well on account of the success of General Whitfield,
as that it will tend to quiet the fear and anxiety pervading
the Western frontier, that this State would be flanked on the
west with an unprincipled 'set of fanatics and negro-thieves,
imported expressly to create annoyance, and disturb the social
relations of the people of the frontier counties." 49 The friends
of liberty in the East were correspondingly depressed. "We
believe that there are at this hour four chances that Kansas
will be a Slave State to one that she will be Free," wrote Hor-
ace Greeley in the Tribune of December 7. In Washington it
was generally thought that the South had possessed itself of
Kansas,50 even though the February, 1855, census showed that
only 192 slaves had been taken into the Territory, in which
there were also 151 free negroes. "Some of the Southern men
coolly say they have taken Kansas so easily that they think
it may be worth while to take Nebraska also," reported
Greeley 's Washington correspondent on February 13, 1855.
Naturally, in the East the November invasion was used by
the Tribune and other backers of the Emigrant Aid Societies
to stimulate recruiting for the Kansas holy war.51 On the
'other hand, the arrival of bands of New Englanders sent out
by the Emigrant Aid Societies, the first of which reached Law-
rence August i, i854,52 na-d intensely inflamed the Missouri-
96 JOHN BROWN
ans, and continued to do so for the next two years. "Shall
we allow such cut-throats and murderers, as the people of
Massachusetts are, to settle in the territory adjoining our own
state?" asked the Liberty Platform, a Missouri border news-
paper, in June, 1854; and it answered its own question thus:
"No! If popular opinion will not keep them back, we should
see what virtue there is in the force of arms."53 In August,
on hearing of the arrival of the first Emigrant Aid party, the
Platte County Argus declared that: "It is now time to sound
the alarm. We know we speak the sentiments of some of the
most distinguished statesmen of Missouri when we advise that
counter-organizations be made both in Kansas and Missouri
to thwart the reckless course of the Abolitionists. We must
meet them at their own threshold and scourge them back
to their covers of darkness. They have made the issue, and
it is for us to meet and repel them." 54 To the Missourians
in 1854 and later, their fellow countrymen from the historic
Bay State appeared the scum of Northern cities, hired to vote,
and not intending to settle Kansas in a normal way; "the
lowest class of rowdies;" "the most unmitigated looking set
of blackguards;" "hellish emigrants and paupers whose
bellies are filled with beggars' food;" men of "black and
poisonous hearts,"55 — thus had one section of Americans
been set against their brothers by the divine institution of
slavery. "Riff-raff," "scoundrels" and "criminals" were
mild adjectives applied to Eastern settlers, in whose eyes the
Border Ruffians were an equally low and degraded set of
beings, drunken bandits "armed to the teeth" and revelling
in cruelty, — in brief, fiends incarnate. "Rough, coarse,
sneering, swaggering, dare-devil looking rascals as ever swung
upon a gallows," was the way Dr. J. V. S. Smith, of Boston,
characterized them.56
"Reader," asked William A. Phillips, the Kansas corre-
spondent of the Tribune, "did you ever see a Border Ruffian?
. . . Imagine a fellow, tall, slim, but athletic, with yellow
complexion, hairy-faced, with a dirty flannel shirt, or red
or blue, or green, a pair of common-place, but dark-colored
pants, tucked into an uncertain altitude by a leather belt, in '
which a dirty-handled bowie-knife is stuck rather ostenta-
tiously, an eye slightly whiskey-red, and teeth the color of a
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 97
walnut. Such is your Border Ruffian of the lowest type."
"In a representation," he added, "of the 'Forty Thieves,'
they would have been invaluable, with their grim visages,
their tipsy expression, and, above all, their oaths and unap-
proachable swagger." 57 To Thomas H. Gladstone, a relative
of the great statesman of that name, the Border Ruffians
seemed to be "wearing the most savage looks and giving
utterance to the most horrible imprecations and blasphemies.
. . . Looking around at these groups of drunken, bellowing,
blood-thirsty demons, who crowded around the bar of the
house shouting for drink, or vented their furious noise on the
levee without, I felt that all my former experiences of border
men and Missourians bore faint comparison with the spec-
tacle presented by the wretched crew, who appeared only the
more terrifying from the darkness of the surrounding night." 58
This of the men he met in Kansas City after they returned
from the sacking of Lawrence in 1856. The earlier invaders
of Kansas Mrs. Charles Robinson described as "rough, bru-
tal-looking men, of most nondescript appearance ;" "bands of
whiskey-drinking, degraded, foul-mouthed marauders."59
Undoubtedly their ranks did include the scum of the bor-
der; that was inevitable. But, aside from their desire to foster
slavery in Kansas, they had been easily convinced by their
leaders that the coming by droves of New England Yankees
actually menaced their homes, their wives and children, their
property, human or otherwise. As soon as Kansas was sub-
merged by the incoming tide of Abolition, the anti-slavery
attack was to be directed against Missouri and Texas, and
then the fall of slavery would be certain. Senator Atchison,
in his speech at Weston which has already been cited, de-
clared that "if we cannot do this [take Kansas], it is an omen
that the institution of Slavery is to fail in this and the other
Southern States." As late as July, 1856, the Charleston, S. C.,
Courier affirmed that: "Now, upon the proposition that the
safety of the institution of Slavery in South Carolina is de-
pendent upon its establishment in Kansas, there can be no
rational doubt." "The touchstone of our political existence
is Kansas — that is the question," wrote the Washington cor-
respondent of the Charleston Mercury, January 5, 1856, six
months earlier.60 For what other purpose could the Yankees
98 JOHN BROWN
be carrying arms, was asked after the election in 1855, when
Charles Robinson succeeded, through his agent, George W.
Deitzler, in obtaining Sharp's rifles from the officers of the
Emigrant Aid Society in Boston, they being shipped to him
labelled "Revised Statutes" and " Books."61
Elated as they were by their triumph at the polls in the first
election, the Missourians were disposed to take no chances of
defeat when the second one took place. This was called by
the first Territorial Governor, Andrew H. Reeder, for March
30, 1855, 62 and in preparing for it the Missouri pro-slavery
men displayed that talent for rapid military organization
which was so evident in the South in 1861. Since this elec-
tion was for the choice of the first Territorial Legislature, its
importance was far greater than the mere selection of a dele-
gate to Congress. Both sides felt that whoever chose the Legis-
lature settled the destiny both of the Territory and of the
future State of Kansas as well. No one could accuse the Free
Soilers of lacking interest this time. But they were still too
young upon the soil, and had not suffered enough indigni-
ties, to make them united for a common cause. Moreover,
the winter of 1854-55 had been not only unusually mild, but
politically quiet as well.63 Hence the Missourians again car-
ried everything before them when they invaded Kansas for
the second time to deny to its citizens of Northern and
Eastern origin the votes to which they were rightfully enti-
tled. They came by companies, each assigned to its special
field of activity, and overawed every election district save
one.64 One thousand men devoted their attention to Lawrence
as the home of the most Abolitionists.65 Some of these had
belonged to the then disbanded Platte County, Missouri,
"Self- Defensive Association," which by formal vote of its
members was pledged to "bring to immediate punishment
all Abolitionists," and to remove from Kansas Territory on
demand of any citizen of that Territory, "any and all emi-
grants who go there under the auspices of the Northern Emi-
grant Associations." 66 The Blue Lodges, similar organizations
for the protection of Missouri by making Kansas impossible
to all save emigrants from the South, were well in evidence.
Each wagon of the raiders bore the designation of an order
or lodge.67 What happened on March 30 was merely a repe-
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 99
tition of November 29 on a larger and bolder and more flagrant
scale. The violations of law and order, the stuffing of the
ballot-boxes, the terrorizing of the Free Soilers, the expelling
of Northern election officials, — in brief, the subversion of the
most precious of our free institutions was complete. The
sacredness of the ballot was nowhere respected. Of the 6307
votes cast, nearly five-sixths were those of the invaders.68
The thirty-nine men who were elected were all representatives
of the South, with one exception. Seven of the pro-slavery men
Governor Reeder unseated, not because of the frauds, but be-
cause of technical flaws in their election. He later explained
his not declaring more seats vacant, although he knew that
the whole election was a fraud, by stating that no other com-
plaints had been filed, and that he thus lacked official infor-
mation, — a valid technical excuse. Complaints were not
readily made because the Missourians threatened with death
any who might venture to file them. Indeed, the Governor
deserves some credit for unseating those legislators he did.
He rendered his decision in a room crowded by fourteen of
his friends, all armed, and by the thirty-nine successful can-
didates, veritable walking arsenals!69 But no shooting oc-
curred. The Missourians were well content with the dis-
qualification of only seven of their number. Subsequently,
they summarily ousted the seven Free Soilers legally elected
to fill these vacancies, and the remaining Free Soil member
promptly resigned.70 The Legislature was thus pro-slavery
throughout.
It must not be thought that this high-handed outrage,
which fairly set the North aflame with indignation, went
without reprobation from the soberer elements in Missouri.
The exultant Stringfellows and Atchisons represented the
blood and thunder pro-slaveryites ; but there were other
voices. To their credit be it recorded that the Parkville
Luminary, Boonville Observer, Independence Messenger, Jef-
ferson City Inquirer, Missouri Democrat, St. Louis Intelli-
gencer, Columbia Statesman, Western Reporter, Glasgow Times,
Fulton Telegraph, Paris Mercury and Hannibal Messenger
spoke out bravely against the invasion of Kansas by mobs and
the frauds at the polls.71 For its conscientious scruples the
Parkville Luminary promptly met an unmerited fate. It was
ioo JOHN BROWN
completely destroyed on April 14, its plant being thrown into
the river and its editors warned that, if found in town three
weeks later, they would follow their type into the Missouri.
If they moved to Kansas, the mob assured them, they would
be followed and hanged wherever found.72 If a citizens' meet-
ing at Webster, Missouri, highly approved of this action and
asserted that they had "no arguments against abolition papers
but Missouri River, bonfire and hemp rope," 73 there were
plenty of more conservative citizens. Unfortunately, they
remained in the minority ; but to them appealed the argument
that if the entire border population of Missouri were to move
into Kansas, the injury to Missouri's progress and prosperity
would be great. They felt, all the more as they were attached
to their own homes, that upon the States farther South rested
the duty of colonizing Kansas.74
The first Territorial Legislature, which so thoroughly mis-
represented Kansas, met at Pawnee on July 2. After un-
seating the Free Soil delegates and organizing, it adjourned
to meet again at Shawnee on July 16. This change of location
gave Governor Reeder the opportunity which he had been
seeking. He had vetoed the removal bill, only to have it
passed over his veto.75 He then declared that the Legislature
was no longer a legal body. In this contention he was not
upheld by the Chief Justice of the Territory, S. D. Lecompte,
the Associate Justice, Rush Elmore, and the United States
District Attorney, A. J. Isacks,76 and the Legislature there-
after went its own way and had little to do with the Execu-
tive. It did, however, petition President Pierce for Reeder's
removal. Its messenger learned on his way that Reeder had
been dismissed from office on July 28, ostensibly not because
of the quarrel with the Legislature, but because of his specu-
lations in Indian lands near Pawnee.77 The underlying reason
was, none the less, the pro-slavery party's hatred of him.78
As for his land speculations, he openly stated to the Howard
Committee the circumstances connected therewith, and they
have not been held to reflect on his character.79 Governor
Reeder at once became a valuable leader of the Kansas Free
Soilers, being thus forcibly converted into an Abolitionist from
a sympathizer with the Squatter Sovereignty policy, and was
regarded in the East as a martyr to the Abolition cause,
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 101
particularly after he was compelled to flee from Kansas in
disguise, in May, 1856, never to return to that State. As for
the Legislature, it spent July and August in authorizing a
militia, appointing a full staff of pro-slavery military and civil
officers, in establishing a complete code of laws for the gov-
ernment of the Territory, based on the Missouri code, and
in passing those extreme Black Laws which John Brown, Jr.,
was so quick to violate. On the last day of its session, the
Speaker, General J. H. Stringfellow, offered a characteristic
resolution, which was readily adopted: "It is the duty of the
Proslavery Party, the Union men of Kansas Territory, to
know but one issue, Slavery; and that any party making or
attempting to make any other, is, and should be, held, as an
ally of abolitionism and disunion."80 For all this, no genuine
attempt was made to enforce the Black Laws ; they were dead
letters from the time of enactment. If they were intended to
frighten off further emigration from free States, they failed
miserably; if they were intended to terrorize those already in
the Territory, they were an even more dismal failure. On the
other hand, reprinted in pamphlet form and widely circulated
throughout the North and East, the Black Laws added fuel
to the already intense flame of Northern indignation, and
became an unanswerable demonstration of the intolerance
of the pro-slavery domination of Kansas and the lengths to
which it would go.
The Free State men, especially those in Lawrence, among
whom Charles Robinson, the agent of the New England Emi-
gration Society, and Martin F. Conway were beginning to
stand out as leaders, as soon as they could calmly consider
the situation, decided that the bogus Legislature and its laws
must be repudiated.81 It soon became their policy to call a
Constitutional convention, frame a Constitution and then
apply to Congress for admittance as a free State. As has
already been pointed out, they were not united among them-
selves. If there were ardent Abolitionists among them, there
were also many who were unfriendly to the free negro, even
when they wished slavery excluded from the Territory. The
men who had settled Kansas represented every state of politi-
cal belief, for the magnet of free land was all that had drawn
many of them there. In the summer of 1855 they might
102 JOHN BROWN
roughly have been classed as moderates and radicals; there
existed, too, considerable jealousy on the part of the other
emigrants toward those New Englanders who came out under
the auspices of the Emigrant Aid Societies.82 The first of six
conventions to meet in Lawrence on or before August 15, in
order to repudiate the Legislature, was composed of citizens
of that settlement. It assembled June 8 and decided to issue
a call for a State convention, to be made up of five delegates
from each of the eighteen election districts in Kansas. This
convention was to have as its purpose the taking "into con-
sideration the relation the people of this Territory bear to the
Legislature about to convene at Pawnee."83 It was to this
gathering that John Brown, Jr., came on June 25, to help
to draft the announcement that the Free State men answered
"Ready" to the threats of war from Missouri. This conven-
tion further resolved that it was in favor of making Kansas
a free Territory and in consequence a free State. Finally,
since the Pawnee Legislature "owed its existence to a com-
bined system of fraud and force," the members of the conven-
tion resolved that they were bound by no laws whatsoever
of its creation.84
Two days later, June 27, James H. Lane made his first
appearance in Kansas history as chairman of the abortive
attempt to organize the National Democratic party in the
Territory, this failure soon bringing Lane into the ranks of
the Free Soilers. Unlike all the other conventions of this
period, it in no wise attempted to repudiate the Legislature.85
The next gathering, that of July n, wTas attended by the
expelled Free State members of the Legislature and other citi-
zens. In it the conflict of opinion between radicals and mod-
erates was very marked, the repudiation of the Legislature
and the call for a mass meeting in Lawrence on August 14,
to consider the government of the Territory, alone being
unanimous.86 The August 14 convention, in which Lane par-
ticipated, turned out to be ready for a fairly radical stand.
Dr. Charles Robinson was chairman of the committee on
resolutions, which roundly denounced the bogus Legislature,
repudiated its authority, and committed the Free State party
to the forming of a State Constitution of their own with a view
to admission to the Union, but provided no machinery by
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 103
which this should be done. If the resolutions were radical,
the net result was conservative. On the second day there was
also adopted a call for a convention at Big Springs, to be held
on September 5. Delegates to it were to be appointed at a
meeting on August 25, and the purpose of these gatherings
was to be left largely to what the hour might demand.
Curiously, as if the specific relationship and purpose of
these gatherings were not puzzling enough, a second conven-
tion also met in Lawrence on August 15, while the first was
still in session. This second body was presided over by Dr.
A. Hunting, and comprised the radicals of the Free State
party, some of whom, like Charles Robinson and M. F. Con-
way, were actually members of both conventions. John
Brown, Jr., was one of the committee on "business," which
turned out to be a call for a constitutional gathering at Topeka
on October 19, for the "speedy formation of a State consti-
tution, with an intention of immediate application to be
admitted as a State into the Union of the United States of
America." The distinction between these two simultaneous
conventions of August 15 may be stated thus: The first and
larger one, of six hundred members, had as its aim the organi-
zation of the Free State political party by means of the Big
Springs convention ; the second and radical one looked to the
immediate establishment of a Free State government, to be
set up in opposition to the pro-slavery Legislature still sitting
at the Shawnee Mission, and now presided over by the second
Territorial Governor, Wilson Shannon, of Ohio, — a Governor,
in truth, to please the most violent Border Ruffian or pro-
slavery agitator.87
Out of these numerous meetings came the Big Springs
convention on September 5, which adopted a platform -
the first one — for the Free State party, and nominated ex-
Governor Reeder as delegate to Congress. The platform was
a great disappointment to the radical Abolitionists of the
John Brown type, both in Kansas and New England, for
while it resolved that slavery was a curse and that Kansas
should be free, it announced that it would consent "to any
fair and reasonable provision in regard to the slaves already
in the Territory." More than that, it specifically voted that
Kansas should be a free white State, and recorded itself as
104 JOHN BROWN
being in favor of "stringent laws excluding all negroes, bond
and free, from the Territory." Indeed, as if to answer the
Southern charge that the Free Soil citizens of Kansas were
radical, no-union-with-slaveholders, anti-slavery men, the
convention denounced attempts to interfere with slavery and
slaves, and declared "that the stale and ridiculous charge of
Abolitionism so industriously imputed to the Free State party
. . . is without a shadow of truth to support it."88 It is
hardly surprising that to those men who, like the Browns, had
come to Kansas to wage war with slavery, this policy of com-
promise— a last attempt to head off a violent conflict be-
tween the two forces contending for control of the Territory
—should have smacked of the cowardly. Nor did the vigorous
denunciation of the Shawnee Legislature in the resolutions
passed by the convention mollify men of this type. Charles
Stearns, the only Lawrence representative of the Liberator
school of Abolitionists, denounced the proceedings with the
vigor of language characteristic of that school, and was in turn
reprobated as an impossible Garrisonian of the deepest dye.
"All sterling anti-slavery men, here and elsewhere, cannot keep
from spitting upon it [the platform]," wrote Stearns to the
Kansas Free State of September 24, 1855, "and all pro-slavery
people must, in their hearts, perfectly despise the base syco-
phants who originated and adopted it." 89 In the East, Horace
Greeley reluctantly accepted the platform in the following
words: "Why free blacks should be excluded it is difficult to
understand; but if Slavery can be kept out by a compromise
of that sort, we shall not complain. An error of this character
may be corrected; but let Slavery obtain a foothold there
and it is not so easily removed." 90
Doubtless when Lawrence was threatened with destruc-
tion less than three months later, by the pro-slavery forces
encamped on the Wakarusa River, Mr. Stearns cited their
presence as proof that the Big Springs platform had utterly
failed to mollify the hostile Missourians or to lessen their con-
tempt for the Free Soilers, whom they still despised as arrant
cowards. Certain it is that the trend of events speedily
forced the Free State party itself into an entirely different
attitude from that it sought to maintain at Big Springs. The
anti-negro attitude of the party was, however, upheld at the
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 105
Topeka convention, which met at Topeka on October 23 to
form a Constitution in obedience to the decision of the earlier
delegate convention of September 19 (ordered by the radical
Lawrence convention of August 15). The Topeka Constitu-
tional convention of thirty-four members, presided over by
James H. Lane, consisted of four physicians, twelve lawyers,
thirteen farmers, two merchants, two clergymen and one
saddler; a majority favored the exclusion of free negroes,
but finally decided to submit this question to the people.91
By 1287 ballots to 453, the voters of the Territory upheld
the negro exclusion policy on December 15, and made it clear
to the rest of the country that, if slavery in Kansas itself was
opposed by the Free Soil party, it was not in the least due to
any liking for negroes, or any desire to extend to those who
were free the opportunities afforded by the opening of the
Territory, or to any belief that the continuance of human
bondage was inconsistent with American institutions. Three-
fourths of the Free State settlers were in favor of a free white
State, and the heaviest voting against the free negro was in
Lawrence and Topeka.92 Obviously, those who had come to
Kansas with the purpose of opposing the extension of slavery
were in a small minority, just as the scanty slave population
shows either that few of the Missouri settlers came solely for
slavery's sake, or else that, if they had such a purpose, they
feared to bring their slaves with them.93
On the credit side of the record of the Big Springs conven-
tion must be noted its denunciation of the bogus pro-slavery
Legislature, its demand for the sacredness of the "great
'American Birthright '-- the elective franchise," and its
endorsement of the coming Topeka convention to consider
the adoption of a Constitution. There was, moreover, a se-
rious threat in one of its resolutions that there would be
submission to the Legislature's laws no longer than the
Territory's best interests required, when there would follow
opposition "to a bloody issue as soon as we ascertain that
peaceable remedies shall fail, and forcible resistance shall fur-
nish any reasonable measure of success." 94 All of this threat-
ening of fire and slaughter was placed not in the platform,
but in the resolutions ; it was obviously an attempt at facing
both ways, and as such is justified by men who subsequently
106 JOHN BROWN
became radical antagonists of all who favored slavery.* The
convention also ignored the Legislature's action in appoint-
ing October i as the day for the election of a Territorial dele-
gate to the Thirty-fourth Congress, and fixed upon October 9
as the proper day for this election ; the returns from this vot-
ing were subsequently ordered turned over to the "Territorial
Executive Committee," instead of to the Legislature. This
"Executive Committee," also a creation of the Big Springs
Convention, and the first Free State steering committee
appointed by a delegate convention to take charge of Free
State affairs, was headed by Charles Robinson as chairman,
with Joel K. Goodin as secretary, and had among its twenty-
one other members Martin F. Conway and John Brown, Jr.95
Finally, it was at this Big Springs meeting that James H.
Lane first made his mark as a Kansas political leader; to his
eloquence is attributed the saving of the convention from
a dangerous split, in that he brought about its approval of
the preliminary Constitutional convention at Topeka.96 As to
Lane's attitude on the negro, John Brown, Jr., has testified
to Lane's saying in Lawrence, about this time: "So far as the
rights of property are concerned I know no difference between
the negro and a mule."87 Later, however, Lane switched
about on this as on other issues.
The two elections for Territorial delegate took place as
scheduled. At the pro-slavery one on October I , General J . W.
Whitfield, who had represented Kansas in the national Legis-
lature during the three months of the Thirty-third Congress
remaining after his election on November 30, 1854, received
2721 out of 2738 votes cast, the Free State men abstaining
from the polls. The Howard Committee pronounced 857 of
these votes illegal after only a partial examination of the
returns.98 Eight days later, with conditions reversed, Reeder
received 2849 Free Soil votes.99 His election was, of course,
ignored by the Territorial Governor, Shannon. When Reeder
and Whitfield both presented themselves at Washington, the
latter was given his seat on February 4, 1856, only to be igno-
* For instance, R. G. Elliott, who played an important part in the Big Springs
Convention, declares that it faced "an important condition that had to be dealt
with practically and with conciliatory discrimination." — Kansas Historical
Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 373.
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 107
miniously ousted on August 4, 10° after the report of the How-
ard Committee had been received by the House of Repre-
sentatives.* The House could not, however, then bring itself
to seating Reeder. But his appearance at Washington and
his vigorous urging of his claims were the reason for the
appointment of the Howard Committee. This was in itself a
splendid triumph for the new policy of the Free State leaders
and their plan of an organized political demand upon Congress
for recognition. Not only are the majority and minority
reports of the Howard Committee, with their voluminous
sworn testimony, an invaluable record for the historian and
the best source of information as to the period in Kansas
history covered by its inquiry, but the publication of the
results thereof made a profound impression upon the country
at large, at a critical period in the Territory's history.
From the double election for delegates in October, 1855,
dates that duality in the political life of the strife-torn Terri-
tory which lasted for two years thereafter, and adds so much
to the perplexity of the cursory student of Kansas history
prior to its statehood. It is not only that there were hence-
forth two governments, but that they were supported by
factions bitterly hostile even to the extent of bloodshed.
There were always separate elections for the same offices at
separate places, with the double machinery of counting and
proclaiming the returns, and there was even a duality of man-
agement on the Free Soil side. The supplemental Topeka
Constitutional convention met, as determined by the prelim-
inary one of September 19, on October 23, and remained
in session until November n. The Constitution it adopted
followed closely those of the other free States, providing
that there should be no slavery, and that no indenture of
any negro or mulatto made elsewhere should be valid within
the State. It fixed March 4, 1856, as the day for the meeting
of the General Assembly called for by the document. 101 This
was submitted to the people on December 15 and ratified by
a vote of 1731 for, to 46 against. The poll-books at Leaven-
worth having been destroyed by a pro-slavery mob, its vote is
* The Howard Committee reported that both Whitfield's and Reeder's elec-
tions were illegal, but that Reeder had received more votes of resident citizens
than Whitfield. See Howard Report, p. 67.
io8 JOHN BROWN
not recorded in the above total.102 Thereafter the Free Soil
forces insisted that Kansas was an organized free State, when
demanding its admission into the Union. The convention,
before adjourning, appointed another Free State Executive
Committee, with the same secretary as had the Robinson
Committee, Joel K. Goodin, but with Lane, already a serious
rival of Charles Robinson, as its chairman, and five other
members. Lane, therefore, emerged from the Topeka con-
vention with additional prestige and thoroughly committed
to the Free State policies.
Out of all the meetings and conventions of the nine months
after the stolen March 30 election, there had come, then, great
gains to the Free State movement. The liberty party had
been organized, leaders had been developed, and a regular
policy of resistance by legal and constitutional measures
adopted. If counsels of compromise were still entirely too
apparent and too potent, the train of events which resulted
in Kansas's admission as a free State was well under way.
Not unnaturally, the pro-slavery leaders at first regarded this
growing opposition with amusement or contempt. They were
still convinced in October, 1855, that Kansas was theirs by
right of their larger battalions and by right of conquest.
Moreover, Governor Shannon, with all his authority, was on
their side, and behind him the Federal Government. The
adoption of the Topeka constitution did, however, arouse
their anger; to this their answer was the organization in
November of their own party, which, with unconscious irony,
they dubbed the " Law-and-Order Party," at a meeting over
which Governor Shannon presided. 103 Indeed, as their hitherto
triumphal overriding of Kansas began to meet a more and
more compact resistance, their mood began to change. The
leaders were quick to feel their power slipping from their
hands, particularly when, the first rush from Missouri being
over, the steady stream of emigration from the East made it
evident that they were being outnumbered. Their followers,
also, began to get out of hand; from overawing by a show
of force, it was easy to proceed to actual physical violence
in the hope of terrifying the hated Free Soiler or of driving
him from the Territory. The temptation to crime was all
the greater since there was no non-partisan judicial machin-
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 109
ery, and often no machinery at all outside of the Federal
judiciary.104
The Howard Committee found that, of all the crimes testi-
fied to during its sessions, an indictment had been found in
but one case.106 In that, the man charged with murder was
a Free Soiler, Cole McCrea by name, who had killed a pro-
slavery man, Malcolm Clark, at Leavenworth, on April 30,
1855, in a quarrel over certain trust lands and McCrea's right
to participate in and vote in a squatter's meeting. The first
of the long series of homicides which was to make of the Ter-
ritory in very truth a "bleeding Kansas," was not a political
one. It occurred near Lawrence on the first election day,
November 30, 1854, Henry Davis, a Border Ruffian from
Kentucky, being killed by Lucius Kibbey, of Iowa. Davis, in
an intoxicated condition, had assailed Kibbey with a knife. 106
Such an election-day crime might easily have occurred any-
where. The killing of Clark, 107 in the following spring, be-
came, on the other hand, of marked political significance,
because of the treatment of his slayer, McCrea. The latter
was imprisoned at Leavenworth until late in November. The
injustice of his case lay in the court's denying to McCrea his
counsel, James H. Lane, because the latter would not take
the oath of allegiance to the pro-slavery Legislature, and in
McCrea's subsequent treatment, on September 17, when he
was brought before the grand jury of nineteen men sum-
moned by Chief Justice Lecompte and picked by him. Sixteen
were openly selected and three in private ; one of the nineteen
had been engaged with Clark in the attack on McCrea. For
a whole week Justice Lecompte endeavored to induce the jury
to indict McCrea, but in vain; the evidence was too strongly
in favor of McCrea for even this picked jury to find a true
bill against him. As the foreman refused to bring in a verdict
of "not found," Justice Lecompte adjourned the court until
the second Monday of November, when McCrea was finally
indicted, after having been illegally deprived of liberty during
the intervening period. When, in November, he was able to
make his escape from jail and leave the Territory by way of
Lawrence, the inability of its citizens to offer him protection
added greatly to their stress of mind. The whole episode of
McCrea's confinement had roused the indignation of the Free
i io JOHN BROWN
Sellers everywhere, convinced as they were that McCrea
had shot in self-defence. 108 »•
Even more stirring to the friends of liberty was the ill-
treatment of William Phillips, an active Free State lawyer
of Leavenworth, and a friend of Cole McCrea's, who was
present when Clark was killed. Phillips received notice on
April 30, from the pro-slavery vigilance committee appointed
on that date, to leave the Territory. On his refusal to go or
to sign a written agreement that he would leave Kansas, a
majority of the committee, so one of its members testified,
"voted to tar and feather him. The committee could get no
tar and feathers this side of Rial to; and we took him up there
and feathered him a little above Rialto, Missouri."109 This
witness forgot to add that one side of Phillips's head was
shaved ; that after his clothes were stripped from him and the
tar applied, he was ridden on a rail for a mile and a half, and
then sold for one dollar by a negro auctioneer at the behest
of his tormentors. A public meeting at Leavenworth on May
19 heartily endorsed this treatment of "William Phillips, the
moral perjurer." no The next day the Leavenworth Herald
said of the mob's work: "The joy, exultation and glorification
produced by it in our community are unparalleled." This out-
rage failed to daunt Phillips's courage ; he stayed in Kansas,
only to die later at the hands of his pro-slavery enemies. As
John Brown was leaving Ohio for Kansas, a similar experience
befell the Rev. Pardee Butler at Atchison. His pro-slavery
fellow citizens, on August 16, placed him on a raft and shipped
him down the Missouri, throwing stones at him and his
queer craft as the current bore him away. His forehead
was ornamented with the letter R; and the flags on his raft
bore the inscriptions, " Greeley to the rescue, I have a nigger; "
"Eastern Aid Express;" and "'Rev. Mr. Butler,' agent to
the Underground Railroad." m The Squatter Sovereign, the
Stringfellow newspaper, notified all the world that "the same
punishment we will award to all free-soilers, abolitionists and
their emissaries." In fact, one J. W. B. Kelly had already
encountered the hatred of the pro-slavery leaders, for in the
first week of August he was severely thrashed and ordered
out of town for holding Abolition views.112 Yet Butler re-
turned to Atchison, as Phillips did to Leavenworth, only to
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD in
meet a graver fate. Another clergyman, the Rev. William C.
Clark, was assaulted on a Missouri river steamer in Septem-
ber, for avowing Free State beliefs that seemed to his assail-
ants to call for physical punishment.113
As John Brown crossed the boundary between Missouri
and Kansas, on October 4, these outrages were still agitating
the Territory and causing men everywhere to arm. That the
pro-slavery election of October I had passed off peacefully,
although fraudulently, had reassured no one; within five days
the Free Soilers were to hold their own election and thus
begin a Free Kansas governmental structure. Would their
lawless Border Ruffian neighbors permit this without addi-
tional bloodshed and violence? Many a Free Soil settler who
had found his way into Kansas only in the face of outspoken
Missouri hostility, enduring privation if not starvation on the
way, because of his being a Yankee,* envied the little Brown
colony their rich supply of arms and ammunition. Upon
John Brown, the apostle of the sword of Gideon, and his mili-
tant sons, outspoken in their defiance of slavery and its laws,
each separate crime by a Missourian made a deep and last-
ing impression. Without loss of time their settlement was to
become known on both sides of the border as a centre of
violent resistance to all who wished to see human slavery
introduced into the Territory. Indeed, three days after his
arrival at his destination, October 9, he and his sons went to
the election for a Free State delegate "most thoroughly armed
(except Jason, who was too feeble) but no enemy appeared,"
so John Brown wrote his wife on October 14, adding, "nor
have I heard of any disturbance in any part of the Terri-
tory." 114 The spirit of the Massachusetts minute-men was
alive in Kansas.
* For instance, Samuel Walker, later a leading citizen of Lawrence, was not
allowed, in April 1855, to take his little girl, who was suffering from a broken
leg, into the house of a Baptist minister living on the Missouri border, because
he came from the North. Not until he reached the Shawnee nation could he, a
Yankee, get shelter at night for his injured child; food was obtained only at night
and from slaves. — Kansas Historical Collections, vol. 6, p. 253.
CHAPTER IV
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS
FORTUNATELY, the Brown minute-men were not called upon
for active service for a few weeks after the arrival of their
arms, so that home-building could progress with some rapid-
ity, if one can really give the name of home to a shed open in
front, its roof of poles covered by long shingles, and its three
sides formed of bundles of long prairie grass pressed close
between upright stakes. Such a shanty sheltered John Brown,
Jr., his wife and some of the others, until late in February,
1856 ; while Jason's mansion during that period consisted only
of log walls and a roof of cotton sheeting. It had some advan-
tages, however, for Mrs. Jason Brown wrote, on November
25> l&55i that "the little house we live in now has no floor in
it, but has quite a good chimney in so that I can cook a meal
without smoking my eyes almost out of my head." l The per-
manent house-building was rendered slow and difficult by the
enfeeblement of two of the new arrivals, for Henry Thomp-
son and Oliver Brown succumbed to the prevailing ague in
November, and had not recovered by the end of the month.2
Nor had Jason when, late in November, there came the first
real call to arms of the Brown settlement, to which its poverty-
stricken owners had given at various times three names,
Brown's Station, Brownsville and Fairfield. Not one of them
has survived, and the last, from the beginning a misnomer,
was particularly so in November, 1855, not only because of
the exceptionally cold and bleak Kansas winter, but also
because of the reports of new and alarming crimes of which
Free State men were the victims.
The killings began in earnest on October 25, at Doniphan,
a town near Atchison, when Samuel Collins, owner of a saw-
mill at Doniphan, was shot by a pro-slavery man, Patrick
Laughlin by name, for political reasons. Laughlin, having
betrayed a secret Free Soil society known as the "Kansas
Legion," of which he had for a time been a member, was de-
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 113
nounced by Collins for his action. Like Montagues and Capu-
lets, they met armed the next morning, with friends or rela-
tions about them. When the fight was over, Collins lay dead;
Laughlin, seriously wounded, recovered and lived on in Atchi-
son, no effort being made to indict or punish him.3 If there
was possibly room for doubt as to whether Collins or Laugh-
lin assumed the offensive, there was none whatever in the
case of Charles Dow, a young Free State man from Ohio, who
was shot from behind and cruelly murdered near Hickory
Point, Douglas County, by Franklin N. Coleman, of Virginia,
a pro-slavery settler. This killing was due to a quarrel over
Coleman's cutting timber on Dow's claim, and was, therefore,
in its origin non-political. Yet out of it, too, came alarming
political consequences. After attending a Free Soil settlers'
meeting, called November 26 to protest against the crime
and to bring the murderer to justice, Jacob Branson, the Free
State man with whom Dow had been living, was arrested
that same night by the pro-slavery sheriff, Samuel J. Jones,
who resided at Westport, Missouri. Jones was postmaster of
Westport while also sheriff of Douglas County, Kansas, and
as will be seen, the gravest menace to the peace of the little
Lawrence community. The pro-slavery warrants upon which
Jones arrested Branson charged him with making threats and
with breaches of the peace. As Sheriff Jones and his posse,
which had then shrunk to fifteen men, neared Blanton's
Bridge with their prisoner, after having spent two hours
carousing at a house on the road, a party of fifteen Free State
men headed by Samuel N. Wood, of Lawrence, stopped them
with levelled guns. In the parley which followed, Branson
went over to his rescuers, who absolutely refused to recognize
the authority of Sheriff Jones, and told him that the only Jones
they knew was the postmaster at Westport. The rescuing
party reached Lawrence with Branson before dawn ; 4 there
it was at once recognized that the rescue would give the pro-
slavery men precisely the excuse they needed for an attack
upon the town. To an excited meeting of citizens held that
evening, Branson related his story. His auditors were, how-
ever, calm enough to decline all responsibility for the affair
in the name of Lawrence. Realizing that this action would
probably avail them but little, a Committee of Safety was
H4 JOHN BROWN
organized to form the citizens into guards and to put the town
into a position of defence.6
Meanwhile, Sheriff Jones, after first despatching a messen-
ger to his own State, Missouri, for aid, appealed on advice
of others to the Governor of Kansas, who might naturally be
expected to have a greater interest in the affair than any one
in Missouri.6 Governor Shannon's interest was soon suffi-
ciently aroused for him to issue to the murderer, three days
after the crime, a commission as justice of the peace.7 Being
also of a confiding nature, he was thus doubly prepared to
believe the exaggerated statements made to him by Sheriff
Jones, who declared that he must have no less than three thou-
sand men forthwith in order to carry out the laws,8 as the Gov-
ernor might consider an "open rebellion" as having already
commenced, — this as a result of the rescue of a single prisoner,
in which not a shot was fired. But the Free State men having
destroyed three cabins, those of Coleman and two settlers
named Hargus and Buckley, and thereby frightened some
pro-slavery families into returning to Missouri, Jones was
easily able to make Governor Shannon think that an armed
band had burnt a number of homes, destroyed personal
property, and turned whole families out of doors.9 The Gov-
ernor at once ordered Major-General William P. Richardson
and Adjutant-General H. J. Strickler, of the newly organized
pro-slavery militia, to repair to Lecompton with as large forces
as they could raise, and report to Sheriff Jones to aid him
in the execution of any legal process in his hands.10 This was
the beginning of the so-called "Wakarusa War."
Thus the Branson rescue gave the extreme pro-slavery men
the opportunity they had been looking for to mass their forces
against Lawrence. But it is also probably true that, as Sheriff
Jones declared later in an affidavit, he would have met with
violence had he attempted to serve any warrant in that town
where the citizens, armed with the much dreaded Sharp's
rifles, were daily drilling, and were outspoken in their refusal
to obey any of the laws enacted by the Pawnee Legislature.
Governor Shannon, being sworn to enforce the laws of the Ter-
ritory, had no other course open to him than to give aid to
Jones. But his pro-slavery feelings led him to swallow every
statement made to him by Jones. In the number of men he
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 115
called together, his willingness to have Missourians figure as
Kansas militia, and his readiness to assume that there was
a serious "rebellion" in Lawrence despite the assertions of
its citizens, he again showed his bias. Moreover, he cannot
altogether escape the charge of duplicity, for, while he never
modified his orders of November 27 to his generals, he wrote
to President Pierce the next day that the sheriff had called
on him for more troops than were really needed, that "five to
eight hundred men" would be enough. If his excuse for this
inconsistency is his belief that his generals could not raise
more than five or six hundred men, instead of the three thou-
sand Jones asked for, he certainly did not make it plain to
the citizens of Kansas that he wanted the smaller number.
Again, while he subsequently testified that he had never
dreamed that any one would go to Missouri for men to rein-
force Jones, he made not the slightest effort to reprove any one
for having done so, or to send back those citizens of Missouri
who were there in the belief that he had summoned them.
True, he wrote to Pierce that the reinforcing of Jones by
sufficient citizens of the Territory to enable him to execute
his processes "is the great object to be accomplished, to avoid
the dreadful evils of civil war." u But he lifted no finger to
prevent when there swarmed into Kansas the same men who
had already invaded Kansas three times in order to stuff or
steal the ballot-boxes, and were now only too happy to encamp
near Lawrence with guns in their hands under the sanction
of the government. His subsequent defence that after the
arrival of the Missourians he deemed it best "to mitigate an
evil which it was impossible to suppress, by bringing under
military control these irregular and excited forces," 12 reads
oddly enough. He did beg help of Pierce, and did try his best
to call out the United States troops under Colonel E. V. Sum-
ner at Fort Leavenworth, to aid him in preventing an attack
on the citizens of Lawrence, who he had at the same time de-
clared could best be subdued by citizens of Kansas reinforcing
Sheriff Jones! In other words, he now asked Colonel Sumner
to protect Lawrence from Jones and his men. But Sumner
refused.
Altogether, Governor Shannon claimed, two hundred and
fifty Kansas militia rendezvoused near Franklin on the Waka-
ii6 JOHN BROWN
rusa, a small tributary of the Kansas River, south of Lawrence.
But this statement rests on his assertion alone; most students
of this period agree that not many more than fifty Kansans
joined Major-General Richardson and Adjutant-General
Strickler.13 Of the Missourians, the first company to appear
at Franklin and go into camp as Kansas militia was one of
fifty men from Westport, Missouri. At Liberty and Lexing-
ton, Missouri, two hundred men with three pieces of artillery
and one thousand stand of arms were quickly brought to-
gether and sent into Kansas.14 Brigadier-General Lucien J.
Eastin, commander of the Second Brigade of Kansas Militia,
was also editor of the Leavenworth Herald, and with the aid
of his presses not only ordered his own "brigade" to assem-
ble at Leavenworth on December I , but circulated the follow-
ing appeal throughout the Missouri border counties:
TO ARMS! TO ARMS! !
It is expected that every lover of Law and Order will rally at
Leavenworth, on Saturday Dec. 1 , 1855, prepared to march at once to
the scene of the rebellion, to put down the outlaws of Douglas County,
who are committing depredations upon persons and property, burn-
ing down houses and declaring open hostility to the laws, and have
forcibly rescued a prisoner from the Sheriff. Come one, come all!
The laws must be executed. The outlaws, it is said, are armed to
the teeth and number 1000 men. Every man should bring his rifle
and ammunition and it would be well to bring two or three days'
provisions. Every man to his post, and do his duty.15
Many Citizens.
A letter purporting to come from Daniel Woodson, the Sec-
retary of the Territory, urging Eastin to call out the Platte
County, Missouri, Rifle Company, "as our neighbors are
always ready to help us," and adding "do not implicate the
Governor whatever you do," was subsequently denounced
to the Howard Committee as a forgery by Mr. Woodson
when under oath.16 It did much, however, to infuriate the
Kansans, and was effectively used in the East as proof of
Shannon's and Woodson's betrayal of Kansas. The highest
estimate of those who assembled to besiege Lawrence is one
by Sheriff Jones of eighteen hundred ; it is generally believed
that twelve hundred is the more accurate figure.17 Atchison
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 117
was, of course, conspicuous in urging on the invasion. Speak-
ing at Platte City on December I, in his usual bombastic
style, he said : 18
" Fellow Citizens : We have done our duty. We have done nothing
but our duty. Not you — not me — but those that have gone into
Kansas to aid Governor Shannon to sustain the law and put down
rebellion and insurrection. 250 men are now on the march and
probably 500 more will go from the County of Platte. Why are you
not with them — you and you? I wish that I was with them at
their head. ..."
In St. Louis, on the other hand, the Intelligencer, on Decem-
ber i, took a very different view of Missouri's duty from that
of Atchison :
"... The people of Missouri are not the ones to be called on to
back up the miserable political puppets that Frank Pierce shall
send out from the Eastern States to play the fool and introduce
bloodshed and anarchy in Kansas. Now, let Pierce reap the fruits
of his imbecility. Let not the people of Missouri, by any urgent
appeal or cunning device, be drawn into the internal feuds of Kan-
sas. It looks very much as if there were a preconcerted effort to
do this very thing. ... It does seem to us that one of the devil's
own choicest humbugs is exploding in the call on Missouri for
'help.'"
Naturally, this hastily gathered together "army" lacked
cohesion and discipline ; according to anti-slavery descriptions,
its members were far gone in drink and supported themselves
by pillaging the neighborhood. Andreas, the most reliable of
Kansas historians, states that they were in the "delirium
coming from exposure, lack of food, and plentiful supplies of
strong drink," and this is the tenor of all contemporary Free
Soil accounts.19 In the Lexington, Mo., Express of December
7, on the other hand, two citizens of that town reported, after
having visited the pro-slavery forces, that all the men were
"comfortably fixed, with plenty of provisions and all were in
high spirits and anxious for a fray. . . . The arrangements
were good, and the most perfect order and decorum were
preserved at all times. The sale of liquor was prohibited."
Some of the weapons of this "noble and gallant set of fellows"
were proved before the Howard Committee to have been
stolen from the United States Arsenal at Liberty, Mo., which
ii8 JOHN BROWN
arms the Border Ruffians, with surprising carelessness, failed
to return when the Wakarusa "war" was over.20
The citizens of Lawrence, on hearing of the coming of the
Missourians, were content neither with sending away Branson
and his rescuers, nor with organizing their citizens as guards,
nor with fortifying the town and smuggling a howitzer from the
North through the enemy's lines. A general call was sent out
in all directions to Free State men in Kansas to come to the
rescue of Lawrence.21 The settlers rallied in response, arriving
alone and in squads, on foot, on horseback and in wagons, regu-
larly armed companies coming from Bloomington, Palmyra,
Ottawa Creek and Topeka. Naturally, it was the opportunity
for which the Brown minute-men had been longing. It was
not until December 6, however, that authentic news reached
them of what was going on, and that their aid was asked.
John Brown, Jr., was on the way to Lawrence on horseback
to ascertain the facts, when the runner who was summoning
the countryside met him. What happened then, John Brown
himself described to his wife and children at North Elba in
a long letter dated December 16, 1855:
"On getting this last news it was at once agreed to break up at
Johns Camp & take Wealthy, & Jonny to Jason's camp (some Two
Miles off) ; & that all the men but Henry, Jason & Oliver should
at once set off for Lawrence under Arms ; those Three being wholly
unfit for duty. We then set about providing a little Corn-Bread;
& Meat, Blankets, Cooking utensils, running Bullets & loading all
our Guns, Pistols etc. The Five set off in the Afternoon, & after
a short rest in the Night (which was quite dark), continued our
march untill after daylight next Morning when we got our Break-
fast, started again; & reached Lawrence in the Forenoon, all of us
more or less lamed by our tramp. On reaching the place we found
that negotiations had commenced between Gov. Shannon (haveing
a force of some Fifteen or Sixteen Hundred men) & the principal
leaders of the Free-State men ; they having a force of some Five
Hundred men at that time. These were busy Night & day fortify-
ing the Town with Embankments ; & circular Earthworks up to the
time of the Treaty with the Gov, as an attack was constantly looked
for; notwithstanding the negotiations then pending. This state of
things continued from Friday until Sunday Evening. On the Even-
ing we left a company of the invaders of from Fifteen to Twenty-
five attacked some Three or Four Free-State men, mostly unarmed,
killing a Mr. Barber from Ohio wholly unarmed. His boddy was
afterward brought in; & lay for some days in the room afterward
119
occupied by a part of the company to wh we belong; (it being
organized after we reached Lawrence.) The building was a large
unfinished Stone Hotel; in which a great part of the Volunteers
were quartered ; & who witnessed the scene of bringing in the Wife
& other friends of the murdered man. I will only say of this scene
that it was Heart-rending; & calculated to exasperate the men ex-
ceedingly; & one of the sure results of Civil War. After frequently
calling on the leaders of the Free-State men to come & have an
interview with him, by Gov. Shannon; & after as often getting for
an answer that if he had any business to transact with anyone in
Lawrence, to come & attend to it; he signified his wish to come into
the Town; & an escort was sent to the Invaders' Camp to conduct
him in. When there the leading Free-State men finding out his
weakness, frailty & consciousness of the awkward circumstances
into which he had really got himself; took advantage of his Coward-
ice, & Folly; & by means of that & the free use of Whiskey; & some
Trickery; succeeded in getting a written arangement with him
much to their own liking. He stipulated with them to order the pro-
slavery men of Kansas home; & to proclaim to the Missouri invaders
that they must quit the Territory without delay ; and also to give up
Gen. Pomeroy a prisoner in their camp; which was all done; he also
recognizing the Volunteers as the Militia of Kansas, & empowering
their Officers to call them out whenever in their discretion the safety
of Lawrence or other portions of the territory might require it to be
done. He Gov. Shannon gave up all pretension of further attemp
to enforce the enactments of the Bogus Legislature, & retired sub-
ject to the derision & scoffs of the Free-State men (into whose hands
he had committed the welfare & protection of Kansas); & to the
pity of some; & the curses of others of the invading force. So ended
this last Kansas invasion the Missourians returning with flying
Colors, after incuring heavy expences; suffering great exposure,
hardships, & privations, not having fought any Battles, Burned
or destroyed any infant towns or Abolition Presses; leaving the
Free-State men organized & armed, & in full possession of the Ter-
ritory; not having fulfilled any of all their dreadful threatening^,
except to murder One unarmed man; & to commit some Roberies
& waste of propperty upon defenceless families, unfortunately in
their power. We learn by their papers they boast of a great vic-
tory over the Abolitionists; & well they may. Free-State men
have only hereafter to retain the footing they have gained; and
Kansas is free. Yesterday the people passed uppon the Free-State
constitution. The result, though not yet known, no one doubts. One
little circumstance connected with our own number showing a little
of the true character of those invaders: On our way about Three
Miles from Lawrence we had to pass a bridge (with our Arms &
Amunition) of which the invaders held possession ; but as the Five
had each a Gun, with Two large Revblvers in a Belt (exposed to
view) with a Third in his Pocket ; & as we moved directly on to the
120 JOHN BROWN
Bridge without making any halt, they for some reason suffered
us to pass without interruption ; notwithstanding there were some
Fifteen to Twenty-five (as variously reported) stationed in a Log-
House at one end of the Bridge. We could not count them. A Boy
on our approach ran & gave them notice. Five others of our Com-
pany, well armed; who followed us some Miles behind, met with
equally civil treatment the same day. After we left to go to Law-
rence until we returned when disbanded ; I did not see the least sign
of cowardice or want of self-possession exhibited by any volunteer
of the Eleven companies who constituted the Free-State force & I
never expect again to see an equal number of such well-behaved,
cool, determined men; fully as I believe sustaining the high char-
acter of the Revolutionary Fathers ; but enough of this as we intend
to send you a paper giving a more full account of the affair. We
have cause for gratitude in that we all returned safe, & well, with
the exception of hard Colds; and found those left behind rather
• • it oo
improving. '
It would be hard to add anything to this admirable summary
of the close of the Wakarusa " war." That it was temperate
and did not overemphasize the part played by the Missouri-
ans appears from the opinion of John Sherman and William
A. Howard, of the Howard Committee, who affirmed that:
"Among the many acts of lawless violence which it has been the
duty of your Committee to investigate, this invasion of Lawrence is
the most defenceless. A comparison of the facts proven with the
official statements of the officers of the government will show how
groundless were the pretexts which gave rise to it. A community in
which no crime had been committed by any of its members, against
none of whom had a warrant been issued or a complaint made, who
had resisted no process in the hands of a real or pretended officer,
was threatened with destruction in the name of 'law and order,'
and that, too, by men who marched from a neighboring State with
arms obtained by force and who at every stage of their progress vio-
lated many laws, and among others the Constitution of the United
States.
"The chief guilt must rest on Samuel J. Jones. His character is
illustrated by his language at Lecompton, when peace was made.
He said Major Clark and Burns both claimed the credit of killing
that damned abolitionist, (Barber) and he did n't know which ought
to have it. If Shannon hadn't been a damned old fool, peace would
never have been declared. He would have wiped Lawrence out.
He had men and means enough to do it."23
John Brown's company 'comprised others than himself and
his four sons, Frederick, Owen, Salmon and John, Jr., and was
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 121
well named the "Liberty Guards." He himself received here
for the first time the historic title of Captain, and the original
muster roll of his company, still preserved, gives the facts as
to its composition and service:24
"Muster Roll of Capt. John Brown's Company in the Fifth Regi-
ment, First Brigade of Kansas Volunteers, commanded by Col.
Geo. W. Smith, called into the service of the people of Kansas to
defend the City of Lawrence, in the Territory of Kansas from
threatened demolition by foreign invaders. Enrolled at Osawatomie
K. T. Called into the service from the 2yth day of November, A. D.
1855, when mustered, to the I2th day of December, when discharged.
Service, 16 days. Miles travelled each way, 50. Allowance to each
for use of horse $24.
"Remark — One keg of powder and eight pounds of lead were
furnished by William Partridge and were used in the service."
Age
John Brown sen. Capt.
Wm. W. Up De Graff
Henry H. Williams
Jas. J. Holbrook
Ephraim Reynolds
R. W. Wood
Frederic Brown
John Yelton
Henry Alderman
H. Harrison Up De Graff
Dan'l W. Collis
Wm. Partridge
Amos D Alderman
Owen Brown
Salmon Brown
John Brown, jr.
Francis Brennen
Wm. W. Coine
Benj. L. Cochren
Jeremiah Harrison
ISt
Lieut.
2nd
3rd
ISt
Se
gt-
2nd
3rd
4th
ISt
Corp
2nd
Corp
3rd
Corp
4th
«
55
34
27
23
25
20
25
26
55
23
27
32
20
31
19
34
29
19
24
22
This muster roll was certified to as correct "on honor" by
George W. Smith, Colonel commanding the Fifth Regiment
Kansas Volunteers, but it will be noted that it gives the Lib-
erty Guards credit for at least nine days more service than
they were entitled to according to John Brown's own story.
So does the honorable discharge of John Brown, Jr., which
was countersigned not only by Colonel Smith, but also by
J. H. Lane as General, First Brigade, Kansas Volunteers, and
122 JOHN BROWN
"C. Robinson, Maj. Gen'l.," in that it dates his service from
November 27. This apparently was the date of entry into
service fixed for all the volunteers of this quaint "army,"
with its elaborate organization and high titles.25 As a matter
of fact, the active service of the Liberty Guards comprised
only Friday the 7th and Saturday the 8th of December, dur-
ing which time the peace negotiations were under way. They
remained in Lawrence until the I2th or later, when the other
companies also left for their homes.
In his narrative of what happened during his brief partici-
pation in the siege of Lawrence, Brown slurs over his own
part in the proceedings, which was sufficiently conspicuous
to make him well known to all who were in the threatened
town. "I did not see Brown's entry into Lawrence," writes
R. G. Elliott, at the time an editor of the Kansas Free State,
"which was the first introduction of the mysterious stranger
into the Kansas drama, but I do know that his grim visage,
his bold announcements, with the patriarchal organization
of his company, gave him at once welcome entrance into the
military counsels of the defenders, and lightened up the gloom
of the besieged in their darkest hour." 26 Here in Kansas, too,
John Brown made upon every one the impression of age,
owing to the stoop of his shoulders, the measured step, the
earnestness and impressiveness of his manner, and other
signs of seniority and natural leadership, even though there
was in his endurance, the resoluteness of his movements, and
the promptness of his speech, nothing approaching senility.*
The title of captain fitted him readily; where he was, he led.
And so at Lawrence, — hardly arrived, he was at the fortifi-
cations. "There," reports an eye-witness, James F. Legate, he
"walked quietly from fort to fort and talked to the men sta-
tioned there, saying to each that it was nothing to die if their
lives had served some good purpose, and that no purpose could
be higher or better than that which called us to surrender
life, if need be, to repel such an invasion." 27 Even though
the discussion of peace was on, he suggested the gathering of
pitchforks for use in repelling a possible charge.28 The peace
itself produced in him only anger, when first he heard of it.
* The Lawrence Herald of Freedom reported the arrival on December 7 of
41 Mr. John Brown, an aged gentleman from Essex County, N. Y."
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 123
It was not only, as he wrote to Orson Day on reaching home,
that there was ' ' a good deal of trickery on the one side and
of cowardice, folly, & drunkenness on the other;" 29 there was
suppression of facts as well. For the actual terms of peace,
involving as they did a compromise, were at first concealed
by the leaders in expectation of dissatisfaction. As a matter
of fact, the agreement pledged the Free State men to "aid in
the execution of the laws when called upon by proper author-
ity;" its equivocal concluding sentence read: "We wish it
understood, that we do not herein express any opinion as to
the validity of the enactments of the Territorial Legislature."
This was signed on December 8.
An open-air meeting was held on Saturday afternoon about
the still unfinished Free State Hotel, where a box outside the
door served as a platform and door- sill, there being no steps
but planks leading to the ground. Shannon, Robinson and
Lane, fresh from signing the treaty, harangued the crowd.
What the terms of the treaty were, they would tell no one
that day. Shannon expressed his satisfaction at the discovery
that he had misunderstood the people of Lawrence, that they
were really estimable and orderly persons. He hoped now to
preserve order and get out of the Territory the Missourians,
who, he remarked, were there of their own accord. Lane's
eloquence evoked cheers; he declared that "any man who
would desert Lawrence until the invaders below had left the
Territory, was a coward." Governor Robinson was pacific, dis-
creet and brief. He stated, according to WTilliam Phillips, the
Tribune's correspondent, that "they had taken an honorable
position." 30 But the crowd was not so sure of that. A rumor
had been circulating that the treaty was in reality a complete
surrender on the part of Robinson and Lane, and an accept-
ance of the hated pro-slavery laws. John Brown, boiling over
with anger, mounted the shaky platform and addressed the
audience when Robinson had finished. He declared that
Lawrence had been betrayed, and told his hearers that they
should make a night attack upon the pro-slavery forces and
drive them out of the Territory. "I am an Abolitionist," he
said, "dyed in the wool," and then he offered to be one of ten
men to make a night attack upon the Border Ruffian camp.
Armed and with lanterns, his plan was to string his men along
124 JOHN BROWN
the camp far apart. At a given signal in the early morning
hours, they were to shout and fire on the slumbering enemy.
"And I do believe," declared John Brown in telling of it,
"that the whole lot would have run." 31 Lane, too, had been
secretly in favor of an attack, but peace councils prevailed.32
John Brown was pulled down by friends and foes from the
improvised rostrum, and, according to one responsible witness,
it was Robinson who stamped out the incipient mutiny by
calmly assuring the crowd that the unpublished treaty wras a
triumph of diplomacy.33
That same evening, Shannon, Lane and Robinson spoke to
thirteen pro-slavery captains at Franklin, who grumblingly
accepted the treaty and gave their word that they would
endeavor to induce the Missourians to return quietly to their
homes.34 But the Missouri leaders were not all pleased at
the outcome. General Stringfellow declared, in a speech in the
camp near Lecompton, that "Shannon has played us false;
the Yankees have tricked us." Sheriff Jones's regret that
Shannon did not wipe out Lawrence has already been recorded.
Atchison was for peace, — there are doubts if he really was
a fighting man when it came to the point. "If you attack
Lawrence now," he declared, "you attack it as a mob, and
what would be the result? You would cause the election
of an Abolition President and the ruin of the Democratic
party." 35 If there was some grumbling among the rank and
file at Shannon's ordering them to return to their homes, the
cold storm of that Saturday night helped on the dissolution
of the pro-slavery forces. Many left on Monday morning,
worn, sleepless and frozen. Moreover, the whiskey had given
out, and this, with the fear of a possible Free State attack,
sent more and more home, until on Tuesday only a few par-
ties remained. Finally, these few gave in to the inevitable and
departed, says Phillips, "cursing Shannon and the 'cunning
Abolitionists.' " 36
As for Shannon, the tricky Robinson had again taken ad-
vantage of his weakness by inviting him and Sheriff Jones
to a peace gathering in the Free State Hotel on Sunday even-
ing, December 9, despite protests from Lane and others that
no such enemy of Lawrence as Jones should be given the
right hand of fellowship. In the course of the evening, when
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 125
the Governor was thoroughly enjoying himself, Robinson
rushed up to him and informed him that the Missourians
had left the Wakarusa and were marching on Lawrence. He
insisted that the Governor should at once sign a paper author-
izing him and Lane to defend the town. The Governor, after
a little urging, put his name to the following document:
To C. Robinson and J. H. Lane, commanders of the Enrolled
Citizens of Lawrence:
You are hereby authorized and directed to take such measures
and use the enrolled forces under your command in such manner,
for the preservation of the peace and the protection of the persons
and property of the people of Lawrence and its vicinity, as in your
judgment shall best secure that end.
WILSON SHANNON.
LAWRENCE, Dec. 9, 1855.
His Excellency thereupon returned to the delights of the
reception and, says Phillips, "on that eventful Sunday, if
Governors ever get drunk, his supreme highness, Wilson the
First, got superlatively tipsy." 37
When he came to his senses and discovered that he had
given legal authority to arm and fight to the leaders of that
very mob to suppress which he had called out the Territorial
militia, he was properly chagrined. The force which he had
denounced for assembling to upset the laws was now duly
empowered by him to act at its own discretion without limit
of time. Naturally, the Governor was indignant. In a long
letter to the Kansas correspondent of the New York Herald,
dated December 25, 1855, he sought to justify himself and
explain his predicament, saying:38
"... amid an excited throng, in a small and crowded apartment,
and without any critical examination of the paper which Dr. Rob-
inson had just written, I signed it; but it was distinctly understood
that it had no application to anything but the threatened attack
on Lawrence that night. ... It did not for a moment occur to me
that this pretended attack upon the town was but a device to obtain
from me a paper which might be used to my prejudice. I supposed
at the time that I was surrounded by gentlemen and by grateful
hearts, and not by tricksters, who, with fraudulent representations,
were seeking to obtain an advantage over me. I was the last man
on the globe who deserved such treatment from the citizens of
Lawrence." "
126 JOHN BROWN
It is evident that the Governor had reason for his anger.
Dr. Robinson's successful stratagem can best be justified by
that familiar theory that everything is permissible in war.
This has excused many a more heinous crime; but Shannon
could properly have urged that, as peace had been signed, this
trick was indefensible even as a war measure.
The treaty was, from the beginning, an ill-fated document,
and met the destiny double-dealing compromises deserve.
As events turned out, the Missourians had their revenge on
Lawrence and Robinson within seven months. Though he
afterwards became a respected citizen of Lawrence, Shannon
was, until his removal in 1856, despised by its residents and
berated by the pro-slavery men in and out of the Territory,
who sought to saddle upon him the blame for their undeniable
defeat. "The discomfited and lop-eared invaders," wrote
Horace Greeley in the Tribune of December 25, in character-
istic style, "pretend that against their wish they were kept
from fighting by the pusillanimity of Gov. Shannon." Thus
ended the Wakarusa "war." It had cost but one life, that of
Barber, the unexpected sight of whose dead body in the Free
State Hotel had done much to make Shannon see some justice
in the Free Soil cause. Barber had been shot from behind,
probably by the United States Indian agent, Major George
E. Clarke, for the sole reason that he had been visiting Law-
rence. " I have sent another of those damned Abolitionists to
his winter quarters," boasted Clarke. But Colonel James N.
Burns, of Missouri, disputed his right to this honor, and, since
both fired at the same moment, no one has ever been able to
decide to whom Barber owed his death wound.39
The night after his abruptly ended speech John Brown
passed with James F. Legate. He asked Legate for minute
particulars of the latter's ten years of experience in the South,
so far as it related to the slaves, asking especially if they
had any attachment for their masters and would fight for
liberty. Then they had an argument as to the nature of
prayer; it ended by Brown's praying for power to repel the
slaveholders, the enemies of God, and for freedom all over
the earth.40
On December 14, Brown, his four sons and their half-
starved horse, which dragged the heavily laden wagon, were
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 127
back and settled at Brown's Station, apparently reconciled
to the treaty, for on that date he wrote to Orson Day of his
over-sanguine belief that "the Territory is now entirely in
the power of the Free State men," and of his confident expec-
tation that the " Missourians will give up all further hope of
making Kansas a Slave State." 4I
The result of the vote on the Free State Constitution, on
December 15, further helped to make John Brown contented
with the Shannon compromise. Apparently there was a peace-
ful winter before them, and this proved to be the case. Its
very inclemency made further hostile operations impossible,
and left the Kansans free to keep body and soul together as
best they could. John Brown himself utilized the opportunity
to go a number of times into the enemy's country in January
in search of supplies, without meeting with any unpleasant
experiences. On January I, 1856, he wrote from West Point,
Missouri, " In this part of the State there seems to be but little
feeling on the slave question." 42 As the temperature had
ranged from ten to twenty-eight degrees below zero in the
week previous to his writing, and there were in places ten
inches of snow on the ground, it is obvious that the need of
pork and flour which made Brown venture forth must have
been pressing. By the 4th he was back in Osawatomie again,
for on the 5th he was appointed chairman of a convention
in Osawatomie, called for the purpose of nominating State
officers. His son, John Brown, Jr., was duly nominated for
the Legislature, and, so Henry Thompson reported the next
day, "the meeting went off without any excitement and to
our satisfaction." 43 This was but an index of the place the
Browns had already made for themselves, a recognition of
their dominating characters. Further proof of this is to be
found in a letter from Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to her mother-in-
law. Writing on January 6, 1856, she says: "You need not in
the least feel uneasy about your husband, he seems to enjoy
life well, and I believe he is now situated so as to do a great
deal of good ; he certainly seems to be a man here who exhibits
a great amount of influence and is considered one of the most
leading and influential minds about here. . . . Our men have
so much war and elections to attend to that it seems as though
we were a great while getting into a house." 44
128 JOHN BROWN
On the 8th of January, John Brown went back to Missouri
for more provisions, accompanied by Salmon and driving the
faithful horse for the last time, since that hard-worked ani-
mal must needs be sold to a pro-slavery master, that the pro-
visions might be obtained for the oxen to bring home, and to
replace moneys belonging to S. L. Adair used by John Brown
on the road to Kansas. " By means of the sale of our Horse
and Waggon: our present wants are tolerably well met; so
that if health is continued to us we shall not probably suffer
much," wrote Brown to his wife on February I, on his return
from a third trip to Missouri. He reported also that the
weather continued very severe: "It is now nearly Six Weeks
that the Snow has been almost constantly driven (like dry
sand) by the fierce Winds of Kansas." There were also serious
alarms of war: "We have just learned of some new; and shock-
ing outrages at Leavenworth : and that the Free-State people
there have fled to Lawrence: which place is again threatend
with an attack. Should that take place we may soon again
be called upon to 'buckle on our armor;' which by the help
of God we will do : when I suppose Henry, & Oliver will have
a chance." 45 He added, however, that in his judgment there
would be no general disturbance until warmer weather. In
this view he was as correct as he had previously been wrong
in estimating the results of the Wakarusa "war."
The Leavenworth troubles, to which he referred, were so
serious as to be taken on both sides as ending the truce signed
by Shannon. They grew out of the election, on January 15,
of members of the Free Soil Legislature and the State officers
under the Topeka Constitution. Just as the Missourians had
refrained from interfering with the Free State voting in the
adoption of the Constitution, they now permitted the January
15 election to pass off in peace, except at Leavenworth, where
the pro-slavery mayor forbade the holding of the election. It
took place clandestinely and was then adjourned to Easton,
twelve miles away, where it was again held on the 17th, de-
spite the disarming and driving away of some of the Free State
voters. That night there was severe fighting between the two
sides, in which the pro-slavery men lost one killed and two
wounded, while two of the Free Soilerswere injured. Later,
the pro-slavery forces, which had been reinforced by a militia
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 129
company, the Kickapoo Rangers, captured Captain Reese P.
Brown, the leader of the Free State men, as he was returning to
Leavenworth. Him the Rangers mortally wounded the next
day, when he was unarmed and defenceless.46 "These men,
or rather demons," reported Phillips to the Tribune, "rushed
around Brown and literally hacked him to death with their
hatchets." Not an effort was made to punish the murderers,
though they were well known to the Territorial authorities.
Some of the pro-slavery newspapers, like Stringfellow's Squat-
ter Sovereign, upheld the deed, that journal calling for "War!
War!! " 47 The Leavenworth Herald justified the murder and
gave notice to the Free State men that: "These higher-law
men will not be permitted longer to carry on their illegal and
high-handed proceedings. The good sense of the people is
frowning it down. And if it cannot be in one way it will in
another." 48 The Kansas Pioneer of Kickapoo was an acces-
sory to Brown's murder before the fact, for on the morning
of the crime it had published this appeal: "Sound the bugle
of war over the length and breadth of the land and leave
not an Abolitionist in the Territory to relate their treach-
erous and contaminating deeds. Strike your piercing rifle
balls and your glittering steel to their black and poisonous
hearts." 49
But the black-hearted Free Soilers voted nevertheless, cast-
ing, in the entire Territory, 1628 ballots for Mark W. Dela-
hay, the candidate for delegate to Congress who had just
previously, on December 22, 1855, had a taste of Missouri
intolerance, when the printing-presses of his Leavenworth
newspaper, the Territorial Register, were thrown into the Mis-
souri River because of the Free Soil sentiments of its editor.50
For Charles Robinson as Governor there were cast 1296 votes.
This result increased the anger of the pro-slavery men. On that
day of balloting, Sheriff Jones wrote to Robinson and Lane,
asking whether they had or had not pledged themselves to aid
him with a posse in serving a writ. Their answer was only
that they would make no "further resistance to the arrest
by you of one of the rescuers of Branson, ... as we desire
to test the validity of the enactments of the body that met
at the Mission, calling themselves the Kansas Legislature, by
an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States." 61
130 JOHN BROWN
Jones and the Border Ruffians thereupon insisted that the
Free State men had violated the truce of Lawrence, and
deemed themselves no longer bound by it. By February 4,
ex-Senator Atchison was again threatening the sword of ex-
termination, or rather the bowie-knife: "Send your young
men . . . drive them [the Abolitionists] out. . . . Get ready,
arm yourselves; for if they abolitionize Kansas you lose
$100,000,000 of your property. I am satisfied I can justify
every act of yours before God and a jury," 62 — words that
could not have gone unread at Brown's Station, where they
received and pored over "Douglas newspapers" as well as
Free Soil ones. The election had passed off quietly enough
at Osawatomie, John Brown, Jr., being duly elected to the
Legislature, but shortly afterwards the minute-men led in the
expulsion of a claim- jumper, as a result of a settlers' meet-
ing held on January 24 to consider the case. Henry Thompson,
John Brown, Jr., and his brothers Oliver and Frederick were
the committee which, well armed, knocked the man's door in
and threw his belongings out. Henry Thompson's part was
watching, with a loaded revolver in his hand, every action of
the claim-jumper until he disappeared in the distance, vowing
vengeance on each and every Brown.63
It was also on January 24, that President Pierce sent a special
message to Congress which aroused the ire of every Free State
settler, and of every anti-slavery man the country over. In it,
yielding to the influence of Jefferson Davis, and of Governor
Shannon, who was then in Washington, he squarely took the
side of the South, proclaiming the pro-slavery Shawnee Legis-
lature legal, whatever election frauds might have been com-
mitted, and denouncing the acts of the Free State men as
without law and revolutionary in character, "avowedly so
in motive," which would become "treasonable insurrection"
if they went to the "length of organized resistance by force to
the fundamental or any other Federal law, and to the author-
ity of the general government." On February n the Presi-
dent went even further, and issued a proclamation which de-
prived the Free State forces of all hope of any aid from the
Federal Government. It placed the entire authority and power
of the United States on the side of pro-slavery men, and of all
those persons who opposed the Topeka movement. While
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 131
condemning the lawless acts of both sides, he placed the Fort
Riley and Fort Leavenworth troops at Shannon's behest,
except that he was cautioned not to call upon them unless it
was absolutely necessary to do so to enforce the laws and keep
peace ; even then this proclamation must be read aloud before
the soldiers acted. Naturally, the South rejoiced and the
hearts of the defenders of Lawrence were downcast. The
Squatter Sovereign was emboldened on February 20 to say:
"In our opinion the only effectual way to correct the evils
that now exist is to hang up to the nearest tree the very last
traitor who was instrumental in getting up, or participating
in, the celebrated Topeka Convention."
John Brown had anticipated this action of Pierce's, and his
feelings sought relief on the same day in the following letter
to Joshua R. Giddings, the well-known anti-slavery Congress-
man from Ohio:
OSAWATOMIE KANSAS TERRITORY 2oth Feby 1856
HON. JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS
WASHINGTON, D. C.
DEAR SIR,
I write to say that a number of the United States Soldiers are
quartered in this vicinity for the ostensible purpose of removing
intruders from certain Indian Lands. It is, however, believed that
the Administration has no thought of removing the Missourians
from the Indian Lands; but that the real object is to have these
men in readiness to act in the enforcement of those Hellish enact-
ments of the (so called) Kansas Legislature; absolutely abominated
by a great majority of the inhabitants of the Territory; and spurned
by them up to this time. I confidently believe that the next move-
ment on the part of the Administration and its Proslavery masters
will be to drive the people here, either to submit to those Infernal
enactments; or to assume what will be termed treasonable grounds
by shooting down the poor soldiers of the country with whom they
have no quarrel whatever. I ask in the name of Almighty God; I
ask in the name of our venerated fore-fathers ; I ask in the name of
all that good or true men ever held dear; will Congress suffer us to
be driven to such ' ' dire extremities ' ' ? Will anything be done ? Please
send me a few lines at this place. Long acquaintance with your
public life, and a slight personal acquaintance incline and embolden
me to make this appeal to yourself.
" Everything is still on the surface here just now. Circumstances,
however, are of a most suspicious character.
Very Respectfully yours,
JOHN BROWN."
132 JOHN BROWN
Before this earnest letter was far on its way there came an
important answer to its appeal, and to the proclamation of
the President, in the organization of the "National Republi-
can Party" at Pittsburgh, February 22, 1856, the name of
Charles Robinson being placed on its National Committee
as representative of Kansas, on the motion of S. N. Wood,
leader of the Branson rescuers, who was present as a delegate.
On account of the terrible weather 55 — the snow was often
eighteen inches deep, and the thermometer as low as twenty-
seven degrees below zero — the mails were slow in leaving
Kansas,56 and it was not until March 17 that Mr. Giddings
assured his Osawatomie correspondent:
"... you need have no fear of the troops. The President will
never dare employ the troops of the United States to shoot the citi-
zens of Kansas. The death of the first man by the troops will involve
every free State in your own fate. It will light up the fires of civil
war throughout the North, and we shall stand or fall with you. Such
an act will also bring the President so deep in infamy that the hand
of political resurrection will never reach him. . . .""
Governor Shannon returned to Kansas on March 5, ex-
ulting in his having the regular troops commanded by Colo-
nel Sumner under him, especially as that excellent officer
had refused to come to his aid during the Wakarusa "war"
without express authority from Washington.58 The day be-
fore, on March 4, the Free State Legislature had duly as-
sembled as required by the Topeka Constitution, without
the slightest regard for Pierce's message or proclamation.59
It remained in session only eleven days, receiving Governor
Robinson's inaugural address, electing Governor Lane and
ex-Governor Reeder Senators of the United States in the
event of the State's being admitted to the Union, preparing
a memorial to Congress begging that admission, and receiv-
ing the report of the Territorial Executive Committee, headed
by Lane, which then went out of existence. Adjournment
was on March 15 until July 4, when it met again, only to
be dispersed by Colonel Sumner's troopers. John Brown,
Jr., was in attendance at the session in March; his father
recorded this in a letter to North Elba on March 6, in
which he also complained of the lack of any letters or news
because of deep snows and high water, so that, he wrote, " we
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 133
have no idea what Congress has done since early in Jany : " 60
John Brown, Jr., did not, however, arrive in Topeka, with
Henry H. Williams, a fellow Representative, until the morn-
ing of the 5th, so Mr. Williams wrote on the 7th to a friend.
His letter shows that there was considerable trepidation
among the arriving delegates in view of Pierce's position.
"Shannon," he wrote, "is at the Big Springs on a bender I
learn. . . . Mr. Brown has been put on a committee to se-
lect six candidates from which three are to be elected Com-
missioners to revise and codify the laws and rules of prac-
tise. . . ."61
Only fifteen of the Topeka legislators signed the memorial
to Congress asking for the admission of Kansas as a Free
State under the Topeka Constitution, a copy of which was
attached to their petition. John Brown, Jr., was of course one
of the fifteen.62 He was also one of the committee of three
to draft resolutions in regard to the murder of Captain R. P.
Brown. He figured also as a member of the standing com-
mittee on vice and immorality, and presented a petition from
fifty-six ladies of Topeka praying for the enactment of a law
prohibiting the manufacture and sale of liquor,63 for all of
which legislative service, and for his subsequent partaking in
the meetings of the committee to select the commissioners
to codify the laws,64 this unfortunate man paid a terrible
price within the next three months. Soon after John Brown,
Jr., returned, his father, Frederick and Oliver Brown, and
Henry Thompson went on a surveying tour to the west of
their settlement, fixing the boundaries of their lands for the
Indian neighbors they had learned to respect and like. The
Ottawas, having found that many whites were settling on
their lands, held a council and asked the Browns to trace their
southern boundary. "There is a good many settlers on their
lands," wrote Henry Thompson to his wife, "that will prob-
ably have to leave — mostly proslavery." 65 This prospect
could hardly have raised the Browns in the esteem of these
neighbors and their sympathizers. This surveying party was,
however, one of those experiences in Kansas which made
Henry Thompson write to his wife a month later, April 16,
when the outlook for the Free State had grown gloomy
enough: "It is a great trial to me to stay away from you, but
134 JOHN BROWN
I am here, and feel I have a sacrifice to make, a duty to per-
form. Can I leave that undone and feel easy, and have a
conscience void of offence? Should I ever feel that I had not
put my hand to the plough and looked back?"66 It was
not only the cause which held Mr. Thompson in Kansas, but
his very great regard for John Brown. Upon Brown's plans
he later wrote to his wife, would depend his own, "until
School is out." 67
April 1 6 was also the date of a settlers' meeting of momen-
tous importance to Osawatomie. It attracted widespread at-
tention elsewhere in the Territory, since it was the first open
defiance, after the President's proclamation, by any body of
men, of the Shawnee Legislature's laws. The call for the gath-
ering was signed by twenty-three citizens, who wished to con-
fer as to the proper attitude to be taken toward the officials
appointed by the Shawnee Legislature to assess property and
collect taxes. Richard Mendenhall presided, and there was
full discussion of the situation.68 No less ominous a figure
than the Rev. Martin White presented the Border Ruffian
side. The Rev. S. L. Adair, brother-in-law of John Brown,
recorded many years later that "Martin White stood up for
the laws, and charged rebellion and treason on all who de-
clined to obey them. Captain John Brown was for regarding
the Legislature as a fraud and their laws as a farce and their
slave code as wicked, and if an attempt was made to enforce
them to resist it." Martin White put it differently. " I went,"
he declared in a speech to the Kansas Legislature in Febru-
ary, 1857, when telling of his experiences with the Free State
men, "to one of their meetings and tried to reason with them
for peace, but in so doing I insulted the hero [John Brown]
of the murder of the three Doyles, Wilkinson and Sherman,
and he replied to me and said that he was an 'Abolitionist
of the old stock — was dyed in the wool and that negroes
were his brothers and equals — that he would rather see this
Union dissolved and the country drenched with blood than
to pay taxes to the amount of one-hundredth part of a mill.' "
As to his own position, Mr. Adair testified: "I had said but
little. But the question was put directly: was I ready to obey
the laws or to take up arms against them? I replied I should
not regard the authority of those laws, yet was not ready
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 135
to take up arms against them but was ready if necessary to
suffer penalties." This was the spirit in which the Free Soil
pioneers were meeting the situation created by Pierce's sid-
ing with the pro-slavery forces. They were willing to "suffer
penalties" for their beliefs in the good old New England
fashion, and were in no wise to be swerved from their sense of
duty by the thundering of the highest authority in the land.
As a result of the discussion and the appointment of a com-
mittee of five to prepare them, the following resolutions were
adopted by the meeting:
Resolved, That we utterly repudiate the authority of that Legis-
lature as a body, emanating not from the people of Kansas, but
elected and forced upon us by a foreign vote, and that the officers
appointed by the same, have therefore no legal power to act.
Resolved, That we pledge to one another mutual support and aid
in a forcible resistance to any attempt to compel us with obedience
to those enactments, let that attempt come from whatever source it
may, and that if men appointed by that legislature to the office of
Assessor or Sheriff, shall hereafter attempt to assess or collect taxes
of us, they will do so at the peril of such consequences as shall be
necessary to prevent same.
Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to inform such
officers of the action of this meeting by placing in their hands a copy
of these resolutions.
Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions with the proceedings
of this meeting be furnished to the several papers of Kansas with
a request to publish the same.
RICHARD MENDENHALL, Pres't.™
OSCAR V. DAYTON, Sec'ry.
One cannot but admire the courage which prompted this
spreading abroad of the decision of the meeting. It was, how-
ever, soon to have dire results for the little settlement itself.
About this same time there had come to a neighboring pro-
slavery settlement of the Shermans, one of whom was known
as "Dutch Henry," a Judge, Sterling G. Cato, to hold court
in the name of the bogus Territorial Legislature. The Browns
soon heard that he had issued warrants for their arrest,
either because of their participation in the meeting of April
1 6, or because of prior dislike of them as Abolitionists. John
Brown sent to the court his son Salmon and Henry Thompson,
"to see," so Salmon Brown affirms, "if Cato would arrest us.
We went over ten miles afoot and stood around to see if they
136 JOHN BROWN
would carry out their threat. I did not like it. I did not want
to be in the middle of a rescue. That's a risky situation. I
thought father was wild to send us, but he wanted to hurry up
the fight — always." 70 This ruse having failed, Brown himself
went with his armed company to see what was going on. The
result of this he described to his brother-in-law, Adair:
BROWN'S STATION, 22d April, 1856.
DEAR BROTHER ADAIR: —
. . . Yesterday we went to Dutch Henrys to see how things were
going at Court, my boys turned out to train at a house near by.
Many of the volunteer Co. went in without show of arms to hear
the charge to Grand Jury. The Court is thoroughly Bogus but the
Judge had not the nerve to avow it openly. He was questioned on
the bench in writing civilly but plainly whether he intended to
enforce the Bogus Laws or not ; but would give no answer. He did
not even mention the so called Kansas Legislature or name their
acts but talked of our laws ; it was easy for any one conversant with
law matters to discover what code he was charging the jury under.
He evidently felt much agitated but talked a good deal about hav-
ing criminals punished, &c. After hearing the charge and witnessing
the refusal of the Judge to answer, the volunteers met under arms
passed the Osawatomie Preamble & Resolutions, every man voting
aye. They also appointed a committee of Three to wait on the
Judge at once with a coppy in full; which was immediately done.
The effect of that I have not yet learned. You will see that matters
are in a fair way of comeing to a head.
Yours sincerely in haste,
JOHN BROWN 71
James Hanway, a leading Free State settler, has recorded
the following additional details of this occurrence:
"John Brown, Jr. left the court room, and in the yard he called
out in a loud voice: 'The Pottawattomie Rifle Company will meet
at the parade ground,' and the company consisting of some thirty
men, marched off to meet as ordered. There was not a disrespectful
word uttered, nor were there deadly weapons displayed on the oc-
casion — there were doubtless a few pocket pistols, but they were
hid from sight. Between dark and daylight, Judge Cato and his
officials had left; they journeyed toward Lecompton in Douglas
County, which was the Bastile of the proslavery party. This was
the first and the last of the proslavery court holding their sessions
in this section of the country." n
This incident, Mr. Hanway added, got into the pro-slavery
newspapers in a magnified and distorted form, and became
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 137
a standing charge against the Free State party of Kansas as
one of their heinous crimes, for Judge Cato portrayed him-
self thereafter as a court compelled to flee for safety.
About the time that Judge Cato's court was in session at
Dutch Henry's, there arrived in the neighborhood a com-
pany of Southerners who had come to the Territory from
Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, in order to make it
a slave State. John Brown lost no time in discovering their
objects, and he did it in a manner which has become famous
in Kansas. "Father," says Salmon Brown, "had taken advan-
tage of his knowledge of surveying, and, as a surveyor, ran a
line through their camp. He had been surveying the old In-
dian lands, previously, for the Indians. The Border Ruffians
never suspected us to be anything but friends, for only pro-
slavery men got government jobs then, and surveyors were
supposed -to be government officers. So they talked freely
about their plans and one big fellow said : 'We came up here for
self first and the South next. But one thing we will do before
we leave, we '11 clear out the damned Brown crowd.' " 73 This
last was an empty boast, as time showed. But the arrival of
these men in the neighborhood of Osawatomie was but an-
other sign of the impending crisis. They were part of the force
raised by Major Jefferson Buford at Eufaula, Silver Run and
Columbus, Georgia, and Montgomery, Alabama, as the result
of an appeal for Southern emigrants to settle in Kansas.74
The organization was military, but the men went unarmed as
far as Kansas City, where they arrived between four and five
hundred strong, late in April. On May 2 they passed into Kan-
sas with weapons in plenty, scattering for a time in search
of homes, only to be called upon in short order as a military
force. But before this came to pass, they had added greatly
to the terror of the Free Soil settlers by their swashbuckling
marches through the Territory. Just as they left Montgomery,
Buford's men had been marched to the bookstore of the
Messrs. Mcllvaine in that city, where each man received a
Bible. "But," says a correspondent of the Tribune, "on the
trip up the river [from St. Louis] the Bibles were thrown
promiscuously into a large bucket on the hurricane deck, and
the company were below handling an article known among
gamblers as a 'pocket testament.'" 76 "The people of West-
I38 JOHN BROWN
port were glad to see Buford's men come; they were doubly
glad when they went away finally," reported an old citizen
of Westport, and there is little doubt that they got out of
hand soon after entering Kansas, for as settlers they were
a dismal failure. When their service in the sack of Lawrence
was over, after pillaging and roaming for a while, they gradu-
ally began to return to the South.
Here those who returned afforded fresh proof of the inabil-
ity of that section to colonize its favorite institution as far
North and West as Kansas. A number enlisted in the United
States troops in Kansas, while others went over to the Free
State men and thus became traitors to the cause of human
bondage. Still others stayed for months near Westport, a
veritable plague to their friends.76 In short, the expedition
was a disastrous failure politically, economically and finan-
cially; it served no other purpose than to aid in the wanton
destruction of part of the city of Lawrence and the throwing
into chains of the Free State leaders.
Beyond doubt the arrival of Buford's men raised high the
spirits of the Southern leaders, who fondly believed that there
would now be sufficient emigration of their own people to
offset the continuing stream of arrivals from New England,
notably a remarkable colony from New Haven, one hundred
strong, who settled sixty-five miles above Lawrence on the
Kansas River and, unlike Buford's men, knew how to plough
and plant. "Our town," wrote a correspondent of the Trib-
une from Lawrence on April 19, ."is crowded with immigrants
from all parts. A number of companies are camping here,
anxiously awaiting their exploring committees, who have
gone out to look at different localities. There is a large com-
pany from Ohio — one from Connecticut — one from New
Hampshire, and others are daily arriving. . . . The emi-
grants of this season are much superior to those of last year.
They come in the face of difficulties and are prepared to meet
them." 77 But fears of a similar tide of Southerners impelled
Horace Greeley to impassioned editorials urging the youth
of the Northeast to save Kansas, by force of arms and de-
votion to principle.78 A correspondent of the Albany Journal,
writing on March 16 from a steamboat on the Mississippi,
gave this picture of the outlook:
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 139
" I have just come up from Tennessee and let me assure you that
the South are now moving in earnest in sending settlers to Kansas.
I heard a letter from Kansas . . . read at a Kansas meeting, in
which the South were (sic) urged to send their men immediately.
'The only hope,' the writer stated, was in sending on enough to
whip the d — d Abolitionists before the 1st of July, or the Territory
would be lost. The writer says: 'There are now at least three Abo-
litionists to one friend of the South, and if anything is done it must
be done quickly.'"
A Tribune correspondent in Kansas City wrote late in April
that: "It is unquestionable that the South has gone into the
' actual settlement ' business to a great extent this Spring." 79
Horace Greeley himself wrote to his newspaper from Wash-
ington on March I :
"The Free-State men of Kansas now in this city have letters from
various points in that embryo State down to the i8th and iQth ult.
Their general tone implies apprehension that a bloody collision is
imminent. The Border Ruffians have been raised entirely off their
feet by Pierce's extraordinary Messages, which they regard as a com-
plete endorsement of all their past outrages and an incitement to
persevere in their diabolical work. It is believed by our friends that
the organization of the State Government at Topeka the coming
week will be made the pretext for a raid, and if possible a butchery,
at the hands of the Slavery party. . . ."80
It was only in the time set that this prognostication was
wrong. But meanwhile, as James Redpath has recorded,
the acts of the Washington allies of Atchison, Stringfellow
and Jones were daily making of the Free State pioneers more
and more ardent advocates of freedom, and unifying them in
their determination to resist to the last the pro-slavery ag-
gressions :
"I have heard men who were semi-Southerners before, declare
with Garrison:
'"I am an Abolitionist!
I glory in the name ! ' —
since Kansas was invaded. I have heard others hint that even
Garrison himself was rather an old fogy, because he does not go far
enough in opposition to Slavery. 'The world does move.' " 81
In April the pro-slavery net began to tighten around Law-
rence. Sheriff Jones had reappeared there on April 19, 1856,
to vex anew its citizens. He had decided that it was time for
140 JOHN BROWN
him to attempt again the arrest of those persons who five
months previously had taken from him his prisoner Branson.
Jones's thumbs had begun to itch for S. N. Wood, the leader
of the rescuers; he was, therefore, quite willing to take Rob-
inson and Lane at their word, that they would not resist the
enforcement of a writ by proper authority, and quite ready
to take a chance — if he did not court it — of again em-
broiling the citizens of Lawrence with the Territorial authori-
ties. Jones easily found Wood and arrested him, but in the
crowd which speedily gathered he lost his prisoner.82 Jones
reappeared the next day and called on the citizens to help
him serve the four warrants he had in his hands. The crowd
refused, saying, 'Take the muster roll, Jones, we all resist.' 83
Jones then personally laid hands on Samuel F. Tappan, who
thereupon struck the sheriff in the face. This was sufficient
resistance to satisfy the sheriff, who forthwith left, returning
three days later, on April 23, with First Lieutenant James Mc-
Intosh, of the First Cavalry, and ten troopers. With the aid
of these regulars he arrested six citizens on the extraordi-
nary charge of contempt of court, in that they had declined to
aid him in serving his warrants, — an unheard-of form of the
crime of disrespect to the judiciary. His prisoners were put
in a tent to await the pleasure of their captor. That evening,
while Jones was sitting in his tent, with his shadow outlined
against it by the light within, he was shot from without and
gravely wounded by James N. Filer,84 a young New Yorker,
though the blame long rested on Charles Lenhart, a printer,
subsequently prominent in the attempt to rescue Brown
from his Virginia prison. Lenhart was undoubtedly outside
the tent when Jones was shot, and as he was a reckless fellow,
suspicion not unnaturally fell upon him.
Nothing more unfortunate could have happened for the
citizens of Lawrence than the shooting of Jones, even though
his life was spared, for the pro-slavery newspapers at once
announced his death, and called upon their readers to avenge
his murder. None of the regrets that the citizens of Law-
rence expressed could undo the injury inflicted by Filer's
shot. They held a mass meeting on April 24, addressed by
Reeder, Robinson, Grosvenor P. Lowry and others, who con-
demned the crime in proper terms as cowardly and dastardly.85
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 141
But their expressions went for naught. It was precisely the
overt act needed to give Jones and his men the appear-
ance of being hindered in the performance of their duty, and
assaulted because of their devotion to it. The scene of the
shooting — Lawrence — was particularly satisfactory to the
pro-slavery party, since it enabled them to concentrate anew
their enmity upon that hated town. "We are now in favor
of levelling Lawrence and chastising the Traitors there con-
gregated, should it result in total destruction of the Union,"
declared the Squatter Sovereign on April 29, 1856. A week
later, May 6, still keeping alive the falsehood of Jones's
death, it thus incited to murder:
"When a proslavery man gets into a difficulty with an Abolition-
ist let him think of the murdered Jones and Clark, and govern him-
self accordingly. In a fight, let our motto be, 'War to the knife,
and knife to the hilt;' asking no quarters from them and granting
none. Jones' Murder Must Be Revenged!! "
Appeals like this speedily bore fruit. On the next day,
J. N. Mace, a Free State settler, who had testified before the
Howard Committee then sitting at Lawrence, was shot in the
leg by two men, who, thinking him dead, went off, rejoicing
in his hearing that there was "more abolition bait for the
wolves." 86 At an indignation meeting held in Lawrence on
May 2 to consider Mace's case, Governor Robinson again
soothed the perturbed feelings of the multitude, urged his
listeners to go on- making laws of their own, but not to give
way to any spirit of revenge, and deprecated the attack upon
Sheriff Jones as cowardly and base.87 April 30 had been a
fateful day for the Rev. Pardee Butler, who, undeterred by
his being sent down the Missouri on a raft by his neighbors,
returned then to Atchison. He was immediately stripped and
cottoned (for lack of feathers), turned loose on the prairie,
and a committee of three was appointed to hang him the
next time he came to Atchison. His sole offence, according
to his own testimony, was his telling the Squatter Sovereign
that he was a Free Soiler and meant to vote accordingly.88
On May 19 there fell, shot in the back near Blanton's
Bridge, John Jones, who, according to the existing evidence,
gave up his life merely because he, a boy of twenty, was
142 JOHN BROWN
accused of being an Abolitionist.89 Three young men, Charles
Lenhart, John Stewart and John E. Cook (who subsequently
died on a Virginia gibbet, after John Brown), rode out toward
the scene of this crime as soon as it was reported. On their
way to Blanton's Bridge they fell in with several Missourians,
who subsequently testified that they were fired upon first and
one of them wounded ; that in self-defence they shot and killed
Stewart. Lenhart and Cook stated that Stewart hailed the
Missourians by asking them where they were going. Their
reply was a shot and Stewart fell dead. The Free State men
with him were convinced that Coleman, the murderer of Dow,
had in this case also fired the fatal shot.90
Judge Lecompte next stirred up the Territory in behalf of
the pro-slavery cause by charging the grand jury in session at
Lecompton during the second week in May that all the laws
passed by the Shawnee Legislature were of United States
authority and making; that, therefore, all who "resist these
laws, resist the power and authority of the United States;
and are therefore, guilty of high treason." * "If," he con-
tinued, laying down a principle new in American judicial
procedure, "you find that no such resistance has been made,
but that combinations have been formed for the purpose of
resisting them, and that individuals of influence and notori-
ety have been aiding and abetting in such combinations, then
must you find bills for constructive treason." At once, with-
out hearing any 'witnesses, the grand jury indicted Reeder,
Robinson, Lane, George W. Brown, George W. Deitzler,
Samuel N. Wood, Gaius Jenkins and George W. Smith on the
charge of treason.91 It is in keeping with this performance that
Governor Robinson, who, with his wife, had left Lawrence at
its most critical moment, in order to lay the true situation be-
fore the friends of Free Kansas in the East, should have been
taken from the steamer Star of the West at Lexington, Mis-
souri, on May 10, on the charge of fleeing from an indict-
ment, when that indictment was not reported by the jury until
* "Section 3, Article 3, of the Constitution of the United States says: "Trea-
son against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or
in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No person shall
be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two witnesses to the same
overt act, or on Confession in open Court."
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 143
a week after his detention.92 Better evidence of the way the
whole machinery of justice was being prostituted to pro-
slavery ends could hardly be produced; it resulted in Robin-
son's being taken to Leavenworth, where he remained until
his release on bail of five thousand dollars, on September 10,
after four months' confinement. Ex-Governor Reeder escaped
from Kansas in disguise, after having claimed protection in
vain as a witness before the Howard Committee, and having
told the United States deputy marshal that any attempt to
take him prisoner would be attended with serious results.93
Lane escaped Robinson's fate only by happening to be in
Indiana on a visit. The Free Soil movement was thus deprived
of its leaders. But the complaisant Lecompton grand jury
was not content with indictment for treason; it took the still
more extraordinary course of recommending the abatement
as nuisances of the Lawrence Free Soil newspapers, The
Herald of Freedom and The Kansas Free State. Charging that
the Free State Hotel in Lawrence had been built for use as a
fortress as well as a caravansary, the jurors expressed their
opinion that its demolition was desirable.
Ex-Governor Reeder's refusal to submit to arrest was a
greatly desired opportunity to another Jones, the United
States marshal for Kansas Territory, I. B. Donaldson. He at
once issued (on May 1 1 ) the following proclamation :
To The People of Kansas Territory :
Whereas, certain judicial writs of arrest have been directed to me
by the First District Court of the United States, etc., to be executed
within the county of Douglas: and, whereas, an attempt to execute
them by the United States Deputy Marshal was violently resisted
by a large number of citizens of Lawrence; and as there is every
reason to believe that any attempt to execute these writs will be
resisted by a large body of armed men:
Now, therefore, the law-abiding citizens of the Territory are com-
manded to be and appear at Lecompton as soon as practicable, and
in numbers sufficient for the proper execution of the law.94
Like Sheriff Jones, Donaldson believed most of the law-
abiding citizens of Kansas lived in Missouri, for his proclama-
tion went first to the border towns and to Leavenworth and
Atchison, the strongest pro-slavery settlements in Kansas.96
Before the proclamation was known to the Free Soil settlers,
144 JOHN BROWN
the Border Ruffians had begun to assemble in the neighbor-
hood of Lawrence, stopping travellers, patrolling the roads,
even pillaging, as if they were a conquering army, and gener-
ally in high feather, for this time they felt certain of their
prey, since it had been officially delivered over to them. The
United States Court had issued the warrants; the United
States marshal had called out them instead of the United
States troops, who, after their visit in numbers to Lawrence
under Colonel Sumner upon the shooting of Jones, had been
allowed to return to their garrisons. In the Wakarusa " war,"
Shannon, not having power over the regulars, called eagerly
for their aid; now that they were at his disposal, he refused to
send them to Lawrence for the protection of its citizens, as
the latter implored him to, or to urge Donaldson to use them
as his posse.* Whereas in the previous December Governor
Shannon had been willing to keep the peace, and eager to
arrive at a compromise, he was ready now to have the tables
turned upon those who had tricked him when in his cups,
well knowing what the outcome would be. "But so long," he
wrote to the Lawrence committee which begged protection of
him, "as they [the citizens of Lawrence] keep up a military
or armed organization to resist Territorial laws and the offi-
cers charged with their execution, I shall not interpose to
save them from the legitimate consequences of their illegal
acts."96
It was the van of Donaldson's forces which killed Stewart
and Jones. His band comprised, first, Buford's newly arrived
men, whom their leader hastily called together from their easy-
going search for home-sites, four hundred in all responding.
They represented in Donaldson's eyes, after being nineteen
days in Kansas, the "law-abiding citizens of the Territory."
General David R. Atchison, of Missouri, headed a Missouri
company, the Platte County Riflemen, with two pieces
of artillery; while the Kickapoo Rangers, who had hacked
Captain R. P. Brown to death, and other Kansas pro-slavery
companies eagerly joined the forces.97 Both the Stringfellows
* When President Pierce heard of Donaldson's plans, he was much worried,
and telegraphed to Shannon suggesting that the United States troops be used,
and then only after the marshal had met with actual resistance. The telegram
came too late to be of avail. See Kansas Historical Collections, vol. 4, p. 414.
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 145
were there, ready to be in at the death, and hoping that this
meant the extermination of the hated Abolitionists. About
seven hundred and fifty in all, this "swearing, whiskey-
drinking, ruffianly horde,"98 who were there to uphold the
majesty of the law, appeared near Lawrence on May 21,
after a committee from there had vainly tried to induce
Marshal Donaldson to agree to a compromise by which the
town should be surrendered to Colonel Sumner and his cav-
alry regiment, to be held until the writs were served." But
the serving of the warrants was not Donaldson's real purpose,
nor that of the men associated with him. The deputy mar-
shal, Fain, made two arrests in Lawrence without difficulty
or resistance, on the evening of May 2O.100 Accompanied by
ten unarmed men, he returned at eleven o'clock the next
morning and summoned five citizens of Lawrence to join his
posse ; they did so, and he then arrested George W . Deitzler,
George W. Smith and Gaius Jenkins on the charge of treason.
They submitted cheerfully. While Fain was at the Free State
Hotel, he received a communication from the eight citizens
of Lawrence who were acting as a committee of public safety.
This committee, speaking for the entire town, acknowledged
the "constituted authorities of the Government," and stated
that they would "make no resistance to the execution of the
law National or Territorial." This submission was in vain.
Fain, having his prisoners in hand, announced to the Bor-
der Ruffians that he had peacefully accomplished his purpose,
but added that Sheriff Jones had writs yet to be served, and
that they could act as his posse if they desired.
With the utmost alacrity the invitation was accepted, but
no pretence of serving any writs was made. The Southerners
were stimulated by the oratory of Atchison, but recently
presiding officer of the United States Senate, who declared
among other things: "And now we will go in with our highly
honorable Jones, and test the strength of that damned Free
State Hotel. Be brave, be orderly, and if any man or woman
stand in your way, blow them to hell with a chunk of cold
lead." But they did not go in until the Free State men
had surrendered their arms to Jones, as further evidence of
good faith. Once in, there was no John Brown to counsel
resistance to them, no Lane to lead, and no Robinson to tern-
146 JOHN BROWN
porize. There was no real leader. The military company,
the Stubbs, was not in evidence. There were only two hun-
dred rifles and ten kegs of powder in all Lawrence. Many of
the citizens were either in arrest or in hiding to escape capture.
Many others had left town to save their families. So no de-
fence was attempted when the two newspaper offices were
destroyed and the types, papers, presses and books thrown
into the river. The Free State Hotel remained, however,
and the order of the court that it be "abated" was not yet
enforced. Here Major Buford again protested that he had
not come to Kansas to destroy property, and Atchison seems
to have been sobered some. But Jones wanted his triumph
complete, and the Free State Hotel was soon in flames, after
the pro-slavery cannon had sent thirty- two shot into it,
Atchison firing the first shot.101 "This," said Jones, "is the
happiest moment of my life." As the walls of the hotel fell,
he cried out in glee, "I have done it, by God, I have done
it," 102 and it in no wise troubled him that, when he dismissed
his drunken posse, as the hotel lay in ruins, it promptly robbed
the town, winding up by the burning of Governor Robinson's
house. The majesty of the law was upheld; its flouting by
Free Soilers avenged.
The pro-slavery leaders and their disbanded followers left
the Territory exulting in their victory, and wholly unable to
realize that it was not only to be their defeat, but that they
had let loose a veritable Pandora's box of evil passions, and
finally inaugurated a reign of bloodshed, midnight assassina-
tion and guerrilla warfare. Besides, they had aroused the
whole North to fresh anger by the destruction of Lawrence,
at first reported to have been accompanied by heavy loss of
life. The inscriptions on their banners, "Southern Rights"
and "South Carolina" and
"Let Yankees tremble, abolitionists fall,
Our Motto is, Give Southern rights to all," 10S
alone brought dozens of recruits to the Free State cause,
"From this time no further effort was required to raise
colonies. They raised themselves," records Eli Thayer, the
Worcester, Massachusetts, organizer of the Emigrant Aid So-
cieties.104 The raiding of Lawrence put an arsenal of argu-
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 147
ments into the hands of the new-born Republican party, and
fastened the nation's attention on the Territory. On the
day of the raid, Horace Greeley declared that the "bloody
collision in Kansas," which seemed to him "almost inevitable,"
would "hardly fail to shake the Union to its center." 105
CHAPTER V
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE
To his "Dear Wife and Children Every One," wrote John
Brown, "near Brown's Station, K. T., June, 1856," as fol-
lows: 1
"It is now about five weeks since I have seen a line from North
Elba, or had any chance of writing you. During that period we
here have passed through an almost constant series of very trying
events. We were called to go to the relief of Lawrence, May 22,
and every man (eight in all) except Orson [Day], turned out; he
staying with the women and children, and to take care of the cattle.
John was captain of a company to which Jason belonged ; the other
six were a little company by ourselves. On our way to Lawrence
we learned that it had been already destroyed, and we encamped
with John's company over night. Next day our little company left,
and during the day we stopped and searched three men. . . . On
the second day and evening after we left John's men we encountered
quite a number of proslavery men, and took quite a number of pris-
oners. Our prisoners we let go; but we kept some four or five horses.
We were immediately after this accused of murdering five men at
Pottawatomie, and great efforts have since been made by the Mis-
sourians and their ruffian allies to capture us. John's company soon
afterward disbanded, and also the Osawatomie men."
In this brief, equivocal fashion John Brown reported to the
absent members of his family that event in his life which made
him most famous in Kansas and has caused more discussion
than any other single event in the history of Kansas Territory.
Upon the degree of criminality, if any, which should attach
to John Brown for his part in the proceedings, the debate
in Kansas to-day is almost as bitter as at the time of the
crime, or when Brown's tragic end kindled the Kansas inter-
est in it anew. As one views Brown's conduct in the killing of
the five pro-slavery men on Pottawatomie Creek depends to a
large degree the place which may be assigned to him in history.
Certainly, without a clear appreciation of what happened on
the night of the 24th to the 25th of May, 1856, a true under-
standing of Brown, the man, cannot be reached. The actual
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 149
details have been veiled for nearly half a century in a mystery
which the confessions of one of the party only partially dis-
pelled. Fortunately for the truth of history, there are two other
participants, Henry Thompson and Salmon Brown, still sur-
viving after this long stretch of time, who have now set forth
what happened. There are also many narratives of contempo-
rary witnesses available which, when weighed together, make
possible not only a real knowledge of the conditions prece-
dent to the Pottawatomie massacre, but of its effects upon
the Free Soil cause.
John Brown, Jr., was engaged in planting corn when the
messenger from Lawrence arrived. " Without delay," he re-
corded in a defence of his father,2 "I rode to Osawatomie
with the word and then rallied the men of my company whose
homes were mostly on Pottawatomie and Middle Creeks."
His first lieutenant, Henry H. Williams, assisted him in this
work, and by six o'clock in the evening thirty-four armed
men met at the rendezvous, the junction of the Osawatomie
and California roads. "The 'Marion Rifles' and 'Pomeroy
Guards' from Osawatomie," narrated Williams,3 in what is
truly most valuable contemporary testimony, since it was
written only two months after the event, while Williams was
still a prisoner at Leavenworth, "had promised to meet us
here by agreement, but only two men came, who reported
that another messenger from Lawrence had arrived and con-
tradicted the former report, and that, therefore, the Osawato-
mie companies would await further orders. The Pottawato-
mies, however, agreed to push on to Lawrence and ascertain
the facts for themselves. Accordingly we moved on, and two
miles from the Meridezene [Marais des Cygnes] we met a mes-
senger from near Lawrence who reported that the Border
Ruffians had taken the town without any resistance and were
razing it to the ground. This startling news was received in
silence by the company. Then the word ' onward ' was passed
along the line and although scarcely a word was spoken the
thoughts of every one could be read in his countenance. We
pushed on, and a messenger was dispatched to arouse the
settlers at Osawatomie. At Prairie City we learned that there
was no organized Free State force in Lawrence and that the
' Border Ruffians ' were in possession of Blanton's Bridge,
150 JOHN BROWN
and had assembled in force at Lecompton. We concluded
to encamp at Prairie City and await reinforcements."
At this camp the company of John Brown, Jr., and Lieuten-
ant H. H. Williams remained until the next day, the 23d. Cap-
tain Shore and his Osawatomie company, together with the
"Pomeroy Guards," joined the camp, bringing details of the
sack of Lawrence and also the news that a force of four hun-
dred men under Buford was in camp a few miles to the east.4
That evening, hearing that Governor Robinson was being
taken, a prisoner, from Westport to Lecompton, guarded by
Border Ruffians, the three companies moved to Palmyra (now
the prosperous town of Baldwin), then a little near-by settle-
ment, twelve miles from Lawrence, in order that they might
rescue the Free State leader if he were brought that way over
the Santa Fe trail.5 In their new camp they were joined by the
Marion Rifles, Captain Updegraff. On the 24th, Captain John
Brown, Jr., went with a scouting party into Lawrence to view
the ruins.6 His report and that of his men, that the citizens
of that ill-fated town had not united in defending themselves
against the common enemy, made the four companies at
Palmyra decide they could not fight Lawrence's battles alone.
"Accordingly," wrote Mr. Williams, "we broke up our camp,
each company returning to its respective locality, the men
dispersing to their homes." This homeward movement was
hastened by the arrival of thirteen soldiers of the First Cav-
alry under Second Lieutenant John R. Church, a young West
Pointer, whose official report of the meeting, dated May 26,
1856, has fortunately been preserved. Lieutenant Church,
after a long talk with John Brown, Jr., ordered him to dis-
band the camp in compliance with his (Church's) orders to
disperse all armed bodies he encountered, whether pro-slavery
or Free Soil.7
Curiously enough, the Pottawatomies returned to their
homes the next day under the command of a new captain,
Henry H. Williams, having deposed John Brown, Jr., on his
way back from Lawrence, because he had freed two slaves.8
"The arrival of those slaves in camp next morning caused a
commotion," so their liberator has recorded. "The act of free-
ing them, though attended by no violence or bloodshed, was
freely denounced, and in accordance with a vote given by a
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 151
large majority of the men, those freed persons, in opposition to
my expressed will, were returned to their master. The driver
of the team which carried them overtaking him on his way
to Westport, received a side-saddle as his reward." There
was still another reason why the men of John Brown, Jr.'s
company chose a new captain. On this same day, when the
company was near Ottawa Creek on its return, a rider came
tearing into camp — his horse panting and lathered with
foam — and without dismounting yelled out: " Five men have
been killed on Pottawatomie Creek, butchered and most
brutally mangled, and old John Brown has done it!" —
thus Jason Brown records it. "This information," he states,
"caused great excitement and fear among the men of our com-
pany and a feeling arose against John and myself which led
the men all to desert us." 9
As John Brown himself wrote to his family, he and a small
party left his son's company the morning after their long
night tramp to Prairie City, on Friday, May 23. The cir-
cumstances leading up to his departure are thus set forth by
Jason Brown:
"Father cooked for our company. While he was cooking break-
fast, I heard him, Townsley and Weiner talking together. I heard
Townsley say: 'We expect to be butchered, every Free State set-
tler in our region,' and Townsley pleaded that help should be sent.
I heard their talk only in fragments. Then I heard father say to
Weiner: 'Now something must be done. We have got to defend our
families and our neighbors as best we can. Something is going to
be done now. We must show by actual work that there are two sides
to this thing and that they cannot go on with impunity. ' '
Weiner also told Martin Van Buren Jackson, in the camp,
" that he, his man Benjamin and also Bondi, had been insulted,
abused and ordered to leave the county within three days, by
the Shermans and other pro-slavery parties living in the
neighborhood of Dutch Henry's Crossing; and that Dutch
Bill (Sherman), as he was called, was drunk and very abu-
sive. He said this was the second time they had been to his
place in the past few days, and he did not propose to stand
such treatment much longer." n
Moved by this and other provocations, John Brown acted
at once. " Pottawatomie," says Salmon Brown, "was resolved
152 JOHN BROWN
upon by father, supported by the leading men in John's com-
pany — maybe a dozen — and by his own crowd. The plan
was thoroughly discussed there in camp, not before the whole
company, but in the council thus selected." 12 August Bondi,
a faithful follower of John Brown, remembers the council
well, for Brown used to him practically the same words —
"Something must be done to show these barbarians that
we, too, have rights," 13 — which he had previously spoken
to Weiner and Townsley. It is clear that John Brown did
reveal to the council the general outline of his plan.14 "It
was now and here resolved that they, their aiders and abettors,
who sought to kill our suffering people, should themselves be
killed, and in such manner as should be likely to cause a re-
straining fear," declares John Brown, Jr., and Salmon Brown
testifies :
"The general purport of our intentions — some radical retalia-
tory measure — some killing — was well understood by the whole
camp. You never heard such cheering as they gave us when we
started out.15 They were wild with excitement and enthusiasm.
The principal man — the leader — in the council that resolved on
the necessity of Pottawatomie, — was H. H. Williams: I do not
know that I ought to tell this since he himself has not; but it is the
fact. He was wholly determined that the thing must be done. He
knew all those men on the Pottawatomie, better than any of us.
He lived among them — was familiar with all their characters. He
was now the most active of us all in urging this step. And not fif-
teen minutes before we left to go to Pottawatomie I saw him, my-
self, write out a list of the men who were to be killed and hand it to
father. This was on the crest of the wave of enthusiasm. Williams
was a little cautious, I always thought, even then. He was a first-
rate fellow; but he was too smart, even in enthusiasm, to go into a
thing like that, personally, when he could get some one else to do it
for him. Then, when it was all over, and he found how the people
down at home took it, he got scared. He had n't the backbone to
stand by his own mind, against popular opinion, — he went back
on his own radical measures, weakened, did not confess to his own
share in their origin, and counselled peace. In fact, he got scared.
Benjamin told me about this afterward. Williams wrote down the
names of the men whom, he said, it was necessary to pick off to pre-
vent the utter destruction of the whole community and handed the
paper to father. We started back, thereupon, for the Pottawatomie
country, which was the headquarters for the pro-slavery men, under
Judge Cato, for that region, to pick off the designated men promi-
nent in enforcing Border Ruffian laws."16
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 153
About noon, John Brown selected for his party Henry
Thompson, Theodore Weiner, and four sons, Owen, Frederick,
Salmon and Oliver. In order to secure the use of his wagon,
John Brown went to James Townsley, of the Pottawatomie
Rifles, saying he had just heard trouble was expected- on the
Pottawatomie. He asked Townsley whether he could not take
his team of grays and convey him with his sons back to Pot-
tawatomie. Townsley consented, and the departure was fixed
for two o'clock.17 The interim was devoted to the sharpen-
ing of some of the odd-shaped cutlasses, the gift of General
Lucius V. Bierce, of Akron, Ohio, that John Brown had brought
West with him, for use in border warfare.18 John Brown,
Jr., and Jason devoted themselves to the cutlasses, while a
boy, Bain Fuller, turned the grindstone; but Jason insists
that he had no idea of the real purpose of the expedition.19
Seeing the grinding operation, George Grant remarked to
Frederick Brown: "That looks like business." "Yes," was
the reply, "it does." When Grant asked whether he might
not also ride back in Townsley's wagon, Frederick Brown
consulted his father, only to return and report: "Father says
you had better not come." 20 Bain Fuller, whose father had
received John Brown's word that the boy should not get into
trouble, was told to go home and to be sure to have witnesses
as to his whereabouts for that night.21 Before Townsley's
horses were ready and the cutlasses had received their edge,
a feeling came over some of the men in the camp that the
radical leader of the returning party might not act with
sufficient discretion. One of them went to John Brown, so
relates Judge James Hanway, and urged "caution." At this,
Brown, who was packing up his camp fixtures, instantly stood
erect and said: "Caution, caution, sir. I am eternally tired
of hearing that word caution. It is nothing but the word
of cowardice." 22 In the Kansas Monthly, for January, 1880,
Judge Hanway wrote:"! ventured to approach one of the
eight, and from him learned the program contemplated. In
fact, I received an invitation to be one of the party, and
being unwilling to consent before I learned the object, I
was made acquainted with the object of the expedition; it
shocked me.'"
With the shouts of their comrades in their ears, the party
154 JOHN BROWN
set off in Townsley's wagon, except Weiner, who, riding his
pony, gave them mounted escort as they retraced their way
over the road they had traversed in such haste and excite-
ment the night before. "As we turned back with the evil
news [the fate of Lawrence] and had just got to the top of
the hill south of the Wakarusa — the high ridge," says Salmon
Brown, "a man named Gardner came to us with the news of
the assault upon Senator Sumner of Bully Brooks,* — carry-
ing the message hidden in his boot. At that blow the men
went crazy — crazy. It seemed to be the finishing, decisive
touch." Two men have affirmed that they met the expedition
as it took its way toward what is now the little hamlet called
Lane. Captain J. M. Anthony and a squad of Free State men
encountered it near the residence of Ottawa Jones, and in
their surprise at seeing fighting men returning when Lawrence
was in distress, asked eagerly whither the men in the lumber
wagon were bound. "They gave us," says Captain Anthony,
"no answer except that they were going to attend to very ur-
gent business and would be right back to join us on the march
to Lawrence." 23 Near sundown, between Pottawatomie and
Middle Creek, James Blood descried a wagon with a mounted
man alongside, going toward Pottawatomie Creek. As he
neared the wagon, John Brown rose in it and cried "Halt!"
Blood remembered afterwards that the men in the wagon
were armed with rifles, revolvers, knives and General Bierce's
short heavy broadswords, for John Brown had given him one
of these cutlasses when in Lawrence during the Wakarusa
excitement. Brown, Blood found to be very indignant that
Lawrence had been sacked without a shot being fired in its
behalf. He denounced the leading Free State men as cowards
or worse. "His manner," wrote Colonel Blood twenty-three
years later, "was wild and frenzied, and the whole party
watched with excited eagerness every word or motion of the
old man. Finally, as I left them, he requested me not to
mention the fact that I had met them, as they were on a secret
expedition and did not want anyone to know that they were
in the neighborhood." 24
That night, says Townsley, they "drove down to the edge
* Congressman Brooks, of South Carolina, assaulted Senator Sumner in the
Senate on May 22, 1856, striking him on the head with a heavy cane.
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 155
of the timber between two deep ravines, and camped about
one mile above Dutch Henry's Crossing."25 And there,
Townsley asserts, John Brown told him for the first time
of his bloodthirsty intentions, and refused to let him go
when he, Townsley, asked to be allowed to take his team
and return home. All the next day, Saturday, the 24th, the
little company literally lay on their arms in their open-air
camp. For it was in the night that John Brown proposed to
strike his blow, in order, Salmon Brown declares, that they
might be sure to catch their quarry in their lairs. "Maybe,"
he adds, "Father took into consideration the terrifying ef-
fect of such a means." Certainly, the hour suited the deed.
The chase was trapped; save in one instance. Henry Sher-
man, whose absence in pursuit of wandering cattle saved
his life for another year, was one of three brothers, German
in origin, and therefore known in the community as Dutch
Bill, Dutch Henry and Dutch Pete. Border Ruffians by their
sympathies and their instincts, their character is painted
black enough by their Free Soil neighbors, who credited them
with no honest ways of life, generally thought of them as
ignorant and drunken, living at the crossing which bore the
name of Dutch Henry, and subsisting by making money out
of the emigrants or "lifting" a horse or a cow or two from the
caravans as they came by. For this well-known ford was the
point where the much-used road from Fort Scott to the Santa
Fe trail and the old California road, or road to Oregon, used
by emigrants going still further west, crossed the Pottawato-
mie. Weiner's store near-by also drew patronage from these
emigrant parties, and to it the Shermans and their pro-slavery
neighbors had carried their drunken threats of extermination
of the Abolitionists that had so stirred Weiner, Townsley
and Bondi. Indeed, the two diverse elements had even come
to blows, as Henry Thompson testifies. For several midwinter
months he had helped Weiner to keep his store. Returning
to it on Christmas Day, he found Weiner with an axe handle
beating "Dutch Bill" Sherman, who fled on the approach
of Thompson. "He attacked me in my own store," said
Weiner by way of explanation.26 "They were brutes and
bullies," declares one woman who resided at Osawatomie
at this time, in speaking of the murdered men, and this
156 JOHN BROWN
seems to sum up their character accurately, if the adjective
"ignorant" be added.27
The men of the Doyle family, father and two sons, were
low "poor whites" from Tennessee, who, while sympathizing
with the pro-slavery element, went to Kansas because, ac-
cording to Mrs. Doyle, they had found that slavery was
"ruinous to white labor." 28 Mrs. Doyle herself was illiterate,
and it is altogether likely that the men were. The family
seems to have been very intimate with "Dutch Bill," who
was one of the oldest settlers in the region, and considerably
under his influence. Allen Wilkinson, on the other hand,
was a man of some education; he was a member of the pro-
slavery Legislature, and returned from its meetings at the
Shawnee Mission more than ever a pro-slavery man. George
W. Grant and his brother, Henry Grant, have testified that
Wilkinson was a dangerous man, whom everybody feared;
"the most evil looking man" they ever saw, "who fearfully
abused a nice wife, well liked by the neighbors." 29 Wilkin-
son, too, was free with his threats to the Free Soil settlers,
urging them to "clear out" and avoid trouble. All of them
were friendly with the Missourians who passed by, acting
as their guides and advisers. There is also no doubt that
when the Browns entered the camp of Buford's men as sur-
veyors, they found these obnoxious pro-slavery neighbors on
good terms with the invaders.30
Not unnaturally, a different character was assigned after
their murders to these men by the pro-slavery leaders. Thus,
Henry Clay Pate, correspondent of the St. Louis Republi-
can and leader of a pro-slavery company, testified that " they
had no fault as quiet citizens but being in favor of slavery.
That was the crime for which they forfeited their lives." 31
The Rev. Martin White insisted to the pro-slavery Legisla-
ture that Wilkinson was a noble man, whose "greatest crime "
was that "he was a member of the first legislature in this
territory," which crime, White added, was the reason for
his death.32 Congressman Oliver, the Democratic member
of the Howard Committee, was satisfied, after taking testi-
mony in the case of the murders, that Wilkinson was a quiet,
inoffensive man. "My husband was a quiet man, and was
not engaged in arresting or disturbing anybody. He took no
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 157
active part in the pro-slavery cause, so as to aggravate the
Abolitionists, but he was a pro-slavery man," was Mrs. Wil-
kinson's characterization of her husband.33 The Kansas
Weekly Herald of Leavenworth affirmed on June 7, 1856, that
Wilkinson was a member of the Legislature, and that the other
victims were "plain, honest, peaceable farming settlers."
But the weight of evidence is too strong on the other side to
make it possible to accept this characterization as correct.
Excepting perhaps Wilkinson, the others were of the rough,
brutal, disorderly element to be found in every frontier out-
post, whether it be mining camp or farmers' settlement.
During the morning of Saturday, the 24th, when John
Brown's party of avengers lay in the timber between two
deep ravines a mile above Dutch Henry's Crossing, Towns-
ley, so he asserts, did his best to dissuade the leader and his
sons from carrying out their plans, and to this end "talked
a good deal." But Brown insisted always that it had be-
come necessary "to strike terror into the hearts of the pro-
slavery people." Townsley even avers that the day's delay
was due to his protests and his refusal to guide the company
up to the forks of Mosquito Creek, some five or six miles
above, and point out where pro-slavery men resided, so that
Brown's men might sweep the creek of them as they came
down. This Salmon Browrn declares to be nonsense, a plan
that "never was dreamed of." Moreover, Weiner, the store-
keeper, might well have been as efficient a guide as Townsley,
since he had been in Kansas longer and naturally had a
wider acquaintance. The delay, too, is not hard to explain.
The men must have been fairly exhausted when they en-
camped in the timber, since they had marched all the previous
night and, after working all the morning, had driven back
over rough roads between two o'clock and sundown. To
postpone the raid in order to obtain necessary sleep was most
natural. Then, since night-time was deemed necessary to
trap the prey sought, the day in camp was inevitable. But
on this fateful day the sun finally sank into the prairies, and
long before it disappeared, Townsley had resigned himself to
his situation sufficiently to decide that he would go along,
albeit unwillingly, as he declares.
As for the rest, aside from Weiner, whom Salmon Brown
158 JOHN BROWN
describes as a "big, savage, bloodthirsty Austrian" who
" could not be kept out of any accessible fight," 34 they needed
no persuasion. Whether it was the compelling personality of
their father, whose dominating manner and will-power later
led men willingly to their death under circumstances against
which their common sense revolted, or whether there was in
the sons a sufficient touch of an inherited mental disturb-
ance to make them less than rational in their reasoning, there
was no attempt at a filial revolt against a parental decision,
even when they went unwillingly. Two sons, at least, Freder-
ick and Oliver, kept their hands unstained,35 and probably
protested, only to submit and accompany their father and
imperious commander as witnesses of the horrors of that
night, sharing the guilt of all in the eyes of the law. The other
brothers, then unaccustomed to the sight of blood, who had
hitherto led the untroubled lives of plain American citizens,
were exalted or nerved now to deeds at which a trained pro-
fessional soldier might easily and creditably shrink. The
sword of Gideon was unsheathed. About the hour of ten
o'clock the party, armed with swords, revolvers and rifles,
proceeded in a northerly direction, "crossing Mosquito Creek
above the residence of the Doyles." Soon after crossing the
creek, some one of the party knocked at the door of a cabin.
There was no reply, but from within came the sound of a
gun rammed through the chinks of the cabin walls. It saved
the owner's life, for, relates Salmon Brown, "at that we all
scattered. We did not disturb that man. With some candle
wicking soaked in coal oil to light and throw inside, so that
we could see within while he could not see outside, we would
have managed it. But we had none. It was a method much
used later."
Thence it was but a short distance to the ill-fated Doyles'.
To add to the natural terrors of the night and of the dark
design, there came to meet them, at the very threshold of the
house, two dogs — "very savage bull dogs." One of these sen-
tinels Townsley claims to have helped despatch, for though,
according to his own story, an unwilling abettor under com-
pulsion, he carried one of the deadly Bierce swords and was
thus an armed prisoner. It was about eleven o'clock, Mrs.
Doyle testified, that her family heard a knock.38
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 159
"My husband got up and went to the door. Those outside in-
quired for Mr. Wilkson [Wilkinson] and where he lived. My hus-
band told them that he would tell them. Mr. Doyle, my husband,
opened the door, and several came into the house, and said that they
were from the army. My husband was a pro-slavery man. They
told my husband that he and the boys must surrender, they were
their prisoners. These men were armed with pistols and large knives.
They first took my husband out of the house, then they took two
of my sons — the two oldest ones, William and Drury — out, and
then took my husband and these two boys, William and Drury,
away. My son John was spared, because I asked them in tears to
spare him. In a short time afterward I heard the report of pistols."
Thus, without warning or notice, her husband and two sons
were torn from her and despatched. "When we entered the
Doyle cabin," says Salmon Brown, "Mrs. Doyle stormed,
raved at her men, after we had taken them prisoners. ' Haven't
I told you what you were going to get for the course you have
been taking?' she screamed. 'Hush, mother, hush,' replied
her husband." Her two boys, twenty- two and twenty years
of age, were granted, like her husband, no time to make their
peace, no time to ask forgiveness of their sins. Townsley af-
firms that he, Frederick Brown and Weiner were at some dis-
tance from the house, but near enough to cry out in protest
if he had wished to, and near enough to see that John Brown
"drew his revolver and shot old man Doyle in the forehead,
and Brown's two younger sons immediately fell upon the
younger Doyles with their short two-edged swords." But in
this, according to Salmon Brown, Townsley was mistaken,
just as he erred in insisting that Watson Brown, then at
North Elba, was present and playing the part of executioner.
"Not one of the Doyles ran a single step," is Salmon's posi-
tive statement. "They fell where they stood. I think that
the father Doyle was not the first of the three to be killed."
As for John Brown's own part, he killed none of them with
his own hand; to this both Henry Thompson and Salmon
Brown bear positive witness, as did John Brown himself.
But Mrs. Doyle did hear one shot at least. Salmon Brown
will not positively state that his father fired it, but admits
that no one else in the party pulled a trigger. He is at a loss
to explain why the shot was fired. "It did no possible good,
as a bullet, for Doyle had long been stone dead." And his
160 JOHN BROWN
father could therefore truthfully say that he had raised his
hand against no living man. "I was three hundred yards
away when the shot was fired," is Henry Thompson's state-
ment. "Those who were on the spot told me that it was done
after Doyle was dead." Even with Oliver and Frederick, a
younger and older son, taking no part, the killings lasted but
a moment. Doyle and his two sons in an instant lay lifeless,
— a Free State warning to the pro-slavery forces that it was
to be a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, henceforth, so far
as one wing of the Free State party was concerned. If pro-
slavery men had not been made to die when Lawrence fell,
here were three to even up the score. " My husband, and two
boys, my sons," testified the simple, untutored, pitiful Ma-
hala Doyle, "did not come back any more. I went out next
morning in search of them, and found my husband and Wil-
liam, my son, lying dead in the road near together, about
two hundred yards from the house. My other son I did not
see any more until the day he was buried. I was so much
overcome that I went into the house. They were buried the
next day. On the day of the burying I saw the dead body of
Drury. Fear of myself and the remaining children induced
me to leave the home where we had been living. We had
improved our claim a little. I left all and went to the State
of Missouri."
"I found my father and one brother, William, lying dead
in the road, about two hundred yards from the house," tes-
tified John Doyle.37 "I saw my other brother lying dead on
the ground, about one hundred and fifty yards from the
house, in the grass, near a ravine; his fingers were cut off,
and his arms were cut off; his head was cut open; there was a
hole in his breast. William's head was cut open, and a hole
was in his jaw, as though it was made by a knife, and a hole
was also in his side. My father was shot in the forehead and
stabbed in the breast." "Owen and another killed the Doyles,"
says Salmon Brown, and by a process of elimination it is
apparent that the other could only have been himself. "It is
not true," Townsley testifies, "that there was any intentional
mutilation of the bodies after they were killed. They were
slain as quickly as possible and left, and whatever gashes
they received were inflicted in the process of cutting them
MURDER ON THE POTT AW ATOM IE 161
down with swords. I understand that the killing was done
with these swords so as to avoid alarming the neighborhood
by the discharge of firearms."
The next man to meet his fate at the hands of John Brown's
merciless party was Wilkinson. The same procedure was
adopted. Somewhere between the hours of midnight and day-
break, "we were disturbed by the barking of the dog," Mrs.
Wilkinson informed Congressman Oliver, under oath.38 She
continued :
"I was sick with the measles, and woke up Mr. Wilkinson, and
asked if he heard the noise and what it meant? He said it was only
someone passing about, and soon after was again asleep. It was not
long before the dog raged and barked furiously, awakening me once
more; pretty soon I heard footsteps as of men approaching; saw
one pass by the window, and some one knocked at the door. I asked,
who is that? No one answered. I awoke my husband, who asked,
who is that? Someone replied, 'I want you to tell me the way to
Dutch Henry's.' He commenced to tell them, and they said to him,
' Come out and show us.' He wanted to go, but I would not let him ;
he then told them it was difficult to find his clothes, and could tell
them as well without going out of doors. The men out of doors,
after that, stepped back, and I thought I could hear them whisper-
ing; but they immediately returned, and, as they approached, one
of them asked of my husband, 'Are you a northern armist?' He
said, 'I am!' I understood the answer to mean that my husband
was opposed to the northern or freesoil party. I cannot say that I
understood the question. My husband was a pro-slavery man, and
was a member of the territorial legislature held at Shawnee Mission.
When my husband said ' I am,' one of them said, 'You are our pris-
oner. Do you surrender?' He said, 'Gentlemen, I do.' They said,
'open the door.' Mr. Wilkinson told them to wait till he made a
light; and they replied, 'if you don't open it, we will open it for you.'
He opened the door against my wishes, and four men came in, and
my husband was told to put on his clothes, and they asked him if
there were not more men about; they searched for arms, and took a
gun and powder flask, all the weapon that was about the house. I
begged them to let Mr. Wilkinson stay with me, saying that I was
sick and helpless, and could not stay by myself. My husband also
asked them to let him stay with me until he could get someone to
wait on me; told them that he would not run off, but would be there
the next day, or whenever called for. The old man, who seemed to
be in command, looked at me and then around at the children, and
replied, 'You have neighbors.' I said, 'So I have, but they are not
here, and I cannot go for them.' The old man replied, 'it matters
not.' I [he?] told him to get ready. My husband wanted to put on
162 JOHN BROWN
his boots and get ready, so as to be protected from the damp and
night air, but they would n't let him. They then took my husband
away. One of them came back and took two saddles ; I asked him
what they were going to do with him, and he said, ' take him a pris-
oner to the camp.' I wanted one of them to stay with me. He said
he would, but 'they would not let him.' After they were gone, I
thought I heard my husband's voice, in complaint, but do not know;
went to the door, and all was still. Next morning Mr. Wilkinson
was found about one hundred and fifty yards from the house in some
dead brush. A lady who saw my husband's body, said that there
was a gash in his head and in his side; others said that he was cut
in the throat twice."
"We divided our forces at Wilkinson's, I think, into two
parties to go on separate errands," is Salmon Brown's testi-
mony. "Henry Thompson and Weiner killed Wilkinson and
Sherman. My party was not present when Wilkinson and
Sherman were killed. Townsley could not have been present
at each crisis, as he implies. No one else was." Yet Townsley
attributes Wilkinson's murder to "one of the younger Browns "
and adds: "After he was killed his body was dragged to one
side and left." Henry Thompson states that he was not pre-
sent when the Doyles were killed, but is silent as to the fate
of Wilkinson and Sherman.
The "old man" to whom Mrs. Wilkinson's pleading for
her husband's life had "mattered not" was still unplacated
when Wilkinson's dead body lay in the brush. The next and
last man to die was William Sherman. "We then crossed the
Pottawatomie and came to the house of Henry Sherman,"
is Townsley 's tale. "Here John Brown and the party, except-
ing Frederick Brown, Weiner and myself, who were left out-
side a short distance from the door, went into the house and
brought out one or two persons, talked with them some, and
then took them in again. They afterward brought out William
Sherman, Dutch Henry's brother, marched him down into
the Pottawatomie Creek, where he was slain with swords
by Brown's two youngest sons and left lying in the creek."
But Townsley was again wrong as to his details, for the house
was not Sherman's, but that of James Harris, who promptly
made affidavit thereto and thus related what befell : 39
"On last Sunday morning, about two o'clock, (the 25th of May
last,) whilst my wife and child and myself were in bed in the house
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 163
where we lived, we were aroused by a company of men who said
they belonged to the northern army, and who were each armed
with a sabre and two revolvers, two of whom I recognized, namely, a
Mr. Brown, whose given name I do not remember, commonly known
by the appellation of 'old man Brown,' and his son, Owen Brown.
They came in the house and approached the bedside where we were
lying, and ordered us, together with three other men who were in
the same house with me, to surrender ; that the northern army was
upon us, and it would be no use for us to resist. The names of these
other three men who were then in my house with me are, William
Sherman, John S. Whiteman, the other man I did not know. They
were stopping with me that night. They had bought a cow from
Henry Sherman, and intended to go home the next morning. When
they [the Browns] came up to the bed, some had drawn sabres in
their hands, and some revolvers. They then took into their pos-
session two rifles and a Bowie knife, which I had there in the room
— there was but one room in my house — and afterward ransacked
the whole establishment in search of ammunition. They then took
one of these three men, who were staying in my house, out. (This
was the man whose name I did not know.) He came back. They
then took me out, and asked me if there were any more men about
the place. I told them there were not. They searched the place,
but found none others but we four. They asked me where Henry
Sherman was. Henry Sherman was a brother to William Sherman.
I told them that he was out on the plains in search of some cattle
which he had lost. They asked if I had ever taken any hand in aid-
ing pro-slavery men in coming to the Territory of Kansas, or had
ever taken any hand in the last troubles at Lawrence, and asked
me whether I had ever done the free State party any harm or ever
intended to do that party any harm; they asked me what made me
live at such a place. I then answered that I could get higher wages
there than anywhere else. They asked me if there were any bridles
or saddles about the premises. I told them there was one saddle,
which they took, and they also took possession of Henry Sherman's
horse, which I had at my place, and made me saddle him. They
then said if I would answer no to all questions which they had asked
me, they would let [me?] loose. Old Mr. Brown and his son then
went into the house with me. The other three men, Mr. William
Sherman, Mr. Whiteman, and the stranger were in the house all
this time. After old man Brown and his son went into the house with
me, old man Brown asked Mr. Sherman to go out with him, and
Mr. Sherman then went out with old Mr. Brown, and another man
came into the house in Brown's place. I heard nothing more for
about fifteen minutes. Two of the northern army, as they styled
themselves, stayed on with us until we heard a cap burst, and then
these two men left. That morning about ten o'clock I found Wil-
liam Sherman dead in the creek near my house. I was looking for
Mr. Sherman, as he had not come back, I thought he had been mur-
164 JOHN BROWN
dered. I took Mr. William Sherman out of the creek and examined
him. Mr. Whiteman was with me. Sherman's skull was split open
in two places and some of his brains was washed out by the water.
A large hole was cut in his breast, and his left hand was cut off ex-
cept a little piece of skin on one side. We buried him."
Here Thompson and Weiner were again the executioners,
according to Salmon Brown. "Neither of the younger sons,
nor Owen, was present when William Sherman was killed."
Then, at last, John Brown was satisfied. He had told Towns-
ley that he must take matters into his own hands "for the
protection of the Free State settlers; that it was better that
a score of bad men should die than that one man who came
here to make Kansas a Free State should be driven out."
The rising Sabbath sun shone on five mutilated bodies, their
very starkness, in their executioner's eyes, a protection to the
Free State settlers for many miles around. The bloody night's
work was over. Confusion now had made his masterpiece.
Three and one half years later, when in jail and under
sentence of death, John Brown received the following letter
purporting to come from Mahala Doyle. Mrs. Doyle could
not write, and the letter is obviously, in its style, beyond her
homely powers of expression, though she may have signed it,
and there is nothing in it she might not have said in her own
way:
CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE Nov. 2Oth, iSsg.40
JOHN BROWN: — SIR, — Altho' vengence is not mine I confess
that I do feel gratified, to hear that you were stopped in your fiend-
ish career at Harper's Ferry, with the loss of your two sons, you
can now appreciate my distress in Kansas, when you then & there
entered my house at midnight and arrested my Husband and two
boys, and took them out of the yard and in cold blood shot them
dead in my hearing, you cant say you done it to free slaves, we had
none and never expected to own one, but has only made me a poor
disconsolate widow with helpless children, while I feel for your
folly I do hope & trust that you will meet your just reward. O how
it pained my heart to hear the dying groans of my Husband & chil-
dren, if this scrawl gives you any consolation you are welcome to it
MAHALA DOYLE.
N. B. My son John Doyle whose life I beged of you is now grown
up and is very desirous to be at Charlestown on the day of your
execution, would certainly be there if his means would permit it
that he might adjust the rope around your neck if Gov. Wise would
permit it. M. DOYLE. .
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 165
Townsley asserts that Brown was intent upon killing
George Wilson, Probate Judge of Anderson County, whom he
hoped to find at Sherman's, for the reason that he had been
warning Free State men to leave the Territory. Townsley
claimed to have received such a notice himself. But Salmon
Brown and Henry Thompson deny positively that Wilson
was on the proscribed list. Be this as it may, there was no
further search for any one, and the blood-stained party went
back to the camping-place in the timber between the two deep
ravines, their swords, "unmannerly breached with gore,"
being first washed in Pottawatomie Creek. Just before day-
light, Townsley avers, Owen Brown came to him and said,
"There shall be no more such work as that." In the after-
noon the eight men started back to rejoin the Pottawatomie
company under John Brown, Jr. They found it about mid-
night, encamped near Ottawa Jones's farm, where, as we have
seen, the news of their awful deed had already preceded
them, and where John Brown, Jr., had resigned the cap-
taincy of the company. As soon as Jason Brown, whose
hatred of blood-letting had deprived him of his father's con-
fidence when violent deeds were under way, met his father
face to face, he encountered him tremblingly, — for this was
the "worst shock" that ever came to him in his life.41 "Did
you, " he demanded of his father, "have anything to do with
the killing of those men on the Pottawatomie?" "I did not
do it," the father replied, "but I approved of it." "I spoke
to him as I then felt about it," continues Jason; "I did not
fully understand the cause of it then, and told him I was very
sorry the act had been done. I said to him : ' I think it was an
uncalled for, wicked act.' He said: 'God is my judge. It was
absolutely necessary as a measure of self-defence, and for
the defence of others.' I cannot give his exact language, but
this was the purport of it. It seemed to hurt his feelings that
I felt so about it. He soon after left us, and John and I re-
turned to Osawatomie." Not, however, until he had sought
additional information. He inquired of his brother Frederick
if he knew who the murderers were. "Yes I do, but I can't
tell you." " Did you kill any of them with your own hands? "
"No; when I came to see what manner of work it was, I
could not do it." The tears rolled down Frederick's face as he
1 66 JOHN BROWN
spoke, Jason reports ; and this eye-witness of the tragedy seems
never to have learned to approve of it. In this he was in marked
contrast to Townsley, for, unwilling participant as he was, he
stated that after the event he became convinced that it resulted
in good to the Free State settlers on Pottawatomie Creek.
Jason and John Brown, Jr., felt too badly to join forces
with their father. The Pottawatomie Company started for
home under H. H. Williams in a very different frame of mind
toward the men they had so gayly cheered out of camp but
three days before, either because of a sudden repentance, or
of their having expected a stand-up fight instead of a slaugh-
ter, or because the deed in its reality seemed so much worse
than in anticipation that those in the secret joined the others
in their detestation of it. John Brown and his fellow execu-
tioners fell behind the company, after crossing Middle Creek,
and struck off by themselves in the direction of Jason's and
the younger John's homes. Jason and John headed not for
their cabins but for Osawatomie. Already the roads were
lined with men, so Jason narrates,42 from Palmyra to Osa-
watomie, looking for the Browns. The brothers got to the
Adair cabin, where both their wives had taken refuge during
their absence, at about 9 P. M. Adair came to the door with
his gun. "Who's there?" said he. "John and I." "Can't
keep you here. Our lives are threatened. Every moment we
expect to have our house burned over our heads." To their
entreaties, he only repeated: "I cannot keep you." "Here
are we two alone," pleaded Jason. "We have eaten nothing
all day. Let us lie on your floor until morning — in your
out-house — anywhere." Then Mrs. Adair came and asked,
"Did you have anything to do with the murders on the
Pottawatomie?" "I did not," said Jason. "And John had
no action in it." "Then," said Mrs. Adair, "you may stay.
But we risk our lives in keeping you." They gave the two
a mattress on the floor beside the Adairs' bed, and the four
talked till midnight, Jason telling all he knew of the affair.
John lay groaning. In the middle of the night John spoke to
his Aunt Florilla. " I feel that I am going insane," said he, and
in the morning he was insane. Jason had slept after a while,
but John could not. His mind was gone, yet not so far gone
but that he was able to understand and to acquiesce when
SALMON BROWN
JOHN BROWN, JR.
JASON BROWN
OWEN BROWN
FOUR OF JOHN BROWN'S SONS
In later years
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 167
Jason advised him to hide, and to act upon it. About two or
three o'clock that same night, a knock had been heard at the
door. ' 'Who's there? "called out Adair. "Owen." "Getaway,
get away as quick as you can! You endanger our lives." Adair
would not parley or let him in. "You are a vile murderer,
a marked man!" said he.43 "I intend to be a marked man!"
shouted Owen, and rode away — on one of the murdered
men's horses.
The Rev. Mr. Adair was not the only one to feel outraged
at first by the murders committed by his relatives. John
T. Grant and Judge Hanway, two of the best Free State set-
tlers in that region, talked the matter over, so J. G. Grant, a
son of the former, recollects,44 and agreed that John Brown's
action was inexcusable. He had taken, they said, the mo-
ment when the families of all the men who had gone to the
rescue of Lawrence were helpless, to commit a crime which
invited and provoked a vengeful attack upon the settlement.
Was that sane or decent, they asked? And was it excusable
for ;'him, after the murder, to march away from the seat
of danger and rejoin the company at Ottawa Jones's, thus
leaving the women and children more than ever helpless?
Not until some time afterwards did Adair and Hanway, like
Townsley, come around to an approval of the deed as they
saw it in retrospect. "Last Sunday or Monday," wrote on
May 31, 1856, James H. Carruth, another Osawatomie Free
State settler of character, to the Watertown, New York, Re-
former,45 "five pro-slavery men were killed seven or eight miles
from here. It is said that they had threatened to hang another
pro-slavery man who had sold provisions to the free state
men unless he left the territory in a few hours, and that one
of them had been around the neighborhood brandishing his
bowie-knife and threatening to kill people. It was murder,
nevertheless, and the free-state men here cooperate with the
pro-slavery men in endeavoring to arrest the murderers."
"Threatened and ordered to leave in given time under pen-
alty of death, some few persons committed the horrid murders
at Pottawatomie 10 miles above," was the way O. C. Brown
described the crime on June 24, 1856, in a letter to a friend.46
The writer was no relative of the murderers, but a staunch
Free State man and a leader at Osawatomie. H. L. Jones,
168 JOHN BROWN.
another settler, declares that the act was generally believed
by Free State men to be warranted at the time, but that
"policy dictated that the deed should be disavowed as having
general disapproval." 47 George Thompson, a settler who lived
four miles northeast of the Brown claims, testified, in 1894,
that "at the time of the executions of the Doyles, Wilkinson
and Sherman, with many of my neighbors I did not approve
the act, but since, on more fully understanding the circum-
stances, I believe the act to have been wise and justifiable." 48
Three days after the murders, a public meeting was held
in Osawatomie, of which C. H. Price was chairman and H. H.
Williams secretary. It adopted unanimously the following
emphatic resolutions:
"Whereas, An outrage of the darkest and foulest nature has been
committed in our midst by some midnight assassins unknown, who
have taken five of our citizens at the hour of midnight from their
homes and families, and murdered and mangled them in the most
awful manner; to prevent a repetition of these deeds, we deem it
necessary to adopt some measures for our mutual protection and to
aid and assist in bringing these desperadoes to justice. Under these
circumstances we propose to act up to the following resolutions:
" Resolved, That we will from this time lay aside all sectional
and political feelings and act together as men of reason and common
sense, determined to oppose all men who are so ultra in their views
as to denounce men of opposite opinion.
" Resolved, That we will repudiate and discountenance all organ-
ized bands of men who leave their homes for the avowed purpose of
exciting others to acts of violence, believing it to be the duty of all
good disposed citizens to stay at home during these exciting times
and protect and if possible restore the peace and harmony of the
neighborhood ; furthermore we will discountenance all armed bodies
of men who may come amongst us from any other part of the Ter-
ritory or from the States unless said parties shall come under the
authority of the United States.
" Resolved, That we pledge ourselves, individually and collectively,
to prevent a recurrence of a similar tragedy and to ferret out and
hand over to the criminal authorities the perpetrators for punishment.
C. H. Price, President
R. Golding, Chairman
R. Gilpatrick
H. H. Williams * W. C. McDow
Secretary S. V. Vandaman
A. Castele
John Blunt
* If Salmon Brown's memory of H. H. Williams's instigation of the murders
Committee"
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 169
The Kansas Weekly Herald of Leavenworth, on June 14, in
printing these resolutions,49 says: "The outlaws that are now
prowling about over the country and murdering harmless and
innocent men, it will be seen, have been denounced publicly by
persons of their own political opinions. The President of the
meeting is a Pro-slavery man, and the Secretary, Free State."
"The respectability of the parties and the cruelties attending
these murders have produced an extraordinary state of excite-
ment in that portion of the territory, which has, heretofore,
remained comparatively quiet," Governor Shannon reported
on May 31, 1856, to President Pierce.50 "The effect of this
massacre on the inhabitants of the creeks was greatly to alarm
both parties. The pro-slavery settlers almost entirely left at
once and the Free State people were constantly fearful," was
the statement of George W. and H. C. Grant, also sons of J. T.
Grant.51 "No one can defend the action of the marshal's posse
at Lawrence, in burning the hotel, destroying the printing-
press and other outrages," wrote Major John Sedgwick, First
Cavalry, from Fort Leavenworth, on June n, 1856, seven-
teen days after the Pottawatomie massacre, and just eight
years before he gave his life for the Union as a distinguished
major-general of volunteers in the battle of Spottsylvania,
"but no life was lost, no one was threatened or felt himself
in danger. In retaliation for this act, inoffensive citizens have
been plundered, their houses robbed and burned, and five
men were taken out of their beds, their throats cut, their ears
cut off, their persons gashed more horribly than our savages
have ever done. I sincerely think that most of the atrocities
have been committed by the free-soil party, but I cannot think
that they countenance such acts — that is, the respectable
class." 52
If Major Sedgwick was correct in his estimate of the atti-
tude of the Free State men toward midnight assassination,
at the hour he wrote, it is undeniable that as time passed,
opinions about Brown's actions began to change. "I never
had much doubt that Capt. Brown was the author of the blow
at Pottawatomie, for the reason that he was the only man
who comprehended the situation, and saw the absolute neces-
is correct, his serving at this settler's meeting convicts Williams of almost incred-
ible hypocrisy and cowardice.
JOHN BROWN
sity of some such blow and had the nerve to strike it," wrote
Governor Charles Robinson, Februarys, 1878, nearly two years
before Townsley's confession was published.53 Judge Han-
way, as we have already seen, altered his position radically,
and in the following statement of February I, 1878, accurately
summarizes the progress of public opinion in the neighborhood
of the crime:
". . . So far as public opinion in the neighborhood, where the
'affair took place, is concerned, I believe I may state that the first
news of the event produced such a shock that public opinion was
considerably divided; but after the whole circumstances became
known, there was a reaction in public opinion and the Free State
settlers who had claims on the creek considered that Capt. Brown
and his party of eight had performed a justifiable act, which saved
their homes and dwellings from threatened raids of the proslavery
party."'
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in his 'Cheerful Yester-
days,' states:
"In regard to the most extreme act of John Brown's Kansas
career, the so-called ' Pottawatomie massacre' of May 24, 1856, I
can testify that in September of that year, there appeared to be but
one way of thinking among the Kansas Free State men. ... I
heard of no one who did not approve of the act, and its beneficial
effects were universally asserted — Governor Robinson himself fully
endorsing it to me. . . ." 55
How may the killings on the Pottawatomie, this terrible
violation of the statute and the moral laws, be justified? This
is the question which has confronted every student of John
Brown's life since it was definitely established that Brown
was, if not actually a principal in the crime, an accessory and
an instigator. There have been advanced many excuses for
the killings, and a number of them deserve careful scrutiny.
That there may be times in a newly settled country when it
becomes necessary for the conservative elements to take the
law into their own hands, in the absence of proper judicial
machinery, lest the community fall into a state of utter law-
lessness and anarchy, has been admitted ever since lynch
law brought order out of chaos in San Francisco in 1849. But
it has similarly been recognized that even this wild justice,
when set afoot, must follow a certain procedure ; that commit-
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 171
tees of safety or vigilance should be formed and a kind of
drum-head trial be instituted for the purpose of giving the
accused men some opportunity to be heard in their own de-
fence. History shows, moreover, that lynch law should only
be proclaimed and obeyed for the briefest of periods, lest the
second state be worse than the first; and that, even when in-
stituted, public proceedings on the part of the self-appointed
regulators are essential, both in order to make the punish-
ments as deterrent as possible, and to persuade the commu-
nity that it is justice, however rude, that is being dispensed.
In Kansas in 1856 the situation was different from that of
California in 1849-50, in that most of the existing lawless-
ness had its origin largely in the national politics of the day.
That there were the same rude and dangerous characters to be
found on every frontier is proved by the recital of the crimes
committed in Kansas prior to the Pottawatomie murders. In
the case of Kansas, the high character of part of the emigra-
tion was offset by the lawless character of the Border Ruffians.
Slavery itself tended to that overbearing lawlessness which
is inevitable wherever the fate of a dark-colored people is
placed unreservedly in the hands of whites. It was the spirit
of intolerance and lawlessness bred by slavery which dictated
the destruction of Lawrence and made the abuse of the ballot-
boxes seem proper and justifiable. But, granting that there
was friction full of grave possibilities between a handful of the
pro-slavery settlers on the Pottawatomie and their Free Soil
neighbors, it is by no means clear either that the conditions
prior to the killings were so grave as to demand the establish-
ment of martial law, or that they called for the installation
of vigilance committees to inflict extreme penalties upon
the desperadoes. Not a single person had been killed in the
region around Osawatomie, either by the lawless characters
or by armed representatives of the pro-slavery cause. The
instances of brutality or murder narrated in the preceding
chapters all took place miles to the north, in the vicinity
of Lawrence or Leavenworth. Beyond doubt the publica-
tion of these atrocities inflamed not only the Browns, but
kindled the anger and curdled the blood of every Free Soil
settler who read of them. Yet the companies that set forth
from Osawatomie to Lawrence deemed it quite safe to leave
172 JOHN BROWN
the settlements to themselves, despite the character of the
Shermans and the Doyles and certain occurrences that might
well have given ground for uneasiness.
What those occurrences were becomes of great importance,
because many loose statements about them have been brought
forward from time to time as affording ample justification
for the Pottawatomie blood-letting. The most careful search
for and weighing of many testimonies, contemporary and
reminiscent, establishes in the neighborhood of Osawatomie
only five definite pro-slavery offences, after hearsay recollec-
tions and wholly unsubstantiated stories are eliminated. It
seems to be established beyond doubt that Poindexter Manes,
a Free Soil settler, was knocked down and beaten for having
a New York Tribune in his pocket.56 Less well substantiated
is the case of one Baker, a Vermonter, living on the Pottawato-
mie, who was taken from his cabin and strung up to a tree,
but who was cut down in time to save his life. There is no
record of his assailants, nor can the time be accurately fixed
beyond that it was in the month of April.57 To the Doyles
and Shermans is attributed the frightening of a woman named
Holmes, who was nearing confinement, by the brandishing
of a knife and the demand that she reveal the whereabouts
of the men of her family. It is variously stated that she died
and that she "came near dying," in consequence.58 Along the
same line and more important is the statement that " Dutch
Bill," in the absence of the men on their trip to Lawrence,
entered the cabin of John T. Grant and attempted an assault
upon the person of Mary Grant, his daughter. This story is
the basis for the allegation that a messenger reached John
Brown in the first night's camp, near Prairie City, and re-
ported the attack upon Mary Grant, and that the persons of
the women of his own family had been threatened. Fortu-
nately, Mary Grant, as well as Mrs. John Brown, Jr., is still
alive.* The latter states positively that the women of the
settlement were never harmed.59 In this she is emphatically
borne out by a contemporary declaration of Jason Brown in
a letter to North Elba on June 28, 1856, a month after the
killings: "No women have been injured yet; so far as I know.
Some of the five pro-slavery men who were killed had threat-
* Since the above was written, Mary Grant Brown has died.
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 173
ened the lives of Free State men near them; and also to cut
the throat of a young woman, a neighbor."60 As Jason
Brown's wife was with him in Kansas, it is only natural to
suppose that if her safety and that of his sister-in-law had
been in danger, he would have reported it. Salmon Brown
affirms that : "The statement that women were in any way
molested is entirely without foundation." Mary Grant, the
young woman neighbor, whose throat was threatened at the
time, a remarkably pretty and attractive young woman, who
had never feared to go freely to Wilkinson's post-office and
to meet there the Doyles and Shermans, told recently this
story of her experience with "Dutch Bill," which experience
is the sole basis for the fabrication that John Brown was
recalled because Free State women were in danger: 61
"Dutch Bill arrived at our house, one day, horribly drunk, with
a whiskey bottle with a corncob stopper, and an immense butcher
knife in his belt. Mr. Grant, my father, was sick in bed, but when
they told him that Bill Sherman was coming, in that state, he said :
' Put my shot gun beside the bed.' There was also a neighbor pre-
sent, who was armed. 'Old woman,' said Bill Sherman to my mo-
ther, ' you and I are pretty good friends, but damn your daughter.
I'll drink her heart's blood.' Yet my little brother Charley, a mere
boy of twelve or fourteen, succeeded in cajoling him away without
violence."
This story, says Mary Grant (Mrs. Mary E. Brown, of San
Jose, California), Frederick Brown asked her for again and
again, before the men marched to Lawrence. It is thus clear
that the episode was in itself precisely what might happen
in any isolated settlement which contained a drunken, worth-
less settler, and that it was known to at least one Brown long
before the sudden start for Lawrence. Jason Brown relates
it in his letter in its proper proportions. Mrs. B. F. Jackson,
a resident of Osawatomie at the time, also testifies 62 that
she never heard of any of the women of Osawatomie or
Pottawatomie being troubled; yet news of attacks on them,
had such occurred, must have travelled faster and made a
more lasting impression upon the women of the frontier than
anything else. In this connection it is interesting to note
that although Gihon makes wholesale charges of rape against
the Border Ruffians,63 Mrs. Charles Robinson, than whom the
174 JOHN BROWN
Ruffians have never had a severer critic, states that she knows
of only a single case of criminal assault upon women during
Kansas's troubled times. This case she records in her book
as having occurred in August, 1856, or months after the Potta-
watomie massacre.64 Similar favorable testimony is given by
many other women, who were early settlers, when asked this
specific question. In all the mass of material accumulated by
the Kansas Historical Society, there is not a proved instance
of Border Ruffian misconduct of this kind, unless we except
that cited by Mrs. Robinson and the case of two sisters who
lived five miles northwest of Lawrence, which is reported
in the Tribune of June 9, 1856, on the not always reliable
authority of James Redpath. What frontier settlement in a
time of great excitement and unrest can show a better record?
It must be noted, too, that whereas elsewhere there might
have been a natural desire to suppress such facts, there were
plenty of correspondents besides Redpath eager for such ter-
rible happenings with which to blacken the case against the
Border Ruffians and stir more Northerners to coming to the
rescue of Free Kansas.
A fifth Missouri outrage is directly brought home by the
Grant family to Wilkinson, the Shermans and Doyles. This
was the case of an old man named Morse, from Michigan,
who had sold lead for bullets to the Browns. As George Grant
narrates the story,
"The next morning, after the company had started to go to
Lawrence, a number of these proslavery men, Wilkinson, Doyle,
his two sons, and William Sherman, known as ' Dutch Bill ' — took
a rope and were going to hang him [Morse] for selling the lead to
the Free State men. They frightened the old man terribly; and
finally told him he must leave the country before eleven o'clock,
or they would hang him. They then left and went to the Shermans
and went to drinking. About eleven o'clock a portion of them, half
drunk, went back to Mr. Morse's and were going to kill him with
an axe. His little boys — one was only nine years old — set up a
violent crying, and begged for their father's life. They finally gave
him until sundown to leave. He left everything and came at once
to our house. He was nearly frightened to death. He came to our
house carrying a blanket and leading his little boy by the hand.
When night came he was so afraid that he would not stay in the
house, but went out doors and slept on the prairie in the grass.
For a few days he lay about in the brush, most of the time getting
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 175
his meals at our house. He was then taken violently ill and died
in a very short time. Dr. Gilpatrick attended him during his brief
illness, and said that his death was directly caused by the fright
and excitement of that terrible day when he was driven from his
store.'"
It will be noticed that the threats to Morse were made the
day after the company had gone, or on Friday. It is per-
fectly plain, therefore, that no news of this could have reached
John Brown in camp near Prairie City before two o'clock of
the same day, when he started back in Townsley's wagon,
bent on the killings. Furthermore, there was no communica-
tion between his party, as it lay in the timber between the
ravines on the day of the killing, and the settlements. What-
ever else may have actuated John Brown, it was not the at-
tack upon the old man, Morse, of which he knew nothing, not
even if a messenger bearing stories of threatened outrage on
the Pottawatomie reached Brown on that one morning in
camp when the cutlasses were being ground.
This question of the alleged messenger bringing news of the
threats against the Free Soil settlers is one that has deeply
agitated the apologists for and critics of John Brown. The
identity of this Mercury has never been established. He is
variously thought to have been "Bondi or some one sent
by him" - according to George Grant; or Weiner, accord-
ing to O. C. Brown and John Hutchings. Townsley and Judge
Hanway were sure that George Grant himself was the mes-
senger, but as George Grant denies this and points out that
he marched out with the Pottawatomie Rifles, this guess
must be eliminated. H. H. Williams, on January 20, 1883,
wrote to R. J. Hinton that he was the messenger. Unfortu-
nately for this theory, his own contemporary letter to the
Tribune, written within two months of the killings, proves
that he went up toward Lawrence not as a messenger but as
first lieutenant of the Pottawatomie Rifles, for he relates
various incidents of the night march. Among others who af-
firm that there was a messenger are John Brown, Jr., August
Bondi, J. F. Legate, Samuel Anderson, Mary Grant, J. G.
Grant and C. S. Adair; but none of them has a clue to his iden-
tity. Salmon Brown, on the other hand, is positive that there
was no messenger. So is Colonel James Blood. If there was
176 JOHN BROWN
a messenger who reached camp on Friday morning, he could
only have had later news by two or three hours than the
men of the Pottawatomie Rifles themselves brought, for they
marched from the cross-roads near Osawatomie at six p. M.,
and were not much over six hours in camp the next day be-
fore John Brown left on his way back. If the company had
received tidings revealing grave danger to their women and
children at home, it is incredible that they would not have
returned at once with John Brown, to protect their families.
Instead, they were content to remain idly in camp for two
days. If Colonel Blood's narrative of meeting Townsley's
wagon-load is true, it is again astonishing that John Brown
never inquired of him what had happened during their twenty-
four hours' absence. Had they done so, Blood could have
told Brown that when he himself rode through the Pottawa-
tomie settlement that afternoon, he found the place perfectly
quiet, the only excitement relating to Lawrence; that a few
men were in the fields and the women and children were about
the cabins.66 But the height of absurdity is the supposition
that eight able-bodied men, heavily armed, would spend all
of one night and the whole of the next day, Saturday, in the
timber between two ravines near Pottawatomie Creek with-
out stirring to inquire how the Brown kinsmen and kins-
women, the Adairs, the Days, Mrs. John Brown, Jr., and
Mrs. Jason Brown, were faring during the twenty-four hours
between the return and the murders, if these relatives were
known to be in danger. If the killings were due to any sudden
alarm that the creek was to be cleared of all Free State set-
tlers, then the eight men were craven, indeed, to spend this
day without scouting the neighborhood. This supposition is
incredible in view of John Brown's known bravery. His
men hid because they did not wish their connection with the
murders known, and after the crime they returned stealthily
to Ottawa Jones's without having troubled any one with a
question as to the fate of the unguarded women and children
of their comrades of the Pottawatomie Rifles.
The truth must be that John Brown decided on the mur-
ders because of some general reason or previous conviction
that it was necessary to remove the victims, and not because
of any sudden news. As to the messenger, there was none;
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 177
the reports of threats to Free State settlers made by the Sher-
mans and Doyles, which were undoubtedly talked of in the
camp and hastened John Brown's action, were brought in
not by any one man or any two men, but by Bondi, Weiner,
Townsley and others of the Rifles. H. H. Williams, in his
contemporary letter, records that he rode ten miles up and
down the creek to call his company together, and that thirty-
four men had come from various distances by six p. M. to
the rendezvous. As they marched that night, they doubtless
exchanged news and gossip ; the story about " Dutch Bill " and
Mary Grant may have been magnified in the telling and re-
telling and reached many ears for the first time as the little
column stumbled forward over the dark roads, while the excite-
ment of the hour probably led some of the men to think that
" Dutch Bill's" drunken threat had just been uttered.
To find the reason and the excuse for the cold-blooded
murder of the Doyles, Sherman and Wilkinson, we must,
therefore, look elsewhere. The Grants67 and others tell of a
meeting at "Dutch Henry's," immediately after the depar-
ture of the Rifles, at which the subsequently murdered men
swore to drive out all the Free State settlers within a given
time and reduce their houses to ashes. On the other hand,
Salmon Brown declares positively that "it was not the re-
port of any such meeting specifically that started us off to
Pottawatomie." Nor, as we have seen, could the news of this
meeting have reached the camp near Prairie City before
John Brown started for home. That the meeting occurred,
the Grants are positive, but it, too, must be discarded as a
motive for the bloody deed on the Pottawatomie.
There remains, then, the question how far the threats
against the Browns, heard in the Buford camp, and those
made against the Free State settlers on the Pottawatomie as
a whole, were the controlling reason for the crime. It is im-
possible to avoid the belief that they were a most important
factor in moving John Brown to adopt Border Ruffian tac-
tics. Salmon Brown declares that his father and the others
were well aware that the pro-slavery men of the Doyle-Sher-
man type had decided on extreme measures against them.
The stories of Bondi, Weiner, Benjamin and Townsley all
had their effect upon the Browns. According to Horace Haskell
178 JOHN BROWN
Day, son of Orson Day, when his father went to Weiner's
store, which was just one and a half miles from the Doyles'
cabin, he found a notice up that all Free State men must get
off the creek within thirty days, or have their throats cut.
Weiner said to Mr. Day: "We ought to cut their throats."
Mr. Day not consenting, Weiner said: "That is the way we
serve them in Texas," — from which place he had come.68
Orson Day being a brother-in-law of John Brown and resid-
ing directly opposite John Brown, Jr., it would have been
easy for him to repeat this happening to his relatives. There
are witnesses like Mr. M. V. B. Jackson, who heard from
Weiner, Bondi and Townsley direct the threats made against
them. Mr. Jackson testifies that three days was the time of
grace allowed to Weiner, Benjamin and Bondi, at the expira-
tion of which they were to leave under pain of lynch law.69
John B. Manes is another witness to Benjamin's being warned.
"I know," he has affirmed,70 "that there was a reign of ter-
ror, of which the men who were killed were the authors; and
I am surprised that any one should believe that the killing of
these men was without reasonable excuse." He asks whether
the Free State men were to abandon Kansas, or to fold their
arms and await martrydom when their days of grace expired.
Or were they to slay the would-be murderers, to save them-
selves? Here again the question recurs: If John Brown knew
of the notice posted in Weiner's store, and was also aware
that the pro-slavery men had given the Free Soil settlers
but three or five days in which to leave, why did he march
off to Lawrence leaving the women and children defenceless
and the Doyles and Shermans free to do their worst? He
could not know that he would be free to return within twenty-
four hours, for the fate of Lawrence was not learned until the
company had marched twenty-five miles. For all any of the
men could foresee, they might be going off on a campaign
that would last for some days — perhaps even weeks.
It must not be forgotten, too, that threats of slicing a man's
throat, or cutting his heart out, or driving him away, were the
cheapest and most conspicuous product of Border Ruffian
activity. Every drunken pro-slavery man had a quiver-full
of them. The Squatter Sovereign has them on every page; the
blasphemy and promises of extermination that marked the
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 179
harangues of Atchison, Jones and men of that stamp are to be
found broadcast in the files of the Tribune and the volumes
of Gladstone, Redpath, Phillips, Sara Robinson and the other
contemporary Free Soil writers. The threats uttered on the
Pottawatomie must have been convincing, indeed, to incite
John Brown to do what the Border Ruffians only talked of
doing. But this merely adds to the mystery why the appeal
of Lawrence should have taken precedence over the safety of
Pottawatomie, as does the affirmation of Jason Brown that
a friendly pro-slavery man had given to the Rev. Mr. Adair
a list of those whose deaths had been agreed upon by his
pro-slavery friends, — a story of which Mr. Adair has left no
written record to aid his kinsman's reputation.71
What did John Brown himself ever assign as the reason?
According to E. A. Coleman, Brown, by means of his surveying
disguise, obtained the views of the murdered men and found
that they "had each one committed murder in his heart and
according to the Scriptures they were guilty of murder and
I felt justified in having them killed." These words Cole-
man places in John Brown's mouth ; 72 they are confirmed by
Colonel Edward Anderson's report of Brown's statement to
him that the murdered men were planning to "wipe out the
Free Soil settlers." 73 According to Coleman's story, therefore,
Brown, assuming the powers of judge or military autocrat,
adjudged the Doyles, Shermans and Wilkinson deserving of
death because they had had murder in their hearts. If this
version be accepted, we must decide that John Brown be-
lieved planning murder to be worse than murder itself. We
have here a most extraordinary confusion of ethics and morals.
Granting that persecution, and even murders, had followed
similar threats in other portions of Kansas, and that the ter-
rible happenings in the Territory were ever present in John
Brown's brain, one cannot but wonder that he assumed to
himself the functions of chief executioner and deemed himself
the one to say just when and how the Sixth Commandment,
"Thou shalt not kill," should be violated. He was not content
merely to defend Free State homes and patrol the roads; it
did not occur to him to form a vigilance committee and warn
the pro-slavery rascals to cease from troubling and remove
from the neighborhood, as did in another year James Mont-
i8o JOHN BROWN
gomery, in Linn County ; he was not even content to leave to
the Almighty, to. whom he nightly prayed, that vengeance
which the Lord has reserved as His.
But there are plenty of other excuses offered for the crime,
after the various motives we have examined are discarded.
It is pointed out that there was no law for Free Soil men in
the Territory, — only Catos and Lecomptes on the bench to
dispense injustice. There was no legal road to safety. It is
averred that the Free Soil settlers were few, half starved, sick
and intimidated, grown so spiritless, the lack of resistance at
Lawrence indicated, as to call for some deed of violence to
rouse them from their helpless inertia. To prove to the Border
Ruffians that they could no longer destroy and murder with
impunity, such a terrible warning as that given at Pottawato-
mie was, therefore, absolutely necessary. Again, it is insisted
that John Brown's foresight, his consecrated sagacity and
devotion to the cause, made him strike the blow in order to
force men to take sides, in order to bring on the righteous and
necessary war which, to John Brown, was the sole solution
of the issue in Kansas. If this conflicts with the widely held
theory that the Pottawatomie killings, by ending the outrages
in the neighborhood of Osawatomie and stopping the aggres-
siveness of the Border Ruffians, was a peace measure, it does
not deter many from excusing the crime as an act of war exe-
cuted in war time. The dogs of war, it is argued, had been let
slip by Jones and Donaldson, and as the Doyles, Shermans
and Wilkinson were spies and informers in league with the
enemy, they richly merited their fate, which came only just
in time to save the Osawatomie settlers from general expul-
sion, if not murder. Then, too, it was said to be but a just
act of retaliation for the sack of Lawrence and retribution for
the killing of R. P. Brown, Dow, Barber, Stewart, Jones and
Collins; it is even alleged, by miscounting these six victims of
Border Ruffian violence, that John Brown was not eager to
kill Dutch Henry, but chose his five victims as a deliberate
offset to the five Free Soilers killed up to that time. Next, it
is asserted that John Brown was merely carrying out the
orders of Free Soil leaders who, for motives of policy, did not
admit at the time that this killing was done with their con-
nivance and consent. Finally, it is averred by at least one
biographer that John Brown was divinely inspired, — God-
driven to this dire act, because the Deity "makes His will
known in advance to certain chosen men and women who
perform it consciously or unconsciously."
Into this field of theological speculation the historian unfor-
tunately cannot enter; he is limited to judging or recording
human motives, particularly as this theory of divine inspira-
tion has for centuries been the excuse for many of the most
terrible crimes in history. More capable of critical examina-
tion is the argument that there existed no law and no courts
for Free State men; but if the absence of law and just courts
sanctions midnight assassination, the world is far behindhand
with its canonizations. The road to legal safety under such
conditions does not lead by the way of private vengeance ; the
sole substitute is, as has already been pointed out, lynch law
openly proclaimed and openly administered. That the Potta-
watomie murders cannot be both a peace and a war measure
is obvious. Unfortunately, as will be set forth when the conse-
quences of the crime are examined, the evidence shows that
it neither ended the attacks upon individuals nor stopped
the raids of large armed bodies, as has been alleged by many
writers, including John Speer. He declared, January 30, 1886,
that "the spirit of murder was checked," 74 while F. G.
Adams, Secretary of the Kansas Historical Society, on Octo-
ber 25, 1883, averred of Brown's killings that they "put an
end to the assassination of Free State men for all time," 75 —
as if, for example, Frederick Brown and David Garrison were
not shot down like dogs on August 30, 1856, to say nothing
of the cold-blooded murders after Pottawatomie of Hoppe,
Cantrall, Hoyt, Gay and William Phillips, and almost num-
berless assaults upon persons and attacks upon private pro-
perty. These might, it is true, have continued had John
Brown struck no blow at Pottawatomie, for the Border Ruf-
fians were drunk with their success in looting Lawrence; but
it certainly cannot be true that they were "stopped" by the
assassinations. But as a war measure, John Brown's murders
were beyond doubt successful; they were actually followed
by more killings of Free State men than had taken place
previously in the Territory; they led to the burning of Osa-
watomie and other settlements, to attacks upon the Border
1 82 JOHN BROWN
Ruffian "forts," and to the stand-up fighting at Black Jack
and Osawatomie. If John Brown intended to set men at each
others' throats, to make every man take sides, to bring mat-
ters in Kansas to a head, he was wholly successful when he
lived up to the Biblical doctrine he often quoted, that "with-
out the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin."
As to the theory that John Brown was directed by higher
authorities in the Free State ranks, the best evidence is a
recently discovered letter from Samuel C. Pomeroy to Re-
becca B. Spring, written in Georgetown, D. C., January 16,
1860, just after Brown's execution, when the events of 1856
should have been fresh in his memory, and here first printed :
"I am waiting here quietly to see the progress of Mason's 'In-
vestigating Committee.' They have declined to summon me — or
any other man, who dare under oath, defend John Brown! ! I dont
care what are the consequences to me politically, I will, upon the
first occasion, at the Capitol of this country — defend that old man,
who offered up himself gloriously — from the charge or crime of
murder ! No blow had been struck by any one of us — up to May
2ist, 1856. I was in command as Chairman of the 'Committee of
Public Safety,' at Lawrence, upon that memorable occasion.
"I insisted — though our Town was threatened with destruction
— and the invading army was then within 12 miles of Town ! and
numbered over 1200 men — well armed — That we should give
the Government a fair opportunity to protect us, And to this end I
applied to those in authority. But in the course of that day I found
that the Government was yielded to the 'border Ruffians.' — I still
insisted (though against the earnest appeal of John Brown & his
men) that the government should commit the first overt act. And I
told them, then and there, that so soon as I could demonstrate before
this Country that the Government was powerless for protection,
Then I was with them, for taking care of ourselves ! So we stood still,
upon that day and saw our Presses & buildings madly destroyed. The
few monuments of our civilization, which had been hastily erected,
were strewn to the winds, or consumed in the flames !
"Upon the morning of the 22nd of May we called a little meeting
— of sad but earnest men. Taking each other by the hand we con-
venanted, each with the other, that what there was left to us in this
life, and if need be, all we hoped for in the life to come, should now
be offered up, to the FREEDOM of KANSAS, and the country.
"A poorly written badly spelled note, passed round that meeting
that Doyl, Wilkinson, Sherman, and others upon the Pottawatomie
Creek, had insulted the females of one family, whose head was then
present, and warned others under pain of death to leave the Tern-
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 183
tory by the 25th lnst.,that very week! What could I say? Or do?
I had withheld our impatient men, until before us lay the smoking
ruins of the home we loved the best, of any spot upon earth.
"You know what was said and 'did.' As the Government af-
forded no protection to us, even when we placed ourselves under
its special protection, it was then and there Resolved — that every
man be [we ?] met that invaded or threatened our lives, or homes,
or our families & friends, should without delay of law or courts, or
officers, be driven to Missouri or to death 11
"We separated that morning, each to the great work of life, viz.
to do his duty — to himself — to his country & to his God. John
Brown did not personly go the whole distance with the party that
went down upon Pottawatomy creek. But he approved of the course
decided upon for action, — and SO DID I ! And I am not now going
to repudiate old Brown, or to shrink from the responsibility!
"He did not commit the 'murders' as they are called, but we all
then endorsed them, — and from that hour the invaders fled. That
one act struck terror into the hearts of our enemies, and gave us the
dawning of success! Those deaths I have no doubt saved a multi-
tude of lives, and was the cheapest sacrifice that could be offered ! " 76
Unfortunately for the accuracy of this statement, we know
now that neither the Brown women nor those of the Grant
family were insulted. The testimonies of fifty-two witnesses
of value in connection with the Pottawatomie murders have
been examined for light on this subject. Pomeroy is the only
one to suggest that John Brown was in Lawrence on May 21
and 22, with the exception of Daniel W. Wilder, who even adds
that he was there with six sons and his son-in-law.77 It is not
conceivable that John Brown could have been there and have
fired no shot to defend the town. Moreover, his surviving
sons and son-in-law know nothing about it — Salmon Brown
denying it positively. If this is not enough, the character of
John Brown's own statements should suffice; he would never
have suppressed the fact that he saw Lawrence destroyed ; and
finally, the dates he gives for his movements prior to the mur-
ders, corroborated by many witnesses, render it physically
impossible for him to have been in Lawrence at the time speci-
fied.
The belief that John Brown was inspired by Robinson,
Pomeroy and Lane was, however, held by others. Congress-
man Oliver made the general charge, in his minority report to
the Howard Committee Report, that Brown's victims "were
184 JOHN BROWN
deprived of their lives ... in consequence of the insurrec-
tionary movements . . . set on foot by the reckless leaders of
the Tokepa Convention,' ' 78 — an allegation not specific enough
to call for refutation in this connection. In a letter written
on February 8, 1875, Captain Samuel Walker alleges that
Brown complained to him in the summer of 1856 that Lane
and Robinson were instigators of the crime, but would not sus-
tain him in it.79 Captain Walker also informed Frank B. San-
born that Lane and Robinson asked him to commit the same
murders, but that he indignantly refused to do so.80 John
Brown, Jr., once charged Robinson in great detail with asking
his father in the following September to dispose of the leading
pro-slavery men by killing, which request, he said, was indig-
nantly spurned.81 Henry Thompson testifies similarly.82 But
Robinson positively denied the charge, as he most emphati-
cally denied any complicity in the Pottajvatomie murders.
One cannot have entire respect for Governor Robinson's
character; in this instance he at one time likened John Brown
to Jesus Christ, and hailed him as a saviour of Kansas, only
to turn around a couple of years later and denounce him, —
even to speak of the "punishment due John Brown for his
crimes in Kansas."83 On the other hand, John Brown, Jr.'s
mind was, unfortunately, not always clear. It is important to
remember here that John Brown at no time during the rest
of his life made any positive statement which would indicate
that he was acting under orders in doing his bloody work
at Pottawatomie, — not even when, in jail and facing death,
he was asked by Judge Russell, of Boston, for a definite
statement as to his responsibility for the crime.84 If he cher-
ished the feeling of anger against Robinson and Lane which
Walker declared he voiced in 1856, he does not appear to have
expressed it again.
To mitigate the abruptness and cruelty of the tragedy, it
is often loosely asserted that the victims were duly tried by
a jury. John Sherman stated that he had this from John
Brown's own lips shortly after the crime.85 But no one else
avers this, while the survivors of the massacre, Henry Thomp-
son and Salmon Brown, deny it. No member of the Brown
family has advanced this theory. The testimony of Townsley
and the families of the murdered men as to the speed of the
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 185
executions and their taking place consecutively is also con-
clusive, as is the fact that no juryman has ever been dis-
covered.
In the light of all the evidence now accumulated, the truth
would seem to be that John Brown came to Kansas bringing
arms and ammunition, eager to fight, and convinced that
force alone would save Kansas. He was under arms at the
polls within three days of his arrival in Kansas, to shed blood
to defend the voters, if need be, and he was bitterly disap-
pointed that the Wakarusa "war" ended without a single
conflict. Thereafter he believed that a collision was inevitable
in the spring, and Jones and Donaldson proved him to be cor-
rect. Fired with indignation at the wrongs he witnessed on
every hand, impelled by the Covenanter's spirit that made
him so strange a figure in the nineteenth century, and believ-
ing fully that there should be an eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth, he killed his men in the conscientious belief that he
was a faithful servant of Kansas and of the Lord. He killed
not to kill, but to free; not to make wives widows and children
fatherless, but to attack on its own ground the hideous insti-
tution of human slavery, against which his whole life was a
protest. He pictured himself a modern crusader as much em-
powered to remove the unbeliever as any armored searcher
after the Grail. It was to his mind a righteous and necessary
act; if he concealed his part in it and always took refuge in
the half-truth that his own hands were not stained, that
was as near to a compromise for the sake of policy as this
rigid, self-denying Roundhead ever came. Naturally a tender-
hearted man, he directed a particularly shocking crime with-
out remorse, because the men killed typified to him the slave-
drivers who counted their victims by the hundreds. It was to
him a necessary carrying into Africa of the war in which he
firmly desired himself engaged. And always it must not be
forgotten that his motives were wholly unselfish, and that his
aims were none other than the freeing of a race. With his
ardent, masterful temperament, he needed no counsel from a
Lane or a Robinson to make him ready to strike a blow, or to
tell him that the time for it had come. The smoke of burning
Lawrence was more than sufficient.
If this interpretation of the man and his motives lifts him
186 JOHN BROWN
far above the scale of that Border Ruffian who boasted that he
would have the scalp of an Abolitionist within two hours and
actually killed and scalped the very first one he met, it can-
not be denied that the Border Ruffians who sacked Lawrence
believed as thoroughly in the justice of their cause, and their
right to establish in Kansas what was to them a sacred institu-
tion, as John Brown did in his. Their leaders had told them of
an agreement in Congress that Kansas should be a slave State
and Nebraska free.86 Hence their belief that the North had
broken this compact rendered them particularly bitter against
the Free Soilers. It was to them also a holy war in which they
were engaged, — even with its admixture of whiskey and law-
lessness, characteristics of the Southern "poor white" civiliza-
tion of the period. If one grants to John Brown absolution
for the Pottawatomie murders because he struck in what was
to him a moral crusade, one must come near granting it to
the Border Ruffian Hamilton, who made eleven men, most of
whom he had never seen before, stand up in line on May
19, 1858, that he might shoot them down.87 In his behalf it
could much more truthfully be said that there was war in Linn
County in 1858 than that there was war about Osawatomie in
1856. Hamilton doubtless intended also to send terror to the
hearts of his enemies, to drive them from the Territory. That
the five men he killed were of blameless reputation, while
John Brown's five victims were weak or bad characters, does
not alter the case from the moral or the legal point of view.
Murder is murder, whatever the character of the victims; it
remains, in its essence, unchanged in these two cases, even
though the leader of one set of self-appointed executioners
has been excused by his friends, and the other universally
execrated. Might not Hamilton, too, have been portrayed
as the tool of a vengeful Deity? Might he not, to use James
Freeman Clarke's characterization of John Brown, have
maintained that he believed in "fighting fire with fire," that
"there was no malice or desire for vengeance in his constitu-
tion"?88 Certainly, Hamilton's cathojic choice of victims —
he seized them in the fields and on the' roads as he met them
— would prove that he also killed without personal enmity.
It may be that Hamilton thought that by so blood-curdling
an assassination he could stop the hostile operations of armed
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 187
Free Soil bands led by Montgomery, Jennison — admittedly a
bad character — and others. If this theory is wrong, Hamil-
ton's Marais des Cygnes massacre ought at least to have
estopped James Freeman Clarke and other defenders of Brown
from saying that after Brown's victims were killed, " the coun-
try had peace." It should have prevented any likening of
John Brown to Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, whose orders
killed thousands in "another war," — as if war could exist save
under those rules of war which as peremptorily forbid mid-
night assassination as they do the violation of women and the
poisoning of wells. Finally, a real war-commander always
assumes the responsibility for his acts, while John Brown was
ever disingenuous about the Pottawatomie massacres.
From the point of view of ethics, John Brown's crime on
the Pottawatomie cannot be successfully palliated or excused.
It must ever remain a complete indictment of his judgment
and wisdom; a dark blot upon his memory; a proof that, how-
ever self-controlled, he had neither true respect for the laws
nor for human life, nor a knowledge that two wrongs never
make a right. Call him a Cromwellian trooper with the Old
Testament view of the way of treating one's enemies, as did
James Freeman Clarke, if you please; it is nevertheless true
that Brown lived in the nineteenth century and was properly
called upon to conform to its standard of morals and right
living. What would become of society if it permitted all
whose spirits would hark back to the modes of life of other
times and other morals to have their way? Describing Brown
as a misplaced Crusader cannot, moreover, conceal the regret-
table fact that the Pottawatomie murders deprived the Free
Soil cause of an enormous moral advantage. Up to May, 1856,
its adherents had suffered, bled and died, without any blood-
guilt attaching to them. This gave them, as unoffending vic-
tims of pro-slavery fury, an unsurpassed standing in the court
of public opinion. Their hands were clean; they had been
attending to their own affairs and were crying out against
wrong and injustice by the time-honored methods of protest,
- through the press, the ballot-box, the right of assembly, the
setting up a government of their own to be passed upon by
the highest tribunals of the land, that is, the courts and the
Congress of the United States. The Free State leaders had
188 JOHN BROWN
hitherto counselled peaceful submission to wrong as the surest
way to the sympathies of the nation, and to that eventual
justice which no believer in American institutions could
despair of, even in 1856, when the whole weight of the Federal
Government and its troops had been thrown against the Free
Soilers. For the court of last resort, the conscience of the
American people, had not yet been heard from as it was but a
few years later. Of a sudden, all this great moral superiority
was flung away; 89 the sack of Lawrence, the Pottawatomie
murders, brought about a complete change of policy. The
militant Abolitionists of the John Brown, Horace Greeley,
Henry Ward Beecher type reaped their harvest. The Sharp's
rifles, " Beecher's Bibles," now came into play. But the South
at last had its tu-quoque. "You sacked Lawrence," said the
North. " But you resorted to the vilest of midnight assassina-
tions of unarmed men and boys," replied the South. Sumner
could not have delivered unaltered his wonderful philippic,
the "Crime Against Kansas," after the crimes against Mis-
souri had begun. There was now blood upon both sides.
For John Brown no pleas can be made that will enable him
to escape coming before the bar of historical judgment. There
his wealth of self-sacrifice, and the nobility of his aims, do not
avail to prevent a complete condemnation of his bloody crime
at Pottawatomie, or a just penalty for his taking human life
without warrant or authority. If he deserves to live in his-
tory, it is not because of his cruel, gruesome, reprehensible
acts on the Pottawatomie, but despite them.90
CHAPTER VI
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK
WAR ! WAR !
Eight Pro-Slavery men murdered by the Abolitionists
in Franklin County, K. T.
LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR!
We learn from a despatch just received by Col. A. G.
Boone, dated at Paola, K. T., May 26, 1856, and
signed by Gens. Heiskell and Barbee, that the reported
murder of eight pro-slavery men in Franklin County,
K. T., is but too true.
It was thus that the Westport, Missouri, Border Times gave
to its readers, on May 27, 1856, the news that was intended
to strike terror to their hearts. The only reason for the crime
the despatch assigned was that "the abolitionists (the court
being in session) were afraid that these men [their victims]
would be called upon to give evidence against them, as many
of them were charged with treason." The Border Times sup-
plemented this news with an appeal to the South for men
and money, because civil war with all its horrors now reigned
in Kansas. The Jefferson, Missouri, Inquirer of the 29th, and
the Lexington, Missouri, Express of the 26th reprinted the
Western Despatch's account of the crime and also its edito-
rial assertion that "for every Southern man thus butchered
a decade [dozen?] of these poltroons should bite the dust."
Henry Clay Pate, correspondent of the St. Louis Missouri
Republican, wrote on May 30 that no personal grudges ex-
isted between the murdered and the murderers, "in fact no
cause whatever can be or is attempted to be assigned for
their savage barbarity but that the deceased were proslav-
ery in their sentiments." Thirteen persons supposed to be con-
nected with the crime were under arrest, and if ever lynch laws
were justifiable, in Pate's opinion this was the time. The pro-
JOHN BROWN
slavery Kansas Weekly Herald of Leavenworth, in its issue
of June 7, reprinted a column and a half of news from the
Lecompton Union, in the course of which that newspaper sar-
castically said:
"These are the 'Free State men' who have been so deeply out-
raged by the law and order party, but have, like martyrs, passed
through the fire, without the stain of blood upon their skirts or the
mark of pillage upon their consciences. This is the party so pure
and untarnished with dishonor that their very natures revolt at
and recoil from the countenancing of even a minor disgrace, much
less the foul assassination of Sheriff Jones. This is the party that
held an indignation meeting in Lawrence, headed by Charles Rob-
inson and A. H. Reeder, passed resolutions and even offered a re-
ward for the apprehension of him who shot Jones. . . . These are
the men who are cursing the Marshal and posse for blowing up this
'Northern Army's' fortress and destroying their mouthpieces and
are denominating them plunderers and committers of arson, and
this news is taken up by their agents in the North, heralded forth
from one extreme to the other as truth, asking protection for these
innocent free state creatures."
Another correspondent of the Missouri Republican, one
J. Bernard, reporting from Westport the arrival there of Mrs.
Doyle, added that "a more cruel murder has scarcely been
committed;" it was a "foul and inhuman act." The fighting
Squatter Sovereign, of Atchison, was distinctly sobered by the
news from Kansas, but still ready to fight, for on June 10 it
thus freed its ever surcharged mind :
"Midnight murders, assassinations, burglaries, and arson seem
now to be the watchwords of the so-called Free State party. Whilst
those rebellious subjects confined themselves to the resistance of
the law, in their attempts to make arrests, and execute processes in
their hands, the pro-slavery party in the territory was determined
to stand by the law, and aid the officers in executing process and
the courts in administering justice. And that we have no doubt
is still the determination of every pro-slavery man, but there is a
time for all things. Self-protection — defence of one's life, family
and property, are rights guaranteed to all law-abiding citizens;
and the manner and mode of keeping off murderers, assassins, &c.,
are not confined to any very strict rules of law. . . . Hundreds of
the Free State men, who have committed no overt acts, but have
only given countenance to those reckless murderers, assassins and
thieves, will of necessity share the same fate of their brethren. If
civil war is to be the result in such a conflict, there cannot be, and
will not be, any neutrals recognized."
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 191
The St. Louis Morning Herald on June 13 informed its
readers, on the authority of a Lecompton correspondent,
that: "The Abolitionists are continuing their assassinations
and plunder. Robinson has given orders for a guerrilla war.
Besides the murders at Ossawatomie, by the noted Brown,
others have been attempted in the neighborhood." Six days
later, hearing from Lawrence that the Pottawatomie massacre
was done for the deliberate purpose of impressing the Border
Ruffians, it said: "Here is the avowal of a man who ought to
know; he tells you that midnight assassination, which revives
in all their atrocity the most fiendish barbarities of the darkest
ages and which, we repeat, is without parallel in Christendom
since the Revolution in France, is deliberately planned to strike
terror into the hearts of political opponents! Whether such
will be the effect of the lesson remains to be seen." Editorially,
the Morning Herald had already expressed the hope that the
pro-slavery party would not retaliate in kind and would re-
frain from lynching the assassins, while its rival, the Missouri
Republican, was quick to see the advantage which lay in
declaring that this bloody outcome of civil war was the "legit-
imate result of the counsels of such preachers as Beecher."
Curiously enough, as James Ford Rhodes points out,1 the
Democratic press of the country as a whole, except that on
the border, made comparatively little use of the killings. One
Northern newspaper, the Burlington, Iowa, Gazette, denounced
them on June 25; the Liberator, whose editor, William Lloyd
Garrison, strongly protested against the Sharp's rifle teachings
of Beecher and the militant Abolitionists,2 wholly failed to
record Brown's crime. Senator Toombs, of Georgia, and Con-
gressman Oliver cited the murders in the course of speeches
in the Senate and House. But the Republican newspapers,
intentionally or unintentionally, deceived their readers by
garbled reports of the crime. It was generally represented
that five of a pro-slavery gang, caught hanging a Free State
settler, were shot by the latter's friends as they came to his
rescue, and the Republican press took extremely good care
not to give much space to the affair. As Mr. Rhodes explains,
the hitherto excellent character of the Free State settlers
rendered it impossible for the East to credit the story, or for
the Democrats to bring it home to them as they should have.
192 JOHN BROWN
Only in Missouri did the Southern press make of it all that was
possible. The address of the Law and Order Party to their
friends of the South, signed by Atchison, B. F. Stringfellow,
Major Buford and others on June 21, 3 naturally used the
massacre to the utmost, declaring, among other things, that
Wilkinson had been "flayed alive," and that besides the "six
victims," the bodies of four others were still missing.
Governor Shannon promptly reported the murders to Presi-
dent Pierce. From Lecompton, May 31, he wrote: 4
"... Comment is unnecessary. The respectability of the par-
ties and the cruelties attending the murders have produced an
extraordinary state of excitement in that portion of the Territory,
which has heretofore remained comparatively quiet. ... I hope
the offenders may be brought to Justice; if so, it may allay to a
great extent the excitement, otherwise I fear the consequences."
Governor Shannon's anxiety was justified. On the 27th of
May the news of the Pottawatomie crimes was posted all over
Leaven worth. The leading Free State business men were
arrested, and, according to an eye-witness, William H. Coffin,
only the urgent solicitation of such men as General Richardson
and other leading pro-slavery officials prevented their meeting
with violence.5 Other influential Free State men were ban-
ished. Four days later, the 3ist, when Governor Shannon
was writing his report, a meeting of the Law and Order Party
was held in Leavenworth to protest against the Pottawatomie
murders. At this gathering, so the Tribune reported,6 "leading
pro-slavery citizens — some of them heretofore moderate
men — were the officers and speechmakers. Violent speeches
were made, and resolutions of the same character were passed,
condemning all Free State men without distinction, and
appointing a Vigilance Committee of fifty to watch their
movements, and to warn offenders from the Territory." 7
At Fort Scott, the Southeastern rendezvous of Border Ruf-
fians, the news that Lawrence was burned was received with
a general feeling of joy, but it was followed by the rumor that
at Osawatomie five, and some said nine, pro-slavery men had
been called up in the night and, as soon as they made their
appearance, had been shot by the Abolitionists. This caused
a general feeling of alarm and indignation, and the young men
of Fort Scott, on their own responsibility, organized them-
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 193
selves into a " watch guard " to protect the Fort from invasion
by the Abolitionists, for, to add to the excitement, it had been
currently reported that Fort Scott was to be burned as a
retaliation for the destruction of Lawrence.8 Some of the Mis-
sourians at once took the offensive. Although Mrs. Robinson
was of the opinion that "the news of the horrible massacre
fell upon the ears of the Border Ruffians like a thunderbolt
out of a clear sky, and carried fear and trembling into many
Missouri homes," and that "his [Brown's] name became one
of terror, like that of hobgoblins to silly children, or that of
Lafitte upon the sea," 9 Captain Henry Clay Pate, the fighting
correspondent of the Missouri Republican, went at once with
his company to Paola, eight miles from Osawatomie, to assist
the United States Marshal in arresting the Pottawatomie
Creek murderers. On June 2, General J. W. Whitfield, the del-
egate to Congress, wrote from Westport to the editor of the
Border Times that news had reached there of disaster to Cap-
tain Pate's company. This was his statement of the situation :
There can scarcely be a doubt that this small force has been
annihilated. This town, where the congressional committee are
now taking evidence, has been thronged during the day with men
with their families, fleeing from the territory to avoid assassination
and butchery. I am constantly in receipt of letters and appeals for
protection. The cowardly and fiendish manner in which the assas-
sinations have been perpetrated, particularly those on Pottawato-
mie creek (which I am informed by Judge Cato just in from that
place have not been exaggerated in the public accounts, indeed do
not equal the reality,) leaves but little hope that these abolition
monsters can be actuated by any other consideration than that of
fear. I Have, therefore, determined to start in an hour or two, with
as many men as can be raised, in the hope, if not too late, of reliev-
ing the little band, under Capt. Pate, and afford what protection I
can to the peaceful citizens of the territory, and restore in it order
and peace. . . .
JNO. W. WHITFIELD.10
Two of John Brown's sons fell readily into the hands of the
Missourians, — John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown. They had
spent but one night in the Adair cabin, — the one in which, as
we have seen, John Bro\vn, Jr., became insane. Leaving their
wives the next morning, in fear lest their presence attract the
Border Ruffians, they set off, Jason with the idea of surren-
194 JOHN BROWN
dering to the United States troops and demanding protection.
Jason shortly thereafter encountered a body of Border Ruf-
fians headed by the notorious "Rev." Martin White. He has
thus told the story of the encounter: n
" I did not recognize in the leader the man who had led the squad
of ' steer hunters ' to our camp when we first reached the Territory.
But he was that same Martin White. I walked straight up to him.
'Can you tell me the way to Taway Jones's?' 'You are one of the
very men we are looking for! Your name is Brown. I knew your
father. I knew your brother!' shouted White. Up came all the
guns clicking. 'Down with him!' the squad yelled. 'You are our
prisoner,' said White. 'Got any arms?' 'A revolver.' 'Hand it
out.' 'Now go ahead of the horses.' I was weak with ague, excite-
ment, fatigue. But I was terribly afraid of torture. I knew what
these men had done to others, and all my habitual stammering left
me. 'My name is Jason Brown,' I said, standing facing them. 'I
am a Free State man, and what you call an Abolitionist. I have
never knowingly injured a human being. Now if you want my blood
for that, there is a mark for you.' And I pulled open the bosom of
my shirt. I expected to be shot to pieces. And they took that for
courage ! Three-fourths of them laid their guns across their saddles
and began to talk friendly. Martin White said: 'We won't kill you
now. But you are our prisoner and we hold every man a scoundrel
till he is proven honest.' One man, a villainous face, kept his gun
up. I dared not turn my back, until I had backed thirty rods or so.
I wanted to be killed quickly, not to be tortured. They drove me
four miles at a fast walk. Then we came to a cabin and store. I was
having chills every day, then, and at that moment my chill came
on. They gave me a sack of coffee for a pillow. The man who had
kept his gun levelled came and looked at me, with his bowie knife
raised. ' Do you see anything bad about me?' I asked. ' I don't see
anything good about ye!' he snarled, but went away. As the fever
came on they put me on a horse, tied my feet beneath him and my
arms behind me and took me, with a guard of twenty men, to Paola,
where were about three hundred armed pro-slavery men. One flour-
ished a coil of new hemp rope over his head as we rode up. 'Swing
him up! Swing him up!' he shouted. They hustled me over to a
tree and that man flung his rope end over a limb and stood ready.
I sat down on the grass by the tree. I did n't suppose I had a friend
in that crowd. Then came what changed my whole mind and life
as to my feeling toward slave-holders. I can't see a Southerner or
a Southern soldier, now, whatever he thinks of me, without wanting
to grasp his two hands.
"As I sat there waiting under the dangling rope, I saw three men
aside from the yelling crowd, differently dressed from the rest. One
of them came quietly, tapped me on the shoulder and showed me a
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 195
scrap of paper in the palm of his hand. ' Whose writing is that? ' asked
he. 'My father's.' 'Is old John Brown your father?' 'Yes.' Never
another word did he say, but went around and spoke to the crowd,
who made so much noise that I could not hear what he said. Then
he came back, (he was Judge Jacobs, of Lexington, Kentucky, and
one of his companions was Judge Cato,) and quietly said to me:
'Come with me to my house and I will treat you like my own son,
but we must hold you prisoner.' Mrs. Doyle was also staying in that
house and we all sat at the same table for meals. She said nothing.
There I was, one lone coward, and about forty proslavery men in
the house that night. . . . On the third night John was brought in.
We lay together and I slept soundly on the front side of the bed.
In the night there was a sudden commotion and a crowd of men
rushed in. One brandished a bowie knife over me as if to drive it
into my right side. I slept on. John bared my heart, and, pointing
to it, said, 'Strike there.' They took me away, two men holding my
tied arms, in the middle of the night, leaving John, up to the Shaw-
nee Mission. But they were afraid to keep me there and the same
night brought me back again. ..."
Jason did not see John again for about two weeks. Then the
latter was becoming sane. But presently a squad arrived to
escort Jason and John to Osawatomie.
"Capt. Wood himself came into the room where we two were
sleeping, seized John by the collar with, — 'Come out here, sir,'
and jerked him out of bed. Wood himself bound John's wrists be-
hind him, and then his upper arms, using small, hard hemp rope,
and he set his teeth and pulled with all his force, tightening the
turns. Later another rope some forty feet long was passed between
these two, to drive him by. Outside the leader of the squad which
was to take us to Osawatomie (I think this was Pate) was calling
orders to his men. 'Oyez, Oyez, Oyez,' he shouted. 'Form a line
of battle.'
"They drove John afoot all the way from Paola to Osawatomie.
Me, on the other hand, they carried in a wagon. When I saw John
in the new camp, (they had to change camp as the horses grazed
the grass off,) John was a maniac and in a terrible condition. They
had never loosened the cords around his upper arms and the flesh
was swollen so that the cords were covered. They had driven him
through the water of Bull Creek and the yellow flints at the bottom
had cut through his boots and terribly lacerated his feet. I found
him chained by each ankle, with an ox-cart chain, to the center
pole of the guard tent. John, who then fancied himself commander
of the camp, was shrieking military orders, jumping up and down
and casting himself about. Capt. Wood said to me: 'Keep that
man still.' ' I can't keep an insane man still,' said I. ' He is no more
insane than you are. If you don't keep him still, we'll do it for you.'
196 JOHN BROWN
I tried my best, but John had not a glimmer of reason and could not
understand anything. He went on yelling. Three troopers came
in. One struck him a terrible blow on the jaw with his fist, throw-
ing him on his side. A second knelt on him and pounded him with
his fist. The third stood off and kicked him with all his force in
the back of the neck. 'Don't kill a crazy man!' cried I. 'No more
crazy than you are, but we '11 fetch it out of him.' After that John
lay unconscious for three or four hours. We camped about one
and a half miles southeast of the Adairs. There we stayed about
two weeks. Then we were ordered to move again. They drove us
on foot, chained two and two. I was chained to George Partridge.
In a gang they drove us up right up in front of Adair's house. Aunt
Florilla came out and talked to Lieut. Iverson, (he was a cruel man !)
'What does this mean in this Land of the Free? What does this
mean that you drive these men like cattle and slaves ! ' and she went
on, giving him a terrible cutting. Iverson made no reply. Aunt gave
us all some little food. At Ottawa ford young Kilbourne dropped
in a sun-stroke. . . . We camped near 'Taway Jones's. All the
time these troops were looking for Old Brown. And father would
show himself from time to time, at daylight, at different places, at
a distance from his real camp. Then word would come to Wood that
Old Brown and his men had been seen at such a time, here or there
on Marais des Cygnes. Wood would order out his men to look for
him, forty miles off, the men would spend themselves hunting along
the river-bottoms, through dense, prickly tangles, and come back
at night worn out and furious, their horses done. I heard one say,
one night, out of his officer's hearing: 'D — d if I'm going after Old
Brown any more. If I 'm ordered out any more, I '11 go into the
bushes and hide.' This kept up three or four days, and all the time
John Brown was camped so close that he heard the bugle calls, and
got his water at the same spring where they got theirs. He was
hoping for a chance to effect a rescue. One day word came to Wood
that John Brown was near and would attempt a rescue. Thereupon
he repeated the message to me, commenting: 'If such a rescue be
attempted and you try to escape, you will be the first ones that we
will shoot.'"
A correspondent of the New York Times thus described the
torture of the prisoners: 12
' ' A scene then followed which has no parallel in a republican gov-
ernment. They were chained two and two by taking a common trace-
chain and using a padlock at each end, which was so fixed as to make
a close clasp around the ankle. Like a gang of slaves they were
thus driven on foot the whole distance at the rate of twenty-five
miles per day, dragging their chains after them. They were unac-
customed to travelling — their chains had worn upon their ankles
until one of them became quite exhausted and was put in a wagon.
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 197
What a humiliating, disgusting sight in a free government — to
see a chained gang of men who had committed no crime whatever,
driven sixty-five miles by their merciless prosecutors to attend a
trial, then have granted them an unconditional release and no pro-
vision for redress!"
This shocking ill-treatment of John Brown, Jr., which is
confirmed by much contemporary testimony, aroused indig-
nation in the North, and to its effect upon John Brown was
attributed, though erroneously, much of the father's bitter-
ness toward the slaveholders. According to a special corre-
spondent of the New York Tribune, First Lieutenant James
Mclntosh, First Cavalry, stated to him in June that the reason
for the arrest of John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown, and the
severity of their treatment, was the soldiers' belief that they
were two of the Pottawatomie murderers.13 As for Captain
Thomas J. Wood, it was pointed out at the time that he was
a native of Kentucky, and it was, therefore, taken for granted
that his sympathies were with the South, and his cruelties
due to friendliness for the Border Ruffians. It is an interest-
ing fact that this officer later became, like Major Sedgwick, a
distinguished Northern general, one of the very best division
commanders in the Army of the Cumberland, in which he was
conspicuous for his wounds, his ability and his gallantry.
After spending two weeks on Ottawa Creek with his prisoners,
Captain Wood marched them to Lecompton via Palmyra and
Lawrence. Here, after an examination, Jason was released,
but John Brown, Jr., was held on the charge of high treason
because of his political activity, and was not released until
September 10. Jason returned to his own claim only to find
his house burned by the Border Ruffians and his cattle driven
off, though his oxen later returned to him, of themselves, from
Missouri. He built himself a shelter of fence rails, but soon
joined his father's company as the only place where he could
find safety. His wife and the other women went into the
Osawatomie block-house for security, for by this time almost
all the Free State men were out under arms.14
John Brown and those who had participated with him in
the Pottawatomie murders arrived at Jason Brown's claim
and went into hiding on May 26, sending his son Owen to
Osawatomie a day or two later for provisions. Meeting his
198 JOHN BROWN
brother, John Brown, Jr., wandering in the brush, Owen
endeavored to persuade him to join his father, but he admit-
ted frankly that they were now hunted outlaws, likely to be
separated for months from all of their families. John then
declined, only to meet the worse fate already recorded.16 On
Owen's return there came to the camp O. A. Carpenter, a Free
Soiler from the neighborhood of Prairie City, who offered to
pilot Brown to the headwaters of Ottawa Creek, as there were
two companies, one of cavalry and one of Missourians, then
in search of the murderers. The Brown party broke camp at
once and started at nightfall in the direction of Lawrence; it
comprised then, besides the leader, John Brown, his sons Fred-
erick, Salmon, Owen and Oliver, Henry Thompson, Weiner,
Townsley, August Bondi and the guide, Carpenter, "Dutch
Henry's " horses furnishing some of the mounts. In the course
of the first few hours of the march, they rode straight into the
bivouac of a detachment of United States troops presuma-
bly in pursuit of them. It was near the crossing of the Marais
des Cygnes River, according to Owen Brown, and the troops
ordered them to halt. "It was dark," he narrates, "and fa-
ther called for the captain. In the meantime we placed our
horses one beyond the other and close together so as to look
like a small company. After some time the captain came out
in front of his tent and asked : ' Who are you ? ' I think father
replied, 'There are a few of us going towards Lawrence.' The
captain answered: 'All right, pass on." This these modern
successors of Robin Hood lost no time in doing, and in biv-
ouacking for the night some distance away, but not far from
the farm of Howard Carpenter, a brother of their guide.
The next day they entered some virgin woods on Ottawa
Creek and camped near a fine spring. Bondi, an able Aus-
trian Jew, who had put himself under Brown's leadership after
hearing of the Pottawatomie murders, has left the following
picture of their al fresco life in the forest primeval : 16
"We stayed here up to the morning of Sunday, the 1st of June,
and during these few days I fully succeeded in understanding the
exalted character of my old friend [John Brown]. He exhibited at
all times the most affectionate care for each of us. He also attended
to cooking. We had two meals daily, consisting of bread, baked in
skillets ; this was washed down with creek water, mixed with a little
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 199
ginger and a spoon of molasses to each pint. Nevertheless we kept
in excellent spirits ; we considered ourselves as one family, allied to
one another by the consciousness that it was our duty to undergo
all these privations to further the good cause; had determined to
share any danger with one another, that victory or death might
find us together. We were united as a band of brothers by the love
and affection towards the man who with tender words and wise
counsel, in the depth of the wilderness of Ottawa creek, prepared
a handful of young men for the work of laying the foundation of a
free commonwealth. His words have ever remained firmly engraved
on my mind. Many and various were the instructions he gave dur-
ing the days of our compulsory leisure in this camp. He expressed
himself to us that we should never allow ourselves to be tempted
by any consideration to acknowledge laws and institutions to exist
as of right if our conscience and reason condemned them.
"He admonished us not to care whether a majority, no matter
how large, opposed our principles and opinions. The largest ma-
jorities were sometimes only organized mobs, whose howlings never
changed black into white, or night into day. A minority conscious
of its rights, based on moral principles, would, under a republican
government, sooner or later become the majority."
On May 30 James Redpath, the correspondent of the St.
Louis Democrat and the Tribune, rode by accident into this
gathering. His description, too, is worth reprinting, since the
scene he portrays beyond doubt represents many similar ones
in John Brown's life:17
"I shall not soon forget the scene that here opened to my view.
Near the edge of the creek a dozen horses were tied, all ready sad-
dled for a ride for life, or a hunt after Southern invaders. A dozen
rifles and sabres were stacked around the trees. In an open space,
amid the shady and lofty woods, there was a great blazing fire with
a pot on it; a woman, bareheaded, with an honest, sun-burnt face,
was picking blackberries from the bushes; three or four armed men
were lying on red and blue blankets on the grass; and two fine-
looking youths were standing, leaning on their arms, on guard near
by. One of them was the youngest son of Old Brown, and the other
was ' Charley,' the brave Hungarian, who was subsequently mur-
dered at Ossawatomie. Old Brown himself stood near the fire, with
his shirt-sleeves rolled up, and a large piece of pork in his hand.
He was cooking a pig. He was poorly clad, and his toes protruded
from his boots. The old man received me with great cordiality,
and the little band gathered about me. But it was for a moment
only; for the Captain ordered them to renew their work. He re-
spectfully but firmly forbade conversation on the Pottawatomie
affair; and said that, if I desired any information from the com-
200 JOHN BROWN
pany in relation to their conduct or intentions, he, as their Captain,
would answer for them whatever it was proper to communicate.
"In this camp no manner of profane language was permitted;
no man of immoral character was allowed to stay, excepting as a
prisoner of war. He made prayers in which all the company united,
every morning and evening; and no food was ever tasted by his
men until the Divine blessing had been asked on it. After every
meal, thanks were returned to the Bountiful Giver. Often, I was
told, the old man would retire to the densest solitudes, to wrestle
with his God in secret prayer. One of his company subsequently
informed me that, after these retirings, he would say that the Lord
had directed him in visions what to do; that, for himself, he did not
love warfare, but peace, — only acting in obedience to the will of
the Lord, and righting God's battles for His children's sake.
"It was at this time that the old man said to me : ' I would rather
have the small-pox, yellow fever, and cholera all together in my
camp, than a man without principles. It's a mistake, sir,' he con-
tinued, 'that our people make, when they think that bullies are the
best fighters, or that they are the men fit to oppose these Southern-
ers. Give me men of good principles; God-fearing men; men who
respect themselves; and, with a dozen of them, I will oppose any
hundred such men as these Buford ruffians!"
Besides Charles Kaiser, subsequently murdered in cold
blood by the Border Ruffians, as Redpath records, Benjamin
Cochrane, a settler on the Pottawatomie, had joined Brown's
band, the latter bringing the news that Bondi's cabin had
been burned, his cattle stolen and Weiner's store plundered,
in plain view, he alleged, of United States troops. Captain
Samuel T. Shore, of the Prairie City Rifles, and a Dr. Westfall
also visited the camp, bringing news of Border Ruffian out-
rages and asking for aid.18 Captain Shore brought provisions,
and on May 31 reported that a large force of Missourians had
gone into camp near Black Jack, a spring on the Santa Fe
trail, named for a group of "black jack" oaks. It was agreed
that Brown's party and as many men as Shore could get to-
gether should meet at Prairie City at ten o'clock in the fore-
noon of the next day. This took place, Brown's men attend-
ing a service held by an itinerant preacher, with part of the
congregation in a building, part outside. The services were
interrupted by the passing of three strangers in the direction
of Black Jack. Two of them were captured, and, when ques-
tioned by John Brown, admitted that they were from the
camp of Henry Clay Pate, the correspondent of the St. Louis
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 201
Missouri Republican, a captain in the Missouri militia and
a deputy United States Marshal, who, as already related, on
the news of the Pottawatomie murders, had marched at once
to Paola and, after assisting in the round-up there of Free
State men, including John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown, had
pushed on into the Territory in search of the other Browns.
At that time twenty-four years of age, a native of Kanawha
County, Virginia, and a former student of the University of
Virginia, Pate had in him the making of a fine soldier, for he
died, well spoken of, as Colonel of the Fifth Virginia Cavalry,
in command of a brigade of cavalry, on the same day and, it is
said, within a hundred yards of where the brilliant Confed-
erate General, J. E. B. Stuart, was mortally wounded. This
was near Yellow Tavern, Virginia, May n, i864.19 Pate's,
John Brown's and Stuarf/s careers were thus strangely inter-
woven ; Pate and Brown first met each other in battle at Black
Jack, and encountered Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart three days
later, when Pate's men were set free. Stuart and Brown met
again in the Harper's Ferry raid, and Pate visited his old
captor in jail shortly thereafter. They could not have fore-
seen that there would be three acts in all to their public ap-
pearance; or that all were to perish violently within eight
years, two of them after having won for themselves imper-
ishable renown, the one by reason of his death on the scaffold,
the other because of military achievements which have placed
him in the front rank of American cavalry leaders. There
could be no clearer illustration than the meeting of these
men of the direct relation of "Bleeding Kansas" to Harper's
Ferry and to the national convulsion of 1861 to 1865. Kansas
was but the prelude; what more natural than that some of
the actors who appeared in the prologue should hold the cen-
tre of the stage in the later acts of the greatest drama of the
nineteenth century?
Members of the startled Prairie City congregation were
eager to leave at once in search of Pate, particularly because
the sons of a preacher named Moore, who had been captured
near Westport the day before and taken off, learned now that
their father was in Pate's camp. Brown counselled, more
wisely, that the night be awaited and the enemy assailed at
sunrise. About forty men volunteered to go as the Prairie
202 JOHN BROWN
City Rifles, but their numbers dwindled rapidly as the distance
to the enemy decreased. At daylight on June 2 Brown's men
were fed, and at sunrise they were dismounted at the Black
Jack oaks, Frederick Brown being left in charge of the
horses.20 A half mile distant was Pate's camp, the covered
wagons in front, then the tents, and then, on higher ground
to the rear, the picketed horses and mules. A Missouri
sentinel fired the first shot. As to what happened thereafter,
there is a mass of testimony. Henry Clay Pate, in a rare
pamphlet published in New York in 1 859,2 1 nas given his side
of the story. John Brown described the whole "battle" in a
letter to his family dated "near Brown's Station, June, 1856."
Both Pate and Brown discussed the fight at length in the
Tribune of June 13 and July II respectively, and Brown's
Tribune letter, hitherto entirely overlooked by his various
biographers, must be taken as the final word in settling sev-
eral long-disputed points. Besides the principal actors, Lieu-
tenant Brockett, Bondi, Owen Brown, Henry Thompson,
Salmon Brown and the preacher Moore, who was Pate's
prisoner, have recorded their recollections of the conflict.
In his letter to his family John Brown thus outlines the
skirmish :
"As I was much older than Captain Shore, the principal direction
of the fight devolved on me. We got to within about a mile of their
camp before being discovered by their scouts, and then moved at
a brisk pace, Captain Shore and men forming our left, and my com-
pany the right. When within about sixty rods of the enemy, Cap-
tain Shore's men halted by mistake in a very exposed situation,
and continued the fire, both his men and the enemy being armed
with Sharpe's rifles. My company had no long-shooters. We (my
company) did not fire a gun until we gained the rear of a bank,
about fifteen or twenty rods to the right of the enemy, where we
commenced, and soon compelled them to hide in a ravine. Cap-
tain Shore, after getting one man wounded, and exhausting his
ammunition, came with part of his men to the right of my posi-
tion, much discouraged. The balance of his men, including the
one wounded, had left the ground. Five of Captain Shore's men
came boldly down and joined my company, and all but one man,
wounded, helped to maintain the fight until it was over. I was
obliged to give my consent that he should go after more help, when
all his men left but eight, four of whom I persuaded to remain in
a secure position, and there busied one of them in shooting the
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 203
horses and mules of the enemy, which served for a show of fight.
After the firing had continued for some two or three hours, Cap-
tain Pate with twenty-three men, two badly wounded, laid down
their arms to nine men, myself included, — four of Captain Shore's
men and four of my own. One of my men (Henry Thompson) was
badly wounded, and after continuing his fire for an hour longer was
obliged to quit the ground. Three others of my company (but not
of my family) had gone off. Salmon was dreadfully wounded by
accident, soon after the fight; but both he and Henry are fast recov-
ering."22
Captain Pate always alleged that he had been taken pris-
oner by John Brown by trickery and treachery, when under
a flag of truce, "a barbarity unlooked for in this country,
and unheard of in the annals of honorable warfare." But
Pate admits on the same page that his object in using the
flag of truce was "to gain time, and if possible have hostilities
suspended for a while."
"With this view," he says, "a flag of truce was sent out and an
interview with the captain requested. Captain Brown advanced and
sent for me. I approached him and made known the fact that I
was acting under the orders of the U. S. Marshal and was only in
search of persons for whom writs of arrest had been issued, and
that I wished to make a proposition. He replied that he would hear
no proposals, and that he wanted an unconditional surrender. I
asked for fifteen minutes to answer. He refused. . . . Had I known
whom I was fighting I would not have trusted to a flag of truce.
The enemy's men were then marched up to within fifty paces of
mine and I placed before them. Captain Brown commanded me to
order my company to lay down their arms. Putting a revolver to
my breast he repeated the command, giving me one or two minutes
to make the order. He might have shot me; his men might have
riddled me, but I would not have given the order for a world, much
less my poor life."23
His company, he explains, saved his life by voluntarily
laying down their arms. There is more braggadocio, and
also the admission that "there is another consolation for me,
if I showed the white feather at Black Jack, namely: they
who fight and run away shall live to fight another day,"
which was surely a correct prophecy. But he admits that at
Black Jack he resorted to the flag of truce because he saw —
what no one else did — that "reinforcements for the Aboli-
,204 JOHN BROWN
tionists were near and that the fight would be desperate, and
if they persisted not one would be left to tell the tale of car-
nage that must follow."
To Pate's allegations John Brown replied thus in the Trib-
une of July II, 1856:
LAWRENCE, K. T., Tuesday, July i, 1856.
I have just read in the Tribune of June 13, an article from the pen
of Capt. H. C. Pate, headed "The Battle of Black Jack Point,"
(in other words the battle of Palmyra), and take the lioerty of cor-
recting a very few of Capt. Pate's statements in reference to that
affair, having had personal cognizance of what then occurred. The
first statement I would notice is in these words: "At first the enemy
squatted down in open prairie and fired at a distance from 300 to
400 yards from us. Their lines were soon broken and they hastily
ran to a ravine for shelter." This is wrong, as my company formed
a distinct line from Capt. Shore and his men, and without stopping
to fire a gun passed at once into a ravine on the enemy's right,
where we commenced our fire on them, and where we remained till
the enemy hoisted the white flag. I expected Capt. Shore to form
his men and occupy a similar position on the left of the enemy, but
was disappointed, he halting on the eastern slope above the ravine,
in front of the enemy's camp. This I consider as the principal mis-
take in our part of the action, as Capt. Shore was unable to retain
this unfortunate position: and when he, with part of his men left
it and joined my company, the balance of his company quit the field
entirely. One of them was wounded and disabled. Capt. Shore
and all his men, I believe, had for a considerable time kept that
position, and received the fire of the enemy like the best regular
troops (to their praise I would say it) and until they had to a con-
siderable extent exhausted their ammunition. Capt. Pate says:
"When the fight commenced our forces were nearly equal." I here
say most distinctly, that twenty-six officers and men all told, was
the entire force on the Free State side who were on the ground at
all during the fight or in any way whatever participated in it. Of
these Capt. Shore and his company numbered sixteen all told. My
company, ten only, including myself. Six of these were of my own
family. He says further, "but I saw reinforcements for the Aboli-
tionists were near," &c. Capt. Pate, it seems, could see much better
than we; for we neither saw nor received any possible reenforce-
ments until some minutes after the surrender, nor did we under-
stand that any help was near us, and at the time of the surrender
our entire force, officers and men, all told, had dwindled down to
but fifteen men, who were either on or about the field. Capt. Shore
and his men had all left the field but eight. One of his men who had
left was wounded and was obliged to leave. Of the eight who re-
mained four, whose names I love to repeat, stood nobly by four of
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 205
my men until the fight was over. The other four had, with two of
my company, become disheartened and gone to a point out of reach
of the enemy's fire, where, by the utmost exertion, I had kept them
to make a little show, and busied one of them in shooting mules
and horses to divert the others and keep them from running off.
One of my men had been terribly wounded and left, after holding
on for an hour afterward. Fifteen Free State men, all told, were all
that remained on and near the ground at the time the surrender
was made; and it was made to nine men only, myself included in
that number. Twenty-five of the enemy, including two men terribly
wounded, were made prisoners. Capt. Pate reproaches me with
the most dishonorable violation of the rights secured under a flag
of truce, but says: "My object was to gain time, and if possible have
hostilities suspended for a while." So much, in his own language,
for good faith, of which he found me so destitute. Now for my own
dishonorable violation of the flag of truce: When I first saw it I had
just been to the six discouraged men above named, and started at
once to meet it, being at that moment from sixty to eighty rods
from the enemy's camp, and met it about half way carried by two
men, one a Free State man, a prisoner of theirs; the other was young
Turner, of whom Capt. Pate speaks in such high terms. I think
him as brave as Capt. Pate represents. Of his disposition and char-
acter in other respects I say nothing now. The country and the
world may probably know more hereafter. I at once learned from
those bearing the flag of truce that in reality they had no other
design than to divert me and consume time by getting me to go to
their camp to hear explanations. I then told young James to stand
by me with his arms, saying, "We are both equally exposed to the
fire of both parties," and sent their prisoner back to tell the Cap-
tain that, if he had any proposal to make, to come at once and make
it. He also came armed to where I and young James were — some
forty or fifty rods from either party and I alone. He immediately
began to tell about his authority from the General Government, by
way of explanation, as he said. I replied that I should listen to no-
thing of that kind, and that, if he had any proposal to make, I would
hear it at once, and that, if he had none for me, I had one for him,
and that was immediate and unconditional surrender. I then said
to him and young James, (both well armed,) "You must go down
to your camp, and there all of you lay down your arms," when the
three started, they continuing armed until the full surrender was
made. I, an old man, of nearly sixty years, and fully exposed to the
weapons of two young men at my side, as well as the fire of their
men in their camp, so far, and no further, took them prisoners
under their flag of truce. On our way to their camp, as we passed
within hailing distance of the eight men, who had kept their posi-
tion firm, I directed them to pass down the ravine in front of the
enemy's camp, about twenty rods off, to receive the surrender. Such
was my violation of the flag of truce. Let others judge. I had not
206 JOHN BROWN
during the time of the above transactions with Capt. Pate and his
flag of truce a single man secreted near me who could have possibly
have pointed a rifle at Capt. Pate, nor a man nearer than forty rods
till we came near their camp. Capt. Pate complains of our treat-
ment in regard to cooking, &c, but forgets to say that, after the fight
was over, when I and some of my men had eaten only once in nearly
forty-eight hours, we first of all gave Capt. Pate and his men as
good a dinner as we could obtain for them, I being the last man to
take a morsel. During the time we kept them it was with difficulty
I could keep enough men in camp away from their business and
their families to guard our prisoners; I being myself obliged to stand
guard six hours — between four in the afternoon and six in the
morning. We were so poorly supplied with provisions that the best
we could possibly do was to let our prisoners use their own provi-
sions; and as for tents, we, for the most part, had none, while we
sent a team and brought in theirs, which they occupied exclusively.
Capt. Pate and his men had burned or carried off my own tent,
where one of my sons lived, with all its contents, provisions &c,
some four or five days before the fight. We did not search our pris-
oners, nor take from them one cent of their money, a watch, or any-
thing but arms, horses, and military stores. I would ask Capt. Pate
and his men how our people fared at their hands at Lawrence,
Osawattamie, Brown's Station, and elsewhere, my two sons, John,
jr., and Jason Brown, being of the number? We never had, at any
time, near Capt. Pate, or where his men were, to exceed half the
number he states. We had only three men wounded in the fight,
and all of those have nearly recovered, and not one killed or since
dead. See his statement. I am sorry that a young man of good ac-
quirements and fair abilities should, by his own statement, know-
ingly and wilfully made, do himself much greater injury than he
even accuses "Old Brown" of doing him. He is most welcome to
all the satisfaction which his treatment of myself and family before
the fight, his polite and gentlemanly return for my own treatment
of himself and his men have called forth since he was a prisoner,
and released by Col. Sumner, can possibly afford to his honorable
and ingenuous mind. I have also seen a brief notice of this affair
by Lieutenant Brockett, and it affords me real satisfaction to say
that I do not see a single sentence in it that is in the least degree
characterized by either direct or indirect untruthfulness. I will
add that when Capt. Pate's sword and pistols were taken from him
at his camp, he particularly requested me to take them into my own
care, which I did, and returned them to him when Col. Sumner took
him and his men from us. I subjoin a copy of an agreement made
with Capt. Shore and myself by Capt. Pate and his Lieutenant
Brocket, in regard to exchange of prisoners taken by both parties,
which agreement Col. Sumner did not require the Pro-Slavery
party to comply with. A good illustration of governmental pro-
tection to the people of Kansas from the first :
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 207
(Copy)
This is an article of agreement between Captains John Brown,
sen., and Samuel T. Shore of the first part, and Capt. H. C. Pate
and Lieut. W. B. Brocket of the second part, and witnesses, that
in consideration of the fact that the parties of the first part have
a number of Capt. Pate's company prisoners that they agree to
give up and fully liberate one of their prisoners for one of those
lately arrested near Stanton, Osawattamie, and Potawatamie and
so on, one of the former for one of the latter alternately until
all are liberated. It is understood and agreed by the parties that
the sons of Capt. John Brown, sen, Capt. John Brown, jr., and
Jason Brown, are to be among the liberated parties (if not already
liberated), and are to be exchanged for Capt. Pate and Lieut.
Brocket respectively. The prisoners are to be brought on neutral
ground and exchanged. It is agreed that the neutral ground shall
be at or near the house of John T. or Ottawa Jones of this Terri-
tory, and that those who have been arrested, and have been liber-
ated, will be considered in the same light as those not liberated,
but they must appear in person or answer in writing that they
are at liberty. The arms, particularly the side arms, of each one
exchanged, are to be returned with the prisoners, also the horses
so far as practicable.
(Signed)
JOHN BROWN,
S. T. SHORE,
H. C. PATE,
W. B. BROCKET.
PRAIRIE CITY, KANSAS TER'Y. June 2, A. D., 1856.
Captain Pate, after his interview with Brown in jail at
Charlestown, to which he had three witnesses, obtained their
signatures to an account of the Black Jack fight which in some
respects is obviously erroneous; in it he endeavors to repre-
sent that John Brown admitted that the flag of truce was vio-
lated. Unfortunately for Pate's reputation as a chronicler, his
pamphlet is frankly partisan. Moreover, there were several
witnesses who testified that Pate ordered his men to lay down
their arms, instead of risking death by silence, as he avers.
The crux of the " battle" of Black Jack came when John
Brown ordered Shore's men to shoot Pate's horses and mules.
As soon as he noticed this going on, Frederick Brown, who had
been left behind with the horses, could no longer contain him-
self in inactivity, but, mounting one of the animals and bran-
dishing his sword, rode around Pate's camp with his horse at
208 JOHN BROWN
a run, crying out, "Father, we have got them surrounded and
have cut off their communications!" Frederick Brown was a
large man, and on this occasion he acted in such a wild manner
as to give rise to the charge that he was not of sound mind.
His extraordinary appearance undoubtedly frightened Pate's
men, who naturally believed that he had other men behind
him and that they were really surrounded. They fired a num-
ber of shots at him in vain, and it was only a few minutes after
this that they raised the flag of truce and the firing ceased. It
is interesting to note that among those who ran away with
Shore's men was James Townsley, the first to tell the story of
the Pottawatomie murders. Pate's Free Soil prisoners were of
course at once released by John Brown, after having been
under fire throughout the engagement, which ended between
one and two o'clock. Among them, besides the preacher Moore,
was a Dr. Graham, who had been shot through the leg in en-
deavoring to escape. He was not sufficiently hurt, however, to
prevent his attending to the wounded, of whom Henry Thomp-
son was the most seriously injured. After the battle, Shore's
men returned, and with them the company known as the Law-
rence "Stubbs," under Captain J. B. Abbott, a well-known
Lawrence fighter, who had marched as rapidly as possible in
order to succor Brown. Owen Brown estimates that this rein-
forcement amounted to one hundred and fifty men, and in this
he is probably not far wrong. As John Brown himself put it:
"After the fight, numerous Free State men who could not be got
out before were on hand; and some of them I am ashamed to add,
were very busy not only with the plunder of our enemies, but with
our private effects, leaving us, while guarding our prisoners and
providing in regard to them, much poorer than before the battle."24
"We were taken," records Pate, "to a camp on Middle Ot-
tawa Creek and closely guarded. We had to cook for ourselves,
furnish provisions, and sleep on the ground, but we were not
treated unkindly. Here we remained for three days and nights,
until Colonel Sumner at the head of a company of Dragoons
released us from our imprisonment." 25
Colonel Sumner officially reported from Leaven worth, on
June 5, his rescue of Pate's command, and his heading off
about two hundred and fifty men under General Whitfield
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 209
and General Coffee, of the militia, who, as we have already
seen from Whitfield's letter, were bent on rescuing Captain
Pate. Colonel Sumner's force was only fifty men. With him
were Major Sedgwick and Lieutenant Stuart, who thus met
Pate and Brown. Colonel Sumner records the prompt dispersal
of Brown's men, and his surprise at finding General Whit-
field, a Member of Congress, and General Coffee, of the Militia,
at the head of the advancing Border Ruffians. He informed
them that he was there,
"by order of the President, and the proclamation of the Governor,
to disperse all armed bodies assembled without authority; and fur-
ther, that my duty was perfectly plain, and would certainly be done.
I then requested General Coffee to assemble his people, and I read
to them the President's despatch and the governor's proclamation.
The general then said that he should not resist the authority of the
general government, and that his party would disperse, and shortly
afterwards they moved off. Whether this is a final dispersion of these
lawless armed bodies, is very doubtful. If the proclamation of the
Governor had been issued six months earlier, and had been rightly
maintained, these difficulties would have been avoided. As the mat-
ter now stands, there is great danger of a serious commotion."28
Major Sedgwick recorded the dispersal of Brown's band in
the following words:
"Things are getting worse every day, and it is hard to foresee the
result. One of these things must happen: either it will terminate
in civil war or the vicious will band themselves together to plunder
and murder all whom they meet. The day after writing my last
letter I started with a squadron of cavalry to go about forty miles
to break up an encampment of free-soilers who had been robbing
and taking prisoners any pro-slavery man they could meet. I pro-
ceeded to the place, and when within a short distance two of their
principal men came out and wanted to make terms. They were told
that no terms would be made with lawless and armed men, but
that they must give up their prisoners and disperse at once. We
marched into their camp, situated on a small island and entrenched,
and found about one hundred and fifty men and twenty prisoners,'
who were released and the men dispersed."27
It was John Brown himself who came out and endeav-
ored to negotiate with the forces of the United States as if
he were in control of a coordinate body. It was he, too, who
had insisted on the camp's being so heavily entrenched. On
June 3 he had directed the pillaging of the store of one J . M.
210 JOHN BROWN
Bernard at Centropolis, he being a pro-slavery sympathizer, in
order, Brown's devoted follower Bondi declared:
"to improve our exterior, the Brown outfit being altogether in rags.
Frederick and Oliver Brown and three members of the Stubbs were
the raiding party. They returned with some palm-leaf hats, check
shirts, linen coats, a few linen pants, and bandanna handkerchiefs." 28
To the victors belonged the spoils. Since it was now "war"
in deadly earnest, the raiding of the country for supplies was,
in John Brown's opinion, wholly justified, as had already been
the "impressing" of pro-slavery horses. Within one hour sub-
sequent to the interview between Sumner and Brown, re-
ported Bondi, Camp Brown had ceased to exist, and this hasty
movement was not delayed by Salmon Brown's accidentally
shooting himself in the right shoulder. Subsequently, Colonel
Sumner was severely criticised by the pro-slavery men for not
having arrested Brown. He had, however, no warrants for
anybody's arrest, and there was with his command a deputy
United States marshal, William J. Preston by name. The lat-
ter seems to have been afraid, even in the presence of troops,
to serve the warrants he had with him.29 Salmon Brown
and Henry Thompson testify that Colonel Sumner told John
Brown that Preston had warrants and that they would be
served in his presence. Then he ordered Preston to proceed.
"I do not recognize any one for whom I have warrants," re-
plied the deputy marshal. "Then what are you here for?"
asked Colonel Sumner indignantly.30
The Brown family did not move far after being ordered
to disperse. The wounded Salmon was taken to Carpenter's
near-by cabin and nursed by Bondi ; the others, with Weiner,
camped in a thicket about half a mile from the abandoned
Camp Brown. On June 8 Bondi rejoined them, Salmon being
, no longer in need of his services, and was at once asked to visit
John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown, then prisoners in Captain
Wood's near-by camp. At their request Bondi visited the
Adairs and found the Brown women safe at the residence of
David Garrison, a neighbor. On Thursday, June 10, Bondi
had returned to John Brown, and at a council held that day
it was agreed to separate. Weiner had business in Louisiana;
Henry Thompson was also taken to Carpenter's cabin, and
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 211
Bondi accompanied Weiner as far as Leavenworth on the lat-
ter's way to St. Louis. He then returned to the seat of war.
John Brown and his unwounded sons remained hidden in the
thickets.
Governor Shannon, on hearing of the Black Jack episode,
reported it to President Pierce as a sign of the unrest of the Ter-
ritory, with a comment that could hardly have gratified Cap-
tain Pate, for it charged him with being " at the head of an un-
authorized company." 31 This weak Governor was not having
a particularly easy time of it. The Territory was seething with
lawlessness. The administration at Washington was getting
restless in view of the outburst of anger in the North over the
sacking of Lawrence. Indeed, on May 23, before the news of
this raid had reached Washington, President Pierce sent two
despatches 32 to Governor Shannon which betray his extreme
nervousness. He wished to know if it was true that Marshal
Donaldson was near Lawrence, if it had been necessary to
use troops to enforce writs, and, if so, whether other forces
besides those of Sumner and Lieut.-Col. Cooke, of the Dra-
goons, had been called in. In his second despatch he urged
Governor Shannon to "repress lawless violence in whatever
form it may manifest itself," and it was this despatch which
Colonel Sumner read to General Whitfield, together with Shan-
non's proclamation commanding "all persons belonging to
military organizations within this Territory, not authorized
by the laws thereof, to disperse and retire peaceably to their
respective abodes," under penalty of being dispersed by the
United States troops. Shannon further ordered 33 that all law-
abiding citizens, without regard to party names and distinc-
tions, should be protected in their persons and property, and
that "all aggressing parties from without the Territory must
be repelled." It is only fair to Shannon to add that he made
requisitions for sufficient United States troops, and urged upon
their commanders that the country to the south of Lawrence
be properly protected. When Shannon's proclamation was
two days old, President Pierce again telegraphed to the Gov-
ernor : ' ' Maintain the laws firmly and impartially, and take care
that no good citizen has just ground to complain of the want
of protection." 34
Despite these admonitions and the activity of the troops,
212 JOHN BROWN
the disorders continued. Early in the morning of the 5th of
June, Major Abbott, with his Wakarusa company of Free State
men and a body of Lawrence youths, assailed Franklin, four
and a half miles from Lawrence, where were some Missourians
charged with being members of the Law and Order party and
with having amassed considerable plunder.35 It was, in theeyes
of the Free State men, a "mischievous camp." The pro-slavery
men, who had one man killed and several wounded, defended
themselves with a cannon, but inflicted no loss on their assail-
ants. The Wakarusa company arrived too late to take part
in the righting, and busied itself in levying on the stores of the
pro-slavery men, loading a wagon with all the rifles, powder,
caps, flour, bacon, coffee, sugar, etc., that could be found. They
made Franklin, says Andreas, "too hot for the enemy, and
compelled them to evacuate." It is interesting to note that
this and similar robberies by Free State men were treated in
the Northern press and by subsequent historians as absolutely
proper and legitimate acts of war, while similar outrages on
the part of the pro-slavery forces were pictured as too terrible to
be borne. Thus Bondi relates that the final pro-slavery wrong-
doing, which led John Brown to leave his camp and march after
Pate, was the entering of a Free State house by three of Pate's
men and their stealing the guns of the seven Free Soilers who
occupied it. "It was impossible," says Bondi, "to put up with
such a shameful outrage," 36 — especially so for the men who
bore the guilt of the Pottawatomie murders. Later on in his
reminiscences, Bondi relates with great gusto how he and his
companions, when in need of fresh meat, sought out "Dutch
Henry" Sherman's herd of cattle and killed what they needed
without asking any one's permission. This was, of course, a
justifiable act of war, in his opinion. The dispersal of Free
State forces by Federal troops was always an outrage ; similar
treatment of the pro-slavery bands, just and proper.
Two days after the Free State attack on Franklin, Whit-
field's men, returning to Missouri, reached Osawatomie just
after Major Sedgwick, with a company of dragoons, had left
it on his return to Fort Leavenworth. They seized the oppor-
tunity to take revenge for the Pottawatomie murders. Every
house was entered and pillaged, women being robbed even
of earrings, and fourteen horses were stolen,37 thus justifying
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 213
Colonel Sumner's fears as to the genuineness of Whitfield's
promise to disperse his men. That anything was left standing
was due to fear that United States troops might appear. After
an hour and a half of terrorizing women and children and the
few men left at home, Whitfield's forces moved on, laden with
booty, and finally disbanded on reaching Westport. As this
town lies to the northeast of Prairie City, and Osawatomie far
to the southeast, it is obvious that Whitfield deliberately dis-
obeyed Sumner's instructions to leave the Territory, and went
out of his way to revenge upon the Free State settlement at
Osawatomie the Pottawatomie murders that were the original
reason for his and Pate's entry into Kansas. Sumner was nat-
urally indignant, so the Tribune reported on June 23, when
he heard of Whitfield's breach of faith; but the mischief was
then done, and Whitfield doubled on his tracks and returned
safely to Westport. This Whitfield raid, while unaccompa-
nied by loss of life, by itself wholly disposes of the conten-
tion of James Freeman Clarke and others that after John
Brown's murders "the country had peace." Certainly it is
plain proof that the killings of the Doyles, Sherman and Wil-
kinson, far from stopping the aggressiveness of the Border
Ruffians, brought down their especial vengeance upon Brown's
Free State neighbors.
Even before they plundered Osawatomie, Whitfield's men
were credited with one of the worst crimes of this bloody
period. They had tried one Cantrall, a Missourian, on the
charge of "treason to Missouri," for sympathizing with and
aiding the Free State forces at Black Jack, although he was not
an actual participant in the engagement. After a mock court-
martial, Cantrall was taken into a near-by ravine. Other pris-
oners of Whitfield reported afterwards that there was a "shot,
followed by the cry, 'O God! I am shot! I am murdered.'
Then there was another shot followed by a long scream ; then
another shot and all was silent." One of the prisoners escaped
and told this story, and the body was found in the ravine with
three bullet-holes in the breast.38 Lieut.-Col. Philip St. George
Cooke, commanding the Second Dragoons, the other Federal
regiment in Kansas, reported officially on June 18 that "the
disorders in the Territory have, in fact, changed their charac-
ter, and consist now of robberies and assassinations, by a set
214 JOHN BROWN
of bandits whom the excitement of the times has attracted
hither." 39 W. A. Phillips, one of the best of the contempo-
rary chroniclers, wrote that during the period between the
Pottawatomie murders and June 18,
"proslavery parties stealthily prowled through the territory or
hung upon the Missouri borders. Outrages were so common that
it would be impossible to enumerate them. Murders were frequent,
many of them passing secretly and unrecorded ; some of them only
revealed by the discovery of some mouldering remains of mortality.
Two men, found hanging on a tree near Westport, ill-fated free-
state settlers, were taken down and buried by the troops; but so
shallow was the grave that the prairie wolves dug them up and
partly devoured them, before they were again found and buried." *°
Lieutenant James Mclntosh, First Cavalry, reported on
June 13, from Palmyra, that a great many robberies were being
committed on the various roads, and one detachment of his
men reported to him that at Cedar Creek, twenty-five miles
away,
"several men were lying murdered. They saw the body of one who
they knew from his dress to be a Mr. Carter, who was taken pris-
oner from this place a few nights ago. This body was shown to them
by a member of one of the companies who was under the influence
of liquor, and who told my men that he could point out the other
abolitionists if they wished to see them." 41
O. C. Brown, the founder of Osawatomie, wrote on June
24, 1856, that for thirty days (since Pottawatomie) there had
been a "reign of terror."
"Hundreds of men," he declared, "have come from Missouri, and
the Southern and pauper crowd that live by plunder are hunting
down the supposed murderers at Pottawatomie. But almost daily
murders are committed near Westport and nothing done." He
added: "Keep us in flour and bacon and we can stand it a good pull
longer. . . . Remember that now, now, now, is the time to render
us aid."42
There is other contemporary testimony to the straits to
which John Brown's act reduced Osawatomie.
Free Soilers in numbers were stopped and turned out of
the Territory when caught near the border. One John A.
Baillie was shot and badly injured, besides being robbed of
his possessions.43 A young man named Hill was similarly
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 215
robbed, and then bound and barbarously gagged.44 Another
victim of Border Ruffian fury was strung up to a tree only
to be let down again. The list of murders runs all through
the summer. A young Free Soil Kentuckian named Hopkins
was deliberately killed in Lawrence on June 16 by a deputy
sheriff named Haine, or Haynau, a notorious bully.45 William
Gay, an Indian Agent, was murdered two miles from West-
port, on June 21, by three strangers, who blazed away at him
as soon as they discovered, after drinking with him, that he
was from Michigan.46 Laben Parker was shot, stabbed and
hanged, his dangling body being found July 24, eleven miles
from Tecumseh, with this placard upon it: "Let all those
who are going to vote against slavery take warning! " 47 Major
David S. Hoyt, formerly of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was
killed August 1 1 , on his return to Lawrence from the Georgian
camp on Washington Creek, which he had entered on a mis-
sion of peace. A corrosive acid was thrown upon his face, and
his body, half-buried, was torn by wild beasts. His object
had been to ask that the Georgians join the people of Law-
rence in stopping just such crimes.48
But the worst of all this terrible list of inhuman outrages,
the one that infuriated the Free State men beyond all else,
was the killing, on August 17, of William Hoppe, a brother-
in-law of the Rev. Ephraim Nute, the Unitarian minister of
Lawrence. Hoppe was shot in his buggy, when within two
miles of Leavenworth, by a follower of General Atchison,
named Fugit or Fugert.49 This wretch had made a bet of six
dollars to a pair of boots that he would go out and return
with the scalp of an Abolitionist within two hours. He asked
but one question of his victim. When Hoppe replied that he
was from Lawrence, Fugit shot him and scalped him, with
an Indian's dexterity, without waiting even to ascertain if
Hoppe was dead. Brandishing the bloody scalp, Fugit rode
back and received his boots. In May, 1857, he was arrested
at Leavenworth and acquitted of the charge of murder! For
downright atrocities committed on individuals, the pro-slavery
men were infinitely worse than the Free State, even remem-
bering the Pottawatomie killings.
There were, however, plenty of Free State guerrillas at
work. Charles Lenhart and John E. Cook (who later perished
216 JOHN BROWN
on the scaffold at Charlestown) were members of a well-
mounted body of "cavalry scouts" of about twenty young
men who ranged about the country.50 The stealing of cattle
and horses went on fearlessly on both sides.51 "The substance
of the Territory is devoured by the roving, roystering bands
of guerrilla fighters who, under the plea that war prevails, per-
petrate deeds of robbery, rapine, slaughter and pillage that
nothing can justify," reported the St. Louis Evening News
early in June. It added that the "body of good citizens, once
numerous in the Territory, who sided with neither party,
but attended to their own affairs, regardless of the issue of
the dispute, is not now to be found. Every man has been
compelled to join one party or the other, and to become active
in its behalf." This referred, of course, both to the Free Soil-
ers and to the non-slaveholding pro-slavery men who wished
to mind their own business. "All over the Territory," the
Evening News truthfully said, "along the roadside, houses
are deserted and farms abandoned, and nowhere are there
visible evidences of industry." 52 The Boonsville, Missouri,
Observer was of the opinion that "unless the United States
Government rigorously interposes its authority in behalf of
peace and order, the horrors of civil war will rage on, and
we fear accumulate to such an extent as to imperil the
Union."53
The pro-slavery circular of June 21, signed by Atchison,
Buford and Stringfellow, presented the Southern view of the
situation thus:
"The [Pottawatomie] outrages above specified were preceded,
and up to the present time have been followed by others of a like
character, and dictated by a like settled policy on the part of our
enemies to harrass and frighten by their deeds of horror, our friends
from their homes in the Territory. Undoubtedly this policy (a well
settled party system) has dictated the notices lately given in all
the disturbed districts, by armed marauding bands of abolition-
ists, to the law and order men of their respective neighborhoods,
immediately to leave the country on peril of death. Under such
notices, our friends about Hickory Point and on Pottowatomie and
Rock Creeks, have all been driven out of the Territory, their stores
have been robbed, their cattle driven off, their houses burned, their
horses stolen, and in some cases they have been assassinated for
daring to return. Some, too, of these outrages, have been perpe-
trated under the very nose of the United States troops, who all the
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 217
while assure us that all is peace and quietness, and that they will
afford ample protection, without the necessity of our banding to-
gether in armed bodies for mutual defence." 51
This pro-slavery criticism of the United States troops is the
more interesting because the Free Soil writers of the period
also assail the regulars and accuse them of sympathizing
with and abetting Border Ruffian outrages, while admitting
that Colonel Sumner's and Major Sedgwick's leanings were
toward the North. The latter fact probably had something
to do with Colonel Sumner's going on leave on July 15, in the
midst of the troubles, and his turning over the command to
Brigadier-General Persifor F. Smith, who did not, however,
take the field in person. Colonel Sumner's disrepute with the
pro-slavery Pierce administration is very plain. In his annual
report for 1856, Jefferson Davis pointedly praised Lieut.-
Col. Cooke and avoided all mention of Colonel Sumner,
beyond printing his (Davis's) censures of Colonel Sumner for
having dispersed by force the Topeka Free State Legislature,
in harmony with the proclamation of acting Governor Wood-
son,65 and positive instructions from Governor Shannon to
use force if necessary.56 Colonel Sumner did not again fig-
ure prominently in the Kansas troubles. If Pierce desired a
scapegoat for the Kansas lawlessness, Colonel Sumner was
the natural victim. It must be pointed out, however, that
Colonel Sumner's and Lieut.-Col. Cooke's regiments would
not have been large enough to patrol successfully all of east-
ern Kansas, had they been of full strength. General Smith
reported officially on August 22, that "Colonel Sumner's
regiment cannot now muster four hundred men, including
Captain Stewart's company, on its way to Fort Laramie, and
a detachment under Lieutenant Wharton, en route for Fort
Kearney with the Sioux prisoners. Lieut.-Col. Cooke's six
companies have a little more than one hundred horses." "
The breaking up of the Topeka or Free State Legislature
Colonel Sumner declared to be the most trying episode of his
long military career.58 Governor Shannon wrote to Colonel
Sumner on June 23, 59 that he was compelled to leave the Ter-
ritory for ten days, and that he wished him to use his com-
mand in the most effective way for preserving peace, and to
be sure to have two companies at Topeka on July 4. Shannon
2i8 JOHN BROWN
wrote also of his belief that if the Free State Legislature as-
sembled on that date, it
"would produce an outbreak more fearful by far in its conse-
quences than any which we have heretofore witnessed. . . . Two
governments cannot exist at one and the same time in this Terri-
tory in practical operation; one or the other must be overthrown;
and the struggle between the legal government established by Con-
gress and that by the Topeka Constitution would result in a civil
war, the fearful consequences of which no one can foresee. Should
this body reassemble and enact laws (and they can have no other
object in meeting), they will be an illegal body, threatening the
peace of the whole country and therefore should be dispersed."
This view Colonel Sumner shared, for he wrote to acting
Governor Woodson on June 28, " I am decidedly of the opin-
ion that that body of men ought not to be permitted to assem-
ble. It is not too much to say that the peace of the country
depends upon it." Mr. Woodson then issued his proclama-
tion of July 4, forbidding all persons "claiming legislative
powers and authorities . . . from assembling, organizing
or attempting to organize or act in any legislative capacity
whatever. ..." To this Colonel Sumner added over his
own name these words: "The proclamation of the President
and the order under it require me to sustain the Executive
of the Territory in executing the laws and preserving the
peace. I therefore hereby announce that I shall maintain the
proclamation at all hazards."
Colonel Sumner had been so completely under the orders
of Governor Shannon that he believed himself wholly justified
in carrying out Shannon's and Woodson's instructions, the
latter being with him on July 4, and directing him by word
of mouth. Moreover, Jefferson Davis, who had praised Colo-
nel Sumner on May 23, for his zeal, had assured him in the
same letter that it was his duty to maintain "the duly au-
thorized government of the Territory,'" and added that "for
the great purpose which justifies the employment of military
force, it matters not whether the subversion of the law arises
from a denial of the existence of the government " or from law-
less disregard of the rights of persons or property. The Topeka
Legislature was surely in itself a "denial of the existence
of the government," but after the dispersal of the Topeka
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 219
Legislature, Secretary Davis took, on August 27, the view
that Colonel Sumner had exceeded his instructions, and disa-
vowed the dispersal of the Legislature. To this rebuke Colonel
Sumner respectfully replied that he felt bound to consider
the Topeka Legislature insurrectionary, under the President's
proclamation of February n, and, therefore, was compelled
to suppress it, particularly because, as he pointed out, the
principal officers of the Topeka government were at that
moment actually under arrest for high treason.
But if the logic was on Colonel Sumner's side, the authority
was on Jefferson Davis's; a scapegoat was wanted, and the
veteran of thirty-seven years' service was at hand. Not un-
naturally it was believed by the Free Soil men that Colonel
Sumner's expressions of regret in disbanding the Legislature,
and his friendliness for the North, were the real reasons for
his being given leave, and for the censure passed upon him.
A year later, a new Secretary of War was glad to entrust to
Sumner the command of an important and successful cam-
paign against the Cheyenne Indians.
The actual dispersal of the Legislature was dramatic. In
the absence of the Speaker and the Chief Clerk, Samuel F.
Tappan, the Assistant Clerk, called the roll in the House of
Representatives on July 4, to which date the Legislature had
adjourned on March 4. Seventeen members answered to their
names. As Tappan knew there were others in the town, he
ordered the sergeant-at-arms to summon the rest. Colonel
Sumner then rose and said :
"Gentlemen: This is the most disagreeable duty of my whole
life. My orders are to disperse the Legislature, and I am here to
tell you that it must not meet, and to see it dispersed. God knows
I have no partisan feelings in the matter, and I will have none so
long as I hold my present position in Kansas. I have just returned
from the border, where I have been driving out bands of Missou-
rians, and now I am ordered here to disperse you. You must dis-
perse. This body cannot be permitted to meet — Disperse. Let
me again assure you that this is the most disagreeable duty of my
whole life." 60
He had taken ample military precautions, for he had con-
centrated at Topeka, on July 3, five companies of his regiment
and two pieces of artillery. The proclamation of the acting
220 JOHN BROWN
Governor was first read to the crowd of about five hundred
men, but Colonel Sumner's hope that this would suffice to pre-
vent the meeting of the Legislature was vain ; he was forced to
march his command into town, draw it up before the building
in which the Legislature was meeting, and array it in the face
of several Free State volunteer companies. These military
manoeuvres deeply impressed the crowd, for Colonel Sumner's
bearing, like that of his men, was eminently businesslike and
soldierly.
As Colonel Sumner rode away, so the Philadelphia North
American's correspondent reported,
"some one gave 'three cheers for Col. Sumner,' which was re-
sponded to. Then there were three hearty cheers for John C. Fre-
mont, three cheers for the Constitution and State Legislature, and
just as the dragoons got the word of command, 'march,' three
groans were given for Franklin Pierce, and the retreating squadron
of dragoons moved off amid the deep groaning for the President."
During all these exciting Topeka happenings, John Brown
was not far away. He had remained in hiding on Ottawa
Creek, near Palmyra, throughout June, awaiting the recovery
of his sick and wounded sons, and gradually recruiting his
band.61 Henry Thompson, in addition to his wound, suffered
from bilious fever, and Owen Brown was also a fever victim.
The invalid's chief nurse was Lucius Mills, a cousin, and John
Brown looked in upon them from time to time, and aided when
the country was clear of Border Ruffians and troops. Food
they gathered where possible, the Carpenters, Ottawa Jones
and other neighbors helping. Not until the beginning of July
did John Brown terminate this life in the bush and again
become active. On July 2 he boldly entered Lawrence and
called upon the Tribune's correspondent, William A. Phil-
lips. To him Brown stated that he was on his way to Topeka
with his followers, to be on hand at whatever crisis might
arise at the opening of the Legislature. "He was not in the
habit," Colonel Phillips records, "of subjecting himself to the
orders of anybody. He intended to aid the general result, but
to do it in his own way." That evening Phillips started with
John Brown's company, toward Topeka. They camped in the
open, a mile southwest of Big Springs. At two o'clock A. M.
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 221
on the 3d, they resumed the march, straight across country,
regardless of streams and rough going. At sunrise they reached
the Shunga-nung, heard Colonel Sumner's camp bugles, and
John Brown halted in the timber by the creek, one of the men
going with Phillips into town to bring back word when the
company should be needed. "He [Brown] sent messages to
one or two of the gentlemen in town, and, as he wrung my
hand at parting, urged that we should have the Legislature
meet and resist all who should interfere with it, and fight, if
necessary, even the United States troops."
Colonel Phillips has left, in the Atlantic Monthly for De-
cember, 1879, a charming picture of that night ride and the
conversation he had with Brown as they lay "bivouacking in
the open beneath the stars:"
"He seemed to be as little disposed to sleep as I was, and we
talked; or rather he did, for I said little. I found that he was a
thorough astronomer; he pointed out the different constellations
and their movements. ' Now,' he said, ' it is midnight/ as he pointed
to the finger marks of his great clock in the sky. The whispering of
the wind on the prairie was full of voices to him, and the stars as
they shone in the firmament of God seemed to inspire him. 'How
admirable is the symmetry of the heavens; how grand and beau-
tiful! Everything moves in sublime harmony in the government
of God. Not so with us poor creatures. If one star is more brilliant
than others, it is continually shooting in some erratic way into
space.'
"He criticized both parties in Kansas. Of the proslavery men
he said that slavery besotted everything, and made men more brutal
and coarse; nor did the Free-State men escape his sharp censure.
He said that we had many noble and true men, but too many
broken-down politicians from the older States, who would rather
pass resolutions than act, and who criticized all who did real work.
A professional politician, he went on, you never could trust; for
even if he had convictions, he was always ready to sacrifice his
principles for his advantage. One of the most interesting things
in his conversation that night, and one that marked him as a theo-
rist, was his treatment of our forms of social and political life. He
thought society ought to be organized on a less selfish basis; for
while material interests gained something by the deification of pure
selfishness, men and women lost much by it. He said that all great
reforms, like the Christian religion, were based on broad, generous,
self-sacrificing principles. He condemned the sale of land as a chat-
tel, and thought that there was an infinite number of wrongs to right
before society would be what it should be, but that in our country
222 JOHN BROWN
slavery was the 'sum of all villainies,' and its abolition the first
essential work. If the American people did not take courage and
end it speedily, human freedom and republican liberty would soon
be empty names in these United States."
How long John Brown remained at the Willets farm near
Topeka, to which he now proceeded, and where he spent the
next two or three weeks, is not known. He neither entered
Topeka on the fateful July 4, nor immediately thereafter. It
is probable that he returned promptly to the neighborhood of
his sick sons, more than ever disgusted with Free State leaders
and their inability to adopt his view that the way to fight was
to "press to close quarters."62 On July 26, John Brown, Jr.,
wrote from his Leaven worth prison to his father:
"Am very glad that you have started as all things considered I
am convinced you can be of more use where you contemplate going
than here. My anxiety for your safe journey is very great. Hope
that I shall yet see you all again. Where I shall go, if I get through
this is more than I can tell, of one thing I feel sure now, and that
is that I shall leave Kansas. I must get away from exciting scenes
to some secluded region, or my life will be a failure. . . . The treat-
ment I have received from the Free State party has wearied me of
any further desire to cooperate with them. They, as a party, are
guided by no principle but selfishness, and are withal most arrant
cowards — they deserve their fate. . . ,"63
Four days later, John Brown, Jr., wrote to Jason Brown
that his father and his party were at Topeka "a few days ago
on their way to the States. They were supplied at Topeka with
provisions for the trip and by this time I hope they have passed
without the limits of the Territory."64 The party comprised
Owen, Oliver, Frederick and Salmon Brown, and their father,
Henry Thompson, and Lucius Mills, for whom John Brown
had little regard because he had no desire to fight and was con-
tent to play the nurse and doctor. Salmon Brown states that
they left because Lucius Mills insisted on the invalids' being
moved, and because they were a drag on the fighting men. In
their hot, primitive quarters, in which the flies were a scourge,
Owen had been reduced "almost to a skeleton," and Henry
Thompson was not much better off, while Salmon himself was
still a cripple. Henry Thompson affirms that he, Oliver, Owen
and Salmon had had enough of Kansas. They did not wish to
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 223
fight any more. They felt that they had suffered enough, that
the service they had been called upon to perform at Potta-
watomie squared them with Duty. They were, they thought,
entitled to leave further work to other hands. They were sick
of fighting and trouble. The burden of Pottawatomie did not,
however, weigh upon Salmon; it was as an invalided soldier
that he consented to leave. Jason Brown stayed at Osawatomie
with his wife. John Brown himself never expressed an opinion
as to his sons' resolution or their leaving Kansas.
A heretofore unrelated incident of this journey is now set
forth by Salmon Brown. Oliver Brown, a great, stout, strap-
ping fellow, was forbidden by his father to give to Lucius Mills
a fine revolver. Says Salmon Brown:
"Oliver wanted to make him a present of a revolver that he [Oli-
ver] had captured at Black Jack. Father objected; forbade Oliver
to give Mills the pistol, saying that Mills would never use it. Oliver
persisting, Father set out to take the pistol away from him by force.
In the scuffle that ensued, I, alarmed lest the weapon might be
accidentally discharged, took it out of Oliver's belt, saying: 'Now
you fellows fight it out!' It looked foolis h, to me. The pistol was
Oliver's pistol. And the match was not an equal one. Father had
been a strong man in his day, but his prime was past. Oliver was
a splendid wrestler. Up in North Elba, he had thrown thirty lum-
bermen one day, one after the other, in a big ' wrastle.' Father was
like a child in his hands. And Oliver was determined. He grabbed
Father by the arms and jammed him against the wagon. 'Let go
of me!' said Father. 'Not till you agree to behave yourself,' said
Oliver. And Father had to let him have his way."65
On August 3 and 4, John Brown and those with him were
overtaken by a party of Free State men who were marching
north to the Nebraska line, to meet James H. Lane's Free
State caravan and to protect it from the merciless Kickapoo
Rangers, the murderers of Captain R. P. Brown. One of these
volunteer guards, Samuel J. Reader, still a resident of Kansas,
has transcribed from his journal the following impressions of
his meeting with John Brown: 66
"Between three and four o'clock we formed in marching column,
and started forward at a swinging pace. We were all well rested,
and a little tired of staying in camp. We had been on the road
perhaps an hour or more when someone in front shouted, 'There
he is!' Sure enough, it was Brown. Just ahead of us we saw the
224 JOHN BROWN
dingy old wagon-cover, and the two men, and the oxen, plodding
slowly onward. Our step was increased to 'quick time;' and as we
passed the old man, on either side of the road, we rent the air with
cheers. If John Brown ever delighted in the praises of men, his
pleasure must have been gratified, as he walked along, enveloped
in our shouting column. But I fear he looked upon such things as
vainglorious, for if he responded by word or act, I failed to hear
it or see it. In passing I looked at him closely. He was rather tall,
and lean, with a tanned, weather-beaten aspect in general. He
looked like a rough, hard-working old farmer; and I had known sev-
eral such who pretty closely resembled Brown in many respects.
He appeared to be unarmed ; but very likely had shooting irons
inside the wagon. His face was shaven, and he wore a cotton shirt,
partly covered by a vest. His hat was well worn, and his general
appearance, dilapidated, dusty and soiled. He turned from his ox
team and glanced at our party from time to time as we were pass-
ing him. No doubt it was a pleasing sight to him to see men in
armed opposition to the Slave Power."
Mr. Reader, on this expedition, on August 7, was an eye-
witness of the first meeting between John Brown and a
remarkable man who subsequently became one of Brown's
most trusted lieutenants, Aaron Dwight Stevens, who at that
time went by the name of Captain Whipple, for the good rea-
son that he had escaped from the military prison at Fort
Leavenworth while serving a three years' sentence for taking
part in a soldiers' mutiny at Don Fernandez de Taos, New
Mexico, and resisting the authority of an officer of his regi-
ment, Major G. A. H. Blake, of the First Dragoons.67*
John Brown himself did not set foot in Iowa, but turned
back at Nebraska City, on the Nebraska boundary, his invalids
then being quite safe.68 "Frederick turned and went back
with his father," Henry Thompson testifies. "Frederick felt
that Pottawatomie bound him to Kansas. He did not wish
to leave. He felt that a great crime had been committed, and
that he should go back into Kansas and live it out." It was
a decision that cost him his life.
* A myth that this officer was Captain James Longstreet, later the famous
Confederate Lieutenant-General, persists in lives of Brown and sketches of A. D.
Stevens. Captain Longstreet, at the time of Stevens's trial, was on duty with his
regiment, the Eighth Infantry, in Texas, and does not figure in the court-martial
CHAPTER VII
THE FOE IN THE FIELD
AT Nebraska City, John Brown found a notable caravan.
Under the erratic James Henry Lane, there had arrived at that
point a body of several hundred Free State emigrants, many
of whom had attempted to reach Kansas by the usual route of
the Missouri River, only to learn that the chivalric Missouri -
ans had barred that means of entrance. As early as June 20,
1856, a party of seventy-five men from Chicago, understood
to be the vanguard of the "army of the North" which Lane
had been raising in Chicago and elsewhere, was forced to give
up its arms on the steamer Star of the West, at Lecompton,
Missouri, by a mob of Missourians headed by Colonel Joseph
Shelby, later a prominent Confederate brigadier. At Kansas
City, General Atchison, with another armed force, compelled
the Northerners to stay on their boat and return to Illi-
nois, an achievement about which the Border Ruffian press
boasted loudly and long. 1 Thereafter parties of Northerners,
on the steamers Sultan and Arabia and other river-craft,
were similarly driven back, some even being robbed of their
possessions.2 By the 4th of July, the blockade of the river was
complete ; thereafter the Free State reinforcements were com-
pelled to take the tedious and expensive overland trip from
Iowa City, which was in railroad communication with Chi-
cago, to Nebraska City, and thence southward through Ne-
braska to Kansas. This route was opened by Lane, whose
party finally comprised one hundred and twenty-five well-
armed single men, and is said by most writers to have num-
bered, all told, six hundred men, women and children when he
reached the Kansas line. There General Lane found it desir-
able to assume the name of "General Joe Cook." While in the
East, General Lane had made a sensation by a most eloquent
speech in behalf of Kansas, delivered at Chicago on the 3ist
of May, i856.3 He made full use of the sacking of Lawrence
and of the pro-slavery outrages in the Territory, and it was in
226 JOHN BROWN
large part to his eloquence that much of the heavy emigra-
tion to Kansas in the summer and fall of 1856 was due. How
great his oratorical powers were may be seen from a letter
of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, of September 18, 1856,
now preserved in the collections of the Kansas Historical So-
ciety:
"Last night he [Lane] spoke in a school house; never did I hear
such a speech ; every sentence like a pistol bullet ; such delicacy and
lightness of touch; such natural art; such perfect adaptation; not
a word, not a gesture, could have been altered; he had every nerve
in his audience at the end of his muscles ; not a man in the United
States could have done it ; and the perfect ease of it all, not a glimpse
of premeditation or effort ; and yet he has slept in his boots every
night but two for five weeks."
The opening of the presidential campaign between Fremont
and Buchanan, as well as the events in the Territory, kept
Kansas in the forefront of national politics. The first Repub-
lican National Convention resolved, on June 17, that " Kansas
should be immediately admitted as a state of the Union
with her present free constitution." 4 The majority of the
Howard Committee submitted its report on July I, with much
resultant Congressional discussion of the Kansas situation, and
Oliver, the minority of the committee, followed suit on July 1 1
with his report containing the evidence in regard to the Pot-
tawatomie massacre. Even then, curiously enough, the Potta-
watomie affair did not in any degree injure the Free State
cause in the North.5 Oliver himself used it in a speech on
July 31, 6 and Toombs, of Georgia, also made a passing refer-
ence to it ; 7 but no one else in Congress. The Democrats con-
tinued to base most of their criticisms upon the general policy
of the Free State settlers in taking Sharp's rifles with them
to Kansas. The Elections Committee of the House reported
against the admission of Whitfield as a delegate and in favor
of Reeder; the House on August I voted against Whitfield
by no to 92, and against Reeder by 113 to 88, and thus
neither was given a seat.8 There were various attempts to
legislate during the summer. On June 25, Congressman Grow,
of Pennsylvania, presented a bill in the House for the admis-
sion of Kansas under the Tokepa Constitution, and the House
passed it by 99 to 97 on the day before Colonel Sumner dis-
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 227
persed the Topeka Legislature.9 On July 2 the Senate had
passed by 33 to 12 votes the Toombs bill, which had been
reported by Senator Douglas from the Committee on Terri-
tories, in a form which betrayed clearly the alarm of the slave-
power over the injury done its cause by the excesses of its
agents in Kansas. The Toombs bill provided for a census of
all white males over twenty-one years of age, bona fide resi-
dents of the Territory. Those who were thus counted were to
be allowed to vote on November I for delegates to a Constitu-
tional convention, and due precautions were taken in the bill
to guard against fraud, intimidation and election irregularities.
But neither house of Congress would agree to the other's
bills, and the final adjournment came without any definite
legislation for the relief of Kansas. The House endeavored to
embarrass the President by attaching to two appropriation
bills riders in the interest of the Free State settlers. One of
these was soon dropped, but the other, attached to the Army
Appropriation bill by John Sherman, practically forbade the
President to use the troops for the purpose of sustaining the
bogus Kansas Legislature. As a result, the Army Appro-
priation bill failed. When Congress adjourned on August
1 8, a special session was called by the President. It met on
August 2 1 , and on August 30 the Army Appropriation bill was
passed without the Kansas amendment by a majority of
three votes.10
More important for Kansas, during this period, was the
organization at Buffalo of the National Kansas Committee,
with Thaddeus Hyatt, of New York city, as president, in the
second week in July. In the six months of its existence this
National Kansas Committee forwarded two thousand emi-
grants by way of the land route of Iowa and Nebraska, and
received more than eighty-five thousand dollars in cash,
besides gifts of clothing aggregating more than one hundred
and ten thousand dollars.11 By January 25, 1857, the condi-
tions in Kansas had so improved, from the Free State point
of view, as to make further activity on the part of the Na-
tional Committee unnecessary. This record of its Chicago
headquarters is, of course, wholly distinct from the even more
remarkable record of the New England Emigration Society
and the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee.
228 JOHN BROWN
' John Brown made but a short stay at Nebraska City. He
took leave of his invalids, obtained horses for himself and his
son, and joined a party of thirty men headed by Captain Sam-
uel Walker, and General Lane, upon whose shoulders from
now on rested the practical direction of the Free State cause
in Kansas, until the release, in September, of the leaders in
prison at Leavenworth. As Captain Walker had received
a message urging him to return to Lawrence at once, Lane
decided that they should push on to that town, one hundred
and fifty miles distant, as fast as humanly possible. He rode
into Lawrence alone, thirty hours later, arriving at three A. M.
of the morning of August II, all of his companions having
dropped by the wayside.12 Captain Walker rode nearly to
Lawrence, but John Brown stopped off at Topeka with about
one hundred and twenty miles to his credit.
As to his intercourse with John Brown during their two or
three days' journey to Nebraska City and their rapid return,
Captain Walker, one of the stoutest of the Free State fighters,
has left an interesting record in the shape of a curiously illit-
erate letter of February 8, 1875, addressed to Judge Han-
way, of Lane.13 In this epistle Walker declares his belief that
John Brown was insane during the summer of 1856. Brown
would always go off and camp by himself. One morning,
when Walker went to wake him, he was asleep, leaning against
a tree, with his rifle across his knees. "I put my hand on his
shoulder; that moment he was on his feet, his rifle at my
breast. I pushed the muzzle up and the ball grazed my shoul-
der. Thereafter, I never approached Brown when he was
sleeping, as it seemed to be his most wakeful time." As they
were riding together on the day of this incident, Walker re-
ferred to the Pottawatomie murders and frankly told Brown
that he would not have them on his conscience for the world.
Brown admitted that he was in charge of the murder party
and ordered the executions, but averred that he had not
raised his hand against any one man. It was on this occa-
sion, Captain Walker states, that Brown charged that the
responsibility of the crime rested upon Robinson and Lane
as instigators, as already related.* Walker also says that to
oblige Brown he took a message to John Brown, Jr., in which
* See page 184.
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 229
the father promised to effect his son's rescue on a certain
night; and that John Brown, Jr., replied that he wished the
senior to stay away, as he was the cause of the son's arrest.
The latter did not, Walker averred, then approve of his
father's acts, and wished to have nothing to do with him at
that time, — a statement absolutely contradicted by the son's
letters from prison.*
The arrival of Lane and Brown at Lawrence, to which place
the latter soon returned from Topeka, despite his son's ear-
nest protest that he should not expose himself on any account
to the danger of arrest, was followed by aggressive warfare
on the part of Free State men. On August 5 the Lawrence
military companies, together with a few volunteers from
Osawatomie, among them August Bondi, had driven out the
pro-slavery settlement at New Georgia, on the Marais des
Cygnes, not far from Osawatomie.14 Word of their coming
had preceded them, and the Southern colony of from sixty to
seventy-five persons fled as the Free State men, at whose head
rumor placed the dread John Brown, approached. The vic-
tors burned the block-house and such of the abandoned pro-
visions as they could not carry away. To them the settlement
was a nuisance; its inhabitants were charged with stealing
horses, killing cows, injuring fences and being drunk in the
streets of Osawatomie. 15 To the Southerners this was a wicked
attack, announcing the beginning of civil war upon unarmed
men and women, whose property was wantonly destroyed
or stolen, even to the clothes of the children. To the arrival
of Lane's army the outrage was attributed in a bellicose
proclamation issued at Westport on August 16 by Atchison
and B. F. Stringfellow.16 It is an interesting fact that, if
drunkenness was a sin in Missourians, it did not prevent the
Captain, Austin, of the Osawatomie company from com-
pletely intoxicating himself on the road to this bloodless
battle.17
"Old Capt. Brown can now be raised from every prairie
and thicket," wrote Jason Brown to his sister Ruth on Au-
gust 13, 1856, 18 after hearing the pro-slavery story that his
* "You and those with you have done nobly and bravely," wrote the son
to his father on August 13, 1856. — Original letter in possession of Mrs. John
Brown, Jr.
230 JOHN BROWN
father was in command at New Georgia. Atchison and String-
fellow placed John Brown at the head of the Free Soil men
in every skirmish and raid of this month.19 The New York
Times 's correspondent called him the "terror of all Mis-
souri" and the "old terrifier." 20 O. C. Brown, of Osawatomie,
says, "Old John Brown's name was equal to an army with
banners." 21 At Paola, seven miles from Osawatomie, a pro-
slavery meeting broke up in the greatest haste on hearing
that John Brown was coming to "take out" some men; and
the creek over which the invader would have to come was
heavily guarded all night by the frightened citizens of Paola.22
Mary Grant records that once, when a large party of Mis-
sourians was returning to its State, the rear ranks called out,
by way of joke, "John Brown is coming! " whereupon the van
cut the mules from their traces and rode for their lives.23 It
is the opinion of R. G. Elliott, of Lawrence, that:
"Brown was a presence in Kansas and an active presence all
through '56. Yet it was his presence more than his activities, that
made him a power, — the idea of his being. He was a ghostly in-
fluence. No man in Kansas was more respected. Yet after Potta-
watomie he moved much in secret."24
"War! War! ! War! ! ! The Bloody Issue Begun! Up
Sovereigns! and to your duty! Patience has ceased to be a
virtue" -these were the headlines of the Leavenworth
Journal's extra on August 14, in which it described the next
aggressive movement of the Free State forces, the second
attack upon Franklin.25 Despite the lesson taught to the
Southerners by the successful raid of June 5, they persisted
in living in their Franklin homes. The original motive for
this new raid was the desire of Captain Thomas Bickerton's
artillery company for a six-pounder known to be at Franklin,
which had been originally captured at Lawrence, for which
town it had been purchased by Horace Greeley, Charles
King, David Dudley Field and other prominent New York-
ers.26 Part of Captain Bickerton's report of the operations of
August 12 is as follows:27
"The Franklin affair was kept secret from the people. They
thought when they saw us going that we were going out by the
church to drill by moonlight. When we got up near to Franklin who
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 231
should come along but this 'Jo Cook,' on horseback, and make
himself known to the boys. They were very much elated with see-
ing Lane. . . . After the taking of the place, our men, I am ashamed
to say, were so crazy over the way, in gutting Crane's store, that I
could hardly get any of them to help me in taking the cannon out
of the blockhouse. . . . The postoffice was not disturbed. ... I
went in only to see if any arms or powder were there. Found no
cartridges and only five balls. Got the cannon on the carriage and
brought it to Lawrence. ... I then went to work and made a
pattern for a ball; as there was no lead in the place, and we had no
way of making them of iron, we had to take [G. W.] Brown's type
of the Herald of Freedom."
» The firing lasted, as usual, for several hours, and the town
was not surrendered until a wagon of burning hay was backed
up to the block-house. The Free State loss was one killed
and six wounded, while three pro-slavery men were severely
and one mortally wounded. The sack of Osawatomie was
avenged now by the securing of a rare amount of plunder,
composed of provisions, guns and ammunition.28 Major
Buford, of the Georgia colonizers, complained in a letter to
the Mobile Tribune that:
41 Our money, books, papers, clothing, surveying instruments, and
many precious memorials of kindred and friends far away, were all
consumed by the incendiary villains who hold the sway. . . . We
are now destitute of everything except our muskets and an unyield-
ing determination to be avenged. . . . Southerners come and help
us. Bring each of you a double barrel gun, a brace of Colt's repeat-
ers, and a trusty knife." 29
The news of the atrocious murder of Major Hoyt on the
same day undoubtedly inflamed the Franklin raiders. It made
the Free State men everywhere determined to drive out the pro-
slavery camps. They assailed, on August 15, "Fort" Saun-
ders, a strong log-house on Washington Creek, about twelve
miles southwest of Lawrence. After the customary fusillade,
the pro-slavery men retreated without bloodshed on either
side.30 Next on the list was "Fort" Titus, the stronghold of
Colonel H. T. Titus, an active pro-slavery leader. It was in
order to assault Titus's fort that Captain Bickerton's men de-
sired to recapture the Franklin cannon. There was real fight-
ing at Fort Titus, which Captain Samuel Walker, Captain
Joel Grover and a Captain Shombre attacked at sunrise of
232 JOHN BROWN
August 1 6 with fifty determined men.* Captain Shombre was
killed and nine out of ten men with him wounded in a rush on
the block-house.31 In a short time eighteen out of the remain-
ing forty attackers were wounded, including Captain Walker.
After several hours of fighting, Free State reinforcements
appeared, including Captain Bickerton with the six-pounder
and its slugs made of molten type. It was run to within three
hundred yards of the fort and fired nine or ten times. At its
first shot its cannoneer cried, "This is the second edition
of the Herald of Freedom ! " As Titus still showed no white
flag, a load of hay was again resorted to, and with the same
success as at Franklin. As the wagon was backed up to the
log-fort, and before the match was applied, the party sur-
rendered. Colonel Titus was discovered badly wounded by
a shot fired by Luke F. Parsons, later a devoted follower of
John Brown.32 Walker captured thirteen horses, four hundred
guns, a large number of knives and pistols, a "fair stock of
provisions " and thirty-four prisoners, six of whom were badly
wounded. One dead man was found in the block-house before
it was burned to the ground. A Free State man stole a satchel
containing fifteen thousand dollars belonging to Titus, but,
says Walker, "it did him little good. He died a miserable
death in the far West." Everything not burned was appro-
priated by the Free State men. Colonel Titus himself nar-
rowly escaped with his life. But for Captain Walker he would
have been summarily killed on being taken, and but for
that same brave, vigorous character he would have been
executed at Lawrence, to which place the prisoners were at
once removed.
The testimony as to whether John Brown was at Saunders
and Titus is conflicting. He himself left no statement bearing
upon it, and Luke Parsons, James Blood, O. E. Leonard and
others are positive that he was not at either place. The weight
of evidence would seem to be on that side. John Brown, after
the Wakarusa " war," left Lawrence, saying, " I offered to help
you and you would not listen. I will still work with you, but
under no commander but old John Brown."33 Thereafter his
* "Within sight and hearing of the United States camp, where were guarded
the treason prisoners." The fight was witnessed by Major Sedgwick's troopers,
who failed, however, to interfere. — C. Robinson, The Kansas Conflict, p. 307.
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 233
disposition was to fight only when he was in sole command.
Moreover, his remaining at Lawrence during those crowded
days after his and Lane's arrival there might easily be ex-
" plained by his desire to be near his imprisoned son, whose
rescue, if possible and advisable, was perhaps the strongest
motive for his return to Kansas from Nebraska City.34 But
that John Brown was at Lawrence when Walker arrived
with his prisoners admits of no doubt. Again his voice was
raised for the extreme penalty; again he asked a sacrifice of
blood. As Captain Walker portrays it:
"At a little way out of Lawrence I met a delegation sent by the
committee of safety with an order for the immediate delivery of
Titus into their hands. Knowing the character of the men I re-
fused to give him up. Our arrival at Lawrence created intense ex-
citement. The citizens swarmed around us, clamoring for the blood
of our prisoner. The committee of safety held a meeting and de-
cided that Titus should be hanged, John Brown and other distin-
guished men urging the measure strongly. At four o'clock in the
evening I went before the committee, and said that Titus had sur-
rendered to me; that I had promised him his life, and that I would
defend it with my own. I then left the room. Babcock followed
me out and asked me if I was fully determined. Being assured that
I was, he went back, and the committee by a new vote decided
to postpone the hanging indefinitely. I was sure of the support
of some 300 good men, and among them Captain Tucker, Captain
Harvey, and Captain Stulz. Getting this determined band into line,
I approached the house where Titus was confined and entered. Just
as I opened the door I heard pistol shots in Titus's room, and rush-
ing in I found a desperado named ' Buckskin ' firing over the guard's
shoulders at the wounded man as he lay on his cot. It took but one
blow from my heavy dragoon pistol to send the villain heels-over-
head to the bottom of the stairs. Captain Brown and Doctor Avery
were outside haranguing the mob to hang Titus despite my objec-
tions. They said I had resisted the committee of safety, and was
myself, therefore, a public enemy. The crowd was terribly excited,
but the sight of my 300 solid bayonets held them in check."
Colonel Titus was finally saved by Governor Shannon. In
his official Executive Minutes of August 18, Governor Shan-
non has thus recorded the final act of his governorship: 36
"Governor Shannon this day resigned the office of Governor of
the Territory of Kansas, and forwarded his resignation by mail to
the President of the United States, having previously visited the
town of Lawrence, at the imminent hazard of his life, and effected
234 JOHN BROWN
the release of Col. H. T. Titus and others, who had been forcibly
taken there by the armed organization of outlaws whose headquar-
ters are at that place, and who had on the day before battered
down with artillery the house of said Col. Titus, robbed his premises
of everything valuable, and then burned his house to the ground,
killing one of his companions, and taking the remainder, with Col.
Titus and their plunder, to their fortified headquarters — Lawrence
— at which place said Titus was put on trial for his life, and sen-
tenced to die; which sentence would doubtless have been executed,
but for the timely interposition of Governor Shannon, who, in
consideration of the release of said Titus and his companions, con-
sented to release five men held in custody in Lecompton under legal
process, charged with being engaged in the late midnight attack
and sacking of the town of Franklin — the outlaws having per-
emptorily refused to release said Titus and others, upon his demand
as the executive officer of the Territory."
In the course of his farewell speech to the citizens of Law-
rence, Governor Shannon promised to deliver over to Major
Sedgwick the cannon taken from Lawrence on the 2ist of
May, and added: "Fellow-citizens of Lawrence, before leaving
you I desire to express my earnest desire for your health, hap-
piness and prosperity. Farewell." 36 Governor Shannon in
later years returned to Lawrence and settled there, winning
the regard and respect of his neighbors and former opponents.
Even his old enemy, Dr. Charles Robinson, whose opinions
about his former associates were subject to radical changes
with the lapse of years, paid him a high tribute after his death.
But his record as Governor was not one in which he could
righteously take pride.37 His resignation was not accepted
by President Pierce and he was removed from his office,38 his
successor being John W. Geary, who arrived in the Territory
on September 9, and remained only six months in this posi-
tion, resigning on March 20, 1857.
Besides the larger raids already recounted, August was a
month of minor warfare. Thus on August 13 the home of the
Rev. Martin White was raided by Free State men, among
them James H. Holmes, and ten pro-slavery horses were
weaned from their allegiance to a wicked and failing cause.
White, a prejudiced witness, asserted that the horses were
laden with plunder, but on this point the memories of Holmes
and Bondi, both participants, failed them.39 A reprisal was
reported by the Tribune on August 28, in these words:
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 235
"On the 22nd the Quaker Mission, on the road from Westport
to Lawrence, was attacked by an armed band of Georgians who
plundered the place, taking all the horses they could find, and com-
mitting all manner of wanton outrages upon persons and property.
. . . The inoffensive people were compelled to flee for their lives,
their property all stolen or destroyed." :
The loss of horses seemed especially grievous to the Trib-
une's Lawrence correspondent, who doubtless had not heard
of the exploit at Martin White's.
John Brown's brief period of inactivity in Lawrence came
to an end immediately after the exchange of prisoners with
Shannon.* According to Bondi, he arrived in Osawatomie, for
the first time after the Pottawatomie murders, about August
20, "with a spick and span four-mule team, the wagon loaded
with provisions ; besides, he was well supplied with money and
all contributed by the Northern friends of the Free State
Kansas, men like Thaddeus Hyatt." Brown's avowed object
was to give the pro-slavery settlements of Linn and Bour-
bon counties "a taste of the treatment which their Missouri
friends would not cease to extend to the Free State settle-
ments of the Marais des Cygnes and Pottawatomie," — a
statement by Bondi which again refutes the allegation that
the Pottawatomie murders freed that vicinity from interfer-
ence by the Border Ruffians.
Naturally, as a good general, John Brown's first concern
was for the mounts of his men. Bondi avers that some of
Brown's men received prompt orders to capture all of " Dutch
Henry" Sherman's horses. He himself obtained, when these
orders were executed, "a four year old fine bay horse for my
mount," and "old John Brown rode a fine blooded bay,"
while "Dutch Henry" fell back, it is to be presumed, upon
Shanks' mare, and, between meditations upon his just pun-
ishment for sympathizing with Missouri, doubtless gave
thanks that he was still alive. He was shot down in the road —
* The following appeal from Lane was sent to John Brown from Topeka on
August 12: "Mr. Brown — Gen. Joe Cook wants you to come to Lawrence this
night, for we expect to have a fight on Washington Creek. Come to Topeka as
soon as possible, and I will pilot you to the place. Yours in Haste, H. Stratton."
This Mr. Stratton is one of those who are certain that John Brown commanded
the "right wing of cavalry" in the attack on Fort Saunders on August 15. The
original of Stratton 's message is in the Kansas Historical Society.
236 JOHN BROWN
as had been many an innocent Free Soiler — by Archie Crans-
dell, a Free State man, in the presence of James H. Holmes, on
March 2, 1857. 40 With Brown came between thirty and forty
men, whom he forthwith began to organize into what he
called a "regular volunteer force," for the purpose of serving
throughout the war under his command. The " Covenant" *
drawn up by him under which the men enlisted, together with
the first enlistments and the by-laws which were intended to
be the articles of war, still exists, and shows that his company
organized as if the authority of a State were behind its com-
mander.41
Associated with Brown's company was one comprising in
part some recently arrived lowans, "every one mounted on
captured pro-slavery horses." John Brown now gave con-
siderable thought to the best way of defending Osawatomie.
According to C. G. Allen, one of the men encamped there,
Brown desired to meet the enemy at the Marais des Cygnes
crossing, to the east of the town, and then to fall back on
the twin block-houses. He was certain that the Missourians,
rumors of whose approach were already in the air, would come
in considerable force if at all, a prognostication eminently
correct.42
On August 24 the Brown and Cline companies set out for
the South, marching eight miles and camping on Sugar Creek,
Linn County. That evening John Brown made a speech to
his company, in which, according to Bondi, he made these
prescriptions for the conduct of his men when on the war-
path:
"He wished all of us to understand that we must not molest
women or children, nor to take or capture anything useless to use
for Free State people ; further, never destroy any kind of property
wantonly, nor burn any buildings, as Free State people could use
them after the Pro-slavery people were driven out ; never consider
that any captured horses or cattle were anything else but the com-
mon property of the Free State army, the horses for military use
and the cattle for food for the Free State soldiers and Free State
settlers. He ordered, also, that we, his company, should always
keep some distance in camp from the Cline Company, as they were
too riotous."
* See Appendix.
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 237
While in camp here, news reached the captains that a large
pro-slavery force was in the immediate neighborhood. The
Cline company took the lead the next morning, going in one
direction, Brown's in another. The luck of running down the
enemy came to Captain Cline. He captured some spies and
finally reached and charged the camp, taking twelve prisoners
and the camp equipage, one of the Missourians being terribly
wounded in one leg. In the course of this fight at South Middle
Creek, the Free State men released George W. Partridge, of
Osawatomie, who had been taken prisoner by the Missouri
men the day before. But this rescue was of doubtful value,
since he met a violent end but five days later. The Border
Ruffians fled in all directions for dear life, shouting that John
Brown was pursuing.43 As part of the Border Ruffians had
gone toward Pottawatomie, John Brown and his men went in
that direction for a while and then circled back. The next
morning, August 26, at daybreak, the two Free State bodies
met, Brown charging at the head of his determined com-
pany in accordance with his characteristic tactics of seeking
close quarters. Fortunately, before an actual collision took
place, the friends recognized each other. An eye-witness in
Cline's company, Dr. J. W. Winkley, has thus described this
incident :
"They came swiftly up over the brow of the hill, in full view,
with Brown at their head, and, without halting or even slacken-
ing their speed, swung into line of battle. Only thirty men! Yet
they presented a truly formidable array. The line was formed two
deep, and was stretched out to give the men full room for action.
Brown sprang his horse in front of the ranks, waving his long broad-
sword, and on they came, sweeping down upon us with irresistible
fury. . . .""4
After exchanging mutual congratulations, . both bodies
parted again, not, however, until the prisoners had been duly
exhorted by John Brown and made to promise that they
would not take up arms again, and then set adrift. Dr.
Winkley thus recalls some of Brown's earnest and stirring
words: 4S
"You are fighting for slavery. You want to make or keep other
people slaves. Do you not know that your wicked efforts will end
in making slaves of yourselves? You come here to make this a slave
238 JOHN BROWN
State. You are fighting against liberty, which our Revolutionary
fathers fought to establish in this Republic, where all men should
be free and equal, with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. Therefore, you are traitors to liberty and
to your country, of the worst kind, and deserve to be hung to the
nearest tree. . . . You we forgive. For, as you yourselves have
confessed, we believe it can be said of you that, as was said of
them of old, you being without knowledge, 'you know not what
you do.' But hereafter you will be without excuse. r
"Go in peace. Go home and tell your neighbors and friends of
your mistake. We deprive you only of your arms, and do that only
lest some of you are not yet converted to the right. We let you go
free of punishment this time; but, do we catch you over the border
again committing depredations, you must not expect, nor will you
receive, any mercy."
John Brown then rode off to raid the pro-slavery settle-
ments on Sugar Creek. By a coincidence, the leader of the
Border Ruffian force was named Captain John E. Brown.
To his house the anti-slavery Brown paid an early visit, taking
as his toll fifty pro-slavery cattle and all the men's clothes
the house contained. Captain Brown assured the badly
frightened mistress of the house that there was no reason for
alarm, — that he never hurt women and children as did her
husband, for whom he left his compliments and the message
that he had an old score to settle with him.46 Other houses
were similarly searched, and their cattle taken, on the ground
that they had originally been Free State before being pur-
loined by the pro-slavery settlers.
On Thursday evening, August 28, Brown reached Osawa-
tomie, travelling slowly because of the one hundred and fifty
head of cattle he drove before him. Both his company and
Cline's bivouacked in the town that night. The next morning
early they divided their plunder and cattle, and Brown moved
his camp to the high ground north of Osawatomie, where now
stands the State Insane Asylum.47 It was then known as
Crane's ranch. An ordinary commander would have allowed
all his men to rest. But not John Brown. He was in the
saddle all day, riding with James H. Holmes and others of his
men miles along Pottawatomie Creek, whence he crossed to
Sugar Creek, returning to Osawatomie with more captured
cattle by way of the Fort Scott trail. The locality they rode
through bore many evidences of the irregular warfare going on ;
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 239
they passed near the homes of the murdered pro-slavery men
and the deserted cabins of Free State settlers. One of Brown's
companions, George W. Partridge, passed his own claim, and
there saw his aged parents for the last time, all unconscious
of the impending and, for him, fatal conflict of the next day.
To Holmes, John Brown appeared on that afternoon more
than ever the natural leader. He rode a tall and strong chest-
nut horse; his spare form was more impressive when he was
mounted than when he was afoot. Alert and clear-sighted, he
ceaselessly watched the landscape for evidences of the enemy.48
It was as he was returning thus, in a cloud of dust, and
driving the motley herd before him, that he met a party of
men galloping toward him. The newcomers turned out to be
his son Frederick, Alexander G. Hawes, John Still, George
Cutter and a Mr. Adamson, who had been sent down from
Lawrence by General Lane with the earnest request that John
Brown and the other leading Free State men go at once to
Lawrence, to take part in the reorganization of the Free State
forces, and also to oppose Atchison, who was then reported
about to invade Kansas once more and with a large body of
men.49 After consultation it was decided that the call should be
heeded on the next day. As both parties reached Osawatomie,
about sundown, John Brown and his son Frederick parted for
the last time. The son went on toward Lawrence, but, accord-
ing to George Cutter, he felt indisposed and decided to spend
the night at the house of a settler named Carr, on the Law-
rence road, only a couple of hundred yards from the cabin of
his uncle, the Rev. Mr. Adair. With Frederick Brown stayed
Mr. Hawes. Either at Carr's or in the neighboring Cronkhite
house were Still, Cutter and Adamson as lodgers for the night.
John Brown and his party, with the exception of Holmes,
who spent the night in town, crossed the Marais des Cygnes
to their camp on the Crane claim, taking their cattle with
them. Captain Cline and about fifteen men remained in the
town, at the juncture of the Marais des Cygnes and the Potta-
watomie ; here stood the hamlet and its block-house, the latter
facing toward the east, from which direction it was feared
the Missourians might come. The cry of wolf had, however,
been heard in Osawatomie so often, that on the 29th of August
no especial apprehension was felt.
240 JOHN BROWN
Captain Shore and a small company of Chicago men
left about three o'clock in the afternoon, bound northward
toward Lawrence, and no sentinels were put on guard save
by John Brown, in accordance with the articles of enlistment
of his company. Two of his men, Bondi and Benjamin, were
on guard from two A. M. on the morning of the 30 th until the
firing began,50 but they were at a considerable distance from
Osawatomie, facing toward Paola to the northeast, from
which direction John Brown himself expected that the ad-
vance, if any, would be made. Early in the night the long-
expected warning came, after nearly every one had gone to
bed. John Yelton, a mail-carrier, arrived fresh from a ten
days' captivity in the town of New Santa Fe, Missouri,
and warned the Greer family that the citizens must prepare
either to fight at once or flee. Both Holmes and Dr. Upde-
graff were sleeping in the house, but were too tired fully to
comprehend the warning. Action was therefore deferred until
daylight.
Yelton's information was wholly correct. The plan to raid
Osawatomie and finally destroy it had carefully matured in
the minds of the pro-slavery leaders, but Osawatomie was
only one objective of the formidable expedition which left
Westport on August 23, and marched on the same day to
New Santa Fe. There four hundred and eighty pro-slavery
men were found in camp. By the 25th, the number of the
Ruffians then being eleven hundred and fifty, they were reg-
ularly organized as two regiments, with Atchison as major-
general, John W. Reid, a Mexican War veteran, as brigadier-
general, and Colonel P. H. Rosser, of Virginia, as colonel
of the second regiment, while the first was entrusted to a
Colonel Brown. Camp was broken on the 26th. On the
2Qth, at Bull Creek, forty miles from Osawatomie, General
Reid, with two hundred and fifty mounted men and one six-
pounder, was detached to proceed to the Abolition settlement.
According to a pro-slavery officer, W. Limerick, who wrote
to General Shields, of Lexington, Missouri, on the 2Qth from
Bull Creek, the plan was to attack Osawatomie at once:
"It will all be destroyed; we then go to Hickory Point, all the
houses in the settlement will be burned ; Topeka will share the same
fate. We will wait at this place for some 200 or 300 men expected
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 241
to arrive to-morrow. We are confident of success and expect to clear
the whole territory of Abolitionists before our return. ... I am
just informed that Lawrence will be attacked on Sunday next."
General Reid made an all-night march, on leaving Bull
Creek, and, taking a leaf out of John Brown's tactics, reached
Osawatomie in the early morning. He was too experienced
a soldier to enter from the direction from which he would be
expected, but passed the town to the south and, after getting
well beyond it, went northward until he struck the Lawrence
road. He then turned his army again, and just as the light
began to glimmer in the east, on the morning of the 3Oth,
reached the high ground above the town, near the Adair, Carr
and Cronkhite houses. He thus not only entered from the
west, but had the opportunity to charge downhill into the
settlement, if he wished to utilize it.
On his way, Reid's men were joined by the Rev. Martin
White, as malignant as ever in his hatred of all Free Soil men,
and particularly eager to enter Osawatomie in order to recap-
ture some of his stolen horses. Because of his knowledge of
the country, White joined the "point" of the advance guard,
composed of two or three men. As they came over the crest
of the hill, with the Adair cabin to the left of the road and the
Carr house to their right, a tall and vigorous man approached
them, all unsuspicious of their purpose. It was Frederick
Brown, who had risen early to feed the horses, which had been
left overnight on the Adair place, preparatory to a prompt
start for Lawrence. It is the tradition in Osawatomie that
Frederick Brown greeted White in a friendly way. White
himself thus told the story to the Kansas (pro-slavery) House
of Representatives on February 13 of the next year:
"Whilst I was acting as one of the advance guard coming in con-
tact with their picket guard, Frederick Brown, one of their guard,
advanced toward us. We halted and I recognized him and ordered
him to 'halt,' but he replied, 'I know you!' and continued to ad-
vance towards me. I ordered him a second time to 'halt.' By this
time he was getting very close to me, and threw his hand to his
revolver; to save my own life I shot him down."51
White's first bullet went straight through his victim's heart
and Brown tumbled to the ground, — probably without hav-
ing any thought of violence before consciousness fled forever.
242 JOHN BROWN
If it was the spell of the Pottawatomie murders which had
brought him back to the neighborhood of the dread crimes
upon which he had gazed helpless, between a sense of wrong
and fidelity to his dominating father, he had now paid in
full for his participation as an accessory. Certain it is that
Frederick Brown was no more prepared for his sudden end than
were the men whose blood had been shed by John Brown's
orders, that there might be remission of sin for the Border
Ruffians. White pretended to recognize the boots on Brown
as a pair stolen from his son in the raid upon White ; but there
is no evidence to show that Frederick Brown was at that time
elsewhere, than in Lawrence. On January I, 1860, White
wrote to the Bates County, Missouri, Standard: "The same
day I shot Fred, I would have shot the last devil of the gang
that was in the attack on my house, if I had known them and
got the chance," — a truly Christian sentiment for a minister
of the gospel.
The pretence that he saw in Frederick Brown a picket of
the enemy was obviously an afterthought of White's. There
was no sign of any stirring as the two men met, and the next
few developments certainly dispel the theory that the laws
of war were being followed. The shot that killed Brown was
heard both at the Adair and Carr houses, as well as the noise
of horses' feet as the advance guard passed on toward the town.
As the Rev. Mr. Adair came hurriedly out of his house, he met
David Garrison, a relative and a settler in that vicinity, who
had slept in a shed in the rear of the Adair cabin. They hurried
to the road, and, looking down it, Garrison asked: "What is
that lying on the road? " Adair thought it a blanket — only to
find it was the body of his nephew Frederick. As they stood
over the corpse, some of the others, Cutter and Hawes among
them, arrived from the Carr house. Adair hurried westward
to see if any one else was coming, and quickly perceived the
head of the main column of Reid's forces, now steadily ap-
proaching. He hurried back, shouting to the others to save
themselves. Adair safely reached his own cabin, gave a warn-
ing, and then hid in the bushes unharmed until his children
found him and notified him that he might return. No such
good fortune attended the others. Garrison, Hawes and Cut-
ter made the mistake of returning to Carr's, where they were
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 243
speedily seen and pursued into the brush. Hawes miraculously
escaped without injury, the Border Ruffians almost riding
over him. Cutter, being overtaken after exchanging shots with
his pursuers, received in his head and body four charges of
buckshot. Leaving him for a moment, the Ruffians followed the
unarmed Garrison, and overhauled and summarily despatched
him. Returning to Cutter, one of the Ruffians dismounted,
kicked him, turned him over and said: "He breathes; if I only
had another charge in my gun, I would put it in his head. I
guess that would fix him." Fortunately for Cutter, the Mis-
sourian could not make his revolver work, and so rode off
saying: "Let him rip, he will die fast enough!" — Such was
humanity in Kansas on the 3Oth of August, 1856! Despite
thirty distinct wounds, Cutter survived his terrible experi-
ence, Hawes bringing him aid and food as soon as the Ruf-
fians disappeared.
Had Reid's men now galloped directly into the village,
which was but a mile and a half away, they would have been
in complete control before any one could have slipped away.
Instead, his men delayed on the ridge, perhaps for breakfast,
and the news of their coming and of the death of Frederick
Brown was carried into the town by Charles Adair, a mere
boy, who galloped in. A messenger at once crossed the river
to alarm John Brown. The first to take the aggressive were
Dr. Updegraff and Holmes. The latter, who was saddling
up when the news came, rode up toward the Adairs' until he
sighted the Border Ruffians, upon whom he fired three times
from his Sharp's rifle. This incident again checked the advance
and gave the Free State men time to rally to the defence.
Brown himself was preparing breakfast as the news of his
son's death reached him. He seized his arms, cried, "Men,
come on!" and with Luke F. Parsons hurried downhill to the
crossing nearest the town. The others delayed to finish their
coffee, but most of them overtook their leader as he reached
the town. On their way John Brown asked: "Parsons, were
you ever under fire? " " I replied, ' No,' " relates Parsons, " ' no,
but I will obey orders. Tell me what you want me to do.' '
To which Brown answered with the well-known sentence,
"Take more care to end life well than to live long." With this
sentiment on his lips, the grim chieftain of the "volunteer
244 JOHN BROWN
regulars" entered the engagement which gave him more
renown than anything save the climax of his career; from
this time forward it was as "Old Osawatomie Brown" that
he was most generally known.
As they reached the block-house, Brown said: "Parsons,
take ten men and go into that block-house and hold your posi-
tions as long as you can. I '11 take the rest of the men, go into
the timber and annoy them from the flank." This Parsons
did, finding in the block-house Spencer Kellogg Brown, son
of O. C. Brown, the founder of the town, a lad fourteen years
old, of rare pluck and daring disposition, who, being allowed
to go and get a rifle, returned with it in a few minutes. From
the second story, Parsons's men saw the Border Ruffians com-
ing in two long lines with their brass cannon. One of them
cried, "We cannot stay here, they will drive us out." When
Parsons and Austin took their places in the second story to
study the situation, their men all decamped to join Brown.
Following them, Parsons met Captain Cline and his company
of fifteen well-mounted men retiring through the town, aban-
doning their cattle and other plunder. Only four days pre-
viously, this little band, then considerably larger, had gallantly
charged the Border Ruffians on South Middle Creek. On this
particular morning, Captain Cline could not be induced to stay
very long on the line of battle; one of his men, Theodore
Parker Powers, was killed in the few minutes they were at
the front. Captain Cline explained to the Tribune 52 that his
men did not retire until they ran out of ammunition. In any
event, their disappearance weakened the Free State force not
a little. Parsons and Austin found that Brown had skilfully
hidden his men behind the trees and brush in the fringe of
timber along the Marais des Cygnes, which ran nearly par-
allel to the road down which the Missourians were coming.
There is to-day still a fringe of timber along the river, and still
the open space across which the opposing forces fired at each
other.
The Border Ruffians were mounted and in the open. When
the shots from the Free State men struck among them, the
agitation caused by wounded men or horses threw the com-
panies into confusion, which they at first tried to correct by
re-forming under fire. As the firing grew hotter, more men
THE OSAWATOMIE BATTLEFIELD
Looking toward the river
PART OF THE BLACK JACK BATTLEFIELD
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 245
joined John Brown, among them Alexander Hawes, unde-
terred by his narrow escape when Garrison and Cutter were
shot. As each man came under his eye, Brown placed him
behind a tree or a rock, but the leader himself walked up and
down, encouraging the others and bidding them make their
fire effective. His son Jason was near him most of the time.
Once Brown stopped and asked Parsons if he could see any-
thing torn or bloody upon his back. " No, Captain, I cannot,"
replied Parsons. "Well, something hit me a terrible rap on the
back," said Brown; "I don't intend to be shot in the back if
I can help it."
It is not probable that, all told, John Brown had more than
thirty-eight or forty men in line, aside from Cline's force. He
himself said about thirty. They held their ground well, even
after Reid brought his cannon into play. His grape-shot went
too high into the trees, bringing down branches and adding to
the discomfort of the Free Soil men, but not actually injuring
anybody. Next, the Border Ruffians dismounted, and, urged
by General Reid, who waved his sword and shouted loudly,
advanced toward the woods. At once Brown's men began to
retreat, following the stream and keeping in the protection of
the timber until they had gone some distance down toward
the saw-mill. When they were on the bank, all suddenly
turned as if an order had been given and jumped into the
river. It was the Border Ruffians' opportunity. In a skirmish
or in real warfare, to have an unfordable river at one's back
is the worst of tactics. For this John Brown must not be cen-
sured, since it was the only place where he could have made
a stand, unless he had chosen to fight in the settlement itself
and risked the lives of the women and children there.
But if Brown was not to blame for this strategy, the con-
sequences of it were serious, in that George Partridge was
killed in the river. Holmes saved his life miraculously by div-
ing when under heavy fire. Parsons and Austin narrowly
escaped Partridge's fate, Austin by hiding between some logs
near the saw-mill, and shooting a Border Ruffian out of his
saddle. Dr. Updegraff, who had been badly wounded in the
thigh, managed to escape. George Grant had time to notice
that John Brown, as he waded the river, cut a "queer figure,
in a broad straw hat and a white linen duster, his old coat-
246 JOHN BROWN
tails floating outspread upon the water and a revolver held
high in each hand, over his head." Jason Brown, too, re-
members the generalissimo's linen duster; he, like his father,
got safely across. The fourteen-year-old soldier, Spencer K.
Brown, fell into the enemy's hands, as did Robert Reynolds,
H. K. Thomas and Charles Kaiser. The latter, a veteran of
a European revolution, fought to the last on the edge of
the river before yielding to a relentless enemy. William B.
Fuller, a settler, was captured before the fight began, and
Joseph H. Morey later in the day.
In later years, General Reid insisted that there was no battle
at Osawatomie , — " merely the driving out of a flock of quail . " w
But after the quail had crossed the river, there was still mis-
chief for Reid to do. He fired a round or two at the block-
house before all of Brown's men were out of range and hearing,
and then, when there was no reply, his Ruffians began the
work of reducing Osawatomie to ashes. This was done despite
General Reid's protest. If he had held his men bravely to
their work in the hour's fighting with Brown, he was unequal
now to saving the twenty-five to thirty houses and stores,
that were plundered and then burned. O. C. Brown's safe was
robbed of one hundred and twenty-five dollars, after which
the torch was applied to his house. Three bags full of mail,
which the warning mail-carrier, John Yelton, had brought,
were cut open and their contents examined and flung to the
winds. The horses and cattle at hand were gathered up and
carried off, including Cline's booty from South Middle Creek.
The saw-mill of the Emigrant Aid Society was not harmed,
because, it is said, a single man, Freeman Austin, opened such
a brisk fire on the Border Ruffians as they approached, that
they retired in haste.
By ten o'clock of that evening, General Reid's command
was back at the Bull Creek camp. On the next day he made
the following official report of his enterprise :
CAMP BULL CREEK, Aug. 31.
GENTLEMEN: — I moved with 250 men on the Abolition fort and
town of Osawattomie — the headquarters of Old Brown — on night
before last; marched 40 miles and attacked the town without dis-
mounting the men about sunrise on yesterday. We had a brisk
fight for an hour or more and had five men wounded — none dan-
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 247
gerously — Capt. Boice, William Gordon and three others. We
killed about thirty of them, among the number, certain, a son of
Old Brown, and almost certain Brown himself; destroyed all their
ammunition and provisions, and the boys would burn the town to
the ground. / could not help it.
We must be supported by our friends. We still want more men
and ammunition, ammunition of all sorts. Powder, muskets, balls
and caps is the constant cry.
I write in great haste, as I have been in saddle, rode 100 miles,
and fought a battle without rest.
Your friend,
REID.54
A joint letter of Congrave Jackson and G. B. M. Maughas,
"Capt. of Company B," dated at Bull Creek, September I,
gives another pro-slavery view of the fight:
"The enemy commenced firing on us at half a mile, which is point
blank range for Sharp's Rifles. They had taken cover under a thick
growth of underwood and numbered about 150. We charged upon
them, having to march 800 yards across an open prairie, against
an unseen foe, through a hail-storm of rifle bullets. This was done
with a coolness and ability unsurpassed, until we got within 50 yards
of them when we commenced a galling fire, which together with some
telling rounds of grape from our cannon, soon drove them from
their hiding place with a loss of some 20 or 30 men killed. We had
lost not a single man, and had only five or six wounded."55
The report of the death of John Brown persisted for only
a few days. That it was believed, or hoped for, in St. Louis a
week later, appears from the following editorial in the St.
Louis Morning Herald of September 6, 1856, which declared
that because of Pottawatomie, "by far the most atrocious
and inexcusable outrage yet perpetrated in that distracted
Territory, . . . his death and the destruction of his family
would, for that reason, be less a matter of regret even with
men of the humanest feeling."
Brown made no attempt to rally his force after it was driven
across the Marais des Cygnes. It was too scattered to make
that possible. Indeed, Bondi, Benjamin and Hawes set off
at once for Lawrence, and so, by himself, did Holmes. John
Brown and Jason spent a good part of the day searching for
a ford above the town by which they might cross to the Adair
house. But before they set out to reach their relatives and
find the dead body of their son and brother, Frederick, they
248 JOHN BROWN
stood on the bank above the river and watched the smoke
and flames of burning Osawatomie. "God sees it," said John
Brown, according to Jason, as he watched this spectacle, the
tears rolling down his face. " I have only a short time to live
- only one death to die, and I will die fighting for this cause.
There will be no more peace in this land until slavery is done
for. I will give them something else to do than to extend slave
territory. I will carry the war into Africa."
If the Border Ruffians were at sea in their estimate of the
loss of life they had inflicted, John Brown was still further
from the mark in his report of General Reid's casualties.
This appears from his letter of September 7 to his family:
LAWRENCE K T 7th Sept 1856
DEAR WIFE & CHILDREN EVERY ONE I have one moment to
write to you to say that I am yet alive that Jason, & family were well
yesterday John ; & family I hear are well ; he being yet a prisoner.
On the morning of the 3Oth Aug an attack was made by the ruffians
on Osawatomie numbering some 400 by whose scouts our dear
Fredk was shot dead without warning he supposing them to be
Free State men as near as we can learn. One other man a Cousin
of Mr. Adair was murdered by them about the same time that
Fredk was killed & one badly wounded at the same time. At this
time I was about 3 miles off where I had some 14 or 15 men over
night that I had just enlisted to serve under me as regulars. These
I collected as well as I could with some 12 or 15 more & in about
£ of an Hour attacked them from a wood with thick undergrowth,
with this force we threw them into confusion for about 15 or 20
minuets during which time we killed & wounded from 70 to 80 of
the enemy as they say & then we escaped as well as we could with
one killed while escaping; Two or Three wounded ; & as many more
missing. Four or Five Free-State men were butchered during the
day in all. Jason fought bravely by my side during the fight &
escaped with me he being unhurt. I was struck by a partly spent
Grape, Canister, or Rifle shot which bruised me some, but did not
injure me seriously. "Hitherto the Lord hath helped me" notwith-
standing my afflictions. Things seem rather quiet just now; but
what another Hour will bring I cannot say. I have seen Three or
Four letters from Ruth & one from Watson, of July or Aug which
are all I have seen since in June. I was very glad to hear once
more from you & hope that you will continue to write to some of
the friends so that I may hear from you. I am utterly unable to
write you for most of the time. May the God of our fathers bless
& save you all
Your Affectionate Husband & Father,
JOHN BROWN.
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 249
MONDAY MORNING, 8th Sept. 56
Jason has just come in Left all well as usual. Johns trial is to
come off or commence today. Yours ever
JOHN BROWN."
Subsequently, John Brown thus summarized the results of
the fight for Lydia Maria Child:
Border Ruffian force at Osawatomie Aug. 3Oth 400 men.
Free State force 30 men.
Ruffians (as by their 'private account 31 or 32) killed, & from
45 to 50 wounded.
Loss of Free State men in the fight one killed & 2 wounded Free
Statemen murdered Four; & one left for dead with twenty shot &
bullet holes. One proslavery man murdered by themselves.
Your friend
JOHN BROWN."
The pro-slavery man reported murdered was named Wil-
liam Williams, said to have been a "Free State Missourian,"
whom neither party claimed ; his name is not on the Osawato-
mie monument. He was killed in the town before the Border
Ruffians left. As to the loss of the latter, there is no evidence
to show in contemporary accounts or newspapers that it was
as heavy as Brown himself thought. He prepared for the
press, on the same day that he wrote the above letter, a more
elaborate story of the battle, which in no wise differed from
the letter in any of its facts. It is a concise and excellently
written narrative, one of the best products of his pen. In it he
thus explains his plan in taking his men into the timber:
"As I had no means of learning correctly the force of the enemy,
I placed twelve of the recruits in a log-house hoping we might be
able to defend the town. I then gathered some fifteen more men
together, whom we armed with guns, and we started in the direction
of the enemy. After going a few rods we could see them approach-
ing the town in line of battle, about half a mile off, upon a hill west
of the village. I then gave up all idea of doing more than to annoy,
from the timber near the town, into which we were all retreated,
and which was filled with a thick growth of underbrush ; but I had
no time to recall the twelve men in the log-house, and so lost their
assistance in the fight. At the point above named I met with Cap-
tain Cline, a very active young man, who had with him some twelve
or fifteen mounted men, and persuaded him to go with us into the
timber, on the southern shore of the Osage, or Marais des Cygnes,
a little to the northwest from the village."58 .
250 JOHN BROWN
It would seem from the above that John Brown was not
aware that the men from the block-house joined his line. Yet
he must have known that Parsons and Austin joined him.
This confusion may account for his underestimate of the men
who, from their own narratives and those of others, are known
to have fought with him in the timber. As for the prisoners,
Charles Kaiser met the same cruel fate as did Dow, Major
Hoyt, Hoppe and the long list of those murdered in cold blood
by the Border Ruffians. Two days after his capture, on Sep-
tember I, after the army of Atchison had retreated to Cedar
Creek, he was taken out and shot to death, — first having
been told, it is said, to run for his life. This cowardly murder
is assigned by one of the prisoners as a reason why the Border
Ruffian force, the command of which was resigned by Gen-
eral Atchison to General Reid on the same day, began to melt
away.59 Spencer Kellogg Brown, the boy prisoner, was set
free by the Border Ruffians, only to die, if anything, more
tragically than Kaiser. After having been a useful Federal
spy, he was caught by the Confederates and hanged in Rich-
mond on September 25, 1863, when but twenty-one years
old.60 The other four prisoners were sent down the Missouri
River on the Polar Star, under pain of death if they re-
turned to Kansas. At St. Louis they were permitted to go
their way.
The news of Brown's defeat and the burning of Osawato-
mie intensified an altogether critical situation in Kansas. The
acting Governor, Woodson, was openly pro-slavery; it was
his proclamation of August 25, declaring Kansas to be "in
a state of open insurrection and rebellion," and calling on all
good citizens to put down the "large bodies of armed men,
many of whom have just arrived from the States," which gave
Atchison and Reid's army the excuse to masquerade once
more as Kansas militia, or assistants to the legally constituted
authorities. That they were a large body of armed men, all of
whom had just arrived from another State, did not in the least
excite Mr. Woodson's distrust. Three days after the battle of
Osawatomie, on September 5, he even went so far as to order
Lieut.-Col. Cooke, of the United States Dragoons, to proceed
at once to Topeka, to invest the town and disarm and arrest
"all the insurrectionists or aggressive invaders against the
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 251
organized government" to be found at or nearTopeka, and to
retain them as prisoners. He was especially ordered to level
all their breastworks, forts or fortifications, to the ground, and
to intercept all armed persons coming over "Lane's trail"
from the Nebraska line to Topeka.61 Naturally, Lieut.-Col.
Cooke declined to obey so extraordinary and partisan an
order, for which decision he was subsequently highly com-
mended by the Secretary of War. Jefferson Davis, however,
was so greatly wrought up over the situation in the Terri-
tory on September 3, that "the position of the insurgents"
seemed to him "open rebellion against the laws and consti-
tutional authorities, with such manifestation of a purpose to
spread devastation over the land, as no longer justifies fur-
ther hesitation or indulgence." In thus expressing himself to
General Smith, he added that "patriotism and humanity alike
require that rebellion should be promptly crushed. ..." To
this end, General Smith was notified that the President had
ordered the organization of the Kansas militia; that the gen-
eral was to ask for as much of this force as he needed for the
work of pacification, and, if he could not get sufficient aid
from this source, he was authorized to call upon the Govern-
ors of Kentucky and Illinois for the two regiments of foot
militia requisitioned that same day by President Pierce from
each State, in accordance with his constitutional rights.62 An
excellent regiment of regular infantry, the Sixth, had already
been sent to the Territory as a reinforcement to the First Cav-
alry and Second Dragoons. As it turned out, the Territory
could raise only a few companies of bona fide militia for Gen-
eral Smith, but a sudden change in events made it unneces-
sary for him to ask for more troops, or to call on the Illinois
and Kentucky executives.
General Smith himself, in explaining, under date of Sep-
tember 10, to the War Department how it was that Osa-
watomie was sacked when there were regulars in the vicinity,
reported that Brown had had thirteen men killed, and bluntly
added, "though there is nothing to regret as to those who
suffered, yet the act was a grossly unlawful act, and deprives
those who took part in it of all consideration for the future."
Their consideration in the near future was already the prob-
lem of Lieut.-Col. Cooke; for Reid's force, after retiring
252 TJOHN BROWN
to Missouri, was again being recruited for a fresh and final
attack on Lawrence. Meanwhile, the Free State men were
Cooke's immediate care. Lane, still pretending to be "Joe
Cook," had made a weak effort to pursue Reid, but had fallen
back just as he arrived within striking distance. Then, on
learning that Marshal Donaldson and two deputies, supported
by bands of bogus militia, were raiding Free State homes
with warrants for the owners, and burning their houses if
the owners were absent, Lane and Colonel Harvey decided
to march upon Lecompton, make an armed demonstration,
and demand the release of the newest prisoners and of those
who had been arrested in August for complicity in the raid on
Franklin.
After some marching and counter-marching, a force from
Lawrence under Lane — who had concealed himself in the
ranks — and Captain Samuel Walker arrived at Lecompton
on September 5, late in the afternoon. Lieut. -Col. Cooke
instantly ordered out his regiment, took up a position be-
tween Walker's men and the town, and notified Walker that
he could fight that day only with United States troops.63 For
this privilege the Free State men were not thirsting; but, with
the aid of the veteran dragoon colonel, they accomplished the
release of the prisoners. Woodson had already decided to let
them go, but his order, not yet executed, was now put into
force. As the Missouri militia had been dismissed by Wood-
son that morning and had almost all left, Lieut. -Col. Cooke
greatly regretted the appearance of Lane's men; he assured
them that "everything was going in their favor, and that it
apparently would be so if they would refrain entirely from
reprisals, or any outrages, return to their occupations, and
show moderation." 64
This good advice the Free State men refused to ta*ke. On
returning to Lawrence, they found it full of refugees from
Leavenworth, where William Phillips, the Free State lawyer
who was tarred and feathered in May, 1855, had been deliber-
ately murdered on September 2, as a result of the election for
mayor. From elsewhere in the Territory the law-abiding and
the lawless were also moving into Lawrence, and to all of them
the refugees from Leavenworth, with their stories of the shoot-
ing of Phillips in his own house, of murders and other out-
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 253
rages along the roads, and the driving out of hundreds of
defenceless women and children, made a strong appeal. At a
council of war on September 7, Lane, Harvey and other officers
and men of the Free State forces decided to march on Leaven-
worth. This council was interrupted by the cheering on the
streets with which John Brown's arrival in Lawrence was
• $
greeted. Henry Reisner, of Topeka, an eye-witness, remembers
distinctly Brown's impassive demeanor and his bent figure
on his gray horse, with his gun across the saddle before
him. The uproar of cheering was, he says, "as great as if the
President had come to town, but John Brown seemed not
to hear it and paid not the slightest attention." 65 Brown
brought with him his sick adherent, Luke F. Parsons, and
was followed the next day by his son Jason. When asked
where he had been since his retreat under Reid's fire across
the Marais des Cygnes at Osawatomie, he related that he had
encamped on the Hauser farm, two and a half miles from Osa-
watomie, for about a week, at first attempting to fortify it.
But the lack of men and the illness of Parsons and others
prevented.66
From there Jason Brown and his father both went to their
friend Ottawa Jones, on Ottawa Creek, where they saw the
ruins of his home. Jones, who was an educated Indian, with
a New England woman for his wife, had befriended and
helped to feed John Brown and his party while they were
in the brush before and after Black Jack. No other charge
could have been brought against him than friendliness for
Free State people; but a part of Atchison's army, guided by
Henry Sherman,* not only destroyed the house the evening
of the battle at Osawatomie, but robbed Mrs. Jones of every-
thing valuable. Not content with that, they partially cut
the throat of a helpless man, Nathaniel Parker, who was ill
in an upstairs room, and threw him over the bank of the
creek.
It is easy to imagine John Brown's indignation at this out-
rage ; but there was nothing to be accomplished now south of
Lawrence, and so, placing Parsons in a wagon, he had driven
* "Henry Sherman led the mob that burnt Ottawa Jones's house last summer
and tried to kill Jones." — Rev. S. L. Adair to Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Davis, Osa-
watomie, March 4, 1857. — Original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis.
254 JOHN BROWN
with him to Lawrence. After Brown's arrival, the Sunday
morning council reassembled and decided on the movement
against Leaven worth. Most of the men thereupon offered the
command to John Brown, — a responsibility he declined out
of deference to the other leaders ; and it was then entrusted
to Colonel James A. Harvey. With two companies, Harvey
marched on Easton and Alexandria, in Leavenworth County,
helped himself to pro-slavery provisions in the now approved
fashion, and then captured a small company of pro-slavery
men on Slough Creek, near what is now Oskaloosa. John
Brown did not accompany the command, which never reached
Leavenworth ; it was recalled by a message from Lane, advis-
ing the abandonment of the object because of the arrival of
the new Governor, John W. Geary. Almost simultaneously
with Harvey's movements, Charles Whipple, better known as
Aaron D. Stevens, raided Osawkee, a pro-slavery settlement,
taking eighty horses and nearly as many arms. Stevens was
now colonel of the "Second Regiment Kansas Volunteers."
"We in Kansas," he wrote to his brother about this time,
"have struggled against every species of oppression that the
wickedness of man invented or the power of the Devil ever
enforced." 67 Carrying off eighty pro-slavery horses was in his
eyes no wrong; the United States marshal, Donaldson, thought
differently, and seven days after the raid, on September 17,
he arrested twelve of Whipple's men.68 Four of them, includ-
ing John H. Kagi, who met his end at Harper's Ferry under
Brown, were committed by Judge Cato for highway robbery,
- an action they doubtless described as another Border Ruf-
fian outrage. "What in thunder," wrote Charles F. Gilman,
a Council Grove, Kansas, leader, on hearing of some of these
Free State raids, "is Missouri doing; is she going to let these
miserable, thieving, lying Nigger-Stealers and horsewhipping
scamps take this fine Territory without striking a blow for its
deliverance?" 69
September 10 witnessed the reunion of John Brown with
his long imprisoned son and namesake, the political prisoners
being then freed. John Brown, Jr., who had never even been
indicted, was released on one thousand dollars bail, and hurried
at once to Lawrence. " This evening," wrote the correspondent
of the New York Times, "large numbers assembled in front
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 255
of General Lane's headquarters, where they were addressed
by Judge Smith, the Rev. Dr. Nute, E. B. Whitman, Gov-
ernor Robinson, General Lane and John Brown. The meet-
ing was one of the most enthusiastic and heart-cheering of
any that has ever been held in Kansas." 70 John Brown, Jr.,
brought his chains, worn bright by long use, with him; they
were subsequently forwarded to Henry Ward Beecher as a
souvenir of Bleeding Kansas. But a better era than the Ter-
ritory had yet known was now ushered in with the arrival of
John W. Geary, the new Governor. He reached Lecompton
from Leavenworth at about the same time that the Lawrence
jubilation over the release of the prisoners was at an end. The
next day he issued a reassuring address to the people, and
two excellent proclamations, which, like his first report of
September 9 to Secretary Marcy, show how clearly he grasped
the actual situation.71 In his address he urged that Kansas
begin anew; that the past be buried in oblivion.
"Men of the North — men of the South — of the East and of the
West in Kansas — you, and you alone," he said, "have the remedies
in your own hands. Will you not suspend fratricidal strife? Will
you not cease to regard each other as enemies, and look upon one
another as the children of a common mother, and come and reason
together?"
The blame for the situation he placed upon " men outside
of the Territory, who . . . have endeavored to stir up in-
ternal strife, and to array brother against brother." In his
first proclamation he ordered the complete disbandment of
the pro-slavery militia; in the other he ordered the forma-
tion of a new body, which he intended should be composed
of bona fide settlers, and be mustered by his order into the
service of the United States. His policy was, first of all, to
stop all lawlessness and guerrilla warfare, and in this he was
soon successful. He was as bitter against the pro-slavery
murderers of Leavenworth as against the Abolition ma-
rauders of the Whipple type, and became, as time went on,
more and more favorable to the Free State side, with the
result that he finally resigned office for the reason that the
Buchanan administration, alienated by his friendliness to the
Northern side, withdrew from him its support.
256 JOHN BROWN
One of the immediate blessings of Governor Geary's arrival
was the prompt disappearance from the scene of General
Lane. He left for Nebraska at once, with a small band,
stopping on the way, however, to attack some pro-slavery
raiders. Finding them well barricaded in log-cabins at
Hickory Point, Lane sent back to Topeka for reinforcements.
Whipple and fifty men responded, but on their arrival, Lane
wanted Captain Bickerton's cannon and sent to Lawrence for
them. Colonel Harvey, just in from Slough Creek, and about
two hundred men responded, and arrived at Hickory Point
on Sunday morning, September 14. Meanwhile, General
Lane abandoned the siege on hearing of Governor Geary's
proclamations. As Harvey's men came straight across coun-
try, contrary to orders, they missed both Lane and Whipple.
Nevertheless, they at once attacked the pro-slavery force,
and after several hours of fighting captured it, killing one
and wounding four, and having five wounded on their side.72
Both sides fraternized, agreed to retire without plunder, and
then separated. But Harvey's Nemesis was at hand in the
person of the Captain T. J. Wood already referred to, who
appeared on the scene that night with two troops of the First
Cavalry and a deputy marshal, with whom he had been search-
ing for Whipple's band. Harvey escaped, but Captain Wood
returned to Lecompton with one hundred and one prisoners
and such of their arms as he could find, including the cannon.
The prisoners were shown no favors, were all kept in confine-
ment for some time, and, after enduring genuine hardships,
were tried at the October term. The majority were acquit-
ted ; a number received sentences at hard labor, with ball and
chain, for periods of from five to ten years. Writh the men
of WThipple's force and others, there were now one hundred
and eighteen Free State men awaiting trial at one time,—
quite enough to serve as a vigorous deterrent to the other
Free Soilers. John Brown might easily have shared their fate.
Those sentenced did not, however, remain in jail long; they
had all escaped or been pardoned by the following March. But
Captain Wood's great haul was a stunning blow to Free State
lawlessness.
Governor Geary made his first visit to Lawrence on Septem-
ber 13. News having been received by him that pro-slavery
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 257
forces were threatening the town, he routed out Lieut.-Col.
Cooke's troops in the early morning of September 13." Four
hundred soldiers left at 2.20 A. M., the governor going with
them, and they arrived at Lawrence at sunrise to find every-
thing quiet. Three hundred Missourians had, however, been
seen the day before, and Governor Geary had received a
communication from General Heiskell, announcing that in
response to acting Governor Woodson he was on Mission
Creek with eight hundred men, "ready for duty and impa-
tient to act." Governor Geary found between two and three
hundred men in Lawrence and, being well received, addressed
them earnestly and then conversed at length with Governor
Robinson and other leaders, upon whom he made a favora-
ble impression. John Brown was not at these gatherings. By
nine o'clock the Governor and the troops left on their return
to Lecompton, the citizens giving three hearty cheers for
Governor Geary and Lieut.-Col. Cooke as they rode away.
The very next evening, on September 14, Geary again ordered
all of Lieut.-Col. Cooke's troops to Lawrence in hot haste,
to prevent an impending collision.74 They left at once under
Lieut.-Col. Joseph E. Johnston, First Cavalry, later the
distinguished Confederate general. The next morning Lieut.-
Col. Cooke and Governor Geary followed. This time it had
been no cry of wolf. Atchison, Reid, Heiskell, Stringfellow,
Whitfield and the other Missouri leaders had arrived at
Franklin, determined on a final attempt to conquer Kansas by
force of arms. They had with them no less than twenty-seven
hundred men, some of them completely uniformed and well
equipped. Besides infantry and cavalry there was a six-
pounder battery, — in all a remarkably strong force. Its ad-
vance guard had come in sight of the men on guard at Law-
rence on the afternoon of the I4th, and after an hour's
shooting at long range, the Missourians had retired on Frank-
lin. Naturally, the people of Lawrence were in great alarm;
few were able to sleep that night, remembering as they did
Atchison's last visit to their town. There was, therefore,
general rejoicing when, on the next morning, Lieut.-Col.
Johnston's troops were found to be encamped on Mount
Oread, the hill overlooking Lawrence, where they had ar-
rived during the night.
258 JOHN BROWN
The town of Lawrence was at this time a strange mixture
of "stone houses, log cabins, frame buildings, shake shanties
and other nondescript erections," so wrote Colonel Richard
J. Hinton in his journal on September 3-75 He added:
"Lawrence presents a sad picture of the evils this partizan war-
fare is bringing over us. Buildings half finished or deserted are now
occupied as quarters for the small army of devoted men who are
fighting the battle of Freedom. Trade is at a standstill. Work is
not thought of, and the street is full of the eager, anxious citizens
who cluster eagerly around every new-comer, drinking in greedily
the news, which generally is exaggerated by the fears or imagination
of those who tell it. To a stranger, it seems a wild confusion, and
however much they may desire, the incidents come in so fast that
it is morally impossible to form a just estimate of the true condition
of things."
The defenders of this straggling town had erected some for-
tifications, of which they were very proud, a stone "fort" of
the remains of the Free State Hotel, and four earthworks
which excited the risibles of Lieut.-Col. Cooke and his officers,
— "ridiculous attempts at defences," Cooke officially called
them, "which I could ride over." But the day before Lieut.-
Col. Johnston's arrival, these amateur fortifications were
filled with very earnest Free Soil men, ready to defend Law-
rence at any cost. In the absence of Lane, the command was as
much in the hands of Major J. B. Abbott and Captain Joseph
Cracklin, of the "Stubbs," as of any one else. Some partisans
of John Brown have attempted to prove that he was in com-
mand, but the evidence is conclusive that he declined Major
Abbott's offer of the command of a company, and then, at his
request, went from one of the "forts" to another, encouraging
the men, urging them to fire low, and giving them such mili-
tary information as was his, everywhere, according to Major
Abbott, with excellent results.76 Other men who were in the
forts that day, when Captain Cracklin and his "Stubbs"
returned the long range fire of the Border Ruffians, have tes-
tified to the value of Brown's presence, and the inspiration he
gave them. To a group of citizens in the main street he made
the following address, standing on a dry -goods box :
"Gentlemen — It is said there are twenty-five hundred Mis-
sourians down at Franklin, and that they will be here in two hours.
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 259
You can see for yourselves the smoke they are making by setting
fire to the houses in that town. This is probably the last opportu-
nity you will have of seeing a fight, so that you had better do your
best. If they should come up and attack us, don't yell and make
a great noise, but remain perfectly silent and still. Wait till they
get within twenty-five yards of you, get a good object, be sure you
see the hind sight of your gun, then fire. A great deal of powder
and lead and very precious time is wasted by shooting too high.
You had better aim at their legs than at their heads. In either case,
be sure of the hind sight of your gun. It is for this reason that I
myself have so many times escaped, for, if all the bullets which have
ever been aimed at me had hit me I would have been as full of holes
as a riddle." "
Fortunately for all concerned, the worth of the forts and the
mettle of their defenders were never tested. The aggressive
and active Governor rode into town with Lieut.-Col. Cooke
at ten on the morning of the I5th. They found that Lieut.-
Col. Johnston had distributed his men in strong positions
on the outskirts of the town. Scarcely stopping to confer
with that officer, Cooke and Geary pushed right on to meet
a Missourian mounted company then in plain sight, not
two miles away. This company at once constituted itself a
guard of honor for the colonel and the Governor. At Franklin
the pro-slavery generals and chief officers were called together
in a large room "and very ably and effectively addressed by
Governor Geary " — so Cooke reported. After some inflamma-
tory speeches from the other side, the veteran dragoon himself
addressed the assembly, urging them,
"as an old resident of Kansas and friend to the Missourians to sub-
mit to the patriotic demand that they should return, assuring them
of my perfect confidence in the inflexible justice of the Governor,
and that it would become my painful duty to sustain him at the
cannon's mouth. Authority prevailed, and the militia honorably
submitted to march off, to be disbanded at their place of rendez-
vous."
It would have been well, however, if some of Cooke's men
had supervised this withdrawal. He himself went back to
Lawrence with the Governor and calmed the greatly excited
town, while Governor Geary again addressed the principal
men. They bivouacked with the troops, who slept under
arms after two night marches with scant provisions. The next
260 JOHN BROWN
day, Cooke and the Governor returned to Lecompton, following
the trail of the notorious Kickapoo Rangers. Some of these
men had burned the saw-mill near Franklin, "lifted" horses
and cattle, and mortally wounded David C. Buffum, for refus-
ing to give up the horse with which he was ploughing. Gov-
ernor Geary insisted on Judge Cato's taking the dying man's
deposition, and, to his credit be it said, made every effort,
though with little success, to have the murderer punished, the
pro-slavery judges giving no assistance.78
Thus ended the last organized Missourian invasion of
Kansas, and for a time thereafter the Territory was at peace,
particularly as Lieut. -Cols. Cooke and Johnston were active
in capturing armed Free Soil men coming in from Iowa. They
took prisoners on October 9, for instance, two hundred and
twenty-three armed immigrants, headed by S. C. Pomeroy,
Colonel Eldredge and others.79 By November 12 the Gov-
ernor of Kansas announced to General Smith, commanding
the Department of the West, that peace prevailed throughout
the Territory, for which fact Governor Geary deserves great
credit. In consideration of these conditions and of the ap-
proach of winter, all the regular troops, with the exception of
two companies, returned to their regular stations.80
The disbandment of Atchison's army was a fatal blow to the
hopes of the Missourians, and in the South generally it was
now beginning to be understood that the battle for Kansas
was rapidly being lost. Even before Atchison's disbandment,
an intelligent South Carolinian, member of the Territorial
militia, writing home in a moment of anger at the release of the
Free State prisoners in the presence of Lane's and Harvey's
men at Lecompton, blurted out the truth about the useless-
ness of those Southerners remaining who had come merely to
battle:
•
"And why should we remain? We cannot fight, and of course
cannot prevent our enemy from voting. The object of our mission
will then, of course, be defeated, and we had as well return. Which-
ever way the Kansas question be decided, 'tis my opinion, and the
opinion with all with whom I have conversed, that a dissolution
of the Union will be effected by it. The Abolitionists themselves
say they 'will have Kansas if it splits the Union into a thousand
pieces.'"81
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 261
Not even the abstention of the Free State men from the elec-
tion of October 6 for delegate to Congress, for members of
the Legislature, and on the question of a Constitutional con-
vention, and the consequent election of Whitfield and other
pro-slavery men, raised any genuine hopes in the hearts of the
slavery leaders.
The restoration of peace, the release of his son and the
approach of winter were the reasons why John Brown decided
to leave Kansas for the East in search of rest and additional
funds to carry on the war for freedom. He had never meant
to be a settler, and there was nothing left to take him or his
sons back to Osawatomie. Their cabins, such as they were,
had been destroyed, and with them all their personal property,
and the books of John Brown, Jr., upon which he placed a
value of three hundred dollars. This son thought that to pre-
serve his reason he must return to a placid life and quiet
scenes.82 John Brown himself, suffering from the prevailing
dysentery and chills and fever, was compelled to leave in a
wagon. He wrote to his family, however, that he would
return to Kansas if the troubles continued.83 With him into
Iowa went his three sons, John, Jason and Owen, while his
two daughters-in-law and their little sons took the river route,
now open to Free Soil traffic of this kind.
On departing from the Territory, Brown left the remainder
of his Osawatomie "volunteer-regular" company under the
command of James H. Holmes, with instructions to "carry
the war into Africa." This Holmes did by raiding into Mis-
souri and appropriating some horses and arms and other
property, for which he was promptly and properly indicted
and long pursued by the Kansas and Missouri authorities.84
By October 10, John Brown and his sons were safely at
Tabor, after a very narrow escape from the vigilant Lieut.-
Col. Cooke, who, reporting on October 7 from a "camp near
Nebraska boundary," wrote: "I arrived here yesterday, at
noon. I just missed the arrest of the notorious Osawatomie
outlaw, Brown. The night before, having ascertained that
after dark he had stopped for the night at a house six miles
from the camp, I sent a party who found at 12 o'clock that
he had gone."85 Evidently, Lieut.-Col. Cooke was not aware
of Osawatomie Brown's presence at Lawrence when he was
262 JOHN BROWN
there; nor did he know of the "outlaw's" other narrow es-
capes from capture^ One of these incidents of the return from
Kansas is thus related by Jason Brown:
"We crossed the river at Topeka. We had a four-mule team,
and a one-horse covered wagon. The mule team was full of arms
and ammunition that father was taking out to Tabor. I cannot
remember just now the name of the driver, but he was a man
who was always faithful to us and had stuck to us right through.
In the covered, one-horse team was a fugitive slave, covered over
with hay, father, lying sick, Owen, John and I. Owen, John and I
walked all we could to save the horse. At New Holton we came
out on a high prairie and saw the U. S. troops — a large body —
encamped on the stream below. When John and I saw that, we
thought we had fallen into a trap. 'We '11 go right down there,' said
father. 'If we do,' said John, 'we'll be captured. I for one won't
go.' 'I, for another, won't go,' said I. So father drove right on
down, and camped just outside their pickets, that night. But before
he got within two miles of that camp of troops, John and I left him,
— it was dark — and walked about six or eight miles — I am not
sure of the distance — around — and met father next morning,
about sunrise on the Nebraska road. Owen, as always, stuck with
father. For a time we and father travelled different roads and did
not meet. We finally got both wagons together at the ferry at
Nebraska City and camped. Next morning we crossed the river,
by rope ferry, into the southwest corner of Iowa. When we landed
we let the contraband out from the hay, fixed him up the best we
could, and travelled on to Tabor. There Owen stopped, and the
negro there found work. John and I had the horse to go to Iowa
City with. We rode and tied, to that point, where the railway
began."*
Before leaving Lawrence, John Brown received two letters
from Charles Robinson, both of them of special interest be-
cause of the Governor's subsequent attacks upon Brown in the
never-ending and extremely bitter controversy as to whether
Brown or Lane or Robinson was the real saviour of Kansas:
LAWRENCE, Sept. 15, 1856.
CAPT. JOHN BROWN: MY DEAR SIR: — I take this opportunity
to express to you my sincere gratification that the late report that
you were among the killed at the battle of Osawatomie is incorrect.
Your course, so far as I have been informed, has been such as to
merit the highest praise from every patriot, and I cheerfully accord
to you my heartfelt thanks for your prompt, efficient and timely
action against the invaders of our rights and the murderers of our
citizens. History will give your name a proud place on her pages,
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 263
and posterity will pay homage to your heroism in the cause of God
and Humanity.
Trusting that you will conclude to remain in Kansas and serve
during the war the cause you have done so much to sustain, and
with earnest prayers for your health and protection from the shafts
of Death that so thickly beset your path, I subscribe myself,
Very respectfully
Your Ob't Servant
C. ROBINSON.87
The other letter, dated earlier, reads as follows :
LAWRENCE, Sept 13, '56
CAPT. BROWN
DEAR SIR
Gov Geary has been here and talks very well. He promises to
protect us, etc., etc. There will be no attempt to arrest anyone for
a few days, and I think no attempt to arrest you is contemplated
by him. He talks of letting the past be forgotten so far as may be
and of commencing anew.
If convenient can you not come into town and see us. I will then
tell you all that the Gov. said and talk of some other matters.
Very respectfully
C. ROBINSON M
On the back of this note is a pencilled memorandum of
John Brown, Jr., to his father, which includes among other
advice these words: "Don't go into that secret military
refugee plan talked of by Robinson, I beg of you." Over this
letter and sentence there was a vitriolic controversy between
John Brown, Jr., and Governor Robinson in 1883 and 1884,
the former insisting that at the private meeting requested, the
Governor asked Brown to undertake the kidnapping of the
leading pro-slavery generals, and the doing away of others in
Pottawatomie fashion, and that his father replied: "If you
know of any job of that sort that needs to be done, I advise
you to do it yourself." 89 No one else has publicly accused
Governor Robinson of sinking quite to the depths of urging
deliberate assassination, and it is needless to say that he in-
dignantly denied the charge. Those who would decide where
the truth lies must make up their minds which man's word
was the weightier.
Free from any other blood-stain, John Brown quitted the
ravaged Territory. If he had deliberately committed the
264 JOHN BROWN
Pottawatomie murders in order to embroil Kansans and Mis-
sourians, he had every reason to view with satisfaction the
results of his bloody deed. The carnival of crime and the civil
war inaugurated by the sacking of Lawrence and the midnight
assassinations in the hitherto peaceful region of Osawatomie,
had brought eastern Kansas to the lowest state of her for-
tunes. Governor Geary accurately portrayed it in his farewell
to the people of Kansas on March 12 of the next year:
"I reached Kansas and entered upon the discharge of my official
duties in the most gloomy hour of her history. Desolation and ruin
reigned on every hand ; homes and firesides were deserted ; the smoke
of burning dwellings darkened the atmosphere; women and chil-
dren, driven from their habitations, wandered over the prairies and
among the woodland, or sought refuge and protection even among
the Indian tribes; the highways were infested with numerous preda-
tory bands, and the towns were fortified and garrisoned by armies
of conflicting partisans, each excited almost to frenzy, and deter-
mined upon mutual extermination. Such was, without exaggera-
tion, the condition of the Territory at the period of my arrival."80
Between November i, 1855, and December I, 1856, about
two hundred people are known to have lost their lives in the
anarchical conditions that prevailed, and the property loss in
this period is officially set down at not less than two millions
of dollars, one half of which was sustained by bona fide settlers,
the larger portion falling on the Free State emigrants.91 How-
ever superior in character and intelligence and industry the
latter indubitably were in the beginning, there was but little
to choose between the Border Ruffians and the Kansas Ruf-
fians in midsummer of 1856. The Whipples and Harveys and
Browns plundered and robbed as freely on one side as did the
Martin Whites, the Reids and the Tituses on the other, and
there was not the slightest difference in their methods. Both
sides respected women; but in remorseless killing of individ-
uals, the Border Ruffians were guilty of a savagery that would
place them far below the scale of the Free Soil men, were it not
for the massacre on the Pottawatomie. If the Eastern press
discreetly refused to believe a single Free State outrage, or to
portray raids like those on Franklin in their true colors, the
pro-slavery partisans met every charge with the allegation
that it was an "Abolition lie." In the eyes of New England,
THE FOE IN THE FIELD 265
Reid's taking the lives of Free Soil men at Osawatomie was
"butchery," while the exterminating of Border Ruffians was
merely "killing," — as John Brown phrased these incidents in
his story of that fight. Probably no one in the East in Octo-
ber, 1856, realized the utter demoralization of the Free State
men, or the violence and lawlessness of their methods. For this
ignorance the excitement of the Presidential campaign, which
resulted in Fremont's defeat, may have been in part respon-
sible. To many of the radical Abolitionists in the East, the
bloodshed in Kansas was a plain indication that slavery could
hereafter be ended only by the bayonet.92
It is, of course, undeniable that the Border Ruffian outrages
in Kansas enormously aroused the North on the slavery ques-
tion and prepared the way for the tremendous outburst of
excitement or anger over the Harper's Ferry raid. But it is
idle to assert that Kansas would never have been free, had it
not weltered in blood in 1856; if the Sharp's rifle policy had
not been followed. Climate and soil fought in Kansas on the
side of the Free State men. The Southerners themselves com-
plained that their settlers who did reach Kansas were inocu-
lated with the virus of liberty, became Free Soilers and often
freed their slaves.93 The familiar slave crops never could have
been raised in Kansas with its bleak winters. Moreover, the
South was never a colonizing section ; the history of the set-
tlement of our Western communities proves this, if the fate
of Buford's band and its inability to settle down anywhere
did not. The final failure of the slave-power to hold the great
advantage it had in Kansas in 1855 was not due to fear of
weapons, but to inability to place farmers and pioneers on the
battle-ground. The wave of emigrants from the East was
from the beginning certain to roll over the Kansas plains, even
if it had not been expedited by the Emigrant Aid Societies, to
whom due credit for hastening the turning of the tide must be
given.
Equally certain is it that no one man decided the fate of
Kansas. In this narrative no effort has been made to estimate
the relative values to Kansas of Eli Thayer, the founder of the
Emigrant Aid movement, or of Charles Robinson, or of James
H. Lane, or of Brown. It would be an invidious undertaking;
to enter into the bitter disputes of the partisan followers of
266 JOHN BROWN
Robinson, Lane and Brown is a task which no historian
would attempt unless compelled by his theme to do so. Their
adulators have forgotten that properly to understand and esti-
mate the forces brought into play in Kansas, one must fairly
go back to the foundation of our government. The irrepressi-
ble conflict between freedom and slavery would have gone on
and come to a head had Kansas never been thrown open to
settlement, and that Territory must have been free had there
been no Lane and no Robinson and no John Brown. The
great nation-stirring movement of which they were a part
can best be likened to a glacier; for decades it moved imper-
ceptibly; suddenly the people it overshadowed awoke to the
fact that their very existence was threatened by this mon-
strous mass of prejudice and wrong and crime.
Of John Brown, as he left Kansas after just a year of
activity, with the most important period of his service to the
Territory behind him, it may truthfully be said that his deeds,
good and evil, had appealed strongly to the imagination of
all who read of him sympathetically. Like a relentless High-
land chieftain of old, he appeared to personify indomitable,
unswerving resistance to the forces of slavery. To those Free
Soilers who believed in the argumentative methods of the Old
Testament, his name was henceforth one to conjure with.
Not in his methods, however, but in his uncompromising
hostility to that human bondage for which he was ready to
sacrifice his life, lies his undoubted claim to a place in the
history of Kansas and of the Nation.
CHAPTER VIII
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS
AT Tabor, Iowa, John Brown, weak and ill, met with a hearty
reception at the hands of that colony of Ohioans. Under the
leadership of George B. Gaston, for four years a missionary
among the Pawnee Indians, and the Rev. John Todd, there
had been founded at Tabor, in 1848, a community which was
intended to be another Oberlin.1 Most of its settlers came
from that earnestly religious and bravely anti-slavery town.
They were steeped in its Abolition views and in sympathy
with its protests against hyper-Calvinism, — in short, brought
with them the Oberlin devotion to truth and liberty. It was
the most congenial soil upon which John Brown had set foot
since his departure from Ohio. Here all men and women
thought his own thoughts and spoke his own words. Though
it was then but a straggling prairie town of twenty-five houses,
with little of the present beauty of its wide and richly shaded
streets, Tabor was ever an attractive haven for John Brown
and his sons. On the overland route into Kansas, it was far
enough from the Territory to be free from disorder, and the
arriving and departing emigrant trains gave it an especial
interest and kept it in touch with the storm-centre of the
nation. News from Kansas came regularly, while the scattered
pro-slavery sympathizers in the neighborhood, who acted as
spies for the Missourians, or those who passed through en
route to the Territory, added zest to the town's life, particu-
larly when the Southern visitors were in search of the slaves
who passed on to safety and freedom by the underground
route. This long counted Tabor one of its important far West-
ern stations.
Mrs. Gaston has left the following account of conditions
in Tabor during the time of John Brown's visit:
"That summer and autumn our houses, before too full, were
much overfilled, and our comforts shared with those passing to and
from Kansas to secure it to Freedom. When houses would hold no
268 JOHN BROWN
more, woodsheds were temporized for bedrooms, where the sick
and dying were cared for. Barns also were fixed for sleeping rooms.
Every place where a bed could be put or a blanket thrown down
was at once so occupied. There were comers and goers all times of
day or night — meals at all hours — many free hotels, perhaps en-
tertaining angels unawares. After battles they were here for rest
— before for preparation. General Lane once stayed three weeks
secretly while it was reported abroad that he was back in Indiana
for recruits and supplies, which came ere long, consisting of all kinds
of provisions, Sharps rifles, powder and lead. A cannon packed in
corn made its way through the enemy's lines, and ammunition of
all kinds in clothing and kitchen furniture, etc., etc. Our cellars
contained barrels of powder and boxes of rifles. Often our chairs,
tables, beds and such places were covered with what weapons every
one carried about him, so that if one needed and got time to rest a
little in the day time, we had to remove the Kansas furniture, or
rest with loaded revolvers, cartridge boxes and bowie knives piled
around them, and boxes of swords under the bed."2
Here John Brown stayed about a week after his arrival
from Kansas. Here he stored the arms he had brought with
him, and this place he chose as the coming headquarters of the
band of one hundred "volunteer-regulars" for whom he now
planned to raise funds in the East to the amount of twenty
thousand dollars, and here actual training for war-service
against the forces of slavery was soon to begin. For this was
the plan which John Brown's brain had now formulated. The
peace of Geary he did not value; indeed, he unjustly de-
nounced the Governor at this period as having been unpardon-
ably slow in reaching Lawrence with the Federal troops, when
that town was menaced by Atchison and Reid. He wanted a
secret unpaid force that would subsist as best it might between
periods of activity, but be ready with rifle, pistol and sword to
come together to repel invasion, or even to undertake a coun-
ter-invasion. If he rightly judged that hostilities between the
two contending parties in Kansas were not yet over, he over-
estimated the likelihood of a fresh outbreak when the spring
should come again. By then he hoped to return to Kansas
with plenty of arms and ammunition, and recruit the men he
wanted.
After his brief stay for recuperation, John Brown set out
over the overland route to Chicago by way of Iowa City and
Springdale, arriving there about the 22d or 23d of October
MAIN STREET OF TABOR, IOWA
THE PUBLIC SQUARE AT TABOR
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 269
with his sons, Jason and John Brown, Jr., who had preceded
him from Tabor. The father reported at once at the offices of
the National Kansas Committee, where his presence aroused
great interest. He was soon asked to accompany the train
of "freight" for the Free State cause then being conducted
through Iowa to Kansas by Dr. J. P. Root, in order to advise
that leader.
"Capt. Brown," wrote General J. D. Webster to Dr. Root
on October 25, "says the immediate introduction of the sup-
plies is not of much consequence compared to the danger of
losing them." On the next day, Horace WThite, then assistant
secretary of the National Kansas Committee, later editor of
the Chicago Tribune and New York Evening Post, wrote to
him this note : 3
OFFICE NATIONAL KANSAS COMMITTEE,
CHICAGO, Oct. 26, 1856.
CAPTAIN BROWN, — We expect Mr. Arny, our General Agent
just from Kansas to be in tomorrow morning. He has been in the
territory particularly to ascertain the condition of certain affairs
for our information. I know he will very much regret not having
seen you. If it is not absolutely essential for you to go on tonight,
I would recommend you to wait & see him. I shall confer with
Col. Dickey on this point.
Rev. Theodore Parker of Boston is at the Briggs House, & wishes
very much to see you.
Yours truly,
HORACE WHITE, Assist. Sec., etc.
If you wish one or two of those rifles, please call at our office
between 3 & 5 this afternoon, or between 7 & 8 this evening.
W.
It is the testimony of Salmon Brown that his father did
turn back and return to Tabor in the wake of the Root train.
This had a special interest for him, because with it went his
two sons Salmon and Watson, who had received, when digging
potatoes at North Elba, the news of the battle of Osawatomie,
and of a speech by Martin White boasting of his having killed
Frederick Brown. The next morning they were on their way
back to Kansas for the avowed purpose of killing White,
Salmon going to the Territory for the second time, Watson
for the first.4 Assisted by Gerrit Smith, Frederick Douglass
and other friends (to whom naturally they did not reveal their
270 JOHN BROWN
exact errand), they reached Chicago, where Mr. White gave
them each a Sharp's rifle, and then joined Dr. Root's party.
With it they unwittingly passed their father in Iowa, as he
was bound to Chicago. At St. Charles, Iowa, Watson wrote on
October 30 to North Elba that the train travelled very slowly,
and that he had heard a report that his father had gone East.8
John Brown, on learning in Chicago of their whereabouts, at
once communicated with his son Owen, who had remained at
Tabor, urging him to stop the younger sons there until he could
arrive. Owen delivered the message, and Watson awaited his
father's arrival, Salmon pushing on to carry out his plan.
When he reached Topeka, he heard and credited a false story
of Martin White's death, and returned to his Uncle Jeremiah
Brown's at Hudson, Ohio, by the aid of a cavalry horse bought
from the hanger-on of a camp of the natural enemies of the
Brown family, — some regular cavalry, — without, however,
a perfect title to the mount.
At Tabor, Dr. Root's train deposited its arms and gave up
the attempt to enter Kansas. Curiously enough, there were
in its wagons the two hundred rifles which John Brown and
his men subsequently took to Harper's Ferry. The Rev. John
Todd's cellar was filled with boxes of clothing, ammunition,
these two hundred rifles, sabres and a brass cannon, for the
whole of that winter of 1856-57. With his son Watson, John
Brown soon left Tabor. They "rode and tied across Iowa on
a big mule and got to Ohio two weeks after I did," writes
Salmon Brown, whose cavalry steed had carried him eastward
in phenomenally short time. John Brown stopped again in
Chicago, early in December, arriving in Ohio after an absence
of over fifteen months.* He was not content, however, to lin-
ger with his relatives in Hudson; he pushed on to Albany,
Rochester and Peterboro.
* It was probably at this time that John Brown, visiting his half-sister, Mrs.
S. C. Davis, in Grafton, Ohio, made a characteristic reply to Mrs. Davis's ques-
tion: "John, is n't it dreadful that Fre*mont should have been defeated and such
a man as Buchanan put into office!"
"Well, truly," answered Brown, "as I look at it now, I see that it was the right
thing. If Fremont had been elected, the people would have settled right down
and made no further effort. Now they know they must work if they want to save
a free State." — Statement of Mrs. S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich., November
24, 1909, to K. Mayo.
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 271
But his overweening desire to obtain men, weapons and
supplies for Kansas left him no time for his Adirondack home.
Just after the New Year he arrived in Boston, and there began
a series of friendships which became of the greatest value
to him during the remainder of his life. Here he met for the
first time Frank B. Sanborn, ever afterward his most ardent
Massachusetts friend and defender, who was then acting as
a secretary of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee.
Sanborn, then but a year and a half out of Harvard, was
on fire for the anti-slavery cause, and ready to worship any
of its militant leaders. John Brown, fresh from the Kansas
battlefields, made a deep impression upon this young Con-
cord school-master, who had turned over his scholars to a
Harvard student while he worked for Kansas. On January 5,
Sanborn thus recorded his first impressions of his life's hero to
Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the fighting young Uni-
tarian parson of Worcester:
"'Old Brown' of Kansas is now in Boston, with one of his sons,
working for an object in which you will heartily sympathize —
raising and arming a company of men for the future protection of
Kansas. He wishes to raise $30,000 to arm and equip a company
such as he thinks he can raise this present winter, but he will, as
I understand him, take what money he can raise and use it as far
as it will go. Can you not come to Boston tomorrow or next day
and see Capt. Brown? If not, please indicate when you will be in
Worcester, so he can see you. I like the man from what I have seen
— and his deeds ought to bear witness for him."6
To Mr. Sanborn, John Brown brought a personal letter
of introduction from a relative in Springfield, Massachu-
setts, and a general one from Governor Salmon P. Chase, of
Ohio, based on Charles Robinson's letter of commendation,
and dated December 20, 1856.* At once Mr. Sanborn took
him to Dr. Samuel G. Howe and Theodore Parker. Patrick
Tracy Jackson, the treasurer of the Massachusetts State
Kansas Committee, George L. Stearns, Amos A. Lawrence,
Dr. Samuel Cabot, Jr., Judge Thomas Russell, Wendell
Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison were some of the other
friends Brown made. Mr. Garrison he met one Sunday
evening in January at Theodore Parker's. They were at oppo-
* Governor Chase gave Brown twenty-five dollars on this occasion.
272 JOHN BROWN
site poles of thought in their methods of dealing with slavery.
Mr. Garrison, a non-resistant, could conceive no situation in
which it was right to take up arms, — "carnal weapons," as
he often called them, — while Brown was all impatience with
men who only talked and would not shoot. The debate lasted
until late in the evening. Mr. Garrison, it has been recorded,
"saw in the famous Kansas chieftain a tall, spare, farmer-like man,
with head disproportionately small, and that inflexible mouth which
as yet no beard concealed. They discussed peace and nonresist-
ance together, Brown quoting the Old Testament against Gar-
rison's citations from the New, and Parker from time to time in-
jecting a bit of Lexington into the controversy, which attracted
a small group of interested listeners."7
Mr. Parker soon became one of five men who grouped
themselves as an informal committee to aid Brown in what-
ever attacks he might make on slavery, though Mr. Parker
was not certain that Brown's general plan for attacking the
hated institution would be successful. "I doubt," he said,
"whether things of this kind will succeed. But we shall make
a great many failures before we discover the right way of get-
ting at it. This may as well be one of them." 8 When the final
blow was struck, no one wrote more vigorously in Brown's
support than did Theodore Parker.
George Luther Stearns, a successful merchant of Boston
and an exceptionally public-spirited man, became, as he him-
self put it, "strongly impressed" with Brown's "sagacity,
courage, and strong integrity," and thereafter practically put
his purse at Brown's disposal.9 He and Gerrit Smith gave to
him more liberally than any one else, as will hereafter appear,
and their homes were always open to him. It was on Sunday,
January n, 1857, that Brown first entered the hospitable
Stearns mansion, entertaining the family at table with an
account of Black Jack, grimly humorous.10 To Mr. Stearns
he gave his views of the Kansas chieftains, Pomeroy, Robin-
son, etc., exalting Martin F. Conway as the best of the politi-
cal leaders, but characterizing him as lacking in force. The
memory of that dinner is still kept green in the Stearns
family; its immediate effect was a determination on Mr.
Stearns's part to do everything in his power to get Brown the
arms and money he desired.
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 273
Amos A. Lawrence, who had known Brown when he was
in Springfield in the wool business, records in his diary on
January 7: "Captain Brown, the old partisan hero of Kan-
sas warfare, came to see me. I had a long talk with him. He is
a calm, temperate and pious man, but when roused he is a
dreadful foe. He appears about sixty years old." u In view
of Mr. Lawrence's complete change of opinion in regard to
Brown in later years, it is interesting to note that he about this
time characterized Brown as the " Miles Standish of Kansas."
"His severe simplicity of habits," Mr. Lawrence continued, "his
determined energy, his heroic courage in the time of trial, all based
on a deep religious faith, make him a true representative of the
Puritanic warrior. I knew him before he went to Kansas and have
known more of him since, and should esteem the loss of his service,
from poverty, or any other cause, almost irreparable."1
This opinion Mr. Lawrence was also willing to back with his
money. He offered to be
"one of ten, or a smaller number, to pay a thousand dollars per
annum till the admission of Kansas into the Union, for the purpose
of supporting John Brown's family and keeping the proposed com-
pany in the field."
This record of the impression made by John Brown upon
those whom he met about this time would not be complete
without a quotation from Henry D. Thoreau, in whose house
at Concord Brown saw, in March, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
It was eminently characteristic of the strength of Brown's
personality, and of the vigor of his mentality, that he should
have made both of these men his devoted adherents. Like
Theodore Parker's, their support of him became of enormous
value in 1859, in shaping the judgment of the time upon John
Brown. In his eloquent 'Plea for Captain John Brown,'
Thoreau thus describes Brown as he found him in 1857 : 13
"A man of rare common-sense and directness of speech, as of ac-
tion; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles, —
that was what distinguished him. Not yielding to a whim or tran-
sient impulse, but carrying out the purpose of a life. I noticed that
he did not overstate anything, but spoke within bounds. I remem-
ber, particularly, how, in his speech here, he referred to what his
family had suffered in Kansas, without ever giving the least vent to
274 J°HN BROWN
his pent-up fire. It was a volcano with an ordinary chimney-flue.
Also, referring to the deeds of certain Border Ruffians, he said,
rapidly paring away his speech, like an experienced soldier, keep-
ing a reserve of force and meaning, 'They had a perfect right to
be hung.' He was not in the least a rhetorician, was not talking to
Buncombe or his constituents anywhere, had no need to invent
anything, but to tell the simple truth, and communicate his own
resolution; therefore he appeared incomparably strong, and elo-
quence in Congress and elsewhere seemed to me at a discount. It
was like the speeches of Cromwell compared with those of an ordi-
nary king."
It must not be forgotten, in this connection, that very little
was known in Boston at this time about the Pottawatomie
murders, and still less about John Brown's connection with
them. Frank Preston Stearns, the biographer of his father,
states that the latter never knew of John Brown's connection
with the crime,14 and it may well be that Theodore Parker
and others passed off the scene without a full realization of
the connection between the Harper's Ferry leader and the
tragedy of May 24, 1856. To none of these new-found friends
did Brown at this period communicate his Virginia plan.
He kept it to himself a year longer; but he did not conceal
from some of them his desire to defend Kansas by raiding
in Missouri, or by attacking slavery at some other vulnerable
point. With the general idea they were, like Theodore Parker,
in accord, but not sufficiently interested to ask for details, so
abounding was the faith in himself which the mere appear-
ance of the man created.
John Brown's first practical encouragement came on
January 7, when the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee,
of which Stearns was chairman, voluntarily voted to give
him the two hundred Sharp's rifles, together with four thou-
sand ball cartridges and thirty-one thousand percussion caps,
then in the Rev. John Todd's cellar at Tabor.15 These arms
Brown was glad to obtain, because of their nearness to the
scene of action ; he was to take possession of them as the
agent of the committee, and, more than that, was authorized
to draw on the treasurer, Mr. P. T. Jackson, for not less
than five hundred dollars for expenses. The only conditions
were that these rifles were to be held subject to the order
of the committee, and that Brown was to report from time
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 275
to time the condition of the property and the disposition
made of it, "so far as it is proper to do so." Subsequently
(April 15, 1857), Brown was authorized to sell one hundred
of these rifles to Free State settlers in Kansas for not less
than fifteen dollars each, and to apply the proceeds to relieve
the suffering inhabitants of the Territory.16 These weapons,
originally purchased by Dr. Cabot, under instructions voted
on September 10, were first intended to be "loaned to actual
settlers for defence against unlawful aggressions upon their
rights and liberties." 17 Afterwards, there arose a misunder-
standing as to the ownership of these arms between the State
Committee, the National Committee and the Central Com-
mittee for Kansas at Lawrence, which was finally straightened
out by the National Committee's relinquishment of all claim
to the rifles, just as the Massachusetts Committee was about
to proceed legally for their recovery.
It was at the Astor House in New York that the National
Kansas Committee met on Saturday, January 24, for the ses-
sion at which the rifles were returned to the original donors.
John Brown applied for them, but, as Horace White sub-
sequently testified, there was a good deal of opposition to
the policy of granting him arms.18 Twelve boxes of selected
clothing, sufficient for sixty persons, were given to him, but
the question of the rifles was settled by transferring them to
the Massachusetts Committee, on motion of Mr. Sanborn.
A resolution appropriating five thousand dollars for John
Brown was violently opposed by those who were against giv-
ing him the rifles ; they felt that he was too radical and violent
to be trusted with such a sum, and that he would, if given it,
disburse it in ways the Committee might not sanction.19 The
Secretary of the National Committee, H. B. Hurd, recorded in
1860 that he asked Brown before the Committee: " If you get
the arms and money you desire, will you invade Missouri or
any slave territory?" To which he [Brown] replied:
"I am no adventurer. You all know me. You are acquainted
with my history. You know what I have done in Kansas. I do not
expose my plans. No one knows them but myself, except perhaps
one. I will not be interrogated ; if you wish to give me anything I
want you to give it freely. I have no other purpose but to serve
the cause of liberty." 2<\
276 JOHN BROWN
While the reply was not satisfactory so far as the rifles in
question were concerned, the Committee did vote five thou-
sand dollars "in aid of Capt. John Brown in any defensive
measures that may become necessary." He was authorized
to draw five hundred dollars whenever he wished it, but it is
interesting to note that he never obtained more than one
hundred and fifty dollars, and that not until the summer of
1857, the Committee having no more to give. How this
failure rankled in Brown's mind appears in his letter of April
3, 1857, to William Barnes, of Albany, who yet preserves the
original: "I am prepared to expect nothing but bad faith from
the National Kansas Committee at Chicago, as I will show
you hereafter. This is for the present confidential." In notify-
ing Brown officially, after the action of the Committee, Mr.
Hurd stated that "such arms and supplies as the Committee
may have and which may be needed by Capt. Brown" were
appropriated to his use, "provided that the arms & supplies
be not more than enough for one hundred men." Zl But this
obviously did not apply to the rifles previously returned to
Massachusetts. Under this provision, twenty-five Colt's navy
revolvers were subsequently sent to Brown at Lawrence
through Mr. W. F. M. Arny, agent of the Committee, but
they never reached Brown himself. As he did not appear to
claim them, they were loaned to the Stubbs military company.
John Brown, in explanation of his attitude, told Horace White
that he "had had so much trouble and fuss and difficulty with
the people of Lawrence, that he would never go there again
to claim anything." 22
Immediately after the adjournment of the National Com-
mittee, Brown placed in Horace White's hands a substantial
list of articles he needed for the equipment of fifty volunteers,
and the cost thereof delivered in Lawrence or Topeka.23*
Jonas Jones, of Tabor, who was in official charge of the Free
State supplies there, was ordered to retain everything in his
hands until John Brown had made his choice. By February 18,
Mr. White wrote that the articles Brown had requisitioned
would be shipped the following week, and on March 21 he
notified Brown that he would shortly go to Kansas and work
there to fit Brown out with all the supplies he was entitled to
* See Appendix for this requisition.
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 277
under the New York resolution;24 while in the same month,
W. F. M. Arny wrote that he had packed and sent to Jonas
Jones fourteen boxes of clothing for Brown's use.26 While
his interests were thus considerately being cared for, after the
New York meeting, Brown again went to Peterboro, by way
of Vergennes, Vermont and Rochester, to visit Gerrit Smith,
who, although contributing a thousand dollars a month to the
National Kansas Committee, was quite ready to help Brown
from time to time, and never kept account of the sums he gave
to the Kansas fighter. From Peterboro, Brown made, with
John Brown, Jr., a flying trip to his wife and family at North
Elba, whom he had not seen for a year and a half.26 But he
was in Boston again on February 16, where he wrote to
Augustus Wattles, asking for the latest Kansas news and for
Wattles's honest conviction in regard to Governor Geary.27
Indeed, from now on until he finally went to Tabor, en route
to Kansas, the story of his movements is one of incessant
and restless wandering throughout New England and New
York.
On the 1 8th of February he made what was his most nota-
ble public appearance in New England — before the Joint
Committee on Federal Relations of the Massachusetts Legis-
lature. The friends of Kansas were urging upon the Legisla-
ture an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars, on the
ground that, as Mr. Sanborn assured the Legislature, "the
rights and interests of Massachusetts have suffered gross out-
rage in Kansas." No labored argument seemed to him neces-
sary, but there were witnesses to testify to what had occurred
in Kansas, among them E. B. Whitman, Martin F. Conway
and John Brown. Whitman and Brown were introduced as
having the best blood of the Mayflower in their veins and being
descendants of soldiers of the Revolution. Brown's lengthy
speech was, in substance, a story of his -own experiences
(Pottawatomie omitted) and a review of the Border Ruffian
outrages upon individuals and towns, without mentioning any
of the Free State reprisals. In it he paid a tribute to Ottawa
Jones and his wife for their care of himself and his sons.
"I," he said, "with Five sick, & wounded sons, & son in law; were
obliged for some time to lie on the ground without shelter, our
Boots & clothes worn out, destitute of money, & at times almost
278 JOHN BROWN
in a state of starvation; & dependent on the charities of the Chris-
tian Indian, & his wife whom I before named."
In the manuscript of this address, still preserved in the
Kansas Historical Society, there is the following conclusion:
"It cost the U S more than half a Million for a year past 'to
harrass poor Free State settlers, in Kansas, & to violate all Law,
& all right, Moral, & Constitutional, for the sole Of only purpose, of
forceing Slavery uppon that Territory. I chalenge this whole nation
to prove before God or mankind to contrary. Who paid this money
to enslave the settlers of Kansas; & worry them out? I say nothing
in this estimate of the money wasted by Congress in the manage-
ment of this horribly tyranical, & Damnable affair."
In answer to the chairman's question as to what sort of emi-
grants Kansas needed, Brown replied: "We want good men,
industrious men, men who respect themselves; who act only
from the dictates of conscience; men who fear God too much
to fear anything human, " - an interesting statement in
view of the omission of all reference to slavery.28
Despite Brown's emphatic words and the moving story of
his own sufferings, the Massachusetts Legislature decided not
to vote anything for the Kansas cause, and so Brown turned
again to raising the money he needed for his own company.
Besides his trip to Concord, with his two nights in the Thoreau
and Emerson homes, he visited, in March, Canton, Collinsville,
Hartford and New Haven, in Connecticut, and was several
times at the Massasoit House in Springfield, where he was a
particularly welcome visitor by reason of the interest in him
of its proprietors, the Messrs. Chapin, who had notified him
in the previous September of their readiness to send him fifty
or one hundred dollars "as a testimonial of their admiration
of your brave conduct during the war." 29 At New Haven, on
March 18, he received a promise of one thousand dollars. In
and about Hartford six hundred dollars were raised for him;
and from Springfield, Brown was able to send four hundred
dollars to William H. D. Callender, of Hartford, who for some
time acted as his agent and treasurer.30 At Canton, where
both his father and mother had grown up, Brown was gratified
by a promise to send to his family at North Elba, "Grand-
Father John Brown's old Granite Monument, about 80 years
old ; to be faced and inscribed in memory of our poor Fredk
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 279
who sleeps in Kansas," — which stone marks to-day Brown's
own grave.31 He also received in Canton and Collinsville the
sum of eighty dollars, after lecturing for three evenings on
Kansas affairs. About this time he obtained seventy dollars
sent through Amos A. Lawrence, as he did one hundred dol-
lars in April contributed by a friend of Mr. Stearns through
that generous patron.32 The five hundred dollars voted to him
by the Massachusetts Kansas State Committee on January 7,
and a second five hundred voted on April 1 1 , Brown did not
obtain until the 19th or 2oth of April, when, at Mr. G. L.
Stearns's suggestion, he drew upon the Committee through
Henry Sterns, of Springfield.33 To aid him in his quest, Brown
wrote and published in the Tribune and other newspapers the
following appeal for aid:
TO THE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM
The undersigned, whose individual means were exceedingly limited
when he first engaged in the struggle for Liberty in Kansas, being
now still more destitute and no less anxious than in time past to
continue his efforts to sustain that cause, is induced to make this
earnest appeal to the friends of Freedom throughout the United
States, in the firm belief that his call will not go unheeded. I ask
all honest lovers of Liberty and Human Rights, both male and female,
to hold up my hands by contributions of pecuniary aid, either as
counties, cities, towns, villages, societies, churches or individuals.
I will endeavor to make a judicious and faithful application of all
such means as I may be supplied with. Contributions may be sent
in drafts to W. H. D. Callender, Cashier State Bank, Hartford, Ct.
It is my intention to visit as many places as I can during my stay
in the States, provided I am first informed of the disposition of the
inhabitants to aid me in my efforts, as well as to receive my visit.
Information may be communicated to me (care Massasoit House)
at Springfield, Mass. Will editors of newspapers friendly to the
cause kindly second the measure, and also give this some half dozen
insertions? Will either gentlemen or ladies, or both, who love the
cause, volunteer to take up the business? It is with no little sacrifice
of personal feeling that I appear in this manner before the public.
JOHN BROWN.34
On March 19, while in New Haven, John Brown thus
turned to Amos A. Lawrence for aid in his private affairs:
The offer you so kindly made through the Telegraph some time
since emboldens me to propose the following for your consideration.
280 JOHN BROWN
For One Thousand Dollars cash I am offered an improved piece
of land which with a little improvement I now have might enable
my family consisting of a Wife & Five minor children (the youngest
not yet Three years old) to procure a Subsistence should I never
return to them; my Wife being a good economist, & a real old fash-
ioned business woman. She has gone through the Two past winters
in our open cold house: unfinished outside; & not plastered. I have
no other income or means for their support. I have never hinted
to anyone else that I had a thought of asking for any help to provide
in any such way for my family ; & should not to you : but for your
own suggestion. I fully believe I shall get the help I need to op-
perate with West. Last Night a private meeting of some gentlemen
here; voted to raise me One Thousand Dollars in New Haven, for
that purpose. If you feel at all inclined to encourage me in the mea-
sure I have proposed I shall be grateful to get a line from you ; Care
of Massasoit House, Springfield, Mass; & will call when I come
again to Boston. I do not feel disposed to weary you with my oft
repeated visitations, I believe I am indebted to you as the unknown
giver of One Share of Emigrant aid stock ; as I can think of no other
so likely to have done it. Is my appeal right ?
Very Respectfully Your Friend
JOHN BROWN.35
Mr. Lawrence at once replied that he had just sent four-
teen thousand dollars to Kansas to found the best possible
school system, and therefore was short of cash.
"But," he added, "in case anything should occur while you are
in a great and good cause to shorten your life, you may be assured
that your wife and children shall be cared for more liberally than
you now propose. The family of Captain Brown of Osawatomie
will not be turned out to starve in this country, untill Liberty her-
self is driven out."38
Later, Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Stearns both agreed to this
proposal, but this thousand dollars was as slow to appear as
that promised at New Haven. It was, however, finally raised
(unlike the New Haven sum) and applied to the purchase of
the land. The list of contributors to this fund and their gifts
runs as follows:
Wm. R. Lawrence, Boston $50
Amos A. Lawrence, 310
Geo. L. Stearns, 260
John E. Lodge, 25
J. Carter Brown, Providence, R. 1 100
J. M. S. Williams, Boston ........ 50
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 281
W. D. Pickman, Salem 50
R. P. Waters, 10
S. E. Peabody, 10
John H. Silsbee, " ........ 10
B. H. Silsbee, 5
Cash, IO
Wendell Phillips, Boston 25
W. I. Rotch, New Bedford 10
John Bertram, Salem 75
$iooo37
This was not brought together until Brown had found it
necessary to write, on May 13, the day he left for the West:
"I must ask to have the $1000 made up at once; & forwarded
to Gerrit Smith. / did not start the measure of getting up
any subscription for me; (although I was sufficiently needy
as God knows) ; nor had I thought of further burdening either
of my dear friends Stearns, or Lawrence. . . ." 38 The reason
for this urgency was that he had committed himself for the
purchase of the land to the brothers Thompson. Even then
the transaction dragged on until late in August, when Mr.
Sanborn visited North Elba and put it through.39
From the 2ist to the 26th of March, except for a hasty trip
to Springfield, Brown was in Worcester, part of the time as
a guest of Eli Thayer. On the 23d he spoke at an anti-slavery
meeting, and on the 25th he lectured in the City Hall, on
Kansas. On these and other occasions he relied largely upon
the address he had given before the Committee of the Massa-
chusetts Legislature, to which he had appended the following
statement of his own plans when in Connecticut:40 «...
"I am trying to raise from $20, to 25,000 Dollars in the Free
States to enable me to continue my efforts in the cause of Freedom.
Will the people of Connecticut my native State afford me some aid
in this undertaking? ... I was told that the newspapers in a cer-
tain City were dressed in mourning on hearing that I was killed &
scalped in Kansas. . . . Much good it did me. In the same place
I met a more cool reception than in any other place where I have
stoped. If my friends will hold up my hands while I live: I will
freely absolve them from any expence over me when I am dead. ..."
Dr. Francis Wayland, who heard him at Worcester, was
not inspired by his oratorical powers. "It is one of the cu-
282 JOHN BROWN
rious facts," he wrote, " that many men who do it are utterly
unable to tell about it. John Brown, a flame of fire inaction,
was dull in speech." 4I Emerson, on the other hand, in re-
cording in his diary Brown's speech at Concord, said he gave,
"a good account of himself in the Town Hall last night to a meet-
ing of citizens. One of his good points was the folly of the peace
party in Kansas, who believed that their strength lay in the great-
ness of their wrongs, and so discountenanced resistance. He wished
to know if their wrong was greater than the negro's, and what
kind of strength that gave to the negro."*2
Later, Emerson wrote this tribute to Brown's powers as a
speaker:
"For himself, he is so transparent that all men see him through.
He is a man to make friends wherever on earth courage and integ-
rity are esteemed, the rarest of heroes, a pure idealist, with no by-
ends of his own. Many of you have seen him, and everyone who has
heard him speak has been impressed alike by his simple, artless
goodness joined with his sublime courage." 43
The financial results of the Worcester meetings were slim.
But Eli Thayer gave him five hundred dollars' worth of
weapons — a cannon and a rifle — while Ethan Allen and
Company also contributed a rifle.44 March ended for Brown
with a flying trip to Easton, Pennsylvania, in company with
Frank Sanborn and Martin Conway, as representatives of
the Massachusetts Kansas Committee, in a fruitless effort to
induce ex-Governor Reeder to return to Kansas and assume
the leadership of the Free State party.45 But Mr. Reeder
was too happily situated at Easton ; he was, however, so heart-
ily in sympathy with Brown's plan that the latter wrote
to him for aid on his return to Springfield, explaining that
the only difference between them was as to the number of
men needed, and hoping that Mr. Reeder would soon dis-
cern the necessity of "going out to Kansas this spring." 46 It
was on this visit to the Massasoit House that Brown found
a letter from his wife telling him of his sons' decision to fight
no more. To this he replied on March 31: .
" I have only to say as regards the resolution of the boys to 'learn
and practice war no more,' that it was not at my solicitation that
they engaged in it at the first — that while I may perhaps feel no
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 283
more love of the business than they do, still I think there may
be possibly in their day that which is more to be dreaded, if such
things do not now exist.""
His financial progress to the end of March by no means
satisfied Brown. On the 3d of April he wrote thus despond-
ently to William Barnes, of Albany:
"I expect soon to return West; & to go back without securing
even an outfit. I go with a sad heart having failed to secure even
the means of equiping; to say nothing of feeding men. I had when
I returned no more that I could peril ; & could make no further sac-
rifice, except to go about in the attitude of a beggar: & that I have
done, humiliating as it is."
The winter was slipping away rapidly; spring was at hand.
He was impatient to return to Kansas, and his benefac-
tors expected him to be there in the spring in time for any
fresh aggression by the Border Ruffians. But his travelling
expenses were not light, and there were two matters that
rapidly reduced his cash resources, especially during the
month of April. On the occasion of Brown's first visit to
Collinsville, about the beginning of March, he met, among
others, Charles Blair, a blacksmith and forge-master, who
attended Brown's lecture on Kansas and heard his appeal
for funds. The next morning he saw Brown in the village
drug-store, where, to a group of interested citizens, the Cap-
tain was exhibiting some weapons which were part of the
property taken from Pate and not returned to him. Mr.
Blair testified in 1859: 48
"Among them was a two-edged dirk, with a blade about eight
inches long, and he [Brown] remarked that if he had a lot of those
things to attach to poles about six feet long, they would be a cap-
ital weapon of defense for the settlers of Kansas to keep in their log
cabins to defend themselves against any sudden attack that might
be made on them. He turned to me, knowing, I suppose, that I was
engaged in edge-tool making, and asked me what I would make
them for; what it would cost to make five hundred or one thousand
of those things, as he described them. I replied, without much con-
sideration, that I would make him five hundred of them for a dollar
and a quarter apiece; or if he wanted a thousand of them, I thought
they might be made for a dollar apiece. I did not wish to commit
myself then and there without further investigation. . . . He sim-
284 JOHN BROWN
ply remarked that he would want them made. I thought no more
about it until a few days afterwards. . . . The result was that I
made a contract with him."
This document was not signed until March 30, ten days
after Blair had shipped one dozen spears as samples to the
Massasoit House. This was the genesis of the Harper's Ferry
pikes, for the weapons Brown contracted for were never
delivered until 1859, — long after any Kansas need for them
had disappeared.
The reason for this delay is not to be explained, as some
have thought, by the theory that Brown from the first in-
tended to use the spears elsewhere than in Kansas. There
is evidence, besides his statements and letters to Blair, that
he really thought these weapons would be of value even to
the Free State women of the embattled Territory. Un-
doubtedly, Brown looked forward to a further attack upon
slavery after the Kansas battle was won. The fate of Kansas
appealed to him only in so far as it involved an aggressive
attack upon slavery. He did not, so Mr. Sanborn testifies,
reveal his Virginia plans, which were always in the back of
his head, to any of his new Massachusetts friends until 1858.
But in view of his long-cherished scheme for a direct assault
upon slavery, and his confidences at this time to Hugh Forbes,
there can be no question that, in asking for far more arms
than could be used by a hundred or even two hundred men,
his mind was fixed upon further use for them after the Bor-
der Ruffians had ceased from troubling. Kansas was to be
a prologue to the real drama; the properties of the one were
to serve in the other. Had Brown obtained the money he
needed to pay for the pikes, he would surely have received
them in July, 1857, on the 1st of which the delivery was to
be made. But Brown was not able to make the first payment
of five hundred dollars within ten days, as required by the
contract. Instead, he sent only three hundred and fifty dol-
lars, and did not make his next payment of two hundred
dollars until April 25.
Blair was a canny Yankee. While he bought all the mate-
rial needed — the handles were of ash and the spearheads
strong malleable iron, two inches wide and about eight inches
long, with a screw and ferrules to connect the blade to the
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 285
handle or shank — and did some work on the contract, he
stopped when he had done enough work to have earned the
five hundred and fifty dollars. The handles were laid aside
in bundles to season, and the iron work carefully preserved
until such time as Brown should give further orders and sup-
ply additional funds. It was not until he received a letter
dated February 10, 1858, that Blair again heard from his
Kansas friend, and, with the exception of another letter,
written on March II, 1858, nothing further happened until
Brown unexpectedly appeared at Blair's door on June 3,
1859, and took the necessary steps to have the pikes com-
pleted without loss of time. Then, certainly, it was Brown's
idea to place these weapons in the hands of slaves, in order
that, unaccustomed as they were to firearms, they might
with them fight their way to liberty.
Brown's second investment at this period cost him still
more money than the pikes, and resulted in little or no benefit
and some very considerable injury to his long-cherished plan
of carrying the "war into Africa," of making the institu-
tion of slavery insecure by a direct attack upon it. On one
of his trips to New York he met, late in March, through
the Rev. Joshua Leavitt, of the New York Independent, one
Hugh Forbes, a suave adventurer of considerable ability, who
habitually called himself colonel, because of military service
in Italy under Garibaldi, in the unsuccessful revolution of
1 848-49. 49 Forbes was typical of the human flotsam and
jetsam washed up by every revolutionary movement. A
silk merchant for a time in Sienna, he was perpetually needy
after his arrival in New York, about 1855, living by his tal-
ents as a teacher of fencing, and by doing odd jobs on the
Tribune as translator or reporter. About forty-five years
of age, he was a good linguist and had acquired in Italy
some knowledge of military campaigning, — quite enough to
impress John Brown, who believed he had found in Forbes
precisely the expert lieutenant he needed, not only for the
coming Kansas undertaking, but for the more distant raid
upon Virginia. Vain, obstinate, unstable and greatly lacking
funds, as Forbes was, Brown's projects appealed mightily
to him; he speedily saw himself in fancy the Garibaldi of
a revolution against slavery. John Brown, the reticent and
286 JOHN BROWN
self-contained, unbosomed himself to this man as he had
not to the Massachusetts friends who were advancing the
money upon which he lived and plotted. The result was
Forbes's engagement as instructor, at one hundred dollars
a month, of the proposed "volunteer-regular" company, to
operate first in Kansas and later in Virginia, into which
undertaking Forbes entered the more willingly as he learned
of the wealthy New England men who were backing Brown.
For Brown this was an unhappy alliance; dissimilar in
character, training and antecedents, and alike only in their
insistence on leadership, mutual disappointment and dissat-
isfaction were the only possible outcome of the association
of the two men. Forbes, as will be seen later, became the
evil genius of the Brown enterprise. First of all, he absorbed
money, when Brown had none too much for his own imme-
diate needs and the first payments to Blair for the pikes.
Forbes was authorized by Brown, early in April, to draw
upon Mr. Callender, of Hartford, for six hundred dollars,
and he did so within the month. But he showed so little
inclination to follow Brown westward that the latter soon
became suspicious.
Forbes had several excuses for delaying. It had been
agreed that he should translate and condense a foreign man-
ual of guerrilla warfare ; this he did under the title of ' Man-
ual of the Patriotic Volunteer.' This work dragged inter-
minably; on June I, Joseph Bryant, a New York friend of
Brown's, who acted for him, reported, after a call on Forbes,
that the latter was content with his progress and certain that
he was losing no time. On June 16, Forbes assured Bryant
that the book would be ready in ten days; that he was not
ready to join Brown; indeed, he now had doubts whether
any help would be needed in Kansas until winter. This
report so alarmed Brown that on June 22 he sent to Forbes,
through Bryant, a demand for the immediate repayment of
the six hundred dollars, or as much of it as he might have
drawn through Callender. Bryant at once took the order
to Forbes, but becoming convinced that "the colonel" was
acting in good faith, and that much of the money had al-
ready been spent, did not show it to the budding author,
who was now certain of finishing his book "in about a week."
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 287
To that volume, however, Forbes had not devoted all his
energies, for he had spent considerable time in endeavoring
to raise more money with which to bring his family over
from Paris, where they were eking out a precarious exist-
ence. Of Brown's six hundred dollars the family had received
one hundred and twenty dollars; sums amounting to seven
hundred dollars Forbes obtained from Horace Greeley and
other friends of Free Kansas, according to a statement of
Mr. Greeley in the Tribune for October 24, 1859. What
became of these funds is not known, but by June 25 Forbes
had given up his idea of bringing his family over, and had
decided to send to Paris the daughter who was in New York,
that she might be with her mother. Finally, Forbes drifted
westward, arriving at Tabor on August 9, two days after
Brown's appearance at the same place. He had stopped at
Gerrit Smith's at Peterboro on his way out, and success-
fully appealed to the purse of that ever generous man, who
had "helped" John Brown to a "considerable sum" ($350)
when they parted in Chicago on June 22. Nevertheless,
Forbes obtained one hundred and fifty dollars, of which he
sent all but twenty dollars back to New York toward the
cost of printing his book. Gerrit Smith "trusted," so he
wrote to Thaddeus Hyatt, that Forbes would "prove very
useful to our sacred work in Kansas." "We must," he added,
"not shrink from fighting for Liberty — & if Federal troops
fight against her, we must fight against them." 50
Aside from his negotiations with Forbes, and with Mr.
Blair for the pikes, April was for Brown another month of
active solicitation of funds, but with even more disappoint-
ing results, complicated by the news, received from his son
Jason, that a deputy United States marshal had passed
through Cleveland, bound East to arrest him for some of his
Kansas transactions.51 He wrote on the i6th, from Spring-
field, to Eli Thayer that:
"One of U S Hounds is on my track ; & I have kept myself hid
for a few days to let my track get cold. I have no idea of being
taken ; & intend (if ' God will ';) to go back with Irons in rather than
uppon my hands. ... I got a fine lift in Boston the other day;
& hope Worcester will not be entirely behind. I do not mean you;
or Mr. Allen, & Co." 52
288 JOHN BROWN
This keeping himself hid had reference to his stay with
Judge and Mrs. Russell in Boston for a week, during which
time Mrs. Russell allowed no one but herself to open the
front door, lest the "US Hounds " appear. The Russell house
was chosen because it was in a retired street, and Judge
Russell himself was never conspicuous in the Abolitionist
ranks, in order that he might be the more serviceable to
the cause in quiet ways. Mrs. Russell remembers to this
day Brown's sense of humor and his keen appreciation of
the negro use of long words and their grandiloquence. She
recalls, too, that he frequently barricaded his bedroom, told
her of his determination not to be taken alive, and added,
"I should hate to spoil your carpet."63
It was while staying with the Russells that he came down-
stairs one day with a written document which voiced his
bitter disappointment at his non-success in obtaining the
funds he needed. He read it aloud, as follows:
"Old Browns Farewell: to the Plymouth Rocks; Bunker Hill,
Monuments; Charter Oaks; and Uncle Toms, Cabbins.
"Has left for Kansas. Was trying since he came out of the ter-
ritory to secure an outfit; or in other words the means o/ arming and
equiping thoroughly; his regular minuet men: who are mixed up with
the people of Kansas: and he leaves the States; with a DEEP FEELING
OF SADNESS: that after having exhausted his own small means: and
with his family and his BRAVE MEN : suffered hunger, nakedness, cold,
sickness, (and some [of] them) imprisonment, with most barbarous,
and cruel treatment: wounds, and death: that after lying on the
ground for Months; in the most unwholesome and sickly; as well
as uncomfortable places: with sick and wounded destitute of any
shelter a part of the time; dependent (in part) on the care, and
hospitality of the Indians: and hunted like Wolves : that after all
this; in order to sustain a cause, which every Citizen of this ' Glorious
Republic,' is under equal Moral obligation to do: (and for the neglect
of which HE WILL be held accountable TO GOD :) in which every Man,
Woman, and Child of the entire human family ; has a deep and awful
interest : that when no wages are asked, or expected : he canot secure
(amidst all the wealth, luxury, and extravagance of this 'Heaven
exalted' people;) even the necessary supplies, for a common soldier.
' HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN ? '
JOHN BROWN."
. " BOSTON, April, 1857."
For one encouraging happening about this time, John
Brown was again indebted to the generosity of Mr. Stearns.
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 289
He had set his heart on receiving two hundred revolvers, in
addition to the twenty-five donated by the National Kansas
Committee, and through Mr. Thayer he had made inquiry
as to the prices of several manufacturers. Finally, he received
a low bid of thirteen hundred dollars for two hundred re-
volvers from the Massachusetts Arms Company, through its
agent, T. W. Carter, at Chicopee Falls, who stated that the
low price — fifty per cent of the usual charge — was due
solely to the company's generous purpose "of aiding in your
project of protecting the free state settlers of Kansas and
securing their rights to the institutions of free America.'" 56
John Brown at once reported this offer to Mr. Stearns, saying:
"Now if Rev T Parker, & other good people of Boston, would
make up that amount; I might at least be well armed" 56 Mr.
Stearns immediately notified Mr. Carter that he would pur-
chase the revolvers and pay for them by his note at four
months from date of delivery, as this would give him time to
raise the money by subscription if he desired to. The company
accepted the proposition, and shipped the revolvers on May 25
to "J. B. care Dr. Jesse Bowen, Iowa City, Iowa," with the
company's hope "that there may be no occasion for their ser-
vice in securing rights which ought to be guaranteed by the
principles of justice and equity." As if he had a little doubt
about their ultimate use, Mr. Carter added: "We have no fear
that they will be put to service in your hands for other pur-
poses." In notifying Brown that his offer had been accepted,
Mr. Stearns significantly remarked, "I think you ought to go
to Kansas as soon as possible and give Robinson and the rest
some Backbone." For himself, Mr. Stearns asked only that,
if he paid for these revolvers, all the arms, ammunition, rifles,
as well as the revolvers not used for the defence of Kansas,
be held as pledged to him for the payment of the thirteen hun-
dred dollars. The Massachusetts Kansas Committee by formal
vote assented to this suggestion.
By April 23, Brown's hopes of further aid had vanished.
On that day he wrote to his family from New Haven, asking
that they have "some of the friends" drive at once to West-
port and Elizabeth town to meet him.57 But he was in Spring-
field on the 25th, and on the 28th, owing to an attack of fever
and ague, he had only just reached Albany on his way to North
290 JOHN BROWN
Elba, where he remained about two weeks with his family,
before leaving for Iowa by way of Vergennes, Vermont. From
this place he wrote on May 13 to George L. Stearns, "I leave
here for the West today," 68 without the slightest idea that it
would take him three months to reach the rendezvous in
Tabor. He had not, however, during the months before his
departure, lost his interest in Kansas or failed to keep in direct
touch with the situation there. Augustus Wattles and James
H. Holmes had corresponded with him, and to the former
Brown had written, on April 8, the following letter, which not
only records clearly the spirit in which he again set his face
toward Kansas, but is of special interest because it appears
to be the first one to which he signed the nom-de-plume
"Nelson Hawkins," that later appears so frequently in his
correspondence :
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS April 8, 1857.
MY DEAR SIR: Your favor of the I5th March, and that of friend
H. of the 1 6th, I have just received. I cannot express my gratitude
for them both. They give me just the kind of news I was most of all
things anxious to hear. / bless God that he has not left the free-State
men of Kansas to pollute themselves by the foul and loathesome em-
brace of the old rotten whore. I have been trembling all along lest
they might back down from the high and holy ground they had taken.
I say, in view of the wisdom, firmness, and patience of my friends
and fellow-sufferers, (in the cause of humanity,) let God's name be
eternally praised 1 I would most gladly give my hand to all whose
" garments are not defiled ;" and I humbly trust that I shall soon
again have opportunity to rejoice (or suffer further if need be) with
you, in the strife between Heaven and Hell. I wish to send my most
cordial and earnest salutation to every one of the chosen. My efforts
this way have not been altogether fruitless. I wish you and friend
H. both to accept this for the moment; may write soon again, and
hope to hear from you both at Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa —
Care of Jonas Jones, Esq.
Your sincere friend,
NELSON HAWKINS."
AUGUSTUS WATTLES, ESQ.
LAWRENCE, KANSAS TERRITORY.
At least one member of Brown's family was disturbed at
the father's return to Kansas. John Brown, Jr., wrote to him
thus: "It seems as though if you return to Kansas this Spring
I should never see you again. But I will not look on the dark
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 291
side. You have gone safely through a thousand perils and
hairbreadth escapes." 60 It was more than a mere undefined
dread that worried the son. His views as to the political situa-
tion in Kansas are set forth in this letter with noteworthy
ability. The just announced return of James H. Lane to the
Territory would give an opportunity to see if the United
States authorities there were still bent on arresting the Free
Soil leaders, and whether the Free Soilers would unresistingly
submit to such a happening. He also felt that, in view of the
renewed hostilities which he believed were at hand, it would
be well for his father to delay his entrance into Kansas, and
thus,
"place it out of the power of Croakers to say that the 'peace' had
been broken only in consequence of the advent there of such dis-
turbers as 'Jim Lane' and 'Old Brown.' And further, when war
begins, if the people there take the right ground, you could raise and
take in with you a force which might in truth become a ' liberating
army,' when they most stood in need of help."
John Brown, Jr., then admitted that he feared that the
Kansans, for whom his father was ready to peril his life, would,
out of their slavish regard for Federal authority, be ready to
"hand you over to the tormentor." The extent to which he
was in his father's confidence, and the way in which both their
minds were working upon the great post-Kansas project,
appears clearly from a question in this same letter: "Do you
not intend to visit Canada before long? That school can be
established there, if not elsewhere."
However much he may have taken his son's warnings to
heart, John Brown left for Kansas master of considerable sup-
plies. On May 18, Mr. Stearns estimated that the contri-
butions of arms, clothing, etc., of which Brown had entire
control, were worth $i3,ooo.61 A careful count of the sums he
is known to have received after January I shows that they
aggregated $2363, exclusive of the $1000 raised by Lawrence
and Stearns for the purchase of the North Elba land. Out of
this sum had come travelling expenses, some provision for his
family, the $550 paid for the pikes, and the $600 absorbed
by Forbes. To it must be added the $350 given to him in
Chicago on June 22 by Gerrit Smith. The total sum he raised
292 JOHN BROWN
was, of course, larger than this; he obtained, for instance,
some small gifts in Chicago. One large credit he did not use.
In his enthusiasm for the cause, his admiration of the man
and his complete confidence in Brown's "courage, prudence
and good judgment," Stearns gave his Kansas friend authority
to draw upon him for $7000, as it was needed, to subsist the
one hundred "volunteer-regulars," provided that it became
necessary to call that number into active service in Kansas in
i857.62 This emergency not occurring, Brown returned the
credit untouched. Mr. Stearns, be it noted, testified in 1859
that, in addition to everything else, he had from time to time
given Brown money of which he never kept any record.
Counting the credit of $7000, the supplies worth $13,000, and
estimating the other cash contributions at only $3000, it ap-
pears that Brown was successful in raising $23,000 toward his
project of putting a company into the field. But his inability
to use the $7000 en route, and his long delay in reaching Tabor,
together with necessary expenditures for horses and wagons
and wages, reduced him soon to distress. When he arrived at
his base of action, Tabor, he had only twenty-five dollars left.63
Various causes contributed to Brown's delay. He was at
Canastota on May 14, at Peterboro on May 18, reached
Cleveland on May 22, and Akron the next day. On May 27
he wrote from Hudson that he was "still troubled with the
ague" and was "much confused in mind." If he should never
return, he wished that "no other monument be used to keep
me in remembrance than the same plain old one that records
the death of my Grandfather & Son & that a short story like
those already on it be told of John Brown the 5th under that
of Grandfather." 64 He added that he was already very short
of expense money, and that he did not expect to leave for four
or five days. On June 3, while still at Hudson, he wrote thus
to Augustus Wattles, over the name of "James Smith:"
MY DEAR SIR: I write to say that I started for Kansas some three
weeks or more since, but have been obliged to stop for the fever
and ague. I am now righting up, and expect to be on my way again
soon. Free-State men need have no fear of my desertion. There
are some half dozen men I want a visit from at Tabor, Iowa, to
come off in the most QUIET WAY, viz: Daniel Foster, late of Bos-
ton Massachusetts; Holmes, Frazee, a Mr. Hill and William David,
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 293
on Little Ottawa creek; a Mr. Cochran, on Pottawatomie creek;
or I would like equally well to see Dr. Updegraff and 5. H. Wright,
of Ossawatomie ; or William Phillips, or CON WAY, or your honor.
I have some very important matters to confer with some of you
about. Let there be no words about it. Should any of you come out to
see me wait at Tabor if you get there first. Mr. Adair, at Ossawato-
mie, may supply ($50,) fifty dollars, (if need be), for expenses on
my account on presentation of this. Write me at Tabor, Iowa, Fre-
mont County.65
On the Qth of June, Brown wrote to William A. Phillips in a
similar strain, to which Phillips replied from Lawrence on June
24, 66 saying that neither he nor Holmes nor others whom he
had seen could go to Tabor, that there was then no necessity
for military measures, and that the arms were safer with Brown
than with any one else. If he came into Kansas, he would be
protected. Wattles's reply was similarly discouraging, bring-
ing the oracular advice: "Come as quickly as possible, or
not come at present, as you choose."67 Frazee (the teamster
who had taken Brown out of Kansas in the previous fall) had
not returned; Foster, Mr. Wattles did not know; Holmes was
ploughing at Emporia, and Conway and Phillips were talking
politics. Meanwhile, Brown had visited Milwaukee on June
1 6, for what specific purpose is not known; he had tried to
induce Forbes to meet him in Cleveland on June I7,68 and
then went to Chicago to meet Gerrit Smith. On June 24 he
attended at Tallmadge, Ohio, the semi-centennial of the
founding of that town. The address was delivered by the Rev.
Leonard Bacon. At its close, a message came to the speaker
that John Brown was present and would like to speak about
Kansas. Mr. Bacon sent back word to Brown that any such
address would be "entirely inconsistent with the character of
the occasion," — a happening which inspired Mr. Bacon to
write to Governor Wise, after Brown's capture, that it was to
many at Tallmadge proof of Brown's evident derangement on
the slavery question.69 Brown's pocket memorandum-book, a
rough diary from January 12, 1857, on, contains this entry
on June 29, also showing that he had returned to Ohio from
Chicago: "June 29th Wrote Joseph Bryant Col Forbes, and D
Lee Child ; all that I leave here Cleveland this day for Tabor,
Iowa; & advise Forbes, & Child, to call on Jonas Jones."
. By July 6 the memorandum-book records Brown's pre-
294 JOHN BROWN
sence in Iowa City. Here he received word from Richard
Realf, for some time to come one of his followers, and after-
wards well known as a poet of no mean ability, that he was
awaiting him at Tabor with one hundred and ten dollars
- the hundred and fifty of National Kansas Committee
money, minus Realf's expenses. This money had been sent
to Brown on June 30 by Edmund B. Whitman, the Commit-
tee's agent in Lawrence, in response to an urgent appeal from
Brown, to whom Realf wrote also the good news that, as the
government had entered a nolle prosequi in the case of the
Free State prisoners, Brown need be under "no apprehension
of insecurity to yourself or the munitions you may bring with
you." 70 By July 17, Brown had only reached Wassonville,
Iowa. He had had to obtain two teams and two wagons at
a cost of seven hundred and eighty-six dollars, and to hire a
teamster (his third son, Owen, who had been at Tabor for a
time). He had had to "rig up and load" the teams, and in
consequence of an injury to a horse, he had lost ten days on
the road. In order to make their scant funds hold out, "and to
avoid notice," he and his son "lived exclusively on herring,
soda crackers, and sweetened water for more than three weeks
(sleeping every night in our wagons), except that twice we got
a little milk and a few times some boiled eggs." 71 At last, on
August 7, he and his son reached their old quarters in Tabor,
the home of Jonas Jones.
By this time it was perfectly apparent that there was to be
no bloodshed in Kansas that summer. There was another new
Governor in the Territory, Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi,
who had succeeded Governor Geary after that official's resig-
nation in March, because of the failure of the pro-slavery
Pierce administration to give him proper support. So fair an
historian as Mr. Rhodes has declared that Geary was an ideal
Governor,72 and a study of his brief administration of Kansas
inevitably leads to the conclusion that, whatever his faults,
he strove earnestly to be judicial and honorable, and to bring
peace and justice to Kansas. Like Reeder, Geary was a firm
Democrat, and like him he left Kansas convinced of the right-
eousness of the Free State cause. Walker, his successor, had
been Senator from Mississippi, Secretary of the Treasury, had
practically framed the tariff act of 1846, and was, therefore,
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 295
well known to the country as a politician of more than usual
ability and standing. He was reluctant to go to Kansas, where
he arrived on May 26, having obtained before his depar-
ture the consent of the new President, Buchanan, that any Con-
stitution for the State of Kansas which might be framed
should be submitted to the people. His appointment in itself
helped to avert any outbreaks, since the Southerners felt sure
— too sure — that he was one of their own. As soon as it
was* apparent that he and his able secretary of state, Fred-
erick P. Stanton, were bent on seeing justice done, the pro-
slavery forces, and President Buchanan as well, turned against
them, with the result that Secretary Stanton was removed
from office, and Governor Walker resigned, in the following
December. Walker, the fourth governor since October 6,
1854, exceeded by only thirty days Governor Geary's brief stay
of six months.73
As a whole, however, the outlook for freedom in Kansas
was comparatively favorable when John Brown reached
Tabor. The Lecompton conspiracy, by which a pro-slavery
Constitution was to be forced on Kansas by a trick, had not
yet developed ; and while there had been sporadic cases of law-
lessness in certain counties, and James T. Lyle, a pro-slavery
city recorder of Leavenworth, had been killed by William
Haller, a Free State man, in an affray at the polls, the year
1857 was, on the whole, one of quiet and progress for the bona
fide settlers of Kansas. Free Soilers were pouring into the
State in large force, and the number of slaves remained so small
that both sides realized the growing ascendency of the Free
Soil cause. The Topeka, or Free State, Legislature had met on
January 6, 7 and 8, when a dozen of its members had been
arrested and taken to Tecumseh ; it met again in Topeka on
June 13, without interference from Governor Walker, and ad-
journed four days later after passing some excellent measures.
About this time, there was a Free State convention in Topeka,
presided over by General Lane, which endorsed the Topeka
movement, urged Free State men not to participate in the
1 5th of June election of delegates to the Lecompton Con-
stitutional convention, and declared the Territorial laws to
be without force. A similar Free State convention met in
Topeka on July 15 and 16, with James H. Lane again presid- ,
296 JOHN BROWN
ing and Governor Robinson as one of the speakers. It called
a mass convention for August 26, at Grasshopper Falls, urged
upon the Governor the propriety of submitting the Topeka
Constitution to the people, and made nominations for the of-
fices to be filled at the coming Free State election on August
9. Meanwhile, in accordance with what afterwards seemed a
gravely mistaken decision of the Topeka convention of June
9, the Free State men had declined to participate in the elec-
tion of June 15 for delegates to the Constitutional convention.
Only twenty- two hundred pro-slavery votes were cast in all,
which showed that the Free State men could easily have out-
voted their enemies, as was clearly proved when more than
seventy- two hundred anti-slavery votes were cast at the Free
State election of August 9. It was then too late ; the Lecompton
Constitutional convention was in the hands of the pro-slavery
men, headed by the Surveyor-General, John Calhoun, a bitter
and unscrupulous slavery champion. They agreed upon a Con-
stitution which had been carefully prepared by the Southern
leaders in Washington, and lent themselves readily to the
plan to get slavery into Kansas without the consent of the
majority of its bona fide inhabitants.
The Free State election of August 9 was held two days
after Brown's arrival at Tabor. The heavy vote cast was
fresh proof of the ascendency of the party of peace among
the Free State men. The Grasshopper Falls convention
also showed, by its decision to participate in the election
of October 5 for Territorial delegate, that the drift was
toward working out a Kansas victory by resort to the time-
honored American method of correcting abuses — the bal-
lot-box. Governor Walker guaranteed a fair election, and
lived up to his promise by setting aside fraudulent returns.
Robinson and Lane favored taking part in the election, Con-
way, Phillips and Redpath, three of Brown's staunchest
friends, opposing. Altogether, Brown found that nothing had
been lost by the long delay in his arrival near the scene of
action; there was not the slightest need for his "volunteer-
regulars;" the only time Governor Walker had ordered out
the United States troops was when dissatisfied with the
holding of an independent city election at Lawrence on
July 13. This course the Governor denounced as certain
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 297
to mean treason and bring on "all the horrors of civil war,"
if persisted in. His prompt action discouraged the radicals
under Lane, who thereupon was the more ready for a dif-
ferent course. Rifles the Free State men had at this moment
no need of or desire for. As to becoming a political leader
and putting the stiffening into Robinson's backbone, for
which Mr. Stearns and others hoped, that was a line of ac-
tion not to Brown's taste, and the defeat of his friends in the
Grasshopper Falls convention must have added to his dis-
satisfaction with Kansas conditions. It is not, therefore, sur-
prising if his mind turned more and more to the coming raid
against slavery along a more timid and more vulnerable
frontier than that of Missouri.
The day after his arrival at Tabor, John Brown wrote to
Mr. Stearns of his various disappointments, hindrances
and lack of means; these and ill-health had depressed him
greatly. Two days later he wrote again and in better spir-
its.74 He was "in immediate want of from Five Hundred to
One Thousand Dollars for secret service & no questions asked"
"Rather interesting times" were expected in Kansas, he
wrote, "but no great excitement is reported." "Our next
advices," he continued, "may entirely change the aspect of
things. / hope the friends of Freedom will respond to my
call: & 'prove me now herewith." He had "learned with
gratitude" what had been done to render his wife and chil-
dren comfortable by the purchase of the Thompson farm.
Then, as the result of Forbes's arrival, he forwarded to Mr.
Stearns "the first number of a series of Tracts lately gotten
up here," of which Forbes, and not Brown, was the author.
It is entitled 'The Duty of the Soldier,' and is headed, in
small type, "Presented with respectful and kind feelings
to the Officers and Soldiers of the United States Army in
Kansas," the object being to win them from their allegiance
to their colors and induce them to support the Free State
cause. This it does indirectly by asking whether the "sol-
diery of a Republic" should be "vile living machines and
thus sustain Wrong against Right." There are but three
printed pages of rambling and discursive discussion of the
soldiery of the ancient republics, and of the princes of an-
tiquity, and a consideration of authority, legitimate and
298 JOHN BROWN
illegitimate — as ill-fitted as possible an appeal to the regu-
lar soldier of 1857. To the copy which he sent to Augustus
Wattles, Brown appended the following in his own hand-
writing, as a "closing remark:"
It is as much the duty of the common soldier of the U S Army
according to his ability and opportunity, to be informed upon all
subjects in any way affecting the political or general welfare of his
country: & to watch with jealous vigilance, the course, & man-
agement of all public functionaries both civil and military : and to
govern his actions as a citizen Soldier accordingly: as though he were
President of the United States.
Respectfully yours, A SOLDIER."
Other copies John Brown sent to Sanborn, Theodore
Parker and Governor Chase, of Ohio,76 asking each for his
frank opinion of the tract and also for aid in raising the
five hundred to one thousand dollars he needed so sorely.
Sanborn, and probably Parker, wrote his disapproval of
Forbes's attempt to seduce the soldiery of the Union; and
only Gerrit Smith, to whom Forbes himself sent a copy with
an appeal for help for his family in Paris, seems to have been
pleased with it. He thought it "very well written," and
added, "Forbes will make himself very useful to our Kan-
sas work." For the Forbes family he subscribed twenty-five
dollars, and urged Thaddeus Hyatt to raise some money in
New York for this purpose and forward it to Sanborn "as
soon as you can." "
But Forbes's usefulness to Brown was not of long dura-
tion; by November 2 he was on his way back to the East
from Nebraska City.78 He had found no one at Tabor to
drill save his employer and one son, Owen; and no funds
save sixty dollars, which Brown gave to him (doubtless out
of the National Kansas Committee's one hundred and ten)
toward his expenses.79 Rifle-shooting at a target on the out-
skirts of Tabor was their out-door drill, while in-doors they
studied Forbes's 'Manual of the Patriotic Volunteer,' and
discussed military tactics and their respective plans in re-
gard to the raid into Virginia.80
One of those who met John Brown at this time, the Rev.
H. D. King, now of Kinsman, Ohio, records thus his recol-
lections of some of their table talk:81
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 299
"I tried to get at his theology. It was a subject naturally sug-
gested by my daily work. But I never could force him down to dry
sober talk on what he thought of the moral features of things in
general. He would not express himself on little diversions from the
common right for the accomplishment of a greater good. For him
there was only one wrong, and that was slavery. He was rather
skeptical, I think. Not an infidel, but not bound by creeds. He was
somewhat cranky on the subject of the Bible, as he was on that of
killing people. He believed in God and Humanity, but his attitude
seemed to be: 'We don't know anything about some things. We do
not know about the humanity matter. If any great obstacle stand in
the way, you may properly break all the Decalogue to get rid of it.' "
"We are beginning to take lessons & have (we think) a very
capable Teacher. Should no disturbance occour: we may pos-
sibly think best to work back eastward. Cannot determine yet"
wrote Brown to his wife and children on August ly.82 But
this life at Tabor soon palled on Forbes, particularly as there
was a sharp disagreement between Brown and himself as to
the future campaign, and increasing evidence that there was
to be no active service in Kansas that year. The needs of
his family weighed heavily upon him, and a growing sense
of wrong done him by the Massachusetts friends of Brown,
whom Forbes dubbed "The Humanitarians," in not supply-
ing the salary Brown had promised, led to bitter denunciations
of them soon after Forbes arrived in the East.
Jonas Jones and the Rev. John Todd having promptly
turned over to Brown the arms stored in the clergyman's
cellar, he was able to write on August 13 to Sanborn that he
had overhauled and cleaned up those that were most rusted.
All were in "middling good order."83 The question then was
how to get them to Kansas, and this involved also a deci-
sion as to Brown's own policy. Although apparently anxious
to return to Kansas at once, he did not leave Tabor for the
Territory until the day he saw Forbes off for the East at
Nebraska City, November 2. Various reasons are apparently
responsible for the delay: the failure of Kansas friends to come
to him; the desire to await the outcome of the fall elections;
an injury to his back, and a recurrence of his fever and ague.
The arms were finally left behind; when Brown started for
Lawrence, he went in a wagon drawn by two horses and driven
by his son Owen.
300 JOHN BROWN
As to Brown's return to Kansas, James H. Holmes wrote,
on August i6,84 that there might be a very good opening for
the "business," for which Brown had bought his "stock of
materials, . . . about the first Monday in October next. . . .
I am sorry," he continued,
"that you have not been here, in the territory, before. I think that
the sooner you come the better so that the people & the Territo-
rial authorities may become familiarized with your presence. This
is also the opinion of all other friends with whom I have conversed
on this subject. You could thus exert more influence. Several times
we have needed you very much."
But Augustus Wattles, a wise counsellor, wrote on August
21 without enthusiasm as to Brown's final arrival, that
"those who had entertained the idea of resistance [to outside
authority] have entirely abandoned the idea."85 Only the
erratic Lane, who was then the sole person trying to stir up
strife in Kansas, and is accused by reputable witnesses of
planning schemes of wholesale massacre of pro-slavery men
through a secret order, was on fire for Brown's presence
in the Territory, but it was the Tabor arms rather than
their owner he really desired. His first letter to Brown ran
thus:
(Private)
LAWRENCE Sept. 7, 57.
SIR
We are earnestly engaged in perfecting an organization for the
protection of the ballot box at the October election (first Monday.)
Whitman & Abbott have been east after money & arms for a month
past, they write encouragingly, & will be back in a few days. We
want you with all the materials you have. I see no objection to your
coming into Kansas publicly. I can furnish you just such a force
as you may deem necessary for your protection here & after you
arrive. I went up to see you but failed.
Now what is wanted is this — write me concisely what trans-
portation you require, how much money & the number of men
to escort you into the Territory safely & if you desire it I will
come up with them.
Yours respectfully
J. H. LANE.88
To this Brown replied, on the i6th of September,87 that
he had previously written to Lane of his "strong desire" to
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 301
see him; "as to the job of work you enquire about I suppose
that three good teams with well covered waggons, & ten really
ingenious, industrious men (not gassy) with about $150. in
cash, could bring it about in the course of eight or ten days."
Before an answer to this could arrive, Brown learned from
Redpath, who also hoped to see him in the Territory soon,
that Lane had appointed him "Brigadier-General 2nd Bri-
gade 1st Division," 88 rather an empty honor, for Lane was as
generous with brigadier-generalcies as a profligate European
potentate with decorations for his creditors, even casual vis-
itors to the Territory receiving these commissions.89 Certain
it is that this distinction did not cause Brown to exert himself
additionally to enter Kansas, not even when there appeared
a Mr. Jamison, who bore the high-sounding title of "Quarter-
master-General of the Second Division." "General" Jamison
brought a letter from Lane, dated Falls City, September 29, 90
declaring that "it is all important to Kansas that your things
should be in at the earliest possible moment & that you should be
much nearer at hand than you are." He enclosed fifty dollars,
added that "Gen'l" Jamison had more, and insisted that
"every gun and all the ammunition" be sent in. "I do not
know that we will have to use them, but I do know we should
be prepared." All of this made not the slightest impression
on Brown, as Jamison came alone, having left the ten staunch
men Brown had asked for "about thirty miles back." The
names of these men were all unknown to him, and on inquir-
ing about Jamison, Brown found that "Tabor folks (some of
them) speak slightingly of him, notwithstanding that he too
is a general."91 Moreover, Jamison brought no teams with
him. Brown thereupon returned the fifty dollars to Lane with
the following letter : 92
TABOR IOWA 30 Sept. 57.
MY DEAR SIR
Your favor from Falls City by Mr. Jamison is just received also
$50. (fifty dollars) sent by him, which I also return by same hand as
I find it will be next to impossible in my poor state of health to go
through in such very short notice, four days only remaining to get
ready load up & go through. I think, considering all the uncertain-
ties of the case want of teams &c, that I should do wrong to set out.
I am disappointed in the extreme.
Very respectfully your friend
JOHN BROWN.
302 JOHN BROWN
The next day, Brown wrote at length to Mr. Sanborn, en-
closing copies of his correspondence with Lane.93 He outlined
his immediate future as follows: "I intend at once to put the
supplies I have in a secure place, and then to put myself and
such as may go with me where we may get more speedy com-
munications, and can wait until we know better how to act
than we do now." He also wrote: " I am now so far recovered
from my hurt as to be able to do a little ; and foggy as it is,
'we do not give up the ship.' I will not say that Kansas, wa-
tered by the tears and blood of my children, shall yet be free
or I fall." Brave as this sentiment is, it only increases the
mystery of Brown's delaying at Tabor. In this same letter
to Sanborn, he wrote in high praise of Lane's speech at the
Grasshopper Falls convention, and throughout, Lane had been
more sympathetic to Brown than any of the other Kansas
leaders. There is nothing to show that the injury of which
he wrote twice to Lane was a serious one. Brown did not re-
port it to Mr. Sanborn in his long letter of August 13, after
his arrival in Tabor, nor is there any mention of it in his
family letters of this period, so far as they have been preserved.
True, his financial conditions had not improved, because he
had apparently received from the East only $72.68, which
came from James Hunnewell, Treasurer of the Middlesex
County Massachusetts Kansas Aid Committee.94 Besides
having Owen Brown and Hugh Forbes to aid him, he was
in a community not only intensely Abolition, but at this
time extremely loyal to him personally, and ready to help.
Yet there was none of the determination to reach Kansas at
any cost, to be expected from the iron-nerved man who cap-
tured Harper's Ferry. An excuse given by Brown to Mr. San-
born was the lack of news: "I had not been able to learn by
papers or otherwise distinctly what course had been taken in
Kansas until within a few days ; and probably the less I have
to say the better." Still, he had received a number of letters
from friends in Kansas, and Tabor was always obtaining
news from there. Why did he not despatch Owen Brown or
Forbes, or go himself quietly, if he was in doubt?
Four days after writing as above to Mr. Sanborn, Brown's
state of mind appears from a letter of October 5 to the Adairs
at Osawatomie,95 in which he said:
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 303
"I have been trying all season to get to Kansas; but have failed
as yet through ill health, want of means to pay Freights, travelling
expenses &c. How to act now; I do not know. If you have not already
sent me the $95 sent for me ; to my family last season ; I would be
most glad to have it come by Mr. Charles P. Tidd ; if you can do it
without distressing yourself, or family."
In addition, he asked for all that Mr. Adair could tell him
about conditions in Kansas, and for "reliable Kansas late
papers." Obviously, Brown, grim, self-willed, resolute chief-
tain that he generally was, appears baffled here and lacking
wholly in a determination to reach the scene of action at any
cost. Whether it was because of physical disability ; or fear of
arrest and punishment for the Pottawatomie crimes ; or mere
uncertainty as to the drift of affairs in Kansas ; or whether his
mind was now so bent on Virginia that he had lost interest
in all else, and did not wish to lose his arms; or whether the
physical and financial difficulties were insurmountable, or
because of all these reasons, that he lingered so long in Tabor,
is not likely ever to become known. It will be seen that,
when he finally reached Kansas, he stayed but a few days,
was practically in hiding, and gave more time and thought
to securing recruits for Harper's Ferry than to anything
else.
At least one of the Massachusetts backers was impatient
and angry at the delay, — Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
then, as always in the Abolition days, flaming for quick and
vigorous action. To soothe his discontent, Mr. Sanborn wrote
to him thus on September n, in defence of Brown:96 ..
"... You do not understand Brown's circumstances. . . . He
is as ready for a revolution as any other man, and is now on the
borders of Kansas safe from arrest but prepared for action, but he
needs money for his present expenses, and active support. I believe
he is the best Disunion champion you can find, and with his hundred
men, when he is put where he can raise them, and drill them (for he
has an expert drill officer with him) will do more to split the Union
than a list of 50,000 names for your Convention, good as that is.
"What I am trying to hint at is that the friends of Kansas are
looking with strange apathy at a movement which has all the ele-
ments of fitness and success — a good plan, a tried leader, and a
radical purpose. If you can do anything for it now, in God's name
do it — and the ill result of the new policy in Kansas may be pre-
vented."
304 JOHN BROWN
This letter is of special value in view of subsequent efforts
to make Brown appear as one who had no sympathy with the
disunion doctrines of the radical wing of the Abolitionists.97
The fact remains that at this time Brown himself was not
willing to do and dare at any cost, and was unable to triumph
over the obstacles that confronted him at Tabor, until finan-
cial aid finally came from E. B. Whitman in Lawrence. The
latter reported to Mr. Stearns, under date of October 25, 98
that he had borrowed one hundred and fifty dollars to send
to Brown, who would be at Lawrence "a week from Tuesday
[November 3] at a very important council, Free State Cen-
tral Com., Ter. Executive Com., Vigilance Committee of 52,
Generals and Capts of the entire organization." "By great
sacrifice," wrote Lane to Brown on October 30," "we have
raised, & send by Mr. Tidd, $150. I trust the money will be
used to get the guns to Kansas, or as near as possible. . . .
One thing is certain: if they are to do her any good, it will be
in the next few days. Let nothing interfere in bringing them
on." This time Brown accepted the money, — he also received
one hundred dollars from the Adairs at this juncture, — and
entered Kansas, without, however, gratifying Lane by bring-
ing in the arms. He set out on November 2, parting from
Forbes at Nebraska City, and drove straight to the vicinity of
Lawrence, where he stopped at the home of E. B. Whitman,
arriving after the council at which Mr. Whitman had hoped
for his presence — probably on November 5.
He stayed but two days with Mr. Whitman,* obtaining
tents and bedding and some more money, five hundred dol-
lars, from that able agent of the Massachusetts Kansas Com-
mittee, who, in the following February, could not conceal his
vexation at Brown's disappearance from Kansas. After
receiving the supplies, wrote Mr. Whitman,100
"he then left, declining to tell me or anyone where he was going
or where he could be found, pledging himself, however, that if
difficulties should occur he would be on hand and pledging his life
to redeem Kansas from slavery. Since then nothing has been heard
of him and I know of no one, not even his most intimate friends,
* Among those he saw at this time was William A. Phillips, who recorded in the
Atlantic Monthly for December, 1879, the outlines of their conversation, which
he erroneously placed in February, 1857, instead of November of that year.
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 305
who know where he is. In the meantime he has been much wanted,
and very great dissatisfaction has been expressed at his course and
now I do not know as even his services would be demanded in any
emergency."
It is interesting to note in this connection that, in Novem-
ber, 1857, a Free State "Squatters' Court" was organized in
the southern Kansas counties of Linn, Anderson and Bour-
bon, for the trial of contested land claims and similar cases.
In order to inspire terror, the judge of the court was called
"Old Brown," although John Brown was distant from the
Territory. Dr. Rufus Gilpatrick was elected judge of the
court.101 If John Brown was absent, his reputation was on
hand and in service.
Within a week, Brown was in Topeka, from which place he
reported as follows to Mr. Stearns:102
TOPEKA KANSAS T. i6th Nov 1857
DEAR FRIEND
I have now been in Kansas for more than a Week: & for about
Two days with Mr. Whitman, & other friends at Lawrence. I find
matters quite unsettled; but am decidedly of the opinion that there
will be no use for the Arms or ammunition here before another
Spring. I have them all safe, & together unbroken: & mean to keep
them so: until I can see how the matter will be finally terminated.
I have many calls uppon me for their distribution; but shall do no
such thing until I am satisfyed that they are really needed. I mean
to be busily ; but very quietly engaged in perfecting my arangements
during the Winter. Whether the troubles in Kansas will continue or
not; will probably depend on the action of Congress the coming
Winter. Mr. Whitman has paid me $500 for you which will meet
present wants as I am keeping only a small family. Before get-
ting your letter saying to me not to draw on you for the $7000 (by
Mr. Whitman) I had fully determined not to do it unless driven
to the last extremity. / did not mean that the secret service money
I asked for; should come out of you; & hope it may not. Please
make this hasty line answer for friend Sanborn ; & for other friends
for this time. May God bless you all; is the earnest wish of your
greatly obliged Friend
JOHN BROWN
P S If I do not use the Arms & Ammunition in actual service;
I intend to restore them unharmed ; but you must not flatter your-
self on that score too soon.
Yours in Truth
J B
3o6 JOHN BROWN
To the Adairs he wrote on November 17 :108 "I have been
for some days in the territory but keeping very quiet, &
looking about to see how the land lies. We left Tabor at once
on the return of Mr. Tidd who brought us your letter; & $100
cash. ... I do not wish to have any noise about me at pre-
sent; as I do not mean to 'trouble Israel.' ' Kansas at that
time was quiet enough, despite Lane's feeling that the arms
might be needed. The election of October 5 for the new Ter-
ritorial Legislature and for delegate to Congress had resulted
in a great Free State victory. The Free State men elected
their delegate by 4089 votes and chose thirty-three out of
fifty-two members of the Legislature. Governor Walker set
aside the fraudulent returns from several precincts in which
there had been scandalous frauds ; but there was no allegation
of interference from outside the State. It is hard to understand
what vague fears or wild schemes led Lane to think on
October 30 that there might be some important happenings
within the next few days. Marcus J. Parrott, the Free State
delegate to Congress, had received his certificate of election,
and the utmost tranquillity reigned. The Lecompton Constitu-
tional convention did not, it is true, adjourn until Novem-
ber 3, and the product of its deliberation, or rather of the delib-
erations of the Southern leaders in Washington, was not yet
on its way to the Capitol, where the debate over it, with
Stephen A. Douglas opposed, was to absorb the nation for a
period of three months, February, March and April of 1858.
But Lane was not justified, even then, in anticipating any
fraud or outrage calling for forcible intervention; his own
opportunity, in which he was at his best, came later in No-
vember, when, by stumping the Territory, he largely induced
the acting Governor, Stanton, to call a special session of the
Legislature to order the submission of the Lecompton Con-
stitution to the people for approval.
In brief, the party of peace was in the ascendant; even in
the East there was beginning to be a realization that successes
at the polls were more effective than "Beecher's Bibles."
Thus Mr. Stearns wrote on November 14 to E. B. Whit-
man:104"! believe your true policy is, to meet the enemy at
the polls, and vote them down. You can do it and should do
it, only being prepared to defend yourselves if attacked but
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS .307
by no means to attack them." This was treachery to Brown's
blood-and-iron policy in the home of his friends. The decision
of the Free State leaders to make the best of the situation and
work under the existing Territorial government, instead of
refusing to have anything to do with it, involved, of course, a
complete change of policy. It touched no responsive chord in
Brown's breast. One of his biographers remarks that there
was no fighting for him to do in 1857 because he had done his
work so thoroughly in 1856. Nothing could be further from
the fact. The progress to freedom and prosperity of Kansas
was due to several causes, but especially to an abandonment of
the policy of carrying on an unauthorized war, and of meet-
ing assassination with assassination.
There is only one allegation that Brown came in touch with
the Free State leaders during his brief stay in Kansas in 1857.
There was then in existence a Free State secret society, called
into being by fear of the Lecompton Constitutional conven-
tion, and determined to prevent the success of the conspiracy
to force slavery upon Kansas through its acts. Mr. R. G.
Elliott, of Lawrence, states 105 that the society was pledged to
"unman' the convention soon after its adjournment, a term of
elastic definition, meaning anything from obtaining resignations
of officials by persuasion, to removing them by capital excision.
Abduction was the method indicated at that juncture. . . . John
Brown had recently come from Tabor, Iowa, and was in the neigh-
borhood in seclusion, was communicated with by William Hutch-
inson and expressed his readiness to execute the plans of the
order but with the men exclusively of his own selection. To the
fear expressed by Robinson that Brown would resort to bloodshed,
Hutchinson gave assurance that Brown pledged his faith to be
governed strictly by the expressed wishes of the order, and further-
more that he had surveyed the situation at Lecompton and that he
could seize Calhoun [the head of the Constitutional convention] and
carry him to a place within one hundred miles where he could hold
him safely for three months."
But the scheme was blocked by Calhoun's removing to St.
Joseph.
The most important result of this visit of Brown to Kansas
was his recruiting his first men for the Harper's Ferry raid.
No sooner had he reached Mr. Whitman's than he sent for
John E. Cook, whom he had met after the battle of Black Jack,
3o8 JOHN BROWN
before the dispersal of his forces by Colonel Sumner. 106 When
Cook came, Brown informed him simply that he was engaged
in organizing a company for the purpose of putting a stop to
the aggressions of the pro-slavery forces. Cook agreed to join
him, and recommended Richard Realf, Luke F. Parsons and
R. J. Hinton. On Sunday, November 8, Cook and Parsons
had a long talk with Brown in the vicinity of Lawrence, and
a few days later, Cook received a note asking him to join
Brown, with Parsons if possible, on Monday, November 16, at
a Mrs. Sheridan's, two miles south of Topeka. They were to
bring their arms, ammunition and clothing. Cook made all
his preparations to meet Brown at the time appointed, but
had to go alone. He stayed with Brown a day and a half at
Mrs. Sheridan's, and then went to Topeka, where they were
joined by Aaron D. Stevens (Charles Whipple), Charles W.
Moffet and John H. Kagi. They at once left Topeka for Ne-
braska City, and camped at night on the prairie northeast of
Topeka. What followed, Cook stated in his Harper's Ferry
confession :
"Here, for the first, I learned that we were to leave Kansas, to
attend a military school during the winter. It was the intention
of the party to go to Ashtabula County, Ohio. Next morning
[November 18] I was sent back to Lawrence to get a draft of
$80. cashed [$82.50 according to Brown's memorandum-book], and
to get Parsons, Realf and Hinton to go back with me. I got the
draft cashed. Capt. Brown had given me orders to take boat to
St. Joseph, Mo., and stage from there to Tabor, Iowa, where he
would remain for a few days. I had to wait for Realf for three or four
days ; Hinton could not leave at that time. I started with Realf and
Parsons on a stage for Leavenworth. The boats had stopped run-
ning on account of the ice. Stayed one day at Leavenworth, and
then left for Weston where we took stage for St. Joseph, and from
thence to Tabor. I found C. P. Tidd and Leeman at Tabor. Our
party now consisted of Capt. John Brown, Owen Brown, A. D.
Stephens, Chas Moffett, C. P. Tidd, Richard Robertson [Richard-
son], Col. Richard Realf, L. F. Parsons, W. M. Leeman and my-
self.* We stopped some days at Tabor, making preparations to
start. Here we found that Capt Brown's ultimate destination was the
State of Virginia"
The very day that Brown wrote to the Adairs, " I may find
it best to go back to Iowa," he set off for Tabor. The vacilla-
* Cook overlooked here John H. Kagi, who was also present.
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 309
tion of the last three months was over. His whole soul was now
wrapped up in his Harper's Ferry plan; Kansas was thence-
forth forgotten. Upon her further struggles for freedom, her
soil watered by his children's " tears and blood," he turned his
back; his readiness to die for her if necessary was put aside.
He would never have returned to the Territory, had not
untoward and unexpected circumstances compelled him to
resume the role of border chieftain in 1858. Henceforth his
whole energies were concentrated on "troubling Israel" in
Virginia.
CHAPTER IX
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT
JOHN BROWN'S newest recruits, Cook, Realf and Parsons, did
not take kindly to the announcement, at Tabor, that Virginia
was to be the scene of their armed operations against slavery.
Warm words passed between Cook and their leader, for Cook,
like Realf and Parsons, had supposed that they were to be
trained to operate against Border Ruffians only.1 After a good
deal of wrangling, Cook stated, they agreed to continue, as
they had not the means to return to Kansas, and the rest
of the party were so anxious that they should go on with
them. Like their associates, these three men were adventur-
ous spirits, spoiled, like thousands of others, by the Kansas
troubles for leading a quiet and settled life. Anything that
smacked of excitement irresistibly appealed to them. Most
of them were very young ; 2 some had seen their names in the
newspapers because of their warfare in Kansas, and were not
averse to further notoriety and the chance to make reputa-
tions for themselves. All of them were steadfast opponents of
slavery and ready to go to any lengths to undermine it. But
beyond all this, in the dominating spirit of John Brown himself
must be found the true reason for their readiness to join so
desperate a venture as Brown outlined to them. There was,
Mr. Parsons testifies, a magnetism about Brown as difficult for
these simpler men to resist as for the philosophers at Concord.3
He walked now more than ever like an old man, and made the
impression of one well on toward threescore and ten, when not
yet fifty-eight years old, with hair that was not white but gray.
Yet there was as little doubt about his vigor and strength as
there was of the intensity of his hatred of slavery. To his new
followers Brown declared that "God had created him to be the
deliverer of slaves the same as Moses had delivered the children
of Israel ; "4 and they found nothing in this statement to make
them doubt his sanity, or that seemed inherently improbable.
A fanatic they recognized him to be ; but fanatics have at all
,. A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 311
times drawn satellites to them, even when the alliance meant
certain death. And so Parsons, Realf and Cook, like Leeman,
Tidd and Kagi — the latter a man of unusual parts — were
content to go onward across Iowa. During their brief stay in
Tabor, Brown offered to take his men, go to Nebraska City,
and rescue from jail a slave who had run away and had lost his
arm when captured, if the Tabor people would pay the actual
expenses. He promised to put the slave into their hands, but
they were afraid of the consequences and did not give him the
means.6
It was on the long wintry journey to Springdale, Iowa, with
two wagons laden with the Sharp's rifles and ammunition, that
the details of the Virginia venture were gradually discussed.
The caravan left the friendly hamlet of Tabor on December
4, according to the diary of Owen Brown, valuable fragments
of which survived the Harper's Ferry raid.6 "Took leave of
Tabor folks perhaps for the last time," and "started for Iowa
City, Springdale and Ohio," are the entries which record the
departure. Progress was slow, for all of the men walked and
the weather was bitter cold; sometimes it is recorded that
"Father used harsh words" in keeping the party, and particu-
larly the son, in hand. They camped by the wayside, avoiding
towns as much as possible, and made up in warmth of debate
for the heat they lacked otherwise. On December 8 the entry
reads :
" Cold, wet and snowy; hot discussion upon the Bible and war
. . . warm argument upon the effects of the abolition of slavery upon
the Southern States, Northern States, commerce and manufactures,
also upon the British provinces and the civilized world; whence
came our civilization and origin? Talk about prejudices against
color; question proposed for debate, — greatest general, Washing-
ton or Napoleon."
This is an excellent sample of the wide range of the daily
talks through the five months these strongly marked charac-
ters were leagued together. The diary concludes on this day :
"Very cold night; prairie wolves howl nobly; bought and car-
ried hay on our backs two and a half miles ; some of the men
a little down in the mouth — distance travelled 20 miles."
Fortunately, these travellers were inured to hardships. Their
skill with the rifle aided in eking out their limited commissary.
3I2 JOHN BROWN
Sundays they stayed in camp. Evenings were frequently spent
in singing, by Brown's request; he always joined with a hearty
good-will and named the pieces that he wanted sung, such as
"The Slave has seen the Northern Star," "From Greenland's
Icy Mountains," etc. In this amusement Stevens led; for he
had an exquisite voice, with clear, bugle notes. On Christmas
Day they passed Marengo, a town about thirty miles from
Iowa City; and presumably reached their immediate destina-
tion, Springdale, fifteen miles beyond Iowa City, on the third
day thereafter.
On December 29, according to John Brown's own diary,
Realf began to board with James Townsend, mine host of the
tavern at West Branch, known as the Traveller's Rest. Of this
Quaker Boniface unsupported tradition has it that when
Brown, dismounting from a mule at his door on the trip
through Iowa in October, 1856, asked Townsend whether he
had heard of John Brown, the tavern-keeper, "without reply-
ing, took from his vest pocket a piece of chalk and, removing
Brown's hat, marked it with a large X; he then replaced the
hat and solemnly decorated the back of Brown's coat with
two large X marks; lastly he placed an X on the back of the
mule." All of which pantomime was an indication that Brown
and his animals were on the free list of the hotel.7
On the 29th, at noon, the other ten members of Brown's
party began to board with John H. Painter, a friendly Quaker
at Springdale, with whom they remained until January II,
when they moved to the farmhouse of William Maxson, some
distance from the village, which still stands, albeit in a condi-
tion of growing ill-repair.8 One dollar and a half a week was
the moderate price asked for each man's board, "not includ-
ing Washing nor extra lights." Here Brown speedily found it
necessary to abandon his plan to continue on to Ashtabula in
his adopted State. He was unable to sell his teams and wagons
for cash; the financial panic of 1857 was now in full swing;
board was cheap at Springdale, and the village itself was as
remote a place, and as little likely to be thought the scene of
plottings against the peace of a sovereign American state, as
any hamlet in the country. Moreover, Mr. Maxson was ready
to take the teams and wagons off Brown's hands and pay
for them by boarding his men. It was a fortunate arrange-
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 313
ment all around, and it left the leader free to go eastward and
unfold to his New England friends the precise nature of the
assault on Israel upon which he was now embarked.
On January 15, 1858, before he left for the East, Brown did,
however, go with some of his men into even greater details of
his Virginia plan than on the winter's trip across Iowa. To
Parsons, for instance, he here mentioned Harper's Ferry for
the first time, but without speaking of an attack upon the
arsenal. John Henrie Kagi knew this Virginia district well,
and Brown's plan, as it was at this time, commended itself
to his mind, which was severely analytical and not given to
enthusiasms.
Just what the plan for the raid then was, appears from
a long letter of Hugh Forbes, of May 14, 1858, to Dr. S. G.
Howe, detailing his differences of opinion with Brown and
demanding that he and his men be disarmed.9 As soon as he
reached Tabor, in August, 1857, Forbes says, they compared
notes as to the coming attack on slavery in Virginia and
brought out their respective schemes. Brown proposed, with
from twenty-five to fifty colored and white men, well armed
and taking with them a quantity of spare arms, "to beat up
a slave quarter in Virginia." Forbes objected to this that:
"No preparatory notice having been given to the slaves (no no-
tice could go or with prudence be given them) the invitation to rise
might, unless they were already in a state of agitation, meet with no
response, or a feeble one. To this Brown replied that he was sure
of a response. He calculated that he could get on the first night
from 200 to 500. Half, or thereabouts, of this first lot he proposed
to keep with him, mounting 100 or so of them, and make a dash at
Harper's Ferry manufactory destroying what he could not carry off.
The other men not of this party were to be sub-divided into three,
four or five distinct parties, each under two or three of the original
band and would beat up other slave quarters whence more men
would be sent to join him.
"He argued that were he pressed by the U. S. troops, which after
a few weeks might concentrate, he could easily maintain himself
in the Alleghenies and that his New England partisans would in
the meantime call a Northern Convention, restore tranquility and
overthrow the pro-slavery administration. This, I contended, could
at most be a mere local explosion. A slave insurrection, being from
the very nature of things deficient in men of education and experi-
ence would under such a system as B. proposed be either a flash
in the pan or would leap beyond his control, or any control, when it
314 JOHN BROWN
would become a scene of mere anarchy and would assuredly be
suppressed. On the other hand, B. considered foreign intervention
as not impossible. As to the dream of a Northern Convention, I
considered it as a settled fallacy. Brown's New England friends
would not have courage to show themselves, so long as the issue
was doubtful, see my letter to J. B. dated 23 February."
After weeks of discussion, Brown, Forbes declared, "acqui-
esced or feigned to acquiesce" in a mixed project styled "The
Well-Matured Plan," to which Forbes assented to secure
mutual cooperation. Forbes's own plan, it must be admitted,
sounds much more reasonable and practical than Brown's,
and deserves, therefore, to be made a matter of record, par-
ticularly as it had without doubt its influence on Brown. It
was as follows:
"With carefully selected white persons to organize along the
Northern slave frontier (Virginia and Maryland especially) a series
of stampedes of slaves, each one of which operations would carry
off in one night and from the same place some twenty to fifty slaves ;
this to be effected once or twice a month, and eventually once or
twice a week along the non-contiguous parts of the line; if possible
without conflict, only resorting to force if attacked. Slave women
accustomed to field labor, would be nearly as useful as men. Every-
thing being in readiness to pass on the fugitives, they could be
sent with such speed to Canada that pursuit would be hopeless. In
Canada preparations were to be made for their instruction and
employment. Any disaster which might befall a stampede would
at the utmost compromise those only who might be engaged in that
single one; therefore we were not bound in good faith to the Abo-
litionists (as we did not jeopardize them) to consult more than those
engaged in this very project. Against the chance of loss by occa-
sional accidents should be weighed the advantages of a series of
successful 'runs.' Slave property would thus become untenable
near the frontier ; that frontier would be pushed more and more
Southward, and it might reasonably be expected that the excite-
ment and irritation would impel the proslaveryites to commit some
stupid blunders."
As he stated his plan to Parsons at Springdale, Brown laid
stress upon his determination not to fight or molest any one,
except to help the escaping slaves to defend themselves or to
flee to Canada. This satisfied Parsons for the moment, but it
is to be noted that the men left at Springdale did not much
discuss the details of their project with one another. Owen
.. A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 315
Brown's diary for February tells that on the I2th there was
"talk about our adventures and plans." In the main, discus-
sion ranged from theology and spiritualism to caloric engines,
and covered every imaginable subject between them. Much
talk of war and fighting there was, and drilling with wooden
swords. Stevens, by reason of his service in the Mexican War,
and subsequently in the United States Dragoons, was drill-
master in default of Forbes. Sometimes they went into the
woods to look for natural fortifications; again they discussed
dislodging the enemy on a hill-top by means of "zigzag
trenches." Forbes's 'Manual' was diligently perused. Some-
times the men quarrelled with one another; sometimes their
boisterousness during their long stay irritated their peaceful
Quaker neighbors, many of whom were but recent settlers in
that vicinity. Some of them, Owen Brown records, suspected
Mr. Maxson's boarders of being Mormon spies in disguise,
and others declared that they were "no better than runa-
ways" and ought to be driven out of the community, — a
thought suggested, perhaps, by the rapidity with which they
won for themselves sweethearts in the neighborhood by
Othello-like tales of their adventures and daring in their Kan-
sas wanderings. But some of these affairs of the heart resulted
seriously and unfavorably to two or three of the raiders, who
carried the scars thereof to their end. "One of the diversions
at their home was the trial by jury of any member violating
certain proprieties or rules. I see that I have made a note of
a trial given Owen for writing down in his pocket-book the
name of a lady in the vicinity. [Miss Laura Wascott.] Owen
pleaded guilty," 10 — thus Parsons recalled an incident of the
winter. But in the main their discipline was rigid; there were
black marks given for misconduct, and Cook was once seri-
ously and severely censured "for hugging girls in Springdale
Legislature."
This was the mock body with which they beguiled the long
winter evenings, drafting laws for an ideal "State of Topeka ; "
in it Cook, Kagi and Realf displayed their unusual powers as
debaters. Sometimes this legislature met at Mr. Maxson's,
more often in the village school, a mile or so away, and it fol-
lowed the regulation procedure with its bills and its debates.
Soon Realf was in demand as a speaker and lecturer.11 But
316 JOHN BROWN
when at Springdale he was not the poorest of the band in
the manoeuvres and gymnastics practised in the field behind
the Maxson house for three hours every fair day, with a view
to developing the men physically to the utmost advantage.
Only a few of the neighbors suspected or knew that these ex-
ercises were not intended to fit the men for service in behalf
of Kansas. Townsend of the Traveller's Rest; Maxson and
Painter, Dr. H. C. Gill and Moses Varney were more or less
in John Brown's confidence in 1858, and most of them tried to
dissuade him from his project.12 But, as the Eastern friends
found out, there was no possibility of success along that line
of argument. Brown had made up his mind to realize the plan
of his lifetime, even though it sorely troubled the peace-lov-
ing Quaker friends at Springdale. One of them, Painter, gave
twenty dollars to Brown, saying: "Friend, I cannot give thee
money to buy powder and lead, but here's twenty dollars
toward thy expenses." 13
In short, the Springdale settlement as a whole wished him
well, despite the fact that he was emphatically a man of
war, and that his men, as Owen Brown at this time recorded,
believed with Jay that "he that is guilty of such oppression
[as slavery], making it perpetual upon the posterity of the
oppressed, might justly be killed outright." To them slavery
was the sum of all oppression, and one of their debates was an
inquiry into the reason why the spirit of 1776 was so lacking
in the face of the wrongs of 1858. But this little group of
young men, among whom was Richard Richardson, a runaway
slave from Lexington, Missouri, who had attached himself to
Brown at Tabor, found their stay in Springdale as care-free as
if they had not agreed to challenge with their lives the most
powerful of American institutions. As has been set forth at
length in Irving B. Richman's charming and valuable essay,
'John Brown Among the Quakers,' "the time spent in Spring-
dale was a time of genuine pleasure to Brown's men. They en-
joyed its quiet, as also the rural beauty of the village and the
gentle society of the people." 14 Brown's men have all gone;
hardly any one remains in Springdale to tell the tale of their
stay; the Maxson and other houses of '58 are falling into de-
cay ; but the quiet beauty of Springdale remains. It still con-
sists of one broad street with modest frame houses surrounded
THE SCHOOL-HOUSE AT SPRINGDALE, IOWA
Where the Mock Legislature met
HOUSE OF REV. JOHN TODD, TABOR, IOWA
Where John Brown stored his guns and ammunition
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 317
by green and rolling fields; but the Quaker element is little
noticeable, and there are fewer people residing there to-day
than fifty years ago.
Thirteen days after leaving Tabor, John Brown was in the
Rochester house of Frederick Douglass,16 who had so long
been the confidant of his plan as to Virginia, and in numer-
ous talks informed him that the time was ripe for the long-
cherished undertaking. On the way East he had stopped in
Lindenville, Ohio,16 to visit his son John and talk over with
him the unpleasant developments in regard to Hugh Forbes,
about which Brown had written to his son on January 15, at
Springdale. He had decided, on receiving a violent and abu-
sive letter, to correspond with Forbes through a third person ;
the malevolent spirit displayed by that adventurer making it
necessary for his safety, if for no other reason. Forbes had not
waited long after his return to the East — he had stopped at
Rochester on his way to New York and obtained financial aid
from Frederick Douglass17 — to begin, in December, 1857,3
long series of abusive letters to all of Brown's Eastern friends
and to the leading anti-slavery statesmen in Washington.
Having now firmly convinced himself that he had been out-
rageously treated, he took somewhat of the blackmailer's posi-
tion and demanded money on pain of publishing to the world
the facts about Brown and his plans. The needs of his family,
whether genuine or exaggerated, became an obsession with
him; of Brown he demanded another six months' pay, on the
ground that his engagement was for a year. His begging
was endless and persistent; had he devoted but a tithe of
the energy he put into his letters to earning a livelihood,
he must have supported easily those dependent upon him.
To most of those he addressed he was utterly unknown or at
most a name; he had not, of course, any document to prove
that he had been employed either by the Massachusetts Kan-
sas Committee or the National Kansas Committee. Yet
he insisted that he had been, — misled, perhaps, into believ-
ing that the Kansas Committees were similar to the Euro-
pean revolutionary bodies of which he had had experience
or cognizance. He even forced his way, in the spring of
1858, to Senator Henry Wilson, on the floor of the Senate,
during a recess of that body, and retailed to him in great
3i8 JOHN BROWN
excitement the story of his wrongs, renewing to Senator Wil-
son the demand he had then for some time been making, that
Brown and his men be disarmed.18 To William H. Seward he
portrayed Brown as a "very bad man who would not keep his
word; " "a reckless man, an unreliable man, a vicious man." 19
As a sample of his utterances, the following will suffice to
show either that the man was unbalanced, or that he was
deliberately trying to use Brown's inability to pay him more
than six months' salary as a club to get means — whether
earned or not — from the New England friends : 20
"Capt. B. came to me with a letter from the Rev. Joshua Leavitt
of the New York Independent. Upon my making inquiries of him he
stated that Capt. B. had no means of his own to meet any obliga-
tions but that he believed him to be backed by good and responsible
men, and that at any rate I might repose faith in his word. Brown
on his part trusted to the New England promises made to him,
which promises being subsequently broken (because it was imagined
that the border ruffians had abandoned Kansas) he of course could
not fulfill his compact with me, and when I remonstrated, the hu-
manitarians replied 'We do not know you — We made no engage-
ment with you ; ' while Brown said ' Be quiet do not weaken my
hand ; ' and when I refused to be quiet, since my children were being
killed by slow torture through the culpability of the humanitarians,
then B. denies his obligation to me rather than displease the men
of money. The humanitarians and Brown are guilty of perfidy and
barbarity, to which may be added stupidity. . . . You do not take
into consideration that you are perpetrating an atrocious wrong,
while I am struggling to save my family. I am the natural protector
of my children, nothing but death shall prevent my defending them
against the barbarity of the New England speculators."
He was by this time charging that the whole Virginia pro-
posal was a scheme of A. A. Lawrence and others interested in
New England mills, to make money by temporarily causing
an increase in the price of cotton through the panic bound to
follow Brown's attack.
On February 9, Brown wrote to his son John, directing him
to reply to a letter from Forbes in the following disingenuous
terms:21
"Your letter to my father, of 27th January, after mature reflec-
tion, I have decided to return to you, as I am unwilling he should,
with all his other cares, difficulties and trials, be vexed with what
I am apprehensive he will accept as highly offensive and insulting,
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 319
while I know that he is disposed to do all he consistently can for
you, and will do so unless you are yourself the cause of his disgust.
I was trying to send you a little assistance myself, — say about
forty dollars; but I must hold up till I feel different from what I do
now. I understood from my father that he had advanced you already
six hundred dollars, or six months' pay (disappointed as he has been)
to enable you to provide for your family; and that he was to give
you one hundred dollars per month for just as much time as you
continued in his service. Now, you in your letter undertake to in-
struct him to say that he had positively engaged you for one year.
I fear he will not accept it well to be asked or told to state what he
considers an untruth. Again, I suspect you have greatly mistaken
the man, if you suppose he will take it kindly in you, or any living
man, to assume to instruct him how he should conduct his own busi-
ness and correspondence. And I suspect that the seemingly spiteful
letters you say you have written to some of his particular friends
have not only done you great injury, but also weakened his hands
with them. While I have, in my poverty, deeply sympathized with
you and your family, who, I ask, is likely to be moved by any ex-
hibition of a wicked and spiteful temper on your part, or is likely to
be dictated to by you as to their duties?"
To this son, Brown explained that he wished to see how a
sharp and well-merited rebuke would affect Forbes; if it had
the desired effect, they would send forty dollars. " I am anx-
ious," Brown added, "to understand him fully before we go
any further. ..."
While the Forbes matter was doubtless much on his mind
during his stay of three weeks with Frederick Douglass, his
chief concern was to bring about a meeting of his warmest
and most generous supporters at Gerrit Smith's, in Peterboro,
in the latter half of February. He declined a call from Mr.
Stearns and Mr. Sanborn to visit Boston because: 22
"It would be almost impossible for me to pass through Albany,
Springfield, or any of those points, on my way to Boston; & not
have it known; & my reasons for keeping quiet were such that when
I left Kansas; I kept it from every friend there; & I suppose it is still
understood that I am hiding somewhere in the territory ; & such will
be the idea; untill it comes to be generally known that I am in these
parts. I want to continue that impression as long as I can ; or for
the present. ... My reasons for keeping still are sufficient to keep
me from seeing my Wife; 6* Children: much as I long to do so."
To them Brown had written at length, on January 30, 23 of
his relief of mind at being again so near them, of his hope of
320 JOHN BROWN
devising a way of meeting some one of the deserted North
Elba homestead : .
"The anxiety I feel to see my Wife; & Children once more; I
am unable to describe. . . . The cries of my poor sorrowstricken de-
spairing Children whoose ' tears on their cheeks ' are ever in my Eye;
& whose sighs are ever in my Ears; may however prevent my enjoy-
ing the happiness I so much desire. But courage, courage, Courage
the great work of my life (the unseen Hand that ' girded me ; & who
has indeed holden my right hand may hold it still ;) though I have not
known Him ; ' at all as I ought :) I may yet see accomplished ; (God
helping;} & be permitted to return, & rest at Evening."
To Thomas Wentworth Higginson he thus appealed : 24
" I now want to get for the perfecting of BY FAR the most impor-
tant undertaking of my whole life; from $500, to $800, within the
next Sixty days. I have written Rev Theodore Parker, George L.
Stearns, and F. B. Sanborn Esqur, on the subject; but do not know
as either Mr Stearns, or Mr Sanborn, are abolitionists I suppose
they are. Can you be induced to opperate at Worcester, & elsewhere
during that time to raise from Anti-slavery men & women (or any
other parties) some part of that amount? . . . Hope this is my last
effort in the begging line."
Higginson could not go to Peterboro, neither could Mr.
Stearns; moreover, Brown's letters failed to interest them
because of their indefiniteness. To Mr. Sanborn the invitation
was particularly attractive because of the presence at Gerrit
Smith's of a classmate, Edwin Morton, then a tutor in Mr.
Smith's family. "Our old and noble friend, Captain John
Brown of Kansas arrives this evening," is the entry in Gerrit
Smith's diary on February 18, 1858, 25 and his welcome was in
keeping with these words. For Brown this worthy philanthro-
pist conceived a genuine affection, which appears in the later
letters to the raider, and not even in the Stearns or Russell
homes was he a more welcome guest. On this, the most impor-
tant of all visits, he lost no time in unfolding his plans to his
generous patron, and on the 24th he was able to write to his
family:26 "Mr. Smith & family go all lengths with me," —
a significant phrase in view of Mr. Smith's subsequent efforts
to make it appear that he was not really cognizant of the
lengths to which Brown's plan was to carry them. The final
and most important exchange of views was held when Mr.
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 321
Sanborn arrived, on Washington's Birthday. What took place
then has been set forth in detail by Mr. Sanborn at various
times.27 In an upper room of the Smith mansion, Brown "un-
folded his plans" for a campaign somewhere in slave territory
east of the Alleghanies, and read to them, so Mr. Sanborn
records,
"the singular constitution drawn up by him [in the Frederick
Douglass house in Rochester] for the government of the territory,
small or large, which he might rescue by force from slavery, and for
the control of his own little band. It was an amazing proposition
— desperate in its character, wholly inadequate in its provision
of means, and of most uncertain result. Such as it was, Brown
had set his heart on it as the shortest way to restore our slave-
cursed republic to the principles of the Declaration of Independ-
ence; and he was ready to die in its execution — as he did."
Amazing proposition that it was, Brown's auditors gave
him respectful attention until after midnight, "proposing
objections and raising difficulties ; but nothing could shake the
purpose of the old Puritan." He was able in some fashion to
meet every criticism of his plans, to suggest a plausible way
out of every difficulty, while to the chief objection, the slender
means for undertaking a war upon the dominating American
institution, he opposed merely a Scriptural text: "If God be
for us, who can be against us?" He wanted to open his cam-
paign in the spring; all he needed was five hundred or eight
hundred dollars, for he now had the arms and sufficient men.
"No argument could prevail against his fixed purpose." The
discussion went over until the next day ; and despite the fool-
hardiness of the venture, despite the strange Constitution,
which to many minds remains the strongest indictment of
Brown's sanity, his will prevailed. He did not at this time,
Mr. Sanborn testifies, speak specifically of starting at Har-
per's Ferry or taking the arsenal ; the point of departure was
left vague, but the general outlines were about as he had
described them to Forbes. Back of it all, in his head, was the
purpose of setting the South afire and precipitating a conflict.
Finally, says Mr. Sanborn : 28
"We saw we must either stand by him or leave him to dash himself
alone against the fortress he was determined to assault. To with-
322 JOHN BROWN
hold aid would only delay, not prevent him. As the sun was setting
over the snowy hills of the region where we met, I walked for an
hour with Gerrit Smith among woods and fields (then included in
his broad manor) which his father purchased of the Indians and
bequeathed to him. Brown was left at home by the fire, discussing
points of theology with Charles Stewart [Stuart]. Mr. Smith re-
stated in his eloquent way the daring propositions of Brown, whose
import he understood fully, and then said in substance: 'You see
how it is ; our dear old friend has made up his mind to this course,
and cannot be turned from it. We cannot give him up to die alone;
we must support him. I will raise so many hundred dollars for him ;
you must lay the case before your friends in Massachusetts, and
ask them to do as much. I see no other way.' I had come to the
same conclusion, and by the same process of reasoning. It was done
far more from our regard for the man than from hopes of immediate
success."
Well might Brown rejoice. With Mr. Smith's wealth and
influence behind him, it could now be only a short while before
he would have in hand the small sum he asked, and be actually
in battle with the forces of slavery.
Mr. Sanborn left on February 24 for Boston, ready to work
for the plan there and summon a gathering of a trusted few
who could be counted on to put their shoulders to the wheel.
He had scarcely left when Brown, in his exaltation and exulta-
tion of spirit, sent him these characteristic lines : 29
MY DEAR FRIEND
Mr Morton has taken the liberty of saying to me that you felt
^/i inclined to make a common cause with me. I greatly rejoice at
this ; for I believe when you come to look at the ample field I labour
in: & the rich harvest which (not only this entire country, but) the
whole world during the present & future generations may reap from
its successful cultivation : you will feel that you are out of your ele-
ment until you find you are in it; an entire Unit. What an incon-
ceivable amount of good you might so effect ; by your counsel, your
example, your encouragement, your natural, & acquired ability ; for
active service. And then how very little we can possibly, loose? Cer-
tainly the cause is enough to live for; if not to * for. I have only
had this one opportunity in a life of nearly Sixty years, & could I be
continued Ten times as long again, I might not again have another
equal opportunity. God has honored but comparatively a very
small part of mankind with any possible chance for such mighty &
soul satisfying rewards. But my dear friend if you should make up
your mind to dp so I trust it will be wholly from the promptings of
* Word omitted.
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 323
your own spirit; after having thoroughly counted the cost. I would
flatter no man into such a measure if I could do it ever so easily. /
expect nothing but to "endure hardness" : but I expect to effect a
mighty conquest even though it be like the last victory of Samson.
I felt for a number of years in earlier life: a steady, strong, desire;
to die: but since I saw any prospect of becoming a " reaper" in the
great harvest I have not only felt quite willing to live: but have
enjoyed life much; & am now rather anxious to live for a few years
more.
On the same day, Brown left Peterboro for the home of
Dr. and Mrs. J. N. Gloucester, a well-to-do colored couple
of Brooklyn, who by wise investments and steady industry
had accumulated a fortune.30 To them he revealed his plan,
with full confidence in their ability to keep a secret, just as he
got into frank communication with J. W. Loguen, a negro of
Syracuse. These and other colored people assisted him with
counsel and funds, came to believe whole-heartedly in the
success of his project, and remained faithful to the end. On
the nth of March, Brown was in Philadelphia, where he met
on the I5th, at the residence of the Rev. Stephen Smith in
Lombard Street, a little group of colored men, among them
Frederick Douglass, the Rev. Henry H. Garnett and William
Still.31 To them, too, with surprising but justified faith in the
ability of numbers to keep so important a conspiracy to them-
selves, Brown stated his project and appealed for men and
money, and John Brown, Jr., seconded him, for he had met his
father in Philadelphia to discuss his own part in the great
undertaking. His father wished him to take a trip to "Bed-
ford, Chambersburg, Gettysburg, and Uniontown, in Pennsyl-
vania, travelling slowly along, and inquiring of every one on
the way or every family of the right stripe." He also urged
his son to go "even to Harper's Ferry." 32 William Still, long
an active Underground Railroad worker in Philadelphia, was
especially valuable in this time, because of his knowledge of
the Pennsylvania routes and stations.
All through this period Brown was endeavoring to enlist new
recruits. He counted on Frederick Douglass, and the survivors
of his family still feel that the great colored orator failed, when
the real test came, to live up to his obligations.33 A particu-
lar disappointment at this period in 1858 was his inability to
reenlist his son-in-law, Henry Thompson, whose services and
324 JOHN BROWN
bravery in Kansas had so commended themselves to him. Of
his daughter Ruth he asked whether any plan could
"be devised whereby you could let Henry go 'to school' (as you
expressed it in your letter to him while in Kansas:) I would rather
NOW have him ' for another term ' : than to have a Hundred average
schollars. I have a PARTICULAR & VERY IMPORTANT ; (but not danger-
ous) place for HIM to fill; in the 'school' ; & I know of NO MAN living;
so well adapted to fill it. I am quite confident some way can be
devised ; so that you; 6* your children could be with him ; & be quite
happy even: & safe but ' God forbid ' me to flatter you into trouble.
I did not do it before" 34
The daughter replied in doubt, asking what the post of
his duty was to be, and saying that her husband felt that too
high an estimate had been placed on his "qualifications as
a scholar." Ruth's desire to preserve her husband's life con-
quered in the end her wish to be of service to her father and
the great cause of the Brown family.35 To this Mr. Thompson
probably owes the fact that he is still, at this writing, in the
land of the living. ,
Before his Philadelphia conference, Brown had made a
hasty trip to Boston, where he met Higginson, Parker, Howe,
Sanborn and Stearns, at the American House during his four
days' stay from March 5 to 8. To Mr. Parker he wrote, on
March 7, asking his aid in "composing a substitute for an
address you saw last season, directed to the officers and sol-
diers of the United States Army." He had never been able to
clothe his ideas in language to satisfy himself, but he tried to
tell the great pulpit orator what he wanted, in these words : 36
"In the first place, it must be short, or it will not be generally
read. It must be in the simplest or plainest language; without the
least affectation of the scholar about it, and yet be worded with
great clearness and power. The anonymous writer must (in the
language of the Paddy) be 'after others,' and not 'after himself,
at all, at all.' If the spirit that 'communicated' Franklin's Poor
Richard (or some other good spirit) would dictate, I think it would
be quite as well employed as the 'dear sister spirits' have been
for some years past. The address "should be appropriate, and par-
ticularly adapted to the peculiar circumstances we anticipate,
and should look to the actual change of service from that of Satan
to the service of God. It should be, in short, a most earnest and
powerful appeal to man's sense of right, and to their feelings of
humanity."
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 325
Brown also asked for a similar short address,
"appropriate to the peculiar circumstances, intended for all per-
sons, old and young, male and female, slaveholding and non-slave-
holding, to be sent out broadcast over the entire nation. So by
every male and female prisoner on being set at liberty, and to be
read by them during confinement."
Particularly striking is this passage, since it foreshadows
exactly his treatment of his prisoners at Harper's Ferry :
"The impressions made on prisoners by kindness and plain deal-
ing, instead of barbarous and cruel treatment, such as they might
give, and instead of being slaughtered like vile reptiles, as they might
very naturally expect, are not only powerful, but lasting. Females
are susceptible of being carried away entirely by the kindness of an
intrepid and magnanimous soldier, even when his bare name was
but a terror the day previous."
By this appeal Mr. Parker was not moved, his only reply
being to send to Brown Captain George B. McClellan's
recently issued report on the armies of Europe.37 That Brown
was much concerned with the reading of his followers ap-
pears from his asking Mr. Sanborn, in February, for copies of
Plutarch's 'Lives,' Irving's 'Life of Washington,' the best
written ' Life of Napoleon ' and other similar books, for use at
Springdale.38
Some idea of the method of raising the funds for Brown
appears from Mr. Sanborn's letters of this period to Mr.
Higginson. On March 8 he reported : 39
"Hawkins* has gone to Philadelphia today, leaving his friends
to work for him. $1000 is the sum set to be raised here — of which
yourself, Mr. Parker, Dr. Howe, Mr. Stearns and myself each are
assessed to raise $100 — Some may do more — perhaps you cannot
come up to that — nor I, possibly — But of $500 we are sure —
and the $1000 in all probability. . . . Hawkins goes to prepare
agencies for his business near where he will begin operations. Dr.
Cabot knows something of the speculation, but not the whole, not
being quite prepared to take stock. No others have been admitted
to a share in the business, though G. R. Russell has been consulted."
A meeting was called for March 20, at Dr. Howe's rooms,
to discuss raising funds, in Mr. Stearns's name. The next day
Mr. Sanborn stated that:
* Brown.
326 JOHN BROWN
" Mr. Stearns is Treasurer of the enterprise for N. E. — and has
now on hand $150 having paid H $100. . . . Mr. Stearns has
given $100 & promises $200 more, but holds it back for a future
emergency. ,Mr. Parker has raised his $100 & will do something
more. Dr. H. has paid in $50 and will raise $100 more. ... I paid
Brown $25 — my own subscription — but have as yet been able
to get nothing else — though I shall do so." 40
By April I there were three hundred and seventy-five dol-
lars in hand, but three weeks later, Brown had received only
four hundred and ten dollars and was calling urgently for
the remainder of the one thousand dollars promised. In all
he received at this time only about six hundred dollars,
together with other sums raised in New York and Philadelphia
— a pittance, indeed, with which to begin his crusade. Mr.
Higginson early did his share. His interview with Brown in
March had made so deep an impression upon him that he was
thereafter ready to do and dare with Brown with unflinching
courage. As it is often said that Brown's chief success lay
in influencing weaker minds, it is worth noting the impres-
sion a single talk with him made upon this able and virile
Worcester clergyman:
" I met him in his room at the American House [No. 126] in March,
1858. I saw before me a man whose mere appearance and bearing
refuted in advance some of the strange perversions which have
found their way into many books, and which often wholly missed
the type to which he belonged. In his thin, worn, resolute face there
were the signs of a fire which might wear him out, and practically
did so, but nothing of pettiness or baseness; and his talk was calm,
persuasive, and coherent. He was simply a high-minded, unselfish,
belated Covenanter; a man whom Sir Walter Scott might have
drawn, but whom such writers as Nicolay and Hay, for instance,
have utterly failed to delineate. To describe him in their words as
'clean but coarse' is curiously wide of the mark; he had no more
of coarseness than was to be found in Habakkuk Mucklewrath or
in George Eliot's Adam Bede; he had, on the contrary, that religious
elevation which is itself a kind of refinement; the quality one may
see expressed in many a venerable Quaker face at yearly meeting.
Coarseness absolutely repelled him; he was so strict as to the de-
meanor of his men that his band was always kept small, while that
of Lane was large ; he had little humor, and none of the humorist's
temptation toward questionable conversation." u
On one of his Boston visits, Brown also met the Rev. James
Freeman Clarke at Senator Sumner's residence, according
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 327
to Mr. Clarke,42 where Brown begged to see the coat worn
by the Senator when he was attacked, and "looked at it as a
devotee would contemplate the relic of a saint." This was his
only recorded meeting with the victim of Preston Brooks' s as-
sault, the news of which had so stirred Brown and his men
prior to the Pottawatomie murders.
From Philadelphia, John Brown and John, Jr., made a brief
visit to New Haven and New York; at the latter place the
well-known Gibbons and Hopper families, prominent among
the anti-slavery Quakers, were now assisting him. Thence
they went direct to North Elba, on what was to have been a
farewell visit prior to the risking of their lives, arriving on
March 23. 43 By April 2 they were at Gerrit Smith's, again
under way, and found Mr. Smith as encouraging as usual.
After a day spent in discussing the Virginia plan, they left for
Rochester, where they separated on April 5, Brown heading
for St. Catherine's, Canada, where he arrived on the yth in
company with his colored helper, J. W. Loguen.44 Here he
met by appointment a remarkable negro woman, Harriet
Tubman, known as the " Moses of her People," whom he now
relied upon to work for him among the escaped slaves then
living in large numbers in Canada West, as he later hoped
that she would be a chief guide to the North of the slaves he
wished to free in the neighborhood of Harper's Ferry. Of
her Brown wrote that she was "the most of a man, naturally,
that I ever met with." Well might she win his admiration,
for her exploits in leading runaway slaves to freedom, at the
risk of her own life, form one of the most moving and thrilling
stories of the entire struggle against slavery.
At this time there were some thirty to forty thousand
colored people in Upper Canada, and about twelve hundred in
Toronto, some of them free-born and in good circumstances;
a great majority, "freight" of the Underground Railroad.45
At Buxton, near the shore of Lake Erie, was the "Elgin Asso-
ciation," a model colony for escaped slaves; and not far from
this was Chatham, chief town of the County of Kent, also a
favorite place for the colored men who had found under the
British flag the personal liberty denied them under the stars
and stripes. Here were some well-to-do colored farmers and
mechanics, who had established a good school, W7ilberforce
328 JOHN BROWN
Institute, for the education of their children, several churches
and a newspaper of their own.46 Brown soon made up his mind
that this would be the best place for the convention of his fol-
lowers upon which he had now set his heart. He was not will-
ing to commence his raid upon slavery without some formal-
ity. Just as he had drawn up regular by-laws for his Kansas
company to sign, so he now wished to inaugurate his move-
ment only with a certain ceremonial. It would have been
cheaper and easier to have gone direct to the scene of action
in Virginia, but his mind was set on his convention, upon
which he also counted to draw to his enterprise some, if not
many, of the escaped slaves in Canada West.
His visit to St. Catherine's with J. W. Loguen was, there-
fore, in the nature of a reconnoissance. It lasted a trifle less
than three weeks, and included a trip to Ingersoll, Chatham,
and probably to other near-by points. Neither the letters now
available nor Brown's memorandum-book of 1858 have re-
corded any details of his movements. But his pen was ever
busy, and the recruits for his convention were gradually
enlisted, among them a colored physician, Dr. Martin R.
Delany, who subsequently served in the colored volunteers,
with the rank of major, during the Civil War. To see this able
man, Brown went three times to Chatham " before finding
him, refusing on the first two occasions to leave his name or
address. To him Brown stated that it was men he wanted, not
money, and Dr. Delany promised to be on hand at the Chat-
ham convention and to bring others as well. Finally, Brown
was ready to lead to Canada the "flock of sheep " he had win-
tered at Springdale, to which place he journeyed by way of
Chicago. He arrived at Mr. Maxson's home the 25th of April,
and two days later was ready to start, as he wrote on that day
to his family.
He found the band of conspirators reinforced by George B.
Gill, a native of Iowa, and Stewart Taylor, a young Canadian,
who responded to his name at the final roll-call in Harper's
Ferry and there lost his life. Gill, a man of education and some
literary ability, had known Brown in previous enterprises, had
been in Kansas and introduced Taylor to John Brown. Two
other notable accessions were the brothers Coppoc, Barclay
and Edwin, who also participated in the final raid, much to
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 329
the grief of their Quaker mother, whose quaint and fast-
decaying house may still be seen in Springdale. A woman of
marked intelligence, a strong Abolitionist, she had herself in-
stilled into the minds of her sons that hatred of slavery which
had led Barclay to Kansas in 1857, to aid in making it a free
State, and resulted in Edwin's giving up his life on the scaffold
with that pure faith and calm resignation naturally associated
with the Quaker training.48 The Coppocs were not ready to go
to Chatham, and so did not figure in the convention, as did the
men who had boarded at Mr. Maxson's. These John Brown
found still harmonious, despite some occasional friction, to
be expected, perhaps, among vigorous men of strong, restless
character, cooped up in one small farmhouse. Leeman had
given Owen Brown the greatest concern of all,49 and Tidd had
laid himself open to a grave charge by the father of a Quaker
maiden resident not far away.50 But aside from this, there
seems to have been genuine regret at the leaving of this body
of vigorous young men who had done so much to enliven and
entertain the neighborhood ; several of them kept up a lengthy
correspondence with friends in Springdale up to the hour of
the tragedy which gave them a place in history. Certainly,
Brown could not complain of the spirit of his followers, when
he rejoined them. Stevens wrote to his sister on April 8: "I
.am ready to give up my life for the oppressed if need be. I
hope I shall have your good will and sympathy in this glorious
cause." 61 Leeman rejoiced that he was "warring with slav-
ery the greatest Curse that ever infested America." Richard
Realf's and John E. Cook's letters are in a similar strain.
Leaving Springdale with nine of the men, shortly before
noon on the 27th, Brown and his followers took a three o'clock
train for West Liberty, and arrived at Chicago at five the next
morning. For breakfast they went to the Massasoit House,
only to be told that one of their number, the negro, Richard
Richardson, could not be served with them. True to their
belief that all men were created free and equal, and to
their comradeship, they marched out of the hotel, Brown at
their head, and soon found another hostelry, the Adams House,
at which the color-line was not drawn.52 Leaving Chicago at
four-thirty, the ten were in Detroit at six o'clock on the morn-
ing of Thursday, April 29, and were breakfasting at the Villa
330 JOHN BROWN
Tavern, Chatham, by nine o'clock. "Ten persons begin to
board with Mr. Barber 29th April at Dinner. Three others
began May 1st at Breakfast," Brown's memorandum-book
records. He himself made his headquarters with James M.
Bell, a colored man. "Here," wrote Richard Realf to Dr.
H. C. Gill at Springdale,53
"we intend to remain till we have perfected our plans, which will
be in about ten days or two weeks, after which we start for China.
Yesterday and this morning we have been very busy in writing to
Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips and others of like kin to meet
us in this place on Saturday, the 8th of May, to adopt our Constitu-
tion, decide a few matters and bid us goodbye. Then we start. . . .
The signals and mode of writing are (the old man informs me) all
arranged. . . . Remember me to all who know our business, but to
all others be as dumb as death."
Despite Brown's admonition to his men to write no letters
while here, John E. Cook was another who corresponded
freely with friends in Springdale; to two young women he
observed 54 that only one thing kept him
"from being absolutely unhappy, and that is the consciousness that
I am in the path of duty. I long for the loth of May to come. I am
anxious to leave this place, to have my mind occupied with the great
work of our mission. . . . Through the dark gloom of the future I
fancy I can almost see the dawning light of Freedom ; . . . that I
can almost hear the swelling anthem of Liberty rising from the mil-
lions who have but just cast aside the fetters and the shackles that
bound them. But ere that day arrives, I fear that we shall hear the
crash of the battle shock and see the red gleaming of the cannon's
lightning."
Not only were compromising letters of this kind written
freely to friends and relations, but similar ones received were
carried about by all the men and kept intact up to the raid
itself.
Finally, the 8th of May, the day for the opening of the
convention, arrived. None of the Eastern backers were pre-
sent, neither Wendell Phillips, nor Gerrit Smith, nor F. B.
Sanborn, and no white men save Brown's own party. This
was now composed, besides himself, of Leeman, Stevens, Tidd,
Gill, Taylor, Parsons, Kagi, Moffet, Cook, Realf and Owen
Brown, — twelve in all. The colored men were thirty-four
in number, among them Richard Richardson, Osborn P.
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 331
Anderson, James H. Harris, afterwards Congressman from
North Carolina and Dr. Delany. Only one of these thirty-
four, O. P. Anderson, actually reached the firing-line. The
presiding officer was William Charles Munroe, pastor of a
Detroit colored church, and the secretary was John H. Kagi.56
There were really two distinct conventions. The first, a "Pro-
visional Constitutional Convention," met on Saturday, May 8,
at ten in the morning, in a frame school-building on Princess
Street, the remaining sessions being held in the First Baptist
Church and in "No. 3 Engine House," which had been erected
by some colored men, who also formed the fire-company. In
order to mislead any one who might inquire the meaning of
these assemblages, it was stated that they were for the pur-
pose of organizing a Masonic lodge among the colored people.
After the election of officers, on motion of Dr. Delany, John
Brown arose to state at length the object of the permanent
convention and the plan of action to follow it. Dr. Delany
and others spoke in favor of both projects, and they were
agreed to by general assent.
In his testimony before the Mason Committee, early in
1860, Richard Realf thus set forth the substance of the leader's
speech : 56
" John Brown, on rising, stated that for twenty or thirty years the
idea had possessed him like a passion of giving liberty to the slaves.
He stated immediately thereafter, that he made a journey to Eng-
land in 1 85 1, in which year he took to the international exhibition
at London, samples of wool from Ohio, during which period he made
a tour upon the European continent, inspecting all fortifications,
and especially all earth-work forts which he could find, with a view,
as he stated, of applying the knowledge thus gained, with modifica-
tions and inventions of his own, to such a mountain warfare as he
thereafter spoke upon in the United States. John Brown stated,
moreover, that he had not been indebted to anybody for the sug-
gestion of that plan ; that it arose spontaneously in his' own mind ;
that through a series of from twenty to thirty years it had gradually
formed and developed itself into shape and plan."
After telling of his studies of Roman warfare, of the success-
ful opposition to the Romans of the Spanish chieftains, of the
successes of Schamyl, the Circassian chief, and of Toussaint
L'Ouverture in Hayti, and of his own familiarity with Haytian
conditions, Brown spoke of his belief that,
332 JOHN BROWN
"upon the first intimation of a plan formed for the liberation of
the slaves, they would immediately rise all over the Southern
States. He supposed that they would come into the mountains to
join him, where he proposed to work, and that by flocking to his
standard they would enable him (by making the line of mountains
which cuts diagonally through Maryland and Virginia down through
the Southern States into Tennessee and Alabama, the base of his
operations) to act upon the plantations on the plains lying on each
side of that range of mountains, and that we should be able to es-
tablish ourselves in the fastnesses, and if any hostile action (as
would be) were taken against us, either by the militia of the separate
States or by the armies of the United States, we purposed^to defeat
first the militia, and next, if it were possible, the troops of the United
States, and then organize the freed blacks under this provisional
constitution, which would carve out for the locality of its juris-
diction all that mountainous region in which the blacks were to
be established and in which they were to be taught the useful and
mechanical arts, and to be instructed in all the business of life.
Schools were also to be established, and so on. That was it. ...
The negroes were to constitute the soldiers. John Brown expected
that all the free negroes in the Northern States would immediately
flock to his standard. He expected that all the slaves in the South-
ern States would do the same. He believed, too, that as many of the
free negroes in Canada as could accompany him, would do so. . . .
The slaveholders were to be taken as hostages, if they refused to let
their slaves go. It is a mistake to suppose that they were to be
killed; they were not to be. They were to be held as hostages for
the safe treatment of any prisoners of John Brown's who might fall
into the hands of hostile parties. . . . All the non-slaveholders
were to be protected. Those who would not join the organization of
John Brown, but who would not oppose it, were to be protected;
but those who did oppose it, were to be treated as the slaveholders
themselves. . . . Thus, John Brown said that he believed, a suc-
cessful incursion could be made; that it could be successfully main-
tained ; that the several slave States could be forced (from the posi-
tion in which they found themselves) to recognize the freedom of
those who had been slaves within the respective limits of those
States; that immediately such recognitions were made, then the
places of all the officers elected under this provisional constitution
became vacant, and new elections were to be made. Moreover, no
salaries were to be paid to the office-holders under this constitution.
It was purely out of that which we supposed to be philanthropy —
love for the slave."
After this address, John Brown presented a plan of organ-
ization, entitled "Provisional Constitution and Ordinances
for the People of the United States," and moved the read-
'A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 333
ing of it. To this there was objection until an oath of se-
crecy was taken by each member of the convention. An oath
being moved, John Brown arose and informed the convention
that he had conscientious scruples about taking any oath;
that all he desired was a promise that any person who there-
after divulged any of the proceedings "agreed to forfeit the
protection which that organization could extend over him."
Nevertheless, the oath was voted and the president adminis-
tered the obligation. Thereupon the proposed Constitution
was read, and after debate on one article, the forty-sixth, it
was unanimously adopted. The afternoon session was brief,
being occupied solely with signing the Constitution, "con-
gratulatory remarks" by Dr. Delany and Thomas M. Kin-
nard and final adjournment. At the evening session the con-
vention was a new body, — that called by the Constitution
adopted by the "Provisional Convention," "for the purpose
of electing officers to fill the offices specially established and
named by said Constitution." With the same officers, the
new convention appointed a committee to make nominations.
Upon its failing to do so promptly, the convention itself
elected John Brown Commander-in-Chief, and John H. Kagi,
Secretary of War. On Monday, May 10, the balloting was
resumed. Realf was made Secretary of State, George B. Gill,
Secretary of the Treasury, Owen Brown, Treasurer, and
Osborn P. Anderson and Alfred M. Ellsworth, members of
Congress. After the position of President had been declined
by or for two colored men, the filling of this and other vacan-
cies was left to a committee of fifteen, headed by John Brown.
It is not of record, however, that the vacancies were ever
filled.
If, after a lapse of fifty years, it seems at first as if the Con-
stitution and the entire proceeding belonged to the domain
of the mock Springdale legislature, the earnestness and seri-
ousness of the Chatham proceedings cannot be denied, so far
as the moving spirits were concerned. Some of the men doubt-
less signed without much consideration; but to the colored
men, at least, it seemed as if freedom from bondage were
really in sight for their enslaved brethren. Since Brown was
able to overrule the objections of practical men like Gerrit
Smith and George L. Stearns, it is, of course, not to be won-
334 JOHN BROWN
dered at if the little gathering in Chatham accepted at its face
value the extraordinary document which John Brown laid
before them. They could but applaud the admirably written
preamble : "
"Whereas, Slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United
States is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked, and
unjustifiable War of one portion of its citizens upon another por-
tion; the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment, and
hopeless servitude or absolute extermination; in utter disregard
and violation of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in
our Declaration of Independence: Therefore, we CITIZENS of the
UNITED STATES, and the OPPRESSED PEOPLE, who, by
a RECENT DECISION of the SUPREME COURT ARE DE-
CLARED to have NO RIGHTS WHICH the WHITE MAN is
BOUND to RESPECT; TOGETHER WITH ALL OTHER
PEOPLE DEGRADED by the LAWS THEREOF, DO, for
the TIME BEING ORDAIN and ESTABLISH for OUR-
SELVES the FOLLOWING PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION
and ORDINANCES, the BETTER to PROTECT our PER-
SONS, PROPERTY, LIVES, and LIBERTIES: and to GOVERN
our ACTIONS."
This statement, in its definition of slavery as war, is the key-
note to Brown's philosophy, and explains better than anything
else why it was consistent with his devout religious charac-
ter for him to kill, and to plunder for supplies in Kansas, and
to take up arms against slavery itself. There was for him no
such thing as peace so long as there were chains upon a single
slave; and he was, therefore, at liberty to plot and intrigue, to
prepare for hostilities, without regard to public order or the
civil laws. Passing beyond the preamble, the Constitution *
suggests the word "insane," which the historian Von Hoist
applies to certain of its provisions. It actually contemplates
not merely the government of forces in armed insurrection
against sovereign States and opposed to the armies of the
United States, but actually goes so far as to establish courts,
a regular judiciary and a Congress. As if that were not
enough, it provides for schools for that same training of the
freed slaves in manual labor which is to-day so widely hailed
as the readiest solution of the negro problem. Churches, too,
were to be "established as soon as may be," - as if anything
* See Appendix.
could be more inconsistent with the fundamental plan of
breaking the forces up into small bands hidden in mountain
fastnesses, subsisting as well as possible off the land, and prob-
ably unable to communicate with one another. At this and
at other points the whole scheme forbids discussion as a prac-
tical plan of government for such an uprising as was to be car-
ried out by a handful of whites and droves of utterly illiterate
and ignorant blacks. As has already been said, it is still a
chief indictment of Brown's saneness of judgment and his
reasoning powers. Von Hoist, one of his greatest admirers,
describes it as a "piece of insanity, in the literal sense of the
word," and a "confused medley of absurd, because absolutely
inapplicable, forms." 58 Yet no one can deny that in many of
its articles the Brown Constitution is admirable in spirit, as,
for instance, in the provisions for the enforcement of morality
and for the humanitarian treatment of prisoners, as well as in
other measures well adapted to the undertaking. As a chart
for the course of a State about to secede from the Union and
to maintain itself during a regular revolution, the document
was also not without its admirable features. It is impossible,
however, as regards this extraordinary Constitution, to forget
that it was drawn for the use of possibly fifty white men and
hordes of escaping slaves fighting for their lives, not on the
open prairies of Kansas, or among its scattered hamlets, but
in well-populated and well-settled portions of the South.
The Constitution simply emphasizes anew Brown's belief
that he really could engage in warfare against slavery, and
could keep at bay the United States army while doing so ; that
with a handful of men and a few hundred guns and mediaeval
pikes, he could grapple and shake to its foundations an insti-
tution the actual uprooting of which nearly cost the United
States Government its existence, and necessitated the sacrific-
ing of vast treasure and an enormous number of human lives.
Brown was careful even to provide that no treaty of peace —
presumably either with the United States or the several South-
ern States — could be ratified save by his President, his
Vice- President, a majority of his Congress and of his Supreme
Court, and of the general officers of the army ; that is, his half-
company of officers was to- be considered equal as a treaty-
making power with a great nation and its coordinate parts ! It
336 JOHN BROWN
is best, therefore, not to attempt to analyze the Chatham Con-
stitution, but to admire its wording and its composition, and
lay it aside as a temporary aberration of a mind that in its other
manifestations defies successful classification as unhinged or
altogether unbalanced. Fanatical, Brown's mind was; concen-
trated on one idea to the danger-point, most alienists would
probably agree; but still it remained a mind capable of ex-
pressing itself with rare clearness and force, focussing itself
with intense vigor on the business in hand, and going straight
to the end in view.
One point of the Constitution remains to be considered.
Brown maintained at his trial that he had not sought to over-
throw the United States Government or that of Virginia ; the
Chatham Constitution was cited against him. A biographer,
R. J. Hinton, insisted89 that Brown was justified in his posi-
tion by Article XLVI of the Constitution, which reads: "The
foregoing Articles shall not be construed so as in any way
to encourage the overthrow of any State Government or of the
General Government of the United States: and look to no
dissolution of the Union but simply to Amendment and Repeal.
And our flag shall be the same that our Fathers fought under
in the Revolution." This was the only article challenged at
Chatham, and one vote was cast for the motion to strike it out.
Accepting it as a disclaimer of hostility to the various govern-
ments only increases the difficulty. It then appears that
he was ready to oppose, and if necessary to kill, troops of the
United States, and to create a civil government over certain
portions of its territory, as the best way of inducing the United
States Government to adopt his view of the slavery question.
The radical Abolitionists openly worked for division by
peaceful means and refused to make use of their rights as
citizens; John Brown sought to oppose the authority of the
Union by force of arms, while denying that any one could con-
strue his actions as treason or disloyalty.
A definite and immediate result of the Chatham conven-
tion was the complete exhaustion of Brown's treasury. His
Boston friends were expecting him to "turn loose his flock"
about May 15, but the day before that he was still at Chat-
ham, and wrote to Mr. Sanborn asking for three or four
hundred dollars, "without delay. " 60 On the 25th he wrote to
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 337
his family that "we are completely nailed down at present
for want of funds, and we may be obliged to remain inactive
for months yet, for the same reason. You must all learn to be
patient — or, at least I hope you will." 61 Brown's chagrin at
this condition of affairs was intensified by the needs of his men.
They had left Chatham on May n and gone to Cleveland
and near-by Ohio towns, in search of work to maintain them
temporarily until they got the signal to reassemble. Now,
obtaining work even in the most humble capacity was not
easy in the spring of 1858, when the country had not yet begun
to recover from the great financial depression of the previous
fall. To Gill, who had written at once of the poor outlook, —
there were two thousand men out of work in Cleveland, —
Brown replied : 62
"I will only inquire if you, any of you, think the difficulties
you have experienced, so far, are sufficient to discourage a man ?
. . . I and three others were in exactly such a fix in the spring of
1817: between the seaside and Ohio, in a time of extreme scarcity of
not only money, but of the greatest distress for want of provisions,
known during the nineteenth century. . . . We are here [Realf,
Kagi, Richardson and Leeman had remained in Canada] busy get-
ting information and making other preparations. I believe no time
has yet been lost. Owing to the panic on the part of some of our
Eastern friends, we may be compelled to hold on for months yet.
But what of that ?"
Three days later, Brown expressed his satisfaction that all
but three of the men had then obtained work "to stop their
board bills." 63 He had received only fifteen dollars from the
East, but was in "hourly expectation of help sufficient to pay
off our bills here, and to take us on to Cleveland to see and
advise with you." He was compelled to say in this letter that:
"such has been the effect of the course taken by F. [Forbes] that I
have some fears that we shall be compelled to delay further action
for the present. . . . It is in such times that men mark themselves.
'He that endureth unto the end,' the same shall get his reward.
Are our difficulties sufficient to make us give up one of the noblest
enterprises in which men were ever engaged?"
The difficulties were not great enough to make any of the
men abandon the project then, though some were indubi-
tably in straits at times. Indeed, some of them actually
338 JOHN BROWN
plotted to go South and raid by themselves, if help did not
soon come.64 Cook was the leader in this; during his stay in
Cleveland he was highly indiscreet, boasting that he was on a
secret expedition ; that he had killed five men in Kansas ; swag-
gering openly in his boarding-house, and revealing much to
a woman acquaintance, so that Realf feared that if the expe-
dition were to be postponed, the greatest danger would not
be from Forbes, but from Cook's "rage for talking." Richard
Richardson and John A. Thomas, another colored man, who
had gone to Cleveland with Brown and Realf, soon returned to
Canada in fear of arrest, and are not thereafter heard from in
connection with Brown.65 Realf later went to New York to
watch Forbes, and to plan his trip to England to raise funds
for the cause.
John Brown himself left Chatham on May 29, and went di-
rect to Boston, after having been there just a month.66 He had
been urged by Mr. Stearns to meet him in New York, to dis-
cuss the question of the arms in his possession, during the week
beginning May 16, but he was unable to do so, and did not see
any of the Boston friends until he arrived at the American
House on May 31. As Brown had stated to his men, renewed
activity on the part of Forbes had filled the Boston backers
with consternation. Before and during the Chatham conven-
tion, Brown was writing almost daily to some one about " F.,"
as he referred to him in his memorandum-book. Mr. Higgin-
son wrote on May 7 to John Brown, from Brattleboro, protest-
ing against the postponement already talked of: 67
DEAR FRIEND
Sanborn wrote an alarming letter of a certain H. F. who wishes to
veto our veteran friend's project entirely. Who the man is I hv. no
conception — but I utterly protest against any postponement. //
the thing is postponed, it is postponed for ever — for H. F. can do as
much harm next year as this. His malice must be in some way put
down or outwitted — & after the move is once begun, his plots will
be of little importance. I believe that we have gone too far to go
back without certain failure — & I believe our friend the veteran
will think so too.
This was Brown's own belief. But before he reached Boston
the die was cast against him, as is seen from this note of Mr.
Sanborn to Mr. Higginson: 68
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 339
CONCORD May i8th '58.
The enclosed from our friend explains itself. The Dr. [Howe]
has written to an adroit and stinging letter, intended to baffle
him. Wilson as well as Hale and Seward, and God knows how many
more have heard about the plot from F. To go on in the face of this
is mere madness and I place myself fully on the side of P. [Parker]
S. [Stearns] and Dr. H. [Howe] with G. S. [Gerrit Smith] who does
count. What Dana says of F's character seems probable. Mr. S.
[Stearns] and the Dr. will see Hawkins in New York this week and
settle matters finally.
The letter from Senator Henry Wilson to Dr. Howe which
had particularly alarmed the conspirators was a reflection of
Forbes' s sudden appearance before him on the floor of the
Senate. It bore date of May 9 and read thus: 69
" I write to you to say that you had better talk with some few of
our friends who contributed money to aid old Brown to organize
and arm some force in Kansas for defence, about the policy of getting
those arms out of his hands & putting them in the hands of some
reliable men in that Territory. // they should be used for other pur-
poses, as rumor says they may be, it might be of disadvantage to the men
who were induced to contribute to that very foolish movement. If it can
be done, get the arms out of his control and keep clear of him at least
for the present. This is in confidence."
On May 14, Mr. Stearns sent to Brown, at Chatham, a copy
of this letter and, writing officially as chairman of the Massa-
chusetts State Kansas Committee, thus admonished him: 70
"You will recollect that you have the custody of the arms alluded
to, to be used for the defence of Kansas, as agent of the Massachu-
setts State Kansas Committee. In consequence of the information
thus communicated to me [by Dr. Howe and Senator Wilson], it
becomes my duty to warn you not to use them for any other pur-
pose, and to hold them subject to my order as chairman of said
committee."
It was in regard to the arms that Mr. Stearns had sought
the interview with Brown in New York. The latter agent of the
Committee besought his Boston friends not to move hastily,
and pledged himself not to act other than to obtain a perfect
knowledge of the facts in regard to Forbes, if the two or three
hundred dollars he needed were sent to him.
The outcome of Brown's conferences in Boston, which re-
sulted in the temporary abandonment of the Virginia plan and
340 JOHN BROWN
Brown's departure for Kansas, together with the attitude of
the various conspirators, is thus succinctly set forth in a care-
fully preserved memorandum of Mr. Higginson's : n
"Saw [J. B.] in Boston. He showed me F's letter also one fr. S.
announcing the result of a meeting between himself, G. S., G L S.,
T. P. & Dr H. It was to postpone till next winter or spring when
they wd. raise $2000 or $3000; he meantime to blind F. by going
to K. [Kansas] & to transfer the property so as to relieve them of
responsibility — & they in future not to know his plans.
"On probing B. I gradually found that he agreed entirely with
me, considered delay very discouraging to his 13 men & to those in
Canada, — impossible to begin in the autumn & he wd. not lose a
day (he finally said) if he had $300 — it wd. not cost $25 apiece to
get his men fr. Ohio & that was all he needed. The knowledge that
F. cd. give of his plan wd. be injurious, for he wished his opponents
to underrate him: but still (as I suggested) the increased terror pro-
duced wd. perhaps counterbalance this & it wd. not make much
difference. If he had the means, he wd. not lose a day.
"On my wondering that the others did not agree with us, he said
the reason was they were not men of action, they were intimidated by
Wilson's letter &c. & overrated the obstacles. G. S. he knew to be a
timid man. G. L. S. & T. P. he did not think abounded in courage.
H. had more & had till recently agreed with us.
" But the * old veteran added, he had not said this to them, &
had appeared to acquiesce far more than he really did ; it was essen-
tial that they shld. not think him reckless, & as they held the purse
he was powerless without them, having spent nearly every thing
received thus far (some $650 fr. them by his book wh. he showed —
they having promised $1000) — on account of the delay — a month
at Chatham &c But he wished me not to tell them what he had said
to me.
"On Saturday, June 6, I went to see Dr. H. & found that things
had ended far better than I supposed. The Kansas Com. had
put some $500 in gold into his [Brown's] hands & all the arms
- with only the understanding that he shld. go to K. & then
be left to his own discretion. H. went off in good spirits. H. still
claimed to agree with me, bt said the others ' wd. not hear of it —
even P.' & he had to acquiesce & even write a letter urging H to go
to Kansas."
This memorandum is erroneous in that it speaks of the Kan-
sas Committee having given the $500 and the arms. The plain
fact is that the money came from the same unofficial group
of friends, and that the arms were given to Brown by the sim-
ple expedient of having Mr. Stearns foreclose on them. Mr.
* Word illegible.
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 341
Stearns had advanced large sums to the Kansas Committee,
which had never been repaid, asking at the time that the
arms if unused should come back to him, that he might reim-
burse himself for his outlay. It will be remembered that the
Kansas Committee had agreed to this by formal vote, just
after Mr. Stearns had paid for the two hundred pistols he had
purchased of the Massachusetts Arms Company for Brown out
of his own pocket, but in the name of the Kansas Committee.
Mr. Stearns now simply exercised this option, and so notified
the immediate conspirators verbally, and then presented all the
arms, whose possession he had that minute assumed, to Brown.
As soon as possible thereafter, says Mr. Sanborn, "the busi-
ness of the Kansas Committee was put in such shape that its
responsibility for the arms in Brown's possession should no
longer fetter his friends in aiding his main design." 72 When
the denouement finally came, however, the public and press
did not take a very favorable view of the transaction ; it was too
difficult to distinguish between George L. Stearns, the benefac-
tor of the Kansas Committee, and George L. Stearns, the Chair-
man of that Committee. Again, there appear to have been
some dissatisfied members of the Kansas Committee who re-
mained uninformed of the transfer of the arms until the whole
thing came out, and they resented the charge of having aided
Brown in his Virginia foray. Mr. Sanborn admits that "it is
still a little difficult to explain this transaction concerning the
arms without leaving a suspicion that there was somewhere a
breach of trust." 73
To a recent historian, Rear- Admiral F. E. Chadwick, this
incident is "not a pleasant story ; "74 he accuses the Kansas
Committee and Dr. Howe of "duplicity" and "gross prevari-
cation," the latter for writing to Senator Wilson on May 12:
" I understand perfectly your meaning. No countenance has been
given to Brown for any operation outside of Kansas by the Kansas
Committee;" and three days later: " Prompt measures have been
taken and will resolutely be followed up to prevent any such mon-
strous perversion of a trust as would be the application of means
raised for the defence of Kansas to a purpose which the subscribers
of the fund would disapprove and vehemently condemn."
Technically, the Committee has a valid defence. Doubtless
in the business world, and especially according to the stand-
342 JOHN BROWN
ards of certain large industrial concerns of late years, the Com-
mittee's stratagem is quite defensible as a simple way out of
a trying difficulty, and an easy method of obtaining for Brown
the desired arms. It cannot be denied that frankness and
straightforwardness would have dictated the notifying of Sen-
ator Wilson that the arms had passed into the possession of
individual members of the Committee, which would not there-
after be responsible for them or the uses made of them. As
it is, there was no actual recall of the arms from Brown what-
ever, as Senator Wilson was permitted to believe, save a purely
nominal one. No one, says Mr. Sanborn, suggested that they
should pass out of Brown's actual possession.75 It is one of
those unpleasant episodes which so often happen when the
business of individuals and of organizations to which they be-
long becomes intertwined. Had Mr. Stearns not been Chair-
man of the Kansas Committee, but a mere outsider, no allega-
tion of breach of trust could have lain in the premises. But
even this admirable man sometimes split delicate hairs in dis-
cussing what actually happened at this period. Thus he later
appeared before the Mason Committee and testified that John
Brown had not asked for the two hundred Sharp's rifles in
January, 1857, — the time that Brown was beseeching the Na-
tional Kansas Committee and the Boston members of the
Massachusetts State Committee to fit out his proposed "vol-
unteer regular company" with arms! It must be pointed out,
too, that the decision of the little Boston group, after giving
Brown the five hundred dollars and arms, in 1858, to know no
more of his plans, is the first sign of the effort to evade respon-
sibility which became so apparent after the raid. They had en-
couraged him to attack slavery in the mountains of the South,
giving him money and arms to do it with, and sanctioned his
going ahead , — only they said : ' ' Do not tell us the details of it. "
This attitude inevitably suggests that of those modern corpora-
tion directors who are perfectly aware that their agents, the
executives of the company, are using the funds of the stock-
holders illegally, but salve their consciences by never broach-
ing the matter in or out of the board-room, or examining the
accounts. It further lays them open to the criticism of being
ready to help others to assail a wrong, but of being themselves
unwilling to take the full consequences of their acts.
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 343
As for the arms themselves, they were at this time in Ohio.76
After Brown had brought them to Springdale, they were
shipped from West Liberty, with the two hundred revolvers
bought by Mr. Stearns, by freight to John Brown, Jr., at Con-
neaut, Ashtabula County, Ohio. By him they had been trans-
ported to, and concealed in, the village of Cherry Valley, where
they were stored in the furniture ware-rooms of King Brothers.
Here, for safety's sake, they were covered by a lot of ready-
made coffins awaiting sale. The visit of a tax assessor made
John Brown, Jr., nervous about them, but the arms remained
here until early in May, when, by his father's directions, they
were moved by night to the barn of a farmer named William
Coleman, in the adjoining township of Wayne, who helped
him to build by night a little store-room in his haymow. Some
of the arms and the powder were for a time in the sugar-house
of E. Alexander Fobes, a brother-in-law of John Brown, Jr.
From here they were moved in 1859 to the scene of action. On
May i, 1858, John Brown, Jr., wrote to his father that he
had been examining the arms, and that he had them "nearly
all packed and ready to start on Monday next should nothing
happen." He had examined the smaller "articles of freight,"
and found that the oil on the locks and elsewhere had become
"so gummy" as to render the arms useless until thoroughly
overhauled and cleaned.77
Rejoicing in his ownership of the arms and his fresh money-
supply, Brown swallowed his disappointment over the post-
ponement of the raid and went straight to North Elba, where
he was on June 9. This time there was no indecision about
his movements or hesitancy about returning to Kansas. He
was in Cleveland by June 20, for on the next day he called his
scattered followers together and, notifying them of the deci-
sion of the Boston friends, gave them what money he could
and bade them be true to the cause.78 A general break-up
ensued. Realf, as already related, was to go to New York and
watch Forbes; Owen went to his brother Jason's at Akron,
Ohio, while Kagi and Tidd left that same day with Brown for
Kansas by way of Chicago. Leeman and Taylor first went
with Owen, and then drifted about in Ohio and Illinois, while
Parsons spent the summer on Fobes's farm, where the arms
were concealed, and then returned to his home at Byron, Illi-
344 JOHN BROWN
nois.79 Moffet worked his way home to Iowa, after staying for
some time in Cleveland, while Gill and Stevens went back to
Springdale on their way to Kansas, where they later joined
John Brown's little company. To Cook was assigned the diffi-
cult and responsible task of going to Harper's Ferry to live as
a spy in the enemy's country, an outpost stealthily to recon-
noitre the vicinity. This he did successfully, arriving there
on Junes, 1858.8°
By this delay and change of plan, Brown lost five of his
twelve followers who took part in the Chatham convention.
Parsons had lost his zeal for the venture on learning of the plan
to attack the arsenal at Harper's Ferry.81 He had not calcu-
lated on a direct assault on the United States Government,
and so when the call to rejoin Brown reached him at Council
Bluffs in 1859, where he was, en route to Pike's Peak, he heeded
the admonition of his mother which came with it. "They are
bad men," she wrote him. "You have got away from them,
now keep away from them." Mr. Parsons has an excellent war
service to his credit as a commissioned officer, and is still living
at Salina, Kansas. Moffet, too, was probably disaffected,
though it was claimed for him by his sister, in 1860, that "ob-
ligations from which he could not be released " prevented his
rejoining Brown. Of his own failure to reach Harper's Ferry,
George B. Gill, who also survives, says:82
" I was on my way to Harper's Ferry at the time of the premature
blow and apparent failure. I had been in correspondence with Kagi
and knew the exact time to be on hand and was on my way to the
cars when the thrilling news came that the blow had been struck.
Of course I went no further. I had been sick much of the spring and
summer previous and in my last interview with the old man I would
not promise to follow him farther, being worn out physically and not
feeling any more sanguine of the necessary funds being raised, and
having been east the previous year on a wild goose chase I could not
see the necessity of going further at present."
\
Realf, on his trip to England, underwent a sea-change, and
after the raid was charged with treachery. Richardson, the
colored man, did not reappear from Canada. But Cook, Lee-
man, Tidd, Owen Brown, Stevens, Taylor and Kagi followed
their leader to Harper's Ferry, whence only Tidd and Owen
Brown returned.
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 345
In company, then, with two of the faithful ones, Brown
reached Chicago on June 22; on June 25 two of his later bio-
graphers met him under these conditions in Lawrence: "We
were at supper, on the 25th of June, 1858, at a hotel in Law-
ence, Kansas. A stately old man, with a flowing white beard,
entered the room and took a seat at the public table. I im-
mediately recognized in the stranger, John Brown. Yet many
persons who had previously known him did not penetrate
his patriarchal disguise." Thus wrote Redpath.83 The whole
aspect of Brown was now changed ; the long gray beard famil-
iar to all the world at the time of his execution concealed the
sharpness of his chin, the thin lips and the resolute, sharp line
of the mouth. But there was no change in the man. On Mon-
day, June 28, he was off for southern Kansas, where he reap-
peared disguised not only as to his physiognomy but as to his
name. Thereafter there was a new border chief in southeast-
ern Kansas, — Shubel Morgan.
CHAPTER X
SHUBEL MORGAN, WARDEN OF THE MARCHES
THE Kansas to which John Brown returned in June, 1858, had
made distinct progress toward the realization of the hopes
of the Free State party. In October, 1857, it had captured
the Territorial Legislature, which met on January 4, 1858, but
it had abstained from voting at the election of December 21
on the Lecompton Constitution, because the only alternative
was to vote "for the Constitution with slavery" or "for the
Constitution with no slavery." But the Constitution with-
out slavery made that institution perpetual within the State,
by providing for the maintenance of the slaves then in the
Territory, and their offspring, and specifically declaring that
slaves were property. The " Constitution-with-slavery " pro-
vision was carried by 6266 votes to 569, owing to the absten-
tion of the Free State men; 2720 of the affirmative votes were
proved to be fraudulent. Since the election did not turn upon
the Constitution itself, but upon the issue whether the Con-
stitution with or without slavery should be adopted, the Free
State men, Lane in particular, had, as already pointed out,
induced the Acting Governor, Stan ton, to call a special session
of the Legislature for December 7, which promptly ordered
the submission of the entire Lecompton Constitution to the
people. When this was done, on January 4, the pro-slavery
men abstained from the polls. No less than 10,226 votes were
cast against the Constitution, 138 for it with slavery, and 24
for it without slavery. Both parties joined in the election for
officers under the Lecompton Constitution, the Free State
men winning. Of the 6875 pro-slavery votes, 2458 subse-
quently proved to be illegal ; 1 the Free State men chose 42
out of 53 members of the Legislature. George W. Smith,
Free State, was elected Governor. On January 5, the old
Topeka Legislature met again to receive a message from its
Governor, Robinson, asking that the old rump State organiza-
tion be kept up, although the Territorial Legislature was now
SHUBEL MORGAN 347
safely Free State. In his message to this body, the new Acting
Governor, Denver, who had succeeded Stanton, recommended
that all legislation of importance be deferred until Congress
should act upon the Lecompton Constitution.
When that document was submitted to Congress by the
President, on February 2, that body had received a petition
from all the State officers chosen under this Constitution, ask-
ing that it be defeated. While Brown was collecting his funds
in the East, revealing his Virginia plan to his Boston friends,
and preparing for the Chatham convention, Congress was
struggling with this Lecompton issue, which was not decided
until April 30. During all that period the debate had aroused
the country, and wrought Congress itself up to a pitch of great
excitement. Even Stephen A. Douglas, author of the Squat-
ter Sovereignty theory to which all of Kansas's misfortunes
were due, opposed the Lecompton Constitution. Finally, Con-
gress passed a compromise measure known as the English
bill, which provided that Kansas should be admitted to the
Union if, on resubmission, a majority of its voters approved
the Lecompton Constitution. This was emphatically a pro-
slavery victory. In order to bribe the voters of the State into
accepting the Constitution that had once been rejected by
them, Congress offered to give to the new State two sections
of land in each township for school purposes, seventy-two
sections for a State university, and ten sections for public
buildings, in all five and a half million acres; also all the salt
springs, not exceeding twelve in number, and six sections of
land with each spring; and, finally, five per cent of all the
public lands for State roads. No such bribe had ever been
offered to- any other State; if it should not be accepted, the bill
required that no new delegates to frame a Constitution
should be chosen until Kansas had a population equalling the
ratio of representation required for a member of the House
of Representatives — then 93,560 people. Kansas was in the
throes of a discussion of this measure when John Brown
arrived, for the date set for the vote on the resubmitted Con-
stitution was August 2. He had, therefore, the satisfaction of
being in the Territory at this final defeat of the pro-slavery
forces, when 13,088 votes were cast, 11,300 of them against
the odious Constitution. Thereafter Kansas was safe. No
348 JOHN BROWN
other Constitution was framed until the next year; but the
defeat of the slavery forces was beyond all dispute and final.2
But if the political outlook in the Territory was favorable
to the Free State men, there had been in southeastern Kansas,
particularly in Linn and Bourbon counties, a recrudescence of
the lawlessness of 1 856. Indeed, the whole Territory, as Brown
entered it, was still ringing with one of the most atrocious
crimes in the annals of the border warfare, to which reference
has already been made. Charles A. Hamilton, a graduate of
the University of Georgia, later a colonel in the Confederate
army, and a member of an excellent family, had boasted that
if pro-slavery men could not make headway in the Territory,
Abolitionists should not live there. Crossing the Missouri
boundary on May 19, near the Trading Post in Linn County,
he captured Free State men wherever he found them, on their
wagons, in the fields, or in their homes, until he had eleven
reputable citizens, — the Rev. B. L. Reed, W. E. Stilwell,
Asa Hairgrove, William Hairgrove, Amos Hall, William
Colpetzer, Michael Robinson, John F. Campbell, Charles
Snyder, Patrick Ross and Austin Hall. An effort was made
to capture Eli Snyder, a blacksmith, his brother and a young
son, Elias Snyder, but they fought too vigorously. Lining up
his eleven prisoners in a little ravine, Hamilton placed his
thirty-odd men on the bank above them, and ordered them
to aim at the prisoners. One of the men, Brockett, who had
been Pate's lieutenant at the battle of Black Jack, declined
to obey Hamilton's order and withdrew. At the word of
command, the others fired at the unflinching Free State men.
To make sure of their work, the brazen and brutal murderers
then kicked the prostrate men and finished two of the dying,
Ross and Amos Hall, by shooting them again. Then they
made off. The Snyders, lying in the bushes near-by, hearing
the shooting and groans, were afraid to move lest it might all
be a ruse. They were finally summoned by Austin Hall, who,
unwounded, had had presence of mind to fall with the others
and remain rigid when kicked by a ruffian who wished to
ascertain if he still breathed. It was found that five men,
Campbell, Colpetzer, Ross, Stilwell, and Robinson, had been
killed. The remaining five survived their serious wounds.
Nothing can be said in defence of this crime. None of the
SHUBEL MORGAN 349
eleven had given special reason for Border Ruffian dislike.
Hamilton thought, perhaps, that by imitating the Pottawa-
tomie murders of John Brown he could at one blow intimi-
date southeastern Kansas; perhaps he believed himself the
agent of the Almighty to exterminate these men. At any rate,
he, too, killed five, as had Brown, and with as little warning;
the consequences — the stirring up of the worst kind of bush-
whacking strife — were in both cases the same.3
Soon after the massacre, two hundred Kansans, led by
Sheriff McDaniel, Colonel R. B. Mitchell and James Mont-
gomery, marched to West Point, Missouri, from which place
Hamilton had started. The murderers, however, had timely
warning of their coming and escaped, Montgomery's advice
to surround the town before entering it being disregarded.4
Although occurring some distance from the river of that name,
this killing has always been known as the Marais des Cygnes
Massacre; it inspired Whittier's commemorative poem, "Le
Marais du Cygne," published in the Atlantic Monthly for
September, 1858. In justice to Hamilton it must be stated
that he and a large number of other pro-slavery settlers, who
were in Free State eyes inimical to the peace and progress of
the communities in which they had resided, had been ordered
by James Montgomery, the Free State leader, to leave their
homes post-haste and flee to Missouri. The Marais des Cygnes
Massacre was the revenge for this expulsion, which the ma-
jority of the Free State settlers considered wholly warranted
by the careers of those expelled. Hamilton originally headed
a band of five hundred Missourians. All but Hamilton and his
ignoble thirty were dissuaded from entering Kansas, or lost
courage when they reached the Territorial line. There ensued
after the massacre a week of extreme lawlessness, although
Federal troops had already been ordered out into Bourbon
County. Montgomery tried to burn the pro-slavery town of
Fort Scott, and there were grave conditions, indeed, until
Governor Denver personally arrived on the scene in June and
induced both sides to agree to a treaty of peace. Bygones were
to be bygones. He promised to remove the Federal troops from
Fort Scott at once ; to order a new election for county officials ;
to station militia along the border in order to prevent invasion
from Missouri; and to suspend the operation of old writs, if
350 JOHN BROWN
Montgomery's men and all other armed bodies would with-
draw from the field. This compact was religiously adhered to
through the summer and fall.
James Montgomery was one of the most interesting figures
of the border warfare. He was thus described in a letter to the
New York Evening Post in i858:6
"In conversation he talks mildly in a calm, even voice, using the
language of a cultivated, educated gentleman. His antecedents are
unexceptionable; he was always a Free State man, although coming
from a Slave State, where he was noted as a good citizen and for his
mild, even temperament. In his daily conduct he maintains the
same character now; but when in action and under fire, he displays
a daring fearlessness, untiring perseverance, and an indomitable
energy that has given him the leadership in this border warfare."
His own cabin was often attacked in days when nobody
who had caution unbarred his door to a visitor's hail without
being assured as to the ownership of the voice.6 His wife was a
fit companion for a border chieftain. It is related of her that
she had the indomitable spirit, if not the culture, of her hus-
band, and that she once said: " I do get plumb tired of being
shot at, but I won't be druv out." 7 It must not be thought,
however, that all of Montgomery's neighbors were unanimous
as to his usefulness; but they always agreed as to his honesty.
A leader of " jayhawkers," he had but little respect for man-
made laws; he met violence with violence, and often could not
control the excesses of his men.
The original incentive for Montgomery's taking to the
brush was the pro-slavery outrages of 1856 in Linn County;
thereafter his own actions led to frequent efforts to retaliate
by the pro-slavery men, who feared and hated him more than
any one else. "His operations," says Andreas,8 "may be
classed as defensive, preventive and retaliatory, and it is
doubtless true that he did many things which, when judged
outside of their immediate and remote causes and connections,
would not stand the test of the moral code." Yet after it
was all over, and the Civil War at hand, he was made Colo-
nel of the Third Kansas Volunteer Infantry, later Colonel of
the Second South Carolina (Negro) Regiment, with which he
fought in Florida; and during the Price raid into Missouri, he
was Colonel of the Sixth Kansas Militia Regiment. Both in
SHUBEL MORGAN 351
Kansas and in the South, as a regimental commander, he
aroused criticism by his ruthless destruction and plundering
of captured towns and villages, partly in obedience to orders.9
In Kansas, in 1858, one of the deeds which made him conspicu-
ous was an attack on part of Captain G. T. Anderson's com-
pany of the First United States Cavalry, April 21, when he
and seven other men were overtaken by it. Taking to the
timber, Montgomery opened fire, killing one soldier and
injuring Captain Anderson and two soldiers, whereupon the
company fled, to their and their commander's disgrace, Cap-
tain Anderson being forced to resign from the service in con-
sequence.10 Another exploit was Montgomery's destruction
of the ballot-boxes, in imitation of similar Missouri outrages,
at the election for Governor under the Lecompton Constitu-
tion, January 4, 1858, because he did not sympathize with the
decision of a part of the Free State party to vote under the
Constitution.11 That his neighbors might not vote, he broke
the ballot-box and scattered the ballots, for which he was
indicted but never tried. Many other acts of violence were
rightly or wrongly laid at his door, chief among the former
being the attempt to burn Fort Scott, early in June, 1858.
Governor Denver officially charged him with this, and with
firing indiscriminately into the houses of the town, and ex-
pressed his astonishment at meeting men fully aware of this
"most outrageous attempt at arson and murder," who yet
"uphold and justify Montgomery and his band in their con-
duct." Of the ravaged district in which Montgomery oper-
ated, Governor Denver, after his personal tour of inspection,
thus wrote to Lewis Cass, Secretary of State:
"From Fort Scott to the crossing of the Osage river, or Marais
des Cygnes as it is there called, a distance of about 30 miles, we
passed through a country almost depopulated by the depredations
of the predatory bands under Montgomery, presenting a scene of
desolation such as I never expected to have witnessed in any coun-
try inhabited by American citizens. . . . The accounts given of the
flight of the people were heart-rending in the extreme."
Governor Denver, throughout his official correspondence,
was extremely hostile to Montgomery, while not failing to say
that, however great the outrages he committed, there was no
352 JOHN BROWN
excuse for taking revenge on innocent persons, as Hamilton
had done on the Marais des Cygnes.12
To this guerrilla Montgomery, to the scene of his opera-
tions and the crimes of Hamilton, Brown's mind turned as
soon as he arrived in Lawrence. The numerous outrages upon
individuals were a close parallel to conditions as he found
them around Lawrence when he first entered the Territory in
1855. Montgomery was obviously a border chieftain after his
own heart, and, besides, in his district was the only possible
opportunity for active service. "Fort Scott," wrote the Law-
rence correspondent of the Chicago Tribune on April 4, 1858, 13
"is the only place within the Territory where the Border
Ruffians now show their teeth." Their worst specimens, he
reported, were in refuge there. Fugit, the murderer of Hoppe,
lived in the neighborhood. Clarke, who killed Barber in 1855,
was then Register of the Land Office at Fort Scott. Eli Moore,
one of W. A. Phillips's murderers, and one of those who shot
R. P. Brown at Easton, "has his rendezvous in the same
vicinity." Brockett was clerk in the Land Office. Most of
such of Titus's ruffians as had not gone to Nicaragua with
Walker were also there. These became the leaders of immi-
grants from southwestern Missouri. The land was rich and
desirable. The Free State men persisted in coming in, being
then two to one, and located chiefly in the northern half of
the county. Ever since the preceding fall, the correspondent
reported, they had been harassed and plundered by the pro-
slavery men, to worry them out, by burning cabins, stealing
cattle and horses, and making false arrests, — all so that they
should not dominate the region. It was to end this that Ham-
ilton and his followers had been ordered by Montgomery
to leave the Territory immediately, with the result that
Hamilton later conceived and carried out his horrible plan
of revenge.
Redpath and Hinton stated that on Sunday, June 27, when
they again met Brown in the hotel in Lawrence, he asked
them about the movements and character of Montgomery, as
well as of the trend of political developments,14 and informed
them that he would start south the next day to see his rela-
tives and Montgomery. To Mr. Sanborn, Brown sent, on
Monday, the 28th, the following unsigned letter: 1B
SHUBEL MORGAN 353
LAWRENCE, KANSAS TER. 28th June 1858.
F. B. SANBORN ESQ; and Dear Friends at Boston, Worcester and
Peterboro.
I reached Kansas with friends on the 26th inst; came here last
night, and leave here today ; for the neighborhood of late troubles. It
seem the troubles are not over yet. Can write you but few words
now. Hope to write you more fully after a while. I do hope you
will be in earnest now to carry out as soon as possible the measure
proposed in Mr. Sanborn's letter inviting me to Boston this last
Spring. I hope there will be no delay of that matter. Can you send
me by Express; Care E. B. Whitman Esqr half a Doz; or a full Doz
whistles such as I described? at once?
Write me till further advised, under sealed envelope directing
stamped ones to Rev. S. L. Adair, Osawatomie Kansas Ter.
Yours in Truth
On July 9, John Brown, or Shubel Morgan, as he now
called himself, wrote to his son 16 from the "log-cabin of the
notorious Captain James Montgomery, whom I deem a very
brave and talented officer, and, what is infinitely more, a very
intelligent, kind gentlemanly and most excellent man and
lover of freedom." While Brown visited Montgomery on
other occasions, he was oftenest at the house of Augustus
Wattles, near Moneka, to which locality the latter had re-
moved with his family from the neighborhood of Lawrence.
But the headquarters of Shubel Morgan's company were on
the claim of Eli Snyder, the brave blacksmith, and not many
hundred yards from the very scene of the Hamilton Massacre.
Half a mile from the Missouri line, this hill, now densely
wooded, offered in 1858 a beautiful view of the surrounding
country. Brown arrived there about the 1st of July, with Eli
Snyder, coming directly from the home of Augustus Wattles.
Elias, the boy, drove back with Brown to Wattles's for his
belongings,17 — blankets, provisions, cooking utensils, cloth-
ing and a good supply of arms and ammunition. Kagi and
Tidd were with Brown throughout his stay, Gill and Stevens
arriving later in the summer, by way of Iowa. The first camp,
in which they lived for four weeks, was located between
Snyder's house and his blacksmith-shop, near a fine spring,
which still wells up under the farmhouse now standing on the
site of the camp. Here, true to his custom, John Brown drew
up "Articles of Agreement for Shubel Morgan's Company." *
* See Appendix.
354 JOHN BROWN
On July 20, Shubel Morgan began a long letter to Mr.
Sanborn and the other Boston friends, which he could not
finish until August 6. In it he gave this description of con-
ditions in the vicinity of the claim : 18
"Deserted farms: & dwellings lie in all directions for some miles
along the line ; & the remaining inhabitants watch every appearance
of persons moveing about with anxious jealousy; & vigilance. Four
of the persons wounded or attacked on that occasion* are staying
WITH me. The Blacksmith Snyder who fought the murderers with
his brother; & son are of the number. Old Mr. Hargrove who was
teribly wounded at the same time is another. The blacksmith re-
turned here with me; & intends to bring back his family on to his
claim within Two or Three days. A constant fear of new troubles
seems to prevail on both sides the line ; & on both sides are companies
of armed men. Any little affair may open the quarrel afresh. Two
murders; & cases of robery are reported of late I have also a man
with me who fled from his family; & farm; in Missouri but a day
or Two since; his life being threatened on account of being accused
of informing Kansas men of the whereabouts of one of the mur-
derers who was lately taken; & brought to this side. I have con-
cealed the fact of my presence pretty much; lest it should tend to
create excitement ; but it is getting leaked out; & will soon be known
to all. As I am not here to seek or to secure revenge ; I do not mean
to be the first to reopen the quarrel. How soon it may be raised
against me I cannot say; nor am I over anxious. A portion of my
men are in other neighborhoods We shall soon be in great want of a
small amount in a Draft or Drafts on New York, to feed us. We
cannot work for wages; & provisions are not easily obtained on the
frontier. . . . I may continue here for some time."
A significant passage of this letter is the following comment
on a man who ever since, unless we except Charles Robinson,
has been Brown's bitterest critic, — and still is: " I believe all
honest, sensible Free State men in Kansas consider George
Washington Brown's ' Herald of Freedom' one of the most mis-
chievous, traitorous publications in the whole country." On
August 6 he added that he had been down with the ague since
July 23, and had no safe way of getting his letter off. Under
date of Moneka, August 9, 1858, Brown wrote to his son,
John Brown, Jr., this valuable review of the situation, here
printed for the first time : 19
"Your letter with enclosures, exactly those I wanted, of the 23rd
of July is received. I have been spending some weeks on the Mis-
* The Hamilton Massacre.
SHUBEL MORGAN 355
souri line on the same quarter section where the horrible murders
of May ipth were committed. Confidence seems to be greatly re-
stored amongst the Free State men in consequence, several of whom
returned to their deserted claims. The Election of the 2nd Inst.
passed off quietly on this part of the Line. Its general result in the
Territory you are probably advised of. Our going onto the line
was done with the utmost quiet & so far as I am concerned under an
assumed name to avoid creating any excitement. But the matter
was in some measure leaked out and over into Missouri. Some
believed the report of O. B.'s [Old Brown's] being directly on the
Line and in the immediate vicinity of West Point, but the greater
part on the Kansas side did not believe it. In Missouri the fact
was pretty generally understood, & the idea of having such a neigh-
bour improving a Claim (as was the case) right on a conspicuous
place and in full view for miles, around in Missouri, produced a
ferment there which you can better imagine than I can describe.
Which of the passions most predominated, fear or rage, I do not
pretend to say. We had a number of visitors from there, some of
whom we believed at the time and still believe were spies. One
avowed himself a pro-slavery man after I had told him my suspi-
cions of himself & of those who came before him, but at the same time
assured him that notwithstanding he was in a perfect nest of the
most ultra Abolitionists, not a hair of his head should fall so long as
we knew of no active mischief he had been engaged in. When I told
him my suspicions of him he seemed to be much agitated, though
to all appearance a man of great self-possession and courage — I
recited to him briefly the story of the Missouri invasions, threaten-
ings, bullyings, boastings, driving off, beating, robbing, burning out
and murdering of Kansas people, telling him pro-slavery men of Mis-
souri had begun and carried steadily forward in this manner with
most miserably rotten and corrupt pro-slavery Administrations to
back them up, shield and assist them while carrying on their Dev-
ilish work. I told him Missouri people along the Line might have
perfect quiet if they honestly desired it, and further, that if they
chose War they would soon have all they might any of them care
for. I gave him the most powerful Abolition lecture of which I am
capable, having an unusual gift of utterance for me; gave him some
dinner and told him to go back and make a full report and then
sent him off. Got no such visits afterwards. I presume he will not
soon forget the old Abolitionist 'mit de' white beard on. I gave
him also a full description of my views of a Full Blooded Abolition-
ist and told him who were the real nigger-stealers &c. ..."
The postscript to this letter, longer than the missive itself,
begins thus:
"P. S. Our family interest in Kansas affairs is so often misstated
by those who do not know and oftener do not care to tell the truth
356 JOHN BROWN
that Mr. Wattles had determined for some time past to bring out
our history from time [to time] in a kind of series as he could collect
facts, and instantly called on me for them. I have consented to
supply them, & have commenced."
He then directs his son to collect material for that sketch
of his career: "A brief history of John Brown, otherwise
(old B) and his family: as connected With Kansas; By one
who knows," to which reference was made in an earlier chap-
ter.* Brown began this never finished autobiographical sketch
at Wattles's house,20 from which he wrote as above.
As soon as he reached the Snyder claim, Brown began to
build a small fortification of stone and wood for defence
against the Missourians,21 which speedily became magnified
by popular report into a "Fort Snyder." There is no doubt,
too, that he commenced negotiations for the purchase of the
claim, and this has given rise to a long controversy in Kansas
as to whether he was or was not the owner or an owner of this
land at one time. The facts seem to be that Snyder never per-
fected his claim to the land; that when Brown arrived there,
he did begin negotiations with Snyder, which must have been
not for the land, but for the squatter's claim to it; that sub-
sequently Snyder changed his mind and Brown's effort to pur-
chase came to an end, giving rise to charges of bad faith
against Snyder. When the land was disposed of by the gov-
ernment, the name of neither Brown nor Snyder figured in the
transaction, the government selling 180.84 acres for $225.80 to
C. C. Scadsall (generally called Hadsall).22 Snyder appears
to have offered the place to Hadsall, after accepting money
from Brown in part payment. Hadsall, it is reported, declared
that when he told Brown of Snyder's offer,
"Brown showed the only anger that Hadsall had ever witnessed,
but walked away without saying much. Shortly after he told Had-
sall that he was content for him to have the place, but he, Brown,
wanted to reserve all privileges of military occupation at his plea-
sure. It seemed that Brown had not made all his payments to Sny-
der, who in a way not unusual to him was trying to get some money
from Hadsall. That day Brown wrote out and signed a bill of sale
to Hadsall and signed it in his own name, and Snyder, after turning
over to Hadsall his three yoke of oxen, cows, wagons, and plows,
* See ante, page 86.
SHUBEL MORGAN 357
received six hundred dollars from Hadsall and added his quit-claim
to the bill of sale. Hadsall lost this precious bit of paper during the
war." 23
John Brown made, early in August, an attempt to get the
revolvers sent to him in 1856 by the National Kansas Com-
mittee, which had been in Lawrence ever since that time; for
them, as he had told Horace White, he himself was not willing
to ask, when in Lawrence. On August 3 he wrote from Mo-
neka to William Hutchinson, asking for the names of those to
whom the revolvers had been loaned subject to his recalling
them. This information Mr. Hutchinson cheerfully gave,
but it does not appear that Brown ever obtained any of these
weapons.24 For an interesting incident of the stay with
Snyder, we have the doughty blacksmith's own narrative: 25
"During the time that Brown was at my place (1858), he wished
me to take a short trip into Missouri and I agreeing, Brown took an
old surveyor's compass and chain and he and I followed down along
the river, while Kagi and Tidd took the road to Butler. They pre-
tended to be looking for situations to teach a school. We were all to
meet at Pattenville, but not to appear to know each other. Brown
and I were ostensibly surveying. On meeting at Pattenville we had
an opportunity to come to an understanding to meet again at a
clump of trees on a certain hill. Brown and I took the river and
when we met again Martin White's house was half a mile east of us.
Brown had a small field glass which I asked him to loan me, as I had
seen some one near the house that I took to be Martin White, whom
I knew; having heard him address a meeting at West Point a few
days after the burning of Osawatomie, when Clarke was raising a
force to drive and burn out Free State men between there and Fort
Scott. At that time White had just returned from accompanying
Reid and I heard him describe how he killed Frederick Brown, —
making the motion of lowering a gun. Brown adjusted the glass and
looking I could recognize Martin White reading a book as he sat in
a chair in the shade of a tree. I handed the glass to Brown and
asked him to look and he said he also recognized him saying : — 'I
declare that is Martin White.' For a few minutes nothing was said
when I remarked ' Suppose you and I go down and see the old man
and have a talk with him.' 'No, no, I can't do that,' said Brown.
Kagi said, 'let Snyder and me go.' Capt. Brown said: 'Go if you
wish to but don't you hurt a hair of his head; but if he has any
slaves take the last one of them.' Kagi said: 'Snyder and I want
to go without instructions, or not at all.' Therefore as Brown was
unwilling that Martin White, who had murdered his son, should
receive any harm we did not go near him. It was thus shown that i
John Brown had no revenge to gratify."
358 JOHN BROWN
There is other evidence to this effect; Brown never per-
mitted any attack to be made on White, tried to head off his
sons when they were on White's trail, and repeatedly stated
that he did not wish for White's death, — an attitude which
cannot be too highly commended. To James Han way he once
said : 26
" People mistake my objects. I would not hurt one hair of his
[White's] head. I would not go one inch to take his life; I do not
harbour the feelings of revenge. / act from a principle. My aim and
object is to restore human rights."
Brown's obstinate ague or malarial fever, to which he
referred in his letter of August 9 to his family, did not yield
because of his sojourn with Augustus Wattles. About the
middle of August, he was taken by William Partridge to the
Rev. Mr. Adair's hospitable cabin at Osawatomie,27 and there,
in a corner of the living-room, he lay for fully four weeks,
nursed with the greatest fidelity by the devoted Kagi and
the Adair family. On September 9 he wrote to John Brown,
Jr.,28 that since August 9, the date of his last letter, he had
been "entirely laid up with Ague and Chill fever. Was never
more sick." As the Adairs look back upon it, the disease
appears to them now to have been a malarial or typhoid
fever; they were often asked by visitors who the sick man in
the sitting-room was, but they knew always how to describe
him by other than his right name.29 Dr. Gilpatrick, of Osawa-
tomie, was called in to aid the patient. Finally, on September
23, Kagi was able to report to his sister his arrival in Law-
rence, after being
"compelled to lay off at Osawatomie for a month, during which
time by my taking care of him, [Brown], I was down but only for a
week. . . . B. has not quite recovered. . . . Things are now quiet.
I am collecting arms, etc. belonging to J. B. so that he may command
them at any time."
On September 13, Brown notified his wife that he was still
very weak and wrote only with great labor; even on the
nth of October, he had to tell her that he had been "very
feeble," but had improved a great deal during the last week.
" I can now see," he added, "no good reason why I should not
SHUBEL MORGAN 359
be located nearer home as soon as I can collect the means for
defraying expenses." 31
John Brown probably reached Lawrence with Kagi late in
September, and was there again on October 14, 15 and 1 6.
Martin F. Conway testified before the Mason Committee 32
that he saw Brown there twice in the summer and fall, and
discussed with him his relations to the National Kansas Com-
mittee, after Brown's illness in southern Kansas, but he errone-
ously places the date of the first visit as late in July or early in
August, when Brown was on Snyder's claim. A receipt given
by Mr. Conway to John Brown for documents put in his pos-
session is still in existence, and fixes the date for the second
interview as October 15, 1858. 33 As to the first interview,
Conway testified that it took place at Mrs. Killan's hotel, and
that Brown declared that he was greatly in need and had
received an order from the National Kansas Executive Com-
mittee for a large sum of money which he had never been able
to obtain. By "order" Brown meant, if he used that word,
the resolution of the National Kansas Committee of January
24, 1857, giving him the five thousand dollars, of which he had
received only so small a part, and also "such arms and sup-
plies as the Committee may have" up to an amount sufficient
to provide for one hundred men, besides a "letter of appro-
bation." In the summer of 1858, John Brown received from
George L. Stearns a package of promissory notes which had
been given by Kansas farmers to the National Kansas Com-
mittee in exchange for food-supplies or aid of one kind or
another. Mr. Stearns, as in the case of the Brown rifles
and revolvers, had advanced large sums for this purpose to
the Massachusetts State Committee, and was given these
notes as security for his advances.34 Some of these he now
sent to Brown, who proceeded to collect on them for his imme-
diate needs. He told Mr. Conway that,
"the National Kansas Committee had passed a resolution some-
time before upon which he based a right to act himself as agent for
that Committee in the Territory in the collection of debts due it,
and as Mr. Whitman did not seem to satisfy him in that business
he had taken it upon himself to make collections. . . . He claimed
to have received a commission, and, as a result of his labors he
produced a package of papers, which he said were promissory notes
360 JOHN BROWN
from parties in the Territory, who had received provisions and cloth-
ing from this Committee during the troubles in 1856. They had en-
gaged to pay for them and they had given these notes, and he had
got them, and he came to me to ask a favor that I would take these
documents and put them in my safe and keep them subject to his
order." "
To this Mr. Con way added that he had signed the receipt
written for him by Kagi, which fixes the date of this trans-
action. Apparently, Brown collected on these notes several
hundred dollars. He also receipted on October 16, at Law-
rence, for goods received from the National Kansas Commit-
tee, signing as its agent.36
In the use of this signature John Brown undoubtedly went
too far, and his authority to do so was sharply denied by
H. B. Hurd, the Secretary of the National Kansas Committee,
on October 26, 1858, when Mr. Hurd wrote to Colonel E. B.
Whitman :
"Capt. John Brown has no authority to take, receive, collect or
transfer any notes or accounts belonging to the National Kansas
Committee nor has he ever had. Nor will any such dealing be recog-
nized or sanctioned by our Committee. We wish you to hold all per-
sons responsible who undertake to retain or deal with such notes
and accounts. You will recollect that you were given full authority
to act in reference to said notes & accounts including authority to
transfer the same by assignment. This authority has never been
revoked or given to any other person. All the papers that Mr. Brown
has from us are a copy of the Resolutions passed in the New York
Meeting certified by me, and an order for some small arms & tents
that were at Lawrence I think about the time B. returned to Kansas
after you met him at our office in Chicago. He has never been to
our office since that time nor have we had any communication with
him since then. I have seen him once since then but only for a few
minutes & then nothing was said or done about the matter above
referred to."37
But there are strong reasons why this error of judgment
should not be charged up against Brown as a moral delin-
quency. The relations of the National Committee and the
Massachusetts Committee were inextricably mixed in Kansas,
where E. B. Whitman acted at this time as agent for both
Committees; Brown had received the notes from Mr. Stearns
with directions to collect on them; Mr. Whitman was not to
be found when Brown tried to get at him, and finally he
SHUBEL MORGAN 361
doubtless conscientiously believed that the resolution in his
favorof the National Committee gave him sufficient authority.
This latter point appears from the following letter written
about this time: 38
I
MR. J. T. Cox;
SIR: — You are hereby notified that I hold claims against the
National Kansas Committee which are good against them and all
persons whatever ; and that I have authority from said committee to
take possession, as their Agent, of any supplies belonging to said
Committee, wherever found.
You will therefore retain in your hands any monies or accounts
you may now have in your custody, by direction of said Committee
or any of its Agents, and hold them subject to my call or order, as
I shall hold you responsible for them, to me as Agent of said Com-
mittee
OTTUMWA, Oct. 7, 1858
JOHN BROWN
Agt. Nat. Kan. Com."
In this, again, Brown quite exceeded the actual wording
of the New York resolution, which limited the supplies to the
needs of one hundred men, of which he had received a consid-
erable portion in 1857 after the vote. Nevertheless, as Mr.
Sanborn records,39 "the Massachusetts Committee . . . stood
firmly by Brown" in the "lively dispute in Kansas" excited
by his action.
"They had collected much money, had expended it judiciously,
and had allowed a generous individual, their chairman, to place in
their hands more money, for which he was willing to wait without
payment until the property of the Committee could be turned into
cash; then, to give him all the security in its power, the Committee
had made over this property to him, with no restriction as to what he
should do with it; and Mr. Stearns had chosen to give it to Brown."
William F. M. Arny, another agent of the National Kansas
Committee, testified to seeing Brown in Lawrence several
times during the summer and fall of 1858, 40 and Brown on one
of these occasions spent a day or two at his home, when they
discussed, in general terms, Brown's plan for attacking slav-
ery elsewhere than in Kansas. It must have been on one of
these visits, too, that Colonel William A. Phillips had the
third of those interviews with Brown which he described at
362 JOHN BROWN
length in the Atlantic Monthly for December, 1879, and ap-
parently erroneously placed in the year 1859. To him, on this
occasion, Brown set forth his views on the slavery question at
great length, first sketching the history of American slavery
from its beginnings. He said to Phillips:
"And now we have reached a point where nothing but war can
settle the question. Had they [the slavery men] succeeded in Kan-
sas, they would have gained a power that would have given them
permanently the upper hand, and it would have been the death knell
of republicanism in America. They are checked, but not beaten.
They never intend to relinquish the machinery of this government
into the hands of the opponents of slavery. It has taken them more
than half a century to get it and they know its significance too well
to give it up. If the Republican party elect its president next year,
there will be war. The moment they are unable to control, they will
go out, and as a rival nation along-side they will get the countenance
and aid of the European nations, until American republicanism and
freedom are overthrown."
To Phillips, Brown spoke of the opportunity and achieve-
ments of Spartacus, and suggested that something similar
might happen. To this Phillips objected that the American
negroes were a "peaceful, domestic, inoffensive race; in all
their sufferings they seemed to be incapable of resentment
or reprisal." Brown's reply was quick and sharp: "You have
not studied them right, and you have not studied them long
enough. Human nature is the same everywhere."
In connection with the National Kansas Committee's notes,
Brown visited other places besides Ottumwa, where his letter
to Mr. Cox shows him to have been on October 7. It is estab-
lished that he visited Emporia on this same business, and this
is as far west as he is known to have gone during his stay in
the Territory.41 On October II he was again in Osawatomie,
as already recorded, and on October 15 and 16 in Lawrence,
when he returned for a day or two to the South; for Kagi
records in the Tribune his and Brown's being at Osawato-
mie on October 25. According to this letter, Brown went up
from Linn County on Friday, October 22, bringing news that
Montgomery had forcibly entered the court-house at Fort
Scott on the 2ist and taken possession of the court and of the
papers of the grand jury, compelled the former to adjourn,
and destroyed the latter. "He is now in the field," wrote
SHUBEL MORGAN 363
Kagi, "ready to meet the worst." Of Brown, Kagi wrote, "The
Captain has shown that he can be in the Territory without
making war. He will now, if necessary, take the field in aid
of Montgomery."42 The Captain soon returned to the dis-
turbed districts. There, on the 3Oth of October, an attempt
was made to assassinate Montgomery, his wife and children,
by pro-slavery men, who attacked his cabin at night and fired
a volley into it.43 Brown himself was at Augustus Wattles's,
that night. The occurrence led his men to fortify strongly
the cabin of Montgomery's mother-in-law, near Montgomery's
own. Gill, Tidd and Stevens did most of the work, for Brown
was not yet himself; he aided by indulging in his favorite oc-
cupation of cooking.44 On November I, while at Mr. Wat-
tles's, he wrote two letters to members of his family, describing
himself as much better in health, "but not very strong yet."
In both of them he stated, doubtless with the Montgomery
incident in mind, that "things at this moment look quite
threatening along the line." 45
The Wattles family preserves some interesting recollections
of these ever- welcome visits of Brown.46 There was nothing
of the swashbuckler about him ; as quiet in his manner as any
Quaker, he was ready to do his share of the household drudg-
ery as soon as he arrived. Reading to the Wattles family
a newspaper article which excused his bitterness against
slavery on the ground of his personal injuries, he commented
indignantly: "It seems strange in a Christian country that
a man should be called a monomaniac for following the plain
dictates of our Saviour." To Mrs. Wattles he then said: "I
can put up with the abuse of my enemies, but the excuses of
my friends are more than I like to bear."
November was, in the main, a quiet month for Brown and
his men. Besides building the Montgomery fort, theirs was
the frontiersman's life. "Sometimes," records Mr. Gill,47 of
his own and Kagi's activities, "one had the ague, sometimes
both. Sometimes we fished, sometimes we had our supper and
beds; at other times we went supperless and took the prairie
for our bed with the blue arch for our covering." One or the
other of these men was generally Brown's companion at this
time. He was not drawn to Tidd, and Stevens worried him
because the ex-soldier would not take Brown's orders except
364 JOHN BROWN
in situations in which it was a captain's right to command.
It was not in Stevens's nature to be uniformly submissive.
Once, it is related by Mr. Gill, Stevens said to Brown: "If
God controls all things, and dislikes the institution of slav-
ery, why does He allow it to exist?" "Well," replied Brown,
floored for once, "that is one question I cannot answer."
On the 1 3th of November there was a touch of active ser-
vice for Shubel Morgan, — the only incident in this month
which bore out Kagi's statement of his readiness to take the
field to aid Montgomery. The latter, learning that he had
been indicted at Paris, Kansas, by a pro-slavery jury, for his
destruction of the ballot-box in the January previous, marched
with Brown and his followers upon the town, in search of the
indictments and warrants, Brown remaining upon the out-
skirts while Montgomery searched unsuccessfully.48 This raid
did not improve their standing with the Territorial authori-
ties. The bias of the acting Governor, Hugh S. Walsh (who
filled the Governor's chair in the interim between Governor
Denver's resignation and the arrival of his successor, Samuel
Medary, the last Territorial Governor), against the Free State
men was perfectly apparent. He wrote on November 19 to
Secretary Cass,49 urging that "a reward of $300 for Mont-
gomery and $500 for old John Brown, and their delivery at
the fort, would secure their persons and break up their organ-
ization or drive them from the Territory." A Captain A. J.
Weaver, who saw everything through pro-slavery eyes, was
the chief medium of Walsh's and Medary's information, until
he accidentally killed himself while bringing into the State
some Federal arms loaned to Kansas for a militia company
he had been authorized to raise.60 On November 30, Captain
Weaver and the sheriff, McDaniel, plotted to capture Brown
and Montgomery ; for Weaver was sure, as he wrote to the act-
ing Governor, they were preparing "for some infernal diaboli-
cal act." 51 Brown, not knowing of this impending visitation,
left with Gill for Osawatomie on the morning of Wednesday,
December I. What happened in his absence was thus de-
scribed by Kagi in the columns of the Lawrence Republican : 52
"When the intended attack became known, the people came in
from all quarters, for the defence of the little garrison. They came
unobserved, that the great posse might not become frightened, and
SHUBEL MORGAN 365
run before an opportunity was given to whip them handsomely.
Montgomery heard the news while on the Little Osage, and returned
with a small force on Thursday morning [December 2]. A portion of
the Free State men were placed in 'the fort;' Montgomery with the
remainder placed himself in a good position nearby."
When the posse took up their march and had approached
within a few rods of the fort, Whipple notified them that the
Free State men were prepared to "resist the whole universe,
with the devil thrown in." The next day, the posse having
disintegrated, the sheriff had but a handful of men left. These
commenced stopping and harassing single Free State men on
the highways. Immediately on hearing of this, Montgomery's
men moved. Their first act was to send four men to capture
the sheriff and one R. B. Mitchell, as a checkmate. The latter
was deprived of his rifle and brace of revolvers. "After a
wholesome lecture they were released." The sheriff's pathetic
account of this humiliating experience, properly garbled, is
still preserved.53 It fully bears out a statement of Captain
Weaver's that "many of the people of the county are intimi-
dated and afraid — some of old Brown and others of Mont-
gomery." 54 Thus ended ingloriously one of a number of at-
tempts to capture Shubel Morgan.
That energetic citizen wrote to his family on December 2,
from Osawatomie: 55 " I have just this moment returned from
the South where the prospect of quiet was probably never so
poor," little dreaming that his own camp was at that moment
being menaced. ' ' Other parts of the Territory are undisturbed
and may very likely remain so ; unless drawn into the quarrel
of the border counties. I expect to go South again immedi-
ately. . . ." His health was improving, but "I still get a
shake pretty often." As to. his plans, he said: "When I wrote
you last I thought the prospect was that I should soon shift
my quarters somewhat. I still have the same prospect, but
am wholly at a loss as to the exact time." As soon as he
returned South, he took the unexpected step of drafting a
peace agreement. This was presented to a joint meeting of
pro-slavery and Free Soil men, which had been called for
December 6 at Sugar Mound, as a direct result of the humilia-
tion put upon the sheriff after the failure of his attack upon
Brown.56 Montgomery himself was present at the meeting,
366 JOHN BROWN
and presented Brown's draft of the treaty. Shubel Morgan
had urged that this should be signed by a number of the
prominent men of both parties, but Montgomery found it
unwise to insist upon this. With slight verbal alterations, the
draft was adopted. It was in effect a renewal of the Denver
agreement.* This had been adhered to until the action of the
Paris court, together with the attempt to assassinate him and
the visit of the sheriff to Brown's camp, had convinced Mont-
gomery that it was abrogated.57 Not that his men were alto-
gether blameless during this period; sporadic "jayhawking"
doubtless went on, despite Montgomery's efforts to control.
But the new Sugar Mound convention was hardly agreed to
before it was violated. On Thursday, December 16, Mont-
gomery again attacked Fort Scott,58 in order to release Ben-
jamin Rice, a Free State settler, who had been arrested on
November 16, in violation, Montgomery claimed, of the Den-
ver treaty of June 15. When Rice was not promptly released
after the Sugar Mound treaty, Montgomery organized, on
December 14, a force of nearly one hundred men and invited
John Brown to join it. This he did, together with Kagi and
Stevens. The night before the attack, there was a conclave
near Fort Scott as to the command. After much discussion
it was decided that Montgomery should lead,59 whereupon
Brown, with his customary dislike of serving under another,
took but a small part in the subsequent proceedings, going
only to the rendezvous.
It was well that he did not lead. While Rice was being freed
from his chains in the Free State Hotel, J. H. Little, the owner
of a store across the way, fired a load of buckshot at Kagi,
whose heavy overcoat alone saved him from severe injury.
In the melee which followed, Little was killed and his store
plundered, some seven thousand dollars' worth of goods being
stolen. Charles Jennison, subsequently Colonel of the Seventh
Kansas Cavalry, is credited with being specially active among
the plunderers, and in some accounts Little's death is laid
to Stevens, but unjustly. The whole affair reflects credit upon
no one ; it at once gave the pro-slavery men the incentive to
reprisal, and enabled them to obtain from Governor Medary
the authority to organize militia for the defence of their
* See Appendix.
SHUBEL MORGAN 367
town,60 besides prejudicing the new Governor more than ever
against the Free State leaders. Brown was subsequently
wrongly charged by Governor Robinson and others with the
leadership and instigation of the Fort Scott outrage, both of
which questionable honors belong clearly to Montgomery.
It must be stated, in the interest of historical accuracy, that
Montgomery subsequently averred on a number of occasions
that it was absolutely necessary for him to assume the leader-
ship, because John Brown was determined to burn the entire
town of Fort Scott to the ground, whereas Montgomery was
opposed to violence and bloodshed and was exceedingly vexed
at the killing of Little.61 Governor Medary was so alarmed
by the attack on Fort Scott that he at once applied for four
companies of Federal cavalry, and for 600 arms and 10,000
rounds of ammunition with which to equip some militia.62
There was in store for him, and for the Governor of Mis-
souri, an even greater shock. On the igth of December began
one of the most picturesque incidents in John Brown's life,
without which its warfare against slavery would hardly have
seemed complete. Certainly, nothing could have wound up
his final visit to Kansas in a more dramatic way. This was
his incursion into Missouri and the liberation of eleven slaves
by force of arms. While, as already recorded, Brown had
taken two slaves out of Kansas to freedom before this whole-
sale liberation, and was throughout his life an ever-ready
agent of the Underground Railroad, he was at no time espe-
cially interested in this piecemeal method of weakening
slavery. It was to his mind wasting time, when a bold attack
might liberate five hundred or a thousand slaves. Yet, when
on December 19, 1858, a slave crossed the Missouri line and
told to George Gill the story of his impending fate, John
Brown promptly and heartily closed with his follower's sug-
gestion that here was just the right opportunity to "carry
the war into Africa." 63
"As I was scouting down the line," relates Mr. Gill, "I ran
across a colored man, whose ostensible purpose was the selling of
brooms. . . . I found that his name was Jim Daniels; that his wife,
self, and babies belonged to an estate and were to be sold at an ad-
ministrator's sale in the immediate future. His present business was
not the selling of brooms particularly, but to find help to get himself,
368 JOHN BROWN
family, and a few friends in the vicinity away from these threatened
conditions. Daniels was a fine-looking mulatto. I immediately
hunted up Brown, and it was soon arranged to go the following
night and give what assistance we could. I am sure that Brown,
in his mind, was just waiting for something to turn up; or, in his
way of thinking, was expecting or hoping that 'God would pro-
vide him a basis of action.' When this came he hailed it as heaven-
sent."
Shubel Morgan decided to lead a party of ten or more to
the home of Harvey G. Hicklan, or Hicklin, Daniels's tem-
porary master, while Stevens, Tidd, Hazlett and others, to
the number of eight, were to visit other plantations and rescue
one or two more slaves who desired to drink of the cup of
liberty. On the night of the 2Oth the two bands slowly took
their way into Missouri. With Brown were a well-known
horse-thief, "Pickles" by designation, Charles Jennison,
Jeremiah Anderson, Gill, Kagi and two young men by the
name of Ayres, in addition to one or two others. At midnight
Hicklan's door was quickly forced, and then, with pointed
revolvers, he was informed of the mission of the raiders.
Brown had decided to take some of the personal property
of the estate to which the slaves belonged, in order to main-
tain them. It was not easy to differentiate between Hick-
lan's property and that of the Lawrence estate, and Gill, who
was told off to prevent plundering, confessed that he found
his task a difficult one. "I soon discovered," he says, "that
watches and other articles were being taken; some of our
number proved to be mere adventurers, ready to take from
friend or foe as opportunity offered." In this they were not
different from some other Free State marauders, who were
often willing to line their pockets while helping the cause of
liberty. Mr. Hicklan always insisted that:
11 Nothing that was taken was ever recovered. I learn that it was
stated by John Brown that he made his men return all the property
they had taken from me. This is not true. They did not give any-
thing back. Brown said to me that we might get our property back
if we could ; that he defied us and the whole United States to follow
him. He and his men seemed anxious to take more from me than
they did, for they ransacked the house in search of money, and I
suppose they would have taken it if they had found it. ... What
I have stated is the truth, and I am willing to swear to it. I do
SHUBEL MORGAN 369
not hold any particular malice or prejudice on account of these old
transactions. Old things have passed away, but the truth can never
pass away." 64
From Hicklan's, it was but three-quarters of a mile to the
residence of John Larue, where five more slaves were liber-
ated ; thence, taking with them John B. Larue and a Dr. Ervin,
a guest of the family, as prisoners, Brown and his men re-
turned to Kansas. According to pro-slavery accounts:
"Besides the negroes, Brown took from the Lawrence estate two
good horses, a yoke of oxen, a good wagon, harness, saddles, a con-
siderable quantity of provisions, bacon, flour, meal, coffee, sugar,
etc., all of the bedding and clothing of the negroes, Hicklin's shot-
gun, over-coat, boots, and many other articles belonging to the
whites. From Larue were taken five negroes, six head of horses, har-
ness, a wagon, a lot of bedding and clothing, provisions, and, in short,
all the 'loot' available and portable." 65
Meanwhile, Stevens's expedition had released but one slave,
and that at the cost of the owner's life. David Cruise, a
wealthy settler, had a woman slave whom the Daniels party
wished to take along on their journey toward the North Star.
Stevens had hardly entered the house when he thought that
Mr. Cruise was reaching for a weapon. He fired instantly and
the old man dropped dead. A thirteen-year-old son, who had
recognized Hazlett, afterwards charged him with the crime.
But Stevens freely admitted the killing, though it weighed
heavily upon him. Once, while at the Kennedy Farm, just
before the raid on Harper's Ferry, he was asked to tell of it, and
consented to if not urged again, for, he said, " I dislike to talk
of it." He went, he declared,66 to the cabin and demanded the
girl. The old man asked him in. Thoughtlessly he entered,
when the old man slipped behind him, locked the door and
"pulled a gun." It became instantly a case of shoot first.
"You might call it a case of self-defence," asserted Stevens,
"or you might also say that I had no business in there, and
that the old man was right." Subsequently the Cruise family
also charged wholesale looting of the house, the taking of two
yoke of oxen, a wagon-load of provisions, eleven mules and
two horses. It was also declared that a valuable mule was
taken from another neighbor, Hugh Martin.67
370 JOHN BROWN
Naturally, the death of Mr. Cruise created great excitement
in Missouri, for, Stevens's narrative to the contrary notwith-
standing, he ranked as a peaceful, law-abiding citizen, accus-
tomed to minding his own business. This murder instantly
imperilled the safety of all the Kansas settlements near the
border line, for it was wholly unprovoked and without a
shadow of the usual apology, that Cruise had been guilty of
outrages upon the people of Kansas. In 1856 such an event
would have been excuse enough for a wholesale military inva-
sion of the Territory. As it was, Montgomery found it wise to
be more than ever vigilant in the protection of the border.
Stevens himself was not naturally bloodthirsty, but was the
bravest of all Brown's men. Gill says of him, that he "was one
of nature's noblemen if there ever was one. Generous and
brave, impulsive and loving, one cannot speak too well or too
kindly of him." 68
But the result of the killing was bad enough. The Harrison-
ville, Missouri, Democrat called the raiders robbers and assas-
sins, and urged the Governor to do "something to protect our
people." 69 The Wyandotte City Western Argus declared that
Montgomery, who was first charged with being one of the
raiders, and Brown "will have a heavy account to settle some
day — for surely a terrible retribution will come to them
sooner or later." It added that their "infamous deeds destroy
the prospects of Territorial advancement," and would pre-
vent the coming of emigrants next spring.70 The Lawrence
newspapers were also hostile to the Missouri adventure, even
the Republican criticising it, after having been urged to do so
by George A. Crawford at Governor Medary's request. The
editor of the Leavenworth Herald wrote from Jefferson City,
Missouri, January 21, 1859, that "in the present state of
affairs, the people of Kansas owe it to themselves, to the
country, and to justice and right to put down these outlaws
and preserve the peace. There is no earthly excuse for their
invasion of Missouri." 71 General Lane, seeing his opportunity
for another piece of bravado, wrote on January 9 to Governor
Medary, offering, if given proper authority by him, to produce
both Brown and Montgomery, after having procured their
disbandment, "before the Kansas Legislature, now in session,
or before any tribunal you may name." This offer elicited
SHUBEL MORGAN 371
only a diplomatic letter of thanks from Governor Medary,
and led the vicious Herald of Freedom to affirm 72 that, how-
ever Lane's offer might appear to others, it was to its editors
"conclusive evidence of the complicity of Lane in those
disturbances," — a ridiculous assertion. The St. Louis Mis-
souri-Democrat printed, early in January, a letter from an
Osawatomie correspondent, who thus portrayed the effect
of Brown's raid, before describing it in detail: 73
" Hardly has the mind cooled down from the fever heat into which
it was thrown by the Ft. Scott tragedy, before it is wrought up to
a frenzied condition by the enactment of new scenes in the present
exciting drama. Hardly is the ear saluted by one piece of startling
intelligence before it is stunned by additional news, of a nature so
revolting that the mind grows dizzy with horror, and involuntarily
inquires whether we are not relapsing into the barbarism of the
middle ages. It is not probable that the killing of Cruise was pre-
meditated, but finding himself attacked by robbers, he resisted, as
was natural, and as he had a right to do, and he was shot down
remorselessly by the fiend who had attacked him. I have yet to see
the first free State man of position in or around Osawatomie, who
does not condemn in the strongest terms, any going into Missouri
or committing depredations."
Finally, the President of the United States offered a reward
of $250 for the arrest of Brown and Montgomery, and the
Governor of Missouri $3000 for the capture of Brown.74
With his two white prisoners and the slaves, Brown had
moved slowly back to Kansas, meeting Stevens's party with
its unhappy report of Cruise's death. As soon as the sun was
well up, the whole party drew aside into a deep-wooded ravine,
some distance from the road. Remaining in camp through-
out the day, they resumed their journey after dark, and at
midnight on Wednesday reached the home of Augustus Wat-
tles, two miles north of Mound City. Montgomery and a few
of his men were sleeping, as Mrs. Emma Wattles Morse has
related the story,75 in Wattles's loft, and were awakened
"by the chattering and laughing of the darkies as they warmed
around the stove while Mrs. Wattles was getting supper. Mont-
gomery put his head down the stairway, exclaiming: 'How is this,
Capt. Brown? Whom have you here?' Brown replied, waving his
hat around the circle, 'Allow me to introduce to you a part of my
family. Observe I have carried the war into Africa.' After supper
372 JOHN BROWN
the women and children were taken to the house of J. O. Wattles,
only a few steps away, the men went to their wagons, while Brown
and two of his men lay on the floor for the two or three hours remain-
ing of the night."
At dawn on Thursday the caravan started again, and this
time without Brown. Two of his men accompanied the one
ox-team, which was sent forward, one going ahead to act as
pilot. But the latter turned back to "see the fun," believing
that Brown was going to have some fighting with the pur-
suers hourly expected. Thus the man driving the team went
on alone with his valuable living freight. It was near sunset
and quite cold when they arrived at Osawatomie, Mr. Adair
stated, and it was Christmas Eve as well. Mr. Adair wrote,76
in recalling the arrival of this pathetic band of dusky fugi-
tives, that:
"The fugitive slave law was still in force. I realized in some
measure the responsibility of receiving them, consulted my wife,
calling her attention to our responsibility, but would do as she said.
She considered the subject for a few moments, then said: 'I cannot
turn them away.' By this time the team was in the road in front of
the house. All were taken round to the backyard, and the colored
people were brought into the back kitchen and kept there that
night. ..."
It was at two A. M. of the morning after Christmas that the
fugitives were finally placed in the old abandoned preemption
cabin on the south fork of the Pottawatomie, south of Osa-
watomie, belonging to a young Vermonter, Charles Severns.77
Of unhewn hickory poles, neither chinked nor daubed, with-
out door, floor, or windows, it must nevertheless have seemed
a haven of rest and safety to the negroes escaping from the
evil fate which would have been theirs, had they gone on the
auction-block in Missouri. If they were not beyond danger of
recapture, there were kind neighbors to bring them food, give
them encouragement and stand guard over them. There
were friendly armed men constantly watching the cabin, which
could be seen for a long distance from several sides. The
slaves were armed and told on no account to surrender. They
quickly made the cabin habitable, building a chimney of
prairie sod, and the naturally gay spirits of the race bubbled
over so that frequently they had to be cautioned to be
SHUBEL MORGAN 373
quiet. Several times they were on the verge of discovery, but
the danger was always staved off. Pottawatomie Creek for
twenty-five miles southwest of Osawatomie, with all its tribu-
taries, was in vain searched by armed Missourians, who gave
special attention to the timber along the streams. The open
prairie was after all the safest place.
Meanwhile. Shubel Morgan, whose raid into Missouri was
the eighth undertaken by Kansas Free State men, was in
readiness to repel a counter-invasion. William Hutchinson,
the Kansas correspondent of the New York Times, who had
come South to see for himself how things stood, met John
Brown at noon on Thursday, December 30, and went with him
to Wattles's home.78 He wrote to his wife a few days later:
"Have heard the full history of Brown's going into Missouri and
shall justify him. I met with Brown and his boys about noon that
day, Thursday. We went to Wattles that night together, and we
were together all night and next day, talking much with him and
Wattles and others who called on us. They took special pains to
have a war council on my account, and appeared to have great con-
fidence in the opinion of 'the man from Lawrence,' as some termed
me. I am so vain as to think my advice did have some good effect.
I recommended one more trial for a settlement before resorting
to rash measures, and they accepted my plans, and we drew up a
paper for signatures and Wattles started to circulate it among both
parties."
This was undoubtedly a second draft of the John Brown
plan referred to above. Mr. Hutchinson in later years had a
vivid recollection of that night with John Brown.
"Our bed was a mattress made of hay, laid upon the floor of the
second story. Sleep seemed to be a secondary matter with him. I
am sure he talked on that night till the small hours, and his all
absorbing theme was ' my work,' ' my great duty,' ' my mission,' etc.,
meaning of course, the liberation of the slaves. He seemed to have
no other object in life, no other hope or ambition. The utmost sin-
cerity pervaded his every thought and word."
From Wattles's home Brown went into camp on Turkey
Creek, not far from Fort Scott, where he witnessed the begin-
ning of the last calendar year of his life. On January 2 he
formally wrote to Montgomery,79 asking him to hold himself
in readiness to call out reinforcements at a moment's notice,
374 JOHN BROWN
to prevent a possible invasion because of a raid into Missouri.
Montgomery, meanwhile, was eagerly at work for peace, and
attended with Mr. Hutchinson a peace meeting three miles
from Mapleton. Mr. Hutchinson wrote the resolutions that
were adopted.
"Montgomery," he says, "made a good speech, and every man on
the ground seemed fully to endorse him. . . . The whole country
along the border is in arms and I fear the end is distant. . . . The
blood is up on this side and they won't stop now for trifles, from late
reports. To-day, Jan. 3rd, some 500 men from Fort Scott crossed
the river (Little Osage) near the State line going North, and we all
expect warm work is near."
Fortunately for all concerned, there was no great bloodshed,
— merely skirmishes, in one of which three Free State men
were wounded. In these engagements Kagi commanded, for
Brown had already gone North, — he reached Osawatomie
on January n. The pro-slavery forces were a posse bent on
capturing the Free State invaders of Missouri.80
Early in January, Shubel Morgan was visited by George
A. Crawford, a Free State Democrat, who went South at
Governor Medary's request, and reported both to him and
to President Buchanan. Writing to Eli Thayer, of Worcester,
on August 4, 1879, Mr. Crawford thus described in part this
interview near the Trading Post :
"I protested to the Captain against this violence [the killing of
Cruise], We were settlers — he was not. He could strike a blow
and leave. The retaliatory blow would fall on us. Being a free-state
man, I myself was held personally responsible by pro-slavery ruf-
fians in Ft. Scott for the acts of Capt. Brown. One of these ruf-
fians — Brockett — when they gave me notice to leave the town,
said, 'When a snake bites me I don't go hunting for that particular
snake. I kill the first snake I come to.' I called Capt. Brown's
attention to the fact that we were at peace with Missouri — that
our Legislature was then in the hands of Free State men to make the
laws — that even in our disturbed counties of Bourbon and Linn
they were in a majority and had elected officers both to make and
execute the laws — that without peace we could have no immigra-
tion — that no Southern immigration was coming — that agitation
such as his was only keeping our Northern friends away, etc., etc.
The old man replied that it was no pleasure to him, an old man, to
be living in the saddle, away from home and family, exposing his
life, and if the Free State men of Kansas felt that they no longer
SHUBEL MORGAN 375
needed him he would be glad to go. ... I think the conversation
made an impression on him, for he soon after went to his self-sac-
rifice at Harper's Ferry."81
To Brown's final visit to his staunch friend Wattles especial
interest attaches, for it was at this time that he produced the
'Parallels' published in the New York Tribune and else-
where, which attracted great attention and are more often
quoted in connection with Brown than anything else except
his final address to the Virginia jury. Mr. Wattles had
severely censured his old friend "for going into Missouri con-
trary to our agreement and getting these slaves." He replied,
Mr. Wattles testified in 1860: 82 " I considered the matter well;
you will have no more attacks from Missouri; I shall now
leave Kansas; probably you will never see me again; I con-
sider it my duty to draw the scene of the excitement to some
other part of the country." Montgomery and Kagi were
parties to this discussion as to the storm his raid had created.
Brown had been writing letters as they talked.83 Finally,
turning to the others with a manuscript in his hand, he said :
"Gentlemen, I would like to have your attention for a few
minutes. I usually leave the newspaper work to Kagi, but
this time I have something to say myself." He then read
the 'Parallels,' which he had dated at the Trading Post, lest
the usual date line, Moneka, prove a cause of trouble to the
staunch Wattles household. They are as follows:
TRADING POST, KANSAS, Jany. 1859.
Gents: You will greatly oblige a humble friend by allowing the
use of your colums while I briefly state two parallels, in my poor
way. Not One year ago Eleven quiet citizens of this neighborhood
(viz) Wm Robertson, Wm Colpetzer, Amos Hall, Austin Hall, John
Campbell, Asa Snyder, Thos Stilwell, Wm Hairgrove, Asa Hair-
grove, Patrick Ross, and B. L. Reed, — were gathered up from
their work, & their homes by an armed force (under One Hamil-
ton) & without trial ; or opportunity to speak in own defence were
formed into a line & all but one shot, Five killed & Five wounded.
One fell unharmed, pretending to be dead. All were left for dead.
The only crime charged against them was that of being Free-State
men.- Now, I inquire what action has ever, since the occurrence in
May last, been taken by either the President of the United States;
the Governor of Missouri, or the Governor of Kansas, or any of their
tools ; or by any proslavery or administration man ? to ferret out
and punish the perpetrators of this crime?
376 JOHN BROWN
Now for the other parallel. On Sunday the igth of December a
negro called Jim came over to the Osage settlement from Missouri
& stated that he together with his Wife, Two Children, & another
Negro man were to be sold within a day or Two & beged for help
to get away. On Monday (the following) night, Two small com-
panies were made up to go to Missouri & forcibly liberate the Five
slaves together with other slaves. One of these companies I assumed
to direct. We proceeded to the place surrounded the buildings lib-
erated the slaves & also took certain property supposed to belong to
the estate. We however learned before leaveing that a portion of the
articles we had taken belonged to a man living on the plantation as a
tenant, & who was supposed to have no interest in the estate. We
promptly returned to him all -we had taken so far I believe. We then
went to another plantation, where we freed Five more slaves, took
some property; & Two white men. We moved all slowly away into
the Territory for some distance, & then sent the White men back,
telling them to follow us as soon as they chose to do so. The other
company freed One female slave, took some property; &, as I am
informed, killed One White man (the master), who fought against
the liberation. Now for a comparison. Eleven persons are forcibly
restored to their natural; & inalienable rights, with but one man
killed ; & all " Hell is stirred from beneath." It is currently reported
that the Governor of Missouri has made a requisition upon the
Governor of Kansas for the delivery of all such as were concerned in
the last-named "dreadful outrage." The Marshal of Kansas is said
to be collecting a possee of Missouri (not Kansas) men at West Point
in Missouri a little town about Ten miles distant, to "enforce the
laws," & all proslavery conservative Free-State, and dough-faced
men & Administration tools are filled with holy horror.
Consider the two cases, and the action of the Administration
party.
Respectfully yours,
JOHN BROWN.M
Indubitably, the parallel was an effective one. The theft of
black human property was always the most heinous offence
known in the South during slavery days; and, although he had
expressed due horror at the Hamilton massacre, Governor
Denver had neither requisitioned the Governor of Missouri
for the delivery of Hamilton's criminals, nor offered a reward
for their apprehension. Now, however, the case was different.85
Governor Medary sent a message to the Legislature on Janu-
ary II, denouncing both Brown and Montgomery, refusing to
give the names of his informants as to their movements in
Linn and Bourbon counties, and asking the Legislature to act
at once, besides repeating his offer of $250 reward each for
SHUBEL MORGAN 377
the arrest of Brown and Montgomery.86 To this a committee
of the Legislature made a remarkably spirited and able reply.
While censuring Brown and Montgomery, and attributing to
them the "ruin and desolation" that had "settled down on
two of the most beautiful counties in Kansas," the committee
was "clearly of the opinion that all armed bands should be
dispersed, and the law should be sustained. Kansas has too
long suffered in her good name from the acts of lawless men
and from the corruption of Federal officers." As to the Federal
Government's offer of a reward, the committee was emphatic
in its statement that this policy would not succeed. "The
man of Kansas," it said, "that would, for a reward, deliver up
a man to the General Government, would sink into the grave
of an Arnold or a Judas. . . . Such have been the acts of the
General Government in this Territory, that public sentiment
will not permit any person to receive the gold of the General
Government as a bribe to do a duty." 87 There being a mi-
nority report of a different character, the Legislature referred
the whole matter to a select committee, which brought in a
harmless report that the Legislature should uphold the Gov-
ernor in enforcing the law.
Montgomery promptly wrote, on January 15, a long letter
to the Lawrence Republican,™ setting forth actual conditions
and saying among other things: "For Brown's doings in Mis-
souri I am not responsible. I know nothing of either his plans
or intentions. Brown keeps his own counsels, and acts on his
own responsibility. I hear much said about Montgomery and
his company. I have no company. We have had no organiza-
tion since the 5th day of July." Montgomery, with splendid
courage, followed this letter up in person, arriving in Lawrence
on January 18, and, boldly walking into court in the after-
noon, surrendered himself to Judge Elmore, by whom he was
turned over to the sheriff. As the only indictment pending
against him was one for robbing a post-office, this border
leader was promptly released on four thousand dollars' bail.
Two days later, he spoke for nearly three hours before a large
audience in the Lawrence Congregational Church, detailing
the whole history of the border troubles.89 Frequently inter-
rupting him with applause, the audience, at the conclusion
of his story, gave three cheers for him, and three more for
378 JOHN BROWN
"Old John Brown." The next day, Montgomery went back to
the South, where he continued his efforts in behalf of peace.
On February 2 he returned to Lawrence with six of his men,
who likewise surrendered to Judge Elmore, to Governor
Medary's great satisfaction.90
As for John Brown, he was now ready to leave the Territory
for the last time. Of constructive work there was no more to
his credit than when he left the Territory in 1856. The terror
of his name undoubtedly acted as a deterrent while he was on
the Missouri line. But there had been peace in Linn and
Bourbon counties, and would have been, had he not appeared,
until Montgomery rightly or wrongly assumed the offensive
in November, — except for the usual lawlessness of a frontier
where the courts are not respected. As Montgomery said,
Shubel Morgan kept his own counsels and went his own way,
and the sole act of any significance to be credited to him during
this six months in southern Kansas is the capture of the slaves.
On the other hand, his presence in Linn, after deducting
properly the numerous acts wrongfully attributed to him and
his men, was in itself the cause of excitement and strife. It
was an incentive to men of the Weaver type to spread stories
of impending trouble for their own ends. Certain it is that
the Missouri raid, in violation of his agreement, caused many
peaceful Free State settlers to flee their homes for fear of vio-
lence, and might have resulted seriously but for the efforts
of certain Missourians to keep the peace, and for the pusilla-
nimity of those who wished to retaliate but feared the conse-
quences. In Missouri, however, that raid had caused sufficient
alarm to convince Brown again of the telling effect upon the
crumbling foundations of slavery of a similar undertaking on a
larger scale. "All the slaves in the thickest slave settlements
in Missouri for twenty or thirty miles have been carried into
Texas or Arkansas, or are closely guarded by a large force
every night," reported, on January 15, a Tribune correspondent
from Lawrence.91
It is not to be believed that if the Massachusetts friends of
John Brown had been fully informed as to what little good he
had achieved, after they sent him back to Kansas, or of the
results of his surrounding himself with armed followers, they
would have been wholly content with the outlay they had
SHUBEL MORGAN 379
made to send him there. Gerrit Smith and others rejoiced in
the Missouri liberations,92 but it does not appear that they
were aware that quiet was restored as soon as Brown left the
Territory and Montgomery decided to work for peace. This
was finally assured by the Legislature's passage of an act
granting amnesty to all who had committed crimes in Linn
and Bourbon and four other counties. This act was approved
by Governor Medary on February n,93 when Brown was on
his way out of the Territory. Thereafter there was peace and
quiet in Kansas until the Civil War came with its renewal of
strife, of anarchy and border lawlessness, with the Quantrell
massacre at Lawrence and the other episodes of the long war
between brothers.
Brown parted about January 20 from his kinspeople at
Osawatomie, and, with a disregard and contempt akin to
Montgomery's for the rewards offered for his arrest, set out
with the liberated slaves for the long journey to Canada, with
Gill as his sole helper on the road to Lawrence. On the nth
of January he had written to his family 94 of his middling
health and his regret that he had been unable to finish up his
business as rapidly as he had hoped to, when he wrote pre-
viously (December 2). He was still unable to give an address
for them to write to, and he made no reference to his rescue of
the slaves, or to his impending departure for the East. This
was delayed by the arrival of a twelfth fugitive, a baby born
to one of the slave women ; to it was given the name of John
Brown. "A day or two before starting," records Mr. Gill:
"I had learned of a span of horses held by a Missourian stopping
temporarily a few miles from Osawatomie, and the suspicion was
well grounded that he had appropriated them from free state
owners. At Garnett I acquainted Stevens and Tidd with the fact,
who set out the same evening that we did, to replevin these horses.
After doing so they proceeded to Topeka to await us; Kagi also
scouted ahead for some purpose, most probably to arrange stop-
ping places for us, and then went on ahead also for Topeka, leaving
Brown and myself alone with the colored folks."
With this reconversion of pro-slavery horses into loyal Free
State animals, Brown's men wound up their career in south-
eastern Kansas.
^ Shubel Morgan's trip from the cabin near Garnett to Major
JOHN BROWN
J. B. Abbott's house near Lawrence was as trying as it was
daring. Through mud, and then over frozen ground, without
a dollar of money in their pockets, their shoes all but falling
apart, Gill and Brown resolutely drove the slow-going ox-
team, with its load of women and children.95 These two
staunch men demonstrated here, if ever, their willingness to
suffer for others; Gill's feet were frozen when they reached
Major Abbott's, on January 24, and "the old man," Gill
relates, "had fingers, nose and ears frozen." From this haven
of rest they sent the ox-team and wagon into Lawrence to be
sold, and in its place obtained horses and wagons. Samuel
F. Tappan, who, like Major Abbott, had been one of Bran-
son's rescuers in 1855, loaned a two-horse wagon, with Eben
Archibald as driver.96 It was while he was staying with Major
Abbott or a near-by neighbor, Mr. Grover, that Brown re-
ceived a visit from Dr. John Doy, whose subsequent mis-
fortune aroused indignation throughout the North. Dr. Doy
had been asked to pilot a number of negroes from Lawrence
to safety, and it was first agreed that he should join forces
with Brown. Circumstances altered, however, and it was
decided that they should move separately. Dr. Doy spent one
evening endeavoring to induce Brown to change his mind, or
at least to give him part of his small escort.97 But Brown had,
besides Archibald, only Gill and possibly one other. The next
day both Doy and Brown were on their way. The resoluteness
and intrepidity of the latter carried him safely through to
Nebraska. But where he escaped posses and United States
troops, Dr. Doy was easily taken, his negroes — two of them
free-born — sent back to a hateful bondage, while Dr. Doy
himself was sentenced to five years in the Missouri peniten-
tiary, to which he would have gone, had not the brave and ever
ready Major Abbott and other friends rescued him from jail,
in St. Joseph, in the nick of time.
Somehow or other, Brown recruited his finances while near
Lawrence,98 and his wagons, when he drove away, were creak-
ing with the weight of provisions contributed by Major
Abbott and Mr. Grover. He narrowly escaped capture on the
road by men who were expecting him to come by in an ox-cart.
Leaving Lawrence on the evening of the 25th for Topeka, he
stopped at the residence of a Mr. Owen, two miles north of the
SHUBEL MORGAN 381
town." There Gill dropped out to rest and recuperate, the
indomitable Stevens taking his place. But there was no rest
for Brown. On the 28th his little train reached Holton amid
all the discomfort of a driving prairie snow-storm.100 Here
fugitives and conductors alike were compelled to seek refuge
from the elements in the tavern, with the result that news of
their presence spread quickly. The following day the fates were
clearly against them, for when they reached their next Under-
ground Railroad station, six miles away, the cabin of Abram
Fuller on Straight, or Spring, Creek, that stream was too high
to ford.
All day Sunday the adventurers rested in cabins near the
creek, while a messenger sent to Topeka called a congregation
out of church to go to Brown's aid; for on Saturday Brown
had discovered the presence in his immediate neighborhood of
a posse from Atchison, headed by Mr. A. P. Wood, which
barred the way to liberty on the other side of the creek, — a
fact at once triumphantly announced to President Buchanan
by Governor Medary.101 The latter hastily sent a special
deputy marshal, Colby by name, to Colonel Sumner, who was
now commandant of Fort Leavenworth, with a request for
troops to capture Brown.102 But long before Colby and the
cavalry given him could reach Holton, that elusive bird for
whom the net was spread had flown, — precisely as he had
when Lieut.-Col. Cooke's dragoons so nearly captured him, —
leaving Medary and Buchanan to swallow their chagrin
as best they might. Their bete noir had leisurely traversed
Kansas, his presence being known to many, yet the Territo-
rial authorities had failed to lay hands upon him.
How Brown thus escaped from Kansas is both an amusing
and a characteristic story. His policy of going to close quar-
ters when in the presence of the enemy again demonstrated its
value on this occasion, which has been dubbed the "Battle of
the Spurs." When the reinforcements from Topeka, headed
by Colonel John Ritchie, arrived, the creek was still high and
the crossing bad. What happened is told by an eye-witness,
Llewellyn L. Kiene: 103
'"What do you propose to do, Captain?' asked one of the body
guard.
"'Cross the creek and move north,' he responded, and his lips
382 JOHN BROWN
closed in that familiar, firm expression which left no doubt as to his
purpose.
"'But captain, the water is high, and the Fuller crossing is very
bad. I doubt if we can get through. There is a much better ford 5
miles up the creek,' said one of the men who had joined the rescuers
at Holton.
"The old man faced the guard and his eyes flashed. 'I have set
out on the Jim Lane road,' he said, 'and I intend to travel it straight
through, and there is no use to talk of turning aside. Those who are
afraid may go back, but I will cross at the Fuller crossing. The Lord
has marked out a path for me, and I intend to follow it. We are
ready to move.' "
It is needless to say that no one faltered. Gill, who had come
with the rescuers from Topeka, thus relates the story of the
fray as he saw it:
"At noon the next day [Monday] we reached McClain's cabins,
where we found our company. I believe that they were glad to see
us. Stevens had, awhile previous to our coming, gone out alone and
demanded a surrender from four armed men. Three ran. One had
to drop, as a 'bead' was drawn upon him. We now learned that
there were about 80 ruffians waiting for us at the ford. We num-
bered 22 — all told, of men, black and white. We marched down
upon them. They had as good a position as eighty men could wish,
to defeat a thousand, but the closer we got to the ford the farther
they got from it. We found some of their horses. Our boys mounted
and gave chase to them ; succeeded in taking three or four prisoners.
The last that was seen of the marshal was in the direction of Le-
compton, and appearances suggested the idea that his mind was
fixed upon the fate of Lot's wife."
In such haste was the posse to escape that two men mounted
one horse, and others clung to the tails of the horses of their
comrades without taking time to mount their own. Such was
the terror of John Brown's name. "There is a great deal of the
old fighting spirit up," reported the Missouri Democrat,10* in
giving its account of the "Battle of the Spurs." "The chase,"
said the Leavenworth Times,
"was a merry one and closed by Brown's taking off three of his pur-
suers as prisoners; with four horses, pistols, guns, &c., as legitimate
plunder. The prisoners were carried some twenty miles, and then
sent back to Atchison both wiser and sadder men. They feel rather
chop-fallen, and vent their wrath on their captain, whom they de-
nounce as a blusterer and coward. The terms might be applied to
the whole party as well, for aught we know. Old Captain Brown is
SHUBEL MORGAN 383
not to be taken by 'boys' and he cordially invites all proslavery
men to try their hands at arresting him." 105
From Holton, Brown's day's journey carried him to
Sabetha, at the head of Pony Creek, six miles from the
Nebraska line, where he again found helpful and earnest
friends. The men were divided among three houses in the
neighborhood for the night. The next day, February I, was
his last in Kansas. Mr. Graham, of Sabetha, writes:
"The morning Brown left Kansas he wanted me to go along and
help them over the Nemaha river, and I did. When we came to the
river it was so high we could not ford it, and the weather was very
cold. We hoped it would freeze that night so that the ice would
bear; and we stayed at the log-house of a half-breed Indian, named
Tessaun, on the Sac and Fox Reservation [in Nebraska]. He had a
double log-house, and gave us a large room with a bed in it. As I
had no blankets, I was assigned to the bed with John Brown. In the
morning the ice was strong enough to bear a man, but not a team;
so they took the wagons to pieces and pushed them across ; then laid
poles across, with rails and bushes and boards on them, and over
this bridge they led the horses. Then I bade them good bye, and
returned to Sabetha."
On the 4th, Brown crossed the Missouri at Nebraska City
and stood on Iowa soil, eluding another posse of fifty, just
before entering Nebraska City, which Gill met and avoided
by a stratagem. One day more and he was in the familiar
town of Tabor.106 The exodus from Kansas was over; the
flight from the Egyptians had passed its most dangerous stage.
Five days after his arrival there, on February 10, Brown wrote
to his "Dear Wife and Children All:"
" I am once more in Iowa through the great mercy of God. Those
with me & other friends are well. I hope soon to be at a point where
I can learn of your welfare & perhaps send you something besides
my good wishes. I suppose you get the common news. May the
God of my fathers be your God." 107
It was the same, yet for John Brown a changed, Tabor
which he entered with the rescued slaves, elated over stand-
ing on free soil. The news of his coming had preceded him,
and with it the details of the Missouri exploit, the killing
of Cruise, the taking of oxen, horses and wagons. Strongly
anti-slavery as the town was, this seemed to it transgression of
384 JOHN BROWN
the bounds. Throughout the North public sentiment was then
practically unanimous on the side of the fugitive slave. In
Massachusetts the Federal Government itself was now power-
less to take back the slave who had fled from his chains, so
bitter was the anger of the citizens of the State after the ren-
dition of Anthony Burns in 1854. The moral sentiment of the
time perceived, moreover, no wrong in the slave's taking such
things as he needed for his flight. Were they not but a small
part of the wage he had earned which had been wickedly with-
held from him? And would not flight in most cases have been
impossible if they did not take at least the clothes they wore,
which belonged not to them but to the master? To Ellen
Craft, who, wearing her owner's suit and high hat, imperson-
ated a white man travelling North, with her husband as an
attendant slave, no stigma of theft attached. Slavery to the
Abolitionists was the sum of human wickedness, and nearly all
measures taken to escape from it were justifiable. Not, how-
ever, the taking of human life. It was this that stuck in the
crops of the Tabor community, which also had the frontier
town's horror of the horse-thief. So that when John Brown's
train of wagons arrived, there was a curious but a cold crowd
to greet him. The slaves were put into a little school-house
which yet stands, and the teams unloaded on the public com-
mon that is still the particular attraction of Tabor. For a
week, at least, Brown desired to rest and recuperate for the
long overland trip across Iowa to Springdale.
The next day being the Sabbath, as the Rev. John Todd,
whose hospitable home had sheltered many an armed emi-
grant ready to take human life in defence of Kansas, entered
his church, there was handed to him the following note in John
Brown's handwriting, which is still preserved in the Historical
Department of Iowa at Des Moines:
"John Brown respectfully requests the church at Tabor to offer
public thanksgiving to Almighty God in behalf of himself, & com-
pany : & of their rescued captives, in particular for his gracious pre-
severation of their lives, & health ; & his signal deliverance of all out
of the hand of the wicked, hitherto. ' Oh give thanks unto the Lord ;
for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever.' "
The Rev. Dr. H. D. King was in the pulpit with Parson
Todd, and to him the perplexed preacher turned for advice.
SHUBEL MORGAN 385
"Brother Todd," said Mr. King,108 " this is your church, but if
I were you I would not make a prayer for them. Inasmuch as
it is said they have destroyed life and stolen horses, I should
want to take the charge under examination before I made a
public prayer." So, when the congregation was seated, Todd
announced: "A petition is before us. But perhaps under the
circumstances it is better not to take public action. If any
persons wish to help privately, it is their privilege to do so."
There was also announced a meeting of the citizens for the
next day.
When this was called to order, John Brown was asked to
speak in his own behalf. Just as he began his story, a Dr.
Brown, of St. Joseph, Missouri, a well-known medical special-
ist and a slaveholder, entered the church. Recognizing him,
John Brown very quietly said that "one had just entered
whom he preferred not to have hear what he had to say and
would therefore respectfully request him to withdraw."
Instantly a prominent citizen sprang to his feet and said he
"hoped nothing would be heard that all might not hear."
John Brown very quietly remarked that if that man remained
he had nothing more to say, and soon afterward silently with-
drew from the meeting. It was understood that he said to one
of his men without: "We had best look to our arms. We are
not yet among friends." 109 George Gill relates that after
Brown had declined to go on, Stevens arose and in his superb
bass voice declared that " ' So help him God he never would sit
in council with one who bought and sold human flesh,' and
left the hall as did the rest of our party." uo After a long dis-
cussion, lasting it is said several hours, the meeting adopted
the following resolutions, to John Brown's disgust:
Resolved, That while we sympathize with the oppressed, & will
do all that we conscientiously can to help them in their efforts
for freedom, nevertheless, we have no Sympathy with those who
go to Slave States, to entice away Slaves, & take property or life
when necessary to attain that end.
TABOR Feb yth 1859
J. SMITH
Secretary of said meating.111
It cannot be denied that the element of fear entered into the
conclusion reached. 112 There were those in Tabor who thought
386 JOHN BROWN
that too great hospitality to Brown at this juncture might lead
to pro-slavery attacks upon the town. Certain it is that, had
"Jim" Daniels come to Parson Todd, or almost any other
inhabitant of Tabor, and asked for aid for his family, pro-
viding it were near by, he would not have been turned away
unaided ; for this belief the town's record as an Underground
Railroad station is reason enough.113
John Brown finally turned his back on Tabor on Febru-
ary n, and began his journey across Iowa. It was not without
danger, for all the pro-slavery influences in the State were at
work to prevent his reaching Canada, and many venturesome
persons were attracted by the heavy reward for his head.
Nevertheless, Brown took a well-beaten road, and did not shun
the towns as he had in the previous winter, when moving the
arms overland to Springdale. They stopped at Toole's, pre-
sumably an Underground Railroad station, on the night of
the I2th, at Lewis's Mills on the next day, and at Grove City
on the 1 4th.114 Dalmanutha was their resting-place on the
I5th, Aurora on the next day, and "Jordan's" on the lyth.
The next day they boldly entered Des Moines, stopping, Mr.
Gill says, "quite a while in the streets, Kagi hunting up Editor
[John] Teesdale of the Register, an acquaintance of his; he also
proved to be an old acquaintance of Brown's. Mr. Teesdale
paid our ferriage across the Des Moines River." It was to
Mr. Teesdale that Brown wrote in the next month, March,
1859, 115 in reply to a request for his reasons for entering Mis-
souri, that:
"First it has been my deliberate judgment since 1855 that the
most ready and effectual way to retrieve Kansas would be to med-
dle directly with the peculiar institution. Next, we had no means of
moving the rescued captives without taking a portion of their law-
fully acquired earnings. All we took has been held sacred to that
object and will be."116
After the parting from Mr. Teesdale, the night was spent at
a Mr. Hawley's; on the next day, the I9th, the stop was at
Dickerson's, and on the 25th, the caravan was enthusiasti-
cally welcomed at Grinnell, the home of Josiah Busnell Grin-
nell, the most prominent Abolitionist in the State, whose life
record, it has been said, would be a history of Iowa. To his
SHUBEL MORGAN 387
house Brown went on arrival, and no welcome could have been
more cordial. Mr. Grinnell himself has left a record of it,117
and Brown was so touched by it as to be moved to send the
following summary of it to the backsliders in Tabor as coals
of fire for their unworthy heads:
RECEPTION OF BROWN & PARTY AT GRINNELL, IOWA
1st. Whole party & teams kept for Two days free of cost.
2<? Sundry articles of clothing given to captives.
3<J Bread, Meat, Cakes, Pies, etc. prepared for our journey.
4th Full nouses for Two Nights in succession at which meetings
Brown and Kagi spoke and were loudly cheered ; & fully indorsed.
Three Congregational Clergymen attended the meeting on Sabbath
evening (notice of which was given out from the Pulpit). All of them
took part in justifying our course & in urging contributions in our
behalf & there was no dissenting speaker present at either meeting.
Mr. Grinnell spoke at length & has since laboured to procure us a
free and safe conveyance to Chicago : & effected it.
5th Contributions in cash amounting to $26.50 Twenty Six Dol-
lars & Fifty cents.
6th Last but not least Public thanksgiving to Allmighty God
offered up by Mr. Grinnell in the behalf of the whole company for
His great mercy; & protecting care, with prayers for a continuance
of those blessings.
As the action of Tabor friends has been published in the news-
papers by some of her people (as I suppose), would not friend
Gaston or some other friend give publicity to all the above.
Respectfully your friend
JOHN BROWN
SPRINGDALE, IOWA 26th Feby 1859
P. S.
our reception among the Quaker friends here has been most
cordial.
Yours truly,
J. B.118
From Grinnell on, the party, moving slowly, reached Iowa
City on the morning of the 25th, and the familiar Springdale
on the same afternoon. Here the slaves and Brown remained
until March 10, when they departed from West Liberty for
Chicago, because of persistent rumors that the pro-slavery
element in Iowa City, headed by Samuel Workman, the Bu-
chanan postmaster, would endeavor to recapture the slaves.
Indeed, an effort was made to arrest Brown and Kagi when
388 JOHN BROWN
they spent a night in Iowa City, after reaching Springdale.119
While Brown and Kagi were in the back of a restaurant,
two men appeared at the front door and demanded the
"damned nigger- thief of Kansas," whom they were going to
hang with the rope in their hands. The restaurant-keeper,
Baumer by name, sent them away and notified Brown. There
was at that time a street-meeting going on, and to it Baumer
went, and returning, reported that there was an excited dis-
cussion going on as to how Brown could be taken without
risking the captors' skins. Finally, a picked force was sent
to Dr. Jesse Bowen's stable to watch it, for Brown's team
was correctly thought to be there. Dr. Jesse Bowen, William
Penn Clarke, L. A. Duncan and a Colonel Trowbridge, Abo-
litionist friends, rallied to Brown's support, and spirited him
and Kagi out of town early in the morning. Colonel Trow-
bridge led them safely by unfrequented roads,
"to a Quaker's house not far from Pedee, and there left them to
their own resources, while he made his way back to Iowa City.
There was then a post-office called Carthage, six miles east of the
city, in Scott township, and a man named Gruilich was the post-
master. At this place there was a party of men shooting at a target,
drinking liquor, and waiting for old John Brown to come along."
It was while staying in Springdale, on this last visit, that
Brown wrote a letter to Dr. Bowen at Iowa City, which is of
value as showing clearly that he still felt himself morally and
legally entitled to some of the arms remaining in Tabor, under
the National Committee vote of January 24, 1857 (not Jan-
uary 2 as below) :
SPRINGDALE, CEDAR Co, IOWA, 3rd March 1859
DR JESSE BOWEN
DEAR SIR
I was lately at Tabor in this State where there is lying in the
care of Jonas Jones Esqr. one brass field piece fully mounted; &
carriage good. Also a quantity of grape and round shot: together
with part of another carriage of some value. Also some twenty or
over U. S. rifles with flint locks. The rifles are good and in good
order, I have held a claim on these articles since Jan 2 1857 that is
both morally and legally good against any and all other parties : but
I informed Mr. Jones that I would most cheerfully; and even gladly
waive it entirely in your favor: knowing the treatment you have
received. I should think these articles might be so disposed of as
SHUBEL MORGAN 389
to save you from ultimate loss: but I need not say to you how
important is perfect and secure possession in such cases: & you
are doubtless informed of the disordered condition of the National
Kansas Committee matters. I left with you a little cannon & car-
riage. Could you, or any one induce the inhabitants of your city
to make me up something for it ; & buy it either to keep as an old
relic; or for the sake of helping me a little? I am certainly quite
needy; and have moreover quite a family to look after. There are
those who would sooner see me supplied with a good halter than
anything else for my services. Will you please write me frankly to
John H. Painter Esqr or by bearer whether you think anything can
be done for me with the gun; or otherwise? My best wishes for
yourself & family.
Respectfully your friend
JOHN BROWN120
Whether through Dr. Bowen's efforts or those of some one
else, this little cannon now ornaments the library of the Uni-
versity of Iowa, at Iowa City.
The kindly Quakers of Springdale were quite relieved when
Brown finally disbanded his escort and moved on, for they
were well aware that he and his men would fight before they
would give up the slaves. Stevens, Gill related, on hearing
that there might be a rescue attempted, said: "Just give me
a house and I'll defend them against forty." "A bystander,"
continued Mr. Gill, "has since told me that he had often heard
of the eyes flashing fire, but that he never believed it until
then. It was in the dusk of evening, and he declared that he
did actuallysee the sparks flying from his [Stevens's] eyes." m
It is said that a posse did leave Iowa City for Springdale,
but thought better of it on hearing that Brown was in readi-
ness for them ; on at least one occasion the young Quakers of
the vicinity stood guard with Brown's men most of the night,
to protect the fugitives.122 On March 9, with a strong guard
of white men, the slaves were moved to Keith's steam mill
at West Liberty, the nearest railroad station. Here they were
kept overnight, and in the morning, when the first train from
Iowa City passed, it conveniently left a box-car near the mill.
"Acting no doubt," says an eye-witness,123 " upon the suppo-
sition it was intended for use, it was at once made ready, the
colored people and property placed within." At eleven o'clock
the Chicago train came along, only to leave with the innocent-
looking box-car safely between the engine and the express car.
390 JOHN BROWN
The use of the box-car had finally been obtained by William
Penn Clarke, by making the agent at West Liberty believe
that the railroad officials knew and connived.124 This he did
by showing him a draft of fifty dollars for Brown from John
F. Tracy, the superintendent of the road, and a friendly letter
from Hiram Price, the secretary of the road, to a deputy
superintendent. Mr. Grinnell, by engaging the car in Chicago,
aided, and Mr. Tracy refused to accept payment for the car
on the ground that "we might be held for the value of every
one of those niggers." 125
At Chicago, Brown, with Kagi and Stevens * and his dusky
followers, awakened Allan Pinkerton, of detective fame, at
4.30 the next morning, March II. Pinkerton at once distrib-
uted them and got them under cover, sending John Brown
to his friend John Jones, a negro, and taking others into
his own house. He got some breakfast, and then hurried to
Jones's to see Brown, who explained that he was on the way
to Canada. After some talk they decided to wait until after a
lawyers' meeting that day, at which Pinkerton hoped to get
some money. He actually did raise between five and six hun-
dred dollars, and obtained a car from Colonel C. G. Ham-
mond, the General Superintendent of the Michigan Central
Railway, who personally saw to it that the car was stocked
with provisions and water.126 At 4.45 that same afternoon,
the party left Chicago for Detroit in charge of Kagi, arriving
at ten o'clock on March 12, Brown going by an earlier train
to make sure of meeting Frederick Douglass, then in Detroit.
He was on hand to have the happiness of seeing his black
charges on the ferry-boat for Windsor, where they wrere soon
rejoicing in their freedom under the Union Jack. One of the
slave women had had six masters, and four of the party had
served sixteen owners in all.127 Henceforth they were to be
in control of their own persons and profit by their own labor.
As for their benefactor, John Brown, he had brought them
safely eleven hundred miles in eighty-two days from the date
of their liberation, six hundred miles of which had been cov-
ered in wagons in the dead of winter. The hegira was at an
end.
* Gill had parted at Springdale from Brown finally, because of inflammatory
rheumatism.
CHAPTER XI
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY
THERE was no period of rest and jubilation for John Brown,
however it might be with the rescued slaves in their new
Canadian surroundings. He and Kagi arrived in Cleveland
on March 15, from Detroit, and spent about a week with Mrs.
Charles M. Sturtevant, a sister of Charles W. Moffet, before
going on to Ashtabula County to visit his sons there domi-
ciled.1 While in Cleveland, Brown sought to raise money by
two methods, lecturing and the sale of two of his captured
horses and a "liberated" mule. The Cleveland Leader of
March 18, 1859, announced the lecture in this manner:
'"Old Brown' of Kansas, the terror of all Border Ruffiandom,
with a number of his men, will be in Cleveland tonight, when he,
and J. H. Kagi, Kansas correspondent of the N. Y. Tribune, will
give a true account of the recent troubles in Kansas, and of the late
'Invasion of Missouri,' and what it was done for, together with
other highly interesting matters that have never yet appeared in
the papers. The meeting will be held in Chapin's Hall 7^ o'clock.
These men have fought and suffered bravely for Free Kansas, and
with good effect. Go and hear them and you will not grudge your
quarter, necessary to defray the expenses to which they have been
subjected by the persecutions of their enemies, aided and abetted
by the faithless Democratic administration."
On account of a violent storm, few people attended the
lecture, which was therefore postponed. The Leader next an-
nounced it for March 21, promising an evening of "thrilling
interest."2 But even this announcement failed to attract; it
was a "slim attendance" which the newspapers recorded the
next day. The reporters were there, however, and to them we
owe full accounts of the meeting. One of these, that of the
Plain Dealer,* is very "journalistic," as may be judged from
the following description of Brown from the pen of "Artemus
Ward," then the Plain Dealer's city editor:
"He is a medium-sized, compactly-built and wiry man, and as
quick as a cat in his movements. His hair is of a salt and pepper hue
392 JOHN BROWN
and as stiff as bristles, he has a long, waving, milk-white goatee,
which gives him a somewhat patriarchal appearance, his eyes are
gray and sharp. A man of pluck is Brown. You may bet on that.
He shows it in his walk, talk, and actions. He must be rising sixty,
and yet we believe he could lick a yard full of wild cats before break-
fast and without taking off his coat. Turn him into a ring with nine
Border Ruffians, four bears, six Injuns and a brace of bull pups, and
we opine that ' the eagles of victory would perch on his banner.' We
don't mean by this that he looks like a professional bruiser, who hits
from the shoulder, but he looks like a man of iron and one that few
men would like to 'sail into.'"
To "Artemus Ward," Kagi appeared but a "melancholy
brigand;" some of his statements were to "Ward" "no doubt
false and some shamefully true. It was 'Bleeding Kansas'
once more."
On Brown's statements the friendly and unfriendly re-
porters agreed pretty well. The Plain Dealer's representative
thus summarized the salient points of the address:
"He [Brown] had never, during his connection with Kansas mat-
ters, killed anybody. He had never destroyed or injured the pro-
perty of any individual unless he knew him to be a violent enemy of
the free-state men. All newspaper statements to the contrary were
false. The Border Ruffians had created the war and he had looked
upon it as right that they should defray the expenses of the war.
He had told the young men that some things might be done as well
as others, and they had done 'em. He had regarded the enemy's
arms, horses, etc., as legitimate booty. He had never seen but one
pro-slavery house on fire, but had seen free state villages on fire and
in ashes. He had seen the ashes of his own children's homes, and one
of his sons had been murdered — shot down like a dog — by Border
Ruffians, the only provocation being that said son was a free state
man."
As to the raid into Missouri, this is the impression Brown's
narration of it made upon the humorist, who was obviously
sent to ridicule or run down the whole proceeding:
"Brown's description of his trip to Westport and capture of eleven
niggers was refreshingly cool, and it struck us, while he was giving
it, that he would make his jolly fortune by letting himself out as
an Ice Cream Freezer. He meant this invasion as a direct blow
at slavery. He did n't disguise it — he wanted the audience to dis-
tinctly understand it. With a few picked men he visited Westport
in the night and liberated eleven slaves. He also ' liberated ' a large
number of horses, oxen, mules and furniture at the same time. . . .
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 393
A man lately from the Missouri Border was present and stated that
there was 'a great antipathy against him (Brown) down there,' and
the old gentleman cheerfully said he thought it 'highly probable.'
On being asked if he should return to Kansas, he said it 'depended
on circumstances.' He had never driven men out of the Territory.
He did not believe in that kind of warfare. He believed in settling
the matter on the spot, and using the enemy as he would fence stakes
— drive them into the ground where they would become permanent
settlers. A resolution approving of Brown's course in Kansas was
introduced and adopted by the audience. He thanked the audience
very sincerely, although he was perfectly sure his course was right
before."
Brown's statement in regard to the "fence stakes" was thus
reported in the more sober account of the Leader of March 22.
He "had never by his own action driven out pro-slavery men
from the territory, but if occasion demanded it he would drive
them into the ground like a fence-stake where they would
remain permanent settlers." Of great significance in connec-
tion with Pottawatomie is the friendly Leader's record of his
saying that "he had never killed anybody, although on some
occasions he had shown his young men with him, how some
things might be done as well as others, and they had done the
business." Financially, the lecture was a great failure: only
about fifty persons were present to pay a quarter apiece for
admission ; 4 and the hall had to be paid for, as well as the
advertising. As for the horses, Brown described one of them
as a "beautiful racker, of very decided wind," while the other
horse had "many excellent points;" but like the mule, both
were somewhat thin. "They brought an* excellent price,"
Brown afterwards said.5 Probably these animals were shipped
from Springdale to Cleveland. Brown, in selling them, freely
announced that they were of Missouri origin, and that he
could give no sound title thereto.6 "They are Abolition
horses," he told the purchaser, and when asked how he knew,
he responded, " I converted them." This action, like his adver-
tising and holding his lectures, well illustrated his contempt
for the United States authorities. For, as they walked the
streets of Cleveland, Brown and Kagi saw numerous posters
announcing in large type the President's offer of $250, and
that of $3000 of the Governor of Missouri, to any one who
would arrest and detain Brown where he might be given into
394 JOHN BROWN
the hands of the Missouri authorities. One of these posters
was conspicuously placed less than two blocks from the City
Hotel in which Brown and Kagi stayed, the hotel itself being
but four blocks from the office of the United States marshal
who had put up the posters.7 The explanation of Brown's
immunity is probably that public sentiment in Cleveland was
too strongly against the South to encourage the marshal to
claim the $3250 reward.
On March 25, Brown was able to send from Ashtabula $150,
part of the proceeds of the horse-sale, to his family at North
Elba,8 with the request that they purchase with it a team of
young oxen, and that the balance be saved unless they were
actually in debt. While at West Andover, he received from
Joshua R. Giddings, the brave anti-slavery Congressman
from Ohio, an invitation to come to Jefferson and speak in the
Congregational church at that place. Mr. Giddings had seen
the Cleveland accounts of Brown's lecture and, as he after-
wards stated,9 "our people had felt a great desire to see him,
and we were a little surprised that he did not call at our
village, which is the seat of justice for the county, as it was
said he had visited a son who was living in that vicinity."
Brown went to Jefferson on March 26, to arrange for his lec-
ture, and spoke on the following day, after the regular church
service. "Republicans and Democrats," said Mr. Giddings,
"all listened to his story with attention. . . . He gave us
clearly to understand that he held to the doctrines of the
Christian religion as they were enunciated by the Saviour."
After Brown finished, Mr. Giddings made an appeal for con-
tributions, and " every Democrat as well as Republican present
gave something." At the close of the meeting, Brown went
to Mr. Giddings's house to take tea, and had a long talk with
the Congressman and his wife. Neither then, nor in his lec-
ture, did Brown give the slightest hint as to the Harper's
Ferry plan, or refer to his associates or arms. Mr. Giddings,
whose purse always had something in it for the fugitive slave,
gave a modest three dollars to Brown for his work, which sum
was swelled to three hundred dollars by reports from Harper's
Ferry after the raid, in the effort to connect Mr. Giddings and
other Republican politicians with Brown's attack. Kagi soon
returned to Cleveland, where he busied himself particularly
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 395
with the Oberlin- Wellington rescuers then in jail for taking
an escaped slave away from slave-catchers armed with United
States warrants. Kagi also carried on considerable corre-
spondence with the men enlisted for the raid.10
To his family Brown wrote on April 7, from Kingsville,
Ohio, that he had had a severe recurrence of his malarial
trouble, "with a terrible gathering" in his head which had
entirely prostrated him for a week. n He was, however, mend-
ing and hoped to be on his way home soon. In conclusion he
added: " My best wish for you all is that you may truly love
God ; & his commandments." By April 10 he was well enough
to leave for Peterboro, where he arrived on April n, with
Jeremiah Anderson, after a brief visit, en route, to Rochester.
On this last visit, so Mr. Smith's biographer narrates:12
"Brown held a public meeting, at which he told the story of his
exploit in carrying a number of slaves from Missouri to Canada and
asked help to prosecute the work on a larger scale. Mr. Smith was
moved to tears by the veteran's eloquence — headed the subscrip-
tion paper with four hundred dollars, and made an impressive
speech, in which he said — ' If I were asked to point out — I will say
it in his presence — to point out the man in all this world I think
most truly a Christian, I would point out John Brown. I was once
doubtful in my own mind as to Captain Brown's course. I now
approve of it heartily, having given my mind to it more of late'" —
a very different attitude from that assumed by Mr. Smith six
months later. Encouraged by his stay there, Brown was at
Westport on the i6th,13 awaiting a conveyance to take him
to his home at North Elba, which he reached on the igth.
Even the splendid Adirondack air did not break up the recur-
ring ague with which he was still paying for his exposure to
the Kansas elements. The trouble with his head also returned,
so that he wrote on April 25 to Kagi that he had not yet been
able to attend to any business, and would not be able to for
another week or longer.14 On May 2 he was still at North
Elba, as his memorandum-book shows, and four days later
was at Troy,15 buying provisions and supplies for his family
before the final parting. On May 7 he spent his last birthday
at Concord with Mr. Sanborn.16
Even before Brown's arrival, Mr. Sanborn had been faith-
fully laboring for him. To raise more money for his venture
396 JOHN BROWN
was no easy task, but thanks to the two benefactors, Stearns
and Smith, the two thousand dollars Brown now needed
before finally embarking on his enterprise were in hand by the
end of the month of May. Indeed, the skies had cleared
greatly when he reached Boston. Forbes had subsided, or at
least had shot his bolt. He had revealed Brown's plot to many
who should not have heard of it ; but the truth itself carried
no conviction, it seemed so fantastic. Moreover, the ruse of
Brown's returning to Kansas had worked successfully. His
raid on Missouri had been widely advertised; he was still,
in the public mind, associated with Kansas. There was, there-
fore, no reason why the great blow should not be struck, for
which the leader was so eager. It was only a question of
funds. As early as March 14, Mr. Sanborn was writing to Mr.
Higginson and asking if admiration of Brown's exploits in
the raid on Missouri would not loosen the strings of some
Worcester purses.17 Gerrit Smith then proposed to raise one
thousand dollars and Judge Hoar perhaps fifty dollars. On
May 30, Mr. Sanborn wrote : " Capt. B. has been here for three
weeks, and is soon to leave — having got his $2000 secured.
He is at the U. S. Hotel; and you ought to see him before he
goes, for now he is to begin." But Mr. Higginson was unable
to go to Boston, so Mr. Sanborn reported to him on June 4:
" Brown has set out on his expedition, having got some $800 from
all sources except from Mr. Stearns, and from him the balance of
$2000; Mr. Stearns being a man who 'having put his hand to the
plough turneth not back.' B. left Boston for Springfield and New
York on Wednesday morning at 8^ and Mr. Stearns has probably
gone to N. Y. today to make final arrangements for him. He means
to be on the ground as soon as he can — perhaps so as to begin by
the 4th July. He could not say where he shall be for a few weeks —
but a letter addressed to him under cover to his son John Jr. West
Andover, Ashtabula Co. Ohio, [would reach him.] This point is not
far from where B. will begin, and his son will communicate with him.
Two of his sons will go with him. He is desirous of getting someone
to go to Canada and collect recruits for him among the fugitives,
with H. Tubman, or alone, as the case may be, & urged me to go, —
but my school will not let me. Last year he engaged some persons &
heard of others, but he does not want to lose time by going there
himself now. I suggested you to him. . . . Now is the time to help
in the movement, if ever, for within the next two months the experi-
ment will be made."
FRANK K. SAXHORN
GERRIT SMITH
T. W. IIIGGINSOX
THEODORE PARKER SAMUEL G. HOWE
JOHN BROWN'S NORTHERN SUPPORTERS
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 397
Mr. Higginson did not feel that he could do much this
time. As he wrote to Brown, he had drawn so largely on his
Worcester friends for similar purposes, that he found it hard
to raise additional sums, particularly as so many of Worcester's
best men were facing business difficulties.18 Then Mr. Hig-
ginson had not gotten over his disappointment of the previous
year. "My own loss of confidence," he wrote, "is also in the
way — loss of confidence not in you, but in the others who
are concerned in the measure. Those who were so easily dis-
heartened last spring, may be again deterred now." "It had
all begun to seem to me rather chimerical," Mr. Higginson
subsequently stated.19 He heard occasionally from Mr. San-
born during the summer. When he got the news of the raid
on Harper's Ferry, it came as a surprise, so far as the locality
was concerned. "Naturally," he declared, "my first feeling
was one of remorse, that the men who had given him money
and arms should not actually have been by his side."
The other conspirators besides Mr. Higginson were still
ignorant of the precise locality Brown had chosen for his
attack; but were perfectly aware of its general outlines. Mr.
Sanborn positively states that out of a little over four thousand
dollars which passed through the hands of the secret com-
mittee, or was known to them to have been contributed, "at
least $3800 were given with a clear knowledge of the use to
which it would be put." 20 During Brown's last stay in Bos-
ton he met the members of the secret committee frequently.
From his memorandum-book it would seem that their first
conference was on May 10, at three o'clock, at Dr. Howe's
office. Theodore Parker, having gone to Europe in a vain effort
to improve his failing health, was not present. The burden of
the undertaking rested, therefore, upon Dr. Howe, Mr. San-
born and George L. Stearns. On May 16, Brown was able to
write encouragingly to Kagi, to John, Jr., Owen and Jason.
To Kagi he said that he was "very weak," but that "there
is scarce a doubt but that all will set right in a few days more,
so that I can be on my way back." 21 Indeed, his corre-
spondence at this time was very voluminous, although little
of it has survived. To his small daughter Ellen, in North
Elba, then not five years old, he sent on May 13, from
Boston, the following note: 22,
398 JOHN BROWN
MY DEAR DAUGHTER ELLEN,
I will send you a short letter.
I want very much to have you grow good every day. To have
you learn to mind your mother very quick ; & sit very still at the
table; & to mind what all older persons say to you that is right. I
hope to see you soon again ; & if I should bring some little thing
that will please you; it would not be very strange. I want you to
be uncommon good natured. God bless you my child.
Your Affectionate Father
JOHN BROWN.
In the letter to his wife of the same date, in which this note
was enclosed, Brown wrote: 23 "I feel now very confident of
ultimate success; but have to be patient. ..." To Augustus
Wattles, to the Rev. Mr. Adair, Congressman Giddings, Fred-
erick Douglass, and others, went missives at this period.24
Despite his recurrent ague, he was able to make some new
friends and to meet the old. At Concord, the day after his
arrival at Sanborn's, he addressed another meeting in the
Town Hall, where Bronson Alcott heard him for the first and
only time. Mr. Alcott recorded later:25
"Our people heard him with favor. He impressed me as a person
of surpassing sense, courage, and religious earnestness. A man of
reserves, yet he inspired confidence in his integrity and good judg-
ment. He seemed superior to any legal traditions, able to do his own
thinking; was an idealist, at least in matters of State, if not on all
points of his religious faith. He did not conceal his hatred of Slavery,
and less his readiness to strike a blow for freedom at the fitting
moment. I thought him equal to anything he should dare: the man
to do the deed necessary to be done with the patriot's zeal, the
martyr's temper and purpose. ... I am accustomed to divine
men's tempers by their voices; — his was vaulting and metallic,
suggesting repressed force and indomitable will. . . . Not far from
sixty, then, he seemed alert and agile, resolute and ready for any
crisis. I thought him the manliest of men and the type and synonym
of the just."
An acquaintance made in this month of May was that of
John M. Forbes, a public-spirited and broad-minded business
man of Boston. Mr. Forbes noted that there was a "little
touch of insanity " about Brown's " glittering gray-blue eyes; "
"he repelled, almost with scorn, my suggestion that firmness
at the ballot-box by the North and West might avert the
storm; and said that it had passed the stage of ballots, and
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 399
nothing but bayonets and bullets could settle it now." 26 Mr.
Forbes had invited several friends in to hear the talk, besides
Mr. Sanborn, who came with Brown, and, when the hour for
retiring came, bade Brown good-by, as the latter was to take
the earliest train for Boston in the morning. Mr. Forbes
relates an interesting incident which closed Brown's stay in
his home:
"When our parlor girl got up early, to open the house, she was
startled by finding the grim old soldier sitting bolt upright in the
front entry, fast asleep; and when her light awoke him, he sprang up
and put his hand into his breast pocket, where I have no doubt his
habit of danger led him to carry a revolver. . . . By an odd chance,
the very next day Governor Stewart, the pro-slavery Governor of
Missouri (who had set the price of $3000 on John Brown's head),
appeared on railroad business, and he too passed the night at Mil-
ton, little dreaming who had preceded him in my guest room."
Another distinguished man whom John Brown met was
Senator Henry Wilson. They were introduced at a dinner of
the Bird Club, at which Stearns and Howe were also present,
but there seems to have been a marked lack of cordiality in the
greeting. At least, Senator Wilson gave the following account
of it to the Mason Committee: 27
"I was introduced to him and he, I think, did not recollect my
name, and I stepped aside. In a moment, after speaking to some-
body else, he came up again and, I think, he said to me that he did
not understand my name when it was mentioned, and he then said,
in a very calm but firm tone, to me : ' I understand you do not ap-
prove of my course;' referring, as I supposed, to his going into Mis-
souri and getting slaves and running them off. It was said with a
great deal of firmness of manner, and it was the first salutation after
speaking to me. I said I did not. He said, in substance, I under-
stand from some of my friends here you have spoken in condem-
nation of it. I said, I had; I believed it to be a very great injury to
the anti-slavery cause; that I regarded every illegal act, and every
imprudent act, as being against it. I said that if this action had been
a year or two before, it might have been followed by the invasion of
Kansas by a large number of excited people on the border, and a
great many lives might have been lost. He said he thought differ-
ently, and he believed he had acted right, and that it would have a
good influence, or words to that effect."
It was on the same day of his conversation with Senator
Wilson that he visited his benefactor, A. A. Lawrence, who,
400 JOHN BROWN
as his diary shows,28 had cooled off considerably in his admi-
ration for " the Miles Standish of Kansas." This is the entry
relating to the call:
" Captain John Brown of Osawatomie came to see me with one of
his rangers [Jeremiah Anderson]. He has been stealing negroes and
running them off from Missouri. He has a monomania on that sub-
ject, I think, and would be hanged if he were taken in a slave State.
He has allowed his beard to grow since I saw him last, which changes
his appearance entirely, as it is almost white and very long. He and
his companion both have the fever and ague, somewhat, probably
a righteous visitation for their fanaticism."
While calling at a friend's house during this stay in Boston,
on a Sunday evening, John Brown also met John A. Andrew,
then a prominent lawyer of Boston and soon to be the able War
Governor of Massachusetts. Mr. Andrew was so impressed
with Brown, whom he described as a "very magnetic person,"
that he sent him twenty- five dollars.29 " I did it," he testified
the next year, "because I felt ashamed, after I had seen the
old man and talked with him . . . that I had never contrib-
uted anything directly towards his assistance, as one whom
I thought had sacrificed and suffered so much for the cause
of freedom." This chance meeting stood Brown in good stead
later, when it came to providing the Virginia State prisoner
with counsel. His last public appearance, as a speaker, in the
North, was at a meeting of the Church Anti-Slavery Society,
at Tremont Temple, in the last week in May. He sat on the
stage, and was called upon to speak, but the large audience
manifesting an eagerness to hear rather the orator of the day,
Dr. Cheever, Brown broke off abruptly after saying a sen-
tence or two, remarking, as he sat down, that he was more
accustomed to action than to speaking.30
On June 3, 1859, this pleasant interlude in Brown's life
drew to its close. Thereafter every energy was bent upon
" troubling Israel " at Harper's Ferry, and there was much to be
endured, in the sense of hardships and anxiety, during the
period of preparation of four months now before him. From
Boston he went to Collinsville, to put through the purchase
of the pikes. He appeared at Mr. Blair's door as soon as he
could get there from the train and said to him: " I have been
unable, sir, to fulfill my contract with you up to this time;
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 401
I have met with various disappointments; now I am able
to do so." 31 Blair was disinclined to go on with the job.
"What good," he asked, "can they be if they are finished;
Kansas matters are all settled, and of what earthly use can
they be to you now?" Brown answered that if they were
finished up, he could dispose of them in some way, but as they
were, they were good for nothing. Finally, Blair agreed for
four hundred and fifty dollars to finish the weapons, if he
could find a skilled man to do the work, as he was now himself
too busy with other orders. Brown came again early on June
4, and gave him a check for one hundred dollars, and fifty
dollars in cash. Three days later, writing from Troy, Brown
sent three hundred dollars more to Mr. Blair, who found the
workman he needed, with the result that the pikes were in
Brown's hands in Chambersburg early in the following Sep-
tember, their receipt being acknowledged to Blair in a letter
dated September 15.
From Troy, Brown went to Keene, New York, after making
some purchases for his family, where he wrote to Kagi on
June 9 that he was on his way to Ohio, after being "midling
successful." 32 The next day he was at Westport,33 on his way
in to North Elba, where he remained less than a week. He
brought in with him many things for his family which he had
purchased on going to Massachusetts and on his way back;
and in the brief interval of this, his final stay in his mountain
home, he did everything possible for the comfort of his family.
There is no record of their parting, a last earthly one for sev-
eral. Nor is it probable that there was much emotion dis-
played ; the Browns were neither emotional nor demonstrative,
and their iron-willed and stern father had before this returned
from venturesome undertakings in which his life was at stake.
More than that, they were, as a family, ready for the sacrifice
for which they had been trained and prepared these many
years. It was probably on Thursday, June 16, that the parting
occurred, for two days later, June 18, Brown's diary shows
that he was at West Andover, Ohio.34 " Borrowed John's old
compass, and left my own, together with Gurley's book, with
him at West Andover; also borrowed his small Jacob staff;
also gave him for expenses $15, write him, under cover to
Horace Lindsley, West Andover." On the 23d of June he
402 JOHN BROWN
sent to his family, from Akron, his first report since leaving
them.36 Hudson and Cherry Valley were other places visited
by Brown in Ohio, and in nearly every one he seems to have
discussed with one or more friends the active service he now
contemplated — usually in general terms. He did not hesi-
tate to say that he had arms and men, and was contemplating
an attack upon Virginia ; but those who remember those con-
versations are certain that there was no mention of Harper's
Ferry, or of an attack upon United States property.36
He had, of course, long talks with his sons, Owen and John,
Jr. The latter was engaged in drumming-up men and calling
together the faithful of the previous year's band. This process
went on during the summer. A surprisingly large number of
persons knew or suspected what was going on, yet no inkling
of it leaked out from this staunch anti-slavery neighborhood.
From Ohio Brown went into Pennsylvania. He reached Pitts-
burg the same day he wrote to his family from Akron, for
there is a letter to Kagi in his handwriting dated in Pittsburg
on that date, and signed "S. Monroe." 37 He was at Bedford
Springs with his son Oliver, who had accompanied him from
North Elba, on June 26, and at Bedford on June 27, going
thence to Chambersburg for a two or three days' stay there
in the role of "I. Smith & Sons," Owen being the other son
with him.38 On the 30th he left for the future seat of war,
with both sons and the ever-faithful Jeremiah Anderson, who
in his rustic garb had attracted much attention when walking
the streets of Boston with his equally rustic leader. To Kagi,
Brown thus announced his departure : 39
CHAMBERSBURG, PA, 30th June, 1859.
JOHN HENRIE ESQR
DEAR SIR
We leave here to day for Harpers Ferry; (via) Hagerstown.
When you get there you had best look on the Hotel register for
I . Smith & Sons without making much enquiry. We shall be look-
ing for cheap lands near the Rail Road in all probability. You can
write I Smith & Sons at Harpers Ferry should you need to do so.
Yours in truth
I SMITH
At Hagerstown the four men spent the night at the Hagers-
town tavern,40 not dreaming that a little more than three
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 403
years later this small hotel would be filled with the North-
ern men wounded at Antietam in that war against slavery
which the "old man" was so resolutely predicting. From
Hagerstown their route led them to Harper's Ferry, per-
haps partly on foot, for it was apparently not until July 3
that they reached their destination by train and were able to
obtain cheap board at Sandy Hook, a small village one mile
beyond Harper's Ferry on the Maryland side.41 Then the
Commander-in-Chief of the Army established under the Pro-
visional Government was on his battlefield; the contest be-
tween one dauntless spirit and the institution of slavery which
had so long dominated American social and political life was
on in earnest.
The 1859 anniversary of the Independence of the United
States, John Brown and his three companions spent recon-
noitring in Maryland. It was about two-thirds of a mile
beyond Harper's Ferry that John C. Unseld,42 a resident in
that neighborhood, met them between eight and nine o'clock
in the morning and asked them if they were prospecting for
gold and silver. " No," replied Brown, "we are not, we are out
looking for land ; we want to buy land ; we have a little money,
but we want to make it go as far as we can." After asking
the price of land in that vicinity and expressing surprise at
its costliness, and other desultory conversation, they parted,
Unseld going on into Harper's Ferry. On returning from the
town he again met them, and Brown expressed his satisfaction
with what he had seen and asked whether there was any farm
for sale in the neighborhood. Unseld informed him that the
heirs of a Dr. Kennedy had one for sale, four miles from where
they were talking. Brown then expressed the opinion that it
would be better for him to rent rather than to buy, and, after
declining an invitation to dinner at Mr. Unseld's, went on
toward the farm. He was not long in making up his mind to
take it, went to Sharpsburg, saw those in charge of the pro-
perty, and rented for only thirty-five dollars the two houses,
pasture for a cow and a horse, and firewood, all until the first
day of March, 1860. To Unseld he stated also that his real
business was buying fat cattle and driving them on to the
State of New York for disposal there. Others in the neighbor-
hood retained the impression that the newcomers were really
404 JOHN BROWN
mineral prospectors, particularly as Brown sometimes ap-
peared with surveying instruments and carried a sensitive
magnetic needle in a small bucket.43 Naturally, there was at
first much curiosity in the neighborhood, but it gradually
waned until, later in the fall, it waxed again.
As for the Kennedy Farm, it is about five miles from Har-
per's Ferry. The main house, since altered and enlarged, was
by no means commodious. There was a basement kitchen
and storeroom, a living-room and bedrooms on the second
story, and an attic in which some of the men slept. The house
stands three hundred yards from the road, on the left as one
approaches from Harper's Ferry, and was about six hun-
dred yards from the simple cabin across the road, the second
house leased, since destroyed. This stood about three hun-
dred yards from the road, on the right-hand side, facing the
main house. The place suited Brown exactly, and, as soon as
the lease was signed, he moved his men up from Sandy Hook
to dwell in it. After the occupation it became apparent that
the farm was, after all, too near the highway, and that the
neighbors were too inquisitive for comfort. They were con-
stantly "dropping in," after the friendly Southern fashion,
and could not understand why they were not asked into
the house.44 Mr. Unseld was once urged to come in, but as
Brown had steadfastly refused to enter his home, Mr. Unseld
declined to enter Brown's, or Smith's, as the Northerner was
everywhere known.
Even before he was settled on the farm, Brown came to the
conclusion that he must have women with him at Harper's
Ferry, in order to avert suspicion while the arms were being
moved in and the company assembled. He therefore soon
sent Oliver Brown back to North Elba with the following
letter to his wife, with the misleading date-line of Chambers-
burg, July 5:46
DEAR WIFE
I would be most glad to have you & Anne come on with Oliver, &
make me a visit of a few weeks while I am prepareing to build. I
find it will be indispensable to have some women of our own family
with us for [a] short time. I dont see how we can get along with-
out, & on that account have sent Oliver at a good deal of expence to
come back with you ; & if you cannot come, I would be glad to have
THE CABIN ACROSS THE ROAD SCHOOL-HOUSE GUARDED BY
FROM THE FARMHOUSE JOHN E. COOK
THE HOUSE AT KENNEDY FARM, MARYLAND
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 405
Martha & Anne come on. You will have no more exposure here than
at North Elba; & can return after a short visit. I would not have
you fail to come on by any means. I do not think you need hesitate
to leave Ellen; with Martha, & Sarah; & I think you would not find
it an unpleasant visit. You need not bring anything but your plain
clothes, & a few Sheets, & Pillow-cases. What you could pack in a
single Trunk, & a clean bag; would be (I should think) quite suffi-
cient. A few Towels, & something for milk strainers might come.
Have your bag; or bags marked, /, S; plain. I want you to come
right off. It will be likely to prove the most valuable service you can
ever render to the world. Do not consult your neighbors at all about
it. Oliver can explain to you the reasons why we want you now.
Should Oliver be too unwell; I want Salmon, or Watson to come on
with you ; if they go right back ; at once. One might come & go in
a little more than a Week.
Your Affectionat Husband
I. SMITH
Mrs. "Smith" was not ready to leave her home and her
young children, although she wished for her husband "health
and success in the great and good cause you are engaged in ; " 46
but Martha, Oliver's wife, and Annie promptly responded to
the call. Both were very young, seventeen and sixteen years
old respectively. Oliver accompanied them, and Watson soon
followed. Martha was cook and housekeeper, all unsuspect-
ing of the tragic end so soon to come to her boy-husband
— he was not twenty — and herself, and, until the raid, cer-
tain that Watson would shortly rejoin her at North Elba.
By Saturday, July 16, the two young girls were at or near
the Kennedy Farm, boarding with a farmer named Nicholls
from their arrival until they moved in and began house-
keeping on the iQth.47 Young as they were, their services
were indeed as valuable as John Brown had foreseen they
would be. Mere girls, they had old heads upon their shoul-
ders. They filled their arduous posts well and bravely, and
fully won the respect of the hardy men as the long summer
wore slowly on.
Pass it did before anything happened, — much to the dis-
appointment of some in the enterprise. To live in the open
in the Virginia mountains in the fall, to say nothing of the
dead of winter, requires a venturesome man ; the prospect was
enough to daunt the toughest campaigner of Kansas plains,
to say nothing of slaves with the negro dislike of the intense
406 JOHN BROWN
cold. There was every reason, therefore, why the blow should
have been struck in midsummer. But one thing after another
delayed it. The pikes did not reach the Kennedy Farm until
well on in September. The men dropped in slowly, and mean-
while the two thousand dollars with which Brown had set out
from Boston melted away so that he was compelled in August
to appeal once more for money — three hundred dollars —
to the ever-helpful Boston friends. 4? His own uneasiness was
manifest on July 10 in the following letter to Kagi, then in
Chambersburg : 49
"I wish you to give such explanations to our friends as to our
situation here ; as after advising with Owen you will be able to do.
We can of course do nothing to purpose till our freight is mostly
received. You know also that it takes a great deal longer to start
some folks than it does others. It will be distressing in many ways
to have a lot of hands for many days out of employ. We must have
time to get on our freight ; & also to get on some who are at a dis-
tance; before calling on those who are ready & waiting. We must
make up our lot of hands as nearly at one, & the same time ; as pos-
sible. Do not use much paper to put names of persons & plans
uppon. Send back word about the price of board with you."
Kagi had intended to be at Kennedy Farm, but he had
hardly stepped off of the train at Harper's Ferry before he
was recognized by some one who had known him during his
residence in the vicinity.50 Hence it was decided to station
him at Chambersburg as the forwarding agent for the sup-
plies, which were all sent there, Owen Brown acting at first
as teamster on the night trips between the two places, and as
pilot for some of the recruits as they joined. By July 12,
Brown instructed Kagi to order Moffet and Tidd to go to
Chambersburg.51 Tidd answered the call, but Moffet had
already written on June 20 that he could not come.52
John Brown, Jr., was unfortunately trusted with the for-
warding of the arms, as he was not relied upon for active ser-
vice. In May, 1858, 53 he had written that he had been "sub-
ject to a period of the most depressing melancholy," and that
he was ' ' almost disqualified for anything which is engrossing
in its nature." His terrible experience in Kansas was still
hanging over him, so that he was little fitted for the position
of Ohio agent for the expedition. As such he reported on July
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 407
23, 1859, 54 to Kagi, that he had the day before forwarded to
the canal at Hartstown, Pennsylvania, just across the Ohio
line, " ii Boxes Hardware & Castings from King & Brothers.
They are numbered and marked thus *i to n- By R. Rd. Via
Pittsburg & Harrisburg; I. Smith & Sons, Chambersburg,
Pa; Shall send balance Hardware, &c., on Monday next -
*8 and *9 are those which were on store with E. A. F.[obes] at
Lindenville; Mr. Smith will remember." On the following
Wednesday, John Brown, Jr., reported the despatch of the
other four boxes of arms, and a little later six boxes and a chest
of household supplies were sent on their way.68 On August
II, Kagi reported 56 the arrival of the fifteen boxes of arms
at Chambersburg, with freight charges of eighty-five dollars
attached, so "very high" in Brown's opinion as to make him
write at once to his son : 57
" I begin to be apprehensive of getting into a tight spot for want
of a little more funds, notwithstanding my anxiety to make my
money hold out. As it will cost no more expense for you to solicit
for me a little more assistance while attending to your other busi-
ness, say two or three hundred dollars in New York, — drafts
payable to the order of I. Smith & Sons, — will you not sound
my Eastern or Western friends in regard to it? . . . It is terribly
humiliating to me to begin soliciting of friends again; but as the
harvest opens before me with increasing encouragements, I may not
allow a feeling of delicacy to deter me from asking the little further
aid I expect to need."
From Chambersburg the arms were laboriously transported
to the Kennedy Farm by a young " Pennsylvania Dutchman "
with a large freight wagon.58 For the ordinary supplies and
the household belongings, the small covered wagon purchased
from a neighbor was the means of transportation. After Owen
was compelled to give up being teamster, either John Brown
himself, Watson Brown or Jeremiah Anderson made the trips
to and from Chambersburg. "They had a horse and a mule,
which they hitched to the wagon alternately, one riding in the
wagon and the other on horseback, a short distance either
before or behind, to keep a look out for danger." People along
the road gradually grew suspicious of this little wagon and
its mounted escort, and often stopped them to ask questions
about their business.59
4o8 JOHN BROWN
The conspirators were soon face to face with another
danger besides the inquisitiveness of their neighbors, — their
own loquaciousness and freedom of expression in their letters
home. John E. Cook was the man Brown most dreaded, so
far as looseness of tongue was concerned. He had married
on April 18, 1859, Mary V. Kennedy, a resident of Harper's
Ferry, and had secured a position as lock-tender on the old
canal across the Potomac from the town.60 Cook from the
beginning favored the plan of taking the town and arsenal,
and obtained a good deal of information of value while his
comrades were at the Kennedy Farm. He even wished to
go about among the plantation negroes and give them vague
hints of what was coming. "This," says Mrs. Annie Brown
Adams, now the sole survivor of those who gathered at the
Kennedy Farm, "father positively forbade his doing. Father
lived in constant fear that Cook would make a confidant of
someone who would betray us, all that summer. He never
doubted his bravery, his honesty, or good intentions, but
considered him very impulsive and indiscreet." But while
the others were in no danger of talking too much, their pens
were by no means always well controlled. William H. Lee-
man, for instance, wrote to his mother, two weeks before the
raid:61
"I am now in a Southern Slave State and before I leave it, it will
be a free State, Mother. . . . Yes, mother, I am waring with Slavery
the greatest Curse that ever infested America; In Explanation of my
Absence from you for so long a time I would tell you that for three
years I have been Engaged in a Secret Association of as gallant
fellows as ever puled a trigger with the sole purpose of the Exter-
mination of Slavery."
Letters similar in tenor passed from the members of the
expedition throughout the summer, until finally John Brown
wrote the only wrathy letter to be found in all his voluminous
correspondence. It was dated at the Kennedy Farm, August
u, 1859, and addressed to J. Henrie [Kagi] at Chambers-
burg:62
" I got along Tuesday evening all right ; with letters &c. I do hope
all corresponding except on business of the Co: will be droped for the
present. If everyone must write some girl ; or some other extra friend
telling, or shoing our location ; & telling (as some have done] all about
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 409
our matters ; we might as well get the whole published at once, in
the New York Herald. Any person is a stupid Fool who expects
his friends to keep for him; that which he cannot keep himself. All
our friends have each got their special friends ; and they again have
theirs ; and it would not be right to lay the burden of keeping a
secret on any one; at the end of a long string. I coul[d] tell you of
some reasons I have for feeling rather keenly on this point. I do not
say this on account of any tale bearing that I accuse any of you of.
Three more hands came on from North E. on Saturday last. Be sure
to let me know of anything of interest."
A special reason for vexation and anxiety Brown had ex-
pressed in a letter to his son on August 6. To the defection
of Parsons and Moffet was then added the news of that of
George Gill, Secretary of State of the Provisional Govern-
ment, who had been so near to Brown during the long trip
with the slaves. Then, a man named Henry Carpenter, of
Medina County, Ohio, who had promised to join, lost heart
after starting and turned back. " I hope," wrote the leader,63
"George G. will so far redeem himself as to try: & do his duty
after all. I shall rejoice over l one that repenteth.' . . . 1 was
sorry about the mistake by which Mr. C. was parted from
O. on the way back. He has not come on; & we suppose he
found his way to you again. Every thing seems exactly right ;
& will be so, I have no doubt; if our own imprudence & folly
do not secure a failure." Brown's own circumspection appears
from the following letter, quite characteristic of this Kennedy
Farm period:
CHAMBERSBURG, PA, 27th July, 1859.
DEAR WIFE & CHILDREN ALL.
I write to say that we are all well; & that I think Watson, & D.
had not best set out until we write again; & not until sufficient hay
has been secured to winter all the stock well. To be buying hay in
the Spring; or last of the winter is ruinous: & there is no prospect of
our getting our freight on; so as to be ready to go to work under
some little time yet. We will give you timely notice. When you
write enclose first in a small envelope put a stamp on it; seal it, &
direct it to I. Smith & Sons Harpers ferry, Va; then enclose it under a
Stamped Envelope; which direct to John Henrie Chamber sburg, Pa.
I need not say do all your directing & enclosing at home ; & not at
the Post Office.
Your Affectionate Husband & Father
I. SMITH"
4io JOHN BROWN
But with at least eighty persons in the secret of the raid,
it was inevitable that something should leak out. A dis-
closure of the plans actually took place on August 25, when
so high an official as the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd,
received this letter:65
CINCINNATI, August 20.
SIR: I have lately received information of a movement of so great
importance that I feel it my duty to impart it to you without delay.
I have discovered the existence of a secret association, having
for its object the liberation of the slaves at the South by a general
insurrection. The leader of the movement is " Old John Brown ,"
late of Kansas. He has been in Canada during the winter, drilling
the negroes there, and they are only waiting his word to start for the
South to assist the slaves. They have one of their leading men (a
white man) in an armory in Maryland — where it is situated I have
not been able to learn. As soon as everything is ready, those of their
number who are in the Northern States and Canada are to come in
small companies to their rendezvous, which is in the mountains in
Virginia. They will pass down through Pennsylvania and Mary-
land, and enter Virginia at Harper's Ferry. Brown left the North
about three or four weeks ago, and will arm the negroes and strike
the blow in a few weeks ; so that whatever is done must be done at
once. They have a large quantity of arms at their rendezvous, and
are probably distributing them already.
As I am not fully in their confidence, this is all the information I
can give you. I dare not sign my name to this, but trust you will not
disregard the warnings on that account.
So explicit a warning and so well written a letter might, it
would seem, have roused the interest of the Secretary of War
to the extent of a careful investigation. Mr. Floyd was at the
Red Sweet Springs in Virginia when he received the letter.
He was constantly receiving anonymous communications and
destroying them. This one received more than the usual con-
sideration, in that he preserved it. But one error in the letter,
the reference to the arsenal in Maryland, Mr. Floyd after-
wards said to the Mason Committee, "confused me a little."
There being no armory in Maryland, he jumped to the con-
clusion that there was nothing of truth in the entire epistle.
" Besides," he declared, " I was satisfied in my own mind that
a scheme of such wickedness and outrage could not be enter-
tained by any citizens of the United States." After the raid,
Mr. Floyd recalled the friendly warning and, feeling that John
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 411
Brown's attack had more than local significance, had it pub-
lished, " that the country might be put on their guard against
anything like a concerted movement." Again John Brown
had encountered good fortune. Had the easy-going Floyd
connected the John Brown of the letter with the John Brown
for whose apprehension the President of the United States
was offering a reward of $250, he might at least have made
some investigation at Harper's Ferry, and perhaps have pre-
vented the attack by increasing the guards.
For a long time the authorship of the so-called "Floyd
letter " was in doubt. The survivors of the attack on Harper's
Ferry and their friends were naturally eager to find out who
had played the traitor. Both Moffet and Realf were sus-
pected, and also a Cincinnati editor, Edmund Babb by name.
Not until comparatively recent years was the mystery ex-
plained, when it appeared that the motive behind it was not
one of hostility to Brown or friendliness to the South, but a
desire to preserve Brown's life from his own folly by giving an
alarm which would cause him to abandon his rash enterprise.
"Our only thought," says the author of the letter, David J.
Gue, "was to protect Brown from the consequences of his
own rashness and devotion, without injuring him, or letting
him fall into the hands of his enemies." 66 In August, 1859,
Mr. Gue with a brother, Benjamin F. Gue, and a cousin,
A. L. Smith, of Buffalo, were residing in a log-cabin in Scott
County, Iowa, twenty miles from Springdale, to which place
they drove on August 13, in order to visit Moses Varney and
other friends of their own Quaker persuasion. To Smith,
on August 14, Varney revealed the details of Brown's plans,
exclaiming: "Something must be done to save their lives. I
cannot betray their confidence in me. Consult your friends.
But do something!" That day, on their return, Smith in-
formed the Gues, and they discussed at length plans of inter-
vention, determined not to let Brown and his men rush into
death if they could help it. They could not betray Varney.
They felt themselves young and inexperienced, yet dared not
consult their elders. At last they determined to write two let-
ters, from different localities, to the Secretary of War, giving
facts enough to alarm him. This, they thought, would occa-
sion an increase of the guard at the Harper's Ferry arsenal.
4i2 JOHN BROWN
This Cook would see, would understand to mean that the
authorities were informed, and would warn Brown, who would
then lead his men away to safety. It was not easy to word
a letter so as to command attention, while anonymous. Yet
they wished to conceal their identity, in order not to be called
on to testify further. So they gave Brown's name, thinking
that his past record would gain credence for their story.
Smith dated his letter Philadelphia, and enclosed it in a sealed,
stamped envelope addressed to Mr. Floyd. This he enclosed
to the Postmaster of Philadelphia and mailed it at Wheatland,
Clinton County, Iowa. David J. Gue addressed his to " J. B.
Floyd, Sec'y of War," marked it " Private," enclosed it to the
Postmaster of Cincinnati, and mailed it at Big Rock. This
was the letter that became historic. They hoped to convey
the idea of two persons, non-sympathizers with John Brown,
who, at widely different places, had accidentally learned of the
affair, and felt it a duty to warn the Government. The post-
master at Cincinnati forwarded the letter to Mr. Floyd, but
the missive sent to Philadelphia never reached its destination.
Fortunately for his peace of mind, John Brown received no
inkling of this well-meant effort to frustrate his life's ambi-
tion. He had other worries in sufficiency to occupy him. The
last financial question was, however, easily solved for him in
August and September,67 and on the eve of the raid there
arrived a well-to-do recruit, — the final one, — Francis J.
Meriam, of Boston, who placed six hundred dollars in gold in
the joint treasury. The faithful colored friend in Brooklyn,
Mrs. Gloucester, forwarded another contribution of ten dol-
lars through Frederick Douglass,68 and some other small gifts
were probably received. Douglass brought Mrs. Gloucester's
contribution to Chambersburg, when, at Brown's request, he
met him there for a final conference on August 19, 20 and 21.
Through Harry Watson, a colored Chambersburg agent of the
Underground Railroad, of great service to Brown at this time,
Douglass soon found the appointed rendezvous, in an old stone-
quarry, and here Douglass, Shields Green, Kagi and Brown
sat down to talk over the enterprise. The colored orator
vehemently opposed the taking of the arsenal, when that plan
was unfolded to him, and, according to his own story, char-
acterized it as assuredly fatal to all engaged.69 "It would be
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 413
an attack upon the federal government, and would array the
whole country against us. ... I told him . . . that all his
arguments, and all his descriptions of the place, convinced me
that he was going into a perfect steel- trap, and that once in he
would never get out alive." Finally, Douglass said that, as the
plan was so completely changed, he should return home, and
turning to Shields Green, a negro he had brought from Roch-
ester with him, asked him what he should do. Shields Green
promptly answered, " I b'lieve I '11 go wid de ole man." Brown
could not conceal his disappointment at Douglass's defection.
" I will defend you with my life," he said. " I want you for a
special purpose. When I strike, the bees will begin to swarm,
and I shall want you to help me hive them." Douglass's with-
drawal, as has already been stated, subjected him to consider-
able criticism, not only for his change of mind, but because
of the way he withdrew, and of what he afterward said and
wrote about the raid.
Other men, colored and white, disappointed Brown. J. H.
Harris, later the colored Congressman from North Carolina,
and a member of the Chatham convention, wrote from Cleve-
land, August 22, that he was disgusted with himself "and the
whole negro set, 'em." 70 Alexis Hinckley, a family
connection of Brown's at North Elba, who had been ready the
year before, was not on hand now because of domestic trou-
bles; 71 Realf had quite disappeared; George B. Gill did not
"repent" until too late; and R. J. Hinton, also, started too
late. Henry Thompson and Jason and Salmon Brown were
averse to joining, and Richard Richardson could not be
induced to leave Canada, — indeed, the Canadian negro rein-
forcement that Brown had counted upon wholly failed to
materialize, except in the case of Osborn P. Anderson, who
paid his own way. Perhaps it was too much to expect that
many men who had, at the risk of torture, escaped from life-
long bondage, should now be willing to place their necks in
the noose again ; perhaps they were not properly informed as
to the hour for the revolt.
For John Brown, Jr., seems to have been the victim of a
curious mental aberration. Although he had shipped the arms
to Chambersburg and apologized for the delay in getting them
off, he suddenly wrote on September 8 to Kagi : 72 " From what
4i4 JOHN BROWN
I even, had understood, I had supposed you would not think it
best to commence opening the coal banks before spring, unless
circumstances should make it important. However, I suppose
the reasons are satisfactory to you and if so, those who own
similar shares, ought not to object." Kagi was constantly urg-
ing John Brown, Jr., to send forward men, but without much
avail. The latter's trip to New York, Boston and Canada,
in August, also seems to have been of little use; it is obvious
that a stronger forwarding agent — Kagi, for instance —
would have obtained many more recruits. Certainly, the
"associations" which John Brown, Jr., formed in Canada for
recruiting purposes were never heard from; but it would be
wrong to attribute this to any lack of valor on the part of the
negroes, — as some have tried to, — in the absence of definite
information as to John Brown, Jr.'s statements and directions.
There were a number of white men who claimed later an
intention to join, and alleged misinformation as to the ex-
act date, besides Hinton and Gill. Charles W. Lenhart, of
Kansas fame, is not of this number. He had settled down to
the study of the law in Cincinnati, and decided to stick to it.
Gradually, however, the officers and men of the tiny army
of the Provisional Government did assemble at the Kennedy
Farm, until there were in all twenty-one men besides the
commander-in-chief . Watson Brown and the brothers Thomp-
son, William and Dauphin, arrived on August 6.73 Next cajne
Tidd, then Stevens, followed shortly thereafter by Hazlett,
Taylor and the two Coppocs. Leeman was on hand toward
the end of August, being preceded, after the Douglass con-
ference, by Shields Green, who, in company with Owen Brown,
narrowly escaped being taken by some men who pursued them
when coming down from Chambersburg. As they lay con-
cealed in a thicket, in a corn-field near Hagerstown, three
passers-by caught sight of Owen's coat and, suspicious that
there might be a runaway slave episode at hand, returned
twice to catechize Owen and Green. Finally, Owen was com-
pelled to frighten them off with his revolver. Instantly, he
and Green set out for the mountains and travelled all night,
pursued by parties of searchers, often heard and sometimes
seen, finally reaching Kennedy Farm in a nearly exhausted
condition. "Oh, what a poor fool I am!" said Green to his
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 415
companion on the way. " I had got away out of slavery, and
here I have got back into the eagle's claw again!" 74 There-
after, Owen Brown abandoned his wagon trips to Chambers-
burg. When Osborn P. Anderson arrived, on September 25, 7B
all the men were on hand except John Copeland, Lewis S.
Leary and Francis J. Meriam. The others who had joined
were Cook, from Harper's Ferry, and Dangerfield Newby, a
negro who had been given his freedom, and was now hoping
to achieve with the rifle the release of his wife and seven chil-
dren who remained in bondage. As late as August i6,76this
wife and mother begged her husband to buy her and the baby
that had just "commenced to crawl," "as soon as possible, for
if you do not get me somebody else will." "Oh, Dear Danger-
field," wrote this poor slave woman, "come this fall without
fail, money or no money I want to see you so much: that is
one bright hope I have before me." But fate decreed that
Newby should neither save his wife from sale South, nor ever
see the baby which had just "commenced to crawl," but whose
body belonged to some one else than its parents.
It was a strangely mixed company which had now assem-
bled to undergo close confinement in the cabin or the house,
prior to a brief day or two of activity and disaster. All day
long they lay in their garrets for fear of detection. But, ill-
educated as most of them were, rough, unvarnished, some
with soiled lives behind them, their hearts throbbed with a
mighty purpose; the tie that bound them together was the
outcry of their natures against the monstrous wrong they now
beheld at close quarters. They were willing to give their lives
for the sake of others, that others might live and be free ; and
"a greater love than this hath no man." They had willingly
turned their backs upon their homes and upon the women
and little children some of these harbored. There is extant a
most touching series of letters between Watson Brown and his
young wife, which no one can read unmoved, even fifty years
after, for the Browns have all had the gift of earnest and mov-
ing English. There had been born to them, just before Watson
left for the front, a boy baby, to whom was given the name of
Frederick, the Kansas victim. "Oh, Bell," wrote Watson to
the wife who was so soon to lose at one fell stroke her husband,
her two brothers (the Thompsons), and her brother-in-law:
416 JOHN BROWN
"I do want to see you and the little fellow very much but must
wait. There was a slave near where we live whose wife was sold to
go South the other day and he was found hanging in Thomas Ken-
nedy's orchard, dead, the next morning. I cannot come home as long
as such things are done here. ... I sometimes think perhaps we
shall not meet again." Later, he wrote: "If we should not [meet]
you have an object to live for, — to be a mother to our little Fred.
He is not quite a reality to me yet." And again, on October 14: "We
are all eager for the work and confident of success. There was an-
other slave murdered near our place the other day, making in all five
slaves murdered and one committed suicide near our place since we
lived here. ... I can but commend you to yourself and our friends
if I should never see you again." 77
And the brave wife wrote, in reply, of her infant's pranks,
and then added: "Now Watson keep up good courage and do
not worry about me and come back as soon as possible. I
think of you all night in my dreams." 78
When men feel as did Watson Brown, it is easy to go to cer-
tain death; this the Harper's Ferry plan seemed to many of
those assembled at the Kennedy Farm. Twice at least there
was almost a revolt against the armory plan. Tidd, on one
occasion, felt so outraged and angered at it that he left the
farm and went, says Mrs. Adams, for three days to Cook's
house, near the Ferry, "to cool off." Once John Brown ten-
dered his resignation as commander-in-chief ; but it was not
accepted. He was their leader and they would follow him. On
the 1 8th of August, Owen Brown gave his father the following
letter on behalf of those on hand : 79
HARPERS FERRY, Aug. i8th, '59.
DEAR SIR,
We have all agreed to sustain your decisions, until you have
proved incompetent, & many of us will adhere to your decisions as
long as you will.
Your Friend,
OWEN SMITH.
They were ready to do or die. But, meanwhile, the weary
weeks of waiting — the raid was finally set for October — were
trying indeed. Of their daily life, Mrs. Annie Brown Adams
has kindly furnished the following recollections:
"My father encouraged debating and discussions on all subjects
among the men, often taking a lively part in the debate himself.
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 417
Sometimes it would commence between two in the dining room,
then others would join, those who were upstairs coming down into
the room to listen or take a part, some sitting on the stairs ready to
jump and run back out of sight, if the danger signal was given that
someone was approaching. Although he did not always agree with
them, he encouraged them to discuss religious questions with him,
and to express themselves freely on the subject. It is claimed by
many that they were a wild, ignorant, fanatical or adventurous lot
of rough men. This is not so, they were sons from good families well
trained by orthodox religious parents, too young to have settled
views on many subjects, impulsive, generous, too good themselves to
believe that God could possibly be the harsh unforgiving being He
was at that day usually represented to be. Judging them by the
rules laid down by Christ, I think they were uncommonly good and
sincere Christians if the term Christian means follower of Christ's
example, and too great lovers of freedom to endure to be tram-
meled by church or creed. Self interest or self aggrandizement was
the farthest thing from their thoughts or intentions. It was a clear
case of an effort to help those who were oppressed and could not help
themselves, a practical application of the Golden Rule. I heard
them ask father one day if the money to pay the expenses was
furnished by orthodox church members or liberal Christians. He
said he must confess that it came from the liberal ones. Tidd spoke
up and said ' I thought so, the orthodox ones do not often do such
things.'
"After breakfast Father usually read a chapter in the Bible and
made a plain, short, sensible prayer, standing while praying. (I have
seen him kneel, but not often.) This was his custom both at home
and at Kennedy Farm. Evenings he usually sat on a stool in the
kitchen because it was warm there, and he once told me he did not
wish to disturb the 'boys,' or spoil their enjoyment and fun by his
presence in the living room. He thought they did not feel quite so
free when he was there.
"As the table was not large enough for all to sit down at one time
and the supply of dishes quite limited, Martha and I usually ate
alone after all the rest were done. She 'dished up' the victuals and
washed dishes while I carried things into the room and waited on the
table. There was no door between the kitchen and dining room then,
both rooms opened on to the porch, making a great deal of walking
back and forth. After the meals I cleared off the table and washed
the dishes and swept the floors of the room and porch, constantly on
the look out for Mrs. Huffmaster, our nearest neighbor. She was a
worse plague than the fleas. Of our supplies of food a few things
were occasionally bought at Harper's Ferry when the men went to
the post office after The Baltimore Sun, which father subscribed
for. Most of the mail was sent to Kagi at Chambersburg — merely
for appearance sake. The rest of our food supplies was purchased at
the towns and all along the road from Chambersburg down, a few
4i8 JOHN BROWN
things at a time or place so as not to arouse suspicion. Owen brought
a barrel of eggs at one time because they were cheaper than meat.
We had potatoes, onions and bacon. Then Martha was an extra
good 'light bread' maker. . . . We had a cookstove in the small
kitchen off the porch upstairs, where we did our cooking. We used
the basement kitchen and other cemented room on the ground floor
only for storing purposes.
"The middle room in the second story was used for dining and
general living room as the stairway from above came down into that
room. The men came down and took their meals at the table, except
on special occasions when some stranger or neighbor was calling
there. If he or she stayed too long something was carried up the
ladder at the back end of the house and passed into the window to
the men. Sometimes Mrs. Huffmaster with her brood of little ones
would be seen coming while the men were at the table eating. They
would then gather up all the things, table-cloth and all, and go so
quietly upstairs that no one would believe they existed, finish their
meal up there and come back down bringing the things, when the
visitor had gone. We did not have any stove or way of warming any
of the rooms except the kitchen. The white men most of them, would
watch their chance, when no one was in sight and skulk into the
kitchen and stay and visit Martha awhile to relieve the monotony.
If any one came they would climb the ladder into the loft over the
kitchen and stay there until Mrs. Huffmaster (usually) was gone.
The colored men were never allowed to be seen by daylight outside
of the dining room. After Mrs. Huffmaster saw Shields Green in that
room, they stayed upstairs closely.
" I was there to keep the outside world from discovering that John
Brown and his men were in their neighborhood. I used to help
Martha with the cooking all she would let me. Father would often
tell me that I must not let any work interfere with my constant
watchfulness. That others could help do the housework, but he
depended on me to watch. When I sat on the porch or just inside the
door, in the day time, I either read or sewed, to appear occupied if
any one came near. When I washed the dishes I stood at the end of
the table, where I could see out of the window and open door if any
one was approaching the house. I was constantly on the look-out
while carrying the victuals across the porch, from the kitchen, and
while I was sweeping and tidying the rooms, and always at my post
on the porch while the men ate their meals, when not passing in and
out from the kitchen with food, or waiting on them in other ways at
the table. My evenings were spent on the porch or sitting on the
stairs, watching, and listening.
"The men did nearly all the washing; we spread the clothes on the
fence and on the ground to dry. Martha and I would bring them in
as fast as they dried, but Mrs. Huffmaster would have some excuse
to come to the garden, which she had rented before we went there,
and then she would notice the clothes and tell us ' Your men folks
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 419
has a right smart lot of shirts.' No one can ever imagine the pester-
ing torment that little barefooted woman and her four little children
were to us. Martha called them the little hen and chickens. We
were in constant fear that people would become suspicious enough
to attempt an investigation and try to arrest the men. The rifles
were in boxes called 'furniture' and were used to sit on and kept
standing against the walls in the dining room, one box of pistols
being in one bedroom near Martha's bed. She used it for a stand,
table or dressing case, whatever name you wish to call it by. I had
to tell people who called that: 'My mother was coming soon and
that she was very particular and had requested us to not unpack her
furniture until she arrived,' to account for the boxes in the room.
"At Kennedy Farm, my father wore a short beard, an inch or an
inch and a half long. He had made this change as a disguise, on his
return from Kansas, thinking it more likely to disguise him than a
clean face or than the long beard.
"Hazlett and Leeman were the hardest ones to keep caged of all
of ' my invisibles,' as I called them. They would get out and wander
off in the woods and even go down to Harper's Ferry, going to
Cook's home and back in daylight. We were so self-conscious that
we feared danger when no man pursued or even thought of it.
Watson, Oliver, Leeman and Kagi were all a little more than six feet
in height, J. G. Anderson and Dauphin Thompson were next them
in height but a little less than six feet; William Thompson and
Stewart Taylor were above or about medium height but not quite
as tall as the two last. Danger field Newby was I think above
medium size, spare and showed the Scotch blood plainly in his looks
and ways. His father was a Scotchman, who took his family of
mulatto children into Ohio and gave them their freedom. Newby
was quiet, sensible and very unobtrusive. Stevens and Stewart
Taylor were the only ones who believed in ' spiritualism ' and their
belief was more theoretical than otherwise. The latter was nearer
to a ' born crank ' than any other man in the company. He believed
in dreams and all sorts of 'isms,' and predicted his own death, which
really came true. He talked as coolly about it as if he were going
into another room. He considered it his duty to go to Harper's Ferry
and go he did, although he knew he was going to his end. He was
all the time studying and 'improving his mind' as he called it. He
had learned to write shorthand. O. P. Anderson was accustomed
to being confined in the house, being a printer by trade, so that he
was not so restive as some of the others.
"William Thompson was an easy-going, good-natured person who
enjoyed telling funny stories, mimicking old people for the amuse-
ment of any company he was in. But for all his nonsense he pos-
sessed an abundance of good common sense. When the occasion
seemed to demand it, he knew how to use it to advantage. He was
kind hearted and generous to a fault. Dauphin Thompson was the
youngest one of a family of eighteen children. He was a quiet per-
420 JOHN BROWN
son, read a good deal, said little. He was a perfect blond, with yel-
low, curly hair and blue eyes, innocent as a baby, nearly six feet
high, good size, well proportioned — a handsome young man. I
heard Hazlett and Leeman, one day, saying that ' Barclay Coppoc
and Dauphin Thompson were too nearly like good girls to make
soldiers ; ' that they ought to have gone to Kansas and ' roughed it '
awhile to toughen them, before coming down there. To while away
the time the men read magazines, sang, told stories, argued ques-
tions, played cards and checkers, studied military tactics, and
drilled under Stevens. When there was a thunderstorm they would
jump about and play, making all kinds of noise to rest themselves,
as they thought no one could hear them then."
At the end of September orders came for the women guar-
dians of the conspirators to leave for North Elba. The exact
date for the attack was not yet fixed, but Oliver Brown, who
escorted his wife and sister as far as Troy, was ordered to
hurry back, as the party might be obliged to commence op-
erations before he returned.80 The girls left Kennedy Farm
on September 29, and with them went the gay spirits of the
garrison. "The men then sobered down," said O. P. Ander-
son afterwards, "and acted like earnest men working hard
preparing for the coming raid."81 Among their other occupa-
tions they then busied themselves with overhauling revolvers
and rifles, browning the barrels, and affixing the nearly one
thousand pike-heads to the shafts of wood. On the 3Oth of
September, Annie and Martha parted forever from John
Brown in the station at Harrisburg,82 where he had just re-
turned from a hasty trip to Philadelphia with Kagi on some
final important business, and whence the girls went on to
New York. John Brown's trips from the Kennedy Farm were
quite frequent during the summer, but this is the only re-
corded journey beyond Chambersburg. There is a fable that
he made a hasty trip to Iowa and Kansas in the summer of
1859, but that is wholly without foundation. Between July
5 and October 16 there is a record of eight trips to Cham-
bersburg, in addition to his passing through and returning
on the visit to Philadelphia.
Francis Jackson Meriam, the grandson of the Abolitionist
leader, Francis Jackson, of Boston, arrived at Chambersburg
the day after Brown's final departure for Harper's Ferry.
Just before Meriam appeared with his six hundred dollars
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 421
in gold, John Brown had been compelled to borrow forty
dollars from Barclay Coppoc,83 — to such straits was the
Commander-in-Chief of the Provisional Government reduced.
"The good Father in Heaven who furnishes daily bread sent
Francis J. Meriam down there with his money to help them
just at the moment it was needed," says Mrs. Adams. His
money was Mr. Meriam's only contribution of value to the
cause. Erratic and unbalanced, frail in his physique, his join-
ing Brown had been strongly opposed by both Higginson and
Sanborn, on the ground that he was a "very unfit person"
for Brown's enterprise.84 "The only very positive thing about
Meriam was his hatred of slavery," was Owen Brown's judg-
ment of him.85 In 1858, Meriam had taken a trip to Hayti
with James Redpath; in that year he had made up his mind
to give a large portion of his inheritance to the anti-slavery
cause as soon as he obtained it. He had tried to join John
Brown in 1858, and was seriously planning devoting his life
to aiding slaves to escape, for he wrote to a boyhood friend
asking what the consequences of detection would be, death
or imprisonment.86 It was Lewis Hayden, a Boston negro,
who, on meeting Meriam on the street, told him of Brown's
being at Chambersburg and in dire financial distress. Meriam
set off almost at once, after seeing Higginson in Worces-
ter, and as soon as he arrived in Chambersburg, had his will
drawn by Alexander K. McClure (later the famous Phila-
delphia editor), and duly attested.87 He next went to Philadel-
phia and Baltimore, to buy military supplies, and then to the
Wager House at Harper's Ferry, on the day before the raid,
being brought up to the farm by one of Brown's sons. Here,
on Sunday morning, he, the brothers Coppoc, Leary, Cope-
land and Green were told of the plan of attack, heard the
Provisional Constitution read by Stevens, and took the oath
of fidelity and secrecy administered by John Brown him-
self.88 The latter promptly took Meriam's measure and as-
signed to him the duty of guarding the arms left at Kennedy
Farm, to which fact he owed his escape to Canada. He was
then twenty-two years of age, and had lost the sight of one
eye.
On October 8, Brown sent his last letter to his family prior
to the raid : 89
422 JOHN BROWN
CHAMBERSBURG, PA. 8th Oct, 1859.
DEAR WIFE; & CHILDREN ALL
Oliver returned safe on Wednesday of this week. I want Bell, &
Martha both to feel that they have a home with you untill we return.
We shall do all in our power to provide for the wants of the whole as
one family ; till that time. If Martha; & Anne, had any money left
after getting home : I wish it to be used to make all as comfortable
as may be ; for the present. All are in usualy good health. I expect
John will send you some assistance soon. Write him all you want to
say to us. God bless you all
YOUR AFFECTIONATE HUSBAND & FATHER
Two days later, October 10, Kagi sent from Chambersburg
his last report to John Brown, Jr., in Ohio, who was still writ-
ing of the recruits he was going to forward in the immediate
future, but never got off. This letter of Kagi's is particularly
important, since it is a clear reflection of Brown's own ideas
as to the prospects for success in the venture before them : 90
Your father was here yesterday but had not time to write before
returning. I shall leave here this afternoon "for good." This is the
last of our stay here, for we have not $5 left, and the men must be
given work or they will find it themselves. We shall not be able to
receive any thing from you after to-day. It will not do for any one
to try to find us now. You must by all means keep back the men
you talked of sending ano! furnish them work to live upon until you
receive further instructions. Any one arriving here after to-day and
trying to join us, would be trying a very hazardous and foolish
experiment. They must keep off the border until we open the way
clear up to the line (M. & D's) from the South. Until then, it will
be just as dangerous here as on the other side, in fact more so: for,
there there will be protection also, but not here. It will not do to
write to Harper's Ferry. It will never get there — would do no good
if it did. You can communicate with us thus * (This
must be a profound secret) Be sure no one gets into trouble in trying
to get to us. We will try to communicate with you as soon as pos-
sible after we strike, but it may not be possible for us to do so soon.
If we succeed in getting news from the outside our own district it
will be quite satisfactory, but we have not the most distant hope
that it will be possible for us to receive recruits for weeks, or quite
likely months to come. We must first make a complete and undis-
putably open road to the free states. That will require both labor
and time.
This is just the right time. The year's crops have been good, and
they are now perfectly housed, and in the best condition for use.
The moon is just right. Slaves are discontented at this season more
* This space not filled out.
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 423
than at any other, the reasons for which reflection will show you.
We can't live longer without money, — we could n't get along
much longer without being exposed. A great religious revival is
going on, and has its advantages. Under its influence, people who
are commonly barely unfavorable to Slavery under religious excite-
ment in meetings speak boldly against it. In addition to this and
as a stimulant to the religious feeling, a fine slave man near our head-
quarters, hung himself a few days ago because his master sold his
wife away from him. This also arouses the slaves. There are more
reasons which I could give, but I have not time.
I will not close without saying that John E. Cook's wife & chil-
dren are here, (at Mrs. R's) and will board here probably until the
end. She came on Friday, has lived at the "Ferry." Her board is
paid until the 1st of November, but after that we shall expect to
see you or some one under your direction, have it paid monthly in
advance, from $10 to $15 besides the necessary etceteras, clothing
&c. — This must be our last for a time.
Yours
J. H.
John Brown's last letter to his son was dated October I,
and read as follows:91
DEAR FRIEND : —
I wrote you yesterday at Cleveland in which I forgot to say that
any person or thing that reaches this place on Thursday the 6th
Octo. inst. will in all probability find the Road open, but beyond that
day we cannot be at all certain for some time at least. If you were
here, I could fully explain all but cannot do so now. From Harris-
burg by Rail Road remember.
"Associations" to hinder, delay and prevent our Adversaries, might
perhaps effect much. Our active enemies, should be spotted to a
man, and some shrewd person should be on the border to look after
that matter somewhat extensively. Can you dig up a good and true
man, to communicate with us on the border, or close to it where we
may name places from time to time?
Yours ever
I. S.
Yet, in the face of these two letters, John Brown, Jr.,
frequently stated that the news of the raid took him com-
pletely by surprise, — which reveals a condition of mind
hardly helpful to the grave venture upon which his father
was embarked.
Francis Jackson Meriam's arrival seems to have removed
the last obstacle to Brown's delivering the attack. Up to that
time, waiting for men and money had steadily postponed the
424 JOHN BROWN
issue. Perhaps, too, there was in the delay something of that
curious indecision that was so fatal to the original project
when the raid was undertaken, and which also occasioned the
delay in his entering Kansas from Tabor in 1857. Salmon
Brown asserts that the reason for his not joining the expe-
dition was his belief that his father would hesitate and delay
until he was trapped, precisely as happened, waiting for cir-
cumstances to be exactly as he wished them to be. " I said,"
he declares,92 "to the boys before they left, 'you know father.
You know he will dally till he is trapped ! ' Father had a pecul-
iarity of insisting on order. I felt that at Harper's Ferry this
very thing would be likely to trap him. He would insist on
getting everything arranged just to suit him before he would
consent to make a move." There has been a vast amount of
discussion as to whether the raid was hastened or delayed.
John Brown, Jr.'s position has given color to the theory that
it was hastened; so, too, has the fact that Gill and Hinton
were left behind. Again, there are frequent stories that Brown
learned of a betrayal of his plans, and so hurried to strike the
blow; that a posse was being formed near by to investigate
the goings on at Kennedy Farm, which had to be anticipated ;
that news that twelve thousand aYms were to be taken away
from the Harper's Ferry armory had reached Brown's ears;
and finally that criticism by some of the Boston friends,
who were impatient at the expense and delay, had precip-
itated the attack. The truth is that there was danger of dis-
covery from the Huffmasters and other neighbors, and that
the men could no longer stand the inaction and close confine-
ment; some were already getting out of hand. When Meri-
am's money came, it was the last impetus needed to an attack
which had been delayed much longer than any one dreamed
of when Brown set out from Boston for the last time. So far
as climatic conditions were concerned, it had been postponed
far too long.
"One day, while we were alone in the yard," writes Mrs.
Adams, "Owen remarked as he looked up at the house: 'If
we succeed, some day there will be a United States flag over
this house. If we do not, it will be considered a den of land
pirates and thieves.'" It was with this conviction that
the majority of the men went to their doom. All save Taylor
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY 425
hoped by some stroke of fortune to come out alive; but only
a few believed in the plan of campaign, or looked upon
the arsenal venture as anything else but a death-trap. Yet
it was in an exalted frame of mind that they spent their last
Sabbath and came together for their last meal. For them
the hour had struck ; their sacrifice was ready for the altar of
liberty.
CHAPTER XII
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA
"MEN, get on your arms; we will proceed to the Ferry."
With these words, John Brown, Commander-in-Chief of the
Provisional Army, set in motion his troop of liberators on
that peaceful Sabbath, the i6th of October, 1859. It took
but a minute to bring the horse and wagon to the door, to
place in it some pikes, fagots, a sledge-hammer and a crow-
bar. His men themselves had been in readiness for hours;
they had but to buckle on their arms and throw over their
shoulders, like army blankets, the long gray shawls which
served some for a few brief hours in lieu of overcoats, and
then became their winding-sheets. In a moment more, the
commander-in-chief donned his old battle- worn Kansas cap,
mounted the wagon, and began the solemn march through
the chill fall night to the bridge into Harper's Ferry, nearly
six miles away. Tremendous as the relief of action was, there
was no thought of any cheering or demonstration. As the
eighteen men with John Brown swung down the little lane to
the road from the farmhouse that had been their prison for so
many weary weeks, they bade farewell to Captain Owen Brown
and Privates Barclay Coppoc and F. J. Meriam, who re-
mained as rear-guard in charge of the arms and supplies. The
brothers Coppoc read the future correctly, for they embraced
and parted as do men who know they are to meet no more
on earth. The damp, lonely night, too, added to the solemnity
of it all, as they pressed forward through its gloom. As if to
intensify the sombreness, they met not a living soul on the
road to question their purpose, or start with fright at the sight
of eighteen soldierly men coming two by two through the
darkness as though risen from the grave. There was not a
sound but the tramping of the men and the creaking of the
wagon, before which, in accordance with a general order, drawn
up and carefully read to all, walked Captains Cook and Tidd,
their Sharp's rifles hung from their shoulders, their commis-
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 427
sions, duly signed and officially sealed, in their pockets. They
were detailed to destroy the telegraph wires on the Mary-
land side and then on the Virginian, while Captains John H.
Kagi and A. D. Stevens, bravest of the brave, were to take
the bridge watchman and so strike the first blow for liberty.1
But as they and their comrades marched rapidly over the
rough road, Death himself moved by their side.
As for their general, he not only was the sole member of
the attacking force to believe in the assault on the property
of the United States at Harper's Ferry, but he was, as they
neared the all-unsuspecting town, without any clear and defi-
nite plan of campaign. The general order detailed the men
who were to garrison various parts of the town and hold the
bridges, but beyond that, little had been mapped out. It was
all to depend upon the orders of the commander-in-chief , who
seemed bent on violating every military principle. Thus, he
had appointed no definite place for the men to retreat to, and
fixed no hour for the withdrawal from the town. He, more-
over, proceeded at once to defy the canons by placing a river
between himself and his base of supplies, — the Kennedy
Farm, — and then left no adequate force on the river-bank
to insure his being able to fall back to that base. Hardly
had he entered the town when, by dispersing his men here
and there, he made his defeat as easy as possible. Moreover,
he had in mind no well-defined purpose in attacking Harper's
Ferry, save to begin his revolution in a spectacular way, cap-
ture a few slaveholders and release some slaves. So far as
he had thought anything out, he expected to alarm the town
and then, with the slaves that had rallied to him, to march
back to the school-house near the Kennedy Farm, arm his
recruits and take to the hills. Another general, with the same
purpose in view, would have established his mountain camp
first, swooped down upon the town in order to spread terror
throughout the State, and in an hour or two, at most, have
started back to his hill-top fastness.
Aside from the opportunity to assail directly the Federal
Government, Harper's Ferry would, moreover, seem to have
been the last place for an attack upon the institution against
which John Brown was in arms. It was by no means a typical
Southern town, for a large majority of its three thousand resi-
428 JOHN BROWN
dents were mechanics brought there from Springfield, Mas-
sachusetts, and elsewhere, — "foreigners" in the eyes of the
real Southerners.2 The very slave-owners of the vicinity lived,
not at the Ferry, but on their neighboring farms, driving in
occasionally to the bright little town, prosperous and happy
because the United States paid regularly and well the bulk of
the citizenship, and set every householder a good example by
the neatness and beauty of its grounds, adorned as they were
by smiling flowers and by handsome buildings. As for the
gentlemen farmers of the Virginia vicinity, they were content
to raise only what produce they actually needed; they lived
too far north to cultivate great crops of cotton. Hence their
bondmen were largely well-kept house-servants, of the kind
upon whom the ills of slavery rested most lightly, and among
whom the desire for freedom was least keen.
The arsenal to which John Brown's little "army" took its
way had been established as far back as 1794, in the Presi-
dency of George Washington, on the peninsula formed by
the juncture of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. The
natural beauty of its surroundings is greatly enhanced by the
Maryland Heights, thirteen hundred feet high, on the oppo-
site bank of the Potomac, and the Loudon Heights, but little
lower, on the other side of the Shenandoah, the two forming,
as it were, a gateway to the Valley of Virginia of veritable
grandeur. Thomas Jefferson said of it: 8 "The passage of the
Potomac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most
stupendous scenes in nature ; . . . worth a voyage across the
Atlantic" to witness; the heights he called "monuments of
war between rivers and mountains which must have shaken
the earth itself to its centre." Harper's Ferry has but a
narrow, level space along each river; then there rises a hill
involving a steep ascent before one reaches the plateau of
Bolivar Heights. The town climbs the hill after the manner
of European mountain villages, and is far below the Heights.
"You may climb to the graveyard," wrote a traveller in 1856,
"by the lightning rod of the Episcopal church, or you may
slide down the rain-spout of the hotel to the ladies' car of the
Wheeling train — only you must take care not to fling your-
self, an unpremeditated soap-and-candle Curtius, down the
paymaster's kitchen chimney, or put your foot in the soup
GENERAL VIEW OF HARPER'S :
A. London Heights. B. Shenandoah River. C. Site of Old Bridge by which Brown and his men entered Har
with the road over which the
(Kennedy Farm, the rendezvous of Brown's party prior to the raid, lies between the hills on the extreme rij
Y, FROM MARYLAND HEIGHTS
rerry. D. New Railroad Bridge. E. Bolivar Heights. F. Potomac River. G. Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
> came from Kennedy Farm.
he picture, in Maryland. Charlestown is on the high ground beyond the curve of the Shenandoah River.)
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 429
tureen of the master armorer who is taking dinner in the
basement, which is a sort of antipodean attic." 4
While nature has thus distinguished the town, its desira-
bility as a military position is not enhanced by its surround-
ings, for, as was shown later, in the Civil War, it lies at the
mercy of any force which scales the Loudon or Maryland
Heights; from them it is easy for sharpshooters to pick off
any one in the Ferry. In the rear, to defend it successfully,
the enemy must be prevented from reaching Bolivar Heights.
In 1859, the chief approaches to Harper's Ferry were by way
of a bridge over the Shenandoah, and by a covered bridge
from Maryland across the Potomac which was used both by
the railroad and by vehicular traffic. The danger to any raid-
ing force would come from losing possession of these bridges,
in which case the sole means of escape would be by swimming
the rivers or climbing up through the town toward Bolivar
Heights, in the direction of Charlestown,* eight miles away
by road, then, as now, the county seat of Jefferson County,
and an important place.
It was half-past ten when Kagi and Stevens, as advance
guard, entered the Maryland bridge and made William Wil-
liams, the watchman, their prisoner. He thought it a good
joke, for he recognized Brown and Cook in the group that
followed ; but he was soon made to realize that here was grim
earnest, and, like the others captured early in the raid, was
utterly dumfounded.6 On crossing the bridge, the raiders
next came to the combined railroad station and hotel of Har-
per's Ferry, knov/n as the Wager House. On the left side,
on the bank of the Shenandoah, was a low saloon known as
the Gait House, and straight ahead were the buildings of
the arsenal in which the completed guns were stored. To the
right, running along the Potomac for six hundred yards or
more, extended the shops of the armory, protected on the
river-side by the railroad track, but always in danger from
freshets at high water. Of the armory proper, the first build-
ing was the watch-room and fire-engine house, in which Brown
and his men were finally penned up ; it was but sixty yards
or so from the ends of both bridges. Indeed, the whole tra-
gedy which ensued was within an extraordinarily small space.
* The modern spelling is Charles Town.
430 JOHN BROWN
Beyond the fire-engine house were the forging shop, the ma-
chine shop, the stocking shop, the "component department"
and the rolling-mills of the arsenal. About half a mile dis-
tant, on the Shenandoah, were what is known as the rifle
works, separate shops in which sixty expert gunsmiths turned
out weapons for the regular army.6 Contrary to the custom
of the present day, the arsenals of the government in 1859
were cared for by civilians, not by regularly enlisted sol-
diers of the Ordnance Corps; there were, in fact, but a few
watchmen on duty at night at Harper's Ferry. John Brown,
therefore, had nothing to fear from any armed guard on the
spot. Hence, he confidently hoped to retire to the mountains
before catching sight of a soldier of the regular army or of
the militia, — by no means an unjustifiable expectation. For
Harper's Ferry and the surrounding country knew nothing of
war or its alarums. It had never seen belligerent men with
guns in their hands since Revolutionary days, and in October,
1859, it no more feared an armed invasion than does the
quietest and sleepiest New England village to-day. Its citi-
zens would as soon have expected a cataclysm of nature as
bloodshed in their streets.
After crossing the bridge, the second prisoner was taken.
He was another watchman, Daniel Whelan, who held the
armory gate. Not even when the raiders clapped their guns
to his breast and told him to give up the key, would he be
unfaithful to his trust. Here the crow-bar in the wagon found
its first usefulness; it was but a minute before entrance was
forced. "One fellow," said Whelan, "took me; they all gath-
ered about me and looked in my face ; I was nearly scared to
death for so many guns about; I did not know the minute
or the hour I should drop ; they told me to be very quiet and
still and make no noise or else they would put me to eternity."
John Brown with two men held the big gate. To Whelan and
Williams the leader said : " I came here from Kansas, and this
is a slave State ; I want to free all the negroes in this State ; I
have possession now of the United States armory, and if the
citizens interfere with me I must only burn the town and have
blood." 7 Then he crossed the street and, unopposed, took
possession of the arsenal buildings, Albert Hazlett and Edwin
Coppoc being made the arsenal's temporary garrison. Grad-
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 431
ually, other prisoners came in; there were two or three young
fellows captured on the street, and others on the Shenandoah
bridge. Thence Brown, A. D. Stevens, and a group of the
raiders proceeded to the rifle works, captured a watchman
there and put John H. Kagi and John A. Copeland in posses-
sion, Lewis Sheridan Leary reinforcing them later.8
Meanwhile, the commander-in-chief had despatched a raid-
ing expedition up to and beyond Bolivar Heights. John
Brown knew well the value of the dramatic in all his under-
takings, and understood what would appeal to the popular
imagination. There lived, five miles from Harper's Ferry, a
Colonel Lewis W. Washington, a great-grandnephew of the
first President, and like him a gentleman-farmer and slave-
owner. In Colonel Washington's possession was a pistol pre-
sented to General Washington by Lafayette, as well as a sword,
now in possession of the State of New York, which, according
to unverified legend, was the gift of Frederick the Great to
George Washington. John E. Cook had seen these weapons in
Colonel Washington's home, and John Brown, beginner of a
new American revolution, wished to strike his first blow for the
freedom of a race with them in his hands. It was at midnight
that Colonel Washington was awakened by four armed men,
who stood at his chamber door with a burning flambeau
and notified him that he was their prisoner.9 Had the Heav-
ens fallen, he could not have been more astonished than by
the appearance of Osborn P. Anderson, who with Stevens,
Tidd, Cook, Leary and Shields Green, formed this raiding
party. One act of his captors in particular must have rankled
with him. By John Brown's specific instructions, Stevens
compelled Colonel Washington to hand over the illustri-
ous Frederick's sword to the negro Anderson, — another bit
of that symbolism by which Brown set such store.10 Then
Colonel Washington was led forth to his own carriage ; behind
it stood his four-horse farm-wagon, into which climbed the
raiders and Washington's slaves, who were told to come and
fight for their liberty, and the caravan set off for Harper's
Ferry. On its way there was a stop at a neighbor's, Mr.
John H. Allstadt's, where much the same scene was enacted.
The crash of a fence-rail against the front door woke the
house to cries of murder from the women of the family.
432 JOHN BROWN
" Presently," recalls Mr. John Thomas Allstadt, then a boy
of eighteen,
" they led my father and me outside. There we saw Colonel Wash-
ington, sitting in his own team. They put us, my father and me,
on the seat of Colonel Washington's four-horse wagon. In the body,
behind us, our six negroes and Colonel Washington's quota stood
close packed. As we drove inside the Armory yard, there stood an old
man. 'This,' said Stevens, by way of introduction, 'is John Brown.'
' Osawatomie Brown of Kansas,' added Brown. Then he handed out
pikes to our negroes, telling them to guard us carefully, to prevent
our escape. 'Keep these white men inside,' said he. There were no
other local negroes within the enclosure, save Colonel Washington's
and ours. We arrived at the Armory just about daybreak. We were
not taken inside the building until several men had fallen. In the
interval we were permitted to walk up and down before the engine
house, east and west, but not on the east side, on which were the
gates."11
Said John Brown to Lewis Washington, as he greeted him
at the engine-house at the armory:
" I think, after a while, possibly, I shall be enabled to release you,
but only on the condition of getting your friends to send in a negro
man as a ransom. I shall be very attentive to you, sir, for I may get
the worst of it in my first encounter, and if so, your life is worth
as much as mine. I shall be very particular to pay attention to
you. My particular reason for taking you first was that, as the aid
to the Governor of Virginia, I knew you would endeavor to perform
your duty, and perhaps you would have been a troublesome cus-
tomer to me; and, apart from that, I wanted you particularly for
the moral effect it would give our cause having one of your name,
as a prisoner." 12
Meanwhile, as the night had worn on, the town had become
aroused. Patrick Higgins, the night watchman of the Mary-
land bridge, who came to relieve William Williams, was shot
at for striking Oliver Brown and refusing to surrender. The
bullet ploughed a furrow in his scalp, but did not prevent his
seeking safety in the Wager House and helping to give the
alarm. At 1.25 in the morning, the Baltimore and Ohio train
bound from the West to Baltimore arrived in Harper's Ferry
and attempted to cross the bridge. As it was in the act of
starting on, Patrick Higgins came up to Conductor Phelps
and told his story of being attacked by men carrying rifles.
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 433
The engineer and baggage-master went forward to investigate,
but returned immediately on being fired at and seeing the
muzzles of four rifles resting on a railing; at once the train
backed away.13 It was at this moment that Shephard Hay-
ward, a free negro who acted as baggage-master of the station,
went around the corner of the hotel and on toward the bridge,
to look for the missing watchman. He, too, received a com-
mand to halt, but it probably meant as little to him as it had
to Patrick Higgins,* and as he turned to retrace his steps to
the station, a bullet passed through his body a little below his
heart. He lay in agony in the railroad station until his death,
nearly twelve hours later, attended at times by a doctor and
Patrick Higgins, who brought him water.
This was, indeed, an ill omen for the army of liberation.
The first man to fall at their hands was neither a slave-owner,
nor a defender of slavery, nor one who suffered by it, but a
highly respected, well-to-do colored man, in full possession
of his liberty and favored with the respect of the white com-
munity. He had not even offered to resist.14 And so at the
very first moment was violated a final charge which John
Brown gave to his men before he ordered them to take the
road. "And now, gentlemen," he said, "let me impress this
one thing on your minds; you all know how dear life is to
you, and how dear your lives are to your friends; and in re-
membering that, consider that the lives of others are as dear
to them as yours are to you : do not, therefore, take the life
of anyone 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." 15
As for the train, it remained there until daylight, although
Conductor Phelps received word at three o'clock from Brown
through a prisoner that he might proceed; he would not
trust his train across the bridge until daylight.16 Then John
Brown let him go — to spread abroad the tidings of what had
happened. At 7.05 A. M., Phelps arrived at Monocacy and
telegraphed to W. P. Smith, the master of transportation
at Baltimore, the story of the night : that he and his baggage-
* "'Now," says Patrick Higgins, "I did n't know what 'Halt' mint then any
more than a hog knows about a holiday." He still lives at Sandy Hook.
434 JOHN BROWN
master had been fired at, that Hayward had been shot, and
that the insurrectionists were one hundred and fifty strong.
"They say," his despatch went on, "they have come to free the
slaves and intend to do it at all hazards. The leader of those men
requested me to say to you that this is the last train that shall pass
the bridge either East or West. If it is attempted it will be at the
peril of the lives of those having them in charge. ... It has been
suggested you had better notify the Secretary of War at once. The
telegraph wires are cut East and West of Harper's Ferry and this
is the first station that I could send a dispatch from." 17
But so extraordinary a message did not find credence in
those piping times of peace. The master of transportation
telegraphed dubiously at nine o'clock: "Your dispatch is
evidently exaggerated and written under excitement. Why
should our trains be stopped by Abolitionists, and how do
you know they are such and that they numbered one hun-
dred or more? What is their object? Let me know at once
before we proceed to extremities." "My dispatch was not
exaggerated," replied Conductor Phelps from Ellicott's Mills
at eleven o'clock, "neither was it written under excitement
as you suppose. I have not made it half as bad as it is. ...
I will call at your office immediately on my arrival and tell
you all." Before this reply was received, the president of
the railroad, John W. Garrett, had seen the conductor's des-
patch, and lost no time in acting upon it. At half-past ten
he had telegraphed to the President of the United States,
to Governor Wise, of Virginia, and to Major-General George
H. Stewart, commanding the First Light Division, Maryland
Volunteers, in Baltimore, that an insurrection was in pro-
gress in Harper's Ferry, in which free negroes and whites
were engaged. Thus the first alarm was given hours before
it should have been. Moreover, from Monocacy word had
reached Frederick, a short distance away, and by ten o'clock
the military company of that place was under arms.
Unfortunately for John Brown's belief that he had hours
of immunity before he need think of beginning his retreat,
Harper's Ferry had its Paul Revere. He was John D. Starry,
a physician of the town, who lived but a stone's throw from
the Wager House. The shot which mortally wounded Hay-
ward aroused him, as did the injured man's cry of distress.18
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 435
He went at once to Hayward's side, only to find that he
was beyond help. He heard the firing on the street which
made the conductor of the train beat a retreat, but Dr. Starry
himself was not to be frightened. He stood at the corner
of the station and watched three of the raiders approaching ;
then he notified the alarmed passengers who had crowded into
the waiting-room that he would follow the strangers into the
armory and find out what it was all about. He did so, was
challenged, and returned to the station without the infor-
mation he desired. Later, he exchanged words with the raid-
ers who held the bridge, quite unmolested, although other
citizens were arrested on sight. This was characteristic of
the haphazard character of the raid and the lack of specific
instructions. Dr. Starry devoted the rest of the night to
watching; saw Colonel Washington's four-horse wagon arrive,
and then, at five minutes after five o'clock, saw it drive over
the Maryland bridge in charge of John E. Cook and disap-
pear on the other bank ; three men with pikes in their hands
were in the wagon and two with rifles marched alongside.
At daylight he could stand it no longer; he saddled his horse,
rode first to the residence of A. M. Kitzmiller, who was in
charge of the arsenal in the absence of the superintendent,
Mr. Barbour, and aroused him and a number of other officials
and workmen with the story of the night. He then put spurs
to his horse and climbed the hill to Bolivar Heights, where he
again awoke some sleepers. Without dismounting, he rode
back into the town, going straight to the rifle works, where
he found three armed men. With admirable courage he rode
to within twenty-five or thirty paces of them. As they did
not molest him, he decided to take charge of matters and
drive the invaders out.
He lost not a minute's time, for, in his own words :
"I went back to the hillside then, and tried to get the citizens
together, to see what we could do to get rid of these fellows. They
seemed to be very troublesome. When I got on the hill I learned that
they had shot Boerley. That was probably about 7 o'clock. Boerley
was an Irishman living there, a citizen of the town. He died very
soon afterwards. ... I had ordered the Lutheran church bell to be
rung to get the citizens together to see what sort of arms they had ;
I found one or two squirrel rifles and a few shot guns ; I had sent
a messenger to Charlestown in the meantime for Captain Rowan,
436 JOHN BROWN
commander of a volunteer company there: I also sent messengers
to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to stop the trains coming east
and not let them approach the Ferry, and also a messenger to Shep-
herdstown. When I could find no guns fit for use, and learned from
the operatives and foreman at the armory that all the guns that
they knew of were in the arsenal and in possession of these men,
I thought I had better go to Charlestown myself, perhaps; I did
so and hurried Captain Rowan off. When I returned to the Ferry,
I found that the citizens had gotten some guns out of one of the
workshops — guns which had been placed there to keep them out of
the high water — and were pretty well armed. I assisted, from that
time until some time in the night, in various ways, organizing the
citizens and getting them to the best place of attack, and sometimes
acting professionally."
Charlestown, as already stated, was eight miles away.
When Dr. Starry reached there on his foam-flecked horse,
the alarm bells were being rung, and from bed or breakfast
men hurried to the court-house, the centre of the town, to
learn that Abolitionists and slave-stealers were murdering
innocent men in the streets of Harper's Ferry. What the
South had been dreading ever since the Nat Turner insur-
rection of 1831 had come to pass: there was another servile
uprising in the land. For years patrols had ridden the roads
and men had watched of night lest the negroes turn upon
their masters. It was an ever-present fear; that the Abo-
litionists wished the slaves to rise and kill their masters in
their beds was a belief widely held in the South and often
publicly expressed, and no happening that could be imagined
contained a greater possibility of horror and bloodshed. But
the men of Charlestown faltered not at all, now that the long-
dreaded hour had come. The militia, called the Jefferson
Guards, fell into line ununiformed ; and then boys and men,
"accoutred as they were" with muskets or rifles or squirrel-
guns, their scant ammunition in their pockets, formed still
another company, also with no sign of a uniform. On the
moment, the new company chose officers, and at ten o'clock
both companies were off by train for their first active ser-
vice.19 But not their last, for in this column were brave men
who fought from 1861 to 1865 with the indomitable courage
of the Confederacy, even when their homes were in ruins or
in the enemy's hands, their clothes in tatters, their feet bare.
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 437
Uniforms were needless in 1859 or 1865, when the martial
spirit was so high and the sense of duty so keen. It was some-
thing that John Brown had not counted on, nor would any
one else in his place have thought it possible; not now, fifty
years later, would it be possible to get men as quickly on the
spot again. An example of the natural military talent of the
South, it should by itself have silenced, a year and a half
later, those who thought to march from Washington to Rich-
mond as if on an afternoon's promenade. And the Jefferson
Guards, besides their speed of assembly, were well led, for
with excellent military judgment they left the citizens' com-
pany on Bolivar Heights, and, crossing the Potomac by boat,
a mile or more above the arsenal, and then the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal, re-formed upon its bank, on Maryland soil,
and marched down to the bridge over the same road over
which the raiders had come from Kennedy Farm the pre-
ceding night.20
While the Charlestown military was hurrying to the scene
with such astonishing promptitude, there had been, after
the departure of the train and the killing of the unfortunate
Mr. Boerly, for a time a cessation of hostilities in Harper's
Ferry. During this interval, John Brown ordered and had
served from the Wager House, breakfast for forty-five per-
sons, which, however, neither he nor Mr. Allstadt nor Colo-
nel Washington would touch, — all three fearing that the
employees of the Wager House had poisoned the food.21
Throughout this long day, John Brown and most of his men
fought without a morsel to eat. The prisoners had rapidly
increased in number, for, as the master mechanics and work-
men approached the gates, they were quickly bagged, until
such time as the town was thoroughly alarmed. Estimates
of the number of prisoners finally confined in the watch-
house have gone as high as a hundred and as low as thirty;
the latter number is more nearly correct. Between nine and
ten o'clock, Leeman, who had gone with John E. Cook and
Colonel Washington's wagon toward the Kennedy Farm,
had arrived with a prisoner, Terence Byrne, a farmer and
slave-owner who lived in Maryland, about three miles from
Harper's Ferry. With them returned William Thompson,
whom Brown had sent to notify Owen Brown, at the school-
438 JOHN BROWN
house near the Kennedy Farm, that all was going well, — a
message soon to be singularly misleading.22
Throughout the early morning, John Brown received urgent
messages from his able lieutenant, Kagi, at the rifle works,
begging him to leave the town at once. For him the inde-
cision of Brown was shortly to be fatal. Just why it was that
the commander-in-chief let slip the golden hours when escape
was possible will never be wholly explained. He himself
averred that his thought for his prisoners had much to do
with it. There is no doubt, too, that he still expected the
negroes to rise in numbers and swell his force to irresistible
proportions. The lack of a carefully thought out programme
told as well. Though he kept perfectly cool and clear-headed,
he proved incapable of attempting anything aggressive, and
the citizens were speedily aware that the raiders were on the
defensive. Between nine and ten o'clock, Brown had actually
discussed with his prisoners negotiations with the citizens
looking to a cessation of firing, and to leaving him in posses-
sion of the armory. A brave prisoner named Joseph A. Brua
went backward and forward begging the citizens not to shoot,
as they endangered the lives of Colonel Washington and the
other prisoners.23 But soon after ten o'clock general firing
began.
It was about noon that the Jefferson Guards reached the
Maryland end of the Potomac bridge. They quickly drove
from it Oliver Brown and the rest of the guard, and, crossing,
entered the Wager House; but not until they had had a sharp
exchange of volleys with such of the raiders as John Brown
could hastily assemble. In this rush of the Jefferson Guards,
one of its members was severely wounded in the left arm
and crippled for life.24 But the purpose of the movement
was achieved : one door of the Harper's Ferry trap was closed,
and as it was sprung, communication with the Kennedy
Farm was cut off. The strategy of Colonel John T. Gibson,
of Charlestown, who, as Colonel of the Fifty-fifth Virginia
Infantry, commanded both companies, or of Captain Rowan,
the Mexican War veteran, who led the Jefferson Guards,
had accomplished far more than its originator could at the
moment have imagined.
But with their arrival at the Wager House, the initiative
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 439
of the Charlestown militia ceased. The newly formed com-
pany of their townsmen had, meanwhile, come down from
Bolivar Heights under Captain Botts and occupied the Gait
House and the Shenandoah bridge, while a detachment under
Captain John Avis and Richard B. Washington took pos-
session of some houses between the hill and the arsenal, from
which they could fire readily into the yard.25 They had hardly
taken their places, when Mr. Washington shot and instantly
killed Dangerfield Newby, who, with William Thompson and
Oliver Brown, had been driven off the bridge by the Jefferson
Guards and was fleeing back to the armory.26 Newby was
thus the first to die of John Brown's men, and with him
perished the hope of liberty of his poor slave wife, who
so ardently longed for her "dear Dangerfield" to release her
and her brood of seven slave children. John Brown was now
entirely cut off from his three men in the rifle works, and
from Hazlett and Anderson, the guard in the arsenal. He had
left at this hour but a single way of retreat, — through the
armory buildings under the hill, — with no means of crossing
the Potomac to the Maryland shore.
After the loss of the Potomac bridge and the killing of
Newby, whose body was subjected to shocking indignities,—
his ears were sliced off for souvenirs,27 — at Brown's request,
a prisoner named Cross went out with William Thompson to
stop the firing, with the sole result that Thompson fell into the
hands of the enemy.28 A little later, Brown despatched another
flag of truce by Stevens and Watson Brown, with whom
went Mr. Kitzmiller, the acting superintendent of the armory.
If the citizens understood what the flag meant, they did not
respect it. Stevens fell, shot twice by George W. Chambers,
a saloon-keeper, from a window in the Gait House, the slugs
used inflicting terrible wounds.29 Watson Brown, mortally
wounded a moment earlier than Stevens, dragged himself back
to the fire-engine house, where his father had now assembled
the remnants of his band, the slaves he had armed, and eleven
of the most important prisoners : Washington ; the Allstadts ;
Brua; Byrne; Benjamin Mills, the master armorer; A. M. Ball,
the master machinist; J. E. P. Daingerfield, the paymaster's
clerk, and others, nearly all of whom testified later in detail
to the scenes of which they were such unwilling witnesses,
440 JOHN BROWN
The remainder of the prisoners were left in the watch-room,
which comprised a third of the fire-engine house, but was with-
out a communicating door. Unguarded as they were, these
watch-room prisoners were too terrified to venture out until
the arrival of the Martinsburg company in the middle of the
afternoon. In sharp contrast to their inactivity was the con-
duct of Mr. Brua, whose humanitarian spirit made him volun-
teer to go to the aid of Stevens as he lay bleeding in a gutter.
Thanks to him, Stevens was carried into the Wager House
and given medical attention.30
Mr. Brua's deed, the more striking because he again re-
turned to take his place as a prisoner, has unfortunately been
overlooked, because of the barbarities attending the killing
of some of the raiders. For instance, the death, about one
o'clock in the afternoon, of William H. Leeman, the youngest
of Brown's men, has frequently been cited to prove the "sav-
agery" which the raiders encountered. About the time that
Stevens and Watson Brown were wounded, Leeman made an
attempt from the upper end of the yard to escape across the
Potomac, a little above the bridge. He soon found himself
under such a heavy fire that he stopped on a tiny islet. Ac-
cording to a generally accepted story, he was here killed, after
he had surrendered, by a citizen, G. A. Schoppert, who, it was
alleged, deliberately placed his weapon at the unarmed eight-
een-year-old boy's head before shooting. In 1900, Mr. Schop-
pert made an affidavit that Leeman had a pistol and a knife
when killed, and that he refused to surrender when called on
to do so. In his assertion that this was a justifiable killing, Mr.
Schoppert had the support of Colonel J. T. Gibson, an eye-
witness. It remains, however, a melancholy fact that the lad's
body, lying for hours in plain sight on the rock, was riddled
and mutilated repeatedly by whole companies, as well as by
individuals who found the dead Abolitionist an attractive
target, particularly from the bridge.31 Unfortunately for the
troops, the bars at the Wager House and the Gait House were
not affected by the street-fighting that went on, and contin-
ued to dispense liquor, with disastrous results to the morale
of the troops as the hours passed.32
About two o'clock the death of George W. Turner, a slave-
holder, a farmer of means and prominence in the vicinity of
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 441
Harper's Ferry, still further inflamed the citizens. A graduate
of West Point, who had seen service in the Seminole War in
Florida,33 he rode to town carrying his shot-gun, and was shot
in the neck and instantly killed. According to one narrative,
he was in the act of firing on two of the raiders when a bullet
from them struck him ; it was also related that he was killed
while talking to a traveller who had strayed in from one of
the delayed Baltimore and Ohio trains.34 In any event, his
death added greatly to the excitement of the Harper's Fer-
rians. But it was the shooting of the mayor of the town, Fon-
taine Beckham, which roused the citizens of Harper's Ferry
to the highest pitch of indignation. Mr. Beckham, the agent
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Harper's Ferry for the
twenty-five years since its opening, had been a magistrate
in Jefferson County for an even longer period. Sincerely at-
tached to his helper, Hay ward, and much agitated by his
death, which occurred about four o'clock, Mayor Beckham, in
his extreme nervousness, several times ventured out on the
railroad in order to observe what was going on, though warned
not to do so. From the engine house it looked as if he were
trying to get a favorable position from which to shoot. To
this Mr. John Thomas Allstadt testifies, for he was near
Edwin Coppoc when the latter fired : 35
" Now Mr. Beckham went behind the water tank and began peering
around its corner, as it might be to take aim. ' If he keeps on peeking,
I 'm going to shoot,' said Coppoc, from his seat in the doorway. I
stood close by him. Mr. Beckham peeked again and Coppoc fired,
but missed. 'Don't fire, man, for God's sake! they'll shoot in here
and kill us all,' shrieked the prisoners from behind. Some were
laughing, others overwhelmed with fear. But Coppoc was already
firing again. This shot killed Beckham. Undoubtedly he would not
have been fired upon but for his equivocal appearance. Coppoc fired
no more from the watch-house; in fact, no one remained in sight.
But Brown's son, Oliver, sitting in the partly open engine-house
door, spied someone peeping over the stone wall of the trestle in the
act of sighting a gun. Young Brown instantly took aim ; but even as
he was in the act of firing, the other's shot struck him — a mortal
wound that gave horrible pain."
The unarmed mayor died instantly, and his death was all
that was needed to incite the now half-drunken and uncon-
trolled crowd around the Wager House to the worst killing of
442 JOHN BROWN
the day. William Thompson, with the wounded Stevens, was
now a captive in the hotel. Mad with the desire to revenge
Beckham's death,* the mob, headed by George W. Chambers,
the saloon-keeper, and Harry Hunter, of Charlestown, at-
tempted to make way with him in the hotel itself. A brief
respite was secured to Thompson by a Miss Christine Fouke,
who begged that his life be spared, from the mixed motive,
as she afterwards explained, of a desire to have the law take
its course and to save the house from becoming the scene of
an outrage ! 36 What happened then was narrated by Harry
Hunter during John Brown's trial, in answer to a question
from his father, Andrew Hunter, the special prosecutor on
behalf of the State:
"After Mr. Beckham, who was my grand-uncle, was shot, I was
much exasperated, and started with Mr. Chambers to the room
where the second Thompson was confined, with the purpose of
shooting him. We found several persons in the room, and had
leveled our guns at him, when Mrs. Fouke's sister threw herself
before him, and begged us to leave him to the laws. We then caught
hold of him, and dragged him out by the throat, he saying: 'Though
you may take my life, 80,000,000 f will arise up to avenge me, and
carry out my purpose of giving liberty to the slaves.' We carried
him out to the bridge, and two of us, leveling our guns in this mo-
ment of wild exasperation, fired, and before he fell, a dozen or more
balls were buried in him; we then threw his body off the trestle-
work, and returned to the bridge to bring out the prisoner Stevens,
and serve him in the same way; we found him suffering from his
wounds, and probably dying; we concluded to spare him, and start
after others, and shoot all we could find. I had just seen my loved
uncle and best friend I ever had, shot down by those villainous
Abolitionists, and felt justified in shooting any that I could find; I
felt it my duty, and I have no regrets." 3T
William Thompson was shot by Chambers and Hunter with
their revolvers at his head, and thrust through the open space
between the roadway and the side of the bridge. As he lay
* Mr. Beckham's friendliness to the negro appears from the fact that at the time
of his death he was aiding one, Isaac Gilbert, to purchase the freedom of his wife
and three children. As if foreseeing a sudden death, the mayor had made a will
insuring the freedom of these four slaves, whom he had purchased in order to
facilitate their liberation. See Will Book No. 16, p. 142, Jefferson County Court
Records, Charlestown, West Virginia.
t Other reports quote Thompson as having said "80,000."
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 443
in the shallow water below, he, too, was riddled with bullets.
The body, says a local historian, "could be seen for a day or
two after, lying at the bottom of the river, with his ghastly
face still exhibiting his fearful death agony."38 Making all
due allowance for the naturally intense indignation aroused
by the killing of so universally beloved a man as Mayor
Beckham, and for the horrors of the day, the killing of Thomp-
son was none the less a disgrace to the State of Virginia. It
loses nothing of its barbarity with the lapse of years. It is a
pleasure, however, to record that the best public sentiment of
Harper's Ferry and Charlestown has always condemned the
act. This crime must also in part be offset by Brua's readi-
ness to risk his life on behalf of Stevens, and by other high-
minded acts on the part of the citizens. Yet it remains in
striking contrast to the kindliness and courtesy with which
John Brown treated his prisoners, in keeping with the dictates
of the Chatham Constitution and with his own character.
This generous treatment was freely acknowledged by his
prisoners, one of whom, J. E. P. Daingerfield, declined to
attend John Brown's execution, because "he had made me a
prisoner, but had spared my life and that of other gentlemen
in his power; and when his sons were shot down beside him,
almost any other man similarly situated would have exacted
life for life." 39
Just after Mr. Beckham's death, there arrived, to add to
the excitement, a sturdy Martinsburg company, composed
largely of employees of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
Headed by Captain E. G. Alburtis, they very nearly ended the
conflict, for they boldly marched through the armory yard
from the rear, thus cutting off Brown's only remaining avenue
of escape, and engaged the raiders at close range, driving them
into the engine house, during which manoeuvre the company
lost eight of its men by wounds. " During the fight," Captain
Alburtis narrated afterwards,
"we found in the room adjoining the engine-house some thirty or
forty prisoners who had been captured and confined by the outlaws.
The windows were broken open by our party, and these men es-
caped. The whole of the outlaws were now driven into the engine-
house, and owing to the great number of wounded requiring our
care, and not being supported by the other companies as we ex-
444 JOHN BROWN
pected, we were obliged to return. Had the other companies come
up, we could have taken the engine-house then. Immediately after
we drew off, there was a flag of truce sent out to propose terms,
which were that they should be permitted to retire across the river
with their arms, and, I think, proceed as far as some lock on the
canal, there to release their prisoners. These terms were not acceded
to, and having understood that the United States marines and a
number of troops from Baltimore were on their way, nothing fur-
ther was done except to establish guards all around to prevent the
desperadoes from escaping. We had a small piece of cannon, which
we proposed to bring to bear on the engine-house, but were directed
not to do so on account of endangering the prisoners." 40
These captives were later a convenient excuse to explain
the militia's shortcomings. Immediately after the arrival of
the Martinsburg company, other troops began to pour in.
Itself, like the second Charlestown company, organized on the
spur of the moment, the Martinsburg organization was fol-
lowed by two Shepherdstown, Virginia, militia companies,
theHamtramck Guards and the Shepherdstown Troop, which,
however, accomplished but little. At dusk three companies
from Frederick, Maryland, appeared; they were the first uni-
formed troops to report.41 They, too, added to the noise and
confusion of the streets, but were of little or no avail. For
all practical purposes, John Brown and his handful of men
had beaten off the several hundred armed citizens and mili-
tia who had come to capture him, living or dead. Later in
the evening a Winchester company arrived, as did five Bal-
timore militia companies, which did not enter the town from
Sandy Hook until morning.42 Governor Wise and Company
F of Richmond arrived five hours after the engine house was
taken.
The record of the tragedies of the iyth of October at
Harper's Ferry is not complete with the violent deaths of
Beckham and William Thompson. On the Shenandoah, John
Brown's outposts in the rifle works were slain or captured at
about the same hour that the arsenal garrison was finally
driven into the engine house. Kagi's early morning requests
that the town be evacuated having met with no consideration
at John Brown's hands, he and his men, hungry, isolated and
menaced by more and more armed men, continued to obey
orders and stick to their posts in true soldierly fashion. But
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 445
the energetic Dr. Starry was mindful of their exposed and
isolated position, and the opportunity it offered.
"I organized a party," he testified afterwards, "about half-past
two or three o'clock, and sent them over there with directions to
commence the fight as soon as they got near enough ; that party was
under the command of a young man named Irwin. He went over,
and at the first fire Kagi, and the others who were with him in
Hall's [the Rifle] Works, went out the back way towards the Win-
chester railroad, climbed out on the railroad and into the Shenan-
doah River. They were met on the opposite side by a party who
were there and driven back. ..."
Mr. A. R. Boteler, the Congressman from the Harper's
Ferry district, was an eye-witness of what happened. The
three raiders made for a large flat rock near the middle of the
stream. Before reaching it, Kagi "fell and died in the water,
apparently without a struggle;" Lewis Sheridan Leary was
mortally wounded, and John A. Copeland was captured by a
Harper's Ferrian, James H. Holt by name, who waded out to
him as Schoppert had to Leeman. But Holt's gun, like Cope-
land's rifle, failed to go off because of its having become wet.
Copeland surrendered as Holt, clubbing his gun, was about to
knock him down. As soon as Copeland was brought to the
bank, there were cries of: "Lynch him!" Fortunately, Dr.
Starry rode up as the citizens, now near the armory wall with
their prisoner, were tying their handkerchiefs together that
they might hang the trembling negro. But Dr. Starry was not
of the bloodthirsty kind. To his credit, and that of Harper's
Ferry, he shielded Copeland by getting him into a corner and
covering him with the horse who had carried his master so
faithfully all day. In a little while a policeman arrived, and,
Dr. Starry still holding back the crowd, Copeland was taken
off to a safe place, thus escaping William Thompson's fate.
Leary, the wounded negro, was in no wise molested, dying
late the following night.43
Two men alone, of those of the Provisional Army who
remained in the town after the Maryland bridge was taken
by the Jefferson Guards, escaped from the Ferry, — Albert
Hazlett and Osborn P. Anderson. The latter, the colored
raider from Canada, subsequently wrote a misleading and
exaggerated account of their escape from the armory, in
446 JOHN BROWN
which he states that they remained at their posts until the
final capture of Tuesday. This is, however, incredible. It is
not possible that they could have gone scot-free in daylight,
when Lee's marines were everywhere on guard and the town
swarmed with excited militia. In all probability they left
their posts in the arsenal about nightfall on Monday, when
everybody was watching the armory yard and the engine
house. According to Anderson, they first went along the
Shenandoah and climbed the hill just out of town, where they
lay concealed for three hours; then, returning into the town
along the river, they found an old boat and crossed in it to
the Maryland side. If this, too, seems incredible, their escape
by whatever means was miraculous, for they did reach the
Kennedy Farm, and from there found their way into Pennsyl-
vania, where Hazlett was finally captured. Of the rear-guard
on the Maryland side, John E. Cook alone ventured back to
the Ferry bridge, late in the afternoon of Monday. He had
been on guard in the school-house to which Tidd and Owen
Brown were moving arms, and had conversed quite freely with
the schoolmaster, explaining the purposes of the attack and
the views of the raiders.44 He distinctly heard the firing,
but not until four o'clock, when a second wagon-load of arms
was brought to the school-house, did he feel free to leave. To
acquaintances along the road he openly admitted his connec-
tion with the raiders. When opposite the Ferry, he scaled the
mountain in order to get a view of what was going on, and
beheld his comrades cooped up in the engine house with the
citizens firing on them. As, he confessed after his capture,
"I saw that our party were completely surrounded, and as I saw
a body of men on High Street firing down upon them — they were
about half a mile distant from me — I thought I would draw their
firing upon myself ; I therefore raised my rifle and took the best aim
I could and fired. It had the desired effect, for the very instant the
party returned it. Several shots were exchanged. The last one they
fired cut a small limb I had hold of just below my hand, and gave
me a fall of about fifteen feet by which I was severely bruised and
my flesh somewhat lacerated."
He then descended to the canal and returned to the school-
house, where he rejoined the rear-guard, now comprising Owen
Brown, Barclay Coppoc, Meriam, Tidd, and several of the
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 447
negroes liberated and armed. All of the latter left the raiders
before the coming night passed.
With the disappearance of Cook, the withdrawal of Al-
burtis and the coming of night, the active hostilities of the
day ceased. In loose fashion the militia picketed the engine
house. A citizen, Samuel Strider by name, tied a handkerchief
to his umbrella and delivered a summons to surrender,46 to
which John Brown replied by the following note:
Capt. John Brown answers:
In consideration of all my men, whether living or dead, or
wounded, being soon safely in and delivered up to me at this point
with all their arms and amunition, we will then take our prisoners
and cross the Potomac bridge, a little beyond which we will set them
at liberty; after which we can negotiate about the Government
property as may be best. Also we require the delivery of our horse
and harness at the hotel.
JOHN BROWN.
To this Colonel Baylor answered briefly that he could not
accept the terms proposed; that under no conditions would
he consent to a removal of the citizens across the river.46
When the Frederick companies arrived, one of the captains,
Sinn by name, went close up to the engine-house. Being
hailed from there, he promptly entered, conversing at length
with John Brown, who was then, as during the entire fight,
wearing the sword of Frederick the Great. To Captain Sinn
Brown again stated his terms, complaining also that his men
when bearing flags of truce had been shot down like dogs.
To this Captain Sinn replied that men who took up arms
that way must expect to be shot down like dogs. John Brown's
answer was that he knew what he had to undergo before he
came there, "he had weighed the responsibility and should
not shrink from it." He had had full possession of the town
and could have massacred all the inhabitants had he thought
proper to do so; hence he believed himself entitled to some
terms. He insisted that he and his followers had killed no
unarmed men. When told that Beckham was without any
weapon when killed, he expressed deep regret. They then
parted. Captain Sinn, who seems to have been a soldier of
a fine type, recorded his disgust with conditions among the
citizens.47 Many of them were hopelessly intoxicated, only
448 JOHN BROWN
a few of them were under any discipline or control, all of
them had guns, and some, according to Captain Sinn and
others, were firing their guns in the air all night, whooping
and yelling, and generally behaving as if the enemy were to
be exorcised by noise and bravado. Entering the Wager
House, the chivalrous Sinn found some young men taunting
the gravely wounded Stevens and pointing their revolvers
at him, but without in the least causing him to flinch. It was
not the first time that day that death had thus approached
Stevens, but it was the last, for Sinn drove the men out, say-
ing: " If this man could stand on his feet with a pistol in his
hand, you would all jump out of the window." * But Captain
Sinn did not weary of well-doing here ; he induced the surgeon
of his command, a Dr. Taylor, of Frederick, to staunch the--
wounds of Watson Brown, in the engine house. The surgeon
did so and promised to return early in the morning,48 but
by that time the engine-house was stormed and his patient,
in extremis, beyond all surgical aid. This was a curious epi-
sode in what was a unique American tragedy; where else
have men killed, then met and conversed with one another
and aided the wounded, and then killed again?
With the withdrawal of Captain Sinn and Dr. Taylor, the
engine house composed itself for the night. Prisoners and
raiders lay down on the brick floor to get such rest as they
could; the morrow, they all knew, would seal the raiders'
fate. The doors, shut and barred, did not keep out the yell-
ing of the drunken soldiery. But within all was dark; the
liberators had no light; it was intensely cold.
"In the quiet of the night," the younger Allstadt remembers,
"young Oliver Brown died. He had begged again and again to be
shot, in the agony of his wound, but his father had replied to him,
'Oh you will get over it,' and, 'If you must die, die like a man.'
Now John Brown talked, from time to time, with my father and with
Colonel Washington, but I did not hear what was said. Oliver
Brown lay quietly over in a corner. His father called to him, after
a time. No answer. 'I guess he is dead,' said Brown." 49
* Later, during the trial, Captain Sinn showed an equally fine spirit in going
to Charlestown on a summons from John Brown to testify in his behalf, "so that
Northern men would have no opportunity to say that Southern men were unwill-
ing to appear as witnesses on behalf of one whose principles they abhorred."
JOHN H. KAGI
A. V. STEVENS
OLIVER BROWN WATSON BROWN
VICTIMS OF HARPER'S FERRY
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 449
Near his brother, Watson lay quietly breathing his young
life away. Stewart Taylor, the young Canadian, shot like
Oliver in the doorway of the engine house, lay dead near-by.
There were left alive and unwounded but five men, the com-
mander-in-chief, Edwin Coppoc, J. G. Anderson, Dauphin
Thompson and Shields Green. John Brown himself, though
plainly anxious to have his terms accepted, betrayed no trepi-
dation whatever. Although now over forty hours without
sleep, he sought no rest. "Men, are you awake?" he asked
from time to time in the stillness of the night. John E. P.
Daingerfield remembered a talk with John Brown that night,
in which he told him that the raiders were committing treason
against the State and the United States. "Two of his men,
hearing the conversation, said to their leader, 'Are we com-
mitting treason against our country by being here?' Brown
answered, ' Certainly.' Both declared, ' If that is so, we don't
want to fight any more. We thought we came to liberate the
slaves and did not know that that was committing treason.' "
At the break of dawn, these two young men, Dauphin Thomp-
son and Jeremiah G. Anderson, gave up their lives on the
bayonets of the marines.50
For representatives of the Federal Government had ap-
peared on the scene; as the raiders learned from the friendly
Captain Sinn, the United States marines had arrived and had
supplanted the loose oversight of the militia with the sharp
patrolling and guarding of regular soldiers. The news of the
raid had stirred official Washington to prompt action early
in the day. President Buchanan telegraphed at 1.30 to the
president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad that three
companies of artillery had been sent from Fort Monroe, and
that he had accepted the services of Captain Ritchie's militia
company at Fredericksburg, Maryland.51 After sending the
despatch, he also ordered to Harper's Ferry the only United
States force in Washington, — a small company of marines
at the navy yard, commanded by Lieutenant Israel Green.
Mr. Buchanan's despatch did not satisfy the alarmed Mr.
Garrett, who replied that his agents reported no less than
seven hundred blacks and whites in possession of the Har-
per's Ferry arsenal. " It is a moment full of peril," he added.52
The raid now brought to the front two officers, both tem-
450 JOHN BROWN
porarily in Washington, who were soon to write their names
large upon the pages of history. Since the raid on Harper's
Ferry itself was to be in its every aspect a prologue to 1861,
it was eminently fitting that the most conspicuous military
roles should fall to Brevet-Colonel Robert E. Lee, then lieu-
tenant-colonel of the Second United States Cavalry, and to
First Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, of the First Cavalry, to
whom many students of military history assign first place
among American cavalry generals. Their subsequent careers
in the Confederate Army make it singularly suggestive that
they should have been the ones to end John Brown's attack
upon slavery, since it was in defence of slavery that they were
so soon to draw their swords against the very government
at whose behest they went to Harper's Ferry. Both officers
attended a conference at the White House with the Presi-
dent and the Secretary of War, Mr. Floyd, and both set out
that afternoon for Harper's Ferry, Lee to command all the
troops, under his brevet commission, and Stuart to act as
his aide.53 They overtook the marines at Sandy Hook, a
mile and a half from Harper's Ferry, at eleven o'clock that
night, and marched them at once to the armory. Here the
marines were so disposed about the engine house that no one
could escape during the night. Lee then made all his prepa-
rations to attack at daylight, thus adopting John Brown's
own policy of going at once to close quarters. "But for the
fear of sacrificing the lives of some of the gentlemen held by
them as prisoners in a midnight assault," Colonel Lee after-
wards reported, "I should have ordered the attack at once."
What happened next, Lieutenant Stuart later described
in these words:
"Within two hours of that time [midnight], say by two A.M.,
Colonel Lee communicated to me his determination to demand a
surrender of the whole party at first dawn, and in case of refusal,
which he expected, he would have ready a few picked men, who
were at a signal to take the place at once with the bayonet. He
chose to demand a surrender before attacking, because he wanted
every chance to save the prisoners unhurt, and to attack with bayo-
nets for the same reason." . . ,54 " I, too, had a part to perform, which
prevented me in a measure from participating in the very brief onset
made so gallantly by Green and Russell, well backed by their men.
I was deputed by Col. Lee to read to the leader, then called Smith,
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 451
a demand to surrender immediately; and I was instructed to leave
the door after his refusal, which was expected, and wave my cap; at
which signal the storming party was to advance, batter open the
doors, and capture the insurgents at the point of the bayonet. Col.
Lee cautioned the stormers particularly to discriminate between
the insurgents and their prisoners. I approached the door in the
presence of perhaps 2000 spectators, and told Mr. Smith that I had
a communication for him from Col. Lee. He opened the door about
four inches, and placed his body against the crack, with a cocked
carbine in his hand : hence his remark after his capture that he could
have wiped me out like a mosquito. The parley was a long one. He
presented his propositions in every possible shape, and with admira-
ble tact; but all amounted to this: that the only condition upon
which he would surrender was that he and his party should be al-
lowed to escape. Some of his prisoners begged me to ask Col. Lee
to come and see him. I told them he would never accede to any
terms but those he had offered ; and so soon as I could tear myself
away from their importunities, I left the door and waved my cap,
and Col. Lee's plan was carried out. When Smith first came to
the door, I recognized old Osawatomie Brown, who had given us so
much trouble in Kansas. No one present but myself could have per-
formed that service. I got his bowie knife from his person and have
it yet."55
The demand submitted to John Brown by Lieutenant Stuart
read as follows : 58
HEADQUARTERS HARPER'S FERRY,
October 18, 1859.
Colonel Lee, United States army, commanding the troops sent
by the President of the United States to suppress the insurrection
at this place, demands the surrender of the persons in the armory
buildings.
If they will peaceably surrender themselves and restore the pil-
laged property, they shall be kept in safety to await the orders of
the President. Colonel Lee represents to them, in all frankness, that
it is impossible for them to escape; that the armory is surrounded
on all sides by troops; and that if he is compelled to take them by
force he cannot answer for their safety.
R. E. LEE.
Colonel Commanding United States Troops.
Even this letter failed to induce John Brown to surrender,
and his decision thus taken caused three deaths within fifteen
minutes, two of them of his own men, in the blind and pur-
poseless struggle against overwhelming numbers. "My ob-
ject was, with a view to saving our citizens, to have as short
an interval as possible between the summons and attack,"
452 JOHN BROWN
Colonel Lee reported officially ; and the whole proceeding was
marked by the despatch and efficiency characteristic of well-
disciplined regular troops. Colonel Lee, who was in civilian
clothes, stood on a slight elevation, about forty feet away,
and supervised the whole undertaking. In the early morning
hours he had offered the honor of storming the engine house
to the volunteer soldiery,67 but this was declined by Colonel
Shriver, of the Frederick, Maryland, troops, who seems at this
time to have been more in control than the senior Virginia
Colonel, Baylor, who had superseded Colonel John T. Gib-
son. Colonel Shriver said that he had only come to help the
people of Harper's Ferry. "These men of mine have wives and
children at home. I will not expose them to such risks. You
are paid for doing this kind of work."58 Colonel Baylor also
declined the honor, afterwards assigning the same reason.59
But the "mercenaries," as Colonel Baylor called the marines,
looked at the matter in a different light. When Colonel Lee
turned to Lieutenant Israel Green and asked him whether
he wished the honor of "taking those men out," Lieutenant
Green at once, with soldierly courtesy, took off his hat and
thanked Colonel Lee simply and sincerely.60 He then picked
a storming detail of twelve men, with a reserve of a similar
number, and gave them the most careful instructions. At
sunrise, when Lieutenant Stuart gave his signal, Green, with
the greatest sang-froid, ordered the attack to begin. Neither
he nor his men had been under fire before, but it made no
difference in their bearing. Lieutenant Green himself was
armed only with a light dress sword which he had picked up
as he hastily left his quarters, ignorant of the duty for which
he and his men were ordered out.61 Near him, as a volunteer,
stood a senior in rank, one of his own corps, Major W. W.
Russell, who, as a paymaster and staff officer, could not take
active command. Major Russell carried nothing but a rat-
tan cane, yet he risked his life with nonchalance.™
Three marines, armed with sledge-hammers, began bat-
tering at the heavy doors of the engine-house, with slight
success. A heavy ladder lay near by. Perceiving that, Lieu-
tenant Green ordered his men to use it as a battering-ram.
The door was broken in at the second blow. Up to this time,
the few shots fired from within the engine house had struck
PTTTI Nwk • MiE^rMl
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 453
no one of the storming party. Within, said Colonel Washing-
ton, in this supreme moment, John Brown "was the coolest
and firmest man I ever saw in defying danger and death.
With one son dead by his side, and another shot through, he
felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand and 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 they could."63 "The entrance," recorded Lieu-
tenant Green, in after years,
"was a ragged hole low down in the right hand door, the door
being splintered and cracked some distance upward. I instantly
stepped from my position in front of the stone abutment and entered
the opening made by the ladder. At the time I did not stop to think
of it, but upon reflection I should say that Brown had just emptied
his carbine at the point broken by the ladder, and so I passed
in safely. Getting to my feet, I ran to the right of the engine,
which stood behind the door, passed quickly to the rear of the house,
and came up between the two engines. The first person I saw was
Colonel Lewis Washington, who was standing near the hose-cart,
at the front of the engine-house. On one knee, a few feet to the left,
knelt a man with a carbine in his hand, just pulling the lever to
reload." 64
Colonel Washington greeted Green, whom he knew, calmly,
and pointed Brown out to him, saying, "This is Osawatomie."
What happened then was variously related by the several
witnesses and by Lieutenant Green himself. It would seem
as though Green sprang at Brown, lunging at him with his
light sword and bringing him to his knees. The sword bent
double in striking Brown's belt or a bone; taking the bent
weapon in both hands, Lieutenant Green showered blows
upon Brown's head, which laid him flat, brought the blood,
and seemed to the onlookers as if they must reach the skull.65
But fortunately for Brown and for his "greatest or principal
object," the weapon was too light to inflict a mortal wound.
All unawares, Lieutenant Green, by failing to buckle on his
regulation sabre, had done a profound service to the cause
that John Brown had at heart, and that Green, later a Con-
federate officer, though born in the North, hated. Men have
carved their way to kingdoms by the stoutness of their swords,
but here was one who by the flimsmess of his blade permitted
454 JOHN BROWN
his enemy to live to thrill half a nation by his spoken and
written word.
At the time, however, it seemed as if Brown had perished
as did Jeremiah Anderson and Dauphin Thompson. As the
marines followed their lieutenant through the aperture, a shot
rang out, and the first man, Private Luke Quin, went down,
with a mortal wound. The next marine behind him was
gravely wounded in the face. Jumping over their fallen com-
rades, the other marines were in no spirit to be gentle. "They
came rushing in," said their officer,
"like tigers, as a storming assault is not a play-day sport. They
bayoneted one man skulking under the engine, and pinned another
fellow up against the rear wall, both being instantly killed.* I or-
dered the men to spill no more blood. The other insurgents were at
once taken under arrest, and the contest ended. The whole fight had
not lasted over three minutes."
As for the eleven prisoners, they were, recorded Lieuten-
ant Green, "the sorriest lot of people I ever saw. They had
been without food for over sixty hours, in constant dread of
being shot, and were huddled up in the corner where lay the
body of Brown's son and one or two others of the insurgents
who had been killed." The dead, dying and badly wounded
raiders were then carried out and laid on the grass in the
armory yard. Of John Brown's force of twenty-two, he him-
self, his second in command, Stevens, two negroes, Copeland
and Green, and Edwin Coppoc were in the enemy's hands.
Watson Brown lived twenty hours after being taken from the
engine-house; the bodies of nine others lay in front of their
fort or scattered about the town. The remainder, seven in
number, were already well started on their way toward
Pennsylvania. Colonel Lee saw to it that the captured sur-
vivors were protected and treated with kindliness and con-
sideration.66 For Watson Brown, too, there was a good
Samaritan, also a Southerner, C. W. Tayleure, a reporter of
a Baltimore newspaper, who wrote to John Brown, Jr., just
twenty years after the event, this touching story of Watson
Brown's death : 67
* According to other statements, Anderson did not die for some time after his
removal from the engine house. Both Thompson and Anderson seem to have
cried out as the marines came in that they surrendered.
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 455
"I am a South Carolinian, and at the time of the raid was very
deeply imbued with the political prejudices of my State; but the
serenity, calm courage, and devotion to duty which your father and
his followers then manifested impressed me very profoundly. It is
impossible not to feel respect for men who offer up their lives in
support of their convictions, and the earnestness of my respect I put
upon record in a Baltimore paper the day succeeding the event. I
gave your brother a cup of water to quench his thirst (this was at
about 7.30 on the morning of the capture) and improvised a couch
for him out of a bench, with a pair of overalls for a pillow. I remem-
ber how he looked, — singularly handsome, even through the grime
of his all-day struggles, and the intense suffering which he must
have endured. He was very calm, and of a tone and look very gen-
tle. The look with which he searched my very heart I can never
forget. One sentence of our conversation will give you the keynote
to the whole. I asked him, 'What brought you here?' He replied,
very patiently, 'Duty, sir.' After a pause, I again asked: ' Is it then
your idea of duty to shoot men down upon their own hearth-stones
for defending their rights?' He answered: 'I am dying; I cannot
discuss the question; I did my duty as I saw it.' This conversation
occurred in the compartment of the engine-house adjoining that
in which the defence had been made, and was listened to by young
Coppoc with perfect equanimity, and by Shields Green with un-
controllable terror."
John Brown himself was carried to the office of the pay-
master of the armory and there given medical attention, it
soon appearing that his wounds were far less serious than at
first supposed. But the end of the Provisional Army had come;
John Brown's armed blow at slavery was spent.
"And they are themselves mistaken who take him to be a mad-
man. He is a bundle of the best nerves I ever saw cut and thrust
and bleeding and in bonds. He is a man of clear head, of courage,
fortitude and simple ingenuousness. He is cool, collected and in-
domitable, and it is but just to him to say that he was humane to
his prisoners as attested to me by Colonel Washington and Mr.
Mills, and he inspired me with great trust in his integrity as a man
of truth. He is a fanatic, vain and garrulous, but firm, truthful and
intelligent. His men, too, who survive, except the free negroes with
him, are like him."
Thus spoke Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia, on his
return to Richmond from his visit to Harper's Ferry.68 The
interview with Brown upon which he predicated this opinion
took place shortly after the Governor's arrival, at about one
456 JOHN BROWN
in the afternoon, in the paymaster's office, where A. D.
Stevens had been carried to lie alongside of his leader. There
have been few more dramatic scenes .in American history; few
upon which the shadows of coming events were more omi-
nously cast. The two wounded prisoners, their hair clotted and
tangled, their faces, hands and clothing powder-stained and
blood-smeared, lay upon what the reporter of the New York
Herald, who preserved for posterity this interview, called their
"miserable shakedowns, covered with some old bedding."
Near them stood Robert E. Lee, J. E. B. Stuart, Senator J. M.
Mason, Governor Wise, Congressman Vallandigham, of Ohio,
Colonel Lewis Washington, Andrew Hunter, and Congress-
man Charles James Faulkner, of Virginia, — nearly all des-
tined soon to play important roles, the first four in the Con-
federacy that was to come into being.
The courteous Colonel Lee began the interview by saying
that he would exclude all visitors from the room if the
wounded men were annoyed or pained thereby. To this John
Brown answered that he was ''glad to make himself and his
motives clearly understood."
"He converses freely, fluently and cheerfully, without the slight-
est manifestation of fear or uneasiness, evidently weighing well his
words, and possessing a good command of language. His manner is
courteous and affable, while he appears to be making a favorable
impression upon his auditory, which during most of the day yes-
terday averaged about ten or a dozen men,"
wrote the Herald representative. A reporter of the Baltimore
American who was also present at the interview declared that
during the conversation "no sign of weakness was exhibited by
John Brown."69
In the midst of enemies, whose home he had invaded ; wounded
and a prisoner, surrounded by a small army of officials, and a more
desperate army of angry men ; with the gallows staring him full in
the face, he lay on the floor, and, in reply to every question, gave
answers that betokened the spirit that animated him. The language
of Gov. Wise well expresses his boldness when he said 'He is the
gamest man I ever saw."1
From the long Herald interview, lasting fully three hours,
the following are excerpts : 70
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 457
Mr. Mason. — Can you tell us, at least, who furnished the
money for your expedition?
Mr. Brown. — I furnished most of it myself. I cannot implicate
others. It is by my own folly that I have been taken. I could easily
have saved myself from it had I exercised my own better judgment,
rather than yielded to my feelings.
Mr. Mason. — You mean if you had escaped immediately?
Mr. Brown. — No; I had the means to make myself secure with-
out any escape, but I allowed myself to be surrounded by a force by
being too tardy.
Mr. Mason. — Tardy in getting away?
Mr. Brown. — I should have gone away, but I had thirty-odd
prisoners, whose wives and daughters were in tears for their safety,
and I felt for them. Besides, I wanted to allay the fears of those who
believed we came here to burn and kill. For this reason I allowed
the train to cross the bridge, and gave them full liberty to pass on.
I did it only to spare the feelings of those passengers and their fami-
lies, and to allay the apprehensions that you had got here in your
vicinity a band of men who had no regard for life and property, nor
any feelings of humanity.
Mr. Mason. — But you killed some people passing along the
streets quietly.
Mr. Brown. — Well, sir, if there was anything of that kind done,
it was without my knowledge. Your own citizens, who were my
prisoners, will tell you that every possible means were taken to pre-
vent it. I did not allow my men to fire, nor even to return a fire,
when there was danger of killing those we regarded as innocent
persons, if I could help it. They will tell you that we allowed our-
selves to be fired at repeatedly and did not return it.
A Bystander. — That is not so. You killed an unarmed man at
the corner of the house over there (at the water-tank) and another
besides.
Mr. Brown. — See here, my friend, it is useless to dispute or
contradict the report of your own neighbors who were my prisoners.
Mr. Mason. — If you would tell us who sent you here — who
provided the means — that would be information of some value.
Mr. Brown. — I will answer freely and faithfully about what con-
cerns myself — I will answer anything I can with honor, but not
about others.
Mr. Vallandigham (Member of Congress from Ohio, who had
just entered). — Mr. Brown, who sent you here?
Mr. Brown. — No man sent me here; it was my own prompting
and that of my Maker, or that of the devil, whichever you please
to ascribe it to. I acknowledge no man in human form.
Mr. Mason. — How many are engaged with you in this move-
ment? I ask these questions for our own safety.
Mr. Brown. — Any questions that I can honorably answer I will,
458 JOHN BROWN
not otherwise. So far as I am myself concerned, I have told every-
thing truthfully. I value my word, sir.
Mr. Mason. — What was your object in coming?
Mr. Brown. — We came to free the slaves, and only that.
A Young Man (in the uniform of a volunteer company). — How
many men in all had you?
Mr. Brown. — I came to Virginia with eighteen men only, besides
myself.
Volunteer. — What in the world did you suppose you could do
here in Virginia with that amount of men?
Mr. Brown. — Young man, I don't wish to discuss that question
here.
Volunteer. — You could not do anything.
Mr. Brown. — Well, perhaps your ideas and mine on military
subjects would differ materially.
Mr. Mason. — How do you justify your acts?
Mr. Brown. — I think, my friend, you are guilty of a great wrong
against God and humanity — I say it without wishing to be offen-
sive — and it would be perfectly right in any one to interfere with
you so far as to free those you wilfully and wickedly hold in bondage.
I do not say this insultingly.
Mr. Mason. — I understand that.
Mr. Brown. — I think I did right, and that others will do right to
interfere with you at any time and all times. I hold that the Golden
Rule, "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto
you," applies to all who would help others to gain their liberty.
Lieut. Stuart. — But you don't believe in the Bible.
Mr. Brown. — Certainly I do.
Mr. Mason. — Did you consider this a military organization, in
this paper [the Constitution] ? I have not yet read it.
Mr. Brown. — I did in some sense. I wish you would give that
paper close attention.
Mr. Mason. — You considered yourself the Commander-in-Chief
of these "provisional" military forces.
Mr. Brown. — I was chosen agreeably to the ordinance of a
certain document, commander-in-chief of that force.
Mr. Mason. — What wages did you offer?
Mr. Brown. — None.
Lieut. Stuart. — "The wages of sin is death."
Mr. Brown. — I would not have made such a remark to you, if
you had been a prisoner and wounded in my hands.
A Bystander. — Did you not promise a negro in Gettysburg
twenty dollars a month?
Mr. Brown. — I did not.
Mr. Vallandigham. — When in Cleveland, did you attend the
Fugitive Slave Law Convention there?
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 459
Mr. Brown. — No. I was there about the time of the sitting of
the court to try the Oberlin rescuers. I spoke there publicly on that
subject. I spoke on the Fugitive Slave law and my own rescue. Of
course, so far as I had any influence at all, I was disposed to justify
the Oberlin people for rescuing the slave, because I have myself
forcibly taken slaves from bondage. I was concerned in taking
eleven slaves from Missouri to Canada last winter. I think I spoke
in Cleveland before the Convention. I do not know that I had any
conversation with any of the Oberlin rescuers. I was sick part of
the time I was in Ohio, with the ague. I was part of the time in
Ashtabula County.
A Bystander. — Did you go out to Kansas under the auspices of
the Emigrant Aid Society?
Mr. Brown. — No, sir; I went out under the auspices of John
Brown and nobody else.
Mr. Vallandigham. — Will you answer this: Did you talk with
Mr. Giddings about your expedition here?
Mr. Brown. — No, I won't answer that; because a denial of it I
would not make, and to make any affirmation of it I should be a
great dunce.
Mr. Vallandigham. — Have you had any correspondence with
parties at the North on the subject of this movement?
Mr. Brown. — I have had correspondence.
A Bystander. — Do you consider this a religious movement?
Mr. Brown. — It is, in my opinion, the greatest service a man
can render to God.
Bystander. — Do you consider yourself an instrument in the hands
of Providence?
Mr. Brown. — I do.
Bystander. — Upon what principle do you justify your acts?
Mr. Brown. — Upon the golden rule. I pity the poor in bondage
that have none to help them ; that is why I am here ; not to gratify
any personal animosity, revenge or vindictive spirit. It is my sym-
pathy with the oppressed and the wronged, that are as good as you
and as precious in the sight of God.
Bystander. — Certainly. But why take the slaves against their
will?
Mr. Brown. — I never did.
Bystander. — You did in one instance, at least.
Stevens, the wounded prisoner, here said, in a firm, clear voice:
"You are right. In one case, I know the negro wanted to go back."
Mr. Vallandigham (to Mr. Brown). — Who are your advisers in
this movement?
Mr. Brown. — I cannot answer that. I have numerous sympa-
thizers throughout the entire North.
Mr. Vallandigham. — In northern Ohio?
46o JOHN BROWN
Mr. Brown. — No more there than anywhere else ; in all the free
states.
Mr. Vallandigham. — But you are not personally acquainted in
southern Ohio?
Mr. Brown. — Not very much.
Mr. Vallandigham (to Stevens). — Were you at the Convention
last June?
Stevens. — I was.
Mr. Vallandigham (to Brown). You made a speech there?
Mr. Brown. — I did.
A Bystander. — Did you ever live in Washington city?
Mr. Brown. — I did not. I want you to understand, gentlemen —
and [to the reporter of the Herald] you may report that — I want
you to understand that I respect the rights of the poorest and weak-
est of colored people, oppressed by the slave system, just as much
as I do those of the most wealthy and powerful. That is the idea
that has moved me, and that alone. We expect no reward, except
the satisfaction of endeavoring to do for those in distress and greatly
oppressed, as we would be done by. The cry of distress of the
oppressed is my reason, and the only thing that prompted me to
come here.
A Bystander. — Why did you do it secretly?
Mr. Brown. — Because I thought that necessary to success; no
other reason.
Bystander. — And you think that honorable? Have you read
Gerrit Smith's last letter?
Mr. Brown. — What letter do you mean?
Bystander. — The New York Herald of yesterday, in speaking
of this affair, mentions a letter in this way: "Apropos of this excit-
ing news, we recollect a very significant passage in one of Gerrit
Smith's letters, published a month or two ago, in which he speaks
of the folly of attempting to strike the shackles off the slaves by the
force of moral suasion or legal agitation, and predicts that the next
movement made in the direction of negro emancipation would be
an insurrection in the South."
Mr. Brown. — I have not seen the New York Herald for some days
past ; but I presume, from your remark about the gist of the letter,
that I should concur with it. I agree with Mr. Smith that moral
suasion is hopeless. I don't think the people of the slave States will
ever consider the subject of slavery in its true light till some other
argument is resorted to than moral suasion.
f .Mr. Vallandigham. — Did you expect a general rising of the
slaves in case of your success?
Mr. Brown. — No, sir; nor did I wish it. I expected to gather
them up from time to time and set them free.
Mr. Vallandigham. — Did you expect to hold possession here till
then?
Mr. Brown. — Well, probably I had quite a different idea. I do
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 461
not know that I ought to reveal my plans. I am here a prisoner and
wounded, because I foolishly allowed myself to be so. You over-
rate your strength in supposing I could have been taken if I had
not allowed it. I was too tardy after commencing the open attack
— in delaying my movements through Monday night, and up to
that time I was attacked by the government troops. It was all occa-
sioned by my desire to spare the feelings of my prisoners and their
families and the community at large. I had no knowledge of the
shooting of the negro [Haywardj.
Mr. Vallandigham. — What time did you commence your or-
ganization in Canada?
Mr. Brown. — That occurred about two years ago, if I remem-
ber right. It was, I think, in 1858.
Mr. Vallandigham. — Who was the Secretary?
Mr. Brown. — That I would not tell if I recollected, but I do
not recollect. I think the officers were elected in May, 1858. I may
answer incorrectly, but not intentionally. My head is a little con-
fused by wounds, and my memory obscure on dates, etc.
Dr. Biggs. — Were you in the party at Dr. Kennedy's house?
Mr. Brown. — I was at the head of that party. I occupied the house
to mature my plans. I have not been in Baltimore to purchase caps.
Dr. Biggs. — What was the number of men at Kennedy's?
Mr. Brown. — I decline to answer that.
Dr. Biggs. — Who lanced that woman's neck on the hill?
Mr. Brown. — I did. I have sometimes practised in surgery
when I thought it a matter of humanity and necessity, and there
was no one else to do it, but I have not studied surgery.
Dr. Biggs. — It was done very well and scientifically. They have
been very clever to the neighbors, I have been told, and we had no
reason to suspect them except that we could not understand their
movements. They were represented as eight or nine persons; on
Friday there were thirteen.
Mr. Brown. — There were more than that.
Reporter of the Herald. — I do not wish to annoy you ; but if you
have anything further you would like to say I will report it.
Mr. Brown. — I have nothing to say, only that I claim to be
here in carrying out a measure I believe perfectly justifiable, and
not to act the part of an incendiary or ruffian, but to aid those suf-
fering great wrong. I wish to say, furthermore, that you had better
— all you people at the South — prepare yourselves for a settle-
ment of that question that must come up for settlement sooner than
you are prepared for it. The sooner you are prepared the better.
You may dispose of me very easily; I am nearly disposed of now;
but this question is still to be settled — this negro question I mean
— the end of that is not yet. These wounds were inflicted upon
me — both sabre cuts on my head and bayonet stabs in the different
parts of my body — some minutes after I had ceased fighting and
462 JOHN BROWN
had consented to a surrender, for the benefit of others, not for my
own. [This statement was vehemently denied all around.]* I be-
lieve the major [meaning Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, of the United
States Cavalry] f would not have been alive; I could have killed
him just as easy as a mosquito when he came in, but I supposed he
came in only to receive our surrender. There had been loud and
long calls of "surrender" from us — as loud as men could yell —
but in the confusion and excitement I suppose we were not heard.
I do not think the major, or any one, meant to butcher us after
we had surrendered.
An officer here stated that the orders to the marines were not to
shoot anybody; but when they were fired upon by Brown's men and
one of them killed, they were obliged to return the compliment.
Mr. Brown insisted that the marines fired first. J
An Officer. — Why did not you surrender before the attack?
Mr. Brown. — I did not think it was my duty or interest to do
so. We assured the prisoners that we did not wish to harm them,
and that they should be set at liberty. I exercised my best judg-
ment, not believing the people would wantonly sacrifice their own
fellow-citizens, when we offered to let them go on condition of being
allowed to change our position about a quarter of a mile. The pris-
oners agreed by vote among themselves to pass across the bridge
with us. We wanted them only as a sort of guaranty of our own
safety; that we should not be fired into. We took them in the first
place as hostages and to keep them from doing any harm. We did
kill some men in defending ourselves, but I saw no one fire except
directly in self-defence. Our orders were strict not to harm any one
not in arms against us.
Q. — Brown, suppose you had every nigger in the United States,
what would you do with them?
A . — Set them free.
Q. — Your intention was to carry them off and free them?
A. — Not at all.
A Bystander. — To set them free would sacrifice the life of every
man in this community.
* This portion of the interview is evidently erroneous. John Brown could
hardly have maintained that he was struck down after surrendering, in view of the
shooting of the two marines who entered the engine house after Lieutenant Green;
moreover, in his testimony during his trial he twice stated that he never asked for
quarter. It is true, however, that as the marines came in, two of the raiders,
Thompson and Anderson, surrendered and there were shouts of: "One man sur-
renders." If John Brown had meant to surrender, the time to do so was when
Lieutenant Stuart asked him to; not two minutes thereafter, when the marines
came in under fire.
t This is evidently a confusion of Lieutenants Stuart and Green and Major
Russell.
k \ This statement is erroneous; the marines fired no shots whatever.
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 463
Mr. Brown. — I do not think so.
Bystander. — I know it. I think you are fanatical.
Mr. Brown. — And I think you are fanatical. "Whom the gods
would destroy they first make mad," and you are mad.
Q. — Was it your only object to free the negroes?
A. — Absolutely our only object.
O. — But you demanded and took Colonel Washington's silver
and watch?
A . — Yes ; we intended freely to appropriate the property of
slaveholders to carry out our object. It was for that, and only that,
and with no design to enrich ourselves with any plunder whatever.
According to a later report in the Herald, Governor Wise, on
his return to Richmond, said somebody in the crowd applied
to Brown the epithet " robber," and that Brown retorted,
"You [alluding to the slaveholders] are the robbers." And
it was in this connection that he said, " If you have your opin-
ions about me, I have my opinions about you." At this time
the Governor remarked to him, "Mr. Brown, the silver of
your hair is reddened by the blood of crime, and it is meet
that you should eschew these hard allusions and think upon
eternity. ..."
Brown replied by saying:
"Governor, I have, from all appearances, not more than fifteen or
twenty years the start of you in the journey to that eternity of which
you kindly warn me; and whether my tenure here shall be fifteen
months, or fifteen days, or fifteen hours, I am equally prepared to go.
There is an eternity behind and an eternity before, and the little
speck in the centre, however long, is but comparatively a minute.
The difference between your tenure and mine is trifling and I want
to therefore tell you to be prepared; I am prepared. You all [refer-
ring to slaveholders] have a heavy responsibility, and it behooves
you to prepare more than it does me." 71
There was a passage in Governor Wise's speech on his
arrival in Richmond which gave great offence to the military,
for it voiced freely and frankly his own bitterness of spirit
that it was left to United States marines to capture nineteen
raiders upon Virginia soil. In it, he spoke thus:
"On Monday night the gallant and noble Virginia Colonel, Robert
Lee, worthy of any service on earth, arrived with his regular corps
of marines. He waited only for light. Then tendered the assault,
in State pride, to the Virginia volunteers who were there. Their
464 JOHN BROWN
feelings for the prisoners made them decline .the risk of slaying their
own friends, and Lee could not delay a moment to retake the arsenal,
punish the impudent invaders and release the prisoners at the neces-
sary risk of their own lives. His gallantry was mortified that the
task was so easy. . . . With mortification and chagrin inexpres-
sible, he picked twelve marines and took the engine-house in ten
minutes, with the loss of one marine killed and one wounded, with-
out hurting a hair of one of the prisoners. And now I say to you that
I would have given my right arm to its shoulder for that feat to have
been performed by the volunteers of Virginia on Monday before the
marines arrived there. But there was no cowardice or panic on the
part of the inhabitants who were made prisoners, or on the part of
the volunteers who first reached the scene. . . ."
The matter did not end here. Governor Wise's son, O. Jen-
nings Wise, who gave his life for the Confederacy two years
later, after a brief career of undoubted bravery, preferred
charges against Colonel Robert W. Baylor, the colonel of
militia cavalry who had assumed command of all the State
forces on the afternoon of Monday. At Colonel Baylor's
request, a court of inquiry was held in June, 1860, but it failed
to touch upon the real point at issue, — Colonel Baylor's
behavior on October 17, i859.72 Fearing that this would be
the case, Jennings Wise, on its assembling, wrote to the court,
which apparently ignored his letter, that Colonel Baylor
illegally assumed command "contrary to his grade and the
nature of his commission," acted without orders, was guilty
of cowardice in not storming the engine house, and of "un-
officerlike conduct" in assigning a "false, cowardly and
insulting reason for not leading the attack on the engine
house when the service was offered to him by Colonel Lee : to-
wit . . . that it was a duty which belonged to the mercenaries
of the regular service — meaning the marines — who were
paid for it;" and finally for using "violent and ungentlemanly
language about his commander-in-chief [Governor Wise]."73
A member of the Shepherdstown militia, the Hamtramck
Guards, charged in the local newspaper that his company was
permitted to stand idle in the streets from the time of the
Martinsburg company's attack, when one platoon fired a few
rounds at the engine-house, until late in the evening, because
of the captain's inability to obtain orders from Colonel
Baylor.74 The only commands given during the evening, he
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA 465
related, "were from a set of drunken fellows whooping and
bellowing like a pack of maddened bulls, evidently too drunk,
many of them, to hold their guns." He also charged that the
wounded of the Martinsburg company were shot not by the
raiders but by their own men. There is intrinsic evidence of
the accuracy of much of this letter; it is certainly true that,
wherever the fault lay, no effective use whatever was made
of the Hamtramck Guards after their one attack upon the
engine house. From the adjoining houses they could have
poured in a deadly fire.
The truth seems to be that, as might have been expected
with a practically paper militia, the hastily called-out Vir-
ginia soldiery were quite unequal to the task set, by reason of
the utter inability of their officers to control and direct them
and to keep them sober. Throughout the entire conflict, there
were but two really aggressive movements, — the taking of the
bridge by the Jefferson Guards, and the charge of the Martins-
burg company. Had Colonel Baylor been capable of aggres-
sive leadership, the discredit to the Virginia arms would never
have taken place. But there was no concerted action, and but
little intelligent direction, at any time of the day, after the
taking of the bridge. On the other hand, the militia compa-
nies, like those so hastily organized, were inadequately armed
and equipped, and the presence of the prisoners with the
enemy was a happy excuse to cover the delays and hesita-
tions of the afternoon. For this, the commanding officer,
Colonel Baylor, must naturally be held responsible. It was the
old story, so soon to be repeated on many battlefields, of
excellent military material ineffective through lack of disci-
pline and vigorous leadership.
For all of Governor Wise's admiration of John Brown as
a man, he did not hesitate to describe him and his men
as "murderers, traitors, robbers, insurrectionists," and "wan-
ton, malicious, unprovoked felons." 75 Yet just a year and a
half later, April 16, 1861, Henry A. Wise, then out of office
and with no more legal authority for his acts than had John
Brown, actively conspired with Captain — later General
- J. D. Imboden, General Kenton Harper and the superin-
tendent, Alfred W. Barbour, and through them captured the
Harper's Ferry arsenal precisely as had John Brown, save
466 JOHN BROWN
that there was no loss of life.76 But the blow was none the less
directly aimed at the Federal Government. The undertaking
of this act of treason was a compelling reason for the passage
of the Virginia Ordinance of Secession on April 17, 1861.
Governor Wise dramatically announced to the Secession con-
vention that "armed forces are now moving upon Harper's
Ferry to capture the arms there in the Arsenal for the public
defence, and there will be a fight or a foot-race between vol-
unteers of Virginia and Federal troops before the sun sets this
day." 77 On June I, this same Henry A. Wise, whose abhor-
rence of John Brown's acts had been so profound, in a speech
at Richmond urged his neighbors to: "Get a spear — a lance.
Take a lesson from John Brown, manufacture your blades
from old iron, even though it be the tires of your cart-wheels." 78
Forgetful, too, of his panegyric of his Yankee captive's brav-
ery and coolness, he assured his auditors that: "Your true-
blooded Yankee will never stand still in the presence of cold
steel." In so scant a space of time as a year and a half had the
erstwhile Governor, by a singular revolution of the wheel of
fate, himself come to occupy the position of a rebel against
the established political order.
CHAPTER XIII
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW
WITH the capture of John Brown an accomplished fact, the
military were free to take account of what had happened, and
to endeavor to ascertain precisely what this attack upon the
peaceful town meant.1 In the morning, a Maryland militia
company, the Baltimore Greys, under command of Lieut.-
Col. S. S. Mills, of the Fifty-third Maryland Regiment, visited
the school-house, took the arms there deposited, and acquired
some of John Brown's papers, many of which were later
regained in Baltimore, after considerable trouble.2 Lieutenant
Stuart and a detachment of the marines were then sent, early
in the afternoon, to the Kennedy Farm, to bring back to the
arsenal the property of the raiders. They did not, however,
arrive until John Brown's dwelling, so recently the home of
high hopes and philanthropic ambitions, had been ransacked
by curious neighbors. It was characteristic of John Brown that
he had left at the Farm, undestroyed, all his correspondence
bearing on his preparations and his plans, and that belonging
to his men as well.* Had he succeeded, therefore, in gaining
the hills and beginning his guerrilla raids, his enemy would
have been in full possession of his purposes and of the names
of his confederates in the North. The Baltimore troops found
Colonel Washington's wagon and its scattered horses, with
which some of the weapons were taken to the armory. Lieu-
tenant Stuart found at the Farm most of the pikes, which were
speedily distributed as souvenirs, and for months thereafter
were hawked about with so ready a sale as to lead to the
manufacture of spurious ones.3 Every one who aided in mov-
* Hugh Forbes wrote to the editor of the Herald on October 7, 1859: "When I
transmitted to Capt. Brown copies of all my correspondence with his friends, I
never dreamed that the most terrible engine of destruction which he would carry
with him in his campaign would be a carpet-bag loaded with 400 letters, to be
turned against his friends, of whom the journals assert that more than forty-seven
are already compromised."
468 JOHN BROWN
ing the rifles and revolvers likewise helped himself to some as
legitimate spoils of .war.
Of Cook, the only one of the escaped raiders of whose exist-
ence the victors at first knew, there was naturally no sign.
He, with Owen Brown, Tidd, Meriam and Barclay Coppoc,
had spent the night of Monday in the bushes near the cabin
of the Kennedy Farm. Here they lay until early morning,
when the last one of the negroes whom they had armed and
freed, deserted them and set them at three o'clock to climbing
the mountain as fast as their load of arms and other impedi-
menta permitted.4 This negro's conduct was characteristic of
all of the slaves impressed by John Brown. They followed the
orders of the raiders and obeyed them to the extent of carry-
ing, for a time, arms or pikes, and doing guard-duty. When,
however, it came to firing in the engine house, or to accom-
panying those who had escaped, they refused in the one case
to attack the slaveholders, and in the other they chose to slip
away and return to their masters with tales of being kept
against their will, rather than to risk their lives or make any
effort to escape.5 The great uprising among the blacks upon
which John Brown counted so confidently never came to pass;
the thousands of reinforcements he looked for appeared not
at all. There was not one who joined of his own accord; of
those that did go with Brown, a negro hired by Colonel Wash-
ington from a neighbor was found drowned in the river, where
some thought he was driven by citizens in an attempt to run
away, while others held that he was shot by Cook.6 No satis-
factory explanation of his death was ever given. Mr. Allstadt's
negro, Phil, who at Brown's orders had broken loopholes in
the engine-house walls for the raiders to fire through, was taken
to the jail at Charlestown, where he died of pneumonia, com-
plicated by very great fear.7 Otherwise, the negro population
was unaffected by the raid, and its imperturbability, when
once established, went far toward reassuring the South.
Outraged as they were by the attack on their homes, the
Harper's Ferrians and the whole South breathed again when
they realized that the negroes themselves had not risen in the
excitement Brown created. "And this is the only consolation
I have to offer you in this disgrace," said Governor Wise in his
Richmond speech, " that the faithful slaves refused to take up
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 469
arms against their masters ; and those who were taken by force
from their happy homes deserted their liberators as soon as
they could dare to make the attempt. Not a slave around was
found faithless." Senator Mason likewise rejoiced at this.
"On the part of the negroes," he stated in a signed resume
of his own investigation of the raid issued to the press im-
mediately thereafter,8 "it is certain that the only emotion
evinced by them was of alarm and terror, and their only refuge
sought at their masters' homes." The negro who deserted
Cook's party, in the early morning hours of Tuesday, went
down to the Ferry and informed the authorities that Cook
was there in the mountain,9 just as Cook's party had fore-
seen that he would. A vigorous, organized pursuit would
doubtless have run Cook to earth at once; but they being
ignorant of how many of the raiders were at large, nothing
was done by either the Maryland or Virginia military.
The scenes of Tuesday evening at Harper's Ferry were for-
tunately recorded by an able Northern witness, Joseph G.
Rosengarten, a director of the Pennsylvania Railroad,10 who
strayed by accident into Harper's Ferry during the riot, and,
being near Captain Turner when he was killed, was promptly
marched off to spend the night in the Charlestown jail as a
suspect. Being released the next day through the interces-
sion of Governor Wise, he returned to Harper's Ferry in time
to see the immediate aftermath of the raid. Of it he records :
" Night soon came, and it was made hideous by the drunken noise
and turmoil of the crowd in the village ; matters were made worse,
too, by the Governor's orders to impress all the horses; and the
decent, sober men trudged home rather out of humor with their
patriotic sacrifice ; while the tipsy and pot-valiant militia fought and
squabbled with each other, and only ceased that sport to pursue
and hunt down some fugitive negroes and one or two half-maddened
drunken fellows who, in their frenzy proclaimed themselves John
Brown's men. Tired out at last, the Governor took refuge in the
Wager House; — for an hour or two, he had stood on the porch
haranguing an impatient crowd as 'Sons of Virginia!' Within doors
the scene was stranger still. Huddled together . . . the Governor
and his staff at a table with tallow candles guttering in the darkness,
the Richmond Grays lying around the floor in picturesque and
(then) novel pursuit of soft planks, a motley audience was gathered
together to hear the papers captured at John Brown's house — the
Kennedy Farm on Maryland Heights — read out with the Gov-
470 JOHN BROWN
ernor's running comments. The purpose of all this was plain enough.
It was meant to serve as proof of a knowledge and instigation of the
raid by prominent persons and party-leaders in the North. The
most innocent notes and letters, commonplace newspaper para-
graphs and printed cuttings, were distorted and twisted by the
reading and by the talking into clear instructions and positive
plots."
Wednesday morning there took place the transfer of the
prisoners by train to Charlestown. They were well guarded by
Lieutenant Israel Green and some of his men, and were in the
joint charge of the sheriff of Jefferson County and the United
States marshal of the Western District of Virginia. Governor
Wise, Senator Mason and other prominent men accompanied
them.11 The removal to the train occurred under circum-
stances which thoroughly warranted the using of the marines
as a guard, instead of a local militia company. Stevens and
Brown had to be taken to the station in a wagon; Shields
Green and Coppoc walked between files of soldiers and were
followed by hundreds of highly excited men. As the proces-
sion reached the train, the mob gathered menacingly, cry-
ing, "Lynch them! Lynch them!" Governor Wise called out,
"Oh, it would be cowardly to do so now!" The crowd then
fell back, and the prisoners were safely placed on the train.12
Most of the militia had already returned to their homes, and
with but one company on duty after the departure of the
prisoners,13 the town rapidly quieted down, and Colonel Lee
felt free to move about as he pleased.
When, therefore, news came at nine o'clock that evening
from the village of Pleasant Valley, Maryland, that a body of
men at sunset had descended from the mountains, attacked
the house of a settler and massacred him, his wife and chil-
dren, Lee, accompanied by Lieutenants Green and Stuart,
hastened with twenty-five marines to the outraged hamlet,
four or five miles away, only to find everything quiet and the
massacred family sound asleep.14 He returned with his party
in plenty of time to embark with all the marines shortly after
midnight upon the train for Washington. Here Colonel Lee
handed in a written report to the Secretary of War, in igno-
rance, however, of the fact that just twenty-four hours before
his visit there, five escaping raiders had descended from the
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 471
mountains into Pleasant Valley, and had heard cries of alarm
which made them wrongfully believe that they were discov-
ered. After incredible hardships, all but Cook of this party
of five safely reached the North.15 Of the other raiders who
got away from Harper's Ferry, Hazlett was taken and Ander-
son escaped. Had Cook and Hazlett not exposed themselves
because of hunger, they, too, would have reached safety. Tidd
reported afterward in person to Thomas Wentworth Hig-
ginson, that his experiences while escaping had convinced
him that "twenty-five men in the mountains of Virginia
could paralyze the whole business of the South, and nobody
could take them." It was the best guerrilla country in the
world, in his opinion, — all crags and laurel-bushes. There
was no attempt, he pointed out, to pursue him and his com-
rades in the mountains; the man-hunters invariably kept to
the roads. Their inability to travel directly made the fugi-
tives cover one hundred and twenty miles in going to Cham-
bersburg, only forty-five miles away as the bird flies, and they
were gravely handicapped by Meriam's weakness and ina-
bility to go more than a mile or so without resting.
When John Brown was lodged in the Charlestown jail,
he had every reason for thanksgiving that his life had been
spared. Not that he was under any illusion as to the precari-
ousness of his position ; he realized perfectly that the sands of
time had nearly run out for him, and that his captors were
certain to make every effort to take his life by due process
of law. He was quick to perceive, as were his friends in the
North, what rare good fortune it had been that Lieutenant
Green's blade was so ineffective, for, had John Brown fallen in
the engine house, the whole raid must needs have been a few
days' wonder and then have been forgotten. Deprived of their
leader, the fate of Stevens, Shields Green and Edwin Coppoc
could only have mildly interested the country. Unknown
marauders, they must have perished with but few voices of
sympathy raised in their behalf. Thanks to the chief's sur-
vival, and to the discovery of his friendship with prominent
Abolitionists and Republicans in high political positions, the
Harper's Ferry entente assumed at once national proportions.
The Democratic pro-slavery press of the North lost no time
in seizing upon the raid to discredit the " Black Republicans"
472 JOHN BROWN
of all degrees. In their columns, John Brown's deeds were, if
anything, magnified, in order to let the country understand
just how culpable were Senator Seward, Congressman Gid-
dings, Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith and many others. The
New York Herald was particularly violent in its attacks on
Smith and Seward; the latter was the "arch agitator who
is responsible for this insurrection," whom it wished to see
hanged in place of Brown.16 Him it characterized as one " ren-
dered daring, reckless and an abolition monomaniac by the
scenes of violence and blood through which he had passed."
"He has met," the Herald declared, "with the fate which he
courted ; but his death and the punishment of all his criminal
associates will be as a feather in the balance against the mis-
chievous consequences which will probably follow from the
rekindling of the slavery excitement in the South." n
The Republican press was at first inclined to discredit the
whole episode, or to dismiss it as the work of a madman. In
this the Tribune took the lead, saying on Tuesday that the
extraordinary happening in Harper's Ferry was attributed
to negroes and Abolitionists. " But, as negroes are not abun-
dant in that part of Virginia, while no Abolitionists were
ever known to peep in that quarter, we believe the nature of
the affair must be grossly misapprehended." The next day it
spoke of the raid thus : ' ' The whole affair seems the work of a
madman, but John Brown has so often looked death serenely
in the face that what seems madness to others doubtless wore
a different aspect to him." The Cleveland Leader sought to
minimize the whole affair in this wise: " But for the loss of life
attending the foray of the crazy Brown among the Virginians,
the whole thing would be positively ridiculous, and it is fast be-
coming so even with the frightened chivalry themselves. The
eccentric Governor Wise, as reported by telegraph, has so far
recovered from his fright under the backing of Virginia, Mary-
land and United States troops, that he has ventured to pitch
into the Harper's Ferry cowards in rather sharper than his
usual sarcastic style." 18 The Hartford Evening Press con-
sidered Brown a poor, demented old man; the calamity, it
believed, would never have occurred had there been no lawless
and criminal invasion of Kansas.19 To the St. Louis Evening
News the raid was the freak of madmen, ending in humiliating
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 473
discomfiture.20 To the Topeka, Kansas, Tribune the foray
seemed like "the wild scheme of a bad man who, seeking for
personal distinction (not fame) and, perhaps, plunder, was
ready to endanger the lives of thousands, perhaps even the
existence of the State; for, had he succeeded, had he dis-
tributed the arms he possessed in the armory, what hand,
what mind could have guided the wild mass his mind had
crazed and his hand had clothed with the instruments of
death?"21 The Atchison City, Kansas, Freedom's Champion
recognized that "this madman has met a tragic end at last.
An insane effort to accomplish what none but a madman
would attempt, has resulted as any one but a madman would
have foreseen, in death, to all who were engaged in it." 22
The politically independent Liberator, mouthpiece of the
most radical, but at the same time the non-resistant wing of
the Abolitionists, who were ever counselling the negroes not
to rise in revolt or to use force to right their wrongs, thus
commented on the first news from Harper's Ferry:
"The particulars of a misguided, wild, and apparently insane,
though disinterested and well intended effort by insurrection to
emancipate the slaves in Virginia, under the leadership of Capt. John,
alias 'Ottawatomie' Brown, may be found on our third page. Our
views of war and bloodshed, even in the best of causes, are too well
known to need repeating here; but let no one who glories in the
revolutionary struggle of 1776, deny the right of the slaves to imi-
tate the example of our fathers."23
In its next issue it described the comments of the lead-
ing Democratic and Republican newspapers as characterized
"by an equal mixture of ferocity and cowardice." Gradually,
however, the Republican press came to see in the affray just
retribution for the South's policy of violence in Kansas, and a
perfectly inevitable protest against the wickedness of slavery.
The opportunity to make a martyr of John Brown, to let him
typify the protest of increasing hundreds of thousands against
human bondage, they soon made use of to the fullest extent.
John Brown's own attitude, his nobility of spirit and readi-
ness for his sacrifice, were of enormous aid. The political
opportunity his martyrdom offered was not neglected. "Al-
ready the Black Republican press has commenced to apolo-
474 JOHN BROWN
gize for him," said the Portage, Ohio, Weekly Sentinel of Octo-
ber 26.
"They say that exasperated by wrongs done him in Kansas he
was driven to madness. They say he reasoned thus, ' that the slave
drivers tried to put down Freedom in Kansas by force of arms and
he would try to put down Slavery in Virginia by the same means.'
Thus is the 'irrepressible conflict' of Seward and Smith and Gid-
dings, and the Black Republican party, carried out practically by a
bold, bad, desperate man. Who is responsible for this? Not Brown,
for he is mad ; but they, who by their countenance and pecuniary
aid have induced him thus to resort to arms to carry out their
political schemes, must answer to the country and the world for this
fearfully significant outbreak."
The New York Abend-Zeitung declared that:
"Brown and his companions made themselves MARTYRS OF A
CAUSE IN ITSELF noble ; and, although the mode in which they sought
to advance it was not adapted to the end proposed, we still cannot
refuse our respect for the self-sacrificing zeal with which they of-
fered up their lives for it. WE HAVE NO REPROOF TO OFFER BROWN,
EXCEPT this, that the way in which he set to work hindered rather
than forwarded his plans."24
The South itself was compelled to admiration by Brown's
manly bearing under fire and in adversity, as had been Gov-
ernor Wise and the other eye-witnesses at Harper's Ferry.*
Its leaders had, heretofore, been on the offensive; theirs was
the successful war with Mexico; theirs the Fugitive Slave Law,
the attempt to conquer Kansas; theirs the control of the Fed-
eral Government, which they bent to their will. Here now was
the North deliberately invading their soil and assailing their
sacred institution, and though it filled them with horror and
anger, at least they had to admit that besides its daring, its
reckless folly, the raid did not lack a certain consistency. No
longer could they taunt the Abolition North with lacking the
courage of its opinions ; no longer could they say that the New
England lover of the negro was too fond of his skin to risk it
in the South. It was a cry of anxious rage that went up. Would
* Describing John Brown's appearance as he lay wounded before him, Gov-
ernor Wise once said that he likened his attitude to nothing but " a broken- winged
hawk lying upon his back, with fearless eye, and talons set for further fight if
need be." — John S. Wise, The End of an Era, p. 132.
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 475
the very news of the raid put the word " insurrection " into the
minds of the millions held in bondage from Harper's Ferry
to the Gulf? How many imitators of John Brown would
appear, to seek revenge for his failure? Then, as the South
discovered the North's readiness to lionize, even in some
quarters to deify Brown, its anger increased. To them he was
a fanatic who sought not only to steal cherished property, but
to establish anarchy, to reenact the Nat Turner horrors, to
make the terrible scenes of the Haytian negro revolt insignifi-
cant beside the atrocities he would set on foot.* That such
a man could be likened to the Saviour, and be considered a
direct instrument of the Almighty, was maddening far beyond
the actual outrage. The killing of Beckham and other unof-
fending citizens was surely murder, plain and simple. To ap-
plaud it, to describe it as an act especially pleasing to the
Deity, was to argue one's self morally defective, of a criminal
spirit, and so bitterly hostile to the injured and innocent
people of the South as to make more than one person come
to John Brown's views that the issue between the two sections
had passed beyond the possibility of peaceable settlement.
Mr. William Hand Browne has recently well characterized
the Southern attitude in the following passage:
"But the atrocious attempt of John Brown at Harper's Ferry
came like a fire bell in the night. The attempt itself might have
been considered merely the deed of a few fanatical desperadoes, but
for the universal uproar of enthusiastic approbation that burst out
at the North. Doubtless there were many who abhorred the idea of
midnight massacre; but their voices were drowned in what seemed
to be a universal chorus of applause, mingled with regrets that the
assassins had not succeeded in their purpose. The South could not
be blamed for supposing that the North had passed from the stage
of political antagonism to that of furious personal hate." 25 f
Said the Richmond Enquirer of October 25, 1859:
* "Nothing," declared the London Times of November 2, 1859, "but sickening
and bootless slaughter could come of it [the raid]. First the slaughter of white
families by their slaves, and then the bloody revenge of the exasperated masters."
It correctly observed, however, that "the state of society which causes such a
scheme to be formed and carried out is not the less threatening."
t "The conviction became common in the South that John Brown differed
from the majority of Northerners merely in the boldness and desperation of his
methods." — Frederic Bancroft, Life of William H. Seward, pp. 497-498.
476 JOHN BROWN
"The Harper's Ferry invasion has advanced the cause of Dis-
union more than any other event that has happened since the for-
mation of the Government; it has rallied to that standard men
who formerly looked upon it with horror; it has revived with tenfold
strength the desires of a Southern Confederacy. The, heretofore,
most determined friends of the Union may now be heard saying, 'if
under the form of a Confederacy, our peace is disturbed, our State
invaded, its peaceful citizens cruelly murdered, and all the horrors
of servile war forced upon us, by those who should be our warmest
friends; if the form of a Confederacy is observed, but the spirit vio-
lated, and the people of the North sustain the outrage, then let disunion
This same newspaper noted with satisfaction that what
it called the conservative, that is, the pro-slavery press of
the North, "evinces a determination to make the moral of
the Harper's Ferry invasion an effective weapon to rally all
men not fanatics against that party whose leaders have been
implicated directly with the midnight murder of Virginia
citizens and the destruction of government property." But
the attempt to use the acts of extreme Abolitionists to make
capital against them was an old political game. Southern
politicians had long been indulging in it, yet the cause of the
anti-slavery men had steadily progressed. In this case, too,
the John Brown raid, though it appeared at first a severe
injury to the Republicans, did them little harm. The Novem-
ber elections were favorable to the new party, even though
their vote fell off in certain places. Horace Greeley correctly
foresaw that the ultimate effect of the raid would be bene-
ficial. "It will drive the slave power to new outrages," he
wrote. "It presses on the 'irrepressible conflict,' and I think
the end of slavery in Virginia and the Union is ten years
nearer than it seemed a few weeks ago."26 Indeed, the raid
revealed to many besides John Brown that there was to be
a bloody conflict on a far greater scale; and no student of
this period can fail to be impressed by the prevision of com-
ing events given to hundreds, if not thousands, on both sides.
When the iron door of his cell had been slammed behind
John Brown, the State authorities discovered that a trial
speedy enough to satisfy the anger of Virginia was, by chance,
a possibility. The Grand Jury was in session, and the semi-
annual term of the Circuit Court, over which Judge Richard
477
Parker, of Winchester, presided, had begun. The Virginia
statutes then required that "when an indictment is found
against a person for felony, in a court wherein he may be
tried, the accused, if in custody, shall, unless good cause be
shown for a continuance, be arraigned and tried in the same
term." 27 Nothing, it was felt, could so quickly allay the ex-
citement among the whites and blacks alike as to send these
men to the gallows. If this law were not obeyed, and the
case were continued, there could be no trial until the follow-
ing April; during these six months the State would be in a
ferment and some militia would have to be under arms. There
arose, however, the question of jurisdiction. Should John
Brown be turned over to the United States? Some of his of-
fences had been committed on United States property, and
the Federal courts could, therefore, take cognizance of them.
Here was an opportunity to place the United States Govern-
ment in the position of prosecutor of these Abolitionists, of
which, it seems to-day, Governor Wise should have availed
himself for strategic reasons. To embroil the Federal Gov-
ernment might well have seemed most tempting to the slave-
power. But Governor Wise and his associates, exceedingly
shrewd politicians, finally decided otherwise. The Federal
courts, it must be remembered, were not then as important as
to-day ; the nearest Federal prison was at some distance, and
Wise had no desire to have it said that the State of Virginia
was forced to hide behind the skirts of the Federal Govern-
ment, and to obtain its help to punish those who violated
her soil and killed her citizens.28
None the less, Governor Wise vacillated for some time,
particularly when it came to trying Brown's companions.
Thus on November 7 he telegraphed to Andrew Hunter:
"You had better try Cooke and turn Stephens [Stevens] over
to the United States Court. Do that definitely." 29 His and
Hunter's position at this time is explained by a letter of
Hunter's, dated five days earlier:
" I have seen your letter to Gov. Willard and am considering the
suggestion as to transferring one of the prisoners to the Federal
authorities. It strikes me very favorably but I have not yet con-
ferred with the Judge, and as neither of the murders, that is, as to
the death of the victims, except the Marine, occurred on the Govern-
478 JOHN BROWN
ment property, one must consider carefully how far the prisoner
transferred can be certainly convicted in the Federal Court, par-
ticularly Cooke, who is the only white prisoner we have left except
Stephens. Our State Court, of course, has no power to summon
Forbes from N. York . . . and this renders it the more important
to send one of the scoundrels to Uncle Sam, in order to get at the
greater villains implicated who are still out of our reach." M
On November 7, Hunter announced in court, amid a great
sensation, that Stevens would be given up to the United
States; that Virginia was now after "higher and wickeder
game." 31 Yet in December the hunt for the greater prey was
abandoned. When, on December 15, President Buchanan in-
quired by telegraph whether Stevens had been turned over to
the United States, Andrew Hunter replied: "Stephens has
not been delivered to the authorities of the United States.
Undetermined as yet whether he will be tried here." 32
On hearing of this query from the President, Governor
Wise, on December 18, exactly reversed his position of six
weeks earlier, in this message to Andrew Hunter:
"In reply to yours of the I5th I say definitively that Stephens
ought not to be handed over to the Federal authorities for trial.
... I hope you informed the President of the status of his case
before the court. I am convinced that there is a political design in
trying now to have him tried before the Federal courts. He will not
be delivered up with my consent." 33
We have no means of knowing what the political conspiracy
was which Governor Wise then thought he scented. 'But the
chief reason for the change of policy in regard to Stevens's
trial was the appointment, on December 14, of a committee
of investigation of the United States Senate, consisting of
three pro-slavery Senators and two from the North, headed
by Senator Mason, of Virginia. As this committee was avow-
edly appointed to strike at the "higher and wickeder" vil-
lains, the special reason for having one trial in a United States
court — the examining of the Northern friends and backers
of Brown, and of the Republican leaders — had disappeared.84
Hunter and Wise found it easy to show that Stevens had not
actually been turned over to the Federal authorities, though
his trial in November in Judge Parker's court had been in-
terrupted for that express purpose. Against this unjust and
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 479
hurtful vacillation with Stevens, his counsel argued and pro-
tested in vain.35 He was tried and sentenced to death in
Charlestown.
John Brown was put on trial for his life before Judge Rich-
ard Parker,36 in the court-house at Charlestown, on October
25, one week after his capture. That so brief an interval only
should have elapsed between crime and trial created an un-
favorable impression in the North. In the excitement of the
hour, high-minded men and women forgot that, through John
Brown's agency, Beckham, Turner, Boerley and Hayward
had been killed without warning; they complained that Vir-
ginia was mercilessly and inhumanly rushing him to the gal-
lows ; that his being done to death was a foregone conclusion ;
and finally that Virginia had gone mad with fright. Fear
there undoubtedly was at Charlestown and Richmond that
this was but the beginning of extensive hostilities between
North and South ; the letters which now began to pour in on
Governor Wise convinced him, as will be seen later, that there
was a widespread conspiracy, of which the raid was only a
part. To him it made no difference that John Brown's wounds
were not yet healed, for they were at worst superficial. But
that they were still unhealed, intensified the feeling of out-
rage in the North. That John Brown heard his arraignment,
lying on a cot at the bar, deeply stirred Northern newspaper-
readers, as did the fact that Stevens had to be carried into
court. Lydia Maria Child wrote to Governor Wise that she did
not know of a single person who would have approved of the
raid, if he had been apprised of John Brown's intention in ad-
vance. "But," she added, "I and thousands of others feel a
natural impulse of sympathy for the brave and suffering man.
. . . He needs a mother and sister to dress his wounds, and
speak soothingly to him. Will you allow me to perform that
mission of humanity?"37 To this Governor Wise responded
that he knew of no reason why she should not minister to
John Brown, for he would permit no woman to be insulted,
even if she came to minister to "one who whetted knives of
butchery for our mothers, sisters, daughters, and babes." 38*
* "Do not allow Mrs. Child to visit B. He does not wish it because the infu-
riated populace will have new suspicions aroused & great excitement and inju-
rious results are certain. He is comfortable. Has all his wants supplied kindly,
480 JOHN BROWN
The Lawrence, Kansas, Republican voiced the sentiments
of many Northerners in saying:
"We defy an instance to be shown in a civilized community where
a prisoner has been forced to trial for his life, when so disabled by
sickness or ghastly wounds as to be unable even to sit up during the
proceedings, and compelled to be carried to the judgment hall upon
a litter. . . . Such a proceeding shames the name of justice, and
only finds a congenial place amid the records of the bloody Inquisi-
tion."
It was no answer to this, the Republican thought, to say
that the Virginia public was too wrought up to admit of
delay. That there was intense popular excitement was the
best of reasons why delay should have been granted, that the
trial might proceed with due calm and deliberation. "And
what a comment upon the state of society engendered by
slavery is it that the peace and safety of a community of
twenty thousand population is endangered by the prisoned,
bolted and barred presence of a sick and wounded old man." 39
Even the New York Herald had to admit the obvious signs
of haste in dooming the prisoners. Horace Greeley, in the
Tribune, at first wrote on October 25 :
"As the Grand Jury of Jefferson County . . . is already in session,
the trial of Brown and his confederates may be expected to take
place at once, unless delay should be granted to prepare for trial, or a
change of venue to some less excited county should be asked for.
Neither of these is probable. The prisoners in fact have no defence,
and their case will probably be speedily disposed of. We trust the
whole proceeding may partake of the same spirit of decency, pro-
priety, and respect for the law, and the rights of the prisoners,
which characterizes the charge given by the presiding Judge to the
Grand Jury."
Later, however, the Tribune felt that the trial was unfair
because, among other reasons, Brown was not allowed the
time and opportunity to make a full and complete defence
and is not sick enough to be nursed. He don't want women there to unman his
heroic determination to maintain a firm and consistent composure. KEEP MRS.
CHILD away at all hazards. Brown and associates will certainly be lynched if she
goes there. This ought to be shown to Mr. Andrew and others, but no public
exhibition." — Thus wrote George H. Hoyt, John Brown's lawyer, to J. W. Le
Barnes. (Original in the Kansas Historical Society Collections.) Mrs. Child did
not go to Virginia.
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 481
to the multifarious charges brought against him.40 The Bos-
ton Transcript went so far as to say : ' ' Whatever may be his
guilt or folly, a man convicted under such circumstances, and,
especially, a man executed after such a trial, will be the most
terrible fruit that slavery has ever borne, and will excite
the execration of the whole civilized world."41 To an ob-
server of the protracted criminal trials in this country to-day,
it seems odd that any one should have objected to a prompt
trial for Brown. But public sentiment was far too aroused on
both sides to permit of calm judgments. The spectacle of the
gray-haired prisoner sentenced while lying on his couch, when
combined with the belief that the trial was an unfair one by
reason of haste, made John Brown a martyr in the eyes of the
North.
Tactically, from the point of view of slavery, it would seem
that Governor Wise erred in not suggesting a delay, unless
it be believed that he, who had bombastically threatened
secession in 1854 in the event of the election of an Aboli-
tionist President,42 was as anxious to see John Brown's acts
embroil the States as he was ready to utilize Brown's impris-
onment as an excuse for training the militia of Virginia for
the impending conflict. In 1888, nearly thirty years after the
raid, when the heat of the hour had long since passed away,
Judge Parker reviewed the trial of his most distinguished
criminal in these words:
" Frequent misrepresentations have been made respecting it. For
example, it has been said that the trial was indecently conducted,
and so hurried through as virtually to deny to the accused an op-
portunity to make his defense. I submit, with all deference, that
censures of this character can only have proceeded from ignorance
of what really transpired on that occasion. It is my principle — I
may say my only purpose in this paper, to show how groundless
were all such charges, and to set forth, in a plain narrative, the spirit
and temper in which the trial was conducted; that there was no
denial to the accused of any presumption, benefit or right to which
he was entitled ; that no bias against him was exhibited by the jury
or the Court; that he was defended by learned and zealous counsel,
who, without let or interruption, were granted all the time they were
pleased to consume in the examination of witnesses, in discussing
the various questions of law and fact, which arose during the trial,
in excepting to every opinion of the Court wherein they supposed
there might be an error, and in arguing before the Jury every matter
482 JOHN BROWN
which they deemed important or beneficial to the defense; in a
word, to show that John Brown had a fair and impartial trial, just
such as should be granted to all persons so unfortunate as to be
accused of crime." 43
Judge Parker's own bearing throughout the trial, and his
eminently judicial spirit, have never been questioned. He
was bravely ready at all times to take his stand without
regard to the violent feelings of his neighbors, and his word
as to the trial is, as a whole, to be accepted. It is to be regret-
ted, however, that he did not give the additional time to
Brown's counsel for which the prisoner pleaded ; had he done
so, it must have mitigated many of the Northern criticisms
of the procedure.
These were not all from irresponsible sources. So good a
lawyer, so just and public-spirited a man as John A. Andrew,
for instance, felt indignant at what seemed to him the undue
haste of the trial. He testified before the Senate inquiry into
the raid that,
"such speed and hurried action ... as to render it probable
that there was to be no sufficient opportunity to make a full and
complete defense . . . struck my mind, and the minds of various
other gentlemen whom I met with . . . as being a judicial outrage.
... It was wholly unlike anything I had ever known or heard
in my practice as a lawyer. When some persons had been indicted
for kidnapping, in Massachusetts, last September, the court gave
Gen. Gushing, their counsel, two or three months after their arraign-
ment before he was required even to file a plea."44
But Mr. Andrew was probably ignorant of the Virginia stat-
ute governing the case, already quoted. After this lapse of
time it is plain that the authorities had ample justification
in this statute, and in the popular excitement, in expediting
the trial ; that the outcome of a deferred trial would have been
the same is also obvious. It certainly cannot be successfully
maintained that substantial injustice was done to John
Brown by the celerity of his conviction. When all was said
and done, and the trial finished, John Brown expressed his
opinion in the following words: "I feel entirely satisfied with
the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all
the circumstances, it has been more generous than I ex-
pected." 45 It remains to add the testimony of Daniel W. Voor-
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 483
hees, the great Indiana lawyer and orator, who later became
United States Senator from that State. Mr. Voorhees was
present at John Brown's trial, having been summoned by
Governor Willard, Cook's brother-in-law, to defend his rela-
tive. Of the court procedure he had, in later years, this to
say:
" If justly represented by the pen of the historian, it will pass into
history as the most temperate and conservative judicial tribunal
convened, when all the surrounding circumstances are considered.
With perfect calmness, forbearing patience and undisturbed ad-
herence to the law, as known and decided throughout generations,
that court arises upon my mind with increased and increasing
claims to the respect and veneration of the American people and
of the world. Nothing was yielded to outside excitement or popu-
lar frenzy." "6
The question of counsel for John Brown early presented
itself. There being no Northern lawyers on hand, in accord-
ance with universal custom, Charles B. Harding, attorney
for the State, asked at the first examination that the Magis-
trates' court assign counsel for the prisoners.47 Charles J.
Faulkner and Lawson Botts were designated. Mr. Faulkner
asked to be relieved, because he resented the criticisms by
the prisoner of his and Mr. Botts's appointment. Having
helped to end the raid by force, he had, moreover, freely ex-
pressed his opinion of the raiders and their deserts, besides
which, he had important professional engagements elsewhere.
Mr. Faulkner's serving through the preliminary examination
was insisted on; after that he withdrew, to bear public wit-
ness in the next month that he had never in the course of his
professional career "witnessed an examination which was
entered upon and conducted with more deliberation and de-
corum and with a more sacred regard to all the requirements,
which the humane system of our criminal laws throws around
the life and liberty of the accused, than was extended to those
wicked disturbers of our peace."48
Mr. Botts felt it his duty to carry on the case, and Thomas
C. Green, mayor of Charlestown, was appointed by the court
to take Mr. Faulkner's place. Both of these counsel were
able lawyers of standing, Mr. Botts being thirty-six years old
and Mr. Green in his thirty-ninth year. The latter was after-
484 JOHN BROWN
wards for fourteen years a distinguished judge of the West
Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, while Mr. Botts gave his
life for the Confederacy at the second Bull Run. There can be
no doubt that in Messrs. Green and Botts,49 John Brown had
assigned to him far abler counsel than would have been given
to the ordinary malefactor.
His friends in the North had not forgotten him, however.
On the day the news of the raid was received, John W. Le
Barnes, of Boston, engaged, at his own expense, a young law-
yer of Athol, Massachusetts, George H. Hoyt, and asked him
to go to Harper's Ferry ostensibly as counsel to John Brown,
but really as a spy, to see if it would be possible to rescue the
prisoners. Mr. Hoyt's instructions were,
"first, to watch and be able to report proceedings, to see and talk
with Brown, and be able to communicate with his friends anything
Brown might want to say; and second, to send me [Le Barnes] an
accurate and detailed account of the military situation at Charles-
town, the number and distribution of troops, the location and
defences of the jail, and nature of the approaches to the town
and jail, the opportunities for a sudden attack, and the means of
retreat, with the location and situation of the room in which Brown
is confined, and all other particulars that might enable friends to
consult as to some plan of attempt at rescue."
Le Barnes chose Hoyt because, although twenty-one years
of age, he looked not over nineteen, and was physically of
fragile appearance. His very youth and evident lack of worldly
experience would, Le Barnes thought, make it impossible
for any one to suspect him of ulterior motives, if he appeared
at Charlestown. Dr. Samuel G. Howe, when consulted by
both men, doubted the wisdom of the scheme; but Le Barnes
persisting and giving him seventy-five dollars, Hoyt set
forth,50 little dreaming that upon his frail shoulders would
shortly rest the burden of the whole defence of John Brown.
His inexperience told against him in Charlestown. He had
not been there an hour before his very youth had aroused
the suspicions of Andrew Hunter, the special prosecutor of
the State of Virginia. Knowing full well that Massachusetts
had no need to rely on callow striplings when skilled legal
talent was in order, he shrewdly inferred that something else
was in the wind, and, but for Judge Parker's magnanimity,
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 485
would have excluded Hoyt from participation in Brown's
trial as incompetent to practise in the courts of Virginia. "A
beardless boy came in last night as Brown's counsel," re-
ported Hunter to Governor Wise on October 28. " I think he
is a spy. There are divers other strangers here. . . . They
are watched closely." 51 But the watch set upon the "beard-
less boy" was not close enough to prevent his communicating
freely with the client to whom he had so unexpectedly at-
tached himself, and he wasted no time in acquainting Brown
with the real purpose of his unannounced arrival.52
Brown's legal advisers were called upon to joust with two
prosecutors for the State. One of these was the regular com-
monwealth's attorney, Charles Harding, whose notorious
dissipation made it impossible for the State really to entrust
to him the prosecution of so important a case. Usually in-
toxicated, he knew but little of what was going on behind
the scenes, Governor Wise giving his directions for the con-
duct of affairs to Andrew Hunter, and completely ignoring
the commonwealth's attorney. To Hunter, Harding was a
"pestiferous little prosecutor,"53 whom he longed to have
out of the way. "When Harding began to speak, if you shut
your eyes and listened, for the first few minutes you would
think Patrick Henry had returned to earth; after that he
dwindled away into ineptitudes," — is the recollection of one
who knew him well.54 During the trial he frequently fell
asleep as the result of his libations. Of a different type was
Andrew Hunter, a man of distinguished bearing, a vigor-
ous Southern personality, handsome face and undoubted
ability. Deeply impressed with the importance of the trial,
he prosecuted John Brown with marked aggressiveness, yield-
ing no point and fighting every moment, often with some
bombast, but without, said Mr. Voorhees, "a single tone of
malevolence or exasperation." 55 Mr. Hunter sincerely felt
that, in view of the public temper, no time was to be lost;
he wanted Brown condemned and executed within ten
days. "The Judge," Mr. Hunter wrote to Governor Wise,
"is for observing all the judicial decencies; so am I, but at
double quick time. . . . Stephens will hardly be fit for trial.
He will probably die of his wounds if we don't hang him
promptly." 56
486 JOHN BROWN
With Charlestown all agog and crowded with newspaper-
men, militia and. armed citizens, John Brown and his four
fellow prisoners, Coppoc, Stevens, Copeland and Green,
took, on October 25, the first of their short pilgrimages from
the jail to the court-house diagonally opposite, which they
were to make historic. Its venerable air, the distinctively
Southern character of its architecture, made it then, as now,
an impressive structure. A gaping mob watched in silence
as, between two lines of militia, the Yankee prisoners took
their way. For John Brown and Stevens, though carried
later, on this occasion walked the brief distance, the former
with head erect and defiant bearing. "His confinement has
not at all tamed the daring of his spirit; his height, as he
stood erect, appeared to be full six feet ; his figure rather slen-
der and wiry," — so telegraphed the Herald correspondent.57
Brown's eyes were swollen; the marks of bruises and contu-
sions were plain enough. Stevens's terrible wounds were so
evident, and his inability to walk unsupported so pitiful,
that, anxious as the crowd was for these men's blood, there
was not a hostile demonstration as they entered the crowded,
down-at-the-heel court-room, reeking with tobacco smoke
and looking as if it were familiar with every kind of being
save the scrub-woman. John Brown, manacled to Coppoc,
found no trace of pity in the faces of the crowd he beheld,
nor in those of the eight magistrates forming the court of
examination to which the prisoners were now presented by
the sheriff.
"Sundry witnesses," so read the minutes, "were examined,
and the Court being unanimously of opinion that the Prisoners
are Guilty of the offence with which they stand charged, it
is ordered and considered by the Court that they be sent on
to the Circuit Court of this County for trial according to
Law."68 Behind this brief record lies one of the dramatic
incidents of the trial, for when the court, before assigning
to the prisoners Messrs. Faulkner and Botts, asked whether
they had counsel, John Brown of Osawatomie rose feebly from
his seat and, with his usual vigor of utterance, his undaunted
courage and indomitable spirit, thus addressed, not the court
but his countrymen, amid the most profound silence and at-
tention of all who heard :
O e
U
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 487
"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 favor, if a fair trial is to be allowed us: but if we are
to be forced with a mere form — 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."58
When asked if he would accept Messrs. Faulkner and Botts
as counsel, he replied: "I wish for counsel if I am to have
a trial, but if I am to have nothing but the mockery of a
trial, as I said, I do not care anything about counsel — it is
unnecessary to trouble any gentleman with that duty." 60 He
declined to say whether he would or would not accept the
counsel offered, but Stevens chose them, and they were duly
assigned, in the face of John Brown's assertion that he had
sent for some persons in the North whose names he could not
then recall. He was but little interested when the witnesses,
Colonel Washington and seven others, testified to their know-
ledge of the raid. Still less was he moved when the presiding
justice, Colonel Braxton Davenport, announced the decision
of the court. His bearing was as impressive as before when,
again manacled, he and his fellow prisoners left the dingy
court-room with its five or six hundred spectators, and took
their way back to the jail. That same afternoon their com-
rade Cook was arrested in Pennsylvania, thanks to the re-
ward offered by Virginia.61
The next move in the judicial machinery was the process
of indictment. At two o'clock the examining magistrates
reported their conclusions. Judge Parker at once charged the
488 JOHN BROWN
Grand Jury ably and dispassionately, and having heard from
excellent authority of a deliberate plot to lynch the prison-
ers, he added to his charge a warning against any such con-
duct, which, he declared, would be disgraceful to the State
and nothing else than murder, for which its perpetrators might
themselves incur the extreme penalty of the law. Thereafter
no talk of lynching was heard, and Judge Parker was de-
servedly congratulated far and wide for his high-minded and
courageous stand. The Grand Jury then retired with the
State's witnesses. Before it were rehearsed anew their oft-
told stories, and adjournment time came before they were fin-
ished. At noon on the next day, Wednesday, the Grand Jury
reported its true bill against each of the prisoners on three
counts — treason to the commonwealth, conspiring with slaves
to commit treason, and murder; they being "evil-minded and
traitorous persons," "not having the fear of God before
their eyes, but being moved and seduced by the false and ma-
lignant counsel of other evil and traitorous persons and the
instigations of the devil,"62 — so runs the indictment.
Those instigated by the Evil One were soon brought into
court, — Stevens on a mattress, making, because of his dif-
ficulty in breathing, the impression of a dying man. Captain
Avis, the jailer, when ordered to bring Brown into court,
found him in bed and unwilling to arise. " He was accordingly
carried into the court-room on a cot," wrote the Tribune
correspondent. "The prisoner lay most of the time with his
eyes closed, and the counterpane drawn close up to his chin.
He is evidently not much injured, but is determined to resist
the pushing of his trial, by all the means in his power."63 It
was at this time that John Brown arose and made an unavail-
ing plea for delay to Judge Parker:
" I do not intend to detain the court, but barely wish to say, as I
have been promised a fair trial, that I am not now in circumstances
that enable me to attend a trial, owing to the state of my health. I
have a severe wound in the back, or rather in one kidney, which
enfeebles me very much. But I am doing well, and I only ask for a
very short delay of my trial, and I think I may be able to listen to it ;
and I merely ask this that, as the saying is 4 the devil may have his
dues,' no more. I wish to say further that my hearing is impaired
and rendered indistinct in consequence of wounds I have about my
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 489
head. I cannot hear distinctly at all ; I could not hear what the Court
has said this morning. I would be glad to hear what is said on my
trial, and am now doing better than I could expect to be under the
circumstances. A very short delay would be all I would ask. I do
not presume to ask more than a very short delay, so that I may
in some degree recover, and be able at least to listen to my trial,
and hear what questions are asked of the citizens, and what their
answers are. If that could be allowed me, I should be very much
obliged." 64
Judge Parker, dignified and firm, with a singularly stern
countenance in marked contrast to his mild and quiet manner,
insisted on the arraignment being read before passing upon
John Brown's appeal. Both the wounded prisoners were com-
pelled to stand during this solemn performance, Stevens being
held up by two bailiffs. Thereupon, both Mr. Hunter and Mr.
Harding having opposed the motion for delay, and the jail
physician, a Dr. Mason, having testified that John Brown's
wounds had affected neither his hearing nor his mind, nor seri-
ously disabled him, the judge refused to postpone his trial.
As each of the prisoners had pleaded not guilty and elected
to be tried separately, the State had chosen to try the Com-
mander-in-Chief of the defeated Provisional Army first, and
the rest of the afternoon was given to choosing the jury.
Twenty-four men duly qualified to act as jurors were then
selected from a large panel, after being asked the usual ques-
tion whether they had formed any opinion about the guilt
of the prisoners which would disqualify them from giving
the offenders a fair trial. Of these twenty-four, John Brown,
through his counsel, exercised his right to challenge peremp-
torily eight; from the remaining sixteen the final twelve were
then chosen by lot, and the court adjourned until the next day,
after solemnly adjuring the twelve to discuss the case with no
one.65 It is, of course, impossible to believe that the twelve
men chosen had not formed any opinion about the case. There
were no men in Jefferson County who had not prejudged
Brown, and if ever a motion for a change of venue to another
county was in order, it was in this case. But his Southern
counsel did not attempt it.
On Thursday, when court opened, Mr. Botts surprised
prisoner and prosecution alike by reading a telegram from
Akron, Ohio, alleging insanity in John Brown's family. Of the
490 JOHN BROWN
plea of insanity which this suggested, John Brown promptly
declined to avail himself, as will appear later. But, his coun-
sel having again urged delay, the vigilant prosecutors again
opposed, and the judge once more decided that he could see
no proper cause for postponement. The indictment being
read, the attorneys for the State and Mr. Botts made their
opening addresses. It was due to the prisoner, said his chival-
rous counsel, to state that he believed himself to be actuated
by the highest and noblest feelings that ever coursed through
a human breast, and that his instructions were to destroy
neither life nor property. Mr. Hunter confined himself to a
definition of treason, told of a previous murder in the arsenal
grounds for which the murderer was tried and executed, not by
the United States but by Virginia, and wound up by begging
for a fair and impartial consideration of the case, "without
fear or favor. ... I ask only that the penalty be visited on the
prisoner which the law denounces, which reason denounces,
which our safety requires, and which the laws of God and man
approve." 66 Thereupon began the examination of witnesses.
It was the next morning, Friday, that the "beardless boy"
from Boston walked into the court-room and asked to be made
an additional counsel for Brown. The astonishment was pro-
found ; it increased when Hoy t expressed the wish not to take
part in the case at present, and when he was unable to prove
that he was actually a member of the Massachusetts Bar, as
the suspicious Mr. Hunter asked him to demonstrate. But the
just judge was not inclined to quibble. Visiting lawyers from
the North were already, as the Tribune reported, eulogizing
his method of presiding, and were "profuse in praises of his
candor and integrity." 67 It was enough for the judge that
Mr. Green remembered that his partner had seen letters
speaking of Hoyt as a full-fledged attorney. Thereupon the
oath was administered 68 and the examination of witnesses
continued. By this time the prisoner was taking more interest
in his defence. He had drawn up the following suggestions for
his counsel :
"We gave to numerous prisoners perfect liberty.
" Get all their names.
" We allowed numerous other prisoners to visit their families, to
quiet their fears.
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 491
" Get all their names.
"We allowed the conductor to pass his train over the bridge with
all his passengers, I myself crossing the bridge with him, and as-
suring all the passengers of their perfect safety.
" Get that conductor's name, and the names of the passengers, so far
as may be.
"We treated all our prisoners with the utmost kindness and hu-
manity.
"Get all their names, so far as may be.
"Our orders, from the first and throughout, were, that no un-
armed person should be injured, under any circumstances whatever.
''Prove that by ALL the prisoners.
"We committed no destruction or waste of property.
" Prove that."6*
The prosecution having rested on Friday afternoon, the
defence began. Messrs. Botts and Green followed John
Brown's suggestion, and essayed to prove, apparently with a
view to mitigating the offence charged, the kindness with
which Brown treated his prisoners. This drew from Andrew
Hunter the caustic and truthful comment that testimony to
Brown's forbearance in not shooting other citizens had no
more to do with the case than had the dead languages.
Only on one occasion during the trial did John Brown show
emotion. He "cried out " for details, so read the reports, when
Harry Hunter narrated the revolting story of William Thomp-
son's slaughter on the Harper's Ferry bridge. It became
Andrew Hunter's painful duty to listen to his son's open and
unabashed tale of how he and George W. Chambers shot down
Thompson, when the latter was unarmed and pleading for his
life. It is to the father's credit that he bade his son conceal
nothing ; but it is doubtful if any father ever listened to a more
cold-blooded recital of deliberate killing by his offspring. Yet
the audience listened apparently unmoved, while John Brown
groaned. Shortly afterward, when the names of several wit-
nesses were called with no response, John Brown excitedly
rose to his feet and spoke thus to the keen-eyed judge on the
dais above him :
"May it please the Court: — I discover that notwithstanding all
the assurances I have received of a fair trial, nothing like a fair
trial is to be given me, as it would seem. I gave the names, as soon
as I could get them, of the persons I wished to have called as wit-
nesses, and was assured that they would be subpoenaed. I wrote
492 JOHN BROWN
down a memorandum to that effect, saying where those parties
were ; but it appears that they have not been subpoenaed as far as
I can learn ; and now I ask, if I am to have anything at all deserving
the name and shadow of a fair trial, that this proceeding be deferred
until tomorrow morning; for I have no counsel, as I before stated,
in whom I feel that I can rely, but I am in hopes counsel may arrive
who will attend to seeing that I get the witnesses who are neces-
sary for my defence. I am myself unable to attend to it. I have
given all the attention I possibly could to it, but am unable to see or
know about them, and can't even find out their names; and I have
nobody to do any errands, for my money was all taken when I was
sacked and stabbed, and I have not a dime. I had two hundred and
fifty or sixty dollars in gold and silver taken from my pocket, and
now I have no possible means of getting anybody to go my errands
for me, and I have not had all the witnesses subpoenaed. They
are not within reach, and are not here. I ask at least until tomorrow
morning to have something done, if anything is designed; if not, I
am ready for anything that may come up."70
"When, upon finding that his witnesses were absent,"
reported the Herald's correspondent,
"Brown rose and denounced his counsel, declaring he had no con-
fidence in them, the indignation of the citizens scarcely knew bounds.
He was stigmatized as an ungrateful villain, and some declared he
deserved hanging for that act alone. His counsel, Messrs. Botts
and Green, had certainly performed the ungrateful task imposed
upon them by the Court in an able, faithful and conscientious man-
ner; and only the evening before Brown had told Mr. Botts that
he was doing for him even more than he had promised."71
No sooner had Brown finished this speech than Mr. Hoyt
sprang to his feet, adding greatly to the stir in the court-room,
and asking that the case be postponed, because Judge Tilden
from Ohio was coming and due that night to aid in the defence.
He, himself, was unable to go on alone with Brown's case, for he
had but just come from Boston, travelling night and day, had
had no time to read the indictment, and was wholly ignorant
of the criminal code of Virginia. After asserting that they had
done everything possible for their client, Mr. Botts and Mr.
Green announced that they could no longer act in behalf of the
prisoner, since he had declared that he had no confidence in
them. Judge Parker at once replied that he would not compel
them to stay in the case, and that he therefore granted Mr.
Hoyt's request and adjourned the trial until the next morning
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 493
at ten. Thus, to his utter amazement and inward consterna-
tion, the " beardless boy," the spy sent to survey the ground,
found himself charged with the sole responsibility for the
conduct of a case of which he knew little or nothing, under
a code and procedure with which he was entirely unfamiliar,
and this in a trial which the hostile New York Herald had
four days before characterized as the most notable in the last
half-century "in point of national importance." The trial of
Aaron Burr had excited less intense feeling; the Herald even
felt that the life and death of the whole Republic was involved.
The situation in which the inexperienced Mr. Hoyt now found
himself might have tried the soul of a veteran and skilled prac-
titioner; it undoubtedly blanched his beardless cheeks. But
it is to his everlasting credit that he bent manfully to his task.
Mr. Botts put his notes, his office and his services at Hoyt's
command, and sat up with him the greater part of the night.72
When Judge Parker took his seat on the bench the next morn-
ing, there was reinforcement for Brown's inexperienced coun-
sel, — not Judge Tilden, as had been expected, but Samuel
Chilton, of Washington, and Hiram Griswold, of Cleveland.
Mr. Chilton's arrival was due to John A. Andrew, of Boston,
who first asked Judge Montgomery Blair, of Washington, to
act as Brown's defender, guaranteeing him adequate compen-
sation. Judge Blair being unwilling to appear, Mr. Andrew
agreed to his substitution of Mr. Chilton.73 John Brown him-
self had written to Judge Daniel R. Tilden, of Cleveland, and
Judge Thomas Russell, of Boston, asking them to become his
legal advisers. Judge Russell came in person, but not until the
day of sentence; Judge Tilden sent Mr. Griswold in his place.
To Tilden and Russell, John Brown wrote that, without such
counsel, "neither the facts in our case can come before the
world ; nor can we have the benefit of such facts (as might be
considered mitigating in the view of others) upon our trial.
. . . Do not send an ultra Abolitionist." 74
Both Chilton and Griswold asked for a delay of a few hours,
in order that they might be better equipped for their tasks,
but the inexorable judge ordered the trial to proceed. The pris-
oner had had able counsel and ample defence; he had chosen
to make a change, for which the responsibility was on his own
shoulders. If this were the only case before the court, he
494 JOHN BROWN
would at once grant the request; but the nearness of the end
of the term, and the other cases to be disposed of, necessitated
prompt action, in justice to the prisoners and to the State. Mr.
Hoyt then resumed the defence along the same lines as Messrs.
Botts and Green, hoping to prove through those witnesses
who had been prisoners in the engine house the absence of
any malicious intent. John Brown himself now took a hand in
examining the witnesses from his cot, without objection from
any one to this unusual procedure.
In the afternoon session, a new policy was adopted, Mr.
Chilton submitting a motion that the prosecution be com-
pelled to elect one count of the indictment and abandon the
others. His argument, supported by a couple of hastily
gathered citations, was that different descriptions of treason
could not be united in the same indictment, as was the case
there. That it was a grave hardship upon the prisoner to
defend himself at one and the same time against three such
distinct charges as murder, treason and inciting slaves to
rebel, Mr. Chilton also pointed out. The judge, after hearing
spirited replies from Hunter and Harding, ruled that, as the
trial had been begun under the indictment, it must continue;
that the only remedy now was to move an arrest of judg-
ment at its conclusion. "The very fact that the offence can
be charged in different counts, varying the language and cir-
cumstances, is based upon the idea that distinct offences
may be charged in the same indictment," ruled Judge Parker.
"The prisoners are to be tried on the various counts as if they
were various transactions. There is no legal objection against
charging various crimes in the same indictment. The practice
has been to put a party upon election where the prisoner would
be embarrassed in his defence; but that is not the law." * In
this contention Judge Parker was later upheld by the full
bench of the Virginia Court of Appeals.78
* The decision of Judge Parker is in accord with the law of New York State
to-day, which holds that where the same acts constitute different crimes, they
may be set out in the indictment in different counts. Thus an indictment may
unite burglary in the third degree, petit larceny and receiving stolen property.
See People vs. Stock, 21 Misc. 147; People vs. Wilson, 151 N. Y. 403. In People
vs. Austin, I Park Criminal Reports, 154, it was held that "the right of election is
confined to cases where the indictment contains charges which are actually dis-
tinct and grew out of different transactions."
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 495
This argument was the crucial point in the trial of John
Brown. The court now pressed the lawyers to argue the case
at once. John Brown's counsel protested, Hoyt because he
had worked the previous night until he fell unconscious from
exhaustion, and had had but ten hours sleep in the last five
days and nights. Mr. Hunter battled, of course, against any
delay, and the court, taking a position which would seem
strange indeed in a modern murder trial, — that the jurors,
having been in the box three days, were entitled to early
release, — ordered the prosecution to begin their summing up.
Mr. Harding did so by dwelling on the absurdity of John
Brown's claim that he should have been treated according
to the rules of warfare, when he was merely in command of
a band of murderers and thieves. The court then adjourned
over Sunday, to Andrew Hunter's vexation, for he had insisted
that the trial be concluded that night. At the time and later,
Hunter accused John Brown — the "crafty old fiend," he
called him — of feigning illness on this day to gain time.76
When the court had reassembled on Saturday afternoon, word
came from the jail, according to Hunter,
" that Brown was too sick to appear that evening. I suspected the
ruse, and at once suggested to the court to have the jail physician
summoned to examine whether he was too sick and to report. This
was done, and the physician, who was Dr. Mason, promptly re-
ported that he was not too sick and that he was feigning. On my
motion the court directed him to be brought into court on a cot.
. . . The trial went on to a certain extent, but every effort was
made to protract it. I resisted it, but at last, late in the evening,
the Judge called me up and said he thought we had better agree,
to avoid all further cavil at our proceedings, to let the case be ad-
journed over until Monday, which was done. Brown did not require
to be carried back to jail that evening; he walked back. After the
adjournment was procured, he was well enough to walk." 77
On Sunday, Hoyt reported to his employer, Le Barnes,
that Mr. Chilton and Mr. Griswold had been closeted with
John Brown for three or four hours, that,
"Brown is well pleased with what has transpired; is perfectly sat-
isfied, and more than all the rest, seems to be inspired with a truly
noble Resignation." "I confess," Hoyt continues, "I did not know
which most to admire, the thorough honor and admirable qualities
of the brave old border soldier, or the uncontaminated simplicity
496 JOHN BROWN
of the man. My friend John Brown is an astonishing character.
The people about here, while determined to have him die for his
alleged offences, generally concede and applaud the conscientious-
ness, the honor, and the supreme bravery of the man." 78
On Monday, Mr. Griswold and Mr. Chilton argued at
length and as ably as it was possible under the circumstances,
and at half-past one Mr. Hunter concluded the case by saying
to the jury, "Administer it [justice] according to your law
— acquit the prisoner if you can; but if justice requires you
by your verdict to take his life, stand by that column [of
justice] uprightly, but strongly, and let retributive justice, if
he is guilty, send him before that Maker who will settle the
question forever and ever."
Three-quarters of an hour later, the jury filed back into
court to answer the question whether the prisoner at the bar
was guilty or not guilty. Of all the men in that stifling court-
room, — and the crowd not only filled every inch of space
around the prisoner, but jammed the wide entrance-hall and
even stood on the entrance-steps in the hope of catching a
word from within, — the least moved was John Brown, as in-
domitable and iron-willed as ever in his life. When, in reply
to the clerk of the court, the foreman answered " Aye " to the
question whether John Brown was guilty of treason, and con-
spiring and advising with slaves and others to rebel, and mur-
der in the first degree, that leader of men said not a word.
Turning, he readjusted the covers of his pallet and stretched
himself upon it as if he had no interest in the proceedings.
Indeed, if he had expressed any interest, it would doubtless
have been jubilation. For by then John Brown had dreamed
his dream and seen his vision. There had come to him, as by
a revelation, the knowledge that through the portals of death
alone lay the way to the success denied in life. His eagle eye
had pierced the veil of the future; it was as if it had been
given to him to see tramping over the hills of Virginia those
blue-coated hosts to whom, two years later, John Brown was
neither lunatic, nor fanatic, nor murderer. He had become,
in his own words, "fully persuaded that I am worth incon-
ceivably more to hang than for any other purpose," 79 and the
longer he lay in his prison cell and wore his chains, the more
ready was he for the sacrifice and the atonement. His only
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 497
fear had been that all the effect of his work would be undone
by a pronunciamento that he was insane.
It is to the credit of the Charlestown crowd and of Virginia
that not a single sound of elation or of triumph assailed the
dignity of the court, when the jury sealed Brown's doom. In
solemn silence the crowd heard Mr. Chilton make his formal
motion for an arrest of judgment because of errors in the in-
dictment and in the verdict, and it filed out equally silent
when Judge Parker, owing to the exhaustion of the counsel
on both sides, ordered the motion to stand over until the next
day. The judge lost, however, not a moment in beginning
the trial of Edwin Coppoc, for a jury was sworn that after-
noon.
On November I the argument on the motion was heard,
John Brown again lying on his cot, though now fully able to
walk. Judge Parker reserved his decision, but only for twenty-
four hours. For on November 2 came the final act in the
court-room. Judge Parker afterward wrote:
" I went into court at the usual early hour with an opinion I had
prepared the preceding night, in which I had at length stated the rea-
sons for over-ruling the objections which Brown's counsel had made
to judgment being rendered, intending to pronounce it so soon as
the court was opened; but a jury for the trial of Coppoc . . . were
in their seats, and as the same objections, or some of them, might
be made in this case as had been presented in that of Brown, I re-
frained from reading the opinion. I did this because by the Vir-
ginia practice a jury in a criminal case were held to be judges of
the law as well as triers of facts, and I would do nothing to prejudice
this their right. For this reason I did not overrule Brown's motion
in arrest until late on the day, after a verdict was rendered in the
case of Coppoc."'
Again there was a thrill in the crowded court-room, when
the clerk asked John Brown whether he had anything to say
why sentence should not be pronounced upon him. And well
the crowd might be stirred, for what it was now to hear from
the lips of the man for whose life it thirsted must forever
remain on the list of great American speeches,81 an utter-
ance worthy not merely of the man who voiced it, but of
the mighty cause of human freedom for which he struck so
powerful a blow. Drawing himself up to his full stature, with
flashing eagle eyes and calm, clear and distinct tones, John
498 JOHN BROWN
Brown again addressed, not the men who surrounded him, but
the whole body of his countrymen, North, South, East and
West:*
" 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 cer-
tainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last win-
ter, when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the
snapping of a gun on either side,t moving them through the coun-
try, and finally leaving 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 pro-
perty, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insur-
rection.
"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 candor 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 so-called 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 would have been all right. 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 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 them. I endeavored to act up to that instruc-
tion. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any re-
specter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done,
as I have always freely admitted I have done, in behalf of His de-
spised poor, I did no wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed neces-
sary 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
* An eye-witness, Judge Thomas Russell, wrote in the Boston Traveller, No-
vember 5, 1859, that John Brown "delivered the remarkable speech which you
have just read, speaking with perfect calmness of voice and mildness of manner,
winning the respect of all for his courage and firmness. His self-possession was
wonderful, because his sentence, at this time, was unexpected, and his remarks
were entirely unprepared."
t This statement is hard to understand in view of Stevens's killing of Cruise.
Brown may have intended to speak here only of that party of raiders that he
himself commanded.
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 499
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 circum-
stances, 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
incite 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, also, in regard to the statements made by some of
those who were connected with me, I hear it has been stated by
some of them that I have induced them to join me. But the con-
trary is true. I do not say this to injure them, but as regretting
their weakness. Not 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."82
With all solemnity, Judge Parker then pronounced the
sentence of death, and fixed Friday, the 2d of December, as
the date of execution, specifying that the hanging should be
public, and recording his belief that no reasonable doubt could
exist as to John Brown's guilt. But, in allowing him a whole
month more of life, the judge gave him that opportunity to
influence public opinion in the North in his favor, of which
he so admirably availed himself. It was a bitter disappoint-
ment to Hunter that Judge Parker permitted the condemned
man to live so long. Indeed, one of the leading men in the
county, when informed in advance by Mr. Parker that he
would give John Brown thirty days prior to his execution,
declared that then there would be a grave tumult in the court-
room; that the people "would tear Brown to pieces before
he could be taken from the building." This somewhat dis-
turbed the judge, who notified the jailer, Captain Avis, what
to expect, but declined to let soldiers into the court-room;
for he could not get over the jurist's righteous repugnance
to seeing "armed men in a court of justice." When the sen-
tence was pronounced, there was again perfect order in the
court-room ; one man clapped his hands, but was promptly
suppressed, the citizens expressing due regret, afterward, at
500 JOHN BROWN
this breach of decorum. The judge then ordered all present
to retain their seats until the prisoner was removed. There
was prompt obedience, and John Brown reached his cell un-
harmed, without even hearing a taunt.83 In view of the pub-
lic fears and excitement, such self-control does great credit to
this deeply stirred Virginia community.
With John Brown sentenced to be hanged, Governor WTise
became immediately the recipient of much individual and
journalistic advice as to what course he should pursue. The
Joint Committee of the Virginia General Assembly reported,
the following January, that,
"a great many letters were received by the Governor from citizens
of Northern states, urging him to pardon the offenders, or to com-
mute this punishment. Some of them were written in a spirit of
menace, threatening his life and that of members of his family.
. . . Others gave notice of the purpose of resolute bands of despera-
does to fire the principal towns and cities of Virginia. . . . Others
appealed to his clemency, to his magnanimity, and to his hopes of
future political promotion as ... motives for his intervention in
behalf of the convicted felons. Another class (and among these were
letters from men of national reputation) besought him to pardon
them on the ground of public policy."'
But even in the South there were two voices, those that
were for execution of the sentence, and those that wished
mercy to be shown. "Like the neighboring population, we
go in for a summary vengeance," said the Savannah Repub-
lican. "A terrible example should be made, that will stand
out as a beacon-light in all time to come." 85 "Virginia and the
South are ready to face all the consequences of the execution
of old Brown and his confederates," wrote the Richmond
Whig:
"Though it convert the whole Northern people, without an ex-
ception, into furious, armed abolition invaders, yet old Brown will
be hung ! That is the stern and irreversible decree, not only of the
authorities of Virginia, but of the PEOPLE of Virginia, without a dis-
senting voice. And, therefore, Virginia, and the people of Virginia,
will treat with the contempt they deserve, all the craven appeals of
Northern men in behalf of old Brown's pardon. The miserable old
traitor and murderer belongs to the gallows, and the gallpws will have
its own." M
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 501
These sentiments were shared in the North by the New
York Observer, the organ of the Presbyterians, and the Herald,
of course, could see no reason why the law should not claim
its victims.
But there were other voices in both sections. Thus the
New York Journal of Commerce, rabidly pro-slavery and bit-
ter in its denunciations of Brown, thought that:
"To hang a fanatic is to make a martyr of him and fledge another
brood of the same sort. Better send these creatures to the peniten-
tiary, and so make of them miserable felons. In the present state
of the country, the latter course is, no doubt, the wisest; and if
those men in Virginia who desire to apply the Lynch code to the
helpless wretches now awaiting trial, reflect for a moment, they
will perceive the folly of such a course. They would not only dis-
grace their State, but place another weapon in the hands of their
enemies. The murder of Joe Smith did not check Mormonism, but
rather gave it a new impetus; nor would the hanging of scores of
Abolitionists have any better effect. Monsters are hydra-headed,
and decapitation only quickens vitality, and power of reproduc-
tion." 87
The Liberator, which was the particular abomination of the
Journal of Commerce, was for once of the same opinion. "It
will be a terribly losing day for all Slavedom," wrote Mr.
Garrison, "when John Brown and his associates are brought
to the gallows." 88 From the Berry ville, Virginia, Clarke Jour-
nal came this wise warning:
" As a Christian people we are bound to respect the motives of the
sincere and conscientious, however mistaken. We do not care to
weaken our position by shedding the blood of such and giving them
no time for repentance, if we can free ourselves from their annoyance
by their confinement, as we would confine a mad dog. But blood for
blood has been shed — more blood on their side than on ours. It is
now only a question of policy as to the further proceeding. Will it do
more good to go on shedding blood while we can find any to shed, or
to stop now and confine the rest for life? Our judgment is — and
we are bound to give it, if every subscriber stops his paper, as we
have been threatened to some extent — in favor of the latter. More
good can be done, as a pure question of policy, by staying the effu-
sion of blood. Now, if this be treason, make the most of it. We will
be as ready to die for a conviction as John Brown. As a pure ques-
tion of policy, we have most to gain by a moderate, placable, con-
servative course. . . . But now the deed is done, and blood has
been shed in return, and a few are fugitives and outcasts on the
502 JOHN BROWN
earth, and the rest are in chains and dungeons. How much more
can a generous, magnanimous people ask? How will it appear in
the eyes of the world, the unfavoring world to slavery, to ask more
— even to the last drop of their blood ? We must remember that but
a small part of the Christian and civilized world are on our side in
regard to Slavery." !
A Kentucky newspaper, the Frankfort Yeoman, held simi-
lar views :
"If old John Brown is executed, there will be thousands to dip
their handkerchiefs in his blood ; relics of the martyr will be paraded
throughout the North . . . and Governor Wise would be compared
to Julian the Apostate or to Graham of Claverhouse. ... If a Eu-
ropean despot . . . can strike the chains from thousand of captives
. . . think of the shame that must rest upon the commonwealth of
Virginia ... if her security demands and receives the blood of one
old brave bad man." '
Among the thousands of other letters prophesying, threat-
ening, imploring or arguing for John Brown's life, none was
more interesting than that from Fernando Wood, the notori-
ous New York politician, soon to be chosen for the third time
mayor of the city in which he wrote :
" Your proceedings and conduct thus far in the matter of the
conspiracy at Harper's Ferry meets with general approval, and
elicits commendation from your enemies. The firmness and mod-
eration which has characterized your course cannot be too highly
applauded and today you stand higher than any other man in the
Union. Now, my friend, dare you do a bold thing and temper 'jus-
tice with Mercy ' ? Have you nerve enough to send Brown to the
States Prison instead of hanging him? Brown is looked upon here
as the mere crazy or foolhardy emissary of other men. Circum-
stances create a sympathy for him even with the most ultra friends
of the South. I am of this latter class, as by recent speeches you
may have observed. No southern man could go further than myself
in behalf of southern rights, but yet were I the Governor of Virginia,
Brown should not be hung, though Seward should be if I could
catch him. And in such a course my conduct would be governed
by sound policy. The South will gain by showing that it can be
magnanimous to a fanatic in its power. We who fight its battles
can gain largely by pointing to such an instance of 'chivalry.' " 91
Governor Wise's reply is so characteristic of the man, and
states so clearly the reasons which actuated him in refusing
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 503
to urge clemency or mitigation of sentence upon the Legis-
lature, — which alone had the power to so act in treason
cases, although the Governor's language conveys a different
impression, — that it merits consideration here:
RICHMOND VA Nov. 4th, 1859.
MY DEAR SIR, — I have duly received and weighed every word of
your letter. I give it all credit for good motive and good morals,
and as suggesting what perhaps is good policy. Now, listen to me,
for my mind is inflexibly made up.
Had I reached Harpers Ferry before these men were captured
(and I would have reached there in time, had I been forwarded as I
ought to have been from Washington & the relay house), I would
have proclaimed martial law, have stormed them in the quickest pos-
sible time, have given them no quarter, and if any had survived, I
would have tried and executed them under sentence of Court Martial.
But I was too late. The prisoners were captives, and I then deter-
mined to protect them to the uttermost of my power, and I did
protect them with my own person. I escorted them to prison and
placed around them such a force as to overawe Lynch-law. Every
comfort was given them by my orders. And they have been scrupu-
lously afforded a fair and speedy trial, with every opportunity of
defence for crimes, which were openly perpetrated before the eyes
of hundreds and as openly confessed. They could escape conviction
only by technical exceptions, and the chances for these they had to
a greater degree by the expedition of prosecution. And the crimes
deliberately done by them are of the deepest and darkest kind which
can be committed against our people. Brown, the chief leader, has
been legally and fairly tried and convicted and admits the humanity
of his treatment as a prisoner, the truth of the indictment and the
truthfulness of the witnesses against him. He has been allowed
excess of counsel, and the freedom of speech beyond any prisoner
known to me in our trials. It was impossible not to convict him.
He is sentenced to be hung ; — that is the sentence of a mild code
humanely adjudged and requires no duty from me except to see that
it be executed. I have to sign no death warrant. If the Executive
interposes at all, it is to pardon. And to pardon him I have received
petitions, prayers, threats, from almost every free State in the
Union. From honest patriotic men like yourself, many of them, I
am warned that hanging will make him a Martyr. Ah ! — Will it? —
Why? — The obvious answer to that question shows me above any-
thing the necessity for hanging him. You ask: — " Have you nerve
enough to send Brown to States Prison for life instead of hanging
him?" -Yes, if I did n't think he ought to be hung and that I would
be inexcusable for mitigating his punishment. I could do it without
flinching, without a quiver of a muscle against a universal clamor
504 JOHN BROWN
for his life. But was it ever known before that it would be impolitic
for a state to execute her laws against the highest crimes without
bringing down upon herself the vengeance of a public sentiment
outside of her limits and hostile to her laws? — Is it so that it is
wisely said to her that she had better spare a murderer, a robber,
a traitor, because public sentiment elsewhere will glorify an insur-
rectionist with Martyrdom? If so it is time to do execution upon
him and all like him. And I therefore say to you firmly that I have
precisely the nerve enough to let him be executed with the certainty
of his condemnation. He shall be executed as the law sentences him,
and his body shall be delivered over to surgeons, and await the
resurrection without a grave in our soil. I have shown him all the
mercy which humanity can claim.
Yours truly
HENRY A. WisE.92
HON. F. WOOD.
This last threat Governor Wise thought better of later on.*
But his purpose not to interfere with the court's decree, or to
use his influence with the Legislature, was not to be changed.
Two days after his answer to Fernando Wood, he wrote to
Andrew Hunter, at Charlestown: "I wish you to understand,
confidentially, that I will not reprieve or pardon one man now
after the letters I have rec'd from the North." 93 After Brown's
death, in a message to the Legislature of December 5, 1859,
Governor Wise officially put on paper more elaborate reasons
for his position.94 He admitted in this message, however, as
to the raid, that,
"causes and influences lie behind it more potent far than the little
band of desperadoes who were sent ahead to kindle the sparks of a
* Among the letters received by Governor Wise was one from Dr. Lewis A.
Say re, of New York, suggesting dissection as part of the punishment; and the
following ghoulish note from a Virginia professor to Andrew Hunter is worthy of
preservation: —
RICHMOND, Nov. i, 1859. DEAR SIR, — We desire, if Brown and his coadjutors
are executed, to add their heads to the collection in our museum. If the transfer-
ence of the bodies will not exceed a cost of five dollars each, we should also be glad
to have them. This request will, of course, not interfere with any clemency which
it may be found desirable to extend to those convicted. Attention to this request
will confer a great favor.
A. E. PETICOLAS, M.D.
Prof Anat at Med.
College of Va.
These two letters are respectively in the Tatham Collection and in the Massa-
chusetts Historical Society.
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 505
general conflagration. . . . Indeed, if the miserable convicts were
the only conspirators against our peace and safety, we might have
forgiven their offences and constrained them only by the grace of
pardon. But an entire social and sectional sympathy has incited
their crimes and now rises in rebellion and insurrection, to the
height of sustaining and justifying their enormity."
Obviously, if the " miserable convicts " were merely the petty
tools of a great and monstrous "rebellion and insurrection,"
the Governor's flight of rhetoric to Fernando Wood was un-
called for; it was then perfectly proper for Virginia to take
cognizance in her actions of public sentiment elsewhere, and
to be guided by her interpretation of it in her punishment of
those Abolition "tools." It has never been considered im-
politic for a State to have due regard for outside sentiment
when that was, as Governor Wise insisted in the case of
Virginia, menacing its very existence.
As to the appeal to his magnanimity, the Governor said in
this message: "I know of no magnanimity which is so in-
humane, . . . which would turn felons like these, proud and
defiant in their guilt, loose again on a border already torn by
a fanatical and sectional strife which threatens the liberties
of the white even more than it does the bondage of the black
race." Then there was the question of making a martyr of
Brown. To this the Governor's reply was:
"To hang would be no more martyrdom than to incarcerate the
fanatic. The sympathy would have asked on and on for liberation,
and to nurse and soothe him whilst life lasted, in prison. His state of
health would have been heralded weekly, as from a palace, visitors
would have come affectedly reverent, to see the shorn felon at hard
labor, the work of his hands would have been sought as holy relics,
and his parti-colored dress would have become, perhaps, a uniform
for the next band of marauders." *
* Mr. F. E. Spinner, of Worcester, used to tell of one occasion when Governor
Wise and Senator Mason heard Thaddeus Stevens, the Pennsylvania Congress-
man, endorse Governor Wise's action. At the Relay House, the Southerners took
seats opposite Mr. Spinner and Congressman Stevens. As the former related it:
"They said things that displeased us. I said to Mr. Stevens that it was a pity that
Brown had not been sentenced to prison for life, instead of being made a martyr
by hanging. Mr. Stevens had evidently longed for an opportunity to give the
two eminent Virginia statesmen a shot in return, and turned to me and said in a
loud voice: ' No, sir, he ought to have been hung for attempting to capture Vir-
ginia with a dozen white men, five negroes and an old cow.' ' Why, sir,' he said,
'he ought to have taken at least thirty men to have conquered Virginia.1 "
506 JOHN BROWN
A pertinent answer to this is that there was such a thing
possible as solitary confinement, and that not every jail per-
mits the recording of its prisoners' health or doings, or their
being the object of pilgrimage. In brief, the Governor's logic
is not convincing. After the lapse of fifty years, it still ap-
pears bad tactics and policy to have made a martyr of John
Brown, save on the theory that secession and war were in-
evitable and might as well be hastened.* Nothing could so
have solidified Northern sentiment just at that moment as
John Brown on the scaffold; nor made men in that section
who had, heretofore, refused to take sides, search their hearts
and decide whether they were for or against human bondage.
From that time, no one could get away from the slavery and,
soon, the secession issue, try as he might. It is idle, of course,
to expect that Governor Wise should have foreseen the John
Brown song. Yet, afterwards, when leading his gallant troops
against their conquerors from the North, the Governor might
sometimes have wished that his enemies were not profiting so
much by the mighty battle hymn in regard to John Brown's
soul. For it sent them, thrilling and inspired, to many a bat-
tlefield, as ready to die for freedom as had been the man whose
name was on their lips.
There was still one more reason for clemency urged on
Brown's behalf — his alleged insanity. The despatch received
on the second day of his trial by his counsel, Lawson Botts,
read thus:
AKRON, OHIO, Thursday,
Oct. 27, 1859.
To C. J. FAULKNER and LAWSON BOTTS:
John Brown, leader of the insurrection at Harper's Ferry, and
several of his family, have resided in this county many years. In-
sanity is hereditary in that family. His mother's sister died with it,
and a daughter of that sister has been two years in a lunatic asylum.
A son and daughter of his mother's brother have also been confined
in the lunatic asylum, and another son of that brother is now insane
and under close restraint. These facts can be conclusively proven
* John Sherman, when Secretary of State, wrote December 27, 1897, to the
Rev. Elijah B. Jones at Owatomia, Minn.: "It would have been wiser to have
kept him [John Brown] in confinement, rather than to execute him as was done
for his Virginia raid." This is the view of Judge Roger A. Pryor, a bellicose Vir-
ginia Congressman at the time of John Brown's raid, later a gallant Confederate
soldier, and long an eminent New York jurist.
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 507
by witnesses residing here, who will doubtless attend the trial if
desired.
A. H. LEWIS.95
Mr. Lewis was vouched for by the Akron telegraph operator
who sent the message. On receiving it, Mr. Botts and Mr.
Green, his associate, read it to Brown, who at once absolutely
declined to avail himself of this possible means of escape from
the hangman. Not even to save his life would he consent to
have the sacrifices already made minimized, and his entire
twenty years' war upon slavery written down as the mere
mania of a lunatic. He informed his counsel that there was
no insanity on his father's side, but admitted that there were
repeated instances of mental derangement on his mother's
side, that his first wife was similarly afflicted, and two of her
sons (John Brown, Jr., and Frederick) at times. Some of the
statements in the telegram he knew to be correct ; others were
new to him. Mr. Botts informed the court of John Brown's
refusal to avail himself of the plea of insanity, and of his igno-
rance that any effort was being made in Ohio along these
lines until the despatch was read to him. As Mr. Botts con-
cluded his statement, the prisoner, raising himself up on his
couch, said :
"I will add, if the Court will allow me, that I look upon it as a
miserable artifice and pretext of those who ought to take a differ-
ent course in regard to me, if they took any at all, and I view it
with contempt more than otherwise. As I remarked to Mr. Green,
insane persons, so far as my experience goes, have but little ability
to judge of their own sanity; and if I am insane, of course I should
think I know more than all the rest of the world. But I do not
think so. I am perfectly unconscious of insanity, and I reject, so
far as I am capable, any attempt to interfere in my behalf on that
score." 96
The matter did not, however, rest here. On November 7,
Mr. Griswold, of Brown's counsel, wrote to the Governor,
enclosing a petition and affidavit from one Thompson, af-
firming the charge of insanity, and added:
"Whether any further effort will be made to obtain Brown's par-
don, or a commutation of his sentence on the ground of insanity, I do
not know, I am in communication with no person on this subject.
5o8 JOHN BROWN
But I avail myself of this occasion to say that my conviction is that,
on questions connected with slavery and the liberation of the slave,
he is insane." 9T
Governor Wise responded that a plea of insanity could be
filed at any time before conviction or sentence,98 and wrote
an admirable letter to Dr. Stribling, Superintendent of the
Lunatic Asylum of Staunton, Virginia, ordering him to pro-
ceed to Charlestown and examine the prisoner, saying: "If
the prisoner is insane he ought to be cured, and if not insane
the fact ought to be vouched in the most reliable form, now
that it is questioned under oath and by counsel since con-
viction."99
Unfortunately, the impetuous Governor countermanded
these instructions, and the letter was never sent. This was
a genuine misfortune, for the word of so eminent an alienist
would have done much to answer the question which has puz-
zled men and will continue to puzzle some, as long as the story
of John Brown is told. On the 23d of November, Governor
Wise received in Washington, from George H. Hoyt himself,
nineteen affidavits that, on the advice of Montgomery Blair,
had been collected by him in Ohio.100 The good friends and
relatives there were not willing that Brown should go to the
scaffold if they could prevent it. To save him, they gladly
laid bare some sad family secrets. These affidavits varied,
so far as John Brown himself was concerned, from statements
that he was occasionally insane, of an "unbalanced mind,"
a monomaniac, to outright assertions that he had been clearly
insane for the previous twenty-four years. But on the family
record they all agreed. These generous admissions of nearest
of kin proved that, aside from other cases of less serious de-
rangement, Brown's grandmother on the maternal side, after
lingering six years in hopeless insanity, had died insane; that
of his grandmother's children, Brown's uncles and aunts,
two sons and two daughters were intermittently insane, while
a third daughter had died hopelessly lunatic; that Brown's
only sister, her daughter and one of his brothers were at in-
tervals deranged ; and that of six first cousins, two were occa-
sionally mad, two had been discharged from the state luna-
tic asylum after repeated commitments, while two more were
at the time in close restraint, one of these being a hopeless
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW 509
case. This is a fearful record, and one surely grave enough
to have warranted the employing of alienists to make certain
that Justice, in her blindness, did not execute an irresponsi-
ble man.
But the Governor failed to act. It was then too late for the
issue to be raised legally, for there was no procedure by which
the question of sanity could be raised after the sentence had
been confirmed by the Court of Appeals. Governor Wise
had, moreover, personally reached a decision on the point,
after repeatedly seeing and conversing with the prisoner to
whom he owes so much of his fame. "As well as I can know
the state of mind of any one," the Governor declared to the
Virginia Legislature,
" I know that he was sane, and remarkably sane, if quick and clear
perception, if assumed rational premises and consecutive reasoning
from them, if cautious tact in avoiding disclosures and in cover-
ing conclusions and inferences, if memory and conception and
practical common sense, and if composure and self-possession are
evidence of a sound state of mind. He was more sane than his
prompters and promoters, and concealed well the secret which made
him seem to do an act of mad impulse, by leaving him without his
backers at Harper's Ferry ; but he did not conceal his contempt for
the cowardice which did not back him better than with a plea of
insanity, which he spurned to put in at his trial at Charlestown."
No historian of John Brown can fail to take note of the facts
in the affidavits, and to scrutinize the life of his subject in
the light thus cast upon his inheritance from one line of his
progenitors. If it could be roundly declared that he was par-
tially or wholly deranged, it would be easy to explain away
those of his acts which at times baffle an interpreter of this
remarkable personality, — the Pottawatomie murders, for
instance. But this cannot be done. Governor Wise was cor-
rect in his estimate of John Brown's mentality; the final
proof is the extraordinary series of letters written by him in
jail after his doom was pronounced. No lunatic ever penned
such elevated and high-minded, and such consistent epistles.
If to be devoted to one idea, or to a single cause, is to be
a monomaniac, then the world owes much of its progress
toward individual and racial freedom to lunacy of this variety.
If John Brown was insane on the subject of slavery, so were
510 JOHN BROWN
Lucre tia Mott and Lydia Maria Child, while Garrison and
Phillips and Horace Greeley should never have been allowed
to go at large. That their methods of advancing their joint
cause differed from John Brown's violent ones, in no wise
argues that he went beyond the bounds of sound reason in
his efforts for freedom for the blacks. If John Brown was
the victim of an idee fixe, so was Martin Luther, and so were
all the martyrs to freedom of faith. But, examining his record
day by day, weighing all the actions of a life of great activity,
and reading the hundreds of letters from his pen which have
survived to this hour, the conclusion is inevitable that, how-
ever bad his judgment at times, however wild the planless
assault on Harper's Ferry, John Brown himself had escaped
the family taint, — and this despite the kindly affidavits of
those who wished to save him from the gallows. Moreover,
while lunatics have often for a time imposed their will upon
weaker intellects, persuaded them that fancied wrongs were
real, and nerved them to acts of violence, John Brown lived
too long and too intimately with many men to have been
able to mislead them always. The paranoiac invariably be-
trays himself at last. But the man who sacrifices business
prospects, a quiet orderly life, his family's happiness, and
the lives of himself and his children, in a crusade which the
world has since declared to have been righteous as to its
object, cannot, because of his devotion to that purpose, be
adjudged a maniac — else asylums for the insane have played
too small a part in the world's history. Dr. Starry, the gallant
physician of Harper's Ferry, said, years after the raid, that
such devotion as Brown's followers had for him he, Dr. Starry,
had never beheld before or since. "They perfectly worshipped
the ground the old fellow trod on." 101 The hard-headed, able
Americans, like Stevens, Kagi, Cook and Gill, who lived with
John Brown month in and month out and were ready to die
with him, worshipped no lunatic.
CHAPTER XIV
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED
MANY of them veterans of a hundred frontier roils or dan-
gerous anti-slavery undertakings, it was not to be expected
that John Brown's friends and supporters would see him go
to his death at the hands of the assaulted Virginians without
lifting a finger in his behalf. No sooner was he safely in jail
in Charlestown, and his recovery from his wounds certain,
than plotting for a rescue began. To the Kansas Free State
fighters, capture by Border Ruffian forces or incarceration in
a Southern prison did not imply that they were beyond hope
of escape. At the hour of Brown's raid, Dr. John Doy, who
had been rescued from the St. Joseph, Missouri, jail just in
time to avoid serving five years in the penitentiary at Jeffer-
son, was touring the North and lecturing on slavery as he
had found it. What Kansans had done, Kansans could do
again, and Massachusetts men, too.
The first to move were John W. Le Barnes and Thomas
Wentworth Higginson. The latter's interest was to have
been expected, because of his militant record. Other clergy-
men might feel scruples about taking up arms when wearing
the garb of the church and teaching the doctrines of the Prince
of Peace, but Mr. Higginson had none. He sympathized not
at all with the Garrison school of non-resistant Abolitionists,
and he had unbounded physical and moral courage. For in-
stance, on May 26, 1854, Mr. Higginson and a sturdy negro
were the first of the men who broke down the door of the Bos-
ton court-house, in a brave but vain attempt to save Anthony
Burns, a fugitive slave, from being returned to slavery. Mr.
Higginson, unarmed as he was, attacked the policemen and
deputies within the jail. As he did so, a shot rang out and
one of the deputies fell dead, — the first Massachusetts man
to lose his life in the contest over slavery.1
As already related, Mr. Le Barnes engaged George H. Hoyt
to go to Harper's Ferry, ostensibly as counsel, but really as
5i2 JOHN BROWN
a spy, to see if the prison could be stormed and Brown and
his fellow prisoners set free. As soon as Hoyt had obtained
access to John Brown, he revealed to him the plan of rescue
then under way in Massachusetts, and urged him to cooper-
ate to the fullest extent. But in the tone of command which
had never permitted debate on the plains of Kansas, John
Brown made it clear to Hoyt that he would lend himself to
no scheme of rescue. That same night, October 28, Hoyt
wrote to his employer that Brown "positively refused his
consent to any such plan;"2 and what he said to Hoyt, the
prisoner repeated on the day of his sentence to Judge Thomas
Russell, of Boston, and Mrs. Russell, and later on to his old
Free State friend, S. C. Pomeroy, subsequently Senator from
Kansas.3 The chimney in Brown's prison-room was enormous;
two men could easily have got up or down it. Jurist as he
was, Judge Russell looked at it and groaned: "Two good
Yankees could get these men out and away so easily!" But
Brown was "calm and at peace;" his words "measured and
quiet;" the longings of his visitors kindled no response in
kind.4 Besides his vision of what his death would mean to
his cause, he felt under moral obligation to his jailer, Cap-
tain John Avis, for many kindnesses received. To him he had
already given his pledge not to attempt to escape.5
His positive prohibition, conveyed through Hoyt, did not,
however, check the ardor of his friends. Le Barnes, F. B. San-
born, James Red path, R. J. Hinton and T. W. Higginson
kept up their plotting until November 28, Higginson vainly
hoping that, since Brown's sentence had not been commuted,
he might change his mind about desiring aid.6 Even a second
and more emphatic warning from Hoyt failed to deter them.
Writing on October 30 to Le Barnes, the young lawyer said :
" There is no chance of his [Brown's] ultimate escape; there is no-
thing but the most unmitigated failure, & the saddest consequences
which it is possible to conjure, to ensue upon an attempt at rescue.
The county all around is guarded by armed patrols & a large body
of troops are constantly under arms. If you hear anything about
such an attempt, for Heaven's sake do not fail to restrain the enter-
prise." 7
In his ardor for a rescue, Mr. Higginson bethought himself
of the grief-stricken family at North Elba, and decided to
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 513
induce Mrs. Brown to visit her husband and urge him to give
his consent to an attempt to free him. This he was successful
in doing.8 Mrs. Brown left North Elba in his company on
November 2, and went direct to Boston, where funds were
found to forward her to Harper's Ferry by way of Philadel-
phia, from which place she was escorted to Baltimore by J.
Miller McKim, a leading Philadelphia Abolitionist.9 As soon,
however, as Brown learned that his wife was on the way,
he telegraphed to Mr. Higginson through George Sennott10
not to let her come.* She was finally reached by telegram at
Baltimore, on the morning of November 8, just as she was
about to take a Harper's Ferry train,11 and there ended this
effort to move from his purpose a man who wras as impregnable
as Gibraltar when his mind was made up. Whether Brown
had received an inkling of his wife's real purpose is not clear.
He wrote thus to Mr. Higginson, in explanation of Mr. Sen-
nott's telegram, on the 9th of November:
If my wife were to come here just now it would only tend to dis-
tract her mind TEN FOLD ; and would only add to my affliction ; and
can not possibly do me any good. It will also use up the scanty means
she has to supply Bread & cheap but comfortable clothing, fuel, &c
for herself & children through the winter. Do PERSUADE her to re-
main at home for a time (at least) till she can learn further from me.
She will receive a thousand times the consolation AT HOME that she
can possibly find elsewhere. I have just written her there & will
write her CONSTANTLY. Her presence here would deepen my affliction
a thousand fold. I beg of her to be calm and submissive ; & not to go
wild on my account. I lack for nothing & was feeling quite cheerful
before I heard she talked of coming on — I ask her to compose her
mind & to remain quiet till the last of this month ; out of pity to me.
I can certainly judge better in the matter than any one ELSE. My
warmest thanks to yourself and all other kind friends.
God bless you all. Please send this line to my afflicted wife by first
possible conveyance.
Your Friend in truth
JOHN BROWN.12
George L. Stearns, of Boston, was the first to turn to Kansas
for aid. He wrote immediately after the raid to Charles Jen-
nison and James Stewart, two of the boldest "jayhawkers"
in Kansas, urging them to help Brown escape, and author-
* Mr. Sennott's message read: "Mr. Brown says for God's sake don't let Mrs.
Brown come. Send her word by telegraph wherever she is."
5i4 JOHN BROWN
izing them to draw on him for funds if there was anything
they could do.13 They do not seem to have acted. Captain
James Montgomery and Silas C. Soule, who had played an
important part in the rescue of Dr. John Doy, are erroneously
believed to have come East promptly and looked over the
field. But, as Soule" did not meet Montgomery until he pre-
sented a letter of introduction from James H. Lane on De-
cember 27, it is obvious that they could not have been East
together in November. It is certain that women figured
in the Kansas plans, as well as in the Massachusetts one. A
Miss Mary Partridge, of a fighting Free State family of Linn
County, whose brother George was killed at Osawatomie
while fighting under Brown, was selected to visit him in his
cell at Charlestown, to convey information of the plans if it
could be given to the captive in no other way. Miss Partridge
was to throw her arms around Brown's neck and, while em-
bracing him most affectionately, was to get into his mouth a
billet giving the plan of campaign and the time of the attempt.
Miss Partridge was ready and willing to go to Virginia, but
Brown's attitude and the physical and financial difficulties
in the way relieved her of the necessity of venturing to Har-
per's Ferry.14
To Lysander Spooner, an active Abolitionist of Boston,
belongs the credit of devising, early in November, an au-
dacious scheme of retaliation upon the South for the sen-
tencing to death of John Brown, which, had it been carried
into execution, would, as Higginson put it at the time, have
terrified the South as much as the Harper's Ferry affair.15
It was nothing less than a plan to kidnap Governor Wise
some evening in Richmond; to carry him aboard a sea-going
tug, and hold him either on the high seas, or in some secret
Northern place, as hostage for the safety of Brown. That
so buccaneering a scheme, worthy of the imagination of a
Marryat or a Cooper, should have been seriously considered
by sober-minded Boston men of the middle of the nineteenth
century, shows clearly how rapidly the "irrepressible con-
flict" was approaching. Their passionate hatred of slavery
had led them to sanction Brown's armed attack upon it ; their
disappointment and grief over his failure and capture made
no scheme of revenge too wild for their consideration. They
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 515
actually planned, in time of profound peace, to steal by night
into the capitol of a friendly State and carry off its Chief
Executive; and there is good reason to believe that dauntless
spirits like those of Le Barnes and Higginson would have set
the undertaking afoot, had it been possible to raise the large
sum of money necessary. They were willing to imitate Brown
and "carry the war into Africa;" if the government was not
ready to begin war on the South for the freedom of the slaves,
there was no hesitation on their part. Looking back on it
now, Mr. Higginson says truly that "it seems almost incredi-
ble that any condition of things should have turned honest
American men into conscientious law-breakers." 16 Only a
few people were able, in the heat of the moment, to realize
that this lawless spirit was as clear an indication of the im-
pending upheaval as were those acts of lawlessness like the
Boston Tea-Party and the burning of the schooner Gaspee,
which preceded the Revolution.
Spooner first broached the Wise plot to Le Barnes in Bos-
ton.17 Recourse was had, before the middle of November, to
Higginson, who, having been for some years a stockholder
in a yacht, the Flirt, kept in commission to aid incoming
fugitive slaves and circumvent slave-catchers, 18 was not with-
out sympathy for a maritime adventure. Spooner was able
to report to him within a week that Le Barnes had discovered
a reliable man "who will undertake to find the men, a pilot,
and a boat, for the Richmond expedition, if the necessary
money can be had. . . . Will you not come down at once,
and help to move men here to furnish the money. . . . We
can do nothing without you. Do not fail to come."19 By No-
vember 22, Le Barnes wrote 20 that he had no doubt that the
arrangements could be made, "it is the money that is uncer-
tain." His agent was in the shipping business and could fur-
nish the tug and crew needed without causing comment, par-
ticularly if it were offered for sale at Richmond, because tugs
were just then in great demand there. Other details he set
forth as follows:
"Tug will cost $5000 to $7000, to steam 15 to 18 knots an hour.
There is only one gunboat on the station, (whether in the Bay or
not, is not precisely known.) But this makes only 13 knots; & there
is nothing else as fast in those waters. The pilot knows all the
5i6 JOHN BROWN
rivers of that region thoroughly. The expedition would cost ten to
fifteen thousand dollars. $10,000 wd be necessary to start with, with
more, (say proceeds of sale of boat) promised in case of success.
This, if it were necessary to hire hands. If the men volunteered,
the expenses, aside from the security of the boat would not exceed
$2000."
But Le Barnes declared that he would not go himself, and
did not "wish any of our men led into it," although if a safe
agreement could be reached with "professional men," he
would make the arrangements. With money the thing could
be done, but the money was the rub. Where could it be had?
He himself had been to see "W. P." [Wendell Phillips], who
was in favor, "if our men will go." " W. I." [Bowditch] would
contribute to the project if it was undertaken, but "H. I."
[Bowditch] was opposed. Le Barnes himself was impressed
with the fact that "success would be brilliant — defeat fatally
inglorious." He had, moreover, doubts as to whether the suc-
cessful kidnapping of Wise would save John Brown. It was,
after all, the judge who issued the warrant of death and
saw to its execution, not the Governor. Still, if nothing else
could be done, he was for attempting the scheme.21 Grad-
ually, however, the hopelessness of raising the money became
patent, and upon this obstacle the scheme was wrecked. Le
Barnes was one of the last to give it up; but gradually he
devoted himself to the alternative plan of a deliberate over-
land invasion of Charlestown. This he was personally quite
willing to join.22
Some German-born lovers of liberty in New York, who had
fought tyranny in their native land, were brought together
in a meeting on November 22, 23 and agreed to take part in
an attack on the prison. In a short time, "a hundred or more "
men were reported to the Boston conspirators as ready to go
as a reinforcement to the Ohioans who, so rumor said, were
preparing to move on Charlestown under John Brown, Jr.
But if it should prove that there were no Ohio men ready to
lead, only "from 15 to 20 or 25" were prepared to follow Le
Barnes, Hinton and the Kansas leaders.24 By Sunday, Novem-
ber 27, the plan was to rendezvous some distance from Charles-
town, to make a cross-country rush on that town, and, after
freeing the prisoners, to seize the horses of the cavalry com-
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 517
panics and escape. The attack was to be either on Wednesday,
November 30, or on December 2, the day of the execution,
"at the hour," and Le Barnes reported from New York that
the men were confident of success, "strange as it may seem
to us."25 Dr. Howe suggested that they be armed with "Or-
sini" bombs and hand-grenades, in lieu of artillery. With
these weapons he felt sure they would terrify the Virginia
chivalry on guard in Charlestown.26
Again it became a question merely of funds. The rescuers
wanted one hundred dollars apiece, and an agreement that
the survivors would be provided for in places of safety, and
that the families of all would be taken care of. For this pur-
pose, fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars was needed by
Tuesday morning the 29th, and five hundred or a thousand
dollars the day after. Le Barnes demanded also that a definite
promise be sent on the following day.27 James Redpath had
been previously selected to go to Ohio to ascertain just what
was on foot there. But he had delayed his departure, and on
the day Le Barnes wrote this ultimatum in regard to funds,
and added, "It is for you in Boston to say 'go' or 'stay,' '
George H. Hoyt, fresh from his achievements as Brown's
counsel, arrived in Boston from the Western Reserve. He
reported that nothing whatever was on foot in Ohio. The
next day, discouraged by Hoyt's news, for he had counted on
Ohio's stirring, and being unable to raise the needed funds,
Sanborn in Boston gave up the undertaking and wired to Le
Barnes to return. This the latter did after telegraphing to
Higginson, "Object abandoned." Sanborn wrote with a heavy
heart to that militant clergyman: "So I suppose we must
give up all hope of saving our old friend." 28
It must not be thought that the Virginia authorities were
without a belief that there was plotting going on. In his mes-
sage to the Legislature after the execution, Governor Wise
said : " I did not remove the prisoners further into the interior,
because I was determined to show no apprehension of a res-
cue ; and if the jail of Jefferson had been on the line of the State,
they would have been kept there, to show that they could
be kept anywhere chosen in our limits." 29 But for all this
bravado after the execution, there is plenty of evidence, be-
sides the extraordinary assembling of troops around Brown's
5i8 JOHN BROWN
scaffold, to show Wise's anxiety and that of Andrew Hunter.
Every mail brought to them or to John Brown, whose letters
they carefully examined and withheld if they saw fit, warn-
ings, some more or less fantastic, of an expedition or plan.
Many were anonymous, others signed by Southern sympa-
thizers in the North, and still others were plainly written for
the sole purpose of alarming and deceiving Governor Wise
and the military.30 From Zanesville, Ohio, "T. A. B." wrote
that he had seen "between 30 & 36 men, all armed with Colts
Six Shooters & a Species of home made Bowie knife, well
calculated to do Exicution," who were to cross the Ohio near
" Cisterville" with two hundred and seventy others and arrive
at Harper's Ferry December I. "Harrisburg" wrote from
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, of a force of armed men who were
to leave there in time to free Brown on the day of execution.
The United States marshal at Cleveland forwarded a letter
from North Bloomfield, Ohio, which reported that John
Brown, Jr., had boasted that "9000 desperate men" were in
readiness, and that his father would not be hanged. " Henry "
wrote from Boston to Brown, in an easily read cipher, that
"twenty of them left this morning and thirty- three start
Thursday. They will bring you with them or die." Phila-
delphia reported five thousand men armed with "Pike's
rifles" and four cannon, and New York twenty-five hundred
men who were to attack Charlestown on December I, — a
little late, apparently, because, on the day before, eight thou-
sand desperate men from Detroit, sworn to rescue Brown
or die, and more than "armed to the teeth," were to fire ten
shots a minute at the jail guards from their new-style carbines.
Some of these missives Hunter endorsed, "Contemptible
nonsense," others he marked, "Consider." To John Brown
himself the threatening letters caused nothing but annoyance.
"He protests against them," reported the special correspond-
ent of the Richmond Despatch on November n, "and feels
unwilling to believe that they proceed from his own friends."
To the correspondent of the Tribune he thus expressed him-
self on November 4: "I do not know that I ought to encour-
age any attempt to save my life. I am not sure that it would
not be better for me to die at this time." * He told one of his
* Henry Ward Beecher had said five days before : " Let no man pray that Brown
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 519
guards, not long before his execution, that his friends would
surely have attempted his rescue in the first few weeks, had
they known how small a guard was on duty, but that he hoped
and trusted no effort would then be made.31 But Governor
Wise actually thought it advisable to turn over to the mili-
tary a well-written letter from Lewisburg, Union County,
Pennsylvania, telling of the organization of "The Noble Sons
of Liberty," numbering about five hundred and led by "Capt.
James Smelly, alias Limber Jim, the ultra-abolitionist." Its
members were to drop into Charlestown and adjacent places
by ones and twos, and then on a given signal storm the jail.
This was one of the letters that led to the extending of the
pickets well outside of the town. Some of the sentries were
a full mile from their quarters, and it took an hour and forty
minutes to post the guard.32 Under Mr. Hunter's advice,
the old Southern system of mounted patrols was established
in every precinct of the county.33
Before that took place, however, there had been a bad scare
at Harper's Ferry, on October 26, the superintendent of the
arsenal having received "reliable information" that an at-
tempt at rescue might be made at night by parties from New
York and Pennsylvania. President Garrett, of the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, was not willing to run any risks, and him-
self called out a company of Maryland militia, the United
Guards of Frederick, who reached Harper's Ferry fifteen
strong that evening, with a promise that the rest of the com-
pany would arrive in the morning. "There is a strong guard
on duty," reported that evening to Mr. Garrett his Master
of Transportation, W. P. Smith, "and I am ordered to 'halt'
at all points as I move about in the storm and darkness."
But he added: "The feeling of uncertain dread is very strong,
and there surely ought to be full and well-organized reliance
[reserve?] to restore confidence." 34 That the Charlestown au-
thorities were ready to take extreme measures appears from
a despatch of Colonel J. Lucius Davis, a West Point graduate,
with a long, flowing beard and of othenvise curious appear-
be spared. Let Virginia make him a martyr. Now, he has only blundered. His soul
was noble; his work miserable. But a cord and a gibbet would redeem all that, and
round up Br,own's failure with a heroic success." See New York Herald of Octo-
ber 31 and November 22. When John Brown read this, he wrote opposite it the
single word "good."
520 JOHN BROWN
ance, who was the immediate commander of the troops. Tele-
graphing to the Secretary of the Commonwealth November 2,
Colonel Davis said: "We are ready for them. If attack be
made, the prisoners will be shot by the inside guards." 35
To add to the nervousness of the authorities, there oc-
curred in the neighborhood of Charlestown a number of fires,
all of them doubtless accidental. They continued through
November, instances being the burning of the barn and
stock-yards of Mr. Walter Shirley, three miles from Charles-
town, loss four thousand dollars, and also those of George H.
Tate and John Burns, all three of whom had been on the jury
that decided Brown's fate.36 Judge Lucas's haystack, burned
about this time, was but one of many that lit up the heav-
ens. A shot fired under his window, another night, led to
the belief that the judge had been marked for assassination,
and induced the mayor, Thomas C. Green, on November 12,
to order the removal from Charlestown of all strangers who
could not give a satisfactory account of themselves. Among
those forced to leave on that day were George H. Hoyt, who
was, however, ready to go, as he had finished his legal work
for Brown, and a representative of Frank Leslie's Illustrated
Paper, who was charged with the grave offence of being a
correspondent of the New York Tribune.® But the fires con-
tinued to be recorded in almost every issue of the Richmond
papers from November 12 on. The resultant dread and ner-
vousness of the citizens were intensified by repeated false
alarms, some of them given for drill purposes by Colonel
Davis, until the cry of wolf no longer excited people.38*
But the return home of an excited native of Charlestown,
for some time previously a resident of Kansas, with a report
that five hundred Kansans were planning a rescue and were
already on their way, did thoroughly frighten the town. This
man, a certain Smith Crane, told terrible tales of the band
of desperadoes who, in Kansas, always had rescued Brown,
and would again, and reported overhearing a conversation
in Bellair, Ohio, — whence he had just come, — in which
conspirators had detailed their plans to come in force and
* Colonel Davis reported on November 19 that "the majority [of citizens]
think the recent fires made by local spy companies forming everywhere," — which
illustrates clearly the panic then prevailing. — Telegram to Governor Wise. —
Original in Mr. Edwin Tatham's collection.
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 521
rescue the prisoner. Curiously enough, Andrew Hunter re-
ceived the next day a telegram from Marshal Johnson, of
Cleveland, saying that a thousand men were arming there.
The coincidence seemed to confirm Crane's stories, and cre-
ated much alarm for the time being. Mr. Hunter himself
was convinced of their truth.39
That all of this had its effect on Governor Wise's nerves
appears clearly in his letter of November 16 to Andrew Hun-
ter, which has only recently been brought to light:
RICHMOND, VA, Nov. i6th, 1859.
MY DEAR SIR, — Information from every quarter leads to the
conviction that there is an organized plan to harrass our whole
slave-border at every point. Day is the very time to commit arson
with the best chance ag* detection. No light shines, nor smoke
shows in daylight before the flame is off & up past putting out. The
rascal too escapes best by day; he sees best whether he is not seen,
and best how to avoid persons pursuing. I tell you those Devils
are trained in all the Indian arts of predatory war. They come, one
by one, two by two, in open day, and make you stare that the thing
be attempted as it was done. But on the days of execution what is to
become of the borders? Have you tho't of that? 5 or 10,000 people
flock into Chastown & leave homesteads unguarded! When then
but most burnings to take place? To prevent this you must get
all your papers in Jeff: Berk: & Fredk & Morgan & Hamp: to beg
the people to stay at home & keep guard. Again a promiscuous
crowd of women & children would hinder troops terribly if an emeute
of rescue be made; and if our own people will only shoulder arms
that day & keep thus distinct from strangers the guards may be
prompt to arrest & punish any attempt. I have ordered 200 minie
muskets to be sent to Charlestown at once with fixed amtu and the
Col8 of Berkely, Jeff : & Fred : to order regt8 to be ready at a moment.
I shall order 400 men under arms. Then, ought there to be more
than one day of execution? Judge P. ought to have thought of this,
but he did n't. If C* Appl8 dont decide before 2nd Decr I '11 hang
Brown. If they do & sustain sentence will it not be best to post-
pone his extn with the rest. He ought to be hung between two ne-
groes & there ought n't to be two days of excitement. Again it gives
Legislature the opportunity of uniting with Executive in hanging
Brown. Another question. Ought / to be there ? It might possibly
be necessary in order to proc: M. law. Say to Col. Davis that I
have ordered him to act as Commissary Gen1 for all the troops in
Jefferson and he must remain & act until we are through. The
Gov* may pay out of contingent fund & I gave Mr. Brown the forms
of U. S. army t'other day, shall of course call on Gen1 Assembly
for an appropriation the first week. The guards must be kept up
522 JOHN BROWN
until 1 6th Dec?. Watch Harper's Ferry people. Watch, I say, and
I thought watch when there. Gerritt Smith is a stark madman, no
doubt! Gods, what a moral, what a lesson. Whom the Gods wish
to make mad they first set. to setting others to destroying. . . .
Yrs. truly
HENRY A. WiSE.40
A. HUNTER, ESQ.
Another outbreak of fear at Harper's Ferry, two days after
Governor Wise wrote this letter, led him hastily to call out
four hundred men in Richmond and Petersburg, and go with
them in person, on November 20, to that place and to Charles-
town, which, in great excitement, were momentarily "ex-
pecting from one to two hundred armed men from the West
to rescue Brown." "Send me 500 men armed and equipped,
instanter. A large body are approaching from Wheeling,
armed with pikes and revolvers. Pardon haste" — tele-
graphed Colonel J. Lucius Davis to Governor Wise. But
this was too much for that excitable official, who replied:
" Be cautious. Commit no mistake to-night. Men will march
to-morrow morning." 41
One hundred and fifty more soldiers reached Harper's
Ferry with cannon on November 21, but they were destined
to stay only a short time, for the impulsive Governor ordered
them back that night. The railroad men were at a loss to
know why the Governor had called out so many men, but
thought he "must be in possession of information — we have
not — to justify him." All except one company were on their
way back again by the 22d. Four days later, Governor Wise
began the concentration of troops for the execution, and with
it came the end of what may truthfully be called the reign of
terror in Charlestown and Harper's Ferry.42
Andrew Hunter's state of mind was considerably less fever-
ish, but he afterwards admitted his genuine alarm lest the
none too strong jail be attempted, and urged every possible
precaution as the day of execution approached, — even to
the extent of being ready to tear up the railroad tracks.43
Eight days in advance of the event upon which the interest
of the nation was concentrated, Governor Wise sent the fol-
lowing orders to Major-General William B. Taliaferro, then
the commander of the troops in succession to Colonel Davis,
after promising more soldiers :
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 523
"... keep full guard on the line of frontier from Martinsburg to
Harper's Ferry, on the day of 2d Dec. Warn the inhabitants to arm
and keep guard and patrol on that day and for days beforehand.
These orders are necessary to prevent seizure of hostages. Warn
the inhabitants to stay away and especially to keep the women
and children at home. Prevent all strangers, and especially all par-
ties of strangers from proceeding to Charlestown on 2nd Dec1. To
this end station a guard at Harper's Ferry sufficient to control crowds
on the cars from East and West. Let mounted men, except one or
two companies, remain on guard at the outposts, and keep one
or two for the purpose of keeping the crowd clear of the outer line
of military on the day of execution. Form two concentric squares
around the gallows, and have strong guard at the jail and for
escort to execution. Let no crowd be near enough to the prisoner
to hear any speech he may attempt. Allow no more visitors to be
admitted into the jail."'
Greater precautions could hardly have been taken had a
grave state of war existed, with a menacing and active enemy.
Not content with the militia forces which he could and
did assemble, including the cadets from the Virginia Military
Institute at Lexington, Virginia, one of whose commanders
was Professor T. J. Jackson, later famous as "Stonewall"
Jackson, Governor Wise induced President Buchanan again
to send Colonel Robert E. Lee to Harper's Ferry. He arrived
there on November 30, and under his command were 264
artillerymen from Fort Monroe, to guard the bridges and town
until after the execution. In his appeal to the President, on
November 25, to keep the peace between the States, Gov-
ernor Wise stated that he had information "specific enough
to be reliable" which convinced him that "an attempt will
be made to rescue the prisoners, and if that fails, then to seize
citizens of this State as hostages and victims in case of exe-
cution." He himself had called out one thousand militia,
and if necessary he would "call out the whole available force
of the State to carry into effect the sentence of our laws on the
2d and i6th proximo." He added that "places in Maryland,
Ohio and Pennsylvania have been occupied as depots and
rendezvous by these desperadoes, unobstructed by guards
or otherwise to invade this State, and we are kept in continual
apprehension of outrages from fire and rapine on our bor-
ders." 45 How unfounded in fact these allegations were, now
appears clearly. The most careful search fails to reveal, in
524 JOHN BROWN
Ohio or elsewhere, any proof that there were actual conspira-
cies of would-be rescuers, save those elsewhere described. In
insisting that desperadoes had actually occupied rendezvous
in three States, Governor Wise was merely taking counsel of
his fears, and of his largely anonymous informants. Never-
theless, he sent copies of his letter to the Governors of those
States, and by arming and showing his great anxiety, he be-
trayed to his, for the greater part unknown, correspondents
that they had accomplished their end, — the terrifying of the
great State of Virginia.
Naturally, President Buchanan, while willing to send Colo-
nel Lee to guard United States property at Harper's Ferry,
characterized Governor Wise's beliefs as "almost incredible,"
and pointed out that he had no right or power to keep peace
between the States as suggested. Governor Hicks, of Mary-
land, was skeptical, but ready to take some civil and military
measures to cooperate. Governor Packer, of Pennsylvania,
correctly characterized the information received by Gov-
ernor Wise as "utterly and entirely without foundation,"
and reminded him sharply that Pennsylvania had done and
would do her duty. Salmon P. Chase, Governor of Ohio,
replied that he had heard nothing of any desperadoes assem-
bling in Ohio until he received Governor Wise's letter. In
answer to Wise's threats that Virginia troops might have to
pursue rescuers into Ohio, Governor Chase gave to Governor
Wise the information that the laws of the United States pre-
scribed the mode in which persons charged with crime es-
caping into Ohio might be demanded and surrendered ; and he
added that Ohio under no circumstances would consent to the
invasion of her territory by armed bodies from other States.46
Hunter and Wise did not cease their emergency prepara-
tions, after making their military arrangements. Through
the former, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was induced
to take the most elaborate precautions. A canny Boston
Yankee, Josiah Perham, had asked the railroad for reduced
rates for one or two thousand sight-seers, to whom he wished
to show Brown on the scaffold, and then the sights of Wash-
ington at the time of the opening of Congress. He asserted
that he had moved two hundred thousand people in the nine
previous years without accident and without complaint that
525
"any of them did not behave well." But under Hunter's ad-
vice the Baltimore and Ohio declined to profit by this oppor-
tunity to make money, on account of the "peculiar relation
of the criminals to a portion of the Eastern community and
the great liability to at least an unpleasant excitement on the
occasion," — so Mr. Perham was informed. All excursions
or movements of any number of people as a body were for-
bidden. Local passenger traffic from the adjoining towns to
Harper's Ferry and Charlestown was practically suspended
on the day before the execution, no tickets being sold save
to persons well known to the agents. Every intending pas-
senger was urged to travel on another day, as every one
insufficiently provided with a pass faced "arrest and impris-
onment on attempting to stop at Martinsburg or Harper's
Ferry." 47 As Mr. Hunter avers that four Congressmen who
were desirous of seeing Brown hanged, and were escorted by a
well-known citizen of Harper's Ferry, were nevertheless jailed
on suspicion as soon as they reached Charlestown, this warn-
ing to travellers was plainly well worth obeying. 48 Even inno-
cent passengers were liable to arrest and removal from trains,
as in the case of three Baltimoreans arrested at Martinsburg
on November 29. From as far west as Wheeling, no one
could go east on December I or 2 without a certificate of good
character from a station agent, and not more than sixty cer-
tificates could be issued. Conductors were ordered to tele-
graph in detail about their trains to W. P. Smith, the Master
of Transportation. That official even asked aid in New York,
for he excitedly telegraphed, as late as November 30, to J. P.
Jackson, Vice- President of the New Jersey Railroad Com-
pany, begging for news : 49
"Great alarm exists here from expectations of large forces of
desperadoes from North, East and West, to attempt rescue of Vir-
ginia prisoners. Will you favor us by promptly despatching any
information you may have respecting parties who may be of this
character taking your trains for the South, and also advise us per-
sonally if any unusual party of unknown men start for this direc-
tion."
In brief, there was voluntary enforcement of martial law,
and the whole countryside behaved as if in a state of siege.
When the execution came, there was not the slightest dis-
526 JOHN BROWN
turbance of the peace of any kind, either at Charlestown or
on any part of Governor Wise's embattled frontier.
Not unnaturally, that Executive was severely criticised
for his military display and its costliness. Part of the Vir-
ginia and Maryland press denounced it as unnecessary, and
credited it to Wise's alleged desire to make political capital
out of the raid.50 But a study of contemporary reports of
conditions at Charlestown, and of the Virginia press, makes
it plain that Wise would have been justified in calling out a
strong military force, had he not been himself so convinced
that hordes of desperadoes were about to descend upon his
State. He owed it to the citizens of Charlestown not merely
to safeguard the prisoners, but also to protect the town from
the bloodshed of even an unsuccessful attempt at a rescue.
There was, moreover, extraordinary popular excitement
throughout the Union, and if this were in itself not excuse
enough, the weakness of the South's "peculiar institution"
would have furnished it. The Free State men in Kansas had
not only made slavery impossible in their Territory, but had
endangered it in Missouri by their raids into the State, and
their helping hand to any slave who came over the border
in search of freedom. From the Southern point of view, it
would seem to have been good policy to show the power of
the sovereign State of Virginia to defend her own when at-
tacked, and to punish those who violated her laws. Certainly,
Mr. Hunter, in his article in the New Orleans Times-Democrat
of September 5, 1887, reviewing the raid and Brown's trial,
makes out a strong case for the force employed. The report
of the Legislature's special committee, headed by Alexander
H. H. Stuart, unreservedly sustained Governor Wise, in the
following language:
"The testimony before the committee amply vindicates the con-
duct of the Executive in assembling a strong military force at the
scene of excitement; and the promptness and energy with which
he discharged his duty, merit, and doubtless will receive the com-
mendation of the Legislature and people of the State."5
It must be admitted, of course, that Wise still had political
ambitions, although his term as Governor was about expiring:
for a few months later, he was willing to have his name pre-
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 527
sented to the National Democratic Convention at Charleston,
South Carolina, provided the Virginia State delegation were
a unit for his nomination.62 But in his treatment of the mil-
itary situation, the politician disappears behind the Governor.
His bombastic and excitable way of dealing with it was due to
his fears, and also to his nature. His biographer, Barton H.
Wise, a relative, has characterized him as "largely a creature
of impulse," of a "remarkably mercurial " temperament, with
a "temper exceptionally excitable and his bump of combative-
ness developed in an extraordinary degree." 5S That Hunter
and the Governor realized that the State would profit largely
by the drill and experience the troops obtained at Charles-
town, Mr. Hunter admits in these words:
"From facts disclosed in the trials, from the intercepted corre-
spondence of Brown and his followers, and from other sources, a
new view of the case was opened to us in respect to the political
significance of this movement of John Brown ; we began to see that,
all it meant was not on the surface. My views were from time to
time conveyed to Governor Wise, and before the trials both he and
I became convinced, that this Brown raid was the beginning of a
great conflict between the North and the South on the subject of
slavery, and had better be regarded accordingly. This furnishes
an additional explanation of the reason Governor Wise assembled
so large a military volunteer force at Charlestown and the neigh-
boring points. It was not alone for the protection of the jail and
the repelling of parties who were known to be organizing with the
view of rescuing Brown and the prisoners, but it was for the pur-
pose of preparing for coming events."
To General Taliaferro, the commander-in-chief at Charles-
town, it was apparent that the Governor had another mo-
tive besides protecting the prisoners, in assembling so many
troops, for immediately after John Brown's execution he thus
questioned the Governor by telegraph: "Shall I send home
the First Regiment Virginia Volunteers? Which companies
beside do you wish to retire? What are your views with re-
gard to sending more troops here? Do you design a school
of instruction? There is no absolute need for half we have." 54
Thus far Governor Wise may properly be accused of having
allowed ulterior motives to influence his handling of the
Charlestown situation, but no further. It is, moreover, certain
that his disposition of the troops and the other precautions
528 JOHN BROWN
taken made a rescue practically impossible, or possible only
after severe loss of life. There are to-day survivors of those
stirring days at Charlestown, who believe that if a determined
attempt had been made, by means of a feint a mile or two
from the town, the rawness of the militia and the generally
panicky state of the town would have made the storming
of the jail possible. But among the hundreds of troops who
were steadily in camp throughout November, and those that
came to reinforce them, there were some experienced officers
and trustworthy men. As Le Barnes wrote to Higginson, the
real leaders of those who wished to rescue John Brown could
see no hope of success, even were the means needed at their
disposal. And as to the cost to Virginia of the military dis-
play, it hardly exceeded the amount appropriated at that
same time for new arms and ammunition by the Legislature
of South Carolina with a view to the existing state of its
relations to the Union.
While the Virginia authorities were thus guarding John
Brown in order to prevent a rescue, the "higher and wickeder
game," namely, the chief accessories before the fact to his
raid, whom Andrew Hunter and Governor Wise were so
anxious to stalk until the Mason Committee was decided on,
were by no means all at ease in their Massachusetts or New
York preserves. When the raid turned out to be not another
slave liberation like that in Missouri, but a drama with the
whole nation as audience, there was something akin to trepi-
dation among the self-appointed committee which had made
John Brown's raid possible. Its members were plainly un-
aware that to support a forcible attack upon a system, how-
ever iniquitous, in a country founded on the principle that
differences of opinion must be settled by the ballot, carries
with it both heavy responsibilities and grave personal dan-
ger. Few of them had believed Brown's plans feasible; none
had apparently asked themselves how far they would be com-
promised in the eyes of the law when John Brown failed. The
result was disastrous to some of them, though none of the
leaders went to jail or were otherwise punished for conspiring
with John Brown. The conduct of a few illustrates clearly
how good men of high principles and excellent motives may
flinch gravely when they suddenly find their future reputa-
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 529
tions, and perhaps even their lives, at stake in a grave and
unexpected crisis.
Of the men who, as we have already seen in the previous
chapters, knew most about John Brown's plans and principally
aided him, — Sanborn, Howe, Stearns, Gerrit Smith, Parker
and Higginson, — the Boston and Worcester clergymen alone
stand out as being entirely ready to take the consequences,
whatever they might be. Theodore Parker was in Europe on
a futile search for health, when Harper's Ferry was attacked ;
but he bore his testimony manfully: "Of course, I was not
astonished to hear that an attempt had been made to free the
slaves in a certain part of Virginia. . . . Such ' insurrections '
will continue as long as Slavery lasts, and will increase, both
in frequency and in power, just as the people become intelli-
gent and moral. . . . It is a good Anti-Slavery picture on the
Virginia shield : a man standing on a tyrant and chopping his
head off with a sword; only I would paint the sword-holder
black and the tyrant white, to show the immediate applica-
tion of the principle." 55 As for Mr. Higginson, he stood his
ground in Worcester, where all the world might find him. He
wisely reasoned from information sent him from Washing-
ton as to Senator Mason's plans, " that no one who leaves the
country will be pursued, and no one who stands his ground
will be molested. I think the reason why Phillips & I have
not been summoned is that it was well understood that
we were not going to Canada. Mason does not wish to have
John Brown heartily defended before the committee & the
country — nor does he wish to cause an emeute, either in Mas-
sachusetts or Washington. He wishes simply to say that
he tried for evidence & it was refused him. If his witnesses
go to Canada or Europe, he is freed from all responsibility." 56
The event wholly bore Mr. Higginson out, but the others
were not of his opinion at any time.
There was an early exodus of them to Canada. Frederick
Douglass left Rochester for the shelter of the British flag as
early as October 19, or the day after Brown was captured, and
was soon on his way to England.57 Mr. Sanborn was only a
day behind, departing from Concord on October 20, to return,
however, by the 26th.58 From Portland, Mr. Sanborn thus
jocularly notified Mr. Higginson of his departure:
530 JOHN BROWN
PORTLAND, Oct. 2ist, 1859.
DEAR FRIEND : According to advice of good friends and my own
deliberate judgment I am going to try change of air for my old
complaint. By this means it is thought that others will benefit as
well as I ; whether my absence will be long or short will depend on
circumstances. Yours of the iQth was rec'd yesterday before I left
home. Should you have occasion to write me again I have a friend
in Quebec named Frederick Stanley to whom you can write.
Burn this.
Yours ever.69
The reason for the hasty move was John A. Andrew's opin-
ion that the conspirators might be suddenly and secretly ar-
rested and hurried out of the State. Mr. Sanborn believed,
too, that it was "very important that the really small extent
of our movement should be concealed, and its reach and char-
acter exaggerated. . . ." M After a more careful study of the
question, Mr. Andrew advised George L. Stearns and Dr.
Howe that he could find nothing for which they could be tried
in Massachusetts or "carried to any other state." 61 Never-
theless, Stearns and Howe were on the way to Canada by
October 25, remaining outside of the jurisdiction of the
United States until after the execution of the crusader they
had helped to send into Virginia.62 Later, on December 12,
Mr. Andrew wrote to Senator Fessenden, of Maine:
"I am confident that there are some half dozen men who ought
not to testify anywhere, and who never will, with my consent as
counsel, or otherwise, do so. Not that they knew, or foreknew Har-
per's Ferry; — but, that their relations with Brown were such &
their knowledge of his movements & intentions, as a ' practical abo-
litionist,' aiding the escape of slaves by force, — even at the risk
of armed encounter, — that they could not without personal danger
say anything. Nor could they be known as having those relations,
without giving some color to the charge that Republicans co-oper-
ate in such movements."63
Mr. Stearns "escaped from Dr. Howe" — so his son re-
cords— on the fatal December 2. He was never as worried as
Dr. Howe, whom he found much agitated the first time they
met after the raid.
Unfortunately, Dr. Howe let his anxieties control him. He
issued on November 14 a card dated in Boston, although he
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 531
was still absent, in which he made the following inexplicable
statements :
"Rumor has mingled my name with the events at Harper's Ferry.
So long as it rested on such absurdities as letters written to me by Col.
Forbes, or others, it was too idle for notice. But when complicity is
distinctly charged by one of the parties engaged [John E. Cook], my
friends beseech me to define my position ; and I consent the less re-
luctantly, because I divest myself of what, in time, might be con-
sidered an honor, and I want no undeserved ones. As regards Mr.
Cook ... I never saw him . . . never even heard of him until
since the outbreak at Harper's Ferry. That event was unforeseen and
unexpected by me ; nor does all my previous knowledge of John Brown
enable me to reconcile it with his characteristic prudence and his
reluctance to shed blood, or excite servile insurrection. It is still, to
me, a mystery, and a marvel. As to the heroic man who planned
and led that forlorn hope, my relations with him in former times were
such as no man ought to be afraid or ashamed to avow. If ever my
testimony as to his high qualities can be of use to him or his, it shall
be forthcoming at the fitting time and place. But neither this nor
any other testimony shall be extorted for unrighteous purposes, if I
can help it."
Dr. Howe then explained that there were certain "deadly
instruments" among the statutes of the Union under which
"we of the North may be forced to uphold and defend the
barbarous system of Human Slavery," because a "dishonest
Judge in the remotest South" could through a marshal cause
the arrest of any citizen and have him brought before the
court. He concluded as follows:
" I am told by high legal authority that Massachusetts is so tram-
melled by the bonds of the Union, that, as matters now stand, she
cannot, or dare not protect her citizens from such forcible extradi-
tion ; and that each one must protect himself as best he may. Upon
that hint I shall act; preferring to forego anything rather than the
right to free thought and free speech." 64
In view of Dr. Howe's having known of the raid from Feb-
ruary 26, 1858, when Mr. Sanborn informed him of all Brown's
plans except the precise location at Harper's Ferry,65 the state-
ments above can be defended only on the theory that it is
proper to misrepresent when one finds one's self in an uncom-
fortable or dangerous position. This sad attitude of a man at
all other times a brave and high-minded philanthropist and
532 JOHN BROWN
a rarely useful servant of humanity, brought forth a vigorous
reproach from Mr. Higginson.66 In his indignation of the mo-
ment he notified Mr. Sanborn that he regarded Dr. Howe's
card as anything but honorable.67
For three months Dr. Howe could not find time to reply to
Mr. Higginson. On February 16 he attempted to justify his
course, writing as to the card of November 14:
"... I was not very decided in the belief of its expediency. It
was done, however, in consequence of an opinion which I held, and
hold, that everything which could be honestly done to show that
John Brown was not the Agent, or even the ally of others, but an
individual acting upon his own responsibility, would increase the
chances of escape for him and his companions. I believed, and I be-
lieve, that every manifestation at that time of public sympathy for
him and his acts, lessened the chances of his escape, whether by res-
cue or otherwise. ... Of course, there were other considerations,
but this was the leading one. . . . You say that it was skilfully writ-
ten ; but you seem to imply that honorable men, who knew all the
facts, would disapprove it. But, my friend, it was simply written
and not intended to carry a false impression. It was submitted to
an honorable man who knew all that I knew about John Brown's
movements, and a great deal more, and he approved it,* before its
publication." 68
As for his last interview with John Brown, Dr. Howe reiter-
ated that "he [Brown] did not then reveal to me his destina-
tion, or his purpose. We had no conversation about his future
plans. His appearance at 'Harper's Ferry' was to me not
only unexpected but quite astonishing. The original plan as
I understood it was quite different from this one ; & even that
I supposed was abandoned." Dr. Howe averred that the last
fifty dollars he had sent to Brown when he was at the Kennedy
Farm, were given to show his sympathy and "without cogni-
zance of his purpose." 69 When Dr. Howe finally appeared be-
fore the Mason Committee, he made every effort to baffle the
inquirers. For instance, he tried to make them believe that
the last fifty dollars he gave went toward the purchase of
the Thompson farm for Brown. Fortunately for him and the
other conspirators, the Mason Committee was not only easily
led astray, but, as Mr. Sanborn has well said, its questions
* This was presumably John A. Andrew; if this excellent man and lawyer
advised Dr. Howe's course, he must also share the responsibility.
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 533
were "so unskilfully framed that they [the witnesses] could,
without literal falsehood, answer as they did." 70 Mr. San-
born was of a different mind from Mr. Higginson as to
Dr. Howe's card.71 His reasoning, however, only aroused Mr.
Higginson anew, and led him to ask on November 17, 1859:
"Is there no such thing as honor among confederates?"72
Making all due allowances for the heat of the moment as ex-
pressed in Colonel Higginson's letter, it does not seem even
at this date that his reasoning was far wrong.
Mr. Sanborn has lately set forth in detail his own move-
ments and the reasons therefor. By the iQth of November,
1859, he had decided "to pursue my usual occupation or any
that I may take up, whatever summons or other process may
be issued ; shall resist arrest by force, shall refuse to sue a writ
of habeas corpus — but, if arrested, shall consent to be rescued
only by force. It is possible the anxiety of friends may in-
duce me to modify this course, but I think not."73 Early in
January, 1860, he received a summons from the Mason Com-
mittee. Like John Brown, Jr., he refused to go to Washington
because there was no assurance of his personal safety, — he
might be seized in passing through Maryland. When, for this
reason, Mr. Sanborn offered to testify in Massachusetts, Sen-
ator Mason wrote that he would be personally responsible
for Mr. Sanborn's safety. To this the latter replied that as
Senator Sumner had been brutally assaulted in the Senate,
he could hardly rely on Senator Mason's offer of protection.
Says Mr. Sanborn:
" Upon the receipt of this missive, Mason reported me to the Sen-
ate as a contumacious witness, and my arrest was voted, February
16, 1860, as that of John Brown, Jr., and James Redpath was. A few
of the Southern Senators, seeing that my attitude about State Rights
was quite similar to theirs, voted against my arrest, and began to
send me their political speeches. Not choosing to be seized before I
was quite ready, I retired to Canada, in the latter part of February,
taking North Elba in my northward route, in order to see the Brown
family, and to make arrangements for two of Brown's daughters,
Anne and Sarah, to enter my school, as they did, in March." 74
On the night of April 3, 1860, peaceful Concord was aroused
by one of the dramatic incidents of its history. Five men,
headed by a Boston constable, Silas Carleton, arrested San-
534 JOHN BROWN
born in his home. The outcries of his sister, his own struggles,
the ringing of the alarm-bells, the rallying to his support of his
neighbors, saved him from being carried off. His counsel was
quickly at his side and hurried at once to Judge Rockwood
Hoar, a near-by neighbor, who on hearing the tumult had
quietly begun to fill out the "proper blank for the great writ
of personal replevin." It was in the hands of a deputy sheriff
within ten minutes. When he demanded Mr. Sanborn's sur-
render of Carleton's men, they refused to give him up, — only
to have him taken from them by a hastily formed but most
zealous posse comitatus. The Supreme Court quickly decided
the next day that his arrest by the emissaries of the Senate
was without warrant of law, and Mr. Sanborn returned to
Concord a hero to his townspeople. He protested to the
Senate and began suit against Carleton and his men, and
thereafter he remained in peace.
Mr. Stearns appeared before the Mason Committee on Feb-
ruary 24, 1860, and his testimony is as interesting as it is his-
torically valuable. He, too, denied any pre-knowledge of the
raid except as a plan to "relieve slaves" by force. But he was
obviously unafraid. When Senator Mason asked, the three-
hour examination being over, and all the members of the com-
mittee but himself having left the room : ' ' Don' t your conscience
trouble you for sending those rifles to Kansas to shoot our
innocent people?" Mr. Stearns replied: "Self-defence. You
began the game. You sent Buford and his company with arms
before we sent any from Massachusetts."76 Senator Mason
later remarked to Mr. Stearns: " I think when you go to that
lower place, the Old Fellow will question you rather hard about
this matter and you will have to take it." "Before that
time comes," retorted Mr. Stearns wittily, "I think he will
have about two hundred years of Slavery to investigate, and
before he gets through that, will say, we have had enough
of this business — better let the rest go." 76 Senator Mason
laughed and left the room. Asked, in the course of the formal
examination, if he disapproved of the raid at Harper's Ferry,
Mr. Stearns responded: "I should have disapproved of it if I
had known of it ; but I have since changed my opinion ; I be-
lieve John Brown to be the representative man of this century,
as Washington was of the last — the Harper's Ferry affair, and
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 535
the capacity shown by the Italians for self-government, the
great events of this age. One will free Europe and the other
America." 77 Mr. Stearns returned to Boston to render valu-
able service to his State in the Civil War, and retained, as
long as he lived, the respect and regard of the community in
which he dwelt.
Upon Gerrit Smith the news of the raid had as deplorable
an effect as upon Dr. Howe. His biographer, O. B. Fro thing-
ham, states that a high medical authority had declared Gerrit
Smith to have reached the stage of insanity known as "exalta-
tion of mind" early in 1859; 78 tnat in the fall of 1859 he ate
and slept little and was exhausted without knowing it. When
the Harper's Ferry attack became public, it had an astounding
influence upon Mr. Smith. The outcries against him as an
accessory, in the pro-slavery press and by his political enemies,
the rumor that the Virginia authorities were about to requi-
sition the Governor of New York for his extradition, and
the bloody and futile character of the raid itself, all reduced
him to a state of terror. He saw crumbling before him the
high social and political position he had won, — Mr. Smith
had been candidate for the governorship of New York in 1858.
A reporter of the New York Herald found him, on October 30,
nervously agitated, "as though some great fear were constantly
before his imagination," and repeating again and again that
he was going to be indicted. Edwin Morton, Mr. Sanborn's
classmate, who had been cognizant of the Brown plot as a
member of Gerrit Smith's household, promptly fled to Eng-
land,79 and Colonel Charles D. Miller, Mr. Smith's son-in-law,
was sent to Ohio and to Boston to obtain or destroy all of Mr.
Smith's letters to the confederates, lest they be used against
him.80 "After struggling for several days'," wrote Mr. Froth-
ingham, "he went down under a troop of hallucinations." On
November 7 he was removed to the Utica Asylum for the In-
sane, whose superintendent, Dr. Gray, is said to have declared
that a delay of even forty-eight hours would have been fatal,
so great was the "physical prostration of the patient."
If this were the whole story, it would be easy to pass over
Mr. Smith's case with an expression of unbounded sympathy
and a regret that he, too, had failed properly to weigh the con-
sequences of committing himself to John Brown's schemes.
536 JOHN BROWN
Unfortunately, after his return from his brief stay in the
asylum (on December 29), he concealed or denied the extent
of his knowledge and complicity in the raid. Mr. Fro thing-
ham has put the case as charitably as possible:
"On emerging from the mental obscuration at Utica, the whole
scheme or tissue of schemes had vanished and become visionary. . . .
It was a dream, a mass of recollections tumultuous and indistinct.
Then cool reflection came in. The practical objections to the enter-
prise, which had flitted across his mind before, settled down heavily
upon it. The ill-judged nature of the plan in its details and in its
general scope forced itself upon his consideration, and made him wish
he had never been privy to it. The wish was father to a thought, the
thought to a purpose. His old horror of blood, his old disbelief in
violence as a means of redressing wrong, resumed its sway over his
feelings. The man of business repelled the association with the
visionary and tried to persuade himself that he had taken no part
in operations that were so easily disconcerted. He set himself to
the task of making the shadowy recollections more shadowy still,
and reducing his terms of alliance with the audacious conspirator to
sentiments of personal sympathy and admiration.'"
This led him to deny, even as late as 1867, that he gave
money to John Brown with the purpose of aiding his insurrec-
tion.82 Mr. Frothingham was unable to defend him or to excul-
pate him on the ground of insanity, and Mr. Sanborn, in his
recently published account of this episode, -- long withheld
out of consideration for the family, — makes it as clear as have
the earlier chapters of this narrative, that Gerrit Smith was,
like Sanborn, Howe and the others, cognizant of every detail
of the raid save the place of its beginning. Indeed, in a letter
to the chairman of the Jerry Rescue Committee, dated August
27» J859, Mr. Smith had foreshadowed the raid by writing:
"For insurrection then we may look any year, any month, any
day. A terrible remedy for a terrible wrong ! But come it must
unless anticipated by repentance and the putting away of the
terrible wrong." 83
However great the perturbation of his Northern associ-
ates, no prisoner in Virginia's history up to that time had
displayed greater serenity of spirit than did John Brown
himself behind his cell doors in Charlestown. It was a reve-
lation to the Virginians. Here was a man sore in body, who
ought to be sore in spirit, two of whose sons had been killed
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 537
at his side, whose own death was not far away. More than
that, the object of a lifetime had wholly miscarried. Propriety
and precedent prescribed a cast-down prisoner, chagrined,
humiliated, despairing. Instead, the miscreant in the custody
of Sheriff Campbell proved a man of unquenchable spirit,
of most equable temperament, and of unswerving courage,
who apparently believed himself the conqueror, even with the
light chains upon his ankles which he wore for the first few
days. He wrote but the truth as to his own spirit and com-
posure in his first letter from the jail to his family at North
Elba:
CHARLESTOWN, JEFFERSON Co, VA.
3 ist Oct.
MY DEAR WIFE, & CHILDREN EVERY ONE
I suppose you have learned before this by the newspapers that
Two weeks ago today we were fighting for our lives at Harpers
ferry: that during the fight Watson was mortally wounded; Oliver
killed, Wm Thompson killed, & Dauphin slightly wounded. That
on the following day I was taken prisoner immediately after which
I received several Sabre-cuts in my head; & Bayonet stabs in
my body. As nearly as I can learn Watson died of his wound on
Wednesday the 2d or on Thursday the 3d day after I was taken.
Dauphin was killed when I was taken; & Anderson I suppose
also. I have since been tried, & found guilty of Treason, etc; and of
murder in the first degree. I have not yet received my sentence. No
others of the company with whom you were acquainted were, so
far as I can learn, either killed or taken. Under all these terrible
calamities ; I feel quite cheerful in the assurance that God reigns ; &
will overrule all for his glory; & the best possible good. I feel no
consciousness of guilt in the matter: nor even mortifycation on
account of my imprisonment; & irons; & I feel perfectly sure that
very soon no member of my family will feel any possible disposition
to "blush on my account." Already dear friends at a distance with
kindest sympathy are cheering me with the assurance that posterity
at least will do me justice. I shall commend you all together, with
my beloved; but bereaved daughters in law, to their sympathies
which I do not doubt will reach you.
I also commend you all to Him "whose mercy endureth forever:"
to the God of my fathers "whose I am ; & whom I serve." " He will
never leave you nor forsake you," unless you forsake Him. Finally
my dearly beloved be of good comfort. Be sure to remember 6* to
follow my advice & my example too ; so far as it has been consistent
with the holy religion of Jesus Christ in which I remain a most firm,
& humble believer. Never forget the poor nor think anything you
bestow on them to be lost, to you even though they may be as black
as Ebedmelch the Ethiopean eunuch who cared for Jeremiah in the
538 JOHN BROWN
pit of the dungeon ; or as black as the one to whom Phillip preached
Christ. Be sure to entertain strangers, for thereby some have —
"Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them." I am in
charge of a jailor like the one who took charge of " Paul & Silas;" &
you may rest assured that both kind hearts & kind faces are more or
less about me; whilst thousands are thirsting for my blood. "These
light afflictions which are but for a moment shall work out for us a
far more exceeding & eternal weight of Glory." I hope to be able to
write to you again. My wounds are doing well. Copy this, & send
it to your sorrow stricken brothers, Ruth; to comfort them. Write
me a few words in regard to the welfare of all. God Allmighty bless
you all: & "make you joyful in the midst of all your tribulations."
Write to John Brown Charlestown Jefferson Co, Va, care of Capt
John Avis.
Your Affectionate Husband, & Father,
JOHN BROWN
P S Yesterday Nov 2d I was sentenced to be hanged on Decem 2d
next. Do not grieve on my account. I am still quite cheerful. God
bless you all.
Yours ever
J BROWN 84
In their generous permission to John Brown to write freely
to all whom he wished to address, his captors were unwittingly
allowing him to use a — for them — far more dangerous weapon
than the Sharp's rifle they had taken from him at Harper's
Ferry. As a wielder of arms, John Brown inspires no enthu-
siasm; not even the flaming sword of Gideon in his hands
lifts him above the ordinary run of those who battled in their
day for a great cause. For all his years of dreaming that he
might become another Schamyl, or Toussaint L'Ouverture,
or the Mountain Marion of a new war of liberation, he was
anything but a general. In his knapsack was no field-marshal's
baton; where he thought there might be one, lay instead an
humble pen to bring him glory. For when he was stripped
of his liberty, of the arms in which he exulted, the great power
of the spirit within was revealed to him. The letters which
now daily went forth to friends and relatives, and speedily
found their way into print, found their way also to the hearts
of all who sympathized with him, and of many who abhorred
his methods, or who had heretofore steeled themselves against
him. Some idea of their power may be gathered from the
fact that Sheriff Campbell was compelled many times to wipe
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 539
the tears from his eyes when, as a matter of duty, he read
over his captive's epistles.85 The innate nobility of the man,
his essential unselfishness and his readiness for the supreme
sacrifice, all heightened the impending tragedy, and brought
to many the conviction that, misguided as he was, here was
another martyr whose blood was to be the seed, not of his
church, but of his creed. Some of these moving products of
his pen may well find a place here:
CHARLESTOWN, JEFFERSON COUNTY, VA., Nov. i, 1859.
MY DEAR FRIEND E. B. OF R. I. : Your most cheering letter of the
27th of Oct. is received, and may the Lord reward you a thousand
fold for the kind feeling you express toward me ; but more especially
for your fidelity to the "poor that cry, and those that have no
help." For this I am a prisoner in bonds. It is solely my own fault,
in a military point of view, that we met with our disaster — I mean
that I mingled with our prisoners and so far sympathized with them
and their families that I neglected my duty in other respects. But
God's will, not mine, be done.
You know that Christ once armed Peter. So also in my case, I
think he put a sword into my hand, and there continued it, so long
as he saw best, and then kindly took it from me. I mean when I
first went to Kansas. I wish you could know with what cheerfulness
I am now wielding the "Sword of the Spirit" on the right hand and
on the left. I bless God that it proves "mighty to the pulling down
of strongholds." I always loved my Quaker friends, and I com-
mend to their kind regard my poor, bereaved widowed wife, and
my daughters 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 daughters], 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 tribu-
lations."
Dear sister, write them at North Elba, Essex Co., N. Y., to com-
fort 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 them-
selves 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 which endure for a moment, shall work out
for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. I would be
very grateful for another letter from you. My wounds are healing.
540 JOHN BROWN
Farewell. God will surely attend to his own cause in the best pos-
sible way and time, and he will not forget the work of his own hands.
Your friend,
JOHN BROWN.M
To his wife he wrote thus on November 10:
CHARLESTOWN JEFFERSON Co. VA. loth Nov. 1859.
MY DEAR DEVOTED WIFE
I have just learned from Mr. Hoyt of Boston that he saw you
with dear kind friends in Philadelphia on your return trip you had
so far made in the expectation of again seeing me in this world
of "sin & sorrow." I need not tell you that I had a great desire to
see you again: but that many strong objections exist in my mind
against it. I have before alluded to them in what I have said in my
other letters (which I hope you will soon get) & will not now repeat
them ; as it is exceedingly laborious for me to write at all. I am under
renewed obligation to you my ever faithful & beloved wife, for heed-
ing what may be my last but earnest request. I have before given
you a very brief statement of the fall of our dear sons; & other
friends. Full particulars relating to our disaster; I cannot now give:
& may never give probably. I am greatly comforted by learning of
the kindness already shown you ; & allow me humbly to repeat the
language of a far greater man & better sinner than I. "I have been
young; & now am old: yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken
nor his seed begging bread." I will here say that the sacrifizes you;
& I, have been called to make in behalf of the cause we love the cause
of God; & of humanity: do not seem to me as at all too great. I have
been whiped as the saying is; but am sure I can recover all the lost
capital occasioned by that disaster ; by only hanging a few moments
by the neck ; & I feel quite determined to make the utmost possible
out of a defeat. I am dayly & hourly striving to gather up what
little I may from the wreck. I mean to write you as much & as often
as I have Strength (or may be permitted to write.) "Be of good
cheer:" in the world we must have tribulation: but the cords that
have bound you as well as I ; to earth : have been many of them
severed already. Let us with sincere gratitude receive all that "our
Father in Heaven" may send us; for "he doeth all things well."
You must kiss our dear children and grandchildren for me. May
the "God of my fathers" be the God, & father of all — "To him
be everlasting praise." "Although the fig tree shall not blossom:
neither shall fruit be in the vines : the labour of the olive shall fail, and
the fields shall yield no meat: the flock shall be cut off from the fold,
and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet / will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation." I want dear Ruth; or Anne;
to send copies (when they can) to their deeply afflicted brothers,
of all I write. I cannot muster strength to write them all. If after
Virginia has applied the finishing stroke to the picture already made
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 541
of me (in order to "establish Justice"} you can afford to meet the
expence & trouble of coming on here to gather up the bones of our
beloved sons, & of your husband; and the people here will suffer
you to do so; I should be entirely willing. I have just received a
most welcome letter from a dear old friend of my youth; Rev. H.
L. Vail of Litchfield Connecticut. Will you get some kind friend to
copy this letter to you & send him very plain as all the acknowledge-
ment I have now strength to make him ; & the other kind friends he
mentions. I cannot write my friends as I would do ; if I had strength.
Will you answer to Jeremiah in the same way for the present a letter
I have received from him? Write me wont you? God bless you all
Your affectionate Husband
JOHN BROWN."
He had previously adjured his wife and children to remem-
ber, all,
"that Jesus of Nazareth suffered a most excruciating death on the
cross as a fellon; under the most agravating circumstances. Think
also of the prophets, & Apostles, & Christians of former days; who
went through greater tribulations than you & I; & be reconciled.
May God Allmighty ' comfort all your hearts and soon wipe away all
tears from your eyes.' To him be endless praise. Think too of the
crushed Millions who 'have no comforters.' I charge you all never (in
your trials) to forget the griefs of ' the poor that cry ; & of those that
have none to help them. ' " ^
On the 1 6th of November he thus expressed himself as to
the education of his daughters:
"Now let me say a word about the effort to educate our daughters.
I am no longer able to provide means to help towards that object,
and it therefore becomes me not to dictate in the matter. I shall
gratefully submit the direction of the whole thing to those whose
generosity may lead them to undertake in their behalf, while I give
anew a little expression of my own choice respecting it. You, my
wife, perfectly well know that I have always expressed a decided
preference for a very plain but perfectly practical education for both
sons and daughters. I do not mean an education so very miserable
as that you and / received in early life ; nor as some of our children
enjoyed. When I say plain but practical, I mean enough of the%
learning of the schools to enable them to transact the common
business of life, comfortably and respectably, together with that
thorough training to good business habits which best prepares both
men and women to be useful though poor, and to meet the stern
Realities of life with a good grace. You well know that I always
claimed that the music of the broom, washtub, needle, spindle, loom,
axe, scythe, hoe, flail, etc., should first be learned, at all events, and
542 JOHN BROWN
that of the piano, etc., afterwards. I put them in that order as most
conducive to health of body and mind ; and for the obvious reason,
that after a life of some experience and of much observation, I have
found ten women as well as ten men who have made their mark in
life Right, whose early training was of that plain, practical kind, to
one who had a more popular and fashionable early training. But
enough of that."
To this he added :
"Now, in regard to your coming here; If you feel sure that you
can endure the trials and the shock, which will be unavoidable (if
you come), I should be most glad to see you once more; but when
I think of your being insulted on the road, and perhaps while here,
and of only seeing your wretchedness made complete, I shrink from
it. Your composure and fortitude of mind may be quite equal to it
all ; but I am in dreadful doubt of it. If you do come, defer your
journey till about the 27th or 28th of this month. The scenes which
you will have to pass through on coming here will be anything but
those you now pass, with tender, kind-hearted friends, and kind
faces to meet you everywhere. Do consider the matter well before
you make the plunge. I think I had better say no more on this most
painful subject. My health improves a little ; my mind is very tran-
quil, I may say joyous, and I continue to receive every kind atten-
tion that I have any possible need of." j
To a sympathizer in West Newton, Massachusetts, Brown
wrote as follows:
CHARLESTOWN, JEFFERSON Co, 15th Nov. 1859.
GEORGE ADAMS ESQR.
MY DEAR SIR
Your most kind communication of the 5th inst was received by
me in due time. You request a few lines from me: which I cannot
deny you: though much at a loss what to write. Your kind mention
of some things in my conduct here which you approve; is very
comforting indeed to my mind : yet I am conscious that you do me
more than justice. I do certainly feel that through divine grace /
have endeavoured to be " faithful in a very few things ; " mingling with
even those much of imperfection. I am certainly unworthy even
to "suffer affliction with the people of God;11 yet, in Infinite grace
he has thus honored me. May the same grace enable me to serve
"him in "new obedience'1 through my little remainder of this life;
and to rejoice in him forever. I cannot feel that God will suffer
even the poorest service we may any of us render him or his cause
to be lost; or in vain. I do feel "dear Brother; " that I am won-
derfully "strengthened from on high." May I use that strength in
"showing his strength unto this generation," and his power to every
one that is to come. I am most grateful for your assurance that
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BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 543
my poor shattered heart-broken " family will not be forgotten." I
have long tried to commend them to "the God of my Fathers."
I have many opportunities for faithful plain dealing ; with the more
powerful, influential, and inteligent class; in this region: which I
trust are not entirely misimproved. I humbly trust that I firmly
believe that "God reigns;" and I think I can truly say "Let the
Earth rejoice"
May God take care of his own cause; and of his own great name:
as well as of them who love their neighbours.
Farewell
Your[s] in truth
JOHN BROWN °°
In a letter to a kinsman, Luther Humphrey, dated Novem-
ber 19, occur these passages:
"Your kind letter of the I2th inst. is now before me. So far as
my knowledge goes as to our mutual kindred ; I suppose / am the
first since the landing of Peter Brown from the Mayflower that has
either been sentenced to imprisonment; or to the Gallows. But my
dear old friend ; let not that fact alone grieve you. You cannot have
forgotten how; & where our Grand Father Capt (John Brown:) fell
in 1776; & that he too; might have perished on the Scaffold had cir-
cumstances been but very little different. The fact that a man dies
under the hand of an executioner (or otherwise) has but little to do
with his true character; as I suppose: John Rogers perished at the
stake a great& good man as I suppose: but his being so, does not
prove that any other man who has died in the same way was good :
or otherwise. Whether I have any reason to ' be of good cheer ' (or
not) in view of my end ; I can assure you that I feel so; & that I am
totally blinded if I do not realy experience that strengthening; & con-
solation you so faithfully implore in my behalf. God of our Fathers
reward your fidelity. I neither feel mortified, degraded, nor in the
least ashamed of my imprisonment, my chain, or my near prospect
of death by hanging. I feel assured ' that not one hair shall fall from
my head without my heavenly Father.' I also feel that I have long
been endeavoring to hold exactly 'such a. fast as God has chosen.'
See the passage in Isaiah which you have quoted. No part of my
life has been more hapily spent; than that I have spent here; & I
humbly trust that no part has been spent to better purpose. I would
not say this boastingly, but ' thanks be unto God who giveth us the
victory; through Infinite grace.'" 91
And, finally, to his staunch friend, Thomas Wentworth
Higginson, he wrote on November 22 :
DEAR SIR
I write you a few lines to express to you my deep feeling of grati-
tude for your journey to visit & comfort my family as well as myself
544 JOHN BROWN
in different ways & at different times; since my imprisonment here.
Truly you have proved yourself to be "a friend in need;" & I feel
my many obligations for all your kind attentions, none the less ; for
my wishing my Wife not to come on when she first set out. I would
it were in my power to make to all my kind friends; some other
acknowledgements than a mere tender of our & my thanks. I can
assure all: Mrs. Stearns, my young friend Hoyt; £ many others I
have been unable to write to as yet; that I certainly do not forget;
their love, & kindness. God Allmighty bless; & save them all; &
grant them to see; a fulfilment of all their reasonable desires. . . .
I am getting much better of my wounds; but am yet rather lame.
Am very cheerful 6f trust I may continue so "to the end."
My love to all Yours for God &
dear friends. the right ;
JOHN BROWN "
As he lay in jail at Charlestown, so vividly did the press
portray John Brown in his prison background that those in
the North who were moved by his speeches in court and
his letters could fairly hear the clanking of his chains, could
behold him on his bed of suffering, and later could see him
toiling with his pen. The reporting was detailed and faith-
ful. From it the public learned that in Captain John Avis he
had a kind and considerate jailer; that by the 2d of Novem-
ber all his wounds were healed, save one cut on the back of
his head;93 that he welcomed and greeted his visitors cor-
dially, even Captain Sinn and his militiamen from Frederick,
who were permitted to enter the jail at the end of October
and stare at the prisoners as if they were caged animals. They
were amazed at John Brown's composure and contentment
as he told them of his admiration for the picked company of
Virginia riflemen he had been thrown with in the War of 1812,
and expressed his regret that circumstances prevented his
seeing Captain Sinn's men on parade.94 Only one visitor did
John Brown render really uncomfortable. He was a Metho-
dist clergyman, Norval Wilson, who, after calling on Brown
with others of his cloth, proposed a prayer. "Mr. Wilson,"
asked Brown, "do you believe in slavery?" Mr. Wilson re-
plied, " I do, under the present circumstances." "Then," said
Brown with great earnestness, "I do not want your prayers.
I don't want the prayers of any man that believes in slavery.
You can pray to your Father that heareth in secret."96 In a
similar spirit he wrote to the Rev. Mr. McFarland, of Wooster,
Ohio:
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 545
"You may wonder, are there no ministers of the gospel here? I
answer, No. There are no ministers of Christ here. These ministers
who profess to be Christian, and hold slaves or advocate slavery, I
cannot abide them. My knees will not bend in prayer with them
while their hands are stained with the blood of souls." M
To the local newspaper editors who called, he was frank
and cordial, answering freely every question which did not
"involve others" and that was "consistent with honor."
When asked by the Charlestown Independent Democrat if he
were ready to meet death under the law, his reply was: "Am
entirely ready so far as I know," and, "I feel no shame on
account of my doom. Jesus of Nazareth was doomed in like
manner. Why should not I be?"97
The first of several friendly visitors from the North were
Judge and Mrs. Russell. The latter remembers to this day
how calm, rugged and comfortable Brown looked on the day
the court fixed the bounds of his life. "Oh, my dear," he
exclaimed to Mrs. Russell, "this is no place for you." But
she found that there was some woman's work to do, for she
had the captive's coat cleaned, and repaired it with her skilful
hands, while her husband, as they conversed, was ever looking
at the wide chimney in the room and praying that John Brown
might be spirited away to freedom by that ample channel.98
To the judge the prisoner reiterated his assertion, often made
in those prison days, that he was not personally concerned
in the Pottawatomie murders, — an assertion which misled
Judge Russell into saying, on John Brown's word, that the
latter had "nothing to do" with the killing; and Wendell
Phillips into announcing publicly in Cooper Union that Brown
was not at Pottawatomie — "not within twenty-five miles
of the spot." "
"Have you objections," the Russells heard John Brown
say to Captain Avis, in calm, unmoved tone, "to my writ-
ing to my wife and telling her that I am to be hanged on
the second of December?" "At last," says Mrs. Russell, "we
had to take our leave. I kissed him, weeping. His mouth
trembled, ever so little, but he only said: 'Now, go.'" And
back to their hotel the Russells went in tears, marvelling at
the utter absence in their doomed friend of self-commisera-
tion, or of anything suggesting a quarrel with fate. Just as
546 JOHN BROWN
they reached Boston, Mrs. Brown was starting for Harper's
Ferry. There the Russells gave her the reassuring news of her
husband's comfort and happiness, and told her that he would
not walk out of jail then if its doors were thrown open, —
so indebted to Captain Avis did he feel.100
If John Brown did not let his wife join him at that time, he
did receive a visit from Mrs. Rebecca Spring, of Perth Amboy,
New Jersey, who exclaimed to her husband, "I must go and
help them," the instant she heard that there were wounded
Abolitionists in prison at Harper's Ferry. "We have talked
against slavery all these years; and now somebody has done
something. These men have risked their lives; I must go,"
she said. And go she did, to tell John Brown, when she reached
his cell, by permission of Judge Parker, that "it is better to
die for a great idea than of a fever," and to learn from his
lips that no spirit of revenge had actuated the raid. Mrs.
Spring, too, ministered unto John Brown and his cellmate
Stevens, the latter handsome and impressive despite his ter-
rible wounds, and bearing his sufferings with grim and silent
fortitude, expecting to die, but never once complaining.101 *
To study Brown as he sat at his cell-desk, Edwin A. Brackett,
a sculptor, of Boston, came, — thanks to Mrs. G. L. Stearns's
generosity, — and sketched him from the door of the cell,
as the first step toward the familiar idealized bust.102 Later
came an old friend of the Pennsylvania days, M. B. Lowry,
to bid his instructor in tanning farewell.103 Samuel C. Pome-
roy, the friend from Kansas, and later its Senator, was greeted
with, " In prison ye came unto me," when he entered Brown's
cell to ask, "You remember the rescue of John Doy. Do you
want your friends to attempt it?" But Brown only repeated,
"I am worth now infinitely more to die than to live." 104 It
was Henry Clay Pate, however, the conquered at Black Jack,
who most vividly called up the Kansas days to Brown. Their
meeting was not cordial. Captain Pate came to gloat over
his ensnared conqueror, and Captain Brown of Osawatomie
declared frankly that he had met many men possessed of more
courage than Captain Pate, ex-Border Ruffian. To which
Captain Pate responded by charging Brown with all kinds of
villainy, particularly theft.105
* Mrs. Spring now lives in Los Angeles, having nearly reached the century mark.
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 547
When, in response to the panic fears of his commanders at
Charlestown, Governor Wise reached there on November 20,
with four hundred soldiers, the little Virginia town had as-
sumed all the appearance of a beleaguered city. The troops
were quartered in the churches, schools and in the court-house.
The very graveyards were invaded for washing and cooking
purposes when the militia were not parading or playing "fox
and hounds" in the streets.106 Extraordinary were some of
the military make-ups worn by the cavaliers. "Among many
corps, each military gentleman selected his own uniform;
and, while all seemed affected with a contempt for their citi-
zen clothes, rarely more than two agreed in the selection of
the color of their military dress."107 But these men in buck-
ram, as well as Governor Wise, were more desirous of seeing
John Brown than of seeing even the charming women of
Charlestown ; and to his cell they were admitted in squads of
ten and fifteen, save when the Governor himself was closeted
with him.108 It is an interesting fact that, much as the Vir-
ginians abhorred John Brown's actions, they respected his
word. When he certified that a suspect brought before him
had been a Border Ruffian and not a Free State man, the
prisoner was instantly set free without question.109 So Gov-
ernor Wise talked once more with the State prisoner, with
absolute confidence in his veracity and integrity. This inter-
view Governor Wise himself has described :
" I visited John Brown but once after his incarceration to await
his trial. I especially desired to ascertain whether he had any com-
munication to make to me other than he had already made. He
repeated mostly the same information, expressed his personal re-
gard and respect for me, thanked me for my kindness in protecting
him from all violence and in providing for his comfort. He com-
plained of some disease of the kidneys, and I tendered him the best
aid of physician and surgeon, which he declined, for the reason that
he was accustomed to an habitual treatment, which he had already
provided for himself. He talked with me freely and I offered to be
the depositary of any confidential request consistent with my honor
and duty; and when we parted he cordially gave me his blessing,
wishing me every return for the attentions to him as a prisoner." uo
While Governor Wise was with him, Brown corrected an
obvious conflict between his statements as to his real object,
after his capture (that it was not to carry off the slaves and
548 JOHN BROWN
free them), and his declaration in court, on being sentenced,
that his sole object was to run the slaves off as he had done
in Missouri. The next day he sent for Andrew Hunter, and
after a talk with him, addressed to him the following note:
CHARLESTOWN, JEFFERSON COUNTY, VA.,
November 22, 1859.
DEAR SIR: I have just had my attention called to a seeming
confliction between the statement I at first made to Governor Wise
and that which I made at the time I received my sentence, regard-
ing my intentions respecting the slaves we took about the Ferry.
There need be no such confliction, and a few words of explanation
will, I think, be quite sufficient. I had given Governor Wise a full
and particular account of that, and when called in court to say
whether I had anything further to urge, I was taken wholly by sur-
prise, as I did not expect my sentence before the others. In the
hurry of the moment, I forgot much that I had before intended to
say, and did not consider the full bearing of what / then said. I in-
tended to convey this idea, that it was my object to place the slaves
in a condition to defend their liberties, if they would, without any
bloodshed, but not that I intended to run them out of the slave States.
I was not aware of any such apparent confliction until my attention
was catted to it, and I do not suppose that a man in my then circum-
stances should be superhuman in respect to the exact purport of every
word he might utter. What I said to Governor Wise was spoken
with all the deliberation I was master of, and was intended for truth ;
and what I said in court was equally intended for truth, but required
a more full explanation than I then gave. Please make such use of
this as you think calculated to correct any wrong impressions I may
have given.
, Very respectfully, yours,
JOHN BROWN
ANDREW HUNTER, ESQ., Present.111*
The suffering wife of the prisoner had not returned to North
Elba, after being stopped at Baltimore on her way to her hus-
band. It seemed best to those friends who now came to her
aid to keep her where she could leave for Harper's Ferry at
a moment's notice. So, heavy of heart, she went first to Mr.
* Andrew Hunter always declined to believe Brown's explanation that he was
taken by surprise in court. It is interesting to note, however, that Dr. John D.
Starry stated to a correspondent of the Tribune in May, 1884, that it was not true
that John Brown had prevaricated after his capture; that he was a man of excita-
ble temperament prone to error in excitement, but that when over his excitability
"he was as exact as could be." See New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, May 27,
1884.
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 549
William Still's home at Philadelphia, whence, with Mrs.
Spring just from John Brown's cell, she went to Eagleswood,
Mrs. Spring's Perth Amboy home. Here she received every
attention, but it was deemed wise to have her return to Phila-
delphia on November 16, with Mr. McKim, with whom, and
with Lucretia Mott, she spent the remaining weeks of her
husband's life, quite content to abide by her husband's de-
cision that it was unwise for her to go to his side.112 On the
2 1st, with Mr. McKim's aid, she composed a touching letter
to Governor Wise, begging for the "mortal remains of my
husband and his sons" for decent and tender interment among
their kindred.113 Of his reply Governor Wise made two drafts,
— the first even more creditable to him than the one sent, for
in it he wrote: "If duty and law permitted, you should have
the lives of your husband and sons instead of their mortal
remains;" and that his feelings as a man "yearned toward her
as a wife and a mother, a woman afflicted." The letter Mrs.
Brown received contained these characteristic paragraphs:
" I am happy, Madam, that you seem to have the wisdom and
virtue to appreciate my position of duty. Would to God that ' pub-
lic considerations could avert his doom,' for The Omniscient knows
that I take not the slightest pleasure in the execution of any whom
the laws condemn. May He have mercy on the erring and the
afflicted.
" Enclosed is an order to Major Genl. Wm. B. Taliaferro, in com-
mand at Charlestown, Va. to deliver to your order the mortal re-
mains of your husband ' when all shall be over;' to be delivered to
your agent at Harper's Ferry; and if you attend the reception in
person, to guard you sacredly in your solemn mission.
" With tenderness and truth, I am,
" Very respectfully your humble servant,
HENRY A. WISE." m
On the 30th, Mrs. Brown, in response to the letter already
quoted, was at Harper's Ferry, accompanied by Mr. and
Mrs. McKim and Hector Tyndale, a rising young lawyer of
Philadelphia. Governor Wise ordered by telegraph that she,
alone, be permitted to visit her husband the next day, on
condition of returning to Harper's Ferry that evening and
awaiting there the delivery of his body.115 A sergeant and
eight men of the Fauquier Cavalry escorted her carriage on
the long, dreary ride to Charlestown on December I, and a
550 JOHN BROWN
militia captain sat beside her.116 At half-past three o'clock
they were in Charlestown, and a few minutes later began
that tragic last interview between husband and wife which
so deeply stirred the onlooking North. But, as was to be ex-
pected from two such self-controlled characters as John and
Mary Brown, they in nowise gave way to their grief, save for
a minute or two as they met. Mrs. Brown had had her mo-
ment of uncontrollable anguish in Philadelphia, when Gov-
ernor Wise's letter came to her with its final assurance that
there was no hope for her husband's life.117 Now husband
and wife sat down to their final communion, — primarily to
discuss his will, her future, the education of their children.
When the coming event was touched upon, and her courage
began to fail, he assured her that while it would be pleasant
to live longer, he was content to go, for, after all, go he must
sooner or later.
When, however, it became evening and John Brown heard
that they must part soon, he begged that she be permitted
to pass the night with him. But the commanding general,
Taliaferro, had no option in the face of the Governor's ex-
plicit instructions. It was the only time in all his confinement
that this great prisoner gave way to anger or passion. It
availed him not; and when the parting came, both husband
and wife "exhibited a composure, either feigned or real, that
was truly surprising." In Captain Avis's room Mrs. Brown's
tears came freely, and with her husband's last blessing ringing
in her ears, she began the long, dark ride back to her waiting
friends in Harper's Ferry.118 They were practically prisoners,
these kind souls, for when they first went out to walk the
streets, a bullet whistled in the air, to Hector Tyndale's espe-
cial annoyance. For he little dreamed that twenty-six months
later, on February 7, 1862, to him would fall the military duty,
while major of the Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania Infantry, of
burning nearly all of Harper's Ferry, save John Brown's fort.
So quickly did time then bring its revenges!
With his wife gone, John Brown, whose will had been drawn
for him by Andrew Hunter,119 devoted himself for a time to
his last letters and to a brief but calm sleep. He had already
sent a final letter to his family, and, among half a dozen other
last farewells, this note:
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 551
CHARLESTOWN, JEFFERSON Co VA. 29th Nov. 1859.
MRS GEORGE L STEARNS
Boston Mass
MY DEAR FRIEND
No letter I have received since my imprisonment here, has given
me more satisfaction, or comfort; than yours of the 8th inst. I am
quite cheerful : & was never more happy. Have only time [to] write
you a word. May God forever reward you & all yours. My love to
All who love their neighbours. I have asked to be spared from having
any mock ; or hypocritical prayers made over me, when I am publicly
murdered : & that my only religious attendants be poor little, dirty,
ragged, bare headed, & barefooted Slave boys ; & Girls ; led by some old
grey headed Slave Mother.
Farewell. Farewell.
Your Friend
JOHN BROWN120
The letter to his family read in part thus:
CHARLESTOWN, PRISON, JEFFERSON Co, VA.
30th Nov 1859
MY DEARLY BELOVED WIFE, SONS: & DAUGHTERS, EVERYONE
As I now begin what is probably the last letter I shall ever write
to any of you ; I conclude to write you all at the same time. ... I
am waiting the hour of my public murder with great composure of
mind, & cheerfulness: feeling the strongest assurance that in no
other possible way could I be used to so much advance the cause
of God; & of humanity: & that nothing that either I or all my family
have sacrinsed or suffered : will be lost. The reflection that a wise &
merciful, as well as just & holy God : rules not only the affairs of this
world; but of all worlds; is a rock to set our feet upon; under all
circumstances : even those more severely trying ones : into which our
own follies; & rongs have placed us. I have now no doubt but that
our seeming disaster: will ultimately result in the most glorious
success. So my dear shattered & broken family be of good cheer; &
believe & trust in God; "with all your heart & with all your soul;11
for " he doeth All things well." Do not feel ashamed on my account;
nor for one moment despair of the cause ; or grow weary of well doing.
I bless God; I never felt stronger confidence in the certain and near
approach of a bright Morning ; & a glorious day ; than I have felt ;
& do now feel; since my confinement here. I am endeavouring to
"return" like a "poor Prodigal" as I am, to my Father: against
whom I have always sined: in the hope; that he may kindly, & for-
givingly "meet me: though a verry great way off." Oh my dear Wife
& Children would "to God" you could know how I have been
"travelling in birth for you " all : that no one of you "may fail of the
grace of God, through Jesus Christ:" that no one of you may be
blind to the truth: & glorious "light of his word," in which Life;
552 JOHN BROWN
& Immortality; are brought to light. I beseech you every one to
make the bible your dayly & Nightly study ; with a childlike honest,
candid, teachable spirit : out of love and respect for your Husband ;
& Father : & I beseech the God of my Fathers ; to open all your eyes
to a discovery of the truth. You cannot imagine how much you may
soon need the consolations of the Christian religion.
Circumstances like my own; for more than a month past; con-
vince me beyound all doubt : of our great need: of something more to
rest our hopes on ; than merely our own vague theories framed up,
while our prejudices are excited ; or our vanity worked up to its high-
est pitch. Oh do not trust your eternal all uppon the boisterous
Ocean, without even a Helm ; or Compass to aid you in steering. I do
not ask any of you; to throw away your reason: I only ask you, to
make a candid & sober use of your reason : My dear younger children
will you listen to the last poor admonition of one who can only love
you? Oh be determined at once to give your whole hearts to God ; &
let nothing shake; or alter; that resolution. You need have no fear
of regreting it. Do not be vain ; and thoughtless : but sober minded.
And let me entreat you all to love the whole remnant of our once great
family: "with a pure heart fervently." Try to build again: your
broken walls : & to make the utmost of every stone that is left. No-
thing can so tend to make life a blessing as the consciousness that you
love : 6° are beloved : & "love ye the stranger " still. It is ground of the
utmost comfort to my mind : to know that so many of you as have
had the opportunity ; have given full proof of your fidelity to the
great family of man. Be faithful until death. From the exercise of
habitual love to man : it cannot be very hard : to learn to love his
maker. I must yet insert a reason for my firm belief in the Divine
inspiration of the Bible: notwithstanding I am (perhaps naturally)
skeptical: (certainly not, credulous.) I wish you all- to consider it
most thoroughly ; when you read the blessed book ; & see whether you
can not discover such evidence yourselves. It is the purity of heart,
feeling, or motive : as well as word, & action which is everywhere in-
sisted on ; that distinguish it from all other teachings ; that commends
it to my conscience: whether my heart be "willing, & obedient" or
not. The inducements that it holds out ; are another reason of my
conviction of its truth: 6* genuineness : that I cannot here omit; in
this my last argument for the Bible. Eternal life ; is that my soul is
"panting after1' this moment. I mention this ; as reason for endeavour-
ing to leave a valuable copy of the Bible to be carefully preserved in
remembrance of me: to so many of my posterity; instead of some
other things of equal cost.
I beseech you all to live in habitual contentment with verry
moderate circumstances : & gains, of worldly store : & most earnestly
to teach this : to your children ; & Childrens Children ; after you : by
example : as well ; as precept. Be determined to know by experience
as soon as may be : whether bible instruction is of Divine origin or
not; which says ; "Owe no man anything but to love one another.'*
553
John Rogers wrote to his children, "Abhor the arrant whore of
Rome." John Brown writes to his children to abhor with undiing
hatred, also: that "sum of all vilainies;" Slavery. Remember that
"he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty: and he that ruleth
his spirit; than he that taketh a city." Remember also: that "they
that be wise shall* shine : and they that turn many to righteousness :
as the stars forever; & ever." And now dearly beloved Farewell,
To God & the word of his grace I comme[n]d you all.
Your Affectionate Husband & Father
JOHN BROWN m
The last night was quickly over; with the coming of the
dawn men were stirring, for this day was to see a "judicial
murder" which, more than any other in the country's history,
thrilled it from ocean to ocean. He who was to pay the pen-
alty was early at his Bible, in which, before bestowing it upon
a confectioner who had been kind to him, he had marked the
passages which had most influenced his life.122 Then there
was still another letter to be written to his wife:
CHARLESTOWN, JEFFERSON Co, VA.
26. Decem, 1859
MY DEAR WIFE
I have time to enclose the within : & the above : which I forgot
yesterday: & to bid you another Farewell: "be of good cheer" and
God Allmighty bless, save, comfort, guide, & keep; you, to "the
end."
Your Affectionate Husband
JOHN BROWN.
The enclosures read thus:
"To be inscribed on the old family Monument at North Elba.
"Oliver Brown born 1839 was killed at Harpers ferry Va
Nov i yth 1859. „
"Watson Brown, born 1835 was wounded at Harpers ferry
Nov iyth and died Nov igth 1859.
" (My Wife can) supply blank dates to above
"John Brown born May 9th 1800 was executed at Charlestown,
Va, December 26. 1859."
" Charlestown, Jefferson Co, Va, 2d Decem. 1859. It is my desire
that my Wife have all my personal property not previously disposed
of by me; & the entire use of all my landed property during her
natural life; & that after her death the proceeds of such land be
equally divided between all my then living Children: & that what
would be a Childs share be given to the Children of each of my Two
sons ; who fell at Harpers ferry ; Va: & that a Childs share be divided
554 JOHN BROWN
among the children of any of my now living Children who may die
before their Mother (my present much beloved Wife.) No formal
will: can be of use when my expressed wishes; are made known to
my dutiful; and dearly beloved family.
JOHN BROWN " 123 *
And while he was thus using his pen, the prison guards who
should have hated were moving automatically, silently, with
bowed heads, lest the tears so near to welling up should over-
flow. The majesty of death had now laid its spell upon them,
as the dominating personality of the man they guarded had
won from them a regard they wished not to bestow. To
each quivering guard John Brown now gave a book; to his
trusty jailer his silver watch.124 Then, after a few minutes
alone on his knees in prayer, it was "God bless you, my men,"
and "May we all meet in Heaven," to those who had followed
him even to the verge of the grave — save two. To John
E. Cook he was reproachful because of some phrases in Cook's
confession which seemed to his leader untruthful and mis-
leading. To Hazlett he said not a word, for neither he nor any
of the other raiders would admit that this was one of their
chosen company, in the vain hope thus to cheat the scaffold
of his young life.125
And then John Brown stood on the porch of the jail, the
last long journey begun, with lieutenants and guards by his
side. No little slave-child was held up for the benison of his
lips, for none but soldiery was near and the street was full of
marching men. " I had no idea that Governor Wise considered
my execution so important," burst from his lips.126 But even
in that supreme moment the race for which his life was forfeit
was not forgotten. For, as he left his cell, he handed to one
who stood near this final, wonderfully prophetic and imper-
ishable message to the "million hearts" of his countrymen,
which, as Wendell Phillips said, had been "melted by that
old Puritan soul:"
" I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this
guilty land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I
now think : vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed ;
it might be done." m
* He had already determined, with absolute equanimity of spirit, the kind of
coffin in which he was to be buried. For his other wills, see Appendix.
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 555
To this true prophet on the brink of eternity it now ap-
pears that nothing was concealed on that last morning. Must
he not again have read the onrushing future as he surveyed
the troops massed about the scaffold on that clear and warm
and beautiful December day? For behind his gibbet stood
"Stonewall" Jackson, some of whose young artillerymen, in
the cadet red and gray of the Virginia Military Institute, were,
within three years' time, while still tender lads, to offer up
their lives in defence of the very valley upon whose beauties
they now gazed ; Jackson himself was to give his life's blood
to purge the nation of its crimes; and through the loss of his
high-spirited and gifted son then in the ranks of the Richmond
company, Governor Wise was soon to know what John Brown,
the father, had suffered in the engine house at Harper's Ferry.
There, on a snow-white horse, rode to and fro Captain Turner
Ashby, of knightly bearing and superb horsemanship, destined,
less than three years later, to die a general of Confederate cav-
alry.128 And in the closed ranks stood now, shoulder to shoul-
der, the colonels and generals of many a veteran legion-to-be,
whose blood was soon to besprinkle Virginia from end to end.
Here was forecast, too, the cruelest blood-letting of all the
long and ghastly line; for, in a Richmond company, rifle on
shoulder, stood the sinister figure of J. Wilkes Booth,129 than
whom no single American ever dealt a wickeder blow to his
country. If John Brown's prophetic sight wandered across
the hills to the scene of his brief Virginia battle, it must
have beheld his generous captor, Robert E. Lee, again in mili-
tary charge of Harper's Ferry, wholly unwitting that upon
his shoulders was soon to rest the fate of a dozen confederated
States. And if the prisoner's spiritual glance carried thus far,
it must also have found its way through the flimsy walls
of the Wager House, into a room where waited a little group
around a heart-broken woman with "hands locked, eyes
streaming, hearts uplifted in prayer," waiting for the hour
to strike which should tell them that John Brown was beyond
the reach of enemies and friends alike.130
His visions did not, however, prevent his drinking in the
rare charm of the landscape. "This is a beautiful country.
I never had the pleasure of seeing it before," fell from his
lips,131 as he came upon the field, seated on his coffin, in a
556 JOHN BROWN
wagon drawn by two white horses, and preceded by three
companies of infantry. There were fifteen hundred soldiers
present to see that this one old man was hanged. But, watch
him as they might, they could detect no sign of flinching.
With alacrity the despised Abolitionist climbed down from
the wagon and ascended the scaffold to take one last, longing
glance at the Blue Ridge Mountains which had to him spelled
liberty for the enslaved these many long years. With cheer-
fulness he shook the hands of those near him and bade others
adieu. Not when the cap was drawn over his head, his arms
pinioned at the elbows, the noose slipped around his neck,
was there a single waver. Even in all the unpicturesqueness of
his ill-fitting suit and trousers and loose carpet-slippers, John
Brown was a wonderfully dignified and impressive figure on
the scaffold, because of the serenity and calmness of his spirit.
The solemnity of it all moved every one, from the boyish
cadets to the oldest soldiers. The most deeply religious man
among the troops, "Stonewall" Jackson, was shaken like
the rest, and "sent up a fervent petition" to Heaven that
John Brown might be saved. Awful was the thought, to him,
that this man about to die "might receive the sentence 'De-
part, ye wicked, into the everlasting fire.'" 132 But no such
thought was in the mind of John Brown. His soul was bent
on high, facing in confidence the future. While the three
companies that had been his escort deployed slowly into
place, he stood erect as a soldier of the Lord. As if to test his
courage to the end, they were a long twelve minutes filing
into place, while John Brown showed Virginia how a brave
man could die.
"The sheriff asked him," writes Colonel J. T. L. Preston,
who stood hard by, "if he should give him a private signal,
before the fatal moment. He replied in a voice that sounded
to me unnaturally natural — so composed was its tone and
so distinct its articulation — that 'it did not matter to him,
if only they would not keep him too long waiting.' " But the
little-drilled troops took forever, it seemed, in moving into
place, — not, as was alleged in the North, to try the prisoner's
nerves, but because the exact formation had been ordained
in advance and there was no one thoughtful or daring enough
to give the signal before it was complete. But come the word
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED 557
did at last. A single blow of the hatchet in the sheriff's hand
and,
"the man of strong and bloody hand, of fierce passions, of iron will,
of wonderful vicissitudes, — the terrible partisan of Kansas — the
capturer of the United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry — the
would-be Catiline of the South — the demigod of the Abolitionists —
the man execrated and lauded — damned and prayed for . . . John
Brown, was hanging between heaven and earth." 133
The painful silence that followed was broken by Colonel
Preston's solemnly declaring: "So perish all such enemies of
Virginia ! All such enemies of the Union ! All such foes of the
human race!" It was said without a shade of animosity,
without a note of exultation; but the blind man was not he
who swung from the rope above. For his eyes had seen, long
before his light had failed, the coming of the blue-clad masses
of the North who were to make a mockery of Colonel Pres-
ton's words and strike down the destroying tyranny of slavery,
to free Virginia from the most fateful of self-imposed bonds.
As the troops now solemnly tramped away, with all decorum
and without any demonstrations, in far-off Albany they were
firing one hundred guns as the dirge of the martyr.134 And
meanwhile, John Brown's soul was marching on, and all in
the North who had a conscience and a heart knew that John
A. Andrew voiced the truth when he declared that "whether
the enterprise of John Brown and his associates in Virginia
was wise or foolish, right or wrong; I only know that, whether
the enterprise itself was the one or the other, John Brown
himself is right." 135
CHAPTER XV
YET SHALL HE LIVE
"THERE need be no tears for him, for few men die so happily,
so satisfied with time, place and circumstance as did he,"
wrote Samuel Bowles in the Springfield Republican, the day
when John Brown's body had hung for thirty-seven minutes
on the scaffold. Perhaps at the very hour when he penned
this editorial, only forty-four days after John Brown left
Harper's Feny in chains, yet about to shake the nation to its
depths, Brown's lifeless body was taken back to the scene of
his raid and delivered to his wife, — not, however, until Hec-
tor Tyndale had insisted on the opening of the coffin to make
sure that no other body had been substituted, as some had
insinuated would be the case.1 But the Virginians had done
more than keep faith ; they had furnished, by order of General
Taliaferro, a body-guard of fifteen civilians, who volunteered
to see that no harm befell the body in its simple pine coffin
during its brief trip from Charlestown to Harper's Ferry, on
a special train of two cars.2 The very courtesy and human-
ity of this action revealed the impossibility of making of this
execution the ignominious hanging of a wicked criminal.
The Virginians were willing, too, that Mrs. Brown should take
with her the bodies of Oliver and Watson Brown; but the
latter's remains had been taken to the Winchester Medi-
cal College for preservation as an anatomical specimen, and
Mrs. Brown felt herself unequal to the task of identifying
the body of Oliver.3 His remains, with those of the eight other
raiders who died in Harper's Ferry, were buried in two large
boxes by James Mansfield, to whom the county gave five
dollars for his services. Almost at the water's edge of the
Shenandoah, in an unmarked grave, he interred them, wrap-
ping them first in the blanket-shawls they had worn over their
shoulders as they went to their death in Harper's Ferry.4 Here
they lay while the hosts in Blue and Gray marched and fought
over them.*
* Until 1899, when, with Mansfield's aid, the bodies were moved to North Elba
by Dr. Thomas Featherstonhaugh, of Washington, and others interested, and
YET SHALL HE LIVE 559
All was quiet enough at Harper's Ferry when the funeral
party started for Philadelphia, but the North at that hour
was ringing with the news and echoing with protests. At Ra-
venna, Ohio, at seven o'clock there was a meeting of sympa-
thy, to which were invited all "who hate oppression and all
its vengeful, savage barbarities and who sympathize with the
devoted Martyrs of Liberty." 5 In Cleveland, Melodeon Hall
was draped in mourning for a meeting attended by fourteen
hundred persons; and as the train bearing Brown's body
moved on toward Baltimore, this gathering solemnly resolved
that his execution "for a conscientious observance of the law
of brotherhood as inculcated by Jesus Christ, and the law of
freedom as taught by Thomas Jefferson," proved that "the
State of Virginia under the lead of Henry A. Wise" was a
"contemptible caricature of the Old Dominion in the days
of George Washington. . . ." 6 In Philadelphia they had not
waited as long ; a public prayer meeting was held at the hour
of the execution, only, however, to be broken up by a number
of Southern medical students, with whom the public openly
sympathized.7 In New York, Rochester, Syracuse, Fitch-
burg, Concord (Massachusetts), Plymouth, New -Bedford,
Concord (New Hampshire), and Manchester, meetings were
held, and in many places the bells were tolled.
But it was in Boston that the excitement reached its height.
Motions to adjourn in honor of Brown were defeated in both
houses of the Massachusetts Legislature, — by only three
votes in the Senate, while in the House the vote stood 141
to 6.8 That night, however, Tremont Temple was filled to
the doors by one of the greatest meetings of the many notable
ones it had sheltered. Wlien the doors were opened, men
and women were swept in, some without touching their feet to
the ground. The meeting, held under the auspices of the Ameri-
can Anti-slavery Society, was presided over by Samuel E.
reinterred by the side of their commander with those of Stevens and Hazlett,
Watson Brown's body having previously been brought there. The changed opin-
ion of their country appears from the fact that whereas Dauphin Thompson and
Jeremiah G. Anderson were killed by United States marines in 1859, United
States infantrymen of the Twenty-sixth Regiment fired a salute over their graves
and those of their associates at North Elba in 1899. The Rev. Joshua Young, who
read the service over John Brown's body in 1859, again officiated; Bishop Henry
C. Potter also took part in the ceremonies.
56o JOHN BROWN
Sewall. Among the many placards which decorated the hall
was one bearing these words of Lafayette: "I never would
have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have
conceived that thereby I was helping to found a nation of
slaves." William Lloyd Garrison declared that the meeting
was called to witness John Brown's resurrection, and read
Brown's address to the court when sentenced. He said in
the course of his speech:
"Nevertheless, I am a non-resistant, and I not only desire, but
have labored unremittingly to effect, the peaceful abolition of
slavery, by an appeal to the reason and conscience of the slave-
holder ; yet, as a peace man — an ' ultra ' peace man — I am pre-
pared to say: 'Success to every slave insurrection at the South, and
in every slave country.' And I do not see how I compromise or
stain my peace profession in making that declaration. . . . Rather
than see men wearing their chains in a cowardly and servile spirit, I
would, as an advocate of peace, much rather see them breaking the
head of the tyrant with their chains. Give me, as a non-resistant,
Bunker Hill, and Lexington, and Concord, rather than the cowardice
and servility of a Southern slave-plantation." '
The size and enthusiasm of this meeting were the more
remarkable because there had been, just two weeks earlier,
on November 19, a gathering in the same place in aid of John
Brown's family. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Rev. Jacob M.
Manning, Wendell Phillips and John A. Andrew spoke, the
last named also presiding and thereby apparently endanger-
ing his political future. It was on this occasion that he ut-
tered his famous sentiment about John Brown's being right,
and declared that the conflict between freedom and slavery
was as irresistible as that between right and wrong. Wendell
Phillips's oratory was at its best, for to his deep feeling about
slavery itself was added all the chivalry of his generous, high-
spirited, yet aristocratic nature. Said Emerson :
" It is easy to see what a favorite he [John Brown] will be with his-
tory, which plays such pranks with temporary reputations. Nothing
can resist the sympathy which all elevated minds must feel with
Brown, and through them the whole civilized world; and, if he must
suffer, he must drag official gentlemen into an immortality most
undesirable, and of which they have already some disagreeable fore-
bodings." 10
YET SHALL HE LIVE 561
Not often is it given to a condemned man to have the
opinion of posterity thus interpreted to him by such great
souls as Andrew, Phillips and Emerson, whose words, pene-
trating as they did to the prisoner of Charlestown, must have
strengthened his already wonderful composure.
When the train which bore John Brown's body and its
guardians arrived at Philadelphia, about one o'clock on the
day after the execution, it was met by a reception committee
headed by Dr. William H. Furness, who, with Hector Tyn-
dale, led Mrs. Brown away.11 But the excitement in the
great crowd on all sides of the station was so intense that it
was not safe to take the body to the undertaker's, as had been
planned. An empty hearse driven hastily away dispersed
a part of the crowd as effectually as a platoon of police, and
then the coffin was placed in a furniture car and carried to
the Walnut Street wharf, whence it was taken by boat to
New York on its way to North Elba.12 Thither Wendell
Phillips and J. Miller McKim escorted the body, as well as
Mrs. Brown; at every town at which they tarried, Troy,
Rutland, Vergennes and Westport, bells tolled and the citi-
zens appeared, to express their sympathy to Mrs. Brown.13
At Elizabethtown, the last resting-place for a night, a guard
of honor watched the coffin in the court-house until dawn.
Thence over almost impassable roads for the twenty-five miles
to North Elba, which John Brown had himself so often cov-
ered on foot, with the elements against him, the funeral party
journeyed, all day of Wednesday, December 7. The next
day, in the early afternoon, they laid all that was mortal of
John Brown in a grave by the great boulder near his still
unfinished house, — the huge stone being then, as to-day, the
best possible monument to the native ruggedness and stead-
fastness of his character. Near-by, the towering White Face
Mountain rises in all its grandeur, and well beyond, the tallest
peak in the Adirondacks stands sentinel over the grave.
The women of his family, with Salmon Brown, the sole
son who dared be present, and Henry Thompson, were the
chief mourners.14 Four widows were there, Mrs. Brown and
the wives of Oliver and Watson Brown — Oliver's soon to
die with the infant its father had not lived to see — and of
William Thompson. The Rev. Joshua Young had come from
562 JOHN BROWN
his pulpit in Burlington, Vermont, to read from the Scriptures
and to pray at the grave, for which service he was promptly
deprived of his church. Mr. McKim once more bore his tes-
timony, and then, in the place of William Lloyd Garrison,
whose absence from Boston prevented his receiving in time
the invitation to attend and speak, Wendell Phillips, the
matchless orator of the Abolition cause, addressed the little
gathering in the crowded house. Said he of John Brown :
" Marvellous old man ! . . . He has abolished slavery in Virginia.
You may say this is too much. Our neighbors are the last men we
know. The hours that pass us are the ones we appreciate the least.
Men walked Boston streets, when night fell on Bunker's Hill, and
pitied Warren, saying, 'Foolish man! Thrown away his life! Why
did n't he measure his means better?' Now we see him standing
colossal on that blood-stained sod, and severing that day the tie
which bound Boston to Great Britain. That night George III
ceased to rule in New England. History will date Virginia Eman-
cipation from Harper's Ferry. True, the slave is still there. So,
when the tempest uproots a pine on your hills, it looks green for
months — a year or two. Still, it is timber, not a tree. John Brown
has loosened the roots of the slave system; it only breathes, — it
does not live, — hereafter."
And as the coffin was lowered, members of a neighboring
colored family, that of Lyman Epps, sang some of the hymns
for which he had cared, and John Brown was at rest among
the negroes he had labored for, near the women of his family
who had toiled and suffered anguish for him and his cause, in
the shadow of the great mountains he had loved.
But the meetings of sympathy and grief did not stop with
the funeral. They went on for one reason or another, — the
raising of funds for the family was one, — and soon there
were gatherings of protest and denunciation by pro-slavery
sympathizers. The great Cooper Union meeting in New York,
addressed by Wendell Phillips, on December 15, was inter-
rupted throughout by men sent there by denunciations of it
in the Herald. On the same day, an anti-slavery convention
in Philadelphia devoted itself to the Charlestown martyr.15
A week earlier, a large Union meeting in Faneuil Hall, in
Boston, had repudiated the raid, acclaimed the Union, and
boldly asserted the right of Virginia to her peculiar institution.
THE NORTH ELBA FARMHOUSE
JOHN BROWN'S GRAVE
YET SHALL HE LIVE 563
An ex-Governor of the State, Levi Lincoln, presided, and the
names of four other ex-Governors and some of the best known
men in Boston were on the list of vice-presidents.16 The
Union meeting in New York, on December 19, adopted a reso-
lution denouncing "all acts or inflammatory appeals which
intend or tend to make this Union less perfect, or to jeopard
or disturb its domestic tranquillity, or to mar the spirit of
harmony, compromise and concession upon which the Union
was formed by our fathers. . . ." Another resolution read:
"That we regard the recent outrage at Harper's Ferry as a
crime — not only against the State of Virginia, but against
the Union itself. . . . That, in our opinion, the subject of
slavery has been too long mingled with party politics."
Among the speakers were Charles O'Conor, ex-Governor
Washington Hunt, John A. Dix, Professor Ormsby M.
Mitchel, later a distinguished Northern general, and the Rev.
Dr. George W. Bethune. Mayor Daniel F. Tieman was in the
chair. There were three overflow meetings in the street. 17 Sim-
ilar meetings were held in many another town and city, of those
who wanted to preserve the Union of the States by keeping
silent on the slavery question, and the New York Democracy
was bitter in its denunciations of the "Northern Abolition-
ists," who now stood convicted of having "long contemplated
a war of races," and of having, as the Brown raid revealed,
"slowly and deliberately" plotted to that end.18 Individuals
of prominence, too, went on record in those days. Emerson,
in his ignorance of Pottawatomie, had spoken of Brown be-
fore his execution as ' ' that new saint, than whom none purer
or more brave was ever led by love of men into conflict and
death, — the new saint awaiting his martyrdom, and who,
if he shall suffer, will make the gallows glorious like the
cross." Thoreau felt similarly. Longfellow wrote in his diary
on the day of the hanging: "This will be a great day in
our history; the date of a new Revolution, — quite as much
needed as the old one. Even now as I write, they are leading
old John Brown to execution in Virginia for attempting to
rescue slaves! This is sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind,
which will come soon." 19
George William Curtis felt that John Brown was "not
buried but planted. He will spring up a hundred-fold. I do
564 JOHN BROWN
not wonder at the solemn pomp of his death. They would
have none but a Southern-made rope to hang him, but that
rope had two ends — one around the neck of a man, the other
around the system [of slavery]." 20 "Let the American State
hang his body and the American Church damn his soul. Still,
the blessing of such as are ready to perish will fall on him, and
the universal justice of the Infinitely Perfect God will make
him welcome home. The road to heaven is as short from
the gallows as from the throne," wrote Theodore Parker.21
"The day before yesterday old Brown was executed," wrote
Francis Lieber to a friend. "He died like a man and Virginia
fretted like an old woman. . . . The deed was irrational,
but it will be historical. Virginia has come out of it damaged,
I think. She has forced upon mankind the idea that slavery
must be, in her own opinion, but a rickety thing. . . ." 22
The politicians, too, were quick to give their opinions.
Abraham Lincoln, at Troy, Kansas, on December 2, 1859,
remarked: "Old John Brown has been executed for treason
against a State. We cannot object, even though he agreed
with us in thinking slavery wrong. That cannot excuse vio-
lence, bloodshed and treason. It could avail him nothing that
he might think himself right." 23 On February 27, 1860,
speaking more at length in Cooper Union, he declared:
"John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrec-
tion. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among
slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so
absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough
it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with
the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings
and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people
till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them.
He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own
execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's
attempt at Harper's Ferry were in their philosophy precisely the
same." 24
Lincoln's great rival for the Republican nomination for
the Presidency, William H. Seward, did not mince matters.
All good citizens, he said, would agree "that this attempt to
execute an unlawful purpose in Virginia by invasion, involv-
ing servile war, was an act of sedition and treason, and crim-
YET SHALL HE LIVE 565
inal in jitet the extent that it affected the public peace and
was destructive of human happiness and life." But, besides
lamenting the deaths of innocent citizens, " slain from an
ambush and by surprise," Mr. Seward felt that the execu-
tions of the offenders themselves might be thought pitiable,
"although necessary and just, because they acted under de-
lirium, which blinded their judgments to the real nature
of their criminal enterprise." 25 In Massachusetts, Edward
Everett and Caleb Gushing voiced their protests and painted
the horrors of servile insurrections, in the Boston Union meet-
ing of December 8, in which Gushing called attention, in vain,
to Brown's blood guilt on the Pottawatomie. Public opinion
in the North was in no mood to believe ill of John Brown,
and even in the South his previous record made far less im-
pression than did the manner of his dying. None the less,
both Everett and Gushing roundly denounced the lawlessness
of the raid, and the latter did not hesitate to insinuate that
Phillips, Garrison, Parker and the other anti-slavery leaders
were as insane as Gerrit Smith.
Stephen A. Douglas, the author of the vicious Kansas-
Nebraska act, but for which there would probably have been
no raid on Harper's Ferry, who was then nearing the prema-
ture ending of his remarkable career, touched upon Brown's
taking horses belonging to citizens of Missouri. Naturally,
he beheld in Brown a "notorious man who has recently suf-
fered death for his crimes," 26 and he was glad to saddle upon
the Republican party the responsibility for those crimes. As
for the Southerners themselves, the attitude of their leaders
is easily conceivable. In Jefferson Davis's eyes, John Brown
deservedly "suffered a felon's death," for he came "to incite
slaves to murder helpless women and children." 27 Robert
Toombs was fiery enough to suit even Governor Wise, for
in the Senate, in the following January, he thus talked of
civil war:
"Never permit this Federal government to pass into the hands of
the black Republican party. It has already declared war against
you and your institutions. It every day commits acts of war against
you : it has already compelled you to arm for your defence. . . . De-
fend yourselves ! The enemy is at your door, wait not to meet him at
your hearthstone ; meet him at the doorsill, and drive him from the
566 JOHN BROWN
Temple of Liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a
common ruin." 28
In the course of an excited debate in the Virginia House
of Delegates, five days after John Brown's death, General
James L. Kemper, one of the most talented and influential
members of the Legislature, was almost as bloodthirsty:
"All Virginia . . . should stand forth as one man and say
to fanaticism, in her own language, whenever you advance
a hostile foot upon our soil, we will welcome you with bloody
hands and to hospitable graves." 29
A similar vein was that of a State Senator of Mississippi,
Brown by name, to the Legislature of his State:
" I have said of Mr. Seward and his followers, that they are our
enemies and we are theirs. He has declared that there is an 'irre-
pressible conflict' between us. So there is! He and his followers
have declared war upon us, and I am for fighting it out to the bitter
end. It is clear that one or the other must go to the wall, and the
sooner the better." *°
In the view of Senator Mason, of Virginia :
"John Brown's invasion was condemned [in the North] only be-
cause it failed. But in view of the sympathy for him in the North
and the persistent efforts of the sectional party there to interfere
with the rights of the South, it was not at all strange that the
Southern States should deem it proper to arm themselves and pre-
pare for any contingency that might arise." 31
In his annual message to Congress, President Buchanan
took the unusual view that while many feared that the Har-
per's Ferry outbreak was but a symptom of an "incurable
disease in the public mind," it was in his opinion likely to
be altogether a blessing in its after effects. He informed the
country of his belief that:
" the events at Harper's Ferry, by causing the people to pause
and reflect upon the possible peril to their cherished institutions,
will be the means, under Providence, of allaying the existing excite-
ment and preventing further outbreaks of a similar character. They
will resolve that the Constitution and the Union shall not be en-
dangered by rash counsels, knowing that should ' the silver cord be
loosed or the golden bowl be broken ... at the fountain,' human
power could never reunite the scattered and hostile fragments."
YET SHALL HE LIVE 567
The Joint Committee of the General Assembly of Virginia,
which investigated the raid, held a different opinion when it
reported, on January 26, 1860; for it felt that as long as the
Republican party
"maintains its present sectional organization, and inculcates its
present doctrines, the South can expect nothing less than a succes-
sion of such traitorous attempts to subvert its institutions and to
incite its slaves to rapine and murder. The crimes of John Brown
were neither more nor less than practical illustrations of the doc-
trines of the leaders of the Republican party. The very existence
of such a party is an offence to the whole South."
The Committee offered a resolution that Virginia should
put its militia on a war-service basis, and then, without vio-
lating the Federal Constitution, achieve its commercial in-
dependence of the North by establishing its own manufac-
tures and promoting direct trade with foreign countries.32
Only nine days earlier, the General Assembly had listened
to an address of O. G. Memminger, special commissioner
from South Carolina to urge Virginia to join the conference
of Southern States which South Carolina was calling, to con-
sider and act upon the grave situation created by the "in-
creasing violence in new and alarming forms" of the attacks
upon slavery. "Every village bell," he said, "which tolled
its solemn note at the execution of Brown, proclaims to the
South the approbation of that village of insurrection and
servile war." Harper's Ferry, he declared, "proved that the
North and South are standing in battle array." 33 Similar
sentiments were voiced by Governor Gist, of South Carolina,
in his annual message to the Legislature. For him the Rubi-
con had been crossed.34
In marked contrast to this, the utterance of one Northern
Governor, Samuel J. Kirkwood, of Iowa, may be cited in this
connection, since it was an accurate interpretation of the
opinions of the bulk of the plain people of the Middle West:
"I cannot wonder at the most unfortunate and bloody occur-
rence at Harper's Ferry. But while we may not wonder at it, we
must condemn it. It was an act of war — of war against brothers,
and in that a greater crime than the invaders of Cuba and Nicara-
gua were guilty of; relieved to some extent of its guilt in the minds
of many, by the fact that the blow was struck for freedom, and not
568 JOHN BROWN
for slavery. . . . While the great mass of our people utterly con-
demn the act of John Brown, they feel and they express admiration
and sympathy for the disinterestedness of purpose by which they
believe he was governed, and for the unflinching courage and calm
cheerfulness with which he met the consequences of his failure."
But even this was not allowed to pass uncriticised by the
Democratic minority in the Iowa Legislature, fifty-eight
members of which voted that such sentiments were out of
place in a gubernatorial message, and quite "demagogic."35
As for the newspapers, North and South, they took sides
about as they had prior to the execution. Curiously enough,
some in the South turned on their friend the New York Her-
ald, because it printed so many Abolitionist speeches and
documents, the reprinting of which, it was felt, would do much
harm. A collapsing economic system, slavery was more than
ever afraid of free speech, as was shortly to be shown by its
treatment of a powerful tract, 'The Impending Crisis,' from
the pen of Hinton Rowan Helper, a poor white of Southern
birth and breeding. Newspapers like the Richmond Enquirer,
Charleston, South Carolina, Mercury, and the Baltimore
Patriot, put remarkably little faith in the action taken by the
various Northern anti-Brown meetings, which they suspected
of being planned to appease the South for the moment. The
Patriot believed that there was no sincerity and a great deal
of political time-serving in the resolutions passed, favorable
as they were to the South.36 The Enquirer was pleased with
the words, but demanded "acts, acts." It sympathized with
the remark of the London Times that "the first thing that
strikes us is that the North did nothing until Brown was exe-
cuted, and then it began to talk."37 The Baltimore Sun3*
found in the pro-Brown outbursts proof, hitherto lacking,
that Brown was really a "representative man" of the North.
"That the South can afford to live under a Government,
the majority of whose subjects or citizens regard John Brown
as a martyr and a Christian hero, rather than a murderer and
robber, and act up to those sentiments, or countenance others
in so doing, is a preposterous idea, as will be comprehended
by all the North ere the end of the next session of Con-
gress. ..." Naturally, newspapers of this stripe could only
denounce as treason the editorial utterance of the Cleveland
YET SHALL HE LIVE 569
Daily Herald,™ entitled "Hung be the Heavens with Black,"
which declared that "The gloom upon all hearts is too deep
for words. Slavery drives John Brown to madness and then
hangs him for that insanity. What a spectacle in a Chris-
tian community ! — What a solemn day for this Christian
nation!" But they found fresh comfort in the Portage, Ohio,
Sentinel, published in John Brown's old home, which rejoiced
in his proper penalty for his many crimes, for "his whole life
. . . has been that of a lawbreaker."40 Thus were Northern
communities of a sudden clearly cleaved by the actions of
twenty-two men in a Southern State.
But nowhere were there abler editorials on the Southern
side than appeared in the Baltimore American, which sin-
cerely hoped that the death of John Brown would end the
"confusion, excitement and parade" among the Virginians,
which, it felt bound to say, had not "presented them in a very
favorable aspect to the country." Uttering "a word of cau-
tion to those who are inclined to attach importance to the
fact that Brown met his fate with perfect calmness," the
American rightly declared that in itself this proved nothing.
"Pirates," it said, "have died as resolutely as martyrs. . . .
If the firmness displayed by John Brown proves anything,
the composure of a Thug, dying by the cord with which he
had strangled so many victims, proves just as much." 41 Not
unnaturally, the Southern press absolutely failed to compre-
hend such a point of view as that of Victor Hugo, perhaps the
greatest man of letters in Europe, in whose far-reaching opin-
ion: "In killing Brown, the Southern States have committed
a crime which will take its place among the calamities of his-
tory. The rupture of the Union will fatally follow the assas-
sination of Brown. As to John Brown, he was an apostle and
a hero. The gibbet has only increased his glory and made him
a martyr."42 For his epitaph Victor Hugo suggested, "Pro
Christo sicut Christus."
The Baltimore American's hope, that Virginia might set-
tle down after John Brown's execution, came to naught as
long as Browrn's followers were yet to be disposed of. The
trials of Edwin Coppoc, Shields Green, John Copeland, Jr.,
and John E. Cook followed in that order, and by November
9 they were all sentenced to die on December 16, their trials
570 JOHN BROWN
being in all essentials repetitions of Brown's, without the dra-
matic features, George Sennott, of Boston, making a splendid
legal fight for them. His contention that a negro could not
be convicted of treason in Virginia was agreed to by Andrew
Hunter and the court, and Green and Copeland were con-
victed on the other charges. In Cook's behalf, the eloquent
Daniel W. Voorhees, of Indiana, later United States Senator
from that State, made a plea which is said to have reduced
the court-room to tears — but in vain.43 In Edwin Coppoc's
behalf, Governor Wise appeared before the Senate and House
Committees for Courts of Justice in Richmond, and stated
his readiness to have Coppoc's sentence commuted to im-
prisonment for life.44 This action justly won for the impul-
sive and high-spirited Governor not a little praise from both
North and South, and the unfortunate Quaker youth might
possibly have escaped the scaffold, had there not most in-
opportunely appeared in the New York Tribune a letter from
Coppoc to Mrs. John Brown, telling of the death of Watson
and Oliver Brown, in which he spoke of the Harper's Ferrians
as "the enemy." At once the Senate Committee took sides
against Coppoc, and the Governor's intercession became of
no avail. This might, however, have been the case had the
letter not appeared, for while it was alleged in some quarters
that Coppoc had shot no one, it was clearly brought out be-
fore the Senate Committee that his rifle was responsible for
Mayor Beckham's death. Coppoc denied having written the
letter, but it is believed that he signed it after it had been
written for him by Cook.45
Naturally, the friends of John Brown in the North watched
the fate of his associates with all devotion, hoping against hope
for the prisoners' lives, and eager to do anything to aid them.
The failure of their efforts to rescue John Brown from death
on the scaffold only increased the determination of his three
militant friends, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John W.
Le Barnes and Richard J. Hinton, to cheat the Virginia hang-
man of some of his victims. But before they could do else
than begin to plot, four more raiders, John E. Cook, Edwin
Coppoc, Shields Green and John Copeland, Jr., were executed
on a single day, December 16. As if to intensify the bitterness
and disappointment of their Northern allies, Cook and Cop-
YET SHALL HE LIVE 571
poc all but escaped, the night before their deaths. Despite
the watchfulness of Andrew Hunter and the military com-
manders in Charlestown, one of the men enrolled for service
in the prison guards soon after the raid was Charles Len-
hart, the Kansas Free State fighter, whose sole motive for
this service was a desire to succor the raiders.46 It was easy
for him to get into touch with them, and from him Cook and
Coppoc learned that on the night of December 14, 1859, he
would be on duty at the angle of the prison wall most favor-
able for an escape. They had borrowed a knife from a prison
guard and "forgotten" to return it; taken a screw out of the
bedstead, and obtained a knife-blade from Shields Green.
With these slight implements they had worked a whole week
and made an aperture in the wall which they were able to
conceal during the day. With the knife-blade they made teeth
in the knife, and with this roughly improvised saw cut off
their shackles. Their cell being on the first floor, there was
a drop of not over five feet to the prison yard. Once there,
only a fifteen-foot brick wall was between them and free-
dom.
On the appointed night, Lenhart was on guard and every-
thing in readiness. But anxiously as he walked his post those
long wintry hours, not a sound came to his longing ears be-
fore the arrival of his relief sent him back to his quarters. A
fatal consideration for his brother-in-law, the then Governor
Willard, of Indiana, and his sister Mrs. Willard, who were
in town to bid him farewell, but were to leave the next day,
induced Cook to postpone the attempt lest the escape reflect
upon them.47 He was generous enough to urge Coppoc to go
alone, but Coppoc was not of that stuff. Not even the thought
of his grief-stricken Quaker mother in the quiet village of
Springdale, to which his brother Barclay had now safely re-
turned, would induce him to abandon his comrade. On July
25 of the same year, Barclay Coppoc had said to his mother,
after getting a letter from John Brown: "We are going to
start for Ohio to-day." "Ohio!" said his mother, "I believe
you are going with old Brown. When you get the halters
around your necks, will you think of me?" 48 The halter was
fairly around Edwin's neck now, but nothing could induce him
to deprive Cook of his chance for life by going out alone.
572 JOHN BROWN
On the next night, Coppoc removed his chains and crawled
out first, Cook following. To their joy they found no one in
the prison yard. Fortunately, the timbers of the scaffold upon
which Brown had perished, and upon which they were to die,
were still in the yard, and gave them an easy means of arriv-
ing at the top of the wall. Alas for their high hopes! A loyal
soldier of Virginia stood where Lenhart was to have been,
and the instant Cook appeared upon the wall, the guard shot
at him.49 Both men tried to jump down, but the sentry threat-
ened to bayonet them if they did, and so, sadly enough, they
walked back into the jail and delivered themselves up to the
astonished Captain Avis and his guards. Their stay in their
cell thereafter was short — a brief twelve hours. At half-
past twelve of the next day they left it forever, calm, cool
and collected, to show, as did the negroes Green and Cope-
land, that Brown's men could die like himself, "with the most
unflinching firmness," as the Associated Press told the story.
With these deaths there remained alive at Charlestown only
Aaron Dwight Stevens and Albert Hazlett, of Brown's little
band. The latter went by the name of William H. Harrison,
the nom de guerre of Richard J. Hinton, which Hazlett had
assumed when arrested at Newville, Pennsylvania. Under
it he had illegally been extradited to Virginia, there being no
proof produced that he had ever been in that State, or was
in any way connected with the Harper's Ferry raid. In jail,
as already told, his comrades refused to recognize him or call
him else than Harrison. "Hazlett," says Mrs. Annie Brown
Adams, "was a really good, kind-hearted man, with Httle or
no education. He had always lived among the roughest kind
of people, and was the least accustomed to polite living of
any of them, but he was brave and manly in every respect." 50
As for Stevens, with his superb physique, fine face and beau-
tiful voice, and reputation for matchless physical courage,
the young men of Charlestown thronged to see him, to hear
him sing, or to talk of his belief in spiritualism. Women easily
fell under the sway of his charms, and a young woman from
Ohio, Jennie Dunbar, went to Richmond in vain, just before
his execution in March, to beg for his life of Governor Letcher, 61
who had succeeded Governor Wise on January I, 1860. No
one who met Stevens failed to remember him, uneducated
YET SHALL HE LIVE 573
though he was, and since boyhood an adventurer. His per-
sonality was a special incentive to those who plotted for his
release.
Before the hanging of Cook and Coppoc, Richard J. Hin-
ton telegraphed to Leavenworth in an endeavor to get hold
once more of Captain James Montgomery, of Kansas. He
was restless on December 13 that no answer had come. " Count
me in for one, Stephens and Haslitt must be saved," he wrote
to Mr. Higginson on that date, and urged that something be
done without regard to Montgomery.52 But Higginson, know-
ing Montgomery's reputation as a Free State leader, insisted
on his coming East to take the leadership in their rescue plan.
The two did not meet personally until the rescuers had as-
sembled at Harrisburg. Then Higginson was delighted with
the Kansan, and wrote to his wife on February 17, 1860, that
Montgomery "is one of the most charming men I ever saw
. . . and a man to follow anywhere. He was at first reluctant
to come, but now his soul is in it. Says the obstacles sound
much greater than they are." 53
The reason for Montgomery's reluctance in coming was,
as he himself wrote to Higginson on February I , from Mound
City, Kansas, "the strong possibility that my services will
be needed nearer home. One of our citizens has been shot
down and another carried off by a mob from Missouri." Be-
tween his duty to his family, his duty to his creditors, and his
duty to the cause, he had spent a sleepless night, and then
decided to send some one else East in his place. Before this
letter was penned, Mr. Higginson had started R. J. Hinton
on January n, 1860, for Kansas, to plead with Montgomery
personally.54 This Hinton did at Moneka, early in February,
with such success that Montgomery agreed to leave for the
East at once, and, instead of mailing his letter of declination
to Mr. Higginson, handed it to him at Harrisburg.65 It was
addressed to the "Rev. Theo. Brown," and signed by "Henry
Martin;" but when they met, Higginson was going by the
name of Charles P. Carter, while Captain Montgomery was
always referred to in the letters that passed between the
conspirators as the "master machinist." 56
Before they actually met in Harrisburg, on February 16,
much preliminary work was done. Besides contributing lib-
574 JOHN BROWN
erally of his own means, Higginson obtained permission from
John Brown's widow to use part of the funds placed in his
hands for the benefit of the Brown family, in his endeavor
to save Hazlett and Stevens.67 The young publishers of Red-
path's hastily written and printed life of Brown, William W.
Thayer and Charles Eldridge, were enlisted in the cause and
contributed eight hundred dollars, partly an outright gift,
partly as a loan, Thayer taking four hundred and thirty-one
dollars in a bag to Harrisburg and spending, en route, a sleep-
less night at the Astor House in New York, lest he be robbed
by an unknown room-mate. Wendell Phillips promised one
hundred dollars, and E. A. Brackett, the sculptor, two hun-
dred dollars. Colonel D. R. Anthony, of Leavenworth, con-
tributed three hundred dollars to Hinton and Montgomery.
All in all, $1721 were disbursed in the undertaking, and no
one regretted the expenditure then or at any time.68
Mr. Higginson at once saw the desirability of getting in
touch with those of Brown's men who had escaped from Har-
per's Ferry, because of the invaluable knowledge attained by
them in their recent and perilous escape through the moun-
tains. He soon succeeded in finding Charles Plummer Tidd,
then in hiding in Ohio, and learned from him that he was
anxious to aid the expedition. But Tidd wrote on January
20 that it would be impossible for him "to act openly in the
Southern part of this State [Ohio] or in Virginia. I am too
well known, and at this season of the year I think it a great
undertaking to camp out." He would be willing to 'go in the
spring, but as it became evident that Stevens and Hazlett
would not be alive in the spring unless rescued, — they were
both sentenced to death on February 14, 1860, — Tidd came
to Boston in February to counsel with Higginson and Thayer
and Eldridge. He then again stated his belief that the plan
of rescue conceived by Higginson, of an overland dash to
Charlestown through the mountains, was impracticable owing
to the cold. To camp without fires was impossible; to camp
with them was to court discovery and capture.69
For the moment, however, Higginson refused to be dis-
couraged by the unquestionable truth of this statement, and
continued his planning with unabated enthusiasm. John W.
Le Barnes had, meanwhile, returned to New York to reSnlist
YET SHALL HE LIVE 575
for the new undertaking the group of German revolutionists
of 1848 who had expressed a willingness to join in the effort
to save Brown from the gallows. It was through the editor of
the Staats-Zeitung, Oswald Ottendorfer, and Friedrich Kapp,
one of the foremost of the German refugees, that Le Barnes
had got into touch with this group and obtained the adher-
ence of their leader, Colonel Richard Metternich, who sub-
sequently died in the cause of freedom in the Union army.
Metternich asserted that he had a dozen or more men ready
to go, and their terms as to themselves, and their families in
case of accident, were moderate. But doubts having arisen
as to the genuineness of their enthusiasm in the cause, Hinton
was hurried to New York on his return from Kansas, to see
each of them personally,— "to cinch the Teutons,"60 as Hig-
ginson put it. Their willingness to start was never actually
tested. Le Barnes and Hinton saw to it that they were armed
"with the tools necessary, large and small," that is, rifles
and revolvers. Rockets and ammunition were also purchased
in New York, and Mr. Higginson had attended to the ob-
taining of "tools" for the others of the band, most of which
were borrowed in Boston. One box of rifles was sent to New
York in care of Oliver Johnson, editor of the Anti-Slavery
Standard, and one box of revolvers to Le Barnes, who was
to bring them in his trunk if summoned to Harrisburg; but
he was urged to be careful of them, as they were to be "re-
turned if not wanted." 61
There was no difficulty in getting men together in Kansas
under Montgomery's leadership, and no question as to their
loyalty and enthusiasm, with or without pay. Naturally, the
men who had safely delivered Dr. John Doy from the St.
Joseph, Missouri, jail were the first thought of. Silas Soule",
Joseph Gardner, J. A. Pike and S. J. Willis were selected
from their number. 62 Willis, being in Troy, New York, first
heard of the undertaking through a letter from Hinton. He
at once wrote to Higginson, in the spirit characteristic of all
the Kansans, "I am now on call," and assured him that the
entering of Missouri's strongest prison and taking therefrom
his friend and neighbor Dr. Doy "are among the most pleasing
incidents of a somewhat eventful life." From Linn County
came John Brown's close friend, Augustus Wattles, together
576 JOHN BROWN
with Henry Carpenter and Henry C. Seaman. Henry Sea-
man's brother Benjamin was summoned from his home in
Iowa, and Benjamin Rice from Bourbon County, Kansas.
Augustus Wattles went on ahead.63
Captain Montgomery, signing himself "Henry Martin," tel-
egraphed to Mr. Higginson from Leavenworth, on February
10, 1860, "I have got eight machines. Leave St. Joseph thir-
teenth," "machines " being the code word for "men." 64 Curi-
ously enough, at that moment Mr. Higginson seems to have
felt that the proper time for the venture had passed. Accord-
ing to his own memorandum on the telegram, he answered,
"Too late — send back machines and come here yourself.
T. B. [Theodore Brown]." But the answer cannot have
reached Montgomery, for five days later, a telegram from
J. H. Reed [Hinton] in Pittsburg announced the arrival there
of "eight machines awaiting transfer." 65 After two days
more, the "machines " were safely transferred to Harrisburg in
the guise of cattlemen looking for bargains. Those from Linn
County had had a thrilling adventure in crossing the Mis-
souri River to St. Joseph at night, in an overloaded skiff, but
experienced no difficulty in passing through that Southern
city. The three Doy rescuers, Gardner, Pike and Soule", nat-
urally gave St. Joseph a wide berth, and the two parties do
not seem to have met until Pittsburg was reached.66 The
eight "machines" reported there could only have been Mont-
gomery, Rice, Pike, Gardner, Soule, Carpenter and the two
Seamans, for Wattles had gone ahead, and Willis was still in
Troy.
At Harrisburg, Montgomery speedily found Higginson, who
had taken up his abode with Dr. William W. Rutherford, an
Abolitionist and a "tower of strength," and probably the
only man in Harrisburg who was entrusted with the secret.67
The problem which confronted Montgomery and Higginson,
as they sat down to it in the Doctor's parlor, Higginson put on
a bit of paper he has carefully preserved. It reads as follows : 68
This is what involved —
i. Traverse a mountainous country miles at 10 miles a night,
carrying arms ammunition & blankets & provisions for a week —
with certain necessity of turning round and retreating the instant
of discovery, & of such discovery causing death to our friends: and
YET SHALL HE LIVE 577
this in a country daily traversed by hunters. Also the certainty of
retreat or detection in case of a tracking snow wh. may come any
time. Being out 5 nights at mildest, possibly 10. Includ'g crossing
Potomac, a rapid stream where there may be no ford or boats.
2. Charge on a build 'g defended by 2 sentinels outside & 25
men inside a wall 14 ft. high. Several men inside prison besides, &
a determined jailer. Certainty of rousing town & impossibility of
having more than 15 men.
3. Retreat with prisoners & wounded probably after daylight —
& No. i. repeated.
T. W. HIGGINSON.
Montgomery, as Higginson at once reported to his wife and
to Le Barnes on the same day, February 17, was not dismayed
by this apparently hopeless and impossible undertaking, but
insisted that he must first scout over the country by himself.
For that purpose he needed a whole week, for he must take
his time and do it thoroughly. "He [Montgomery]," wrote
the Worcester clergyman, "has excellent suggestions which I
cannot give — if undertaken at all it can be done at one dash,
not taking long. But he says & I agree that an unsuccessful
attempt to introduce the machinery would re-act very un-
favorably and nothing must be done without a fair prospect
of success." 69
Bad luck pursued the conspirators from the beginning.
Tidd was to arrive from Massachusetts that (Friday) night,
but was compelled to postpone his coming until the following
Monday or Tuesday. Before their arrival, the heavens proved
in league with their enemies, for a heavy fall of snow made
their hearts sick as they gazed upon it on reaching Harris-
burg. The next day it again snowed heavily, " further depress-
ing the hopes of our machinist," as Higginson reported.70
He himself left on Monday for Chicago, to do some lectur-
ing there and at Yellow Springs,71 returning just in time to
receive Montgomery's report of a daring venture he had
made.
True to his Kansas reputation, he had gone with but one
comrade, Soule, straight to the portals of Charlestown, risking
not only the elements, but discovery at the hands of the Vir-
ginia patrols, with which the roads teemed. He travelled
openly, and relied, with success, upon that Southern accent
which was his by right of his Kentucky birth and ancestry.
578 JOHN BROWN
Soule* played the jovial Irishman to perfection, and, leaving
Montgomery, entered Charlestown apparently in such a
state of intoxication, that to his unutterable delight, he was
speedily locked up in the very jail with the men he had come
to rescue. He as skilfully obtained an interview with Stevens
and Hazlett, and informed them of the undertaking on hand.
Deeply moved, both declared a rescue impossible, for if most
of the troops had left, and civil rule had been established after
the executions of December 16, there was still a constant guard
of eighty men. Troops were, moreover, on call in all the sur-
rounding towns and could arrive in two or three hours. The
loss of life would certainly be heavy. Their kind jailer, Cap-
tain Avis, they knew would fight to the last. They did not
wish liberty at the cost of his life and those of some of the
rescuers. Hazlett sent personal messages of farewell to Hinton
before the interview concluded. Soule* was then haled before
a justice of the peace, listened gravely enough to a lecture
on the evils of intemperance, and doubtless on the especial
danger of getting drunk in a town under semi-military con-
trol. Discharged, he promptly made his way back to Harris-
burg.72
There, too, came Montgomery and also Gardner, who,
being of Pennsylvania- Dutch birth, had been allowed to try
the "underground" Quaker routes, with but ill success; for,
according to Hinton, he was threatened with exposure by
some to whom he had entrusted his secret, arid compelled to
return.73 It was perhaps owing to Gardner's indiscretions
that Governor Letcher again got word that there was a con-
spiracy afoot, but warnings had already been given him. For,
o'n January 26, he wrote to Andrew Hunter:
"If from the information you receive, you shall be satisfied that a
rescue will be attempted, inform me at once, either by telegraph or
otherwise. I have made my arrangements to have all the necessary
troops upon the grounds at the earliest practicable moment — and
in a very few hours, after I shall be notified that they are required." 74
In the second-rate Drover's Tavern in Harrisburg, in which
the comrades of Montgomery, Soule and Gardner had awaited
their return, a council of war was held. Soule made his report
of Stevens's and Hazlett's wishes. Mr. Higginson declares
YET SHALL HE LIVE 579
that he never knew what effect, if any, this attitude of the
prisoners had upon Montgomery's mind.75 That he had al-
ready made it up was speedily clear. He had found the entire
countryside between Charlestown and Harrisburg on the
alert, and easily discovered that the pretence of a hunting-
party would not hold good at that time of year. Finally, the
continuing heavy snows made rapid movements impossible,
and great suffering certain. The elements were the deciding
factors, and Montgomery reluctantly submitted to their
decree. Higginson, who presided at the conference, asserts
that he consented reluctantly to the abandonment of the
enterprise upon which he had built high hopes. Thayer's
recollection, thirty-three years after, was that the clergyman's
eloquent insistence that fifteen or twenty lives ought not to
be sacrificed in a hopeless attempt to save one or two, carried
the day.76 Certain it is that the other Kansans gave up the
expedition with the greatest reluctance. They had come East
to die, if need be, in order to rescue their comrades of Free
State days. But their readiness to sacrifice themselves was in
vain. Montgomery remained firm, and the opposition of their
chosen leader could not be disregarded. To the great disap-
pointment of Hinton and Le Barnes, who were still in New
York with Metternich and his Teutons, awaiting the word,
Stevens and Hazlett were now left to their fate. The twenty-
one men who were ready to take their lives in their hands and
go — one less in number than the men who went to Kennedy
Farm — dispersed to their homes or took up their normal
occupations. Most of the Kansans returned direct to their
Territory.
Lest it be thought that these men were not of the fighting
blood that is willing to risk all against great odds, it must be
recorded that the majority took up arms as soon as the Union
was openly attacked. Higginson became colonel of the First
South Carolina, the first regiment of blacks raised for the
Union army, while Montgomery's military record as colonel
of three regiments has already been given. Le Barnes was a
lieutenant in a German company of the Second Massachusetts,
while Tidd died as Sergeant Charles Plummer of the Twenty-
first Massachusetts, and Colonel Metternich is known to have
fallen for the Union in Texas. Hinton became a captain in
58o JOHN BROWN
the Second Kansas Colored Volunteers, and H. C. Seaman,
Gardner, Pike, Rice and Willis served in various capacities
from sergeant to captain, the first three being of the latter
rank in Kansas regiments at the expiration of their service.77
The willingness of the party to risk death was well proved.
Higginson in after years went over the ground between Har-
risburg and Charlestown only to convince himself that the
decision reached by Montgomery was the proper one. An
attempt would have failed utterly. While ready at that time
to risk all, it is plain that Higginson realized how desperate
the undertaking was to be; for once, when it appeared that
the Germans might not materialize, he wrote to his wife that
this meant "another chance on your side," - that is, another
faint prospect that he might return to her alive. When this
fiery apostle of liberty finally reached his home safe and
sound, his first entry in his note-book after getting to Worces-
ter on March I, 1860, was the famous message in Dickens's
'A Tale of Two Cities' -"Recalled to Life."78 Fifteen
days later, Stevens and Hazlett perished on the scaffold;
Stevens certain of a return to earth in spirit form, while Haz-
lett, rejoicing in the news that his body was to be "taken
from this land of chains," added, "my death will do more
than if I had lived." 79
To add to the political excitement of the winter of 1859-
60, and to keep John Brown before the public, two events
contributed besides the trials and executions in Charlestown.
These were the meetings of the Mason Investigating Commit-
tee of the United States Senate, to which references have
already been made, and the contest in the House of Repre-
sentatives over the Speakership. The Mason Committee's
sessions began on December 16, 1859, and ended on June 14,
1860. The next day, Senator Mason presented a majority re-
port signed by himself, Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi,
and Senator G. N. Fitch, of Indiana. The minority of the
committee, Senators Jacob Collamer, of Vermont, and James
R. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, also presented a short report. In it
the minority expressed no sympathy writh John Brown or his
purpose; indeed, their chief effort seemed to be to offset any
political effect the majority report might have in connecting
YET SHALL HE LIVE 581
Northern Abolitionists or prominent Republicans with John
Brown and his men. Hence they reached the extraordinary
conclusion that there was no evidence that any other citizens
than those at Harper's Ferry were accessory to the outbreak,
or had "any suspicion of its existence or design" before the
explosion. They also recorded their belief that no evidence
was presented of any conspiracy or design, by any one, to
rescue John Brown and his associates from prison. The raid
the minority believed to be "but an offshoot from the exten-
sive outrages and lawlessness in Kansas." It was astonishing
to them that, "in a country like ours . . . there should still
be found large bodies of men laboring under the infatuation
that any good object can be effected by lawlessness and vio-
lence. ... It can, in its nature, beget nothing but resistance,
retaliation, insecurity and disaster." Said Messrs. Collamer
and Doolittle: "Ages might not produce another John Brown,
or so fortuitously supply him with such materials." The fatal
termination of the raid had, they thought, furnished "assur-
ance against the most distant possibility of its repetition,"
and they inveighed against the example of lawlessness fur-
nished by the slave- power in its aggressions on neighboring
nations, the armed invasions of Kansas, and the " merciless
breaches of our laws against the African slave trade, ' unwhipt
of justice.' '
As for the majority report, viewed after fifty years, it is
disappointingly ineffective from the slavery point of view,
when it is considered that such able men as Jefferson Davis
and J. M. Mason constructed it. Their narrative of what
happened at Harper's Ferry is succinct and accurate, and
tells the facts without any attempt at coloring. As for their
opinions, the majority dwelt upon Brown's desire to "incite
insurrection" among the slaves, and declared that "it was
owing alone to the loyalty and well-affected disposition of
the slaves that he did not succeed in creating a servile war,
with its necessary attendants of rapine and murder of all sexes,
ages and conditions." The Committee, being "not disposed
to draw harsh, or perhaps uncharitable conclusions," com-
mented severely on the way Kansas arms were turned over
to Brown after they had been denied to him by the Kansas
National Committee. "The expedition, so atrocious in its
582 JOHN BROWN
character, would have been arrested, had even ordinary care
been taken on the part of the Massachusetts Committee to
ascertain whether Brown was truthful in his professions."
The report contains next a severe attack upon Congress-
man Giddings for his doctrine of a "higher law," the law of
nature, which, superior to any statute law, gave to each soul
the right to live, to enjoy happiness, and to be free. Quoting
also from the testimony of Dr. Howe and Mr. Stearns, the
majority of the Committee felt that "with such elements at
work, unchecked by law and not rebuked but encouraged by
public opinion, with money freely contributed and placed in
irresponsible hands, it may easily be seen how this expedi-
tion to excite servile war in one of the States of the Union
was got up, and it may equally be seen how like expeditions
may certainly be anticipated in future wherever desperadoes
offer themselves to carry them into execution." The majority
report admitted that John Brown's reticence was such that
"it does not appear that he intrusted even his immediate
followers with his plans, fully, even after they were ripe for
execution."
Finally, Messrs. Davis, Mason and Fitch could suggest no
legislation which would be adequate to prevent like occur-
rences in the future. The invasion to them "was simply the
act of lawless ruffians under the sanction of no public or
political authority," with the aid of money and firearms con-
tributed by citizens of other States "under circumstances
that must continue to jeopard the safety and peace of the
Southern States, and against which Congress has no power
to legislate." If the several States would not, for the sake of
policy or a desire for peace, guard by legislation against the
raid's recurrence, the Committee could "find no guarantee
elsewhere for the security of peace between the States of the
Union." Its only definite recommendation was that mili-
tary guards be kept at armories and arsenals. It reported
that four persons, John Brown, Jr., James Redpath, Frank
B. Sanborn and Thaddeus Hyatt, having failed to appear
before the Committee, warrants had been issued for their
arrest. Of these, Mr. Hyatt alone was taken into custody.
He languished for three months in the jail of the District of
Columbia, refusing to testify for the sake of the principle
YET SHALL HE LIVE 583
involved, and was finally released by the Senate on June 16,
i86o,80 the day that Senator Mason laid the findings of his
Committee before the Senate.
The two reports attracted little attention when finally
printed, for by that time the excitement engendered by the
raid and the contest between North and South over the
Speakership had burned itself out. The actual findings were
so mild and had been so thoroughly discounted, and the
progress of political events had gone so far beyond the raid,
that this final story of it, valuable as were and are the testi-
monies that accompanied the reports, became merely one of
the many events now rapidly leading up to the secession of
the Southern States. The Liberator noticed the reports only
to say that the Mason Committee mountain had labored and
brought forth a mouse.81 The Herald, like many other news-
papers, did not deem them worthy of editorial comment.
This did not mean, however, that John Brown was already
forgotten. His name appeared constantly in the press all
through the year 1860; the raising of a fund for his family
and the surviving raiders, the publication of the first bio-
graphy of him by James Redpath, the reunion of his family
and friends at the grave at North Elba on July 4, 1860, — all
these attracted attention to the victim of the Charlestown
gallows, and to his men.
In the Speakership fight in Congress — dramatic in the
extreme — John Brown's name was often mentioned and his
acts denounced by the representatives of the South and many
from the North. This contest lasted from the Monday fol-
lowing John Brown's execution, December 5, to February I.82
The election would undoubtedly have gone to John Sherman,
of Ohio, had it not appeared that he had endorsed Hinton
Rowan Helper's book, 'The Impending Crisis of the South:
How to Meet it,' which had infuriated the South about as
much as 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' --if anything more so, for
Helper was a North Carolina poor white, who wrote with all
the intensity of feeling of his class, for whom the aristocratic
system of slavery held out hopes of nothing but a steady
degeneration, materially and socially. Helper was no friend
to the slave, but he demanded the abolition of slavery, the
expulsion of the negroes, and the destruction of the oligar-
584 JOHN BROWN
chical despotism which slavery had made possible. The argu-
ments voiced against his book were chiefly abuse of the writer,
rather than an attempt to controvert his facts and statistics,
which were, indeed, unanswerable. But Mr. Sherman's en-
dorsement of Helper's book, and John Brown's raid and death,
had brought Congressmen's passions to the boiling point, and
there was a tremendous outburst of feeling. Personal alterca-
tions and bitter disputes were of frequent occurrence, and two
members were arrested and placed under heavy bonds to keep
the peace. Men freed their minds on the whole slavery ques-
tion in a debate that did much to help on the work of popular
education John Brown had so stimulated. Speaking of the
vote in the Massachusetts Legislature on the motion to ad-
journ out of sympathy for John Brown's death, Senator Iver-
son declared that Southerners "stand on the brink of a vol-
cano," and that the Republican disclaimers of responsibility
for Brown's raid were "not worth the paper on which they
are printed." 83 " Do you suppose that we intend to bow our
necks to the yoke ; that we intend to submit to the domina-
tion of our enemies?" asked Senator C. C. Clay, of Alabama;
"that we intend to sit here as hostages for the good behavior
of our conquered people — a people under your Republican
administration not sovereigns but subjects?"84 Besides the
Southern leaders who were eager for a break-up of the Union,
a number of Southern representatives for the first time talked
secession, and they found themselves heartily applauded
and supported by many influential newspapers, which ac-
claimed also the message sent to the Legislature by Governor
Perry, of Florida.85 In this he said:
"What else then have we to expect while the Union continues,
but the repetition, no one can say when, where, how often, or with
what bloody issues, of attempts like that lately thwarted in Virginia?
Florida as the youngest and least populous of the Southern Sover-
eignties, can only follow in action the lead of her sisters. ... I
believe that her voice should be heard in ' tones not loud but deep/
in favor of an eternal separation from those whose wickedness and
fanaticism forbid us longer to live with them in peace and safety."
For months it was impossible to supply the demand for
Helper's book, even though it was forbidden in the South, -
the latter fact a notice that its cherished economic condi-
YET SHALL HE LIVE 585
tions must not be subjected to criticism or debate. Men
were even imprisoned for circulating it, as if its falsehoods
- if such they were — would not render it innocuous ; and
the North retorted that the South dared not let the truth
spread abroad. Not even Sherman's explanation that he had
endorsed the book by proxy, without reading it, could save
him. He was finally defeated, and Pennington, of New Jer-
sey, chosen in his stead. The Union meetings in the North,
engineered generally by well-to-do merchants and others who
had a pecuniary interest in peace and pacific trade with the
South, added to the general feeling that the country was in
the throes of a great crisis. Late in April came the Charles-
ton convention of the Democrats, with the resultant split-
ting up of the party along Southern and Northern lines, and
adjournment without nominations to Baltimore on June 18.
Then Douglas was chosen by the Northern faction to run
against Lincoln, who had meanwhile been nominated by the
Republicans.
There was but one issue in the campaign, and that was
slavery and the future attitude of the Federal Government
toward it. Within a trifle over six months after John Brown's
death, the nation was practically divided into two camps,
though hundreds of thousands did not realize how far the
contest had gone, and hoped and believed like Lincoln that,
even if he were elected, some way might be found of avoiding
the "irrepressible conflict" and averting a national disaster.
But all through the campaign, threats of disruption were rife;
South Carolina let the world know that she was ready to leave
the Union if the Republican party should be victorious. On
November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was chosen President
of the United States. On July 18, 1861, eight months later,
Colonel Fletcher Webster's regiment, the Twelfth Massa-
chusetts, marched through the streets of Boston singing the
John Brown song, which four of its members had just im-
provised.86 Its men, too, were bound to Virginia with arms in
their hands, but their movements, in contrast to John Brown's,
were open and above board; they marched under the laws
of war, duly commissioned by their government and known
of all men. Theirs, too, were the cheers and plaudits of the
crowds as they sang their great song through the streets
586 JOHN BROWN
of Boston and New York, until in Baltimore they chanted it
with grim defiance of the silent hostility on every side.
Now, fifty years later, it is possible to take an unbiased
view of John Brown and his achievements, even if opinions
as to his true character and moral worth diverge almost as
violently as in 1859. There are those in the twentieth century,
appointed to teach history in high places, who are so blind as
to see in John Brown only the murderer of the Pottawatomie,
a "horse- thief and midnight assassin." Still others behold in
him not merely a sainted martyr of the most elevated char-
acter, but the liberator of Kansas, and the man who, unaided,
struck their chains from the limbs of more than three million
human beings. These writers would leave nothing to be
credited to Abraham Lincoln, nothing to the devoted band
of uncompromising Abolitionists who, for thirty years prior
to Harper's Ferry, had gone up and down the North denounc-
ing slavery in its every form, stirring the public conscience
and preparing the popular mind for what was to come. The
truth lies between these two extremes. Were men who have
powerfully moulded their time to be judged solely by their
errors, however grievous, all history would wear a different
aspect. In Virginia, John Brown atoned for Pottawatomie
by the nobility of his philosophy and his sublime devotion to
principle, even to the gallows. As inexorable a fate as ever
dominated a Greek tragedy guided this life. He walked al-
ways as one blindfolded. Something compelled him to attack
slavery by force of arms, and to that impulse he yielded,
reckoning not at all as to the outcome, and making not the
slightest effort to plan beyond the first blow. Without fore-
sight, strategy or generalship, he entered the Harper's Ferry
trap confident that all was for the best, to be marvellously
preserved from the sabre which, had it gone home, must have
rendered barren his entire life, his sacrifice and his devotion.
When Brown assailed slavery in Virginia, the outlook for
Abolition was never so hopeful. The " irrepressible conflict "
was never so irrepressible, and he who believes there would
have been no forcible abolition of slavery had there been no
John Brown, is singularly short-sighted. The South was on
the brink of a volcano the day before the blow at Harper's
YET SHALL HE LIVE 587
Ferry, as it was the day after, because slavery was intolerable
morally and economically. It was bound to be overthrown
because, in the long run, truth and righteousness prevail.
Helper's book was written before John Brown struck, and the
facts it contained, as to the social and economic injury to the
South from its system of unpaid labor, lost and gained nothing
by the bloodshed at the Harper's Ferry arsenal or the deaths
on the Charlestown scaffold. The secession movement was too
far under way for any peaceable solution; the minds of too
many Southern leaders besides Governor Wise were thor-
oughly committed to it even before the raid. "The truth
is," wrote Alexander Stephens on November 30, 1860, "our
leaders and public men ... do not desire to continue it [the
Union] on any terms. They do not wish any redress of wrongs,
they are disunionists per se and avail themselves of present
circumstances to press their object." 87 This feeling and that
sense of personal hostility which, as Senator Iverson remarked
in the following month, kept the Northern Senators on their
side of the Senate "sullen and gloomy" while "we sit on our
side with portentous scowls. . . . We are enemies as much as
if we were hostile States," 88 — all this was not the outgrowth
of a year's excitement, nor did it begin in the John Brown
raid. There was seething bitterness when the Kansas- Ne-
braska act was passed. There were two hostile camps when
Sumner was struck down and one side of the Senate mourned,
while the other exulted.
In 1859, the public recognized in John Brown a fanatic, but
one of those fanatics who, by their readiness to sacrifice their
lives, are forever advancing the world. Plenty exclaimed, like
George Hoadley: "Poor old John Brown, God sanctify his
death to our good, and give us a little of his courage, piety and
self-sacrificing spirit, with more brains!" 89 They saw that he
had no personal ambition ; they felt that he was brave, kind,
honest, truth-telling and God-revering. The nature of the
conflict before the country was thereby revealed to them, and
the revelation advanced the conflict immeasurably, just as it
stirred the slave-power to new aggressions. It was like the
lightning from the sky that lights up the darkness of the com-
ing storm, so that men may for a fraction of a second take
measure of its progress. So even across the water it illumi-
588 JOHN BROWN
nated the heavens to Victor Hugo and let him look so far
into the future that he wrote:
"The gaze of Europe is fixed at this moment on America. . . .
The hangman of Brown — let us speak plainly — the hangman of
Brown will be neither District-Attorney Hunter, nor Judge Parker,
nor Governor Wise, nor the little State of Virginia, but — you shud-
der to think it and to give it utterance — the whole great American
Republic. ... It will open a latent fissure that will finally split the
Union asunder. The punishment of John Brown may consolidate
slavery in Virginia, but it will certainly shatter the American De-
mocracy. You preserve your shame but you kill your glory."
It was to Victor Hugo, too, the "assassination of Deliverance
by Liberty." 90
But the true Deliverance came with John Brown behind the
bars at Charlestown, when there was suddenly revealed to
him how inferior a weapon was the sword he had leaned upon
from the time he had abandoned the pursuits of peace for
his warfare on slavery. Not often in history is there recorded
such a rise to spiritual greatness of one whose hands were so
stained with blood, whose judgment was ever so faulty, whose
public career was so brief. John Brown is and must remain
a great and lasting figure in American history. Not, however,
because he strove to undo one wrong by committing another;
not because he took human lives in a vain effort to end the
sacrifice of other lives and souls entailed by slavery. Judged
by the ordinary legal and moral standards, John Brown's life
was forfeit after Harper's Ferry. The methods by which he
essayed to achieve reforms are never to be justified until two
wrongs make a right. It was the weapon of the spirit by which
he finally conquered. In its power lies not only the secret of
his influence, and his immortality, but the finest ethical teach-
ings of a life which, for all its faults, inculcates many an en-
during lesson, and will forever make its appeal to the imagi-
nation. His brief, yet everlasting, prison life is the clearest
condemnation of his violent methods both in Kansas and in
Virginia. For the Abolitionists, it will be remembered, he had
had nothing but contempt. Theirs were "but words, words;"
yet it was by words, and words, embodying his moral princi-
ples, the theological teachings he valued so highly, the doc-
trines of the Saviour, who knew no distinction of race, creed or
YET SHALL HE LIVE 589
\
color, and by the beauty of his own peace of spirit in the face of
death, that he stirred Jiis Northern countrymen to their depths
and won the respect even of the citizens of the South. It was
in jail that he discovered, too, how those very words of the Abo-
lition preachers he had despised had prepared and watered
the soil so that his own seed now fell upon fertile fields, took
root, and sprouted like the magic plants of children's fables.
Thus it came about that when the men of the North, within
an amazingly brief space of time, found themselves, to their
astonishment, likewise compelled to go South with arms in
their hands, it was not the story of bloody Pottawatomie, nor
of the battle at Osawatomie, that thrilled them, nor even of
the dauntless lion at bay in the engine house. It was the man
on the scaffold sacrificing, not taking life, who inspired. The
song that regiment after regiment sang at Charlestown dealt
not with John Brown's feeble sword, but with his soul. It was
the heroic qualities of his spirit that awed them, his wonderful
readiness to die with joy and in peace, as so many of them
were about to die for the nation and the freedom of another
race. They, too, were giving up all that was dear to them,
their wives, their children, the prospect of happy homes and
long, useful lives, to march and suffer; to see their brothers,
yea their sons, fall by their side; even to receive upon their
own bodies the sabres of their enemies. Theirs, too, was the
ennobling experience of self-sacrifice. How great, then, must
have been their inspiration, to feel that he who was the first in
America to die for a treason which became as if overnight the
highest form of devotion to an inspired cause, was marching
on in the realms above!
And so, wherever there is battling against injustice and
oppression, the Charlestown gallows that became a cross will
help men to live and die. The story of John Brown will ever
confront the spirit of despotism, when men are struggling to
throw off the shackles of social or political or physical slavery.
His own country, while admitting his mistakes without undue
palliation or excuse, will forever acknowledge the divine that
was in him by the side of what was human and faulty, and
blind and wrong. It will cherish the memory of the prisoner
of Charlestown in 1859 as at once a sacred, a solemn and an
inspiring American heritage.
NOTES
CHAPTER I
THE MOULDING OF THE MAN
1. The original is in the possession of the Stearns family at Medford, Mass.
2. Recollections of an Old Settler, by Christian Cackler, Hudson, Ohio, 1870,
pp. 20-21.
3. Ibid., p. 29.
4. John Brown to George B. Gill and others, Chatham, Canada West, May 18,
1858, printed in Davenport, Iowa, Gazette, Feb. 27, 1878.
5. The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, Boston, 1909, p. 3.
6. For these and subsequent facts relating to the Brown ancestry, the author
is indebted to George E. Bowman, Esq., Secretary of and Editor for the Massachu-
setts Society of Mayflower Descendants, who settled the question of the Windsor
Peter Brown's family in The Mayflower Descendant for January, 1903, vol. 5,
no. I, pp. 29-37; to the Librarian of the New England Historical and Genealo-
gical Society, Mr. William P. Greenlaw, who is also satisfied, after a search of the
records, that Peter Brown of the Mayflower left no male issue, and to Mrs. Mary
Levering Holman, who, at the author's request, worked out a complete genealogy
of the Brown and Mills family as far back as the Windsor connections.
7. The extracts here given are from the original MS. in the possession of Mrs.
S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich.
8. Owen Brown to John Brown, Hudson, Ohio, March 27, 1856. — Original in
the collections of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas.
9. From the original MS. in the possession of Miss Mary E. Thompson, Pasa-
dena, Cal.
10. Owen Brown was also credited with a rich vein of humor, intensified by
a habit of stuttering and a keen perception of the ridiculous. The following bit
of his philosophy of marriage, not heretofore recorded and now in the possession
of Miss Mary E. Thompson, he sent to his granddaughter, Ruth Brown Thomp-
son, shortly after her marriage, when he was himself eighty years of age: "There
is much said about womens wrights in these days and it is tru they have there
wrights and what are they but the love and care of a faithful Husband, with a
share in all his honours joys and comforts of every kind, if he has good Company
she must be a shearer if he has no company she must be his good company. If
hir Husband is in trouble and affliction she must be afflicted and sympathise with
him and make them as lite as possable. Sometimes Men bring troubles on them-
selves, in such cases Men or Women want there comforters and had not ought
to be deprived while at some time we see it quite the reverce. I was once in com-
pany with a woman and asked about another Cupple, how they got along. She
said they jest rubed along. I told hir I was indebted to hir for the way she had
expresed it, this is the case of very many Husbands and wives, they jest rub
along and the wheals of time never go chearfull and clean but are always rubing."
11. Reminiscences of Hudson, Supplement to the Hudson Independent, re-
printed as a pamphlet, Hudson, Ohio, 1899.
12. From the MS. records of the Trustees of Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.
592 NOTES
13. For these anecdotes see, for example, Historical Collections of Ohio, by
Henry Howe, Columbus, 1891, vol. 3, pp. 331-333, article written by M. C.
Read, of Hudson, Ohio, a member of the faculty of Western Reserve College; see
also statement of Charles P. Read to Dr. F. C. Waite, Hudson, Dec. 25, 1908,
in possession of the author; also Christian Cackler's pamphlet.
14. Life and Letters of John Brown, by Frank B. Sanborn, Boston, 1885, pp.
38-39.
15. Statement of Dr. Francis Bacon, New Haven, Conn., Feb. 13, 1908, to
K. Mayo; 'John Brown,' by Leonard Woolsey Bacon, New Englander and Yale
Review, April, 1886, pp. 289-302.
16. From MS. of Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson, in possession of her daughter.
The Rev. H. L. Vaill, of Litchfield, Conn., fixed the year of John Brown's at-
tendance at Morris Academy as 1817. See letter of L. W. Bacon to the Editor
of the New York Independent, reprinted in the Liberator of Dec. 2, 1859. In his
letter to his men from Chatham, May 18, 1858, John Brown states that he was
travelling "between the sea-side and Ohio" in the spring of 1817. See Davenport
Gazette, Feb. 27, 1878.
17. John Brown and His Men, by R. J. Hinton, New York, 1894, p. 13; letter
of William H. Hallock in Hartford Press, Nov. n, 1859.
18. Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson's MS.
19. As narrated by Mrs. Danley Hobart, Levi Blakeslee's daughter, Cleveland,
Dec. 31, 1908, to Miss Katherine Mayo, and in Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson's
MS.
20. California Christian Advocate, July 18, 1894.
21. Statement of Mrs. Annie Brown Adams, Petrolia, Cal., Oct. 2, 1908;
of Benjamin Kent Waite, Columbus, Ohio, Dec. 26, 1908; and of Mrs. Nelson
Waite and Mrs. Henry Pettingill, Hudson, Dec. 1908; all to K. Mayo. The last
three witnesses state that both of Dianthe Lusk's sisters died mentally infirm.
22. Sanborn, pp. 33-34.
23. Statement of Jason Brown, Akron, Dec. 28, 1908, to K. Mayo. The other
facts in regard to Brown's attitude toward his children are largely drawn from
the manuscript of Mrs. Thompson; from the statements of four of the surviving
children, Miss Sarah Brown, Jason Brown, Salmon Brown and Annie Brown
Adams; and from the statements of the following neighbors familiar with the
Brown family life: Alfred Hawkes, Mrs. Sherman Thompson, Mrs. Danley Ho-
bart, Charles Lusk, Mrs. Charles P. Brown, R. M. Sanford, Miss Annie Perkins,
Mrs. Charles Perkins, Col. George T. Perkins, R. W. Thompson, Mrs. Nelson
Waite, Mrs. Henry Pettingill and Mrs. Porter Hall, all in December, 1908; and
of James Foreman, see Note 25 below.
24. Statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908, confirmed by Mrs.
Thompson.
25. MS. letter of James Foreman, Youngsville, Warren Co., Pa., Dec. 28,
1859, to James Redpath, now in Hinton Papers, in the Kansas Historical So-
ciety.
26. Ibid.
27. An article entitled 'An Abolitionist,' by Edward Erf, in the Pittsburg
Post of May 28, 1899, gives briefly the main facts of Brown's life in Richmond;
other details are from the Foreman letter, from the MS. narrative of George B.
Delamater, a copy of which is in Miss Thompson's possession, and from the
records of the Post Office Department at Washington.
28. According to the Bible of Mrs. Julia Pitkin, Dianthe Lusk's sister, the
latter was born January 12, 1801, and was therefore in her thirty-second year
NOTES 593
at the time of her death. Jason Brown vividly recalls being summoned, with his
brothers, by their father to stand by the bedside of their dying mother, and
recalls also the admonition she gave them.
29. The recollections of Miss Sarah Brown, Saratoga, Cal., have been largely
drawn upon for this characterization of Mary Day Brown.
30. See interview with John Brown, Jr., in the Cleveland Press, May 3, 1895;
Henry L. Kellogg's report of Owen Brown's version of the incident, in the Chris-
tian Cynosure of March 31, 1887; interview of Mrs. John Brown in the Kansas
City Journal of April 8, 1881; the story is also confirmed by Henry Thompson's
statement, Aug. 27, 1908, by Miss Brown's statement of Sept. 16, 1908, and by
that of George B. Gill, Attica, Kansas, Nov. 12, 1908, all to K. Mayo.
31. From a facsimile of the original in the Kent, Ohio, Courier, Sept. 14, 1906.
32. For the facts as to Brown's business and real estate transactions, see the
Kent Courier of Sept. 14, 1906, the statements in it being furnished by the late
Marvin Kent; also Fifty Years and Over of Akron and Summit County, by ex-
Sheriff Samuel A. Lane, Akron, 1892, p. 385 et seq.; also statement of Mr.
William S. Kent, son of Marvin Kent, Kent, Ohio, Dec. 23 and 24, 1908, to
K. Mayo.
33. On pages 87-89 of Sanborn's Life there is an able review by John Brown,
Jr., of his father's business mistakes, from which this excerpt is taken.
34. He and his wife sold, on Sept. 17, 1838, a lot of land in Franklin township
for $3500. The deed is in Miss Sarah Brown's possession.
35. Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger, Campbell, Cal.
36. See his first note-book, now preserved in Boston Public Library.
37. Original in possession of Miss Sarah Brown, Saratoga, Cal.
38. Sanborn, pp. 55-56.
39. From the original in the possession of George D. Smith, 48 Wall Street,
New York City.
40. Sanborn, p. 56.
41. The narrative of John Brown's negotiations with the Trustees of Oberlin
is drawn from the official records, and from the correspondence in the case in the
Treasurer's Office of Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio; the letter of April 27, 1840,
will be found in Sanborn, p. 134.
42. From the original court inventory of Sept. 28, 1842, in possession of Miss
Sarah Brown.
43. John Brown to John Brown, Jr., Richfield, Jan. 1 1, 1844, Sanborn, pp.
59-60 (edited by Mr. Sanborn).
44. Original in possession of Miss Sarah Brown.
45. ' The Last Days of Old John Brown,' by Lou V. Chapin, Overland Monthly,
April, 1899, pp. 322-332.
46. Statement of Mrs. William A. Hall to W. P. Garrison, April 18, 1895;
statement of Mrs. Charles Perkins, Akron, Ohio, Dec. 12, 1908, to K. Mayo.
47. Summaries of all these various cases were kindly obtained for the author
by Mr. W. D. Jenkins, Clerk of the Courts, Ravenna, Ohio.
48. It is entitled Heman Oviatt versus John Brown, Daniel C. Gaylord, Amos
Chamberlain, Tertius Wadsworth, Joseph Wells and others, Supreme Court of
Ohio, January term, 1846, and is reported at length in 14 Ohio Reports, 286.
49. There is a mass of evidence in regard to Brown's refusal to give up the farm
to Chamberlain. The author has examined, besides John Brown, Jr.'s story of
the trouble (Sanborn, pp. 86-87), Gen. N. Eggleston's charges printed in the
Rockford, 111., Journal-Herald of Nov. 3, 1883, and John Brown, Jr.'s answer
to them in the Topeka Capital of Dec. 22, 1883; also statements of Jason Brown,
594 NOTES
made in Akron, Dec. 1908, and of R. W. Thompson and R. M. Sanford, of Hud-
son, near neighbors of Brown's, made at Hudson, Dec. 20, 1908, to K. Mayo;
Mrs. Sherman Thompson, of Hudson, a daughter of Mr. Chamberlain, kindly
furnished the view of the case taken by the Chamberlain family; the pamphlet of
Christian Cackler, already referred to, gives his unfavorable opinion on pp. 36-37.
50. The original of this letter is in the possession of the author.
CHAPTER II
"HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT"
1. Sanborn, pp. 40-41 (edited).
2. See, for a careful analysis of this whole question in the light of Brown's
first memorandum-book, The Preludes of Harper's Ferry, a pamphlet by Wendell
Phillips Garrison, comprising two papers contributed to the Andover Review in
December, 1890, and January, 1891. Upon this the author has freely drawn.
3. Sanborn, p. 6 1 (edited).
4. See letter of F. B. Sanborn, Dec. 22, 1890, in the Nation of Dec. 25, 1890,
which includes the one from John Brown, Jr., here quoted.
5. John Brown, Jr.'s affidavit in the Gerrit Smith case was given at Sandusky,
Ohio, July 19, 1867. A copy of the original is in the author's possession; cf.
Sanborn, p. 39.
6. From Miss Thompson's copy of the Delamater MS.
7. Quoted in James Freeman Clarke's Anti-Slavery Days, New York, 1884,
PP- 155-156.
8. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, by Himself, Hartford, Conn., 1882,
pp. 309-3H.
9. F. B. Sanborn (MS.) to W. P. Garrison, Concord, Dec. 5, 1890.
10. Sanborn, p. 134.
11. Statement of Miss Sarah Brown, Saratoga, Cal., Sept. 16, 1908, to
K. Mayo.
12. For the garbled version, see the account of Daniel B. Hadley in McClure's
Magazine, Jan. 1898, pp. 278-282. Mrs. Annie Brown Adams states (Oct. 2,
1908) that the man Ruggles, who committed the assault, did so when Brown lay
helpless from fever in his ox-cart. John Brown's children know nothing of his
alleged non-resistant views.
13. Hinton's John Brown, p. 585. "The Branded Hand" was the sobriquet
of Jonathan Walker, sea captain, of Harwich, Mass., who was captured on his
vessel by a United States ship, when smuggling slaves to a free port, imprisoned,
pilloried and branded on the hand for the offence. The Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, of
Alton, 111., was the editor of an anti-slavery religious paper, the Observer. Three
times his presses were destroyed by a mob determined to stop his utterances. In
defending a fourth press, Nov. 7, 1837, he was murdered.. The Rev. Charles
T. Torrey suffered imprisonment for his attempts to run off negroes from the
border States, and died in prison.
14. Hinton's John Brown, pp. 587-588.
15. From the original in the possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger.
16. Statements of Henry Myers and Daniel Woodruff Myers to K. Mayo,
Hudson, Ohio, Dec. II, 1908.
17. Sanborn, p. 191.
18. Statement of Mrs. Adams, Petrolia, Cal., Oct. 2, 1908, to K. Mayo; also
NOTES 595
letter of same to R. J. Hinton, Petrolia, June 7, 1894, Hinton Papers, Kansas
Historical Society.
19. Cf. Sanborn, p. 133. Thomas Thomas personally asserted this to Mr.
Sanborn.
20. " Did I ever tell you that Father changed his plan several times and finally
adopted the old original one?" — Mrs. Adams to R. J. Hinton, June 7, 1894, as
above.
21. See, for instance, Cheerful Yesterdays, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
Boston, 1898, pp. 222-223; also Sanborn, p. 525.
22. Agnes Brown to J. H. Holmes, Portland, Oregon, Oct. 15, 1902, setting
forth her father's (Salmon Brown's) views. — Copy in possession of author.
23. Life of Frederick Douglass, pp. 309-310. The author has consulted George
A. Graves, a neighbor of Brown's, and other residents of Springfield for facts
as to this period of Brown's life.
24. Life of Frederick Douglass, p. 311.
25. Related by Salmon Brown, Portland, Oregon, Oct. 13, 1908, to K. Mayo.
26. Sanborn, p. 63.
27. The original letter-book was kindly loaned to the author by Mrs. Ellen
Brown Fablinger, of Campbell, Cal.
28. Perkins & Brown to Messrs. Crafts & Still, Springfield, July II, 1846,
Letter-Book No. I, p. 31.
29. Letter-Book No. I, p. 70.
30. Perkins & Brown to Hamilton Gay, ibid., p. 116.
31. The same to Friend Benjamin W. Ladd, Springfield, Dec. 14, 1846, Let-
ter-Book No. I, p. 158.
32. Cleveland, Ohio, Weekly Herald, March 17, 1847.
33. When John Brown was in jail in Charlestown, Aaron Erickson, a wool-
merchant and a highly esteemed pioneer in Rochester, N. Y., wrote to Gov. Wise
of his belief in Brown's insanity, because of the latter's "delusion that wool had
never been properly graded." Mr. Erickson also alleged that Brown was not
skilful in testing wools, and that his whole "defiance of the plainest and simplest
laws of commerce," which led to his business collapse, could be charged only to
an unbalanced mind. The original Erickson letter is in the possession of Mr.
Edwin Tatham, of New York.
34. See Sanborn, pp. 67-68.
35. Sanborn, p. 72 (edited).
36. Originals in possession of Miss Sarah Brown.
37. Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr., Put-in-Bay, Ohio.
38. Ibid.
39. This figure has been frequently said to be $70,000. The estimate here
given seems about correct to Col. George T. Perkins, the son of Simon Perkins
(letter of July 22, 1908, to the author).
40. Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr.
41. Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr., as is that of the letter next
quoted.
42. Statement of Miss Anna Perkins, daughter of Simon Perkins, Akron, Ohio,
Dec. 12, 1908, to K. Mayo; Miss Perkins also says that her father "never ques-
tioned John Brown's exact probity."
43. John Brown to his "Wife and Children every one, Ingersol, Canada West,
l6th April, 1858." — Original in possession of Alfred A. Sprague, of Chicago.
44. John Brown to Simon Perkins, Troy, 26th Jan. 1852. — Original in the
Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library.
596 NOTES
45. Sanborn, pp. 79-80.
46. John Brown to his son John, Feb. 24, 1854, Sanborn, pp. 156-157.
47. From the original, dated April 3, 1854, in the possession of Mrs. John
Brown, Jr.
48. Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson's MS., in possession of Miss Thompson.
49. Printed in full in the Liberator of Feb. 3, 1860.
50. Springfield Republican, article on 'John Brown's Fugitives,' June 12, 1909.
51. Original in possession of Alfred A. Sprague, of Chicago.
52. Original in possession of Charles P. Brown, Akron, Ohio.
53. To John Brown, Jr., Akron, Aug. 26, 1853. — Sanborn, pp. 45-51.
54. Gerrit Smith, by O. B. Frothingham, 1st, or suppressed edition, New
York, 1878, pp. 102-107 et seq.
55. Ibid., pp. 235-236.
56. New York Tribune, Nov. 5, 1852.
57. Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson's MS. John Brown to Simeon Perkins, Spring-
field, Mass., May 24, 1859. — Original in possession of Mr. Hull Platt, Walling-
ford, Pa.
58. Transactions Essex County, N. Y., Agricultural Society, 1850, p. 229; The
Life, Trial and Conviction of Capt. John Brown, New York, R. M. DeWitt,
Publisher, 1859, pp. 9-10.
59. From copy in the Library of Harvard University.
60. Ibid.
61. Statement of Annie Brown Adams to the author, April, 1909.
62. Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson's MS.
63. 'How We Met John Brown,' by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., in the Atlantic
Monthly for July, 1871, pp. 1-9.
64. John Brown to his son, John Brown, Jr., Vernon, Oneida County, N. Y.,
March 24, 1851. — Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr. Further evi-
dence of John Brown's unsettled life at this period appears in his letter to his
father, dated " Steamer United States, Lake Champlain, 23rd May, 1850." —
Original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich.
65. John Brown to Ruth and Henry Thompson, Akron, Feb. 13, 1855. —
Original in Haverford College Library, Haverford, Pa.
66. Original in the Byron Reed Collection, Omaha Public Library, as is also
the original of the letter of Aug. 24, 1854, previously mentioned in text.
67. MS. statement of Gerrit Smith, Jan. 3, 1874, property of Mr. Sanborn.
68. Statement of Annie Brown Adams to the author.
CHAPTER III
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD
1. Sanborn, p. 191.
2. A brief history of John Brown, etc. By one who knows (John Brown). MS.
Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society.
3. Statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908, to K. Mayo, at Sher-
bondy, Ohio; John Brown, Jr., in Cleveland Leader, Nov. 29, 1883.
4. Cf., for instance, Gen. D. R. Atchison, of Missouri, in the Platte Argus,
cited in Robinson's Kansas Conflict, p. 94: "If abolitionism under its present
auspices, is established in Kansas, there will be constant strife and bloodshed
between Kansas and Missouri. Negro stealing will be a principle and a voca-
NOTES 597
tion. It will be the policy of philanthropic knaves, until they force the slave-
holder to abandon Missouri; nor will it be long until it is done. ... If Kansas
is abolitionized.all men who love peace and quiet will leave us, and all emigration
to Missouri from the slave states will cease. " Senator Alfred Iverson, of Georgia,
said in a speech at Columbus, Ga., reported in the Savannah Georgian of Nov.
2, 1855: "If Slavery gives way in Kansas, Missouri will be surrounded on three
sides by non-slaveholding States, and the institution must give way there; it will
also be in peril in the Indian Territory lying south of Kansas; it will then only
remain for the Abolitionists to extend their influence to Western Texas, and the
great object of their ambition will be attained. The South will then be reduced
to a hopeless minority in the Union; her institutions will be confined to the narrow
limits they at present occupy, and their overthrow will only be a question of
time." See also speech of Congressman Felix K. Zollicoffer, Appendix to the Con-
gressional Globe, 33d Congress, ist session, vol. xxxv, p. 584; address by citizens
of western Missouri to the people of the United States, after Lexington, Mo.,
convention, N. Y. Tribune, Sept. 25, 1855; letter of Atchison to Committee of
Battle of King's Mountain Celebration, N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 2, 1855.
5. James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States, New York, 1904, vol. i,*pp.
475 and 489; Louis A. Reese, The Admission of Kansas into the Union (MS.).
6. Statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908.
7. Salmon Brown to John Brown, Brownsville, K. T., May 21, 1855. — Origi-
nal in possession of Miss Sarah Brown.
8. John Brown, Jr., in Cleveland Leader, Nov. 29, 1883.
9. Letter of John Brown, Jr., Brownsville, K. T., dated May 20, 24, and 26,
to John Brown. — Original in Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society-
10. A brief history of John Brown, etc.
11. John Brown to John W. Cook, of Walcottville, Conn., from Akron, Ohio,
I3th Feb., 1855. — Original in Torrington, Conn., Public Library.
12. Frederick Douglass: The Colored Orator, by Frederic May Holland, New
York, 1891, p. 247.
13. John Brown to his wife and children, Syracuse, June 28, 1855. — Copy
in possession of Miss Sarah Brown. The "old British army officer" mentioned
in this letter was Capt. Charles Stuart (sometimes erroneously called "Stewart").
See Life of William Lloyd Garrison, by his Children, Boston, 1894, vol. I, p.
262, and vol.3, p. 418; Sanborn, p. 194.
14. John Brown, Akron, Ohio, Aug. 15, 1855, to his wife and children. — Ori-
ginal in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger. Jason Brown, in his state-
ment of Dec. 28, 1908, confirms Sheriff Lane's recollection of Brown's method of
raising arms in Akron.
15. John Brown to his wife and children, Aug. 23, 1855. — ^Original in pos-
session of Alfred A. Sprague, of Chicago.
16. John Brown, Jr., to John Brown, June 22, 1855. — Original in Kansas
Historical Society.
17. Original in Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society.
18. John Brown to John Brown, Jr., Aug. 9, 1858, from copy of the letter in
possession of Miss Mary E. Thompson, Pasadena, Cal.
19. Statement of Henry Thompson, Pasadena, Cal., August, 1908, to K. Mayo.
20. John Brown to his wife and children, Osawatomie, K. T., Oct. 13 and
Nov. 2, 1855, — originals in Kansas Historical Society; also letter of Nov. 23,
1855, in possession of Miss Sarah! Brown. The distress of the family is again
described by Jason Brown, Osawatomie, Jan. 23, 1856, to his'grandfather. — Ori-
ginal in possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark, Berea, Ky.
598 NOTES
21. Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to Mrs. John Brown, Osawatomie, K. T., Sept. 16,
1855, now in possession of the writer of the letter.
22. Letter of Nov. 2, 1855, as above.
23. Letter of Nov. 23, 1855, as above.
24. Mrs. John Brown Jr.'s letter of Sept. 16, 1855.
25. Statement of Jason Brown at Sherbondy, Ohio, Dec. 28, 1908, to K. Mayo.
26. Ibid.
27. Statement of Salmon Brown, Portland, Oregon, Oct. 11-13, 1908, to K.
Mayo.
28. Kansas Free State, Lawrence, July 2, 1855; Herald of Freedom, Lawrence,
Kansas, Aug. 8, 1857, chapter 10 of 'A Complete History of Kansas ; ' G. W.
Martin, The First Two Years of Kansas, Topeka, 1907, p. 14.
29. Henry Thompson to Ruth Brown Thompson, May 18, 1856. — Original
in possession of Miss Mary E. Thompson.
30. Herald of Freedom, cited in A. T. Andreas, History of the State of Kansas,
Chicago, 1883, p. 108; also see Andreas, p. no, for list of members of the first
Free State Executive Committee.
31. Statutes of the Territory of Kansas, Shawnee M. L. School, 1855. Mrs.
Charles Robinson says that the Free State settlers interpreted the Black Laws
to mean that it was a prison offence to have in their homes the Declaration of
Independence. — Sara T. L. Robinson, Kansas: its Interior and Exterior Life,
Boston, 1856, p. 116.
32. D. W. Wilder's Annals of Kansas, Topeka, 1875, p. 57.
33. Letter of John Brown, Jr., to Mrs. John Brown, Sept. 15 and 21, 1855. —
Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr. At the convention in Lawrence,
Aug. 15, 1855, held to ratify the acts of the meetings of the past two days, accord-
ing to the Herald of Freedom of Aug. 18, 1855, "Frederick Brown, of Mill Creek,
one of the five Browns alluded to in the State convention of Radical Abolitionists
at Syracuse, New York, was in favor of military organization for the purpose of
resisting invasion and aggression." — See Andreas, p. 108.
34. Letter of Mrs. John Brown, Jr., Sept. 16, 1855, now in her possession.
35. Thomas H. Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 5, p. 157, in the Kansas Historical
Society.
36. John Brown to John W. Cook, Akron, Ohio, Feb. 13, 1855; to John Tees-
dale, of Des Moines, March, 1859, printed March 16, 1895, in the New York
Evening Sun; statement of Henry Thompson, Aug. 1908.
37. Letter of Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to Mrs. John Brown, Osawatomie, Jan.
6, 1856. — Original in possession of Miss Brown.
38. Letter of Henry Thompson to Ruth Brown Thompson, Oct. 19, 1855, —
original in possession of Miss Thompson; statement of Henry Thompson, Aug.
1908.
39. Reese MS.; Census of Kansas, Jan. and Feb. 1855, completed March 8,
1855-
40. Report of the Majority of the Special Committee Appointed to Investi-
gate the Troubles in Kansas. Report No. 200, House of Representatives, 34th
Congress, 1st session, Washington, 1856; hereinafter called the Howard Report.
See also Charles Sumner's speech of May 19, 1856, 'The Crime Against Kansas,'
Appendix to the Congressional Globe, vol. xli, 34th Congress, ist session, 1855-56,
P- 529.
41. Majority Report of Howard Committee, p. 8.
42. Reported in Platte Argus, cited in T. N. Holloway's History of Kansas,
Lafayette, Ind., 1868, p. 135; also in N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 2, 1854.
NOTES 599
43. See letter of the Tribune's Washington correspondent, J. D. Pike, in issue
of Feb. 13, 1855: "The bowie-knife Missourians will elect the Legislature of Kan-
sas as they elected its delegate;" also correspondence of Cleveland Herald and
Philadelphia Ledger, quoted in New York Tribune, Dec. 9, 1854.
44. Howard Report, p. 4.
45. Ibid., pp. 5-6.
46. Reese MS.; Andreas, p. 94; Howard Report, p. 79 et seq.
47. Howard Report, p. 8; Reese MS.; Andreas, p. 94.
48. Kansas Herald, April 6, 1855, cited in Andreas, p. 97.
49. St. Louis Pilot, cited in N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 9, 1854; see a's° views of
Washington Sentinel, cited in Tribune, Jan. 18, 1855.
50. Washington letters of J. A. Pike in the N. Y. Tribune of Feb. 5, 6 and
10, 1855; Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 81. The Liberator stated on April 13, 1855, after the
second election: "Beyond doubt the fate of Kansas is sealed."
51. New York Tribune, Dec. 9 and 25, 1854.
52. Andreas, p. 85; Richard Cordley, History of Lawrence, Lawrence, Kansas,
1895, p. 6.
53. Cited in Andreas, p. 83.
54. Cited in Andreas, p. 89; see also address of Citizens' Committee of Lexing-
ton, Mo., convention, New York Tribune, Sept. 25, 1855.
55. See, for instance, Squatter Sovereign, Feb. 20, 1856; Kickapoo Pioneer, Jan.
18, 1856; R. H. Williams, With the Border Ruffians, New York, 1907, p. 85; see
also Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 15, p. 83, Kansas Historical Society; and files of
all pro-slavery papers from Sept. 1854, on; see also (Memoir of Samuel Walker)
Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 6, pp. 251-255.
56. Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 14, p. 35.
57. W. A. Phillips, Conquest of Kansas, Boston, 1856. pp. 28-30.
58. T. H. Gladstone, The Englishman in Kansas, New York, 1857, p. 41.
59. Sara T. L. Robinson's Kansas, pp. 15 and 19-20; see also graphic picture
of Atchison's Missourians at Doniphan City, in the N. Y. Tribune of April 21,
1855; also N. Y. Tribune of April 30, 1855; and Kansas Historical Society Col-
lections, vol. 5, p. 79; also N. Y. Tribune of April 12 and 17, 1855.
60. For these newspaper quotations, see Kansas Historical Society Collections,
vol. 7, pp. 29 and 30.
61. Statement of Gen. G. W. Deitzler, in Charles Robinson's Kansas Conflict,
Lawrence, 1898, pp. 123-124; Howard Report, pp. 84-85, 1157. It is interesting
to note that Charles Sumner, in his great speech of May 19, 1856, thus denied the
activity of the Emigrant Aid Society: "For it has supplied no arms of any kind to
anybody. It is not true that the Company has encouraged any fanatical oppres-
sion of the people of Missouri, for it has consulted order, peace, forbearance;"
see also Robinson, pp. 123-124; also Howard Report, pp. 86 and 1157.
62. See Reeder's testimony, Howard Report; also Executive Minutes of Gov.
Reeder, Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. I , pp. 59-60.
63. Andreas, p. 94.
64. Howard Report, p. 9 et seq.
65. Sara T. L. Robinson's Kansas, p. 27; Howard Report, p. 1010; see also
Boonville, Mo., handbill on the "Coming Election," dated March 13, cited in
N. Y. Tribune of April 6, 1855.
66. Andreas, p. 90; Holloway, pp. 122-123. The Self -Defensive Association,
having committed numerous outrages, was compelled to disband, after being de-
nounced by a mass-meeting of one hundred and seventy-four citizens of Weston,
held Sept. i, 1854. See Holloway, p. 127.
6oo NOTES
67. Howard Report, pp. 81-82; see also Andreas, p. 90; Holloway, pp. 124-
125.
68. Howard Report,, p. 30.
69. Ibid., pp. 35 and 936.
70. Cordley's Lawrence, p. 38; Andreas, p. 102. "We understand and believe,"
said the St. Louis News on May 12, 1855, "that David R. Atchison is at the bot-
tom of all the troubles that have afflicted Kansas, and is the chief instigator of the
meetings, mobs and cabals, threats and excitement, which threaten to plunge the
border into a wild fratricidal strife."
71. Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 4, p. 3; Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol.
7, pp. 30-34-
72. Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 3, p. 158; N. Y. Tribune, April 23 and May 9,
1855; Holloway, p. 156.
73. Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 3, p. 213; see N. Y. Tribune, April 23 and 26,
1855. The St. Louis Democrat, April 21, 1855, was one of a number of papers to
approve the destruction of the Parkville Luminary. The Platte, Mo., Argus said:
"The 'freedom of the press' is not for traitors and incendiaries; " see Robinson,
p. 131.
74. See article in the Western Reporter, April 21, 1856, condemning Blue
Lodges and the emigration from Missouri into Kansas; also the article ' The Pass-
ing of Slavery in Western Missouri,' by John G. Haskell, Kansas Historical So-
ciety Collections, vol. 7, pp. 28-39; also tne amusing testimony of Thos. Thorpe,
of Platte County, Missouri, in Phillips's Conquest of Kansas, pp. 91-97.
75. July 6, 1855, was the date of Gov. Reeder's veto. For the message in full,
see Journal of the House of Representatives of the Territory of Kansas, 1855,
p. 29. A similar veto message will be found in full in the N. Y. Tribune for July
31, 1855; see also Andreas, p. 103.
76. Journal of the Council of the Territory of Kansas, 1855, July 30, Appen-
dix, pp. I and 2.
77. Reeder's Testimony, Howard Report, pp. 944-945. For memorial for
removal of Gov. Reeder, see Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp.
200-204. For the official letter removing Reeder, see 34th Congress, 1st session,
Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 23.
78. Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 86.
79. Cf. Holloway, pp. 170-171; N. Y. Tribune, Aug. 25, 1855.
80. Journal of the House of Representatives of Kansas Territory, 1855.
81. Cordley, p. 33; Robinson, p. 121.
82. Andreas, p. 107; Reese MS.
83. Andreas, p. 106; Holloway, p. 178; Cordley, p. 34.
84. Cordley, p. 35; Andreas, p. 106; Holloway, p. 178.
85. Robinson, p. 143; Andreas, p. 106; James Henry Lane, by W. E. Con-
nelley, Topeka, 1899, p. 47.
86. Holloway, p. 179; Andreas, pp. 106-107.
87. This summary of the two conventions of Aug. 14 and 15 is drawn from the
accounts of Andreas, Robinson, Holloway, Reese, the N. Y. Tribune, and con-
temporary Kansas newspapers.
88. Minutes of the Big Springs Convention, a pamphlet in the Kansas Historical
Society; see also Andreas, pp. 108-109.
89. Cited in Robinson, pp. 172-173; see also Robinson, pp. 140-142, for a criti-
cism of the Garrisonian attitude toward the Robinsonian policy in Kansas.
90. Horace Greeley, editorial in N. Y. Tribune of Sept. 21, 1855.
91. Reese MS.; Andreas, pp. 111-112.
NOTES 601
92. Reese MS.; Andreas, p. 112.
93. Cf. Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 101; Reese MS.
94. Andreas, p. 109; N. Y. Tribune, Sept. 21, 1855; Wilder's Annals, p. 6l.
95. Andreas, p. no. John Brown, Jr., was also a member of the Executive
Committee appointed by the Lawrence convention of Aug. 14-15, 1855, but this
was not a delegate convention. — Wilder, p. 55.
96. Reese MS.
97. Ibid.; also John Brown, Jr., in Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol.
i, p. 272.
98. Howard Report, pp. 44-45.
99. Andreas, p. in; Wilder, p. 67.
100. Andreas, p. 122; Rhodes, vol. 2, pp. 126, 201.
101. Howard Report, p. 53; Andreas, pp. 111-112.
102. Howard Report, pp. 53-54.
103. N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 26, 1855; Wilder, p. 70; Andreas, p. 114; Phillips,
pp. 148-149.
104. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 74: "From the spring and
summer of 1854 to the establishment of a legitimate territorial government by
the success of the free-state men and actual settlers in the election of 1857 and
1858, the territory was practically without law and legal machinery, aside from
the territorial judges and marshal appointed by the president." — W. H. T.
Wakefield. See also Howard Report, p. 1026, testimony of D. J. Johnson. Mr.
A. H. Case, of Topeka, long a leader of the Kansas bar, with a large practice in
criminal cases, testifies that it was some time after his arrival in July, 1858,
before any one was prosecuted for murder, "although they were prosecuted for
stealing cattle." — Statement of Aug. 16, 1908, in Topeka, Kansas, to K. Mayo.
105. Howard Report, p. 64.
106. Webb's Scrap-Book, vol. 2, pp. 59, 155; Martin, First Two Years of Kansas,
p. ii ; Howard Report, pp. 1162-1163.
107. Andreas, p. 99; Leavenworth Herald, May 4, 1855; Howard Report, pp.
965-970.
108. For story of McCrea's trial and escape, see N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 2, 6, 8,
and 17, 1855; also Sara T. L. Robinson's Kansas, pp. 104-105, 112-113, 126-127;
also Howard Report, pp. 967-968, 970; also Andreas, p. 425. For Chief Justice
Lecompte's defence of himself, see Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8,
pp. 389-405-
109. Howard Report, p. 1026, testimony of D. J. Johnson,
no. Howard Report, testimony of R. R. Rees, pp. 970-972.
in. Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler, N. Y. Tribune, May 19, 1856,
Aug. 30, 1855; Phillips, pp. 145-147; Howard Report, pp. 960-963.
112. Phillips, p. 145; Squatter Sovereign, Aug. 7, 1855, cited in N. Y. Tribune,
Aug. 23, 1855; Howard Report, pp. 960-962.
113. N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 3, 1855.
114. To Mrs. John Brown, Osawatomie, K. T., Oct. 13 and 14, 1855. — Origi-
nal in possession of Kansas Historical Society.
602 NOTES
CHAPTER IV
THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS
1. Mrs. Jason Brown to Mrs. John Brown, Osawatomie, November 25, 1855,
— original in possession of Miss Brown; letter of John Brown, Jr., in the Cleve-
land Leader, November 29, 1883.
2. Letter of John Brown to wife and children, Brownsville, November 30, 1855,
— original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger; also letter of December
16 from the same to the same, — original in Kansas Historical Society; John
Brown to his father, Brownsville, November 9, 1855, — original in possession
of Mrs. S. L. Clark.
3. Phillips, Conquest of Kansas, pp. 141-144; N. Y. Tribune, November 13,
20, 1855; Holloway, pp. 208-209; John H. Gihon, Geary and Kansas, Philadel-
phia, 1857, pp. 47-48. For another version of this affair, attributing the killing
of Collins to one Lynch, see N. Y. Tribune, February 16, 1856.
4. For the killing of Dow and the arrest and rescue of Branson, see letter of
S. N. Wood to Augustus Wattles, August 29, 1857, quoted in Robinson's Kansas
Conflict, pp. 184-186; Howard Report, pp. 59-60, 1040 et seq.; Mrs. Robinson,
p. 105 et seq. For Coleman's narrative, see G. Douglas Brewerton, The War in
Kansas, New York, 1856, p. 223 et seq.; N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 31, 1855.
5. N. Y. Tribune, December 8, 1855; Robinson, pp. 188-189; Mrs. Robinson,
pp. 109-111.
6. Testimony of L. A. Prather, Howard Report, p. 1065 et seq.; Mrs. Robin-
son, p. 109; Phillips, pp. 162-163.
7. Executive Minutes of Gov. Shannon, Kansas Historical Society Publica-
tions, vol. I, p. 98.
8. Shannon to Franklin Pierce, November 28, 1855, Kansas Historical Society
Publications, vol. I, p. 101; Shannon to Richardson and to Strickler, ibid., pp.
99-100.
9. Affidavit of Hargis (otherwise Hargus or Hargous) in regard to the burning.
See Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 244-245; see also Howard
Report, pp. 60, 1044, 1051, 1059, 1064, 1107; also, Brewerton, p. 150.
10. Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. I, pp. 99-100, Shannon to
Major-General W. P. Richardson and General H. J. Strickler, November 27,
1855-
11. Executive Minutes, Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. i, p. 102;
Brewerton, p. 164.
12. Brewerton, p. 166.
13. Brewerton, p. 164; Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 105; Charles Robinson placed the
number of Kansas residents enrolled in the pro-slavery forces at fifty, Howard Re-
port, p. 1072; Phillips, p. 185, estimated it as never exceeding seventy- five or
eighty; Sheriff Jones gave it as "not more than 150 or 200." See also Howard
Report, testimony of James F. Legate, p. 1095; Andreas says: "There were some
fifty pro-slavery residents — the Kickapoo Rangers, in the command."
14. Telegram to St. Louis Republican dated Kansas, Thursday, December 6,
1855, quoted in N. Y. Tribune, December 10.
15. N. Y. Tribune, December 12, 1855; Andreas, p. 117; see also Kickapoo
City Pioneer, November 28, 1855: "To Arms! To Arms! The Enemy is in the
Field. Up, Citizens. Up, Pro-slavery Men. Up, Southerners. Up, Law and Or-
der Men!"
NOTES . 603
16. Howard Report, p. 1096.
17. Howard Report, testimony of J. M. Winchell, pp. 1088 and 1090; ibid.,
testimony of James S. Legate, p. 1095; ibid., testimony of Gov. Shannon, p. 1109;
Cordley, p. 54; Gihon, p. 58; Andreas, p. 118; Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 105.
18. See Missouri Democrat, cited in N. Y. Tribune of December 31, 1855.
19. Andreas, p. 119; Phillips, pp. 171-172, 181; Cordley, p. 56.
20. Howard Report, pp. 60 and 1129-1131.
21. Cordley, pp. 52, 59-61; Phillips, pp. 174-176; Holloway, p. 219; Andreas,
p. 118.
22. John Brown to wife and children, Osawatomie, K. T., December 16, 1855,
— original in possession of Kansas Historical Society; see also letter of S. L.
Adair, Osawatomie, Dec. 9, 1855, to Owen Brown in Hudson, — original in pos-
session of Mrs. S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich.
23. Howard Report, p. 62.
24. Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society.
25. Original certificate of service, in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr.; see
also Andreas, p. 121.
26. Letter of R. G. Elliott to K. Mayo, Lawrence, August 6, 1908.
27. James F. Legate, in the Leavenworth Weekly Press, October 23, 1879; John
Brown Scrap-Book, vol. I, Kansas Historical Society.
28. Ibid.; see also statement of George Leis, Lawrence, Nov. 30, 1909, for the
author.
29. John Brown to Orson Day, Brown's Station, December 14, 1855, from copy
in J. H. Holmes Papers in possession of the author.
30. For the varying accounts of the meeting and the speeches, see Phillips,
p. 222; letter of R. G. Elliott to Miss Mayo; statement of Jason Brown, Decem-
ber 13 and 14, 1908; letter of Salmon Brown to J. H. Holmes, Portland, Oregon,
July 8, 1901; statement of Salmon Brown, Portland, Oregon, October n, 1908;
Reminiscences of Old John Brown, by G. W. Brown, M. D., Rockford, 111., 1880,
p. 8; statement of E. A. Coleman, Sanborn, p. 220; Herald of Freedom, October
io, 1857.
31. Statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908, confirmed by Salmon
Brown; G. W. Brown, Reminiscences of Old John Brown, p. 8.
32. Robinson, pp. 207, 217.
33. R. G. Elliott. In a statement of July 27, 1908, at Lawrence, Kansas, to
K. Mayo, Mr. Elliott says: "The people would never have submitted to the
Shannon treaty had they understood its nature. It is also believed that if John
Brown's policy of attack had been followed, it would have been very bad for
the Free State cause."
34. Andreas, p. 119; Phillips, p. 225; Robinson, p. 204. For Shannon's Expla-
nation, see Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 248.
35. Phillips, p. 227; Howard Report, pp. 62, 1126; N. Y. Tribune, December 29,
1855; L. Spring, Magazine of Western History, vol. 9, p. 80; for Jones's statement,
see Report on Kansas Claims, signed by E. Hoogland, H. J. Adams and S. A.
Kingman, a committee of the Kansas Legislature, p. 62. This long report was
published in Report No. 104, House of Representatives, 36th Congress, 2d session,
Washington, 1861.
36. Phillips, pp. 226-227.
37. Ibid., p. 228.
38. For Shannon's letter and the authority given Robinson and Lane, see
Brewerton, pp. 197-201; see also Governor Shannon's Explanation, Kansas His-
torical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 247-249.
604 NOTES
39. Howard Report contains eight testimonies; see also Gihon, pp. 65-70;
Mrs. Robinson, pp. 144-146 and 160-163; Brewerton, pp. 137, 306, 329, for state-
ments of Barber's widow and other relatives; Phillips, p. 211 et seq.
40. James F. Legate, Leavenworth Weekly Press, October 23, 1879.
41. John Brown to Orson Day, December 14, 1855.
42. Letter to wife and children from " Westpoint," Mo., January I, 1856. —
Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger.
43. Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to Mrs. John Brown, Osawatomie, Jan. 6, 1856, —
original in possession of Miss Brown; Henry Thompson to Ruth Brown Thomp-
son, Brown's Station, K. T., January 6, 1856, — original in possession of Miss
Mary E. Thompson. Frederick Brown was the nominee of the meeting, but at
the request of the chairman, John Brown, who urged that the elder brother would
make a better representative, having greater knowledge of such matters, the vote
was given to John Brown, Jr., — statement of Henry Thompson, September,
1908.
44. Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to Mrs. John Brown, Osawatomie, January 6, 1856.
45. Ibid.; John Brown to wife and children, Osawatomie, Feb. I, 1856, —
original in Kansas Historical Society; letter to his father, Brownsville, Nov. 9,
1855, — original in possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark, Berea, Ky.; letter of Jason
Brown to his grandfather, Owen Brown, Osawatomie, Jan. 23, 1856, — original
in possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark.
46. Mrs. Robinson, pp. 171-174; Gihon, pp. 71-72; Kansas Historical Society
Collections, vol. 7, p. 525; Howard Report, many testimonies; and p. 63 et seq.;
Charles Robinson, p. 222; Andreas, pp. 124, 426; Phillips, pp. 240-246.
47. Quoted in Andreas, p. 125.
48. Quoted in Wilder, p. 91.
49. Quoted in Andreas, p. 125; Webb's Scrap-Book; Kansas Historical Society
Collections, vol. 8, p. 19; also in N. Y. Tribune of February 2, 1856.
50. Mrs, Robinson, p. 167; Howard Report, p. 969; Kansas Historical Society
Collections, vol. 7, p. 525.
51. Andreas, p. 124; Holloway, pp. 275-276.
52. Andreas, p. 125; Holloway, p. 278.
53. Letter of Henry Thompson to Ruth Brown Thompson, January 26, 1856.
— Original in possession of Miss Thompson.
54. Now first published. — Original in possession of Miss Kate Giddings,
Jefferson, Ohio.
55. John Brown to his father, Owen Brown, Osawatomie, January 19, 1856. —
Original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis.
56. Jason Brown to his grandfather, Osawatomie, Jan. 23, 1856. — Original
in possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark; also to Orson Day, February 21, 1856.
57. Original in Kansas Historical Society. See Sanborn, p. 224.
58. Andreas, p. 125; Executive Minutes of the Territory of Kansas, Kansas
Historical Society Publications, vol. I, p. 104.
59. Reese's MS.; St. Louis Democrat, quoted in N. Y. Tribune of March 27,
1856; Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 6, p. 298.
60. John Brown to wife and children, Osawatomie, March 6, 1856. — Original
in possession of Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama.
61. Letter of H. H. Williams to C. A. Foster, Foster MS., in Kansas Historical
Society; for John Brown, Jr.'s own account of the proceedings of this Legisla-
ture, and of his part therein, see his letter to his grandparents, Brown's Station,
Osawatomie, without date, — original in possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark.
62. Miscellaneous Documents, No. 82, House of Representatives, 34th Con-
gress, 1st session.
NOTES 605
i' '63. Kansas Tribune, March 5 and 12, 1856; see also letter of John Brown, Jr.,
to his grandparents, above cited.
64. Letter of Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to Ruth Brown Thompson, Brown's Sta-
tion, April 8, 1856. — Original in possession of Miss Thompson.
65. Letter of Henry Thompson to his wife, Brown's Station, March 23, 1856.
— Original in possession of Miss Thompson.
66. Henry Thompson to his wife, April 16, 1856. — Original in possession of
Miss Thompson.
67. Henry Thompson to his wife, May, 1856. — Original in possession of Miss
Thompson.
68. This account of the Settlers' Meeting has been drawn from the letter of
S. L. Adair to J. H. Holmes, Osawatomie, July 9, 1894; statements by Henry
Thompson, August and September, 1908; the speech of Martin White, which will
be found in the Leavenworth, Kansas, Journal of March 12, 1857; also 'The
Settlers' Meeting and Protest of April 16, 1856, in Osawatomie,' by O. C. Brown,
a participant, Adams, N. Y., October, 1895, a MS. now in the O. C. Brown
Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
69. The resolutions as given here are taken from the Kansas Free State, pub-
lished in Lawrence, May 5, 1856.
70. Statement of Salmon Brown, October u, 1908.
71. From a copy of the original, taken by James H. Holmes.
72. 'The Settlement of Lane and Vicinity,' MS. by James Hanway, in Han-
way Miscellanies, vol. 4, Kansas Historical Society. "I was in sight but in the
background when our committee served the resolutions on the Judge. He made
no reply. There was a little side-work done to intimidate that Jury in a secret
way on our part that never got out to the public." — Salmon Brown to J. H.
Holmes, Portland, January 28, 1903, — original in possession of the author.
73. Statement of Salmon Brown, October, II, 1908; MS. of John Brown
entitled ' An Idea of Things in Kansas,' in possession of the Kansas Historical
Society; statement of Jason Brown, December 13-14, 1908; statement of Henry
Thompson, August, 1908.
74. See ' The Buford Expedition to Kansas,' by Walter L. Fleming, American
Historical Review for October, 1900; see also N. Y. Tribune, May 5 and 10, 1856;
Mrs. Robinson, pp. 216-217.
75. N. Y. Tribune, May 13, 1856.
76. Fleming, American Historical Review, October, 1900.
77. N. Y. Tribune, May 2, 1856.
78. See, for instance, Greeley's editorial of March 7, 1856.
79. N. Y. Tribune, May 5, 1856. An example of the recruiting that went on
at this time in the South is afforded by a circular now in the possession of the
author dated June 12, 1856:
"TO ALL TRUE
SOUTHERN MEN! !"
Shall Kansas be surrendered to the Abolitionists ?
Shall we sit down in idleness and permit our enemies to wall up Southern
institutions, and thus endanger our existence as a people? We have the ability
to prevent it — Do we lack the patriotism ?
Massachusetts says we must be driven out. Her Legislature has just appro-
priated $20,000 to effect this purpose, and her people propose to raise imme-
diately by private efforts $100,000 more. These people are engaged in the busi-
ness of fanaticism and treason. Will Alabamians be less liberal in maintaining
606 NOTES
their substantial, vital rights under the Constitution? — Shall we turn our backs
on the brave Missourians who stretch out their hands to us for help in a common
cause? If we intend to do anything now is the time. This is a living, pressing issue.
Is it possible that we are dead to its importance? Southern Freemen must be true
to themselves. We know there are men among us who discourage this great move-
ment to save the South, by predictions of failure and inability to succeed. Down
with such men. Turn from them as our worst enemies and let all true men unite
in crushing out this spirit of submission to abolition aggression and willingness
to surrender Southern Rights without a struggle.
Messrs. BAKER & JOHNSTON,
Who have been aiding in emigrating Southern men to Kansas, have just returned
for the purpose of raising more men and money. H. D. CLAYTON, ESQ., AND
DR. JOSEPH JONES, will accompany and assist them in this enterprise. They
are prepared to give reliable and valuable information, and for these purposes
will meet and address the people at the following times and places.
The meetings were to be held throughout July at twenty-four places, among
them Tuskegee and Mount Meigs, where are now located industrial schools for
the freed negroes.
80. N. Y. Tribune, March 3, 1856.
81. N. Y. Tribune, Jan. 19, 1856.
82. The best accounts of Sheriff Jones's activity in Lawrence and his wounding
are to be found in Andreas; Mrs. Robinson; the official report of Lieut. James
Mclntosh, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, pp. 418-419; the N. Y.
Tribune; and Phillips; see also Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 410.
For pro-slavery side see H. C. Pate's letter to St. Louis Republican, dated April 14,
1856,9 P. M..; also Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, pp. 414-416; Shannon
to Pierce. The Life of Gen. J. H. Lane, by John Speer, Garden City, Kansas, 1897,
pp. 77-80, is also of value.
83. Sworn testimony of three members of Jones's posse, April 28, 1856; Kansas
Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 410.
84. See letters of Frank B. Swift and B. W. Woodward, of Lawrence, in the
Western Home Journal of Lawrence, November 20, 1879; also letter of Philip W.
Woodward to F. G. Adams from Leavenworth, September 18, 1897. Woodward,
a room-mate of Filer at the time of the shooting, loaned him his revolver. Filer
returned it later, saying that he had shot Jones. Not unnaturally, Filer subse-
quently denied this. He soon left Kansas and returned to New York. Lenhart
died during the Civil War as first lieutenant of the Second Indian Regiment of
the Federal army.
85. N. Y. Tribune, May 8, 1856; Mrs. Robinson, pp. 201-202; Andreas, p. 126.
86. Mrs. Robinson, p. 210; N. Y. Tribune, May 13; Phillips, p. 258; N. Y.
Evening Post, May 13, 1856.
"Such a state of things as this maddens men and throws them back upon their
own resources for redress. And it is dreadful to see how all the evil passions rise
and rage at the recital of these terrible outrages so near home. Children catch
fire and give vent to the undisguised feelings of their souls in words which under
other circumstances would seem terrible. O, the depth of revenge in the human
heart when the powers that should execute justice not only connive at the wrong,
but abet and help it on, and screen the offender. May Heaven grant us deliver-
ance soon." — S. L. Adair, Osawatomie, May 16, 1856, to Owen Brown in Hud-
son, — original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich.
NOTES 607
87. N. Y. Tribune, May 15, 1856.
88. For Butler's own story, see N. Y. Tribune, May 19, 1856; see also Gihon,
p. 75 et seq.; Phillips, p. 259 et seq.
89. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 157; vol. 5, pp. 81-82;
Gihon, pp. 82-83; Mrs. Robinson, p. 238; Phillips, p. 286; N. Y. Tribune, June
5, 1856.
90. Lexington Express, May 20, 1859; Missouri Republican, June 26, 1856:
Hinton, pp. 78-80; Gihon, p. 83; Phillips, pp. 286-287. Stewart was formerly of
Bushford, Allegany County, N. Y. See N. Y. Evening Post, June 9, 1856.
91. Andreas, pp. 127-128; Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 156; N. Y. Tribune, May 19, 1856;
Charles Robinson, p. 234 et seq.; for 'Letter from a Grand Juror,' see N. Y.
Tribune, June 9, 1856.
92. Mrs. Robinson, p. 267 et seq.; Charles Robinson, pp. 237-239.
93. Reeder's Diary, Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. I, p. 13 et
seq.
94. Memorial to the President from Inhabitants of Kansas, Kansas Historical
Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 392.
95. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 394; Andreas, p. 128; Cord-
ley, p. 93; Phillips, p. 276; Holloway, p. 317.
96. Phillips, p. 278; Holloway, p. 319; Andreas, pp. 128-129; Kansas Histori-
cal Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 394.
97. Andreas, p. 129; Holloway, p. 329; Phillips, pp. 289-290; Gihon, p. 82;
N. Y. Tribune, June 4, 1856; W M. Paxton, Annals ofPlatte County, Mo., Kan-
sas City, 1897, pp. 212-214.
98. Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 158.
99. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, pp. 397-399; Andreas, pp. 129-
130; Mrs. Robinson, p. 238.
100. The author's story of the Lawrence raid is drawn from the following
sources: Memorial to the President from Inhabitants of Kansas, Kansas His-
torical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 392 et seq.; Mrs. Robinson, pp. 240-248;
Phillips, pp. 289-309; Gihon, pp. 83-86; Holloway, pp. 329-338; Cordley, pp.
99-103; Andreas, p. 130; N. Y. Tribune, May 29, 30, June 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 13, 19, 20;
St. Louis Democrat, May 27, 1856. For a statement of some of the brutalities
committed by the Border Ruffians, see R. H. Williams's With the Border Ruffians,
the story of an Englishman who served under Atchison at the taking of Lawrence,
pp. 83-86; see also testimony of John A. Perry before the Congressional Com-
mittee, N. Y. Tribune, July 26, 1856. Details of the needless looting and destruc-
tion of property are sworn to by many witnesses in the Report on Kansas Claims
already referred to. This is a store-house of valuable information as to the
property loss inflicted on both sides from November i, 1855, to December I,
1856.
101. Statement of Robert G. Elliott, July 27, 1908; Phillips, p. 299; James F.
Legate, Kansas Memorial, p. 63.
102. Andreas, p. 130; Phillips, p. 299; Holloway, pp. 336-337.
103. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 401; Phillips, pp. 296-
297; N. Y. Tribune, June 2; Holloway, p. 333.
104. Eli Thayer, History of the Kansas Crusade, New York, 1889, p. 21 1.
105. Horace Greeley, N. Y. Tribune, May 21, 1856.
608 NOTES
CHAPTER V
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE
Besides the personal narratives of two of the participants in the Pottawatomie
murders, Henry Thompson and Salmon Brown, the author has been fortunate in
finding three members of the Grant family alive to give their testimony, and has
consulted in addition no less than fifty-six narratives of early settlers, including
those of H. H. Williams, James Blood, August Bondi, John Speer, John T. Grant,
James Hanway, O. C. Brown, Martin White, H. C. Pate and others who had a
more or less intimate knowledge of conditions as they existed at the time of the
murders. Jason Brown's story, that of John Brown, Jr., Townsley's statements
and the testimonies in the Oliver minority report of the Howard Committee have
also been drawn upon, as well as contemporary newspaper publications, besides
all the lives of Brown and histories of Kansas. It is believed that the narrative
here given is the first complete story of the crime.
1. Sanborn, pp. 236-237.
2. John Brown, Jr., in the Cleveland Leader, November 29, 1883.
3. Letter of Henry H. Williams, July 20, 1856, in N. Y. Tribune of August 20,
1856. Cf. also, narrative of Captain Samuel Anderson, a member of the com-
pany, in the Hyatt Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
4. John Brown, Jr., Cleveland Leader, Nov. 29, 1883.
5. H. H. Williams, N. Y. Tribune, Aug. 20, 1856; James Hanway, of Capt.
John Brown, Jr.'s company, in Lawrence Daily Journal, November 27, 1879.
6. John Brown, Jr., Cleveland Leader, Nov. 29, 1883; H. H. Williams, N. Y.
Tribune, Aug. 20, 1856; C. A. Foster, a member of the Pottawatomie Rifles, to
F. G. Adams, April 15, 1895, Foster MS., in Kansas Historical Society.
7. Letter of Jason Brown, Osawatomie, June 28, 1856, to the family at North
Elba, — original in possession of Miss Thompson, used here for the first time;
official report of Second Lieut. John R. Church, First U. S. Cavalry, May 26, 1856,
Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 421. Lieut. Church dwells upon
the fact that the presence of the Free State companies had frightened away two
families. One of these was undoubtedly that whose slaves were freed by John
Brown, Jr.
8. John Brown, Jr., Cleveland Leader, Nov. 29, 1883; "Jason Brown's state-
ment of December 13-14, 1908; statement of Salmon Brown, October n, 1908.
9. Jason Brown to F. G. Adams, April 2, 1884, at College Hill, Topeka, in
Kansas Historical Society; statement of Jason Brown, December 13, 1908.
10. Statement of December 13, 1908.
11. Martin Van Buren Jackson to W. E. Connelley, November 6, 1900, in
Mr. Connelley's possession.
12. Statement of October n, 1908. In a letter to Eli Thayer, dated Fort Scott,
August 4, 1879, George A. Crawford states that John Brown, in Brown's camp
at Trading Post, Linn County, Kansas, early in January, 1859, speaking to him
of the Pottawatomie killings, said that "the death of those pro-slavery men had
been determined upon at a meeting of free-state settlers the day before — that
he was present at the meeting and, I think, presided, and that the executioners
were then and there appointed." — Original in G. W. Brown Papers, in Kansas
Historical Society.
13. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 279; Bondi's MS. narrative,
in Kansas Historical Society.
NOTES 609
14. Hanway to Hinton, December 5, 1859. — Original in Hinton Papers,
Kansas Historical Society.
15. Besides Salmon Brown, the following testify to the cheering that greeted
the departure of the little company: Jason Brown, John Brown, Jr., and James
Hanway. See Hanway to Redpath, March 12, 1860, quoted in Andreas, p. 604.
16. It is only fair to state that J. G. Grant testifies that H. H. Williams urged
George Grant to keep out of the expedition because "something rash" was going
to be done. Statement of J. G. Grant, San Francisco, Oct. 7, 1908, to K. Mayo.
17. Confession of Townsley, written out by Attorney Hutchings on December
4, 1879, and published in the Lawrence Daily Journal, December 10, 1879. Other
confessions of Townsley, varying slightly from the above, have also been drawn
upon. Johnson Clarke's version of Townsley's confession is in the United States
Biographical Dictionary, Kansas volume, 1879, p. 526; a third version is in An-
dreas, pp. 603-604, this having been made Aug. 3, 1882.
18. John Brown, Jr., in Cleveland Press, May 3, 1895; statement of Jason
Brown, December 13, 1908. "Gen." Bierce's title came from a northern Ohio
secret society, the "Grand Eagles," organized to attack the Canadian Govern-
ment. The arms given by Bierce to John Brown had belonged to this society,
and included artillery broadswords that bore either on hilt or blade the device of
an eagle, and which were the identical weapons used in the Pottawatomie kill-
ings. See Jason Brown's statement of December 28, 1908; Western Reserve His-
torical Society Tracts, vol. 2, pp. 4-5; for Bierce's own statement of his gift of
arms to John Brown, see address delivered at Akron, Ohio, on 'The Execution
of John Brown,' Columbus, 1865.
19. John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown.
20. Statement of George Grant, San Jose", Cal., September 25, 1908, to K. Mayo.
21. Statement of Dr. W. B. Fuller to J. H. Holmes, December 7, 1903, in pos-
session of author.
22. James H. Hanway to R. J. Hinton, December 5, 1859, Hinton Papers,
Kansas Historical Society.
23. See ' Old John Brown,' by Capt. J. M. Anthony, Leavenworth Weekly
Times, February 14, 1884.
24. Colonel James Blood, Lawrence, November 29, 1879, to G. W. Brown,
published in Leavenworth Weekly Press, December 4, 1879. Neither Salmon
Brown nor Henry Thompson can remember this meeting with Colonel Blood.
But as Colonel Blood gave his testimony with unswerving precision on several
occasions, and made his original statement before the appearance of Townsley's
confession, the author is of the opinion that it must be accepted as correct, par-
ticularly in view of the accuracy of his detailed description of the party he
met.
25. Townsley, December 6, 1879.
26. Statement of Henry Thompson, August and September, 1908.
27. Statement of Mrs. B. F. Jackson, Topeka, Kansas, August, 1908, to K. Mayo.
But Henry Sherman's character was not so black as to keep the Commission-
ers on Kansas Claims from awarding $1035 damages to the administrator of
his estate for cattle taken illegally by John Brown and others (Report, vol. 3,
Part 2, pp. 1184-1190).
28. Letter of Maggie Moore and Mahala Doyle to A. A. Lawrence, Chatta-
nooga, May 26, 1885, in the Massachusetts Historical Society Library.
29. Joint interview of G. W. and Henry Grant, given in Lawrence Journal
office, December 4, 1879, and published the next day.
30. John Brown, Jr., Cleveland Leader, November 29, 1883; statement of
6io NOTES
Henry Thompson, August, 1908; statement of Salmon Brown, October, 1908;
statement of Jason Brown, December 13, 1908; E. A. Coleman, in The Kansas
Memorial, a report of the Old Settlers' Meeting at Bismarck, Grove, Kansas,
Charles S. Gleed, Editor, Kansas City, Mo., 1880, pp. 196-197.
31. John Brown as viewed by Henry Clay Pate, New York, 1859 (pamphlet).
32. Martin White, Speech in the Kansas House of Representatives, reported in
the Leavenworth Journal, March 12, 1857.
33. Oliver Minority Report to the Howard Committee Report, pp. 105-106.
34. Statement of Salmon Brown, October, 1908.
35. Ibid. ; also statement of Jason Brown, December, 1908.
36. Howard Report Appendix, ex parte testimony, p. 1193.
37. Ibid., pp. 1194-1195.
38. Ibid., pp. 1197-1198.
39. Ibid., pp. 1195-1197.
40. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, July, 1902, pp. 31-32.
41. Statement of Jason Brown to K. Mayo; also his statement to F. G. Adams,
Topeka, April 2, 1884.
42. Jason Brown to K. Mayo, December, 1908.
43. Jason Brown; Salmon Brown.
44. Statement of J. G. Grant, San Francisco, October 7, 1908, to K. Mayo.
45. Reprinted in Overbrook (Kansas) Citizen, June 25, 1908, from Watertown
(New York) Reformer of 1856.
46. O. C. Brown Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
47. H. L. Jones to F. G. Adams, January 20, 1879, in Kansas Historical
Society.
48. George Thompson, Twin Mound, Kansas, July 30, 1894, in J. H. Holmes
Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
49. Also found in Andreas, p. 132.
50. Shannon to Pierce, Lecompton, May 31, 1856, Kansas Historical Society
Collections, vol. 4, pp. 414-418.
51. Lawrence Journal, December n, 1879.
52. Correspondence of John Sedgwick, Major-General, privately printed for
C. and E. B. Stoeckel, 1903, vol. 2, pp. 8-9. Governor Robinson testified that
Major Sedgwick was not only very kind to the Free State prisoners at Leaven-
worth, but a warm sympathizer with their cause. Major Sedgwick was, of coursei
misled, in one respect: there was no mutilation of the Pottawatomie victims.
53. Original in Hanway Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
54. MS. by James Hanway, in Kansas Historical Society. At the meeting of
the Anti-Slavery Society in Lawrence, Dec. 19, 1859 (reported in the New York
Herald of Jan. 2, 1860), Governor Robinson said: "It made no difference whether
he [Brown] raised his hand or otherwise; [at Pottawatomie] he was present, aid-
ing and advising to it, and did not attempt to stop the bloodshed, and is, of course,
responsible, though justifiable, according to his understanding of affairs." Rob-
inson also stated in this meeting that he himself thought the murders justifiable
at the time. The Anti-Slavery Society, after the discussion, voted that the mur-
ders were not unjustifiable, and that they were performed "from the sad neces-
sity ... to defend the lives and liberties of the settlers in that region."
55. T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, pp. 207-208. The Rev. E. Nute
wrote from Boston to R. J. Hinton, June 4, 1893, that he was in Boston at the
time of the murders; that he returned soon after, and heard nothing but ex-
pressions of satisfaction concerning them. — Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical
Society.
NOTES 611
56. John B. Manes, son of Poindexter Manes, in the Garnet, Kan., Plain-
dealer, January 9, 1880, in Kansas Historical Society; S. J. Shively, 'The Pottawa-
tomie Massacre,' in Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 179; Andreas,
p. 603.
57. Martin's The First Two Years of Kansas, p. 19.
58. Capt. J. M. Anthony, in Leavenworth Weekly Times, February 14, 1884;
James F. Legate, in Topeka Weekly Capital, February 28, 1884; Hinton, p. 87.
59. Statement of Mrs. John Brown, Jr., Put-in Bay, November, 1908, to K.
Mayo.
60. Original in possession of Miss Mary E. Thompson.
61. Statement of Mrs. Mary E. Brown, San Jose, California, to K. Mayo, Sep-
tember 24, 1908.
62. Statement of Mrs. B. F. Jackson, Topeka, August, 1908, to K. Mayo.
63. See, for instance, Gihon, pp. 75, 85, 91, 98.
64. Mrs. Robinson, p. 328. In a later statement, in possession of the author,
Mrs. Robinson affirms, however, that her charge above mentioned was made
only on the authority of a rumor circulated by Redpath, which was later entirely
discredited.
65. Statement of George Grant, San Jose", Cal., September 25, 1908. It is
to be noted, in this connection, that J. G. Grant, his brother, stated, on Oct. 7,
1908, in San Francisco, to Miss Mayo: "Prior to Pottawatomie, no violence had
been committed in our region on either side. The Free State men had, however,
a general sense of danger from the continued threats from Missouri, and from
depredations elsewhere rife." According to John T. Grant (see his letter to Rev.
L. W. Spring, in Spring's ' John Brown,' Proceedings Massachusetts Histori-
cal Society, March, 1900), Henry Sherman told Mrs. J. T. Grant that Morse and
Weiner had been ordered to leave for giving ammunition to the Pottawatomie
Rifles.
66. Col. James Blood, in Topeka Weekly Capital and Farmers' Journal, January
I, 1884.
67. Mrs. Mary E. Brown; George W. Grant, statements of September, 1908.
68. J. H. Holmes papers, in possession of the author.
69. M. V. B. Jackson to W. E. Connelley, Emporia, Kansas, November 6, 1900.
— Original in possession of Mr. Connelley.
70. Garnett, Kan., Plaindealer, January 9, 1880.
71. Mr. Adair's son, Charles S. Adair, is also of the opinion that this list was sub-"
mitted. In a long and interesting letter, written in May, 1856, to his "Bro. and
Sis. Hand," the elder Adair tells the story of the massacre and says that some
of the murdered men "had made threats, had threatened the lives of Free State
men, and acted most outrageously for some time past," but makes no mention
of an Index Expurgatorius of the Free State men. The original letter is in pos-
session of Mrs. S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich.
72. The Kansas Memorial, p. 196.
73. Statement of Col. Edward Anderson to K. Mayo, Boston, January 10,
1908; see also letter, quoting Brown, of George A. Crawford to Eli Thayer, Fort
Scott, Kan., Aug. 4, 1879, in G. W. Brown Papers, in Kansas Historical Society.
74. John Speer, in Topeka Commonwealth, January 30, 1886.
75. F. G. Adams to R. J. Hinton, October 25, 1883, in Kansas Historical
Society.
76. The original of the Pomeroy letter is in the possession of the author.
77- Wilder's Annals, p. 99.
78. Howard Report, p. 107.
612 NOTES
79. Samuel Walker to Judge James Hanway, Lawrence, February 8, 1875,
Hanway Papers, in Kansas Historical Society.
80. F. B. Sanborn's open letter to Mr. Winthrop, in Boston Transcript, De-
cember 6, 1884.
81. This charge of John Brown, Jr., is in the Topeka Commonwealth of Feb-
ruary 16, 1884. For ex-Governor Robinson's reply and the continuation of the
controversy, see Topeka Commonwealth of 1884.
82. Statement of Henry Thompson in J. H. Holmes Papers.
83. T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 208.
84. Judge Thomas Russell to C. A. Foster, Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical
Society.
85. Recollections of Forty Years, by John Sherman, New York, 1896, p. 100.
86. Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 78.
87. For the Hamilton murders, see Andreas, pp. 1104-1105; William P. Tom-
linson, Kansas in 1858; New York, 1859, pp. 61-76.
88. Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 2d Series, vol. I, Boston, June,
1884.
89. "The truth is that the Pottawatomie massacre was so at variance with
the whole course and policy of the Free-State party in Kansas up to that time,
that its horrible details were not credited in the East. . . . The testimony of
impartial observers was that the proslavery men were lawless and aggressive,
and the Free-State settlers submissive, industrious, and anxious for liberty and
order. Their previous good character prevented the country from believing that
the killing done in their name by one of their number was an unprovoked mas-
sacre."— Rhodes, vol. 2, pp. 199-200.
90. In justice to Mr. Salmon Brown and to the reader, it is only fair that there
should be appended to the discussion of the Pottawatomie tragedy the following
letter, particularly as it has been printed in an altered and misleading form which
conveys the denial, not found in its original, that John Brown was present at
the Pottawatomie murders. It will be seen from this letter that Salmon Brown
does not deny that his father was present, but evades a direct statement, as did
his father. The letter was written in a period of great stress and anxiety, subse-
quent to the execution of John Brown, when it did not seem advisable to let the
.real facts come out. The original of this letter is in the possession of the family of
the late Dr. Joshua Young, of Winchester, Mass.
REV JOSHUA YOUNG. NORTH ELBA, N. Y. Dec. 27th '59. ;
DEAR SIR: —
Your letter to my mother was received to-night. You wished me to give you
the facts in regard to the Pottawatomie execution or murder, and whether my
Father was a participator in the ACT. I was one of his company at the time of the
homicides and was never away from him one hour at a time after we took up arms
in Kansas. Therefore I say positively that he was not a participator in the deed.
Although I should think none the less of him if he had been for it was the grand-
est thing that was ever done in Kansas. It was all that saved the territory from
being run over with drunken land pirates from the Southern States. That was
the first act in the history of our country that proved to the demon of Slavery
that there was as much room to give blows as to take them it was done to save
life and to strike terror through there wicked ranks. I should like to write you
more about it but I have not time now. We all feel very grateful to you for your
kindness to us.
Yours Respectfully
SALMON BROWN.
NOTES 613
CHAPTER VI
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK
1. Rhodes, vol. 2, pp. 198-200.
2. For a strong expression of Mr. Garrison's opinion as to the Kansas policies
of Beecher and Theodore Parker, see the Liberator, vol. 26, p. 42.
3. Pro-Slavery Circular, in Squatter Sovereign, July 15, 1856.
4. Shannon to Pierce, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 416.
5. W. H. Coffin, 'The Settlement of the Friends in Kansas,' Kansas Historical
Society Collections, vol. 7, pp. 337-338.
6. N. Y. Tribune, June 17, 1856.
7. Mrs. Sara T. L. Robinson, on pp. 273-274 of her book, describes her ap-
proach to the Territory on June 3 from the East. Rumors of war increased as the
Border was neared. Inflammatory extras depicting the Pottawatomie murders in
lurid terms, and inciting to revenge and reprisal, were current in western Missouri,
and the excited people were everywhere preparing to respond. "'Murder is the
watchword and midnight deed,' said one journal, 'of a scattered and scouting
band of abolitionists. ... Men peaceable and quiet, cannot travel on the public
roads of Kansas. . . . No Southerner dare venture alone and unarmed."'
8. Correspondence N. Y. Tribune from Fort Scott, June 4, printed July I, 1856.
9. Mrs. Robinson, in the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle, December 12, 1878.
10. Reprinted in the St. Louis Republican, June 14, 1856; see also John Sher-
man, Recollections of Forty Years, p. 100.
11. Statement of Jason Brown to K. Mayo, December 13, 1908.
12. William Hutchinson ("Randolph") to the N. Y. Times, from Lawrence,
June 23, 1856; in Hutchinson Scrap-Book, Kansas Historical Society.
13. N. Y. Tribune, July 2, 1856.
14. Statement of Jason Brown as above. The original official notes of this
examination of John Brown, Jr., Jason Brown and their fellow prisoners, before
the U. S. Commissioner, Edward Hoogland, are in possession of Mr. M. W.
Blackman, Cleveland, Ohio.
15. From an unpublished MS. of Owen Brown, in the possession of Miss
Mary E. Thompson.
16. Bondi, in Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, pp. 282-283.
17. James Redpath, The Public Life of Captain John Brown, Boston, 1860,
pp. 112-114.
1 8. Bondi's narrative; also Owen Brown's story.
19. Rebellion Records, Series i, vol. 36, p. 778, report of P. H. Sheridan, Major-
General commanding; also, report of General Custer, ibid., p. 818; see also Uni-
versity of Virginia, New York, 1904, vol. 2, p. 54. Pate thus challenged Horace
Greeley for impugning his bravery: "If you doubt that I will fight you can have
a chance to try me in any way you want to, at any time you want to. My
address for the present is, 89, Guy's National, Washington, D. C., and for the
future, Lecompton, Kansas Territory, until further notice;" also statement of
Major Thomas S. Taliaferro, Richmond, April 23, 1909, to K. Mayo.
20. Owen Brown, in the Springfield Republican, January 14, 1889.
2 1 . John Brown as viewed by H. Clay Pate.
22. Quoted in Sanborn, p. 239.
23. John Brown, by H. Clay Pate.
24. John Brown to his family, June, 1856, Sanborn, p. 240.
6 14 NOTES
25. John Brown several times wrote out the list of those who took part in the
engagement. The following, from the original in the Kansas Historical Society,
is the roster as he wrote it: —
Saml T Shore, Capt. Silas More. David Hendricks (Horse Guard). Hiram
McAllister. Mr. Parmely (wounded) Silvester Harris. O A Carpenter (wounded).
Augustus Shore. Mr. Townsleyof Pottowatomie. WmBHayden. JohnMcWhin-
ney. Montgomery Shore. Elkanah Timmons. T. Weiner. A. Bondy. Hugh
McWhinney. Charles Keiser Elizur Hill. Wm Davis. Mr. Cochran of Pot-
towatomie. Henry Thompson (dangerously wounded) Elias Basinger. Owen
Brown. Fredk. Brown (horse guard) Salmon Brown (wound & cripled.) Oliver
Brown.
JOHN BROWN.
List of names of men wounded in the battle of Palmyra or Black Jack: also
of Eight volunteers who maintained their position during that fight: & to whom
the surrender was made June 2d 1856.
O A Carpenter "t wounded badly ; Thompson dangerously
Henry Thompson /
Mr Parmely }• wounded slightly in nose also in Arm so that he had to leave
the ground
Charles Keiser
Elizur Hill
Wm David
Hugh McWhinney
Mr. Cochran of Pottawatomie
Salmon Brown (accidentally wounded after the fight & liable to remain a
cripple)
Oliver Brown
Names of all who either fought or guarded the Horses during the fight at Pal-
myra June 2d 1856 will be found on the other side
Respectfully submited by
JOHN BROWN
Mess. Whitman )
Eldridge ?-
& others )
26. Annual Report of the Secretary of War, Exec. Doc. No. 1 , 34th Congress,
3d session, House of Representatives, pp. 44-45.
27. Correspondence of John Sedgwick, Major-General, vol. 2, pp. 7-8.
28. For this raid the authorities are August Bondi, MS. narrative (hitherto
unpublished) in the Kansas Historical Society Library; testimony of J. D.
Pennypacker, one of Pate's men, in the Richmond Despatch of November 19,
1859; the lengthy testimony of J. M. Bernard in the Report on Kansas Claims,
vol. 3, Part i, pp. 842-862, where are also the sworn statements of six other wit-
nesses; letter of J. M. Bernard in the Missouri Republican, quoted in the N. Y.
Tribune of June 20, 1856. The same incident is referred to in the Oliver Minority
Report, p. 108, but the date is erroneously given as May 27 and 28. Bernard was
awarded $9,524.91 on May 6, 1859, for the damage inflicted by Brown's men.
29. That it was Col. Preston, and not one Fain, or Marshal Donaldson, as
variously stated, appears from Gov. Shannon's letter of June 4, 1856, to Col.
Sumner, Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. r, p. 122; and from a letter
of J. Bernard to Missouri Republican, written at Westport, Monday, June 9, 1856.
30. Statements of Salmon Brown and Henry Thompson of October n, 1908,
NOTES 615
and August 22, 1908, respectively; also letter of J. Bernard as above, quoted in
the N. Y. Tribune of June 20. The story is variously told by different chroni-
clers.
31. Gov. Shannon to the President, Lecompton, June 17, 1856, Kansas His-
torical Society Collections, vol. 4, pp. 386-387.
32. Correspondence of Gov. Shannon, Kansas Historical Society Collections,
vol. 4, p. 414.
33. Proclamation of Gov. Shannon, Annual Report of the Secretary of War
for 1856, pp. 47-48; see also Executive Minutes of Gov. Shannon, Kansas His-
torical Society Publications, vol. i, p. 121.
34. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 421.
35. Andreas, pp. 132-133; N. Y. Tribune, June 16, 1856.
36. Bondi MSS., Kansas Historical Society.
37. Andreas, p. 134; O. C. Brown's letter of June 24, 1856, Kansas Historical
Society; Mrs. Robinson, p. 278; Phillips, pp. 374-375; N. Y. Tribune of June 14
and June 17, 1856.
38. Gihon, p. 90; Phillips, pp. 364-369; Mrs. Robinson, p. 283; N. Y. Tribune,
June 26 and 27, 1856; Herald of Freedom, May 16, 1857; Holloway, p. 361.
39. Report of Secretary of War for 1856, p. 49.
40. Phillips, p. 380.
41. Report of Lieut. Mclntosh to acting Governor Woodson, Kansas Histor-
ical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 391.
42. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
43. Mrs. Robinson, p. 283; Phillips, p. 380; see also N. Y. Tribune, July 8, for
statement of robberies; report on Kansas Claims, vol. 3, Part I, pp. 206-207.
44. N. Y. Tribune, June 19; Mrs. Robinson, pp. 284-285.
45. N. Y. Tribune, June 26 and 27; Mrs. Robinson, p. 298.
46. Gihon, p. 91; N. Y. Tribune, June I, 3 and II.
47. Phillips, p. 389.
48. Gladstone, p. 281; Gihon, p. 93; Cordley, p. 113; Mrs. Robinson, p. 324;
' Life of Samuel Walker, ' Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 6, pp. 268-269:
Andreas, p. 142.
49. Cordley, pp. 105-107; statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908;
Andreas, pp. 320 and 42 7; Mrs. Robinson, p. 328; N.Y. Tribune, Sept. 8 and 9, 1856.
50. Andreas, p. 133.
51. For instances of Free State thefts of horses owned by pro-slavery men, see
Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 10, p. 645. The Oliver Minority Report,
pp. 1199-1205, gives many instances of robberies of pro-slavery stores and houses
immediately after the Pottawatomie murders. The long report of the Commis-
sioners of Kansas, already referred to, should also be studied in this connection.
52. Quoted in N. Y. Tribune of June 18, 1856.
53- Ibid.
54. Squatter Sovereign, July 15, 1856.
55. Proclamation of acting Governor Woodson, Annual Report of the Secretary
of War for 1856, pp. 57-58.
56. See Report of Secretary of War for 1856, pp. 26, 56, 61; Shannon to Sum-
ner, June 23, Executive Minutes, Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. i,
p. 123. For a sample of the rejoicing of pro-slavery papers when Sumner was
relieved, see Richmond Enquirer of September 5, 1856.
57. Secretary of War's Report for 1856, p. 69.
58. Gen. Edwin Vose Sumner, born in Boston, January 30, 1797, entered the
army in 1819 as second lieutenant of infantry. He served in the Black Hawk
616 NOTES
War, and led the cavalry charge at Cerro Gordo, Mexico, in April, 1847; was
Governor of New Mexico, 1851-53; he died at Syracuse, N. Y., March 21, 1863,
as a brigadier-general in the regular army and major-general of volunteers, from
disease resulting from the Fredericksburg campaign, in which he commanded
a division. He had the respect of the army as an able and gallant soldier, espe-
cially in Indian warfare. In a letter dated "Camp of U. S. Cavalry, near Lecomp-
ton, July 7, 1856," addressed to Col. Sumner and bearing also the signatures
of Geo. W. Smith, Gaius Jenkins, John Brown, Jr., Henry H. Williams and Geo.
W. Deitzler, Charles Robinson wrote as follows:
"Whatever judgment the people of Kansas or the country may pass upon the
conduct of the administrator of Government, or I should rather say, adminis-
trator of outrage, in Kansas, all parties must concede to you, personally, the
character of an honorable, impartial, high-minded and efficient officer; notwith-
standing, in the discharge of your official duty, your superiors incur the censure
of persons of all shades of political faith." — See N. Y. Tribune, July 24, 1856.
59. The correspondence of Shannon, Woodson and Sumner, and between
Jefferson Davis and Sumner, and the proclamation of acting Governor Woodson,
will be found in the Annual Report of the Secretary of War for 1856. See also
Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4; and vol. 9, pp. 360-363.
60. Philadelphia North American, quoted in the Mobile Daily Tribune of Au-
gust I, 1856; Mrs. Robinson, pp. 309-315; Phillips, pp. 392-406; N. Y. Tribune,
July 10 and 19, 1856; letter of James Redpath, dated Topeka, July 4, in the
Milwaukee Sentinel of July 17, 1856.
61. Statements of Salmon Brown and Henry Thompson; letter of S. L. Adair
to T. H. Hand and Stephen Davis and families, Osawatomie, July 17, 1856. —
Original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis.
62. Quoted in W. A. Phillips's article, in Atlantic Monthly for December, 1879.
63. Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr.
64. John Brown, Jr., to Jason Brown, dated Camp U. S. Cavalry, near Le-
compton, Kansas, July 30, 1856; S. L. Adair, Osawatomie, July 17, 1856, wrote
to T. H. Hand and Stephen Davis and families as follows: "Bro. J. B. and un-
married sons expect to leave the territory immediately. They are known as fight-
ing men and are a terror to Mo." — Original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis.
65. Statement of Salmon Brown, Oct. u, 1908.
66. MS. diary of Samuel J. Reader, Topeka, Kansas, in his possession.
67. Record of Court- Martial of Private A. D. Stevens, Company F, First
Dragoons, May, 1855, in office of Judge- Advocate-General, War Department,
Washington; also letter of Judge- Advocate-General G. B. Davis, U. S. Army,
November 23, 1908, to author.
68. Statement of Henry Thompson, August, 1908, and of Salmon Brown, Oc-
tober, 1908; the story of Samuel Walker, Kansas Historical Society Collections,
vol. 6, pp. 267-268, also treats of John Brown's movements at this juncture. The
invalids were taken in an ox-wagon as far as Tabor, Iowa, where Owen was
especially kindly received and remained until he had fully recuperated, when he
returned to Kansas. The progress homeward of Oliver Brown, Henry Thompson
and Salmon Brown, together with William Thompson, a brother of Henry, whom
they met on their way out and dissuaded from entering Kansas, is thus described
by Salmon Brown: "We other four bought a double buggy and harness from the
Oberlin people on credit, at Tabor, drove to Iowa City, sold the horses, sent back
the money to pay for the wagon and all four went home. The horses for the double
buggy we came by thus: we heard, on the way through Nebraska, that some
pro-slavery men were after us. Oliver, who was always a dare-devil, and William
NOTES 617
Thompson ambushed these men, deliberately turning aside for that purpose.
The men, ordered off their horses, took it for a regular hold-up in force, and sur-
rendered their animals. Oliver and William immediately jumped on and lit out
for Tabor. It was these horses that took us across Iowa." The need of converting
pro-slavery animals into good anti-slavery stock was thus urgent with the Brown
sons in peaceful, placid Nebraska as it had been in bleeding Kansas.
CHAPTER VII
THE FOE IN THE FIELD
1. Andreas, p. 138; T. W. Higginson and other correspondents, in the N. Y.
Tribune of July 7, 1856; N. Y. Tribune, July 14, 1856; statement of Thomas W-
Bicknell, Providence, R. I., Jan. 24, 1908, to K. Mayo; the Squatter Sovereign of
July I, 1856, under the caption of " More Arms Captured! " made this pro-slavery
comment, characteristic of the view of the Border Ruffian press: "On the way
up the river they were boasting of what they would do, should any one attempt to
molest them. . . . When they arrived at the Political Quarantine the whole party
of seventy-eight, all of them 'armed to the teeth,' surrendered to a company of
twenty Border Ruffians. ... If this is the material we have to encounter in
Kansas we have but little to fear of the result. Fifty thousand such 'cattle' could
not subdue the Spartan band now in possession of Kansas."
2. Andreas, pp. 138-139; Holloway, pp. 363-364; N. Y. Tribune, July 9, 15
and 17, 1856.
3. Andreas, pp. 136-137; Chicago Daily Tribune, June 2, 1856; John Speer's
Lane, pp. 101-107.
4. The Republican Party, edited by John D. Long, p. 47. (No place of publi-
cation given.)
5. James Ford Rhodes, in the Atlantic Monthly, May, 1909.
6. Congressional Globe, 34th Congress, 1st session, vol. xli, pp. 1009-1013.
7. Congressional Globe, 34th Congress, ist session, vol. xli, p. 869.
8. Congressional Globe, 34th Congress, ist session, vol. xl, p. 1873, for action of
the House against Whitfield and Reeder.
9. Congressional Globe, 34th Congress, ist session, vol. xxxix, p. 1541.
10. For a more detailed narrative of the struggle over Kansas, see Rhodes,
vol. 2, pp. 201-202.
11. See N. Y. Tribune, Jan. 27, 1857, for report of Horace White, Assistant
Secretary of the Committee.
12. For Samuel Walker's story of this ride, see Kansas Historical Society Col-
lections, vol. 6, pp. 267-268.
13. Walker to Hanway, from Lawrence, Feb. 18, 1875; Hanway Papers, Kan-
sas Historical Society.
14. Andreas, p. 142; Bondi MSS.; Charles R. Tuttle, History of Kansas, Madi-
son, Wis., 1876, p. 358; J. H. Holmes's testimony, N. Y. Tribune, Aug. 21, 1856.
15. Bondi MSS., Part 3, Kansas Historical Society.
16. Printed in the Missouri Democrat of Aug. 27, 1856, and reprinted in the
N. Y. Tribune of Sept. 8, 1856; Squatter Sovereign, Aug. 26, 1856; see also Leaven-
worth City Journal, Aug. 17, 1856; Missouri Republican, Aug. 23, 1856.
17. Bondi MSS.
• 18. Original in possession of Miss Thompson.
19. See their manifesto in the Squatter Sovereign of Aug. 26, 1856.
618 NOTES
20. "Randolph's" letters of Aug. 29 and Sept. 7, 1856, in the N. Y. Times.
21. Article entitled 'Old John Brown,' in John Brown Scrap-Book No. 3,
Kansas Historical Society.
22. Statement of Ezra Robinson at Paola, Kansas, Oct. 3, 1908, to the au-
thor.
23. Statement of Mrs. Mary Grant Brown, San Jose, Cal., Sept. 24, 1908, to
K. Mayo. Ephraim Coy testifies similarly to a panic of the Border Ruffians
on hearing that John Brown was coming with six hundred rifles and a thousand
men. See MS. entitled 'Kansas Experiences of Ephraim Coy,' Hyatt Papers,
Kansas Historical Society.
24. Statement of R. G. Elliott, July 27, 1908, to K. Mayo.
25. Quoted in N. Y. Tribune of Aug. 25, 1856.
26. Statement of Major James B. Abbott, Kansas Historical Society Collec-
tions, vols. 1-2, p. 221. This cannon is now in the Kansas Historical Society.
27. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vols. 1-2, pp. 218-219.
28. Holloway, p. 379.
29. Letter to the Editor of the Mobile Tribune, reprinted in N. Y. Tribune,
Aug. 23, 1856.
30. Andreas, pp. 142-143; Cordley, p. 115; Holloway, p. 379; Mrs. Robinson,
pp. 324-325; N. Y. Tribune, Aug. 25 and 29, 1856.
31. The best account of the Fort Titus affair is to be found in Capt. Samuel
Walker's narrative already referred to, in the Kansas Historical Society Collec-
tions, vol. 6, pp. 269-273. Captain Shombre was a member of James H. Lane's
party, and had therefore but just arrived in the Territory; see also Cordley,
pp. 115-120; Speer's Lane, p. 115; and Andreas, pp. 142-143.
32. Statement of Luke F. Parsons to the author, Salina, Kansas, Oct. 7, 1908.
33. Statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908.
34. John Brown, Jr., to John Brown, Aug. II, 1856. — Original in the posses-
sion of Mrs. John Brown, Jr.
35. Kansas Historical Society Publications, vol. I, p. 131.
36. N. Y. Tribune, Aug. 29, 1856; Andreas, p. 143.
37. Andreas, p. 143. Tribute to Shannon, by B. F. Simpson, Kansas Historical
Society Publications, vol. I, pp. 87-91.
38. Andreas, p. 143; Executive Minutes, Kansas Historical Society Publica-
tions, vol. I, p. 131 ; Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 403.
39. Letter of Jan. 14, 1860, of Martin White, in Bates County, Mo., Standard,
Jan., 1860; Bondi; J. H. Holmes to Gov. Geary, Oct. 2, 1856, in Executive
Papers of 1856, in Kansas Historical Society. In an appeal to the public printed in
the Squatter Sovereign of Aug. 26, 1856, and signed by Atchison, Russell, Boone
and Stringfellow, the following appears: "On the I3th inst., a party numbering
some fifty attacked the house of Mr. White in Lykins Co., and drove him into
Missouri, robbing him of everything. He is a Free State man, but sustains the
laws, and was attacked for attempting to procure the arrest of the murderers of
Wilkinson."
40. See Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, p. 737, letter of Gov. Geary
to Williams and Heiskell; joint letter of Totten and Wilson to acting Governor
Woodson, same volume, p. 743; statement of C. S. Adair, Osawatomie, Oct. 2,
1908, to the author; statement of J. G. Grant, San Francisco, Oct. 7, 1908, to
K. Mayo; Andreas, p. 605; letter of Daniel Woodson to Lewis Cass, Lecompton,
March 31, 1857, in the Executive Minutes of 1857, in Kansas Historical Society.
41. From John Brown's Memorandum-Book No. 2. — Original in Boston Pub-
lic Library.
NOTES 619
42. Statement of C. G. Allen to James Redpath, undated, Hinton Papers,
Kansas Historical Society.
43. This narrative of South Middle Creek is drawn from the statements of
Capt. Cline, Holmes, Bondi, George Grant, Thomas Bedoe, C. G. Allen, all in
the Kansas Historical Society except Capt. Cline's, which is in the Tribune of
Sept. 17, 1856; also the sworn statements of Thomas Rice, James N. Gibson,
R. W. Wood, Benjamin F. Brantley, R. E. Noel, J. H. Little and William Rogers
(from whom Brown's men stole horses and other property), all in the Report on
Kansas Claims, vol. 3, Part 2. A confirmatory letter of S. L. Adair of Aug. 13,
1856, to his " Bro & Sis. Davis" is in the possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis at Kala-
mazoo, Mich.
44. John Brown the Hero, by J. W. Winkley, M. D. , Boston, 1905, pp. 71-
72.
45. Ibid., pp. 79-81; Holmes testimony, Hyatt Papers, Kansas Historical
Society.
46. Bedoe's testimony, Hyatt Papers, Kansas Historical Society. See Report
of H. J. Strickler on the claims of the citizens of Kansas Territory, House Misc.
Doc. No. 43, 35th Congress, 2d session, 1859, p. 17, for petition of Thomas H.
Brown, of Linn County, containing list of property, clothing, household gear
and live stock taken from him and his brother [Capt.] John E. Brown, by John
Brown of Osawatomie, on this raid. Similar statements of losses inflicted by
Brown's men are in the Report of the Commissioners on Kansas Claims.
47. Bondi; 'Old John Brown,' by Capt. J. M. Anthony, Leavenworth Weekly
Times, Feb. 14, 1884; statement of Jason Brown, Dec. 13 and 14, 1908.
48. J. H. Holmes, MS. story of his experiences at Osawatomie, in possession
of the author.
49. Letter of A. G. Hawes to J. H. Holmes, San Francisco, Feb. 26, 1895, in
possession of the author; the same to F. G. Adams, San Francisco, Aug. 13, 1889,
Kansas Historical Society; the Rev. S. L. Adair to Mrs. S. C. Davis, Osawatomie,
Aug. 29, 1856, in possession of Mrs. Davis.
50. The following sources have been consulted, among others, in the prepara-
tion of the story of the battle of Osawatomie: Narratives of Bartow Darrach,
N. Y. Evening Post, Sept. 15, 1856; George Grant, J. G. Grant, August Bondi,
James H. Holmes, Thomas Bedoe, Joseph R. Morey, J. M. Anthony, Mary Fuller,
O. C. Brown, Luke F. Parsons, Alexander G. Hawes, Charles S. Adair, Robert
Reynolds, James J. Holbrook, Robert W. Wood, Thomas Roberts, Spencer K.
Brown, George Cutter, Nelson J. Roscoe, Morgan Cronkhite, Dr. John Doy;
contemporary letters of the Rev. and Mrs. S. L. Adair, Dr. W. W. Updegraff,
Jason Brown, Capt. James B. Cline, George B. Gill, James Hanway, Lydia S.
Hall, Mrs. S. A. Stevens, C. G. Allen, Sperry Dye, Samuel Anderson, George
Cutter, Mary E. Jackson, William Chesnut and John Brown; on the pro-slavery
side, the Rev. Martin White, Gen. J. W. Reid, Capt. Jernigan, James Chiles,
Congrave Jackson, Capt. G. M. B. Maughas, W. Limerick (in the Weekly Mis-
souri Statesman for Sept. 5, 1856), the Missouri Republican, the Missouri States-
man, the Leavenworth Herald, the Jefferson Enquirer, the St. Louis Morning
Herald, the St. Louis Evening News ; anti-slavery newspapers: the N. Y. Tribune,
the Liberator, the New York Evening Post, the St. Louis Democrat ; also official
report of Gen. P. F. Smith and Gov. Geary, and of acting Gov. Woodson, Kansas
Historical Society Collections, vol. 4; also statements and letters of Mrs. Emma
Adair Remington and Mr. C. S. Adair, of Osawatomie, to the author. A particu-
larly valuable story of the conflict is the joint letter of the Rev. and Mrs. Adair,
under date of Aug. 29 and Sept. 2, 1856, to Mrs. S. C. Davis, in whose possession
620 NOTES
the original now is, as is Mr. Adair's letter to Mrs. Hand, Osawatomie, Sept.
2, 1856, which well supplements the narrative.
51. Quoted in Leavenworth Journal, March 12, 1857.
52. N. Y. Tribune, Sept. 17, 1856.
53. Statement of Ezra Robinson to the author at Paola, Kansas, Oct. 3, 1908.
54. Missouri Weekly Statesman, Sept. 5, 1856; St. Louis Daily Democrat, Sept.
8, 1856.
55. St. Louis Intelligencer, Sept. 6, 1856, copied from Glasgow Times of Sept.
4. 1856.
56. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
57. Original in possession of Francis J. Garrison, Lexington, Mass.
58. Original manuscript in possession of Mrs. B. W. Woodward, Lawrence,
Kansas.
59. Statement of Joseph H. Morey, a prisoner, in the Rochester (N. Y.) Daily
Democrat of Sept. 12, 1856; see also testimony of Robert Reynolds, in Report on
Kansas Claims, vol. 3, Part 2, pp. 1101-1103.
60. See Spencer Kellogg Brown, his Life in Kansas and Death as a Spy, edited
by George Gardner Smith, New York, 1903.
61. Report of Secretary of War for 1856, pp. 90-92.
62. Ibid., pp. 29-31.
63. Walker's Narrative, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 6, pp. 273-
274; Report of the Secretary of War for 1856, pp. 101-103.
64. Report of the Secretary of War for 1856, p. 102.
65. Statement of Henry Reisner, Topeka, July 22, 1908, to K. Mayo.
66. Statements of Holmes, Parsons and Jason Brown.
67. Letter of Aaron D. Stevens, signed "Charles Whipple, Col. 1st Regiment
Kansas Volunteers," to his brother, Aug. 28, 1856; Headquarters 2d Regiment,
Kansas Volunteers. — Original in possession of Dr. Henry B. Stevens, Boston.
68. J. B. Donaldson, U. S. Marshal, to Gov. Geary, Lecompton, Sept. 25, 1856,
Executive Correspondence, Kansas Historical Society. Facts about Col. Harvey's
horse-thefts are scattered throughout vol. 3, Part i, of the Report on Kansas
Claims.
69. C. F. Gilman to Col. A. G. Boone, of Westport, Council Grove, Sept. 16,
1856. Executive Correspondence, Kansas Historical Society.
70. "Randolph" to the N. Y. Times, Lawrence, Sept. 10, 1856.
71. These documents will be found in the Report of the Secretary of War for
1856, and in Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 4, pp. 522-527.
72. For the Hickory Point fight, see report of Capt. T. J. Wood, 1st U. S.
Cavalry, to Lieut. -Col. P. St. G. Cooke, Sept. 16, 1856, in Report of the Secretary
of War, pp. 123-126; Andreas, pp. 149 and 501-502; Speer's Lane, pp. 123-124;
MS. Journal of Samuel J. Reader, of Topeka, Kansas; Gihon, p . 140 et seq. ; Gov.
Geary to Secretary Marcy, Lecompton, Sept. 16, 1856, Kansas Historical Society
Collections, vol. 4, p. 535 et seq.; Holloway, pp. 401-402; Report on Kansas
Claims, vol. 3, Part i, pp. 287-289.
73. Lieut.-Col. Cooke to Major F. J. Porter, Lecompton, Sept. 13, 1856, in
report of Secretary of War for 1856, pp. 113-114.
74. Ibid., pp. 121-122, Lieut.-Col. Cooke to Major F. J. Porter, Sept. 16, 1856.
75. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
76. Statement of Major James Burnett Abbott to F. G. Adams, Abbott Papers,
Kansas Historical Society; Capt. Joseph Cracklin in Lawrence Daily Tribune,
April 18, 1881; John Speer, Lawrence Journal, Jan. 22, 1880; Robinson, Kansas
Conflict, pp. 324-328; Nathaniel Parker, in Hyatt Journal of Investigation, Dec.
NOTES 621
5, 1856; statement of Col. O. E. Leonard to K. Mayo, Lawrence, Kan., July 28,
1908; H. Miles Moore, Topeka Capital, Oct. 10, 1897; Andreas, p. 150; Hinton,
pp. 46-52; Sanborn, pp. 333-336; statement of George Leis, Lawrence, Nov. 29,
1909, for the author; Hinton, in an otherwise inaccurate letter, dated Dec. 13, 1859,
to the Boston Traveller, and reprinted in the Tribune of Dec. 8, 1859, affirmed that
John Brown was asked on Sept. 13, 1856, "by all the prominent citizens, to take
charge of the defence."
77. Hinton, pp. 49-50. Hinton wrote to W. E. Connelley, June 9, 1900, that
the account given of Brown's speech "is accurate. I took it down in shorthand.
I am a stenographer. I was by his side. It was published in one of my letters
to the Boston Traveller."
78. Executive Minutes of Gov. Geary, Kansas Historical Society Collections,
vol. 4, pp. 571 and 629-631; Robinson, p. 339; Andreas, pp. 151-153; Holloway,
pp. 408-409; Gihon, pp. 166-181; Report on Kansas Claims, vol. 3, Part 2, pp.
1377-1380.
79. Secretary of War's Report for 1856, pp. 142-143, Lieut. -Col. Cooke to
Major F. J. Porter, Oct. 10, 1856.
80. Ibid., p. 146.
81. Charleston, S. C., Standard, letter signed "Ingomar," dated Lecompton,
September 5, 1856, quoted in N. Y. Tribune of September 29.
82. Letter of John Brown, Jr., July 30, 1856, to Jason Brown. — Original in
possession of Mrs. Thompson.
83. John Brown to his family. Tabor, Iowa, October II, 1856. — Original in the
possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr. John Brown wrote to his brothers Frederick
and Jeremiah, Tabor, Iowa, nth October, 1856: "I left Kansas both on business
and to recover my health, being so unwell that I had to be brought here on a bed in
a wagon. There is just now a kind of dead calm of the elements there. I expect
to go back should the trouble continue and my health admit. Am getting better
fast, and hope to see you soon." — Original in the possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark.
84. MS. lecture entitled 'John Brown the Liberator,' by James H. Holmes,
in possession of the author.
85. Report of the Secretary of War for 1856, pp. 139-140.
86. Another narrow escape of John Brown has been described for the author
by Mrs. Emma Wattles Morse in these words: "One evening in, I think, early
September, 1856, Captain Brown left my father, Mr. Wattles's house, then in
Douglas County, going southward on a trip to Miami and Linn Counties. He
learned on the road a little after midnight, that a company of dragoons was on
the way to arrest him, so he returned to my father's just after daylight. Late
in the afternoon Lieut, (now General) Eugene A. Carr, First Cavalry, arrived
at the Wattles house and asked Brown's whereabouts. On learning of his depar-
ture the night before, the soldiers sat down and were served with all the melons
they would eat. As Brown lay on the floor of the attic, whither he had gone to
sleep, he could look down between the roof boards and the top log of the wall,
hearing every word, seeing every movement, with his two loaded Colt's revolvers
in his hands. The soldiers rode away in disgust, certain, however, that their
fellow-troopers in the south would catch Brown."
87. From a copy in A. A. Lawrence's letter-book, in the possession of Mrs.
Frederic Cunningham, Longwood, Mass.
88. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
89. See Topeka Commonwealth for December 12, 1883, and February 16, 1884;
the Hiawatha World for December 27, 1883; the Lawrence, Kansas, Herald, Janu-
ary 2, 1884.
622 NOTES
90. Dated Lecompton, March 12, 1857; see Kansas Historical Society Collec-
tions, vol. 4, p. 739.
91. Report of Commissioners of Kansas Territory, July, 1857, in Report of
Committees, 36th Congress, 2d session, vol. 3, Part I, p. 92.
92. See, for example, speech of Gerrit Smith at Buffalo, July 10, 1856, in Lib-
erator, vol. 26, p. 125.
93. For instance, the Weston, Platte Co., Mo., Reporter (pro-slavery), on April
21, 1856, said: "Experience has shown that most of the emigrants from slave
states have become free state men in Kansas." It was stated in a debate before
the Georgia Legislature in 1856 that out of 89 men transported from Tennes-
see to Kansas, 80 proved false and voted against the South. See Newark, Georgia,
Mercury, March 3, 1856. See also Fleming's 'Buford Expedition,' American
Historical Review, October, 1900, p. 48.
CHAPTER VIII
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS
1. For the story of Tabor, see Early Settlement and Growth of Western Iowa,
by Rev. John Todd, Des Moines, 1906, which contains his reminiscences; also,
John Brown Among the Quakers, by Irving B. Richman, Des Moines, 1894, pp.
15-18.
2. Todd's Early Settlement of Western Iowa, pp. 121-122.
3. Both Mr. White's letter and that of Mr. Webster are in the Kansas Historical
Society.
4. Statement of Salmon Brown for the author.
5. Watson Brown to his mother, brothers and sisters, St. Charles, Iowa, October
30, 1856. — Original in Kansas Historical Society.
6. F. B. Sanborn, Boston, January 5, 1857, to Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
— Original in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library.
7. Wtlliam Lloyd Garrison, by his Children, vol. 3, pp. 487-488.
8. Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, by John Weiss, New York, 1864,
vol. 2, p. 161.
9. Report of the Mason Investigating Committee of the United States Senate,
36th Congress, ist session, p. 227, Washington, June, 1860.
10. Life and Public Service of George Luther Stearns, by Frank Preston Stearns,
Philadelphia, 1907, pp. 133-134.
11. Life of Amos A. Lawrence, by his son, William Lawrence, Boston, 1888,
p. 124.
12. Ibid., p. 125.
13. A Yankee in Canada, by Henry D. Thoreau, Boston, 1866, pp. 156-157;
also in Thoreau's Miscellanies, Boston, 1893, pp. 202-203.
14. Life of George Luther Stearns, p. 132.
15. Letter of George L. Stearns, Chairman of State Committee, January 8,
1857. — Copy of original in possession of the Stearns family.
1 6. George L. Stearns to John Brown, April 15, 1857, in Mason Report, p.
229.
17. Letter of G. L. Stearns to H. B. Kurd, Boston, September 30, 1856, in
Sanborn, p. 368.
18. Mason Report, pp. 247-248.
19. Sanborn, p. 348.
NOTES 623
20. H. B. Kurd, Chicago, March 19, 1860, to George L. Stearns. —Original in
Stearns Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
21. Memorandum of H. B. Hurd for Captain John Brown. —Original in Kansas
Historical Society.
22. Mason Report, p. 249.
' 23. Original in Kansas Historical Society. See Appendix.
24. The correspondence between Horace White and John Brown is afl in the
possession of the Kansas Historical Society.
25. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
26. Statement of Annie Brown Adams; see also Hinton, p. 144.
27. John Brown to Augustus Wattles, Boston, February 16, 1857 (from a copy
in the Holmes Papers).
28. This question and others were reported by Redpath. See pp. 182-184 of his
Life of Brown.
29. Letter of September 22, 1856, of Charles H. Branscomb, from Boston, to
John Brown. — Original in Kansas Historical Society.
30. John Brown to A. A. Lawrence, New Haven, March 19, 1857, — original
in possession of Mrs. Frederic Cunningham, Longwood, Mass.; testimony of
W. H. D. Callender, Mason Report, p. 114.
31. John Brown to his wife and children, Springfield, March 12, 1857. — Ori-
ginal in Kansas Historical Society.
32. A.A.Lawrence to John Brown, Boston, February 19, 1857; G. L. Stearns
to John Brown, Boston, April 15, 1857. — Originals of both in Stearns Papers.
33. John Brown to P. T. Jackson (letter and draft), Springfield, Mass., April
21, 1857; H. Sterns to P. T. Jackson of same date. — Both originals in the P. T.
Jackson Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
34. N. Y. Tribune, March 4, 1857.
35. John Brown to A. A. Lawrence, March 19, 1857, — original in possession
of Mrs. Frederic Cunningham; to his brother, Jeremiah Brown, Springfield, April
I, 1857, — original in possession of Mrs. S. L. Clark.
36. A. A. Lawrence to John Brown, Boston, March 20, 1857; Lawrence letter-
book, in possession of Mrs. Cunningham.
37. G. L. Stearns Papers.
38. John Brown to G. L. Stearns, Vergennes, Vt., May 13, 1857. — Original
in Stearns Papers.
39. Report of F. B. Sanborn to G. L. Stearns and others, August 25, 1857.
— Original in Stearns Papers.
40. Original in Kansas Historical Society; see the Worcester Daily Spy of
March 24 and 25, 1857, for Brown's visit to Worcester.
41. Francis Wayland to F. B. Sanborn, Sanborn, p. 381.
42. A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by James Elliot Cabot, Boston, 1887,
vol. 2, p. 596.
43. Address delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, Saturday, November 18,
1859, in Redpath's Echoes of Harper's Ferry, Boston, 1860, pp. 67-71; Emerson's
Miscellanies, Boston, 1904, p. 268.
44. See letter of Eli Thayer, April 4, 1857. — Original in Kansas Historical So-
ciety, where will be found further correspondence covering these points. See
also letter of John Brown to Eli Thayer, Springfield, April 16, 1857. — Original in
possession of W. K. Bixby, St. Louis, Mo.
45. Sanborn, p. 387.
46. John Brown to ex-Governor Reeder, Springfield, April i, 1857. — Original
in possession of F. G. Logan, Chicago.
624 NOTES
47. John Brown to his wife, Springfield, March 31, 1857. — Original in posses-
sion of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger.
48. See Blair's testimony for the story of the pikes, in Mason Report, pp. 121-
129. The originals of Blair's letters to John Brown are to be found in the Kansas
Historical Society.
49. This account of Brown's relations with Forbes is drawn from Sanborn,
Hinton, Red path; the testimonies of Wilson, Seward, Howe and Realf before the
Mason Committee; the reports of Joseph Bryant to John Brown, now in the Kan-
sas Historical Society; the N. Y. Tribune; and from Forbes's own story in the
N. Y. Herald of October 27, 1859; see also John Brown's letter, Cleveland, Ohio,
June 22, 1857, to H. Forbes, demanding repayment of the $600, — original in
Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society.
50. Gerrit Smith to Thaddeus Hyatt, Peterboro, July 25, 1857. — Original in
Hyatt Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
51. Jason Brown to John Brown, Akron, Ohio, April 3, 1857. — Original in
possession of Miss Sarah Brown.
52. John Brown to Eli Thayer, Springfield, Mass., April 16, 1857. — Original
in possession of W. K. Bixby, St. Louis. See also letter to his brother, Jeremiah
Brown, West Newton, Mass., April 15, 1857. — Original in possession of Mrs. S.
L. Clark.
53. Statement of Mrs. Thomas Russell, Jamaica Plain, Mass., January 1 1, 1908,
to Miss K. Mayo.
54. Original in possession of Stearns family.
55. The complete correspondence relating to this matter is to be found in the
Stearns Papers, in possession of the Stearns family, and in the Kansas Historical
Society.
56. John Brown to G. L. Stearns, Albany, April 28, 1857. — Original in
Library of Congress.
§7. Sanborn, p. 406.
58. John Brown to G. L. Stearns, Vergennes, Vt., May 13/1857. — Original in
possession of the Stearns family.
59. Mason Report, p. 220. There was a real Nelson Hawkins, a brother-in-law
of Mrs. Jason Brown,
60. John Brown, Jr., to John Brown, Lindenville, Ohio, April 23, 1857. —
Original in possession of Miss Thompson.
61. G. L. Stearns to Mrs. Abby Hopper Gibbons, Boston, May 18, 1857. —
Original in Stearns Papers.
62. Testimony of G. L. Stearns, Mason Report, pp. 227-228.
63. John Brown to F. B. Sanborn, Tabor, August 13, 1857, Sanborn, pp. 412-
414.
64. John Brown to His Wife and Children, Hudson, Ohio, May 27, 1857. —
Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger.
65. Mason Report, p. 221.
66. From a copy in the Stearns Papers.
67. Ibid.
68. See letter of Caleb Calkins, Peterboro, June 20, 1857, — original in posses-
sion of Miss Brown; John Brown's Memorandum-Book, Boston Public Library.
69. Letter of Leonard Bacon to Governor Wise, New Haven, November 14,
1859. — Original in Dreer Collection. Mr. Bacon erroneously places the date of
the celebration in July, 1857. It actually took place June 24, 1857.
70. Tabor, July 6, 1857; from copy in the possession of the Stearns family.
71. Brown to Sanborn, Tabor, August 13, 1857, Sanborn, pp. 412-414.
NOTES 625
72. Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 239.
73. This resume of Gov. Walker's service, and the following account of the po-
litical events in Kansas during Brown's absence from the Territory, are drawn
from Rhodes, Andreas, Holloway, Robinson's Kansas Conflict, Gihon, Wilder,
the manuscript history of Louis A. Reese, and the publications of the Kansas
Historical Society.
74. The originals of these letters of August 8 and 10 to Mr. Stearns are in the
possession of the Stearns family.
75. These quotations from the Duty of the Soldier are taken from Augustus
Wattles's copy, bearing John Brown's manuscript annotations, in the posses-
sion of the author.
76. Sanborn, p. 422; A. B. Hart, Life of Salmon Portland Chase, Boston, 1899,
p. 174.
77. Gerrit Smith to Thaddeus Hyatt, Peterboro, September 12, 1857. —
Original in Hyatt Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
78. Redpath, p. 197; Todd's Reminiscences, p. 156.
79. Hugh Forbes to Charles Sumner, December 27, 1857. — Original in Sum-
ner Correspondence in Harvard University Library.
80. Todd's Reminiscences, pp. 154-155.
81. Statement of Rev. H. D. King, Kinsman, Ohio, January 4-5, 1909, to
K. Mayo.
82. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
83. Letter of Rev. John Todd, May 25, 1892, cited in Richman's John Brown
Among the Quakers, pp. 16-17; John Brown to F. B. Sanborn, August 13, 1857,
Sanborn, p. 413.
84. Original in possession of Miss Sarah Brown.
85. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
86. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
87. From copy in possession of the Stearns family.
88. James Redpath to Captain Brown, Falls City, Nebraska, September 20,
1857, from a copy in the Stearns Papers.
89. See Higginson's Cheerful Yesterdays, pp. 204-205. Both he and Samuel
F. Tappan were made brigadier-generals.
90. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
91. John Brown to F. B. Sanborn, Tabor, October i, 1857, Sanborn, p. 401.
92. From copy of original in Kansas Historical Society.
93. This is the October i letter referred to above.
94. From the same letter.
95. Original in possession of Mrs. Remington, Osawatomie, Kansas.
96. F. B. Sanborn to T. W. Higginson, Boston, September II, 1857. — Original
in T. W. Higginson Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
97. Compare with this opinion of Sanborn, Hinton's assertion, in his Life,
p. 136, that Brown was a "Unionist of Unionists, a Loyalist of Loyalists."
98. E. B. Whitman to G. L. Stearns, Lawrence, October 25, 1857. — Original
in Stearns Papers.
99. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
100. E. B. Whitman to G. L. Stearns, Lawrence, February 20, 1858. — Original
in Stearns Papers.
101. W. A. Johnson, History of Anderson County, Kansas, Garnett (Kansas),
1877, p. no; Holloway, p. 508.
102. Original in Stearns Papers.
103. Original in possession of Mrs. Remington.
626 NOTES
104. Stearns to E. B. Whitman. — Original in Colonel E. B. Whitman Papers,
in possession of E. B. Whitman, Boston.
105. Letter of R. G. Elliott to K. Mayo, Lawrence, August 6, 1908 ; also, Kansas
Historical Society Collections, vol. 10, p. 187.
106. See pamphlet entitled Confession of John E. Cook, brother-in-law of Gov-
ernor A. P. Willard, of Indiana, and one of the participants in the Harper's
Ferry Invasion. Published for the benefit of Samuel C. Young, Charlestown, 1859.
CHAPTER IX
A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT
1. Confession of John E. Cook, p. 6.
2. Kagi was twenty-three, Cook twenty-eight, Realf twenty-three, Stevens
twenty-seven, Parsons twenty-five, Leeman eighteen, Tidd twenty-three, Moffet
thirty, Owen Brown thirty-three, and Stewart Taylor twenty-two.
3. Statement of L. F. Parsons, Salina, Kan., October 7, 1908, to the author.
4. Ibid.
5. Statement of George B. Gill to R. J. Hinton, Hinton Papers, Kansas His-
torical Society.
6. Those from which these and subsequent quotations are drawn are, first,
extracts from December 21 to February 17, in the Richmond Daily Whigol Octo-
ber 29, 1859; second, from August 25 to December 8, quoted in the N. Y. Times ;
third, from March 13 to March 28, in the Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania His-
torical Society.
7. Richman, John Brown Among the Quakers, pp. 12-13. Annie Brown Adams
declares the Townsend incident apocryphal.
8. John Brown's Memorandum-Book No. 2, entries of December 30, 1857, and
January n, 1858, in Boston Public Library.
9. Letter to Dr. Howe, May 14, 1858, published in the New York Herald of
October 27, 1859.
10. Statement of Luke F. Parsons to Redpath and Hinton, Osawatomie, De-
cember, 1859, in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
11. Richman, pp. 26-27.
12. Ibid., pp. 28-29.
13. Statement of L. F. Parsons to the author, October, 1908.
14. Richman, p. 23.
15. John Brown's Memorandum Book No. 2, entry for January 28, 1858.
16. See letter of Owen Brown, of February 28, 1858, — copy in possession of
Miss Thompson; also letter of Jason Brown, January 29, 1858, — original in
possession of Miss Sarah Brown.
17. Frederick Douglass, Life and Times, p. 353.
1 8. Testimony of Senator Wilson before Mason Committee, Mason Report,
p. 140 et seq.
19. Testimony of William H. Seward, Mason Report, p. 253.
20. Forbes to Dr. Howe, April 19, 1858, published in N. Y. Herald of October
29, 1859.
21. John Brown to John Brown, Jr., Sanborn, pp. 432-433; Memorandum-
Book, entry of February 9.
22. John Brown to F. B. Sanborn, Rochester, February 17, 1858. — Original
in Higginson Collection.
NOTES 627
23. Original in possession of Miss Thompson.
24. John Brown to T. W. Higginson, Rochester, February 2, 1858. — Original
in the Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library.
25. Frothingham's Gerrit Smith, first edition, p. 237.
26. John Brown to wife and children, Peterboro, February 24, 1858. — Original
in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger.
27. See Sanborn's Life, and especially in vol. I of his Recollections of Seventy
Years, Boston, 1909, the chapter entitled 'Aftermath of the John Brown Foray,'
where the relations of Mr. Smith to the enterprise are set forth in greater detail
than ever before. See also first edition of O. B. Frothingham's Gerrit Smith; the
later editions were altered by taking out unfavorable statements.
28. Sanborn, Recollections, vol. I, p. 147.
29. Sanborn, p. 444 (in facsimile).
30. See Memorandum-Book No. 2 for confirmatory evidence of Brown's move-
ments during this period.
31. Memorandum-Book No. 2; Sanborn, Life, p. 451; Hinton, p. 169.
32. Sanborn, pp. 450-451; see also letter of John Brown, Jr., in reply to his
father, Lindenville, Ashtabula, February 13, 1858. — Original in possession of
Miss Brown.
33. Henry Thompson, Salmon Brown, Annie Brown Adams and Miss Sarah
Brown all share this feeling, and have so stated to the author.
34. Letter of January 30, 1858, as above.
35. Henry Thompson to John Brown, North Elba, April 21, 1858. — Original
in possession of Miss Brown.
36. John Weiss, Life of Parker, vol. 2, p. 164.
37. Sanborn, p. 449.
38. Sanborn, p. 443.
39. Original in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library.
40. See telegram of George L. Stearns to T. W. Higginson, Boston, March 18,
1858, and letter of F. B. Sanborn to the same, Boston, March 21, 1858, — both
originals in T. W. Higginson Collection.
41. Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 219.
42. James Freeman Clarke's Anti-Slavery Days, pp. 153-154.
43. Sanborn, p. 451.
44. Memorandum-Book No. 2, and letter of John Brown to his son John, April
8, 1858, Sanborn, p. 452.
45. 'John Brown in Canada, ' by James C. Hamilton, Canadian Magazine, De-
cember, 1894; The Underground Railroad, by William H. Siebert, New York,
1898, pp. 221-222.
46. J. C. Hamilton, 'John Brown in Canada,' as above cited.
47. Life and Public Services of Martin R. Delany, by Frank A. Rollins, Boston,
1868, pp. 85-90.
48. Mrs. E. S. Butler, in the Midland Monthly, November, 1898.
49. Owen Brown to his father, Springdale, February 28, 1858. — Copy in
possession of Miss Thompson.
50. Letter of Moses and Charlotte Varney, pp. 96-98 of Appendix to Message
I, Documents relative to the Harper's Ferry Invasion, printed by the State of
Virginia, 1859.
51. The original of this letter is in the possession of Dr. Henry B. Stevens, of
Boston. Leeman's letters are in the Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
52. Testimony of Richard Realf before Mason Committee, Mason Report,
p. 95; narrative of George B. Gill, Hinton Papers.
628 NOTES
53. Richman, pp. 32~33-
54. Ibid., p. 36.
55. This narrative of the Chatham proceedings is based on the Journal of the
two conventions published in the Appendix to Message I, by the State of Vir-
ginia; on Realf's testimony before the Mason Committee; on Cook's Confession;
and on 'John Brown in Canada,' by J. C. Hamilton.
The thirty-four colored men actually in attendance were, besides Munroe,
Osborn P. Anderson, Richardson, Delany, and J. H. Harris, Stephen Ditten,
James Smith, Charles Smith, Isaac Hobbar, Thomas Hickerson, John Connel,
George Akin, Elias Chitman, Robert Newman, J. B. Shadd, Simon Fisher, John
A. Thomas, Robert Van Vruken, Thomas W. Stringer, Thomas M. Kinnard,
Thomas F. Gary, Robinson Alexander, James W. Purnell, J. C. Grant, J. G.
Reynolds, A. J. Smith, James M. Jones, M. F. Bailey, W. Lambert, S. Hunton,
Job J. Jackson, Alfred Whipper, James M. Bell and Alfred L. Ellsworth.
56. Realf's testimony, Mason Report, pp. 96-98.
57. As printed in the Appendix to Message I, Documents relative to the
Harper's Ferry Invasion, Virginia State Papers.
58. John Brown, by Dr. Hermann von Hoist, Boston, 1889, edited by Frank
Preston Stearns, pp. 109-111. "To judge by the provisions of this extraordinary
document [the Constitution], the conduct of a revolution never fell into hands
more utterly unable to direct it. It would seem that Mr. Brown and his friends
had no conception of any manner of carrying on public business. . . ." — London
Times, November 4, 1859.
59. Hinton, pp. 180-181.
60. Sanborn, p. 456.
61. Ibid.
62. John Brown to his son Owen and others of his men, Chatham, May 18,
1858. — Originally printed in Davenport, Iowa, Gazette, February 27, 1878.
63. From the same to the same, May 21, 1858, in Davenport Gazette, Febru-
ary 27, 1878.
64. See letter of Richard Realf to John Brown, Cleveland, May 31, 1858, —
original in Kansas Historical Society; also letter of L. F. Parsons to Leeman,
Cleveland, May 16, 1858, — original in possession of Miss Brown.
65. Richard Realf to John Brown, as above.
66. Memorandum-Book No. 2; Realf testimony, Mason Report; telegram of
Sanborn to Higginson, Boston, May 31, 1858, — original in Higginson Collection.
It is stated by Sanborn, Hinton, Chadwick and others that Brown met Stearns
in New York on or about May 20. This is erroneous, as the two letters from
Chatham of May 18 and May 21 prove. He could not then leave Chatham, for
lack of funds; and had he done so, he would have had no reason for returning, as
his work in Canada was done. Had he made such a costly flying trip to New
York, it must have appeared in his correspondence or his memorandum-book.
67. Original in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library.
68. Ibid.
69. Mason Report, p. 177.
70. Copy in Stearns Papers.
71. Original in Higginson Collection.
72. Sanborn, p. 466.
73. Ibid., p. 465.
74. The Causes of the Civil War, Rear Admiral F. E. Chadwick, New York,
1906, pp. 75-76.
75. Sanborn, p. 350.
NOTES 629
76. For the movements of the arms, see letter of John Brown, Jr., to his father,
Lindenville, Ohio, May i, 1858, — original in possession of Miss Brown; also
statements of Mrs. E. A. Fobes and of Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Noxon, Wayne, Ohio,
of Mrs. Fred Blakeslee, Ashtabula, Ohio, of Charles D. Ainger, Andover, Ohio,
in January, 1909, all to K. Mayo; statements of Miss Rebecca Dean, Jefferson,
Ohio, July 9, 1897, and of Mrs. Edwin King, Dunkirk, N. Y., June 22, 1897, to
Mrs. E. L. Mark, of Cambridge, Mass., both in possession of the author ; see
also Sanborn, p. 494
77. Sanborn, p. 471.
78. Statement of Gill, Hinton, p. 733; Kagi to "Friend Addie" [L. F. Parsons],
Moneka, Kansas, August 13, 1858, — original in Mr. Parsons's possession.
79. For this dispersing of the men, see Gill's narrative, in Hinton, p. 734;
statement of Luke F. Parsons to author; his letter of May 26, 1858, to George
B. Gill, in Hinton Papers ; and various letters of the conspirators to each
other.
80. Owen Brown to John Brown, Akron, July 12, 1858. — Original in possession
of Mrs. Brown.
81. Statement to author, Salina, Kansas, October 7, 1908.
82. Letter to Hinton, in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society, marked
"1878 or 1879."
83. Redpath's John Brown, pp. 199-200. Hinton and Redpath were in error
in this statement, as will be seen later. The actual date of Brown's arrival was
Saturday, June 26, 1858. The special correspondent of the N. Y. Tribune, writing
from Lawrence, Kansas, June 27, 1858, said: "Our 'warrior of the Lord and of
Gideon' — the renowned Old Brown — has just arrived in Lawrence. He leaves
to-morrow morning to visit Capt. Montgomery." — N. Y. Tribune, July 8, 1858.
CHAPTER X
SHUBEL MORGAN, WARDEN OF THE MARCHES
1. These figures are taken from Reese's MS. history, The Admission of Kan-
sas, Mr. Reese having made a most accurate re-study of all the returns of the
various elections.
2. Cf. Rhodes, vol. 2, p. 301.
3. The author has been fortunate in having at his disposal, besides the accounts
of the Hamilton Massacre in Andreas, pp. 1104-1105, and Tomlinson's Kansas
in 1858 (chapter v), the narrative of Elias Snyder, son of the blacksmith, as told
to the author at the scene of the massacre, which Mr. Snyder was the first to reach
after the crime. Other narratives are those of Ed R. Smith, Kansas Historical
Society Collections, vol. 6, pp. 365-370; of B. L. Read, Linn Co. Scrap-Book,
Kansas Historical Society; and of the N. Y. Tribune of May 28, and June 2 and 7,
1858. Not until October 30, 1863, was any one punished for this crime. Then
William Griffith was hanged, with William Hairgrove, a survivor, as executioner.
4. See Tomlinson, pp. 81-84.
5. N. Y. Evening Post, June 4, 1858; letter signed G. W. N.
6. Statement of Mrs. J. C. Burnett, Topeka, August 3, 1908, to K. Mayo.
7. Statement of Mrs. Emma Wattles Morse, Mound City, Kansas, to the
author, October 2, 1908.
8. Andreas, p. 1104.
9. See Andreas, p. 1107; for Montgomery's shocking vandalism in the Civil
630 NOTES
War, see The Story of a Brave Black Regiment (the 54th Massachusetts Infantry),
by Luis F. Emilio, Boston, 1894, PP- 4I-44-
10. Capt. George T.-Anderson, First U. S. Cavalry, resigned June n, 1858,
Official Army Register for 1859, p. 37.
11. Andreas, pp. 1102-1103.
12. Governor Denver to Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, Lecompton, June 23,
1858, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 531-535; also his letter of
June 7, ibid., pp. 528-530. See also letter of Governor Denver to the N. Y. Tribune
of October 15, 1858, describing Montgomery's and other Free State men's lawless
acts, and reviewing the whole disorder.
13. Printed in the N. Y. Tribune of April 23, 1858.
14. Redpath, pp. 200-201.
15. Original in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library, here printed for
the first time.
16. Sanborn, p. 473.
17. Elias Snyder, statement to W. E. Connelley, October 18, 1907, and to the
author, October 2, 1908, at the scene of the Hamilton Massacre, on the Snyder
claim.
1 8. Original in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library.
19. From the copy made by John Brown, Jr., now in possession of Miss
Thompson.
20. See letter of A. Wattles, dated Moneka, November 4, 1859, in Missouri
Republican, November 26, 1859. Two of Brown's sons, Jason and John, Jr.,
opposed this plan, in letters of October 10, 1858, and August 24, 1858, whose
originals are now respectively in the possession of Miss Brown and of Miss
Thompson. John Brown, Jr., wrote: " But many a man has committed his greatest
blunder when attempting to write a book."
21. See letter of Kagi to his sister, Moneka, August 13, 1858: "Since I wrote
you from Lawrence, I have been busily engaged in fortifying along the State
line, to prevent further inroads from Missouri;" in the Hinton Papers, Kansas
Historical Society; see also George B. Gill's MS. marked " 1860 or *6i," in the
Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
22. Statement of Register J. G. Wood, of the U. S. Land Office, Topeka, July
5, 1908; see also letter of George W. Martin, in the Topeka Capital of September
17. I9°5; interview of Ed R. Smith in the Mound City Republic, September 22,
1905; letter of the same in the Topeka Capital, August 31, 1905; also George B.
Gill's MS. referred to above, for Kagi's statement that negotiations of purchase
were begun between Brown and Snyder.
23. From an article by W. A. Mitchell, entitled ' Historic Linn,' in La Cygne,
Kansas, Journal, June 7, 1895.
24. See Sanborn, p. 366; also narrative of William Hutchinson, Kansas His-
torical Society Collections, vol. 7, p. 397.
25. Captain Eli Snyder to James H. Holmes, at Osawatomie, in 1894, original
in possession of the author.
26. James Hanway to R. J. Hinton, December 5, 1859, Hinton Papers, Kansas
Historical Society.
27. Statement of Charles S. Adair to James H. Holmes, May II, 1904, original
in possession of the author; also letter of the same to the author, January 27,
1909.
28. Original in possession of Mrs. G. A. Miller, Hudson, Ohio.
29. Statement of Mrs. J. B. Remington to the author, at Osawatomie, October
2, 1908.
NOTES 631
30. Kagi to his sister, Lawrence, September 23, 1858. — Original in Hinton
Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
31. These two letters are in the possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger.
32. Mason Report, Conway testimony, pp. 204-208; see also Martin F. Con-
way's letter to the editor of the Herald of Freedom, quoted in thje White Cloud
Kansas Chief, of December, 1859.
33. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
34. Sanborn, p. 465.
35. Mason Report, p. 206.
36. Sanborn, p. 465; the original of the receipt for the goods is in the hands of
E. B. Whitman, of Boston.
37. This letter, also, is in the possession of Mr. Whitman the younger.
38. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
39. Sanborn, p. 465.
40. Mason Report, pp. 69-70.
41. Mrs. George Plumb, widow of Senator Plumb, to William Allen White,
November, 1909. Brown went to see Messrs. Stores and Eckbridge, of Em-
poria.
42. Kagi, in the N. Y. Tribune, November n, 1858. This statement of Kagi's
should be compared with the following mistaken editorial comment of the Tribune
of October 21, 1859: "Even after the partisan war had been appeased in other
parts of the Territory, it was kept up in Southern Kansas, and Brown had an
actual part in it. He began on the principle of defence — he now acted on that
of revenge."
43. See letter of Kagi in Lawrence, Kansas, Republican, December 9, 1858;
Gill MS., Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
44. Gill MS., cited above.
45. Originals in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger.
46. Statements of Mrs. Emma Wattles Morse and of Mrs. Sarah Wattles Hiatt,
to the author, at Mound City, Kansas, October 2, 1908.
47. Mr. Gill's statement of November 12, 1908, at Attica, Kansas, to K. Mayo.
48. Theodosius Botkin, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 7, p. 440;
Gill MS., Kansas Historical Society.
49. See Executive Minutes for 1858, Kansas Historical Society Collections,
vol. 5, p. 547-
50. Governor S. Medary to President James Buchanan, January 31, 1859,
Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 602.
51. A. J. Weaver td acting Governor Walsh, Paris, November 26, 1858, Kansas
Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 551.
52. Lawrence Republican, December 23, 1858.
53. Sheriff C. M. M'Daniel to acting Governor Walsh, Paris, December 3,
1858, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 551-552.
54. J. W. Weaver to acting Governor Walsh, November 15, 1858, Kansas
Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 548.
55. Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger.
56. See N. Y. Tribune, December 29, 1858, for letter from Moneka, Kansas, of
December 8; also Kagi's account in the Lawrence Republican of December 23,
1858.
57. Another treaty, drafted by John Brown, and in his handwriting, which does
not seem to have been published heretofore, is in the possession of the Wattles
family, also bearing date of January i, 1859, and carrying the signature of several
persons. It reads thus:
632 NOTES
The undersigned have this day entered into the following pledge or agreement
(viz) That hereafter we will not either as a company, or companies; or as indi-
viduals; be concerned or in any way connected with the robbing plundering or in
any other way molesting of any person, or persons; whose case shall not have been
thoroughly examined & decided upon (by a regularly chosen committee of discreet
members) as one requireing attention; or punishment. And we further agree to
hold as enemies of the community & of this organization all & every unprincipled
person; or persons who shall for the sake of plunder disturb any inhabitant of the
territory of the adjoining State; & to deal with them accordingly. And we hereby
further agree to make an equal distribution of all property captured by any com-
pany of the members to the company making such capture & to insist upon the
observance of this rule by all the members.
KANSAS ist Jany 1859.
58. Andreas, p. 1070; Hinton, p. 218; Holloway, pp. 542-543; Report of Sam-
uel Walker, Deputy U. S. Marshal, to Governor Medary, Kanwaka, January 3,
1859, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 577-578; see also other cor-
respondence in Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 561 et seq.; N. Y.
Tribune, January 8, 1859.
59. T. F. Robley, History of Bourbon County, Fort Scott, 1894, p. 128 et seq.;
C. W. Goodman, Memoirs and Recollections of the Early Days of Fort Scott, Fort
Scott, 1899, p. 79; James Hanway, in Lawrence Daily Tribune, May 30, 1881;
Andreas, p. 1070.
60. Andreas, p. 1070.
61. It was at this period that Brown was first intimately thrown with two of
his future followers, Albert Hazlett and Jeremiah Anderson. On the day of the
Fort Scott raid he was at Wimsett farm, the rendezvous; near by lived Anderson's
brother, with whom Brown then spent a few days. — G. B. Gill, Milan, Kansas,
May 10, 1893, to R. J. Hinton, Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
62. Governor Medary to President James Buchanan, Lecompton, December
28, 1858, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 565-566; ibid., pp. 580-
581 et seq.
63. Narrative of George B. Gill, Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
64. 'John Brown's Raids,' by Burr Joyce, in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat for
April 15, 1888.
65. Ibid.; see also St. Louis Missouri Democrat of December 30, 1858, for pro-
slavery account of losses. This is indubitably an exaggeration.
66. Statement of Mrs. Annie Brown Adams to K. Mayo, Petrolia, Cal.,
October 2, 1908.
67. Article of Burr Joyce as aforesaid.
68. George B. Gill to R. J. Hinton, Milan, Kansas, May 10, 1893, Hinton
Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
69. Harrisonville, Mo., Democrat, quoted in Kansas Herald, Leavenworth City,
January 8, 1859.
70. Wyandotte Western Argus, January 15, 1859.
71. Lawrence Republican, January 6, 1859; Kansas Herald, Leavenworth,
January 29, 1859; George A. Crawford to James Buchanan, President, Kansas
Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 579-580. The Heraldof Freedom, of course,
did not lose the opportunity to assail Brown. It declared on January 22, 1859,
after condemning Brown and Montgomery: "If the people of Missouri should
raise an army and march over into Linn county and wipe the perpetrators of those
wrongs from existence, all of us would join in denouncing the outrage, and yet
such transactions as those Brown rejoices over are inaugurating a state of things
NOTES 633
which can only be seen through a river of blood. . . . Brown should be arrested
and set to work on the public improvements at Jefferson City, Mo., until he is re-
stored to reason, and unless we mistake such will be the case, unless he hangs for
murder. . . ." Again, a few days later, February 2, 1859, it said: "'Old Brown'
and a portion of his piratical band have escaped into Nebraska, no doubt on their
way East. On their arrival they will make a demand upon the charitable for
contributions to pay for their expenses while engaged in robbing the people of
Kansas. We do wish Gerrit Smith could know Brown as he is. If so, instead of
lending him further pecuniary assistance, he would exert all his energies to send
him to an Insane Asylum."
72. Herald of Freedom, January 15, 1859.
73. Osawatomie letter of December 27, 1859, in the Missouri Democrat for
January 5, 1859.
74. Governor Medary to the Kansas Legislature, House Journal, 1859, p. 44.
75. Mrs. Emma Wattles Morse, in the N. Y. Tribune, reprinted in the Linn
County Republic, Mound City, Kansas, May 28, 1897.
76. Rev. S. L. Adair to James Hanway, Osawatomie, Kansas, February 2, 1878,
Hanway Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
77. MS. of William H. Ambrose, entitled 'The Concealment of the Twelve
on the Pottawatomie;' see also letter, with map, of James Hanway, to F. G.
Adams, Lane, Kansas, February, 1878, both in Kansas Historical Society.
78. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 7, pp. 398-399.
79. John Brown to James Montgomery, Turkey Creek, January 2, 1859,
Montgomery Papers, Kansas Historical Society; here utilized for the first time.
80. Letter signed "Marcus," Moneka, Kansas, January 22, 1859, in Lawrence
Republican, February 3, 1859; see also letter from Moneka, January 24, 1859, in
the same issue.
81. Original in George W. Brown Papers, Kansas Historical Society. In his
letter of March, 1859, to John Teesdale, Brown positively denied that he had
been asked to leave Kansas. This letter was printed in the New York Evening
Sun of March 16, 1895.
82. Mason Report, p. 223.
83. See article of Mrs. Emma Wattles Morse.
84. From an original draft, in Brown's handwriting, in the Kansas Historical
Society.
85. The "atrocity " of Brown's raid, painted in the richest colors, was described
to Buchanan by Lieut. J. P. Jones, of the Second United States Artillery, who
had frequently traversed southern Kansas for Governor Denver, whose aide he
had been. Lieutenant Jones, who was new to the army, could always see the
Free State mote and never the Pro-Slavery beam; Hamilton's massacre, according
to him, took place in a fair and honorable combat! See Lieut. J. P. Jones and
B. J. Newsom to Governor Denver, Lecompton, June 3, 1858, Kansas Historical
Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 526-538; Lieut. J. P. Jones to President James
Buchanan, Washington, D. C., January 9, 1859, Kansas Historical Society Col-
lections, vol. 5, pp. 585-587.
86. Governor Medary to the Kansas Legislature, January n, 1859, House
Journal, 1859, p. 44 et seq.
87. Kansas House Journal, 1859, p. 57 et seq., and p. 64.
88. Reprinted in the N. Y. Tribune of January 29, 1859.
89. N. Y. Tribune, January 29, 1859, Lawrence correspondence.
90. Governor Medary to President Buchanan, Lawrence, February 2, 1859,
Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 602. Montgomery was at the time
634 NOTES
in extreme poverty, and the rank and pay of a colonel of volunteers were very
welcome when he was entrusted, thirty months later, with the raising of the Third
Kansas Infantry, to aid in the defence of the Union.
91. N. Y. Tribune, January 28, 1859.
92. See letter of Gerrit Smith to Sanborn, Peterboro, January 22, 1859, San-
born, p. 483.
93. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, pp. 603-604; Herald of Freedom,
February 19, 1859.
94. Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger.
95. Statement of George B. Gill to Hinton.
96. Samuel F. Tappan, Washington, D. C., December 19, 1907, to the author.
To Brown's disappointment, he received here a letter from Martin F. Conway,
advising him that he need not expect further aid from E. B. Whitman.
97. Narrative of John Doy, [by Himself], Boston, 1860, pp. 23-27, 123 and 130-
132.
98. Gill says that he left Grover's, "riding a fine stallion which Brown had
given Hazlett a forty-acre land warrant for. The land warrant Gerrit Smith had
sent Brown, and the stallion Hazlett had picked up down in Missouri. Brown
afterward sold it at auction in Cleveland."
99. MS. statement of Olive Owen, Topeka, 1904, in Kansas Historical Society.
100. There is some confusion of dates at this point, but those here given seem
accurate. They, like the following narrative of the ' Battle of the Spurs,' have
been deduced from the story of William F. Creitz, of Holton, Kansas, to James
Redpath, December 17, 1859, Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society; 'The
Battle of the Spurs,' by L. L. Kiene, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8,
pp. 443-449; letter of G. M. Seaman, same volume, pp. 448-449; statement by
William Graham, of Sabetha, Kansas, to W. E. Connelley, January, 1901 ; articles
in N. Y. Tribune, February 12, 1859; Lawrence Republican, February 10, 1859;
Atchison Freedom's Champion, February 12, 1859; letter of John H. Kagi to Wil-
liam A. Phillips, Tabor, Iowa, February 7, 1859; letter of William Hutchinson
to the N. Y. Times, February 4, 1859; see also quotations in the Cleveland Plain
Dealer of March 2, 1859, from the Nebraska City News and the Daily St. Joseph
Gazette; and the Missouri Democrat of February 5 and 8, 1859.
101. Governor S. Medary to James Buchanan, President, January 31 and
February 2, 1859, Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 5, p. 602.
102. Ibid., p. 601.
103. L. L. Kiene, in Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 447.
104. St. Louis Missouri Democrat, February 8, 1859.
•105. Quoted in the Lawrence Republican, February 10, 1859.
106. B. F. Gue, History of Iowa, New York, 1903, vol. I, p. 381; Gill's narra-
tive in Hinton, p. 225.
107. Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger.
108. Statement of Rev. H. D. King, Kinsman, Ohio, January 4 and 5, 1909, to
K. Mayo.
109. 'John Brown's Last Visit to Tabor,' by Prof. J. E. Todd, Annals of Iowa,
Third Series, vol. 3, p. 458 et seq., April to July, 1898.
no. George Gill MS. of "1860 or '61," Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical
Society.
in. From the copy in the possession of Miss Mary Thompson.
112. Statement of Rev. H. D. King; and Reminiscences of Rev. John Todd,
pp. 159-161.
113. To show how little this taking of the horses affected strong anti-slavery
NOTES 635
men in the East, it is worth recording that John A. Andrew, on February 9, 1860,
made the following statement before the Mason Committee: " I had heard it fre-
quently said that sometimes during the controversy between free-State men and
the pro-slavery men, they were accustomed, when they prevailed against each
other, to treat their horses as fairly the spoils of war. I am quite confident that I
had heard this statement made in connection with Captain Brown, but I did not
regard him singular in that respect, and I always believed and do now believe
that the free-State men were acting defensively in substantially all that was done
by them in Kansas." — Mason Report, p. 192.
114. This itinerary is given by Gill in Hinton, pp. 226-227.
115. This letter was republished without exact date in N. Y. Evening Sun of
March 16, 1895.
116. At another time Brown justified the Missouri raid by asserting that the
Denver truce had been broken ; that it was in accordance with his settled pol-
icy; that it was intended as a " descriminating blow" at slavery; that "it was
calculated to lessen the value of slaves; " and finally that "it was (over and above
all other motives) right." See Startling Incidents and Developments of Osawatomy
Brown's Insurrectory and Treasonable Movements at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, by
A Citizen of Harper's Ferry, Baltimore, 1859.
117. Men and Events of Forty Years, by Josiah Busnell Grinnell, Boston, 1891,
p. 210 et seq.
1 18. From the original, in possession of the Kansas Historical Society.
119. This narrative of the attempt to capture Brown is taken from the History
of Johnson County, Iowa City, Iowa, 1883, pp. 471-474.
1 20. This letter is reprinted in Bulletin for May, 1900, of Boston Public
Library.
121. Gill MS. of "1860 or '61."
122. L. R. Witherell, in Davenport, Iowa, Gazette of March 13, 1878; Mrs. E. S.
Butler, 'A Woman's Recollections of John Brown's Stay in Springdale,' Midland
Monthly, November, 1898, p. 576; Narcissa Macy Smith, 'Reminiscences of John
Brown,' Midland Monthly, September, 1895, pp. 231-236.
123. E. H. Gregg to J. H. Holmes, Kansas City, Mo., December 22, 1895. Mr.
Gregg was an employee of Keith's Mill.
124. Iowa City Republican, Leaflet No. n, November 17, 1880.
125. Grinnell, p. 216.
126. Major Allan Pinkerton's paper read at meeting in honor of Mrs. John
Brown ; and paper by John Jones read at the same time, both in Chicago Times, Sep-
tember I, 1882; also H. O. Waggoner, in Spokane, Wash., Review of September 2,
1892; also Kagi toTidd, Detroit, March 13, 1859, in Document No I, Appendix
to [Gov. Wise's] Message i, to Virginia Legislature, December, 1859 (referred to
hereinafter as Document No. i); Hinton, pp. 227-228.
127. N. Y. Tribune, March 17, 1859; letter of Kagi to Tidd, Detroit, March 13,
1859, Document No. i, p. 113.
CHAPTER XI
THE EVE OF THE TRAGEDY
I. Mrs. Amanda M. Sturtevant to James Red path, Cleveland, April 17, 1860,
Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society; Mrs. Sturtevant, in Cleveland Weekly
Plain Dealer, November 9, 1859; J. W. Schuckers, in Cleveland Leader for April
636 NOTES
29, 1894; Kagi to Tidd, Detroit, March 13, 1859;. Document No. I, pp. 113-
114.
2. Cleveland Leader -of March 21, 1859.
3. Cleveland Daily Plain Dealer, March 22, 1859, and Weekly Plain Dealer,
March 30, 1859.
4. J. W. Schuckers, as above.
5. Hinton, p. 233.
6. J. W. Schuckers; Annie Brown Adams to the author.
7. J. W. Schuckers.
8. John Brown to wife and children, Ashtabula, Ohio, March 25, 1859. —
Original in possession of Miss Brown.
9. See N. Y. Tribune, October 31, 1859, and Ashtabula Sentinel, November 15,
!859, giving the speech of J. R. Giddings in Philadelphia on Friday, October 28,
1859; also statement of Mrs. Mary Curtis Giddings, Jefferson, Ohio, January 2,
1909, to K. Mayo.
10. Letter of Mrs. Amanda M. Sturtevant to Redpath; statement of Mrs. J. H.
Scott, Oberlin, Ohio, December 9, 1908, to K. Mayo; J. H. Kagi, Cleveland, Ohio,
April 4, 1859, to Thaddeus Hyatt, — original in possession of Dr. Thaddeus
Hyatt, Brooklyn, N. Y.; Kagi to H. Thompson, Cleveland, April 21, 1859, —
original in possession of Miss Thompson.
n. John Brown to wife and children, Kingsville, Ohio, April 7, 1859. — Original
in Byron Reed Collection, in Omaha Public Library.
12. Frothingham's Gerrit Smith, first edition, p. 237.
13. John Brown to Kagi, Westport, April 16, 1859, Document No. I, p. 135;
Owen Brown to John Brown, Akron, May 2, 1859, — original in possession of
Mrs. John Brown, Jr.
14. John Brown to John Henrie (Kagi), North Elba, April 25, 1859. — Original
in Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society.
15. John Brown's Memorandum-Book No. 2, Boston Public Library.
16. Sanborn, p. 467.
17. This correspondence between Sanborn and Higginson is in the Higginson
Collection, Boston Public Library.
1 8. Higginson to John Brown, Brattleboro, Vt., May I, 1859, Higginson Col-
lection, Boston Public Library.
19. T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, pp. 222-223.
20. Sanborn, p. 523.
21. Document No. I, p. 134.
22. Original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger.
23. Brown to wife and children, Boston, May 13, 1859. — Original in Byron
Reed Collection, Omaha Public Library.
24. Memorandum-Book No. 2.
25. A. Bronson Alcott, MS. statement in Mrs. G. L. Stearns's Emancipation
Evening Album, in possession of Stearns's family.
26. John Murray Forbes, Letters and Recollections, edited by his daughter,
Sarah Forbes Hughes, Boston, 1899, vol. I, pp. 179-182.
27. Mason Report, p. 144.
28. Life of A. A. Lawrence, p. 130.
29. Mason Report, p. 192.
30. Ibid., testimony of Henry Wilson, pp. 144-145.
31. Ibid., pp. 124-127, testimony of Charles Blair.
32. Original in Dreer Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society.
33. Sanborn, p. 523.
NOTES 637
34. This portion of the diary will be found in the N. Y. Herald, October 25, 1859;
see also letter of Oliver Brown to his wife, West Andover, Ohio, June 18, 1859, —
original in possession of Miss Brown.
35. John Brown to wife and children, Akron, June 23, 1859. — Original in pos-
session of Miss Thompson. (Much altered in Sanborn's Life, p. 526.)
36. Statement of Miss Fannie Dean, Jefferson, Ohio, January 2, 1909, to
K. Mayo, and of John Brown, Jr., in Cleveland Press, May 3, 1895. Statements
of Alfred Hawkes, Jefferson, Ohio, January 2, 1909, Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Noxon,
Wayne, Ohio, January 3,1909, and Charles Garlick, Jefferson, January 2, 1909,
all to K. Mayo; also E. C. Lampson, 'The Black String Band,' Cleveland Plain
Dealer, Octobers, 1899.
37. Original in Dreer Collection.
38. Oliver Brown to his wife, Bedford Springs, Pa., June 26, 1859, — original in
possession of Miss Brown; I. Smith (John Brown) to John Henrie (Kagi), Bedford,
Pa., June 27, 1859, — original in Dreer Collection.
39. Original in Dreer Collection.
40. Sanborn, p. 527.
41. Mason Report, p. 5.
42. See the Unseld testimony, Mason Report, pp. 1-6, for details of the move
to Kennedy Farm.
43. Statement of Patrick Higgins to the author, Sandy Hook, Maryland, April,
1908; Unseld, Mason Report, pp. 1-6.
44. Annie Brown Adams to Hinton, Petrolia, Cal., February 15, 1893. — Ori-
ginal in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
45. Original in possession of Miss Brown; also Brown's diary, N. Y. Herald,
October 25, 1859.
46. Letter of Mary A. "Smith" to "Isaac Smith," North Elba, June 29, 1859.
— Original in Dreer Collection.
47. Mason Report, p. 4; Isaac Smith (John Brown) to his family, Chambers-
burg, July 22, 1859, — original in possession of Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger; nar-
rative of Annie Brown Adams, in possession of the author.
48. F. B. Sanborn, Memoirs of John Brown, Concord, 1878, p. 73.
49. Original in Dreer Collection.
50. Statement of Annie Brown Adams to the author; see also Hinton's John
Brown, p. 246.
51. I. Smith and Sons (John Brown) to John Henrie, Harper's Ferry, Va., July
12, 1859. — Original in Dreer Collection.
52. Letter of C. W. Moffet, Document No. I, pp. iio-in.
53. John Brown, Jr., to his father, Lindenville, Ohio, May i, 1858. — Original
in possession of Miss Brown.
54. Original in Dreer Collection.
55. John Smith (John Brown, Jr.) to J. Henrie (Kagi), West Andover, July 27,
1859, Document No. i, pp. 136-137; the same to the same, August 7, 1859. —
Original in Dreer Collection.
56. J. Henrie to Messrs. I. Smith and Sons, Chambersburg, August 1 1, 1859. —
Original in Dreer Collection.
57. John Brown to John Brown, Jr., Chambersburg, August, 1859, printed in
N. Y. Herald, October 25, 1859.
58. Statement of Annie Brown Adams to the author.
59. Annie Brown Adams to Hinton, Petrolia, February 15, 1893, as above.
60. Virginia Free Press, Charlestown, W. Va., April 5, 1860; statement of
638 NOTES
Mrs. Virginia Kennedy Cook Johnston, Chicago, November 23, 1908, and of
Mr. Cleon Moore, Charlestown, April, 1909, to K. Mayo.
61. William H. Leeman, Harper's Ferry, October 2, 1859, to his mother. —
Original in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
62. Original in Dreer Collection.
63. Letter of August 6, 1859. — Original in Dreer Collection.
64. Original in possession of Mrs. John Brown, Jr.
65. Mason Report, testimony of Secretary John B. Floyd, pp. 250-252.
66. Statement of David J. Gue, New York, November, 1907, to K. Mayo;
see also History of Iowa, by Benjamin F. Gue, vol. 2, pp. 26-30.
67. Sanborn to Higginson, August 24, September 4 and 14,1859. — Originals
in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library.
68. Document No. I, p. 145.
69. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, pp. 354-358. For Douglass's con-
temporaneous statement, see his letter from Canada West, October 31, 1859,
to the editor of the Rochester Democrat and American, reprinted in the Liberator
of November n, 1859.
70. Document No. i, p. 140.
71. Oliver Brown to John Brown, North Elba, April 21, 1858. — Original in
possession of Miss Brown; statement of Annie Brown Adams, Petrolia, Cal.,
October 2 and 3, 1908, to K. Mayo.
72. Document No. I, pp. 137-138; see also letter of the same to the same,
West Andover, September 27, 1859, in N. Y. Herald, October 25, 1859.
73. John Brown to John Henrie (Kagi), Washington County, Maryland, August
II, 1859. — Original in Dreer Collection.
74. From the narrative of Owen Brown, written at his dictation by Mrs. Ruth
Brown Thompson, — in possession of Miss Thompson.
75. A Voice from Harper's Ferry, by Osborn P. Anderson, Boston, 1861.
P-23-
76. Harriet Newby's pathetic letters to her husband are in Document No.
I, pp. 116-117.
77. Letters of Watson Brown to Isabel, his wife, Chambersburg, September 8
and October 14, "Home," September 28, and a fourth, undated, — from copies
in possession of Miss Brown.
78. Isabel Brown to Watson Brown, North Elba, September 14, 1859. — Origi-
nal in Dreer Collection.
79. Original in Dreer Collection.
80. Statement of Annie Brown Adams to the author.
81. Quoted by Annie Brown Adams to the author.
82. John Brown to wife and children, Chambersburg, October 1, 1859, Sanborn,
P- 550.
83. Statement of Annie Brown Adams to author.
84. 'John Brown and His Friends,' by F. B. Sanborn, Atlantic Monthly, July,
1872.
85. Quoted by F. B. Sanborn in 'The Virginia Campaign of John Brown,'
Atlantic Monthly, December, 1875.
86. Letter of Francis J. Meriam to Wendell Phillips Garrison, Rutland, Vt.,
September 22, 1858. — Original in possession of the author.
87. Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times, by A. K. McClure, Philadelphia,
1892, p. 309.
88. Confession of John E. Cook.
89. Original in possession of Miss Brown.
NOTES^ 639
90. From the copy by John Brown, Jr., in the Higginson Collection, Boston
Public Library.
91. Ibid.
92. Statement of Salmon Brown, at Portland, Oregon, October 12, 1908, to
K. Mayo.
CHAPTER XII
HIGH TREASON IN VIRGINIA
1. For an account of the last day at Kennedy Farm and the march to Harper's
Ferry, see O. P. Anderson, A Voice from Harper's Ferry, pp. 28-32 ; the story of
the parting of the Coppocs is from Mrs. Annie Brown Adams's recollections of
O. P. Anderson's verbal account; see also, on this point, John Brown's Men, by
Thomas Featherstonhaugh, Harrisburg, 1899, p. 12.
2. N. Y. Herald, November i, 1859; Doc. No. xxxi, Report of the Joint Com-
mittee of the General Assembly of Virginia on the Harper's Ferry Outrages, Jan-
uary 26, 1860, p. 4.
3. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, London, 1787, pp. 27-28.
4. New York Tribune, November 24, 1856.
5. Josephus, Jr., Annals of Harper's Ferry, Hagerstown, Md., 1869, pp. 17-18;
New York Herald, October 19, 1859; Life, Trial and Conviction of Captain John
Brown, New York, 1859, p. 76.
6. N. Y. Tribune, November 24, 1856.
7. Testimony of Daniel Whelan, Mason Report, p. 22.
8. O. P. Anderson, A Voice, pp. 26 and 33.
9. For Col. Washington's narrative of his capture, see Mason Report, pp. 29—
40, and Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown, pp. 39-40, 71 and 72;
see also O. P. Anderson, pp. 33-35.
10. O. P. Anderson, p. 35.
11. Statement of John Thomas Allstadt, Kearneysville, W. Va., April 15,
1909, to K. Mayo.
12. Mason Report, p. 34.
13. Statement of Patrick Higgins, Sandy Hook, Md., January, 1908, to the au-
thor; Annals of Harper's Ferry, p. 18; statement of W. W. Throckmorton, N. Y.
Herald, October 24, 1859; testimony of Conductor Phelps, Life, Trial and Con-
viction of Captain John Brown, p. 69. (The Life, Trial and Conviction of Captain
John Brown differs but slightly from the Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John
Brown. Both were pamphlets of 108 pages, published by Robert W. DeWitt, New
York, 1859.)
14. For the story of the stopping of the train and of the shooting of Hayward.
see Phelps's testimony; see also statements of C. W. Armstrong, a passenger,
N. Y. Herald, October 19, and of W. W. Throckmorton, N. Y. Herald, October 24;
also testimony of Dr. J. D. Starry, Mason Report, pp. 23-24; for Hayward 's char-
acter, see Starry 's testimony; also that of Col. Washington, Mason Report, p. 39.
Hayward's body was escorted to the grave by the Morgan Continentals, under
Major R. B. Washington, with two other militia companies. A militia band led
the procession, in which were the mayor and many officers and white citizens, who
listened reverently to the reading of the burial service by an old negro preacher.
15. Confession of John E. Cook, p. n.
1 6. Phelps testimony, Life, Trial and Conviction of Captain John Brown, p. 69.
17. For the despatch and its sequels, see Document Y, Correspondence Relating
640 NOTES
to the Insurrection at Harper's Ferry, Annapolis, 1860, p. I et seq. (published by
the Maryland Legislature), hereinafter referred to as Document Y.
18. Dr. Starry 's testimony in full is given in the Mason Report.
19. Report of Col. John Thomas Gibson, commanding the 55th Regiment
Virginia Militia, Harper's Ferry, October 18, 1859, to Governor Wise, Document
No. i, Virginia State Papers, pp. 61-62; speech of Governor Wise in Richmond,
October 21, N. Y. Herald, October 26, 1859; also statement of Mr. Cleon
Moore to the author, January, 1908.
20. Report of Col. Gibson; article entitled 'The Jefferson Guards,' Virginia
Free Press, October 27, 1859.
21. Statement of W. W. Throckmorton, clerk of the Wager House, N. Y.
Herald, October 24, 1859; testimony of Col. Washington, Mason Report, p. 40;
statements of J. T. Allstadt, Kearneysville, April 15, 1909, and of Miss Annie
Miller, Charlestown, March 20, 1908, both to K. Mayo.
22. Testimony of Terence Byrne, Mason Report, pp. 13-21; Confession of
John E. Cook.
23. See testimony of Armistead Ball, Life, Trial and Conviction of Captain John
Brown, p. 73; testimony of Joseph A. Brewer [Brua], ibid., p. 75; testimony of
Reason Cross, ibid., p. 76; testimony of John P. Da[i]ngerfield, ibid., p. 79.
24. Charlestown Virginia Free Press, October 27 and November 3, 1859;
testimony of Benjamin T. Bell, Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown,
p. 74.
25. Col. Gibson's Report; Col. Baylor's Report, Document No. i, pp. 63-64;
'The Jefferson Guards,' Virginia Free Press, October 27, 1859.
26. Statement of Col. Richard B. Washington, Charlestown, March 26, 1908,
to K. Mayo; Annals of Harper's Ferry, p. 34; statement of Patrick Higgins to the
author. The shooting of Newby has been ascribed to other hands, though all
narratives agree as to the place whence the shot came.
27. Statement of Patrick Higgins to the author, January, 1908; this incident
was reported in the Frederick, Md., Herald, cited in the Liberator, November II,
1859; see also Richmond Despatch, October 25, 1859.
28. Cross's testimony, Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown, p. 76.
29. For the mission and the wounding of Stevens and of Watson Brown, see
testimony of A. M. Kitzmiller, Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown,
p. 75; testimony of James Beller, ibid., p. 75; of John P. Daingerfield, ibid., p. 79;
and of Major Mills, ibid., p. 80; also letter of George Sennott, Stevens's counsel,
in the N. Y. Tribune, November 29, 1859.
30. Testimony of Joseph A. Brewer [Brua], Life, Trial and Execution of Cap-
tain John Brown, p. 75.
31. Schoppert's affidavit is in the possession of Mr. Braxton Davenport Gibson,
of Charlestown, who vouches for his father's, Colonel Gibson's, endorsement of
Schoppert's statement; for the riddling of Leeman's body, see Baltimore Sun,
October 19, 1859; also statement of Mr. E. B. Chambers, Harper's Ferry, March
24, 1908, to K. Mayo; also statement of eye-witness in the Frederick, Md., Herald,
quoted in the Liberator of Nov. n, 1859; for Leeman's attempt to escape, and his
movements precedent thereto, see Annals of Harper's Ferry, by Joseph Barry (a
later edition), Martinsburg, W. Va., 1872.
32. Statement of John Brown, Charlestown Independent Democrat, November
22, 1859; letter of 'An Observer,' Shepherdstown, Va., Register, October 29!
1859; statement of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Burton, Charlestown, April 14, 1909, to
K. Mayo.
33. George W. Turner was graduated from West Point, July i, 1831, becoming
NOTES 641
a second lieutenant in the 1st Artillery. He resigned June 30, 1836, and became a
farmer in Rippon, Jefferson County. His sister lost her reason on hearing of her
brother's death, and died soon after of shock and grief.
34. .J. G. Rosengarten, 'John Brown's Raid,' Atlantic Monthly, June, 1865.
35. Statement of John Thomas Allstadt, April 15, 1909, to K. Mayo.
36. Letter of Miss Christine Fouke, Harper's Ferry, November 27, 1859, to the
St. Louis Republican of December 2, 1859.
37. N. Y. Tribune, October 29, 1859; for a more detailed report of Mr. Hunter's
testimony, see N. Y. Herald, Octobersi, 1859; Virginia FreePress, October 27, 1859-
38. Annals of Harper's Ferry, p. 25; see also N. Y. Herald, October 19, 1859.
39. John E. P. Daingerfield, 'John Brown at Harper's Ferry,' Century, June,
1885, p. 267.
40. Statement of»Capt. Ephraim G. Alburtis, N. Y. Herald, October 24, 1859;
telegram of W. P. Smith to L. M. Cole, Harper's Ferry, October 18, Docu-
ment Y, p. 17; telegram of same to J. W. Garrett, Monocacy, October 18, ibid.,
p. 23; Alexander R. Boteler, 'Recollections of the John Brown Raid,' Century,
July, 1883, p. 407; report of Col. Baylor; Baltimore Despatch of October 18,
quoted in N. Y. Tribune of October 19, 1859.
41. Statement of W. S. Downer, N. Y. Herald, October 24, 1859.
42. Report of Col. Robert E. Lee, as printed in Mason Report, p. 40; Reports
of Cols. Gibson and Baylor.
43. For the story of the fight at the Rifle Works, see Mason Report, p. 27; Mr.
Boteler's narrative in his Century article above cited; Copeland's account of the
whole affair is given in his letter of December 10, 1859, to Addison W. Halbert,
— original in Department of Archives and History, Richmond, Virginia; N. Y.
Tribune, October 19, 1859; narrative of D. H. Strother, Harper's Weekly, Novem-
ber 5, 1859.
44. Testimony of Lind F. Currie, Mason Report, pp. 54-59; Confession of John
E. Cook. Cf. 'Owen Brown's Escape from Harper's Ferry,' by Ralph Keeler,
Atlantic Monthly, March, 1874.
45. Boteler's narrative; affidavit of G. A. Schoppert.
46. For John Brown's proposal and Col. Baylor's reply, see the official report
of the latter.
47. Capt. Sinn's narrative is found in his testimony at Brown's trial, for the
"manly and truthful" character of which John Brown afterward thanked him.
See N. Y. Tribune, October 31, 1859.
48. Statement of Col. Washington, Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John
Brown, p. 40.
49. Statement of John Thomas Allstadt, April 15, 1909. Testimonies conflict
as to the hour of Oliver Brown's death, some averring that he died within fifteen
minutes after sustaining his mortal wound.
50. John E. P. Daingerfield, Century, June, 1 885 ; statement of John Brown, N. Y.
Herald, October 22, 1859; letter of Edwin Coppoc, November 22, 1859, quoted
by Hinton, p. 488; letter of John Brown to wife and children, Charlestown, 3ist
Oct. 1859, — original in possession of Miss Brown.
51. Document Y, p. 10.
52. Ibid., p. 14.
53. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, as quoted by John Esten Cook in the St. Joseph, Mo.,
Herald, September 2, 1879; Co^. Lee's official report to the Adjutant-General,
Mason Report, p. 41.
54. Given in Life and Letters of Robert Edward Lee, Soldier and Man, by the Rev.
J. William Jones, New York, 1906, p. 105.
642 NOTES
55. From Stuart's letter to his mother, Fort Riley, January, 1860, given in
Life and Campaigns of J. E. B. Stuart, by H. B. McClellan, Boston, 1885, pp. 28-
30.
56. Col. Lee's Report.
57. See speech of Gov. Wise, Richmond, October 21, 1859.
58. Statement of Col. and Mrs. John A. Tompkins, Baltimore, Feb. 24, 1908,
to K. Mayo. Mrs. Tompkins is a daughter of Col. Shriver.
59. Letter of O. Jennings Wise to Col. J. T. Gibson, Richmond, June 5,
1860. — Original in possession of Mr. Braxton Davenport Gibson, Charlestown,
W. Va.
60. Affidavit of G. A. Schoppert.
61. Israel Green entered the Marine Corps of the United States Navy with the
rank of second lieutenant on March 3, 1847, and was dismissed May 18, 1861, be-
cause he resigned to go South. Although a Vermonter, he joined the Confederate
Marine Corps with the rank of major and adjutant, on its organization, March
16, 1861, serving throughout the war in that position. He died in Mitchell, South
Dakota, on May 26, 1909, in his 86th year.
62. "Major Russell had been requested by the Secretary of the Navy to accom-
pany the marines, but, being a paymaster, could exercise no command; yet it
was his corps." — Letter of Lieut. J. E. B. Stuart to his mother, Fort Riley, Jan.
i860.
"Major Russell was a charming and cultivated man of great coolness, and then
about thirty-five years old. He jumped through the door with Green, unarmed,
carrying in his hand only a little rattan switch." — Statement of Col. John A.
Tompkins, Baltimore, Feb. 24, 1908, to K. Mayo.
"Major Russell, of marines, headed them in person, unarmed. I never saw so
thrilling a scene." — W. P. Smith (Master of Transportation, B. and O. Railroad)
to J. W. Garrett, Harper's Ferry, Oct. 18, 1859, Document Y, p. 21.
Major W. W. Russell became second lieutenant of Marines, April 5, 1843,
first lieutenant, Nov. 18, 1847, and later paymaster with rank of major. He died
Oct. 31, 1862.
63. Quoted by Governor Wise in his speech at Richmond, October 21, 1859.
64. 'The Capture of John Brown,' by Israel Green, North American Review,
Dec. 1885, pp. 564-569.
65. Ibid., p. 566; John E. P. Daingerfield, in the Century, June, 1885; 'John
Brown's Raid,' narrative of master armorer Ben. Mills, Louisville Courier- Journal,
July 9, 1881; statement of John Thomas Allstadt.
66. Colonel Lee's Report; Col. Lee's despatch to the Secretary of War, Docu-
ment Y, p. 22; N. Y. Herald, October 21, 1859.
67. Letter of C. W. Tayleure to John Brown, Jr., June 15, 1879, a copy of
which is in the Maryland Historical Society's Library.
68. Governor Wise, speech of October 21, 1859.
69. Baltimore American, quoted in N. Y. Tribune, October 22, 1859.
70. N. Y. Herald, October 21, 1859.
71. N. Y. Herald, November i, 1859.
72. The Court of Enquiry met June 4, at Charlestown. See entry of June 28,
1860, Executive Journal, Library of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, Rich-
mond. The Court remained in session six days. See also Charlestown Independent
Democrat, June 19, 1860; the Virginia Free Prejs, June 21, 1860, gives a full
account of the proceedings.
73. O. Jennings Wise to Col. J. T. Gibson, Richmond, June 5, 1860. — Original
in possession of Mr. Braxton Davenport Gibson.
NOTES 643
74. Shepherdstown, Va., Register, October 29, 1859.
75. Message of Gov. Wise to the Virginia Legislature, December 5, 1859, Docu-
ment No. I, December, 1859, Journal of the House of Delegates.
76. Life of Henry A. Wise, by Barton H. Wise, New York, 1899,?? . 274-277.
77. Ibid., p. 278.
78. Ibid., p. 283.
CHAPTER XIII
GUILTY BEFORE THE LAW
1. For the movements of the troops on the i8th, see Col. Lee's official report of
October 19; Lieutenant Stuart's letter to his mother, Fort Riley, Jan. 1860; Col.
R. W. Baylor's official report, Herald, Oct. 19, 1859; testimony of John C. Unseld,
Mason Report, pp. 7-12.
2. Gov. Wise to J. W. Garrett, Washington, 2Oth Oct., Document Y, pp. 28-29;
W. P. Smith to J. T. Crow, Baltimore, Oct. 25, ibid., p. 31; W. P. Smith to A.
Hunter, Baltimore, October 25, ibid., pp. 31-32; W. P. Smith to Gov. Wise, Balti-
more, Oct. 25, ibid., pp. 32-33; testimony of Andrew Hunter, Mason Report, p. 65.
3. Richmond Despatch, Nov. 27, 1859.
4. Confession of John E. Cook; 'Owen Brown's Escape from Harper's Ferry,'
by Ralph Keeler; Notes of conversation with C. P. Tidd, by T. W. Higginson,
Feb. 10, 1860, — original in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library.
5. Notes of conversation with C. P. Tidd, by T. W. Higginson, Feb. 10, 1860;
testimony of Colonel Washington, Mason Report, p. 39; see also testimony of
John P. Da[i]ngerfield, Life, Trial and Conviction, p. 79, and testimony of John
H. Allstadt, ibid., pp. 73-74.
6. Testimony of Colonel Washington, Mason Report, pp. 39-40; speech of
Gov. Wise of Oct. 19, 1859.
7. Testimony of John H. Allstadt, Mason Report, pp. 42-44; Virginia Free
Press, Nov. 3, 1859.
8. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 26, 1859.
9. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 19, 1859. The man belonged to Mr. Allstadt, — state-
ment of John Thomas Allstadt of April 15, 1909, to K. Mayo.
10. Atlantic Monthly, June, 1865.
11. Official Report of Colonel Lee; N. Y. Tribune, October 20; N. Y. Herald,
October 21, 1859.
12. Speech of Gov. Wise of October 19, 1859; Andrew Hunter, in New Orleans
Times- Democrat, Sept. 5, 1887; N. Y. Herald, Oct. 20, 1859; Redpath, pp. 286-
287.
13. Official report of Col. Baylor.
14. Official reports of Col. Lee and of Col. Baylor; letter of Lieut. J. E. B.
Stuart to his mother, Fort Riley, Jan. 1860.
15. The adventures of the five refugees will be found in 'Owen Brown's Escape
from Harper's Ferry,' by Ralph Keeler; Confession of John E. Cook; Notes of
conversation with C. P. Tidd, by T. W. Higginson, Feb. 10, 1860, in Higginson
Collection; O. P. Anderson, A Voice from Harper' s Ferry. Important letters re-
lating to the escape of the survivors, and the efforts set on foot by J. Miller Mc-
Kim, William W. Rutherford, of Harrisburg, Redpath and others, to aid their
flight, are to be found in the J. M. McKim Correspondence, Cornell University
Library.
16. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 20, 1859.
644 NOTES
17. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 19, 1859.
18. Cleveland Weekly Leader, Oct. 26, 1859.
19. Oct. 20, 1859.
20. Oct. 22, 1859.
21. Oct. 22, 1859.
22. Oct. 22, 1859.
23. Liberator, October 21, 1859.
24. Cited in the N. Y. Anzeiger des Westens, Oct. 23, 1859.
25. Maryland. The History of a Palatinate, by William Hand Browne, Boston,
1904, pp. 349-351-
26. Greeley to Schuyler Colfax, Life of Schuyler Coif ax, by O. J. Hollister, New
York, 1886, p. 150.
27. Chapter CCVIII SS2 of Code of Virginia, published in 1849 pursuant to
an Act of the General Assembly of Virginia, passed August 15, 1847.
28. See Message of Governor Wise to the House of Delegates, Dec. 1859, Doc-
ument No. I. Caleb Gushing, speaking in the Union Meeting in Faneuil Hall,
Boston, Dec. 8, 1859, mentioned a decision once handed down by himself that the
arsenal of Harper's Ferry was in the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States;
but, continuing, he showed that John Brown, besides those offences done within the
armory grounds, committed in the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commonwealth
of Virginia, burglary, robbery, incitement to sedition, treason and murder. Re-
ported in the New York Herald, Dec. 9, 1859.
29. Original in possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham.
30. Letter of Andrew Hunter to Governor Wise, Charlestown, Nov. 2, 1859,
— Original in Department of Archives and History, Richmond.
31. N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 10, 1859.
32. Quoted by Andrew Hunter in a letter to Governor Wise, Winchester, Dec.
15, 1859. — Original in the possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham.
33. Original in the possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham.
34. Correspondence from Richmond of Dec. 8, in N. Y. Herald, Dec. 1 1,
1859-
35. Richmond Enquirer, Feb. 7, 1860.
36. Judge Richard Parker died in Winchester, Va., Nov. 10, 1893, in his eighty-
fourth year. He was a son of Judge Richard E. Parker, of the Virginia Court
of Appeals, and graduated in law at the University of Virginia. In 1849 he was
Representative in the 34th Congress, and in 1851 became Circuit Court Judge.
During the "reconstruction, "he was forced to retire from the bench by the mili-
tary authorities, and then opened a law school in Winchester. Until a few years
before his death he was in active practice, and was always one of the leading
lawyers of the State.
37. Lydia Maria Child to Governor Wise, Wayland, Oct. 26, 1859, in Corre-
spondence between Lydia Maria Child, Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason of Virginia,
New York, 1860 (pamphlet), pp. 1-2; Letters of Lydia Maria Child, Boston,
1883, p. 104.
38. Ibid., pp. 4-6; ibid., p. 106.
39. Nov. 17, 1859.
40. N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 31, 1859.
41. Quoted in the Liberator, Nov. 4, 1859.
42. Letter of Gov. Wise to the Philadelphia Press, quoted in the Liberator,
Sept. 26, 1856.
43. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 8, 1888.
44. Mason Report, p. 187.
NOTES 645
45. Life, Trial and Conviction, p. 95; see also letter of Judge Russell signed
"T.," Boston Traveller, Nov. 5, 1859.
46. D. W. Voorhees, United States Senate, Jan. 7, 1889, to Miss Florence
Hunter. — Original in possession of Miss Hunter, Charlestown, W. Va.
47. The entire proceedings of the Court of Examination and of the Circuit
Court in the trial of Brown, with testimony, speeches and rulings, are best re-
ported in the New York Herald. The story of the trial here given has been drawn
from the pamphlet Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown, New York,
1859, and from a careful comparison of the accounts of the Tribune, Herald, Lib-
erator and other contemporary papers, Northern and Southern, after an exami-
nation of the official minutes of the trial, at Charlestown. Gen. Marcus J.
Wright's two magazine articles, The Trial of John Brown, its Impartiality and
Decorum Vindicated, Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 16, 357-366, and
The Trial and Execution of John Brown, American Historical Association Papers,
vol. 4, pp. 437-452, have also been examined.
48. Charles James Faulkner to M. W. Cluskey, Boydville, Nov. 5, 1859, quoted
from Washington States and Union, by Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 25, 1859.
49. Lawson Botts was a son of Gen. Thomas H. Botts, of Virginia, grandson
of Benjamin Botts, counsel for Aaron Burr, and was, on his mother's side, of the
family of General Washington. In the Confederate army he was quickly pro-
moted for distinguished gallantry, and held the rank of Colonel of the Second
Virginia Regiment, when mortally wounded on the field, Aug. 28, 1862. Thomas
C. Green served as a private in his friend's command. After the war he returned
to his profession, was appointed to the bench in 1875, and served as judge in the
West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals until 1889, in which year he died.
50. For the above quotation and account of the despatch of Hoyt to Charles-
town, see Hinton's John Brown and His Men, pp. 365-366.
51. Andrew Hunter to Governor Wise, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, vol.
II, p. 87.
52. Hinton, p. 366.
53. Letter of Andrew Hunter to Henry A. Wise, Charlestown, Nov. 8, 1859. —
Original in the possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham. A man of fine natural parts and
of a classical training, Charles Harding was now a physical wreck. At the out-
break of the war, however, he shouldered a musket and, despite his years, went
into the Confederate ranks, serving with devotion. Left unrelieved on outpost
guard all one stormy winter night, by oversight, he died the next day from
pneumonia.
54. Statement of Mr. Cleon Moore, Charlestown, April 15, 1909, to K. Mayo.
55. Letter of D. W. Voorhees to Miss Florence Hunter, Jan. 7, 1889. Andrew
Hunter was born in Berkeley County, Virginia, March 22, 1804, graduated at
Hampden-Sidney College in 1822, and soon began the practice of law in Harper's
Ferry, removing to Charlestown in 1825. He served in the Legislature of Virginia
before and during the Civil War. His Charlestown home was destroyed by his
cousin, Gen. David Hunter, of the Union Army, in 1864. He died in Charlestown,
November, 22, 1888.
56. Andrew Hunter to Gov. Wise, Charlestown, Oct. 22. — Original in Execu-
tive Papers, Department of Archives and History, Richmond, Va.
57. N. Y. Herald, October 28, 1859.
58. Order Book No. 12, p. 428, Court Records of Jefferson County, Charles-
town, W. Va.
59. N. Y. Herald, October 26, 1859.
i 60. Ibid.
646 NOTES
61. For the arrest of Cook, see circumstantial letters dated Chambersburg, Pa.,
Oct. 26 and Oct. 29, in the N. Y. Tribune of Oct. 29 and Nov. 4, 1859.
62. Life, Trial and Execution, pp. 59-61 ; N. Y. Herald, Oct. 30, 1859.
63. N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 28, 1859.
64. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 27, 1859.
65. Common Law Orders No. 6, p. 281, Court Records of Jefferson County.
66. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 28, 1859; Life, Trial and Execution, p. 68.
67. N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 5, 1859.
68. Common Law Orders No. 6, p. 283, Court Records of Jefferson County.
69. Redpath's John Brown, p. 325.
70. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 29, 1859.
71. N. Y. Herald, Nov. i, 1859; see also Richmond Despatch, Nov. I, 1859.
72. N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 29, 1859.
73. Letter of Wendell Phillips to T. W. Higginson, Oct. 26, 1859, — original
in Higginson Collection; of George Sennott to Thaddeus Hyatt, Boston, Dec.
31, 1859, — original in possession of Dr. Thaddeus Hyatt, Brooklyn, N. Y.;
testimony of John A. Andrew and of Samuel Chilton, Mason Report, pp. 186-
188 and 137-140; Washington Star, Nov. 2, 1859. On Nov. 2, Samuel E. Sewall,
Dr. Howe, Ralph Waldo Emerson and T. W. Higginson sent out a printed circular
appealing for contributions for the defence of Brown and his companions, and
offering to act as a committee to receive and apply them. Originals of the circu-
lar are preserved in the McKim and the Higginson Collections.
74. Brown's letters to Judges Tilden and Russell were identical. The first will
be found in the N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 29. The original of the second is in the Kansas
Historical Society. Judge Tilden's reply, dated Cleveland, Oct. 27, stating that
he was himself unable to serve, but that he was sending Messrs. Griswold and
[Albert Gallatin] Riddle, is in the possession of Miss Brown. Mr. Riddle decided,
however, because of reluctance to appear with Griswold, not to undertake the
case. For this in after years he expressed lasting regret. See Personal Recollections
of War Times, by Albert Gallatin Riddle, New York, 1895, p. 3.
75. N. Y. Herald, Nov. 21, 1859. William Green, of Richmond, a distinguished
member of the Virginia bar, was employed to assist Mr. Chilton in presenting
Brown's case to the Court of Appeals. Mr. Green's copy of the brief to the Court
of Appeals, with his manuscript summary, in his own hand, of the finding of the
full bench, is in possession of Miss Sarah Brown.
76. Letter of Andrew Hunter, Charlestown, Oct. 25, 1859, to Gov. Wise,
Calendar of Virginia State Papers, vol. II, p. 87.
77. 'John Brown's Raid,' by Andrew Hunter, New Orleans Times-Democrat,
Sept. 5, 1887.
78. Letter of George H. Hoyt, Charlestown, Oct. 30, 1859, to J. W. Le Barnes.
— Original in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
79. Letter of John Brown to his brother Jeremiah, Charlestown, Nov. 12, 1859,
The John Brown Invasion, Boston, 1860, p. 49.
80. In St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 8, 1888.
81. "His brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by words on
any recorded occasion. This and one other American speech, that of John Brown
to the court that tried him, and a part of Kossuth's speech at Birmingham, can
only be compared with each other, and with no fourth," — said Ralph Waldo
Emerson, at the funeral services for Abraham Lincoln, held in Concord, April 19,
1865.
" I 'm so sorry not to exult with you with joy unutterable over Brown's perfect
words. Has anything like it been said in this land or age, so brave, wise, considerate
NOTES 647
all round. Slavery & Freedom brought face to face standing opposite; the one all
one black wrong, the other white as an angel," wrote W. H. Furness to J. M.
McKim, Nov. 3, 1859. — Original in J. M. McKim Papers, Cornell University
Library.
82. N. Y. Herald, Nov. 3, 1859.
83. Judge Parker in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 8, 1888. "Sentence
was pronounced and was received in perfect silence, except a slight demonstra-
tion of applause from one excited man, whom the Judge instantly ordered into
custody. It illustrates the character [of the people, that several officials and
members of the bar hastened to inform us that this man was not a citizen of the
county." — Letter of Judge Thomas Russell, from Charlestown, in Boston Trav-
eller, Nov. 5, 1859.
84. Doc. No. xxxi, of the Virginia General Assembly /January 26, 1860.
85. Quoted in the Liberator, Nov. n, 1859.
86. Quoted in the Liberator, Nov. 18, 1859.
87. Quoted in the Liberator, Nov. 4, 1859.
88. Liberator, Oct. 28, 1859.
89. Berryville, Va., Clarke Journal, Nov. II, 1859.
90. Quoted in the National Anti-Slavery Standard, Nov. 26, 1859.
91. Original in Dreer Collection.
92. Original in Dreer Collection.
93. Original in the Massachusetts Historical Society. Among those who wrote
to Gov. Wise in behalf of clemency was a certain Ellwood Fisher, who feared that if
the "obscure whites and negroes" in captivity after Brown's death were hanged,
it would be a waiver by Virginia of her "imputations" against the real offenders,
the anti-slavery and Black Republican party of the North. — Richmond, Dec. 14,
1859. — Original in Department of Archives and History, Richmond.
94. Document No. i, Dec. 1859, Journal of the House of Delegates.
95. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 28, 1859; Life, Trial and Execution, p. 64.
96. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 28, 1859.
97. Original in the possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham.
98. See the Governor's autograph endorsement on the above.
99. Original in the possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham.
100. " Blair thinks a demonstration of Brown's insanity might please Wise. He
says he has seen something in the Richmond Enquirer — probably the st. [state-
ment] he exhibited to Andrew — which looks like an invitation." Hoyt to Le
Barnes, Washington, Nov. 14, 1859. — Original in Kansas Historical Society.
"Mr. Hoyt ... is now in the city for the purpose of getting affidavits of the
acquaintances of Brown as to his sanity. A large number of affidavits have been
prepared at Akron, Hudson, Cleveland, etc., and they are made by men of the
first respectability, who have known Brown for many years intimately; there is
no difference of opinion among them as to the monomania of Brown upon the
subject of slavery." Cleveland|(Daily) Leader, Nov. 18, 1859. The originals of all
the affidavits are in the possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham. Hoyt submitted the
affidavits, accompanied by a letter to Gov. Wise written in Chilton's name. For
this letter, see Liberator, Dec. 2, 1859; for a letter by Chilton, denying any hand
in the matter and stating his position concerning it, see National Intelligencer,
Dec. 13, 1859.
101. New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, May 27, 1884.
648 NOTES
CHAPTER XIV
BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED
1. T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, pp. 147-159.
2. Letter of J. W. Le Barnes to R. J. Hinton. See Hinton's John Brown and
His Men, p. 366. Hoyt's original sketch of the jail, showing arrangement of cells
and stations of guards, as drawn for and remitted to the New England confeder-
ates, is now in the Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
3. S. C. Pomeroy in the Christian Cynosure, March 31, 1887.
4. Statement of Mrs. Russell, Jamaica Plain, Mass., Jan. II, 1908, to K.
Mayo.
5. Letter of T. W. Higginson, Worcester, Nov. 4, 1859, to the family of John
Brown at North Elba. — Original in possession of Miss Brown.
6. Ibid.
7. Original in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society; see also letter of
George H.Hoyt, undated, to " Mr. Tomlinson." — Original in J.M. McKim Papers,
Cornell University Library.
8. Cheerful Yesterdays, pp. 226-228.
9. J. M. McKim, Philadelphia, Nov. 8, 1859, to T. W. Higginson. — Original
in Higginson Collection, Boston Public Library. J. M. McKim's correspondence
relating to Mrs. Brown's movements during the month of November is preserved
in the Cornell University Library; see also Life and Letters of Peter and Susan
Lesley, edited by Mary Lesley Ames, New York, 1909, pp. 377-380.
10. Telegram of George Sennott, received in Worcester, Nov. 5, to T. W. Hig-
ginson.— Original in Higginson Collection.
11. J. M. McKim to T. W. Higginson, Nov. 8, 1859, — original in Higginson
Collection; see also letter of T. W. Higginson to J. M. McKim, Worcester, Nov. 5,
1859, — original in Cornell University Library.
12. Copied in letter of S. G. Howe to T. W. Higginson, Nov. 9, 1859, — ori-
ginal in Higginson Collection; letter of T. W. Higginson to J. M. McKim, Worces-
ter, Nov. 10, 1859, — original in Cornell University Library.
13. Life of G. L. Stearns, by F. P. Stearns, p. 187.
14. Reminiscences of James Hanway, Topeka Commonwealth, Jan. 31, 1878.
This is erroneous as to dates, but is otherwise vouched for by R. J. Hinton,
who engineered the Kansas effort to rescue Stevens and Hazlett. S. C. Adair,
nephew of John Brown, confirms the story concerning Mary Partridge, in his
statement of Oct. 2, 1908, to the author.
15. Memorandum of T. W. Higginson attached to Le Barnes's letter of Nov. 15,
1859, to Higginson. — Original in Higginson Collection.
1 6. Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 166.
17. Le Barnes to T. W. Higginson, Nov. 14 and 15, 1859. — Original in Hig-
ginson Collection.
18. Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 165.
19. Lysander Spooner to T. W. Higginson, Nov. 20, 1859. — Original in Hig-
ginson Collection.
20. Le Barnes to Higginson, Nov. 22, 1859. — Original in Higginson Collec-
tion.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
NOTES 649
24. Le Barnes, Nov. 27, from New York, to Higginson. — Original in Higgin-
son Collection.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Sanborn to Higginson, Nov. 28, 1859. — Original in Higginson Collec-
tion.
29. Message of Wise to Legislature of Virginia, Dec. 5, 1859.
30. The character of these letters is well summarized in the report of the Joint
Committee of the Legislature of Virginia, Jan. 26, 1860. Many of them have
been reprinted in the Richmond Times of Dec. 22, 1901, and in the Virginia
Magazine of History and Biography, April, 1902, to July, 1903. Those cited here
are to be found therein, save the one from Lewisburg, which is in the possession
of Braxton Davenport Gibson, of Charlestown, West Virginia.
31. Webb Scrap- Book, vol. 17, p. 157, Kansas Historical Society; see also N. Y.
Herald, Dec. 4 and 17, 1859.
32. Richmond Despatch, Nov. 24, 1859.
33. See ' John Brown's Raid,' by Andrew Hunter, New Orleans Times-Democrat,
Sept. 5, 1887.
34. See Document Y, pp. 31-38.
35. Original in possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham.
36. Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 21 and 25, 1859.
37. Richmond Despatch, Nov. 15, 1859. For Hoyt's own account of his expul-
sion, see his letter to the N. Y. Tribune of Nov. 17, 1859. Sennott, however, in a
letter signed as " Counsel for Brown and A. D. Stevens," in the Philadelphia Press
of Nov. 16, 1859, denied that Brown's counsel was advised to leave Charlestown.
38. Statement of Cleon Moore, a member of the Charlestown militia company,
Charlestown, March 20, 1908, to the author.
39. Ibid., and Charlestown despatch in Baltimore American of Nov. 22, 1859.
40. Printed in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, May,
1907.
41. Harper's Ferry, Nov. 19, 1859. — Originals of both in Mr. Edwin Tatham's
collection.
42. Document Y, pp. 41-50.
43. 'John Brown's Raid,' by Andrew Hunter, New Orleans Times-Democrat,
Sept. 5, 1887.
44. Gov. Wise's copy of original order of Nov. 24, 1859, in Department of
Archives and History, Richmond.
45. Document No. i, p. 51.
46. Ibid., pp. 52-60.
47. Document Y, p. 62.
48. Mr. Hunter, in New Orleans Times-Democrat, Sept. 5, 1887.
49. Document Y, p. 62.
50. See, for example, quotation from Charlestown Spirit of Jefferson, in Rich-
mond Enquirer of Dec. 13, 1859, and the Enquirer's editorial of that date; Balti-
more Exchange of Dec. 9; also Life of Henry A. Wise, by Barton H. Wise, p. 255.
Later, in a speech at the State Whig Convention of 1860, John Minor Botts ridi-
culed Gov. Wise and his "men in buckram," calling him the " unepauletted hero
of the Osawatomie war." "Whatever John Brown left undone against the peace
and prosperity of Virginia," declared Mr. Botts, "has been most effectually car-
ried out by his executor, the late Governor of Virginia." From Four Years Under
Marse Robert, by Major Robert Stiles, New York, 1904, p. 32.
650 NOTES
51. Document No. xxxi, Virginia State Papers, p. 6.
52. Life of Henry A. Wise, by Barton H. Wise, pp. 263-264.
53. Ibid., p. 405.
54. Major-Gen. William B. Taliaferro to Governor Wise, Charlestown, Dec.
2, 1859. — Original in possession of Mr. Edwin Tatham.
55. John Brown's Expedition, Reviewed in a Letter from Rev. Theodore
Parker, at Rome, to Francis Jackson, Boston. Boston, 1860 (pamphlet), p. 7.
56. Higginson to Sanborn, Worcester, Feb. 3, 1860. — Original in Higginson
Collection, Boston Public Library. This letter never was sent.
57. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, by Himself, p. 343 et seq. and p. 358;
see also Douglass's self -justification in his paper, the North Star, of Nov. 4, 1859.
58. Sanborn, Recollections of Seventy Years, vol. i, pp. 188 and 200.
59. Original in Higginson Collection.
60. Sanborn, Recollections of Seventy Years, vol. I, p. 188.
61. J. A. Andrew to G. L. Stearns, Oct. 21, 1859. — Original in G. L. Stearns
Papers.
62. Life of George L. Stearns, by F. P. Stearns, pp. 188 and 198.
63. John A. Andrew to Hon. William Pitt Fessenden, Boston, Dec. 12, 1859. —
Original in possession of the author.
64. See N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 16, 1859.
65. Recollections of Seventy Years, pp. 228-230; see also Sanborn's Life and
Letters of John Brown, pp. 438 and 447.
66. See a first draft of a letter dated Nov. 15, 1859, now in the Higginson Col-
lection, for an emphatic statement of Mr. Higginson's feeling at that time about
Dr. Howe's conduct.
67. See letter of Higginson to Sanborn, Worcester, Nov. 15, 1859; also letter
-of Sanborn to Higginson, Concord, Nov. 17, 1859. — Both originals in Higginson
Collection. "
68. S. G. Howe to T. W. Higginson, Boston, Feb. 16, 1860. — Original in Higgin-
son Collection.
69. Ibid.
70. See F. B. Sanborn's letter to the N. Y. Evening Post, dated March 15, 1878,
quoted in Recollections of Seventy Years, p. 230.
71. F. B. Sanborn to T. W. Higginson, Concord, Nov. 17, 1859. — Original in
Higginson Collection.
72. A first draft of this letter is also in the Higginson Collection.
73. Sanborn, Recollections of Seventy Years, p. 250. For the original of the
letter here cited, see F. B. Sanborn to T. W. Higginson, Concord, Nov. 19, 1859,
in Higginson Collection. In Recollections of Seventy Years, Mr. Sanborn recounts
circumstantially his experiences in this connection. Other related matter will be
found in the Higginson Collection, and also in Mr. Sanborn's letters to Charles
Sumner in the month of April, 1860. — Originals in Sumner Correspondence,
Library of Harvard University.
74. Sanborn, Recollections, pp. 206-207.
75. See letter of G. L. Stearns to S. G. Howe, Philadelphia, Feb. 27, 1860. —
Original in G. L. Stearns Papers.
76. Ibid.
77. Mason Report, p. 242.
78. Frothingham's Gerrit Smith (suppressed edition), p. 244.
79. See letter of Sanborn to Higginson of Nov. 17, 1859. — Original in Hig-
ginson Collection. Cf. Recollections of Seventy Years, p. 196; see also Sanborn's
Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 438, and Frothingham's Gerrit Smith, pp. 242-243.
NOTES 651
80. Testimony of John Brown, Jr., taken before a United States Commissioner
in the case of Gerrit Smith vs. the [Chicago] Tribune Company, at Sandusky,
Ohio, July 19, 1867, — Mr. Horace White's copy of this, in the handwriting of
the stenographer who took the notes, is in the author's possession; Sanborn's
Recollections, pp. 196-197.
81. Frothingham's Gerrit Smith (suppressed edition), p. 249.
82. Gerrit Smith's Manifesto, ibid., pp. 253-255.
83. Ibid., p. 241. The editor of the Chicago Tribune in 1867, Mr. Horace White,
a man of highest integrity and judicial temperament, when his paper was sued for
libel by Gerrit Smith for asserting that the latter feigned insanity in order to es-
cape the consequences of the raid, made an investigation of his own, taking the
testimonyof John Brown, Jr., and Frederick Douglass, and became fully convinced
that the assertion was true. The Tribune retracted its charge, but Mr. White
remains of the same opinion.
84. Original in possession of Miss Brown.
Well might the words written by another anti-slavery worker, when confined in
a Southern prison for attacking slavery, have been penned of John Brown at this
time:
"High walls and huge the BODY may confine,
And iron gates obstruct the prisoner's gaze,
And massive bolts may baffle his design,
And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways;
Yet scorns the immortal MIND this base control!
No chains can bind it, and no cell enclose:
Swifter than light, it flies from pole to pole,
And, in a flash, from earth to heaven it goes!"
From a sonnet, 'Freedom of the Mind,' by William Lloyd Garrison. — Life of
William Lloyd Garrison, vol. I, p. 179.
85. Col. William Fellows, a jail guard, in N. Y. Sun, Feb. 13, 1898.
86. The John Brown Invasion, pp. 47-48.
87. Original in Dreer Collection.
88. John Brown to "Wife & Children every one," Charlestown, Nov. 8, 1859. —
Original in possession of Mrs. Clara Endicott Debuchy, Boston, Mass.
89. From copy in possession of Miss Brown.
90. From the original in the possession of Theodore Parker Adams, Plymouth,
Mass.
91 . John Brown to Rev. Luther Humphrey. — Original in possession of Messrs.
D. R. and William G. Taylor, Cleveland, Ohio.
92. Original in Higginson Collection.
93. N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 5, 1859.
94. N. Y. Herald, Oct. 31, 1859.
95. From MS. of the late Rev. George V. Leech, who was present at this in-
terview. — Original in possession of Mrs. George V. Leech, Washington D. C.
96. Letter of Nov. 23, 1859; Red path's Life, p. 359.
97. See issue of Independent Democrat of Nov. 22, 1859.
98. Statement of Mrs. Russell, Jan. n, 1908, to K. Mayo.
99. See letter of Thomas Russell to C. A. Foster, Plymouth, Mass. — Original
in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society; Mr. Phillips's speech will be found
in the N. Y. Herald of Dec. 16, 1859.
100. T. W. Higginson to the family at North Elba, Worcester, Nov. 4, 1859. —
Original in possession of Miss Brown.
101. Mrs. Spring's MS. narrative is in the possession of the author.
652 NOTES
1 02. Statement of E. A. Brackett to K. Mayo, Winchester, Jan. 13, 1908; for
Hoyt's letter, and a Liberator editorial, relating to this bust, see the Liberator,
Jan. 6, 1860.
103. See letter of M. B. Lowry in the True American, Nov. 26, 1859; A Tribute
of Gratitude to the Hon. M. B. Lowry, Philadelphia, 1869 (pamphlet), p. 31 ; let-
ter of Gov. Wise to B. F. Sloan, Richmond, Dec. 10, 1859, — original in Dreer
Collection; letter of M. B. Lowry to Mrs. John Brown, Erie, Pa., Dec. 3, 1859,
— original in possession of Miss Brown.
104. See S. C. Pomeroy's letter in the Christian Cynosure of March 31, 1887.
105. Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 29, 1859, quoting correspondence of Baltimore
American; John Brown, by Henry Clay Pate.
106. Telegram of Col. Davis to Gov. Wise, Nov. 19, 1859, — original in pos-
session of Mr. Edwin Tatham; N. Y. Herald, Nov. 22, 23 and Dec. 3; N. Y. Trib-
une, Nov. 30; Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 25 and 29, 1859, citing correspondence
of Baltimore American.
107. The Two Rebellions, or Treason Unmasked, by a Virginian, Richmond,
1865, p. 97.
108. Richmond Daily Despatch, Nov. 24, 1859. "A member of a volunteer
company who visited Old Brown some days ago, was put under arrest and sent
home under an escort for having observed to Brown that he would like to have
the pleasure of putting a rope around his neck." — N. Y. Herald, Dec. 4, 1859.
109. See Cooper Union speech of Wendell Phillips, reported in N. Y. Herald,
Dec. 16, 1859.
no. Henry A. Wise, by Barton H. Wise, pp. 249-250.
in. Mason Report, pp. 67-68. A MS. copy of the letter, now in the Dreer
Collection, bears the following endorsement in Gov. Wise's hand: "This was
prepared from a promise made to me after a statement made in presence of Brig.
Genl. William C. Scott of Powhatan. H. A. WISE."
112. J. M. McKim to T. W. Higginson, Philadelphia, Nov. 8 and n, 1859, —
original in Higginson Collection; T. W. Higginson to Mrs. John Brown, Worces-
ter, Nov. 13, 1859, — original in possession of Miss Brown; J. M. McKim
to John Brown, Philadelphia, Nov. 22, 1859, — original in possession of Miss
Brown.
113. Mary D. Brown to the Hon. H. A. Wise, Philadelphia, Nov. 21, 1859, —
original in Dreer Collection; J. M. McKim to T. W. Higginson, Philadelphia,
Nov. 23, 1859, — original in Higginson Collection.
114. The originals of both letters of Gov. Wise to Mrs. Brown are in the Dreer
Collection.
115. See draft of telegram in Gov. Wise's hand, endorsed on telegram of Gen.
Taliaferro, Charlestown, Nov. 30, 1859. — Original in Dreer Collection.
116. Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 6, 1859, citing correspondence of Baltimore
American.
117. See letter of J. M. McKim, unsigned, dated Nov. 28, in National Anti-
Slavery Standard, Dec. 3, 1859.
1 1 8. For accounts of the meeting, see N. Y. Tribune and N. Y. Herald of Dec.
3 and 5, 1859.
119. Testimony of Andrew Hunter, Mason Report, p. 67; see also 'John
Brown's Raid,' by Andrew Hunter, New Orleans Times-Democrat, Sept. 5, 1887.
This will, dated Dec. 2, 1859, is recorded in Will Book No. 16, p. 143, of Jefferson
County Court Records.
120. Original in the George L. Stearns Papers, Medford, Mass.
121. Original in Dreer Collection.
NOTES 653
122. The passages marked are thus given in the N. Y. Illustrated News of
Dec. 10, 1859:
"Genesis xv, 13, 14; XL, n, 12, 13,55,56,57: L, 151021. Exodus I, all; 11,3,4, II
to 15; in, 7, 12 to 22; v, 13 to 23; vi, 4 and 5; xv, i to 13; xvm, 9 to n; xxi, 5
to 10, 15, 26 to 34; xxn, 21 to 24; xxin, I to 9. Leviticus xxiv, 13, 15, 18, 33
to 37; xxv, 8 to 17, 35 to 55; xxvi, 13, 35, 36. Deuteronomy I, 17; x, 17 to 19;
XV, 12 to 19; XVI, II to 14; XXI, 10 to 14; XXIII, 15 to 17; XXIV, 7, 14 to 18, 22.
Job xxiv, 17 to 19; xxix, 12 to 14; xxxi, 13 to 16, 38 to 40. Proverbs xiv, 20 to
22, 31; xxn, 16, 22, 23. Ecclesiastes iv, i, 2; in, 16, 17; v, 8, 9; vn, 7. Isaiah
ix, 13 to 17; xxxni, 15; XLII, 7; XLIX, 24 to 26; LII, 5; LIV, 14; LXI, 3 to 8; LXIV,
3 to 15; LXI, I, 2. Jeremiah n, 8, 34, 35; v, 13, 14, 25 to 31; vi, 13 to 17; vn, I
to 9; vin, 10 to 12; ix, i to 10, 23, 24; xn, i to 4. Matthew v, 16 to 44; vn,
16 to 19; ix, 13; xii, 7; xxin, 14, 23, 29 to 35; xxv, 44 to 46. Revelations xvin,
13." This Bible, originally presented to John H. Blessing, of Charlestown, is now
in the possession of Mr. Frank G. Logan, of Chicago.
123. The original of this letter, with its enclosures, is in the Dreer Collection.
124. Col. William Fellows, in N. Y. Sun of Feb. 13, 1898.
125. N. Y. Tribune and N. Y. Herald, Dec. 3, 1859; Dr. Starry's ' Recollections,'
in Semi- Weekly Tribune, May 27, 1884.
126. Col. William Fellows, in N. Y. Sun of Feb. 13, 1898.
127. Original in possession of Mr. Frank G. Logan, of Chicago.
128. General Turner Ashby was born in Rose Hill, Fauquier County, Virginia,
in 1824. A planter and a local politician, at the outbreak of the war he raised a
regiment, the Seventh Virginia Cavalry, and became its lieutenant-colonel. He
was killed in action near Harrisburg, Virginia, June 6, 1862.
129. See Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 29, 1859.
130. See letter of J. M. McKim to Mrs. John Brown, Philadelphia, Dec. 2,
1860. — Original in possession of Miss Brown.
131. Statement of Mr. Cleon Moore, Charlestown, March 20, 1908, to K.
Mayo; N. Y. Herald and N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 3, 1859.
132. Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson, by his widow, Mary Anna Jackson, Louis-
ville, 1895, p. 131.
133. For Col. Preston's detailed account of the execution, dated Charlestown
Dec. 2, 1859, see Life and Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, by Elizabeth Preston
Allan, Boston, 1903, pp. 111-117; see also Gen. T. J. Jackson's narrative, in the
volume cited above; Murat Halstead's recollections were published in the Inde-
pendent, Dec. i, 1898; Mr. Andrew Hunter's article in the New Orleans Times-
Democrat is important here. The author has also consulted, among other sources,
aside from local and metropolitan press accounts, the Military Order-Book of the
John Brown Raid, Department of Archives, Richmond; Doc. No. xxvni, Vir-
ginia State Papers; military orders in the possession of Mr. Braxton Davenport
Gibson, of Charlestown; the affidavit of John Avis (see Appendix), in possession
of Rev. Dr. Abner Hopkins, of Charlestown; and the statements of Col. Chew,
Mr. Cleon Moore and Mr. L. P. Starry, Charlestown, March, 1908, of Mr.
Charles P. Conklyn, Charlestown, April 9, 1909, of Mayor Philip A. Welford,
Richmond, April 21, 1909, and of Mr. Jacob Tutwiler, Harper's Ferry, April 14,
1909, all eye-witnesses of the execution, all to K. Mayo.
134. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 3, 1859.
135. Life of John A. Andrew, by Henry Greenleaf Pearson, Boston, 1904,
vol. i, p. 100.
654 NOTES
CHAPTER XV
YET SHALL HE LIVE
1. A Memoir of Hector Tyndale, Philadelphia, 1882, p. 8; letter of Major T. J.
Jackson to his wife, Charlestown, Dec. 2, 1859, cited in Memoirs of Stonewall
Jackson.
2. Order of Gen. William B. Taliaferro to Andrew E. Kennedy, N. Y. Herald,
Dec. 5, 1859; Order No. 55, Special Order-Book of the John Brown Raid, Depart-
ment of Archives and History, Richmond.
3. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 6, 1859; see also letter of Alfred M. Barbour, Superin-
tendent of the arsenal, to J. Miller McKim, Harper's Ferry, Dec. 8, 1859, —
original in J. M. McKim Collection, Cornell University.
4. Thomas Featherstonhaugh, 'Burial of John Brown's Followers,' New Eng-
land Magazine, April, 1901.
5. Broadside announcement, dated Ravenna, Friday morning, Dec. 2, 1859, in
Department of Archives and History, Richmond, Va.
6. See A Tribute of Respect Commemorative of the Worth and Sacrifice of John
Brown of Ossawatomie, Cleveland, 1859, a pamphlet containing an account of the
Cleveland meeting.
7. Historical Address delivered I2th of January, 1908, by Horace Howard
Furness, Philadelphia, 1908, p. 16; see also Life and Letters of Peter and Susan
Lesley, p. 379.
8. Liberator, Dec. 9, 1859.
9. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 5, 1859; Liberator, Dec. 9, 1859. Less than two months
later, at another meeting, Mr. Garrison said: "The sympathy and admiration
now so widely felt for him [John Brown] prove how marvelous has been the change
effected in public opinion during thirty years of moral agitation — a change so
great, indeed, that whereas, ten years since, there were thousands who could not
endure my lightest word of rebuke to the South, they can now easily swallow
John Brown whole, and his rifle into the bargain. In firing his gun, he has merely
told us what time of day it is. It is high noon, thank God!" — Liberator, Feb. 3,
i860.
10. Herald, Nov. 20, 1859; Liberator, Nov. 25, 1859; The John Brown Invasion,
pp. 96-110.
11. Horace Howard Furness, Historical Address of Jan. 12, 1908, p. 18.
12. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 5, 1859.
13. This story of the trip to North Elba with the body is drawn from the N. Y.
Herald, Dec. Sand 6; The John Brown Invasion, pp. 70-79; and the letter of D.
Turner to Dr. Joshua Young, Salem, Jan. 29, 1899, — original in possession of
Dr. Young's family, Winchester, Mass.
14. N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 12, 1859; The John Brown Invasion, pp. 72-79; 'The
Funeral of John Brown,' by Rev. Joshua Young, New England Magazine, April,
1904.
15. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 1859.
1 6. Boston Courier Report of the Union Meeting in Faneuil Hall, Thursday,
Dec. 8, 1859; Boston, 1859 (pamphlet).
17. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 20, 1859.
1 8. Rise and Progress of the Bloody Outbreak at Harper's Ferry published
by the New York Democratic Vigilant Association, New York, 1859 (pam-
phlet), p. 4.
NOTES 655
' 19. Cabot's Emerson, p. 597; Life of Henry W. Longfellow, by Samuel Long-
fellow, vol. 2, p. 347.
20. Lecture delivered in Worcester, Mass., Dec. 12, reported in Ashtabula,
Ohio, Sentinel, Dec. 15, 1859.
21. Letter from Theodore Parker at Rome to Francis Jackson, Boston, Nov.
24, 1859; John W. Chadwick's Theodore Parker, Boston, 1900, p. 366.
22. Letter of Dec. 4, 1859, to Dr. Henry Drisler, Life and Letters of Francis
Lieber, edited by Thomas S. Perry, Boston, 1882, pp. 307-308.
23. As reported at the time by Dr. Wilder; see Topeka, Kansas, Capital, October,
25, 1908.
24. New York Herald, Feb. 28, 1860.
25. Works of William H. Seward, Boston, 1884, vol. 4, p. 636.
26. Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 1st session, vol. 50, pp. 553-554.
27. Ibid., p. 61.
28. Delivered Jan. 24, 1860. Cited in Pleasant A. Stovall's Robert Toombs,
New York, 1892, pp. 169-174.
29. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 10, 1859.
30. Liberator, Dec. 16, 1859.
31. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 15, 1859.
32. Doc. No. xxxi ; report of the Joint Committee of the General Assembly
of Virginia on the Harper's Ferry Outrages, Jan. 26, 1860.
33. Virginia State Papers, Doc. No. LVIII.
34. Liberator, Dec. 16, 1859.
35. Benjamin F. Shambaugh, Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of
Iowa, Iowa City, 1903, vol. 2, pp. 240-241 ; for the Minority Protest, see Senate
and House Journal of the 8th General Assembly of Iowa.
36. Quoted in the Liberator, Dec. 16, 1859.
37. Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 17, 1860.
38. Nov. 28, 1859.
39. Dec. 2, 1859.
40. Weekly Portage Sentinel, Dec. 7, 1859.
41. Dec. 3 and 7, 1859.
42. John Brown, par Victor Hugo, Paris, 1861.
43. Hon. Daniel W. Voorhees. . . . Speech delivered at Charlestown, Virginia,
Nov. 8, 1859. . . . Tallahassee, Fla. 1860 (pamphlet).
44. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 16, 1859.
45. The Coppoc letter is in the N. Y. Tribune of Dec. 12, 1859. See also letter
of Thomas Winn, Springdale, Iowa, 1st mo. 13, 1860, to Mary A. Brown, —
original in possession of Miss Brown; statement of Mrs. Annie Brown Adams,
Petrolia, Oct. 2 and 3, 1908.
46. Charles Lenhart, an lowan, a printer by trade, had led a company of four-
teen men in numerous attacks upon the Border Ruffians, making a name for him-
self as a Free State leader second only to those of Capt. Montgomery and John
Brown. He easily found employment in a printing-office in Charlestown, and,
professing profound hatred for all Abolitionists, was readily enlisted as a guard.
He remained in Charlestown until after the execution of Stevens and Hazlett,
when he returned to Kansas. He died in March, 1863, when a first lieutenant
in Col. William A. Phillips's Third Regiment of the Indian Brigade. See letter
to Leavenworth, Kansas, Conservative, May, 1863, by Richard J. Hinton; also
Hinton's John Brown, pp. 396-397.
47. Confession of Cook and Coppoc on the morning of their execution, Hinton,
pp. 402-403; see also N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 17, 1859.
656 NOTES
48. Richman's John Brown, p. 49.
49. Confession of Cook and Coppoc.
50. Statement of Annie Brown Adams, Petrolia, Oct. 2, 1908; an important
letter in the extradition proceedings in the case of Hazlett is in the J. Miller
McKim Collection, Cornell University Library, signed "C" and dated Carlisle,
Nov. I, 1859; see also John Brown's Raid, apamphlet by W. J. Shearer, compris-
ing a lecture delivered Jan. 17, 1905, at Carlisle, Pa.
51. MS. narrative of Jennie Dunbar Garcelon, October, 1908, in possession of
the author; Miss Dunbar's letter to Redpath, Cherry Valley, Ohio, May 7, 1860,
— copy in possession of the author; Mrs. Spring's MS. narrative, in possession of
the author; see also MS. material in the Kansas Historical Society.
52. Hinton to Higginson, Dec. 13, 1859. — Original in Higginson Collection.
53. T. W. Higginson to his wife, Feb. 17, 1860. — Original in Higginson Col-
lection.
54. Le Barnes to Higginson, Boston, Jan. n, 1860. — Original in Higginson
Collection.
55. See Reminiscences of James Hanway in Topeka Commonwealth, Jan. 31,
1878, in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society, and Hinton's letter of April
29, 1894, appended thereto; see also Hinton's John Brown, p. 521.
56. James Montgomery (Henry Martin) to T. W. Higginson (Rev. Theo.
Brown), — original in T. W. Higginson Collection; Kansas Historical Society
Collections, vol. 8, p. 215.
57. T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 230; letter of Annie Brown, North
Elba, Jan. 1 1, 1860, to T. W. Higginson. — Original in Higginson Collection.
58. W. W. Thayer, Indianapolis, Nov. 15, 1894, to R. J. Hinton, — original in
Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society; see also interview of Thayer in Weekly
Indiana State Journal, Indianapolis, Aug. 23, 1893; also Kansas Historical Society
Collections, vol. 8, p. 215, and Hinton, p. 526, and Hinton Collections.
59. T. W. Higginson's pencilled memorandum of conversation with C. P. Tidd(
Feb. 10, 1860, and letter of C. P. Tidd to T. W. Higginson, Jan. 20, 1860. —
Originals in Higginson Collection.
60. For the negotiations with the Germans, see Hinton Papers, in Kansas
Historical Society, published in vol. 8 of the Collections ; also letter of Hinton to
Higginson, Feb. 18, 1860, in Higginson Collection; Hinton's John Brown, p. 525.
61. Higginson in Worcester to Le Barnes in New York, Feb. 15 and 16, 1860.
— Original in Hinton Papers, Kansas Historical Society; Hinton, p. 525.
62. O. E. Morse, 'Attempted Rescue of John Brown,' in Kansas Historical
Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 215. Like Hanway, Col. D. R. Anthony, J. A. Pike
and others, Mr. Morse proves the fallibility of the human mind by insisting that
the Kansans under Montgomery went East to rescue John Brown, not Stevens
and Hazlett. The weight of evidence is clearly on the other side, because of R. J .
Hinton's denial of Hanway's statement, and the contemporary letters written by
Col. Higginson from Harrisburg to his wife, the preservation of which was a most
valuable service to history on Col. Higginson's part. The testimony of W. W.
Thayer is also on the side of the later expedition. Curiously enough, J. W.
Le Barnes, who, with Hinton and Montgomery, had more to do with the efforts
to save Stevens and Hazlett than any one else, and many of whose contemporary
letters telling of the plot are preserved, assured Hinton on June 30, 1894, "I
never knew anything about the Stevens and Hazlett plan." These lapses of
memory will suggest to the reader the difficulty of reconciling the recollections of
men contemporary with Brown which has repeatedly confronted the writer.
63. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, pp. 215-216.
NOTES 657
64. See original telegram in Higginson Collection.
65. See original telegram in Higginson Collection.
66. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, pp. 216, 219, 222, 225.
67. Hinton, p. 524; T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 232.
68. Original memorandum in Higginson Collection.
69. T. W. Higginson to his wife, Feb. 17, 1860. — Original in Higginson Col-
lection.
70. T. W. Higginson to J. W. Le Barnes, Feb. 17, 1860. — Original in Hinton
Papers, Kansas Historical Society.
71. T. W. Higginson to his wife, Harrisburg, Feb. 19, 1860. — Original in Higgin-
son Collection.
72. T. W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 233; Hinton, pp. 501-502; O. E.
Morse, in Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 218.
73. Hinton, p. 524.
74. John Letcher to Andrew Hunter, Richmond, Va., Jan. 26, 1860. — Original
in Department of Archives and History, Richmond.
75. Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 234; W. W. Thayer, in Indianapolis, Ind., State
Journal, Aug. 23, 1893.
76. Thayer, as above.
77. Kansas Historical Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 220; Cheerful Yesterdays,
p. 231; R. J. Hinton, The Rebel Invasion of Missouri and Kansas, Chicago, 1865,
pp. 65-66.
78. Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 234.
79. Hinton, John Brown and His Men, p. 526; Hazlett to Mrs. Rebecca Spring,
March 15, 1860. — Original in possession of the author.
80. Aside from that in correlated biographies and in the contemporary press,
interesting material regarding the Hyatt case will be found in the letters of John
A. Andrew, Horace Greeley, G. L. Stearns, S. E. Sewall and others, to Charles
Sumner, in the Sumner Correspondence, Library of Harvard University; see also
the letter and scrap-book of Thaddeus Hyatt, kept during his imprisonment and
now in possession of his son, Dr. Thaddeus Hyatt, of Brooklyn.
81. June 22, 1860.
82. An admirable outline of the contest for the Speakership is to be found in
Rhodes, vol. 2, pp. 418-426.
83. Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, ist session, vol. 50, pp. 29-30.
84. Ibid., p. 124.
85. Quoted in the Liberator, Dec. 23, 1859. On Nov. 20, 1859, the N. Y.
Herald printed the following from its Richmond correspondent: "Every seventy-
five men out of a hundred in this community are in favor of disunion at this
moment. I have not spoken to a man for four weeks past upon that subject who
was not ready to take grounds in favor of a Southern confederacy. A hint from
Governor Wise favoring such a project would be followed by a substantial decla-
ration in approval of it in Virginia and the whole South."
86. ' The John Brown Song,' by J. H. Jenkins, N. Y. EveningPost, Nov. 27, 1909.
87. Johnston and Browne, Life of Alexander H. Stephens, Philadelphia, 1878,
P- 367-
88. Congressional Globe, vol. 54, Part I, 36th Congress, 2d session, p. 12.
89. George Hoadley to Salmon P. Chase, Cincinnati, Dec. 3, 1859. — Original
in Salmon P. Chase Correspondence, MSS. Department, Library of Congress.
90. " L ' Assassinat de la Delivrance par la Liberte" John Brown, par Victor
Hugo, Paris, 1861, p. 5.
APPENDIX
SAMBO'S MISTAKES
THE original document, as written by John Brown, is preserved
in the Maryland Historical Society and reads thus: —
CHAP IST
Sambo's Mistakes For the Rams Horn
Mess Editors Notwithstanding I may have committed a few mis-
takes in the course of a long life like others of my colored brethren
yet you will perceive at a glance that I have always been remarkable
for a seasonable discovery of my errors and quick perception of the
true course. I propose to give you a few illustrations in this and the
following chapters. For instance when I was a boy I learned to read
but instead of giving my attention to sacred & profane history by
which I might have become acquainted with the true character of
God & of man learned the true course for individuals, societies, &
nations to pursue stored my mind with an endless variety of rational
and practical ideas, profited by the experience of millions of others
of all ages, fitted myself for the most important stations in life, &
fortified my mind with the best & wisest resolutions, & noblest sen-
timents, & motives, I have spent my whole life devouring silly
novels & other miserable trash such as most of newspapers of the
day & other popular writings are filled with, thereby unfitting myself
for the realities of life & acquiring a taste for nonsense & low wit, so
that I have no rellish for sober truth, useful knowledge or practical
wisdom. By this means I have passed through life without proffit to
myself or others, a mere blank on which nothing worth peruseing is
written. But I can see in a twink where I missed it. Another error
into which I fell in early life was the notion that chewing & smoking
tobacco would make a man of me but little inferior to some of the
whites. The money I spent in this way would with the interest of it
have enabled me to have relieved a great many sufferers supplyed
me with a well selected interesting library, & pa[i]d for a good farm
for the support & comfort of my old age; whereas I have now
neith[er] books, clothing, the satisfaction of having benefited others
nor wher to lay my hoary head. But I can see in a moment where I
missed it. Another of the few errors of my life is that I have joined
the Free Masons Odd Fellows Sons of Temperance, & a score of
other secret societies instead of seeking the company of intelligent
660 APPENDIX
wise & good men from whom I might have learned much that would
be interesting, instructive, & useful & have in that way squandered
a great amount of most precious time, & money enough sometimes
in a single year which if I had then put the same out on interest and
kept it so would have kept me always above board given me char-
acter, & influence amongst men, or have enabled me to pursue some
respectable calling, so that I might employ others to their benefit &
improvement, but as it is I have always been poor, in debt, & now
obliged to travel about in search of employment as a hostler shoe-
black & fiddler. But I retain all my quickness of perception I can see
readily where I missed it.
CHAP 2D
Sambos Mistakes.
Another error of my riper years has been that when any meeting
of colored people has been called in order to consider of any impor-
tant matter of general interest I have been so eager to display my
spouting talents & so tenacious of some trifling theory or other that
I have adopted that I have generally lost all sight of the business in
hand consumed the time disputing about things of no moment &
thereby defeated entirely many important measures calculated to
promote the general welfare ; but I am happy to say I can see in a
minute where I missed it. Another small error of my life (for I never
committed great blunders) has been that I never would (for the sake
of union in the furtherance of the most vital interests of our race)
yield any minor point of difference. In this way I have always had
to act with but a few, or more frequently alone & could accomplish
nothing worth living for, but I have one comfort, I can see in a
minute where I missed it. Another little fault which I have com-
mitted is that if in anything another man has failed of coming up to
my standard, notwithstanding he might possess many of the most
valuable traits & be most admirably adapted to fill some one impor-
tant post, I would reject him entirely, injure his influence, oppose
his measures, and even glory in his defeats while his intentions were
good, & his plans well laid. But I have the great satisfaction of being
able to say without fear of contradiction that I can see verry quick
where / missed it.
To be continued
CHAP 30
Sambos Mistakes.
Another small mistake which I have made is that I could never
bring myself to practise any present self denial although my theories
have been excellent. For instance I have bought expensive gay
clothing, nice Canes, Watches, Safety Chains, Finger-rings, Breast
Pins & many other things of a like nature, thinking I might by that
means distinguish myself from the vulgar, as some of the better
class of whites do. I have always been of the foremost in getting up
APPENDIX 661
expensive parties, & running after fashionable amusements, and have
indulged my appetite freely whenever I had the means (& even with
borro[w]ed means) have patronized the dealers in Nuts, Candy, etc.,
freely & have sometimes bought good suppers & was always a regu-
lar customer at Livery stables. By these & many other means I have
been unable to benefit my suffering Brethren, & am now but poorly
able to keep my own Soul & boddy together ; but do not think me
thoughtless or dull of apprehention, for I can see at once where I
missed it.
Another trifling error of my life has been that I have always ex-
pected to secure the favour of the whites by tamely submitting to
every species of indignity contempt & wrong, insted of nobly resist-
ing their brutual aggressions from principle & taking my place as a
man & assuming the responsibilities of a man a citizen, a husband, a
father, a brother, a neighbour, a friend as God required of every one
(if his neighbour will allow him to do it ;) but I find that I get for all
my submission about the same reward that the Southern Slaveo-
crats render to the Dough-faced Statesmen of the North for being
bribed & browbeat, & fooled & cheated, as the Whigs & Democrats
love to be, & think themselves highly honored if they may be al-
lowed to lick up the spittle of a Southerner. I say I get the same
reward. But I am uncomm[on] quick sighted I can see in a minute
where I missed it. Another little blunder which I made is, that
while I have always been a most zealous Abolitionist I have been
constantly at war with my friends about certain religious tenets. I
was first a Presbyterian, but I could never think of acting with my
Quaker friends for they were the rankest heretiks & the Baptists
would be in the water, & the Methodists denied the doctrine of
Election, etc. & later years since becoming enlightened by Garrison,
Abby Kelley and other really benevolent persons I have been spend-
ing all my force on my friends who love the Sabbath, & have felt
that all was at stake on that point just as it has proved to be of late
in France in the abolition of Slavery in their colonies. Now I cannot
doubt, Mess Editors, notwithstanding I have been unsuccessful,
that you will allow me full credit for my peculiar quick-sightedness.
I can see in one second where I missed it.
B
JOHN BROWN'S COVENANT FOR THE ENLISTMENT OF HIS VOLUNTEER-
REGULAR COMPANY. August, 1856
KANSAS TERRITORY, A. D. 1856
I. The Covenant.
We whose names are found on these & the next following pages do
hereby enlist ourselves to serve in the Free State cause under John
662 APPENDIX
Brown as commander during the full period of time affixed to our
names respectively: and we severally pledge our word and sacred
honor to said Commander ; and to each other, that during the time
for which we have enlisted we will faithfully and punctually perform
our duty (in such capacity or place as may be assigned to us by a
Majority of all the votes of those associated with us or of the com-
panies to which we may belong as the case may be) as a regular vol-
unteer force for the maintenance of the rights and liberties of the
Free State citizens of Kansas : and we further agree that as individ-
uals we will conform to the by Laws of this association & that we will
insist on their regular and punctual enforcement as a first and last
duty ; and in short that we will observe and maintain a strict an[d]
thorough military discipline at all times untill our term of service
expires.
Names, date of enlistment, and term of service on next Pages.
Term of service omitted for want of room (principally for the War.)
2. Names and date of enlistment.
Aug. 22. Wm. Partridge (imprisoned), John Salathiel, S. Z. Brown,
John Goodell, L. F. Parsons, N. B. Phelps, Wm. B. Harris.
Aug. 23. Jason Brown (son of commander; imprisoned.)
Aug. 24. J. Benjamin (imprisoned)
Aug. 25. Cyrus Tator, R. Reynolds (imprisoned), Noah Fraze (ist
Lieut.), Wm. Miller, John P. Glenn, Wm. Quick, M. D. Lane,
Amos Alderman, August Bondie, Charles Kaiser (murdered Aug.
30), Freeman Austin (aged 57 years), Samuel Hauser, John W.
Foy, Jas. H. Holmes (Capt).
Aug. 26. Geo. Partridge (killed Aug. 30), Wm. A. Sears.
Aug. 27. S. H. Wright.
Aug. 29. B. Darrach (Surgeon), Saml. Farrar.
Sept. 8. Timothy Kelley, Jas. Andrews.
.Sept. 9. W. H. Leman, Charles Oliver, D. H. Hurd.
Sept. 15. Wm. F. Harris.
Sept. 16. Saml. Geer (Commissary).
3. Bylaws of the Free-State regular Volunteers of Kansas enlisted
under the command of John Brown.
Article 1st. Those who agree to be governed by the following ar-
ticles & whose names are appended will be known as the Kansas
regulars.
Article 2d. Every officer connected with this organization (except
the Commander already named) shall be elected by a majority of
the members if above a Captain ; & if a Captain or under a Cap-
tain, by a majority of the company to which they belong.
Article 3d. All vacancies shall be filled by vote of the majority of
members; or companies as the case may be: & all members shall
be alike eligible to the highest office.
APPENDIX 663
Article 4th. All trials of officers or of privates for misconduct shall
be by a jury of Twelve chosen by a majority of members of com-
pany or companies as the case may be. each Company shall try
its own members.
Article 5th. All valuable property taken by honorable warfare
from the enemy, shall be held as the property of the whole com-
pany or companies as the case may be equally, without distinc-
tion ; to be used for the common benefit, or be placed in the hands
of responsible agents for sale : the proceeds to be divided as nearly
equally amongst the company or companies capturing it as may
be. except that no person shall be entitled to any dividend from
property taken * before he entered the service; and any person
guilty of desertion, or convicted of gross violations of his obliga-
tions to those with whom he should act, whether officer or private,
shall forfeit his interest in all dividends made after such miscon-
duct has occurred.
Article 6th. All property captured shall be delivered to the re-
ceiver of the force or company, as the case may be ; whose duty it
shall be to make a full inventory of the same (assisted by such
person, or persons as may be chosen for that purpose), a copy of
which shall be made into the books of this organization and held
subject to examination by any member, on all suitable occasions.
Article yth. The Receiver shall give his receipts in a book for that
purpose for all moneys & other property of the Regulars placed in
his hands and keep an inventory of the same and make copy as
provided in Article VI.
Article 8th. Captured articles when used for the benefit of the mem-
bers shall be receipted for by the Commissary the same as moneyes
placed in his hands, the receivers to hold said receipts.
Article 9th. A disorderly retreat shall not be suffered at any time
and every officer and private, be, and is by this article fully em-
powered to prevent the same by force if need be, & any attempt
at leaving the ground be and during a fight is hereby declared
disorderly, unless the consent or direction of the officer then in
command have authorized the same.
Article loth. A disorderly attack or charge shall not be suffered at
any time.
Article nth. When in camp a thorough watch both regular and
picket shall be maintained both by day and by night, and visitors
shall not be suffered to pass or repass without leave from the
Captain of the Guard and under common or ordinary circum-
stances it is expected that the Officers will cheerfully share this
service with the privates for examples sake.
Article I2th. Keeping up fires or lights after dark, or firing of guns
pistols or caps, or boisterous talking while in camp shall not be
allowed except for fires and lights when unavoidable.
* As far as the word "taken," the document is written in John Brown's hand,
as is Article 23; the remainder is in another chirography.
664 APPENDIX
Article I3th. When in camp neither officers nor privates shall be
allowed to leave without consent of the Officer then in command.
Article I4th. All uncivil, ungentlemanly, profane, vulgar talk or
conversation shall be discountenanced.
Article I5th. All acts of petty theft needless waste of property of
the members or of citizens is hereby declared disorderly, together
with all uncivil and unkind treatment of citizens or of prisoners.
Article i6th. In all cases of capturing property, a sufficient number
of men shall be detailed to take charge of the same, all others
shall keep in their position.
Article lyth. It shall at all times be the duty of the Quarter master
to select ground for encampment subject however to the appro-
bation of the commanding officer.
Article i8th. The Commissary shall give receipts in a book for
that purpose, for all moneys provisions, and stores put into his
hands.
Article igth. The Officers of Companies shall see that the arms of
the same are in constant good order and a neglect of this duty shall
be deemed disorderly.
Article 2Oth. No person after having first surrendered himself a
prisoner shall be put to death or subjected to corporeal punish-
ment, without first having had the benefit of an impartial trial.
Article 2ist. A wagon master and an assistant shall be chosen for
each Company whose duty it shall be to take a general oversight
and care of the teams, wagons, harness and all other articles of
property pertaining thereto: and who shall both be exempt from
serving on guard.
Article 22d. The ordinary use, or introduction into the camp of
any intoxicating liquors, as a beverage: is hereby declared dis-
orderly.
Article 23d. A majority of Two thirds of all the Members may at
any time alter or amend the foregoing articles.
Most of John Brown's recruits had served with the Lawrence
Stubbs, among them Luke F. Parsons. W. H. Leeman, whose name
appears on the list, stuck to his new commander until his death at
Harper's Ferry.
JOHN BROWN'S REQUISITION UPON THE NATIONAL KANSAS COM-
MITTEE FOR AN OUTFIT FOR HIS PROPOSED COMPANY. January, 1857
"Memorandum of articles wanted as an Outfit for Fifty Volun-
teers to serve under my direction during the Kansas war : or for such
specified time as they may each enlist for: together with estimated
cost of same delivered in Lawrence or Topeka." — John Brown
MSS. Original in Kansas Historical Society.
APPENDIX 665
2 substantial (but not heavy) baggage Waggons
with good covers $200.00
4 good serviceable waggon Horses 400.
2 sets strong plain Harness 50.
IOO good Heavy Blankets say @ 2. 012.50 ..... 200.
8 Substantial larg sized Tents ....... 100.
8 large Camp Kettles »I2.
50 Tin Basons 5.
50 Iron Spoons :i 2.
4 plain strong Saddles & Bridles 80.
4 Picket Ropes & Pins 3.
8 Wooden Pails 2.
8 Axes & Helves 12.
8 Frying Pans (large size) 8.
8 Large sized Coffee Pots 10.
8 do do Spiders or bake Ovens 10.
8 do do Tin Pans 6.
12 Spades & Shovels 18.
6 Mattocks 6.
2 Weeks provisions for Men & Horses .... 150.
Fund for Horse hire & feed, loss & damage of same 500.
$1774.
D
JOHN BROWN'S PEACE AGREEMENT
Peace Agreement drafted by John Brown and presented to the
meeting at Sugar Mound, Linn County, Kansas, by Captain Mont-
gomery for John Brown. — From the Lawrence Republican, Decem-
ber 16, 1858.
Agreement.
The citizens of Linn County, assembled in mass meeting at
Mound City, being greatly desirous of securing a permanent peace
to the people of the Territory generally, and to those along the
border of Missouri in particular, have this day entered into the fol-
lowing agreement and understanding, for our future guidance and
action, viz:
Article i. All criminal processes, against any and all Free-State
men, for any action of theirs previous to this date, growing out of
difficulties heretofore existing between the Free-State and Pro-
Slavery parties, shall be forever discontinued and quashed.
Art. 2. All Free-State men held in confinement for any charges
against them, on account of former difficulties, between the Free
State and Pro-Slavery parties, to be immediately released and
discharged.
666 APPENDIX
Art. 3. All Pro-Slavery men, known to have been actively and
criminally engaged in the former political difficulties of the Terri-
tory, and who have been forcibly expelled, shall be compelled to
remain away, as a punishment for their oft repeated and aggravated
crimes.
Art. 4. No troops, marshal or other officers of the General Gov-
ernment, shall be either sent or called in to enforce or serve criminal
processes against any Free-State man or men, on account of troubles
heretofore existing, for any act prior to this date.
Art. 5. All parties shall hereafter in good faith discontinue, and
thoroughly discountenance acts of robbery, theft or violence against
others, on account of their political differences.
The following recommendation was unanimously agreed to by
the meeting: "That we earnestly recommend that all those who
have recently taken money or other property from peaceable citizens
within this county, immediately restore the same to their property
owners." The meeting then adjourned peaceably.
A variation of this agreement less offensive to the Pro-Slavery
men than Articles 2 and 3 of the above form is also preserved ; it was
drawn late in December in order to obtain the signatures of men of
all parties. It begins: "We the citizens of Kansas and Missouri,"
and bears date of January I. This will be found in William Hutchin-
son's letter in the New York Times of January 18, 1859, from Maple-
ton, Kansas, January 3.
E
SHUBEL MORGAN'S COMPANY
' Articles of Agreement of Shubel Morgan's Company, drawn up in
July, 1858, in Kagi's writing. — Original in Kansas Historical Society.
We the undersigned, members of Shubel Morgan's Company,
hereby agree to be governed by the following Rules : —
I. A gentlemanly and respectful deportment shall at all times
and places be maintained toward all persons; and all profane or
indecent language shall be avoided in all cases.
II. No intoxicating drinks shall be used as a beverage by any
member, or be suffered in camp for such purpose.
in. No member shall leave camp without leave of the com-
mander, (t ;
iv. All property captured in any manner shall be subjected to
an equal distribution among the members.
v. All acts of petty or other thefts shall be promptly and properly
punished, and restitution made as far as possible.
vi. All members shall, so far as able, contribute equally to all
necessary labor in or out of camp.
APPENDIX
667
vn. All prisoners who shall properly demean themselves shall be
treated with kindness and respect, and shall be punished for crime
only after trial and conviction, being allowed a hearing in defence.
vni. Implicit obedience shall be yielded to all proper orders of
the commander or other superior officers. ^
ix. All arms, ammunition, etc., not strictly private property,
shall ever be held subject to, and delivered up on, the order of the
commander.
Names
Shubel Morgan
C. P. Tidd
J. H. Kagi
A. Wattles
Saml Stevenson
J. Montgomery
T. Homyer
Simon Snyder
E. W. Snyder
Elias J. Snyder
John H. Snyder
Adam Bishop
William Hairgrove
John Mikel
Wm. Partridge
Date, 1858
July 12
14
15
JOHN BROWN S WILLS
While in the hospitable home of Judge Thomas Russell, "near
Boston, on April 13, 1858, John Brown signed a will, that he might
duly protect those who had placed funds and other property in
his possession for particular purposes. It is still preserved in the
G. L. Stearns papers, and reads thus:
"I, John Brown of North Elba, New York, intending to visit
Kansas, and knowing the uncertainty of life, make my last will as
follows: I give and bequeath all trust funds and personal property
for the aid of the Free-State cause in Kansas now in my hands or in
the hands of W. H. D. Callender of Hartford, Conn, to George L.
Stearns of Medford, Mass., Samuel Cabot, Jr. of Boston, Mass, and
William H Russell of New Haven, Conn., to them and the survivor
or survivors, and their assigns forever, in trust that they will ad-
minister said funds and other property including all now collected
by me or in my behalf, for the aid of the free-state cause in Kansas,
leaving the manner of so doing entirely to their discretion."
668 APPENDIX
Another will dated one day later, is also extant, in the papers of
Judge Thomas Russell, Jamaica Plain, Mass. This is signed by but
one witness, the one above cited having three. While differently
phrased, the documents are alike in substance.
Another will, written in prison on the day before his execution,
was as follows :
CHARLESTOWN, JEFFERSON Co, VA. ist December 1859
I give to my Son John Brown Jr my Surveyors Compass & other
surveyors articles if found also my old Granite Monument now at
North Elba, N. Y. to receive upon its Two sides a further inscrip-
tion as I will hereafter direct. Said Stone monument however to
remain at North Elba, so long as any of my children or my wife: may
remain there ; as residents.
I give to my Son Jason Brown my Silver Watch with my name
egraved on iner case.
I give to my Son Owen Brown my double Spry or opera Glass
& my Rifle Gun (if found) presented to me at Worcester Mass
It is Globe sighted & new. I give also to the same Son Fifty Dollars
in cash to be paid him from the proceeds of my Fathers Estate in
consideration of his terible sufferings in Kansas : & his cripled condi-
tion from his childhood.
I give to my Son Salmon Brown Fifty Dollars in cash to be paid
him from my Fathers Estate, as an offset to the first Two cases
above named.
I give to my Daughter Ruth Thompson my large old Bible con-
taining family record.
I give each of my sons and to each of my other daughters in Law ;
as good a coppy of the Bible as can be purchased at some Book store
in New York or Boston at a cost of Five Dollars each ; in Cash to be
paid out of the proceeds of my Fathers Estate.
I give to each of my Grand Children that may be living when my
Fathers Estate is settled : as good a copy of the Bible as can be pur-
chased (as above) at a cost of $3, Three Dollars each
All the Bibles to be purchased at one and the same time for Cash
on best terms.
I desire to have $50, Fifty Dollars each paid out of the final pro-
ceeds of my Fathers Estate : to the following named persons. To wit
to Allen Hammond, Esqr of Rockville Tolland Co, Connecticut, or
to George Kellogg Esqr: former Agent of the New England Com-
pany at that place: for the use; & benefit of that Company. Also Fifty
Dollars to Silas Havens formerly of Irvinsburg, Summit Co, Ohio,
if he can be found. Also Fifty Dollars to a man formerly of Stark Co,
Ohio, at Canton who sued my Father in his lifetime Through Judge
Humphrey & Mr. Upson of Akron to be paid by J. R. Brown to
the man in person if can be found His name I cannot remember
My father made a compromise with the man by turning out House
& Lot at Monroeville. I desire that any remaining balance that may
become my due from my Fathers Estate may be paid in equal
APPENDIX 669
amounts to my Wife & to each of my Children ; & to the Widows of
Watson & Oliver Brown by my brother Jeremiah R. Brown of Hud-
son Ohio JOHN BROWN*
Witnes
JOHN Avis
Endorsed,
" Copy to be sent to Jeremiah R. Brown."
THE WILL OF DECEMBER 2, 1859
[Will Book No. 16, Page 143, Jefferson Co. West Virginia Court Records,
Charlestown.]
John Brown's Witt & Codicil
I, John Brown, a prisoner now in the prison of Charlestown,
Jefferson County, Virginia, do hereby make and ordain this as my
true last Will and Testament. I will and direct that all my property,
being personal property, which is scattered about in the States of
Virginia and Maryland, should be carefully gathered up by my
Executor hereinafter appointed and disposed of to the best advan-
tage, and the proceeds thereof paid over to my beloved wife, Mary
A. Brown. Many of these articles are not of a war like character,
and I trust as to such and all other property that I may be entitled
to that my rights and the rights of my family may be respected:
And lastly, I hereby appoint Sheriff James W. Campbell, Executor
of this my true last Will, hereby revoking all others.
Witness my hand and seal this and day of December 1859
JOHN BROWN (Seal)
Signed, sealed and declared to be
the true last Will of John
Brown, in our presence, who
attested the same at his request,
in his presence and in the presence of
each other.
JOHN Avis
ANDREW HUNTER
Codicil. I wish my friends, James W. Campbell, Sheriff, and John
Avis, Jailer, as a return for their kindness, each to have a Sharp-rifle
of those belonging to me, or if no rifle can be had, then each a pistol.
Witness my hand and seal this 2nd day of December 1859
JOHN BROWN (Seal)
Signed, sealed and declared to be
a codicil to the last Will and testament
of John Brown, in our presence, who attested
the same at his request in his presence, and
in the presence of each other.
ANDREW HUNTER,
JOHN Avis.
* Every word of this, except Avis's signature, in John Brown's own hand.
670 APPENDIX
VIRGINIA, JEFFERSON COUNTY, Scr.; In the County Court, Deer. Term, 1859.
At a Court held for the said County on the igth day of December, 1859, the
foregoing last Will and Testament and Codicil thereto, of John Brown deceased,
approved in open Court by the oaths of John Avis, and Andrew Hunter sub-
scribing witnesses thereto, and ordered to be recorded.
Teste T. A. MOORE, Clerk.
JOHN AVIS'S AFFIDAVIT AS TO HIS ASSOCIATION WITH JOHN BROWN
(From Original owned by Rev. Abner C. Hopkins, D. D., Charlestown, W. Va.)
I, John Avis, a Justice of the Peace of the County of Jefferson,
State of West Virginia, under oath do solemnly declare that I was
Deputy Sheriff and Jailor of Jefferson County, Virginia, in 1859
during the whole time that Captain John Brown was in prison & on
trial for his conduct in what is familiarly known as the Harper's
Ferry Raid ; that I was with him daily during the whole period ; that
the personal relations between him and me were of the most pleasant
character; that Sheriff James W. Campbell & I escorted him from
his cell the morning of his execution one on either side of him ; that
Sheriff Campbell & I rode with Captain Brown in a wagon from
the jail to the scaffold one on either side ; that I heard every word that
Captain Brown spoke from the time he left the jail till his death;
that Sheriff Campbell (now deceased) and I were the only persons
with him on the scaffold.
I have this day read, in the early part of chapter 8 of a book
styled 'The Manliness of Christ,' by Thomas Hughes, Q. C., New
York: American Book Exchange, Tribune Building, 1880, the fol-
lowing paragraph, to wit: —
"Now I freely admit that there is no recorded end of a life that I
know of more entirely brave and manly than the one of Captain
John Brown, of which we know every minutest detail, as it hap-
pened in the full glare of our northern life not twenty years ago.
About that I think there could scarcely be disagreement anywhere.
The very men who allowed him to lie in his bloody clothes till the
day of his execution, & then hanged him, recognize this. 'You are a
game man, Capt. Brown,' the Southern Sheriff said in the wagon.
' Yes,' he answered, ' I was so brought up. It was one of my Mother's
lessons. From infancy I have not suffered from physical fear. I have
suffered a thousand times more from bashfulness;' and then he
kissed a negro child in its mother's arms, and walked cheerfully on
to the scaffold, thankful that he was 'allowed to die for a cause and
not merely to pay the debt of nature as all must.' "
Respecting the statements contained in the above paragraph
quoted from the book above mentioned, I solemnly declare: —
First, that Captain John Brown was not "allowed to lie in his
APPENDIX 671
bloody clothes till the day of his execution," but that he was fur-
nished with a change of clothing as promptly as prisoners in such
condition usually are ; that he was allowed all the clothing he desired ;
and that his washing was done at his will without any cost to himself.
As an officer charged with his custody, I saw that he was at all times
& by all persons treated kindly, properly and respectfully. I have
no recollection that there was ever any attempt made to humiliate
or maltreat him. Captain Brown took many occasions to thank me
for my kindness to him and spoke of it to many persons including
his wife. In further proof of the kindness he received at my hands I
will state that Captain Brown in his last written will & testament
bequeathed to me his Sharpe's Rifle and a pistol. Furthermore, on
the night before the execution Captain Brown and his wife, upon
my invitation, took supper with me and my family at our table in
our residence which was a part of the jail building.
2. I have no recollection that the Sheriff said to Captain Brown,
"You are a game man," and received the reply quoted in the above
paragraph, or that any similar remarks were made by either parties.
I am sure that neither these remarks nor any like them were made
at the time. The only remarks made by Captain Brown between
his cell and the scaffold were commonplace remarks about the
beauty of the country and the weather.
3. The statement that "he kissed a negro child in his mother's
arms" is wholly incorrect. Nothing of the sort occurred. Nothing
of the sort could have occurred, for his hands, as usual in such cases,
were confined behind him before he left the jail; he was between
Sheriff Campbell and me, and a guard of soldiers surrounded him,
and allowed no person to come between them and the prisoner,
from the jail to the scaffold, except his escorts.
4. Respecting the statement that he "walked cheerfully to the
scaffold," I will say that I did not think his bearing on the scaffold
was conspicuous for its heroism, yet not cowardly.
5. Whether he was "thankful that he was allowed to die for a
cause and not merely to pay the debt of nature as all must," or not,
I cannot say what was in his heart ; but if this clause means, as the
quotation marks would indicate, that Captain Brown used any such
language or said anything on the subject, it is entirely incorrect.
Captain Brown said nothing like it. The only thing that he did say
at or on the scaffold was to take leave of us & then just about the
time the noose was adjusted he said to me: "Be quick."
(Signed) JOHN Avis
CHARLESTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA,
April 25, 1882.
STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA, COUNTY OF JEFFERSON ss:
I, Cleon Moore, a notary public in and for the County of Jefferson, State afore-
said, hereby certify that John Avis whose name is signed to the foregoing affidavit
this day personally appeared before me in my county aforesaid and made oath
that the statements contained in said affidavit are true to the best of his know-
ledge and belief.
APPENDIX
Given under my hand and notarial seal at Charlestown, West Virginia, this
25th day of April, 1882.
CLEON MOORE
Notary Public
H
A CHRONOLOGY OF JOHN BROWN'S MOVEMENTS, FROM HIS DE-
PARTURE FOR KANSAS TO HIS DEATH, DECEMBER 2, 1859
1855
August 13. Left North Elba with Henry Thompson for
Kansas.
15. At Akron, Ohio.
At Hudson, Ohio.
At Cleveland, Ohio. ,
At Detroit.
Arrived at Chicago.
Left Chicago for Kansas with his one-horse
wagon, and en route to Osawatomie until Oc-
tober 6.
October 7. Arrived at Osawatomie and the Brown claims.
December 6. Left Osawatomie for the defence of Lawrence.
7-12. At Lawrence.
14. At the Brown claims near Osawatomie.
1856
January i. At West Point, Missouri.
4. Back at Osawatomie.
7 and 8. Returned to Missouri for provisions.
31. Returned to Osawatomie from a third trip to
Missouri.
Feb. i-April 15. In Osawatomie and vicinity.
April 1 6. Attended Osawatomie settlers' meeting to re-
solve against the "bogus law" taxes.
21. Attended Judge Cato's court near Lane.
May 22. Left Osawatomie for relief of Lawrence.
Left camp of Pottawatomie Rifles and camped
one mile above Dutch Henry's Crossing.
In camp all day; Pottawatomie killings at night.
About noon left camp, rejoining John Brown,
Jr., at Ottawa Jones's, near midnight.
26. Left the Pottawatomie Rifles and spent night
at Jason Brown's cabin.
27-31. In a secluded camp on Ottawa Creek.
June i. Moved to Prairie City; searched till late for
Pate's command.
2. Battle of Black Jack.
APPENDIX
673
June
June 5- July
July
3-4-
5-
i.
2.
3-
4-
4-22.
23-
August 3-4.
10.
10-16.
17-
20.
24.
25-
^ 26.
27.
28.
29.
30-
August 31
-September 6.
September 7.
8-14.
15-22.
October I .
10.
18.
25-26.
27.
Encamped with prisoners at Middle Ottawa
Creek.
Brown's men disbanded by Colonel E. V. Sum-
ner, First U. S. Cavalry, Major Sedgwick,
Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart.
Hidden in thickets of Middle Ottawa Creek in
vicinity of Palmyra.
At Lawrence; camping at night one mile south-
west of Big Springs.
Arrived in the early morning on outskirts of
Topeka.
In camp on Willets farm, on Shunganung Creek
near Topeka.
Whereabouts unknown.
Probably left Topeka for Nebraska.
Met S. J. Reeder on his way to Nemaha Falls,
N. T.
At Nemaha Falls.
Left Nebraska City.
Arrived at Topeka.
Whereabouts in doubt.
At Lawrence on arrival of Walker's prisoners
from Fort Titus.
(About) Reached Osawatomie.
Brown's and Cline's companies in camp at Sugar
Creek, Linn County.
Searched for a pro-slavery force.
Encounter with Cline's company ; raid on Captain
J. E. Brown.
Raiding.
Returned to Osawatomie with 150 head of cattle.
Moved his camp one mile from Osawatomie.
Battle of Osawatomie.
In carnp at Hauser farm, two and one-half miles
from Osawatomie. .
Arrived in Lawrence with1 Luke F. Parsons.
In Lawrence.
At Augustus Wattles's home near Lawrence,
"with his sons and sons' wives."
At Osawatomie, according to his letter of Octo-
ber n, 1856.
Narrowly escaped capture by Lieut. -Colonel
Cooke near Nebraska City.
At Tabor, Iowa.
(About) Left Tabor by stage for Chicago.
At Chicago.
(About) Started back to Tabor in pursuit of his
sons Salmon and Watson.
674 APPENDIX
December I. Again in Chicago; left soon to visit Ohio relatives;
then went to Albany, Rochester and Peter-
• boro.
27. At Frederick Douglass's in Rochester.
January
4-22.
23-26.
January 27
-February 16.
February 16-18.
19-
March i.
6.
9-11.
12.
13-
19-
21-26.
26-28.
30.
Mar. 3 1 -April 2.
April 6-15.
16-20.
23-
25-
27.
28.
April 3O-May 12.
May 13.
14.
15-
21.
22.
23-
May 27~June 12.
June 1 6.
22.
24.
29.
1857
At Boston.
In New York at meeting of National Kansas
Committee.
Visited Rochester, Peterboro and North Elba,
and returned to Boston.
Boston.
Springfield, Mass.
Collinsville, Conn.; first meeting with Blair to
contract for pikes.
Brown's Appeal to Friends of Freedom appeared
in New York Tribune.
At Hartford, Conn., and Springfield, Mass.
Canton and Collinsville, Conn.
Passed this night with R. W. Emerson at Con-
cord.
At Medford with George L. Stearns and family.
At New Haven, Conn.
At Worcester (also brief trip to Springfield).
Visiting ex-Governor Reeder at Easton, Pa.,
with Sanborn and Con way.
Contracted with Blair at Collinsville for pikes.
At Springfield, Mass.
In Boston and West Newton; visiting Judge and
Mrs. Russell.
In Springfield and vicinity.
In New Haven, Conn.
In Springfield, Mass.
In Troy, New York.
In Albany, New York.
At North Elba.
Left Vergennes, Vermont, for Kansas.
At Canastota, New York.
At Peterboro, New York.
At Wayne, Ohio.
At Cleveland, Ohio.
At Akron, Ohio.
At Hudson, Ohio ; disabled by sickness.
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Parted from Gerrit Smith in Chicago.
At Tallmadge, Ohio.
Left Cleveland for Iowa.
July 5-6.
July 7~Aug. 6.
Aug. 7-Nov. i,
November 2.
5-
6.
14-16.
December
17-
18.
22.
4-
25-
28 or 29.
January 15.
21.
Jan. 28-Feb. 17.
February 18-24.
Feb. 26-Mar. 3.
March 4-7.
8.
9-16.
18.
19.
23-
Mar. 23-April I.
April 2.
3-
4-7-
8-12.
— J3-
14.
16.
17-24.
25-
26.
27.
28.
* 29.
April 3O-May 29.
May 8 and 9.
29.
June
1-3.
APPENDIX 675
Iowa City.
Crossing Iowa.
At Tabor.
Left Tabor, parting from Forbes at Nebraska
City.
Arrived at Whitman's farm near Lawrence.
In consultation with Cook.
At Topeka, with Cook, Realf, Parsons, and Ste-
vens.
Left Topeka.
En route to Nebraska City.
(About) Arrived at Tabor, Iowa.
Left Tabor for Springdale.
Passed Marengo, Iowa.
Arrived at Springdale.
1858
Left Springdale for East.
At Lindenville, Ohio.
At Frederick Douglass's in Rochester.
At Peterboro.
With Mr. and Mrs. J. N. Gloucester at Brooklyn.
At Boston.
Left Boston for Philadelphia.
At Philadelphia.
At New Haven, Conn.
Left New Haven for New York.
Arrived at North Elba.
At North Elba.
At Peterboro.
Left Peterboro for Rochester.
At Rochester.
At St. Catherine's, Canada.
In Canada West.
At St. Catherine's.
At Ingersoll, Canada West.
In Canada West.
Passed through Chicago; arrived in Springdale.
At Springdale.
Left Springdale at 11.45 A. M.
Arrived at Chicago.
Reached Detroit and Chatham, Canada.
At Chatham.
Two conventions met.
Left Chatham.
Arrived at Boston.
At Boston.
6;6
APPENDIX
22-25.
Oct. 3O-Nov. i.
November.
June 3. Left Boston for Kansas, via North Elba and
Ohio.
5. (About) At North Elba.
20. Left Cleveland with Tidd and Kagi.
22. At Chicago.
26. Reached Lawrence, Kansas.
27-28. At Lawrence.
28. Left Lawrence for southern Kansas.
July i. On the Snyder Claim for a four weeks' stay.
9. Visited James Montgomery's cabin.
23. Ill of ague.
August 3-9. At Augustus Wattles's home near Moneka,
Kansas.
15. (About) Taken to Rev. Mr. Adair's, at Osawa-
tomie, ill of fever.
September 23. In Lawrence.
October 7. At Ottumwa, Kansas.
II. At Osawatomie.
15-16. At Lawrence.
At Osawatomie.
At Augustus Wattles's.
Building the Montgomery fort during this month.
13. Marched with Montgomery to Paris, Kansas.
December I. Left Snyder Claim with George Gill for Osawat-
omie.
2. Attempt of Captain Weaver and Sheriff McDan-
iel to capture Brown at Snyder Claim; the
latter arrived at Osawatomie.
3. At Osawatomie.
5. Returned to Montgomery's fort with George Gill.
6. Drafted agreement presented to peace meeting
at Sugar Mound by Montgomery.
16. At Sugar Creek during Montgomery's attack on
Fort Scott.
16-18. At Wimsett Farm of Jeremiah G. Anderson's
brother.
f 20. The raid into Missouri.
21. Camped all day in a deep ravine.
22. Reached Augustus Wattles's house.
22-30. At Wattles's or in the neighborhood, ready to
repel invasion from Missouri.
30-31. At Wattles's with William Hutchinson.
1859
January I. Went into camp on Turkey Creek.
2. Wrote Montgomery asking him to be ready to
fight.
APPENDIX
677
February
January 3.
7-
IO-2O.
2O.
24.
25-
28.
29.
30.
>3i-
I.
4-
5-i i.
ii.
12.
13-
14.
IS-
16.
17-
18.
19.
20.
21-22.
24.
25-
9-
9-
IO.
II.
12.
Feb. 25~Mar.
March
12-14.
15-24.
25-
26.
27.
28.
April 7.
10.
11-13.
14.
16.
April 19-May 5.
(About) Visited by George A. Crawford, agent
for the Governor and President Buchanan.
Wrote his " Parallels" at Augustus Wattles's.
Left Wattles's for the last time.
At Osawatomie.
With George Gill left Garnett, Kansas, for Law-
rence, with the fugitive slaves.
Reached Major J. B. Abbott's, near Lawrence.
Left Lawrence going North with the slaves.
At Holton.
At Straight or Spring Creek.
Resting at Spring Creek.
"Battle of the Spurs;" reached Sabetha.
Brown's last day in Kansas. Crossed Nemeha
River; entered Nebraska.
Crossed the Missouri River at Nebraska City.
At Tabor.
Left Tabor to cross Iowa.
At Toole's.
At Lewis Mills's house.
At Porter's Tavern, Grove City.
At Dalmanutha.
At Mr. Murray's, Aurora.
At Mr. James J. Jordan's.
Passed through Des Moines; at Mr. Hawley's.
At Dickerson's.
Reached Grinnell.
At Grinnell.
Passed through Iowa City.
Arrived at Springdale.
At Springdale.
Left Springdale for West Liberty.
Left West Liberty by train for Chicago.
Arrived at Chicago.
Arrived at Detroit; saw his slaves ferried over
to Windsor.
At Detroit.
At Cleveland.
In Ash tabula Co., Ohio.
At Jefferson, Ohio.
Lectured at Jefferson, Ohio.
At Cleveland.
At Kingsville, Ohio.
At Rochester.
At Peterboro.
Left Peterboro for North Elba.
At Westport, New York.
At North Elba.
APPENDIX
May
May lo-june
June
7-
8.
9-
2.
3-
4-
5-6.
7-
9-
10.
16.
18.
19.
23-
23-27.
27-28.
30.
July
3-
12.
August 1 6-2 1.
September 27.
30.
October r~i7
8.
16.
17.
18.
19.
November
December
With F. B. Sanborn at Concord.
Spoke in Concord Town Hall.
At Concord and Boston.
At Boston.
Left Boston ; arrived in Collinsville, Conn.
Reached New York.
In New York.
At Troy.
At Keene, New York.
At Westport.
(Probably) Left North Elba for last time.
At West Andover, Ohio.
Left West Andover.
Akron, Ohio, and Pittsburg, Pa.
Bedford Springs, Bedford Co., Pa.
At Chambersburg.
Left Chambersburg; spent night at Hagerstown,
Md.
At Sandy Hook, Md. (Harper's Ferry).
(About) Moved to Kennedy Farm.
At Chambersburg with Frederick Douglass.
At Chambersburg, en route to Philadelphia.
On his way back through Harrisburg.
At Chambersburg.
At Chambersburg.
(Sunday) Raid began.
In battle at Harper's Ferry.
Captured at daybreak.
Taken to Charlestown jail.
Trial begun.
Sentenced.
Executed.
JOHN BROWN S MEN-AT-ARMS
John Brown's band consisted of twenty-one men besides himself,
sixteen of whom were white and five colored. Most of the whites he
commissioned as officers in his army ; according to the best obtain-
able printed list, Stevens, Cook, Brown's three sons, — Oliver,
Owen and Watson, — and Tidd were captains. But this is incom-
plete. There is conflicting testimony as to whether Hazlett was a
captain or a lieutenant. Cook states that only two lieutenants were
commissioned, Edwin Coppoc and Dauphin Thompson. Colonel
Lee in his official report rates Hazlett, Edwin Coppoc, and Leeman
as lieutenants. A captain's commission was found on Leeman's
APPENDIX 679
body. Probably William Thompson and J. G. Anderson were also
captains. The white private soldiers were Stewart Taylor, Barclay
Coppoc, and F. J. Meriam. The colored were Shields Green, Lewis
Sheridan Leary, John A. Copeland, Jr., Osborn Perry Anderson,
and Dangerfield Newby. The eldest of the band after Brown was
Newby, aged forty-four; Owen Brown came next, at thirty-five; all
the others were under thirty. Oliver Brown, Barclay Coppoc, and
Leeman were not yet twenty-one. The average age of the twenty-
one followers was twenty-five years and five months. Only one was
of foreign birth ; nearly all were of old American stock. Sketches of
their lives follow.
John Henry Kagi was the best educated of all the raiders, but was
largely self-taught. Many admirably written letters survive as the
productions of his pen, in the New York Tribune, the New York
Evening Post, and the National Era. He was, moreover, an able man
of business, besides being an excellent debater and speaker. He was
an expert stenographer and a total abstainer. His father was the
respected village blacksmith in Bristolville, Ohio, whose family was
of Swiss descent, the name being originally Kagy. John A. Kagi
was born at Bristolville, March 15, 1835; and was killed October
17, 1859. In 1854-55 ne taught school at Hawkinstown, Virginia,
where he obtained a personal knowledge of slavery. This resulted
in such abolition manifestations on his part, that he was compelled
to leave for Ohio under a pledge never to return to Hawkinstown.
Kagi then went to Nebraska City, Nebraska, where he was ad-
mitted to the bar. He next entered Kansas with one of General
James H. Lane's parties. He enlisted in A. D. Stevens's ("Colonel
Whipple's") Second Kansas Militia, and was captured in 1856 by
United States troops. Kagi was imprisoned first at Lecompton and
then at Tecumseh, but was finally liberated. He was assaulted and
severely injured by Judge Elmore, the pro-slavery judge, who struck
him over the head with a gold-headed cane, on January 31, 1857.
Kagi drew his revolver and shot the Judge in the groin. Elmore
then fired three times and shot Kagi over the heart, the bullet being
stopped by a memorandum-book. Kagi was long in recovering from
his wounds. After a visit to his Ohio home he returned to Kansas
and joined John Brown. When in Chambersburg as agent for the
raiders, he boarded with Mrs. Mary Rittner.
Aaron Dwight Stevens, in many ways the most interesting and
attractive of the personalities gathered around him by John Brown,
ran away from home at the age of sixteen, in 1847, and enlisted in a
Massachusetts volunteer regiment, in which he served in Mexico
during the Mexican War. Later, he enlisted in Company F of the
First United States Dragoons, and was tried for "mutiny, engaging
in a drunken riot, and assaulting Major George A. H. Blake of his
regiment," at Taos, New Mexico, in May, 1855. Stevens was sen-
68o APPENDIX
tenced to death, but this was commuted by President Pierce to im-
prisonment for three years at hard labor at Fort Leavenworth,
from which post he escaped and joined the Free State forces. In
these he became colonel of the Second Kansas Militia, under the
name of Whipple. Thereafter his story is so intertwined with that
of John Brown as to need no retelling here. Stevens came of old
Puritan stock, his great-grandfather having been a captain in the
Revolutionary army. He was a man of superb bravery and of won-
derful physique; he was well over six feet, was blessed with a great
sense of humor, and was sustained at the end by his belief in spiritu-
alism. George B. Gill wrote of him in 1860: "Stevens — how glori-
ously he sang! His was the noblest soul I ever knew. Though owing
to his rash, hasty way, I often found occasion to quarrel with him,
more so than with any of the others, and though I liked Kagi better
than any man I ever knew, our temperaments being adapted to each
other, yet I can truly say that Stevens was the most noble man that
I ever knew." George H. Hoyt, Brown's counsel, in a letter to J. W.
Le Barnes, October 31, 1859, thus recorded his first impression of
Stevens at Harper's Ferry: "Stevens is in the same cell with Brown.
I have frequent talks with him. He 's in a most pitiable condition
physically, his wounds being of the most painful and dangerous
character. He has now four balls in his body, two of these being
about the head and neck. He bears his sufferings with grim and silent
fortitude, never complaining and absolutely without hope. He is a
splendid looking young fellow. Such black and penetrating eyes!
Such an expansive brow ! Such a grand chest and limbs ! He was the
best, and in fact the only man Brown had who was a good soldier,
besides being reliable otherwise." Stevens was executed March 16,
1860.
John E. Cook, who could successfully have escaped had he not,
against the advice of his comrades, been reckless in his search for
food, was born in the summer of 1830, in Haddam, Connecticut. He
was of a well-to-do family, and studied law in Brooklyn and New
York. He went to Kansas in 1855. His movements from the time of
his first meeting with Brown, just after the battle of Black Jack, in
June, 1856, until after his capture, are set forth in his "Confession"
made while in jail (published at Charlestown as a pamphlet in the
middle of November, 1859, for the benefit of Samuel C. Young,
who was crippled for life in the fighting at Harper's Ferry). For
this confession Cook was severely censured at the time by the friends
of Brown; he was even called the "Judas" of the raid. But the
document, when examined to-day, obviously contains only facts
which are of great historical value, and whose promulgation at the
time in no wise injured the case of his fellow raiders. Had it not
been made, the result of the trial would have been the same. Cook
preceded John Brown to the Harper's Ferry neighborhood by more
than a year, there sometimes teaching school, and again living as
APPENDIX 681
a lock-tender, while in the registration of his marriage to Mary V.
Kennedy, of Harper's Ferry, April 18, 1859, he was described as a
book-agent. He was captured eight miles from Chambersburg,
Pennsylvania, October 25, 1859, and hanged on December 16. He
was a remarkably fine shot, and had seen much fighting in Kansas.
He was reckless, impulsive, indiscreet, but genial, generous and
brave.
Charles Plummer Tidd, known as Charles Plummer, died of fever,
on the transport Northerner, as a first sergeant of the Twenty-first
Massachusetts Volunteers, on February 8, 1862, with the roar of
the battle of Roanoke Island in his ears. This he had particularly
wished to take part in, for ex-Governor Henry A. Wise was in com-
mand of the Confederates, his son, O. Jennings Wise, being killed
in the engagement. Tidd had enlisted July 19, 1861, as a private.
He was born in Palermo, Maine, in 1834, and changed his name
after the raid in order to avoid possible arrest and trial as a Har-
per's Ferry raider — a precaution of greater importance when he
entered the army. He emigrated to Kansas with the party of Dr.
Calvin Cutter, of Worcester, in 1856. He joined John Brown's party
at Tabor, in 1857, and thereafter, in Canada and elsewhere, was one of
Brown's closest associates, returning to Kansas in 1858 as a follower
of "Shubel Morgan." He took part in the raid into Missouri. After
his escape from Virginia, he visited Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and Canada, and was freely consulted in the plans for rescue
of Stevens and Hazlett. "Tidd," writes Mrs. Annie Brown Adams,
"had not much education, but good common sense. After the raid
he began to study, and tried to repair his deficiencies. He was by
no means handsome. He had a quick temper, but was kind-hearted.
His rages soon passed and then he tried all he could to repair dam-
ages. He was a fine singer and of strong family affections." His
grave is No. 40 in the New Berne, N. C., National Cemetery.
Jeremiah Goldsmith Anderson was born April 17, 1833, in Indiana,
and was therefore in his twenty-seventh year when killed at Harper's
Ferry. He was the son of John Anderson, and was the grandson of
slaveholders; his maternal grandfather, Colonel Jacob Westfall,
of Tygert Valley, Virginia, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War;
he went to school at Galesburg, Illinois, and Kossuth, Iowa; was
a peddler, farmer, and employee of a saw-mill, before emigrating to
Kansas in August, 1857, where he settled on the Little Osage, Bour-
bon County, a mile from Fort Bain. He was twice arrested by pro-
slaveryites, and for ten weeks imprisoned at Fort Scott; he then
became a lieutenant of Captain Montgomery, and was with him
in the attack on Captain Anderson's troop of the First U. S. Cavalry.
He also witnessed the murder on his own doorstep of a Mr. Denton
by Border Ruffians. He was with John Brown on the slave raid
into Missouri, and thereafter followed Brown's fortunes. Writing
682 APPENDIX
July 5, 1859, of his determination to continue to fight for freedom,
he said: "Millions of fellow-beings require it of us; their cries for
help go out to the universe daily and hourly. Whose duty is it to
help them? Is it yours? Is it mine? It is every man's, but how few
there are to help. But there are a few who dare to answer this call,
and dare to answer it in a manner that will make this land of liberty
and equality shake to the centre."
Albert Hazlett was born in Pennsylvania, September 21, 1837,
and was executed March 16, 1860. George B. Gill says: "I was
acquainted with Hazlett well enough in Kansas, yet after all knew
but little of him. He was with Montgomery considerably, and was
with Stevens on the raid in which Cruise was killed. He was a good-
sized, fine-looking fellow, overflowing with good nature and social
feelings. . . . Brown got acquainted with him just before leaving
Kansas." Before the raid he worked on his brother's farm in west-
ern Pennsylvania, joining the others at Kennedy Farm in the early
part, of September, 1859. To Mrs. Rebecca Spring he wrote on
March 15, 1860, the eve of his execution, "Your letter gave me great
comfort to know that my body would be taken from this land of
chains. ... I am willing to die in the cause of liberty, if I had
ten thousand lives I would willingly lay them all down for the same
cause." He was arrested in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, under the name
of William Harrison, on October 22, extradited to Virginia, tried
and sentenced at the spring term of the Court, and hanged on
March 16, 1860.
Edwin Coppoc, brother of Barclay, was captured with Brown
in the engine house, tried immediately after him, sentenced on
November 2, and hung with Cook on December 16, 1859. The
father of the Coppocs died when Edwin was six, the latter having
been born June 30, 1835. For nine years thereafter Edwin lived
with John Butler, a farmer, near Salem, Ohio, removing then with
his mother to Springdale, Iowa. This place he left in the spring of
1858, to become a settler in Kansas. He took no part in the Terri-
torial troubles, and returned to Springdale in the autumn of 1858,
when he became acquainted with Brown. He always bore an ex-
cellent reputation as an honest, brave, straightforward, well-be-
haved man, and his death was particularly lamented by many
friends. An exemplary prisoner, there were many Southerners who
hoped for his pardon. He was buried first in Winona [later in Salem,
Ohio], after a public funeral, attended by the entire town. In jail
he regretted his situation, wrote his mother of his sorrow that he
must die a dishonorable death, and explained that he had not un-
derstood what the full consequences of the raid would be. He died
with absolute fortitude.
Barclay Coppoc was born at Salem, Ohio, January 4, 1839, and
APPENDIX 683
had not attained his majority at the time of the raid. He escaped
from Harper's Ferry, but only to meet a tragic fate in that he was
killed by the fall of a train into the Platte River from a trestle forty
feet high, the supports of which had been burned away by Con-
federates. Coppoc was then a first lieutenant in the Third Kansas
Infantry, Colonel Montgomery's regiment, having received his
commission July 24, 1861. Barclay Coppoc went straight to Iowa
after his escape from Harper's Ferry, whither Virginia agents fol-
lowed to attempt his arrest. He went back to Kansas in 1860,
helped to run off some Missouri slaves, and nearly lost his life in a
second undertaking of this kind. The accident which ended his life
took place at night; he survived his injuries until the next day,
September 3, 1861. He was buried at Leavenworth, Kansas. He
was in Kansas for a time in the fall of 1856.
William Thompson, son of Roswell Thompson, was born in Au-
gust, 1833, and was killed October 17, 1859. He married Mary Ann
Brown, a neighbor, but no relation of the Brown family. He had
no hesitation as to where his duty lay when the call came to help
free the slaves. He started for Kansas in 1856, but turned back on
meeting the Brown sons, who returned to North Elba in the fall of
that year. He was full of fun and good nature, and bore himself un-
flinchingly when face to face with death. Both William Thompson
and his brother Dauphin went to Harper's Ferry without being
urged and purely from a sense of right and duty to .a great
cause.
Dauphin Osgood Thompson, brother of William and also a neigh-
bor of the Browns at North Elba, was born April 17, 1838, and was
killed in the engine house on October 18, 1859. He was the brother
of William Thompson, who also fell, and of Henry Thompson. Their
sister Isabella married Watson Brown. Dauphin Thompson was a
handsome, inexperienced, country boy, " more like a girl than a war-
rior," and "diffident and quiet."
Oliver Brown, the youngest son of John Brown to reach manhood,
was born March 9, 1839, at Franklin, Ohio. He went to Kansas in 1855
with his father, returning to North Elba in October, 1856. For a time
in 1857 he was at work in Connecticut. He married Martha E. Brew-
ster, April 7, 1858, when but nineteen years old, and died at Harper's
Ferry, October 18, 1859, in his twenty-first year. His girl-wife and
her baby died early in 1860. "Oliver developed rather slowly," says
Miss Sarah Brown. " In his earlier teens he was always pre-occupied,
absent-minded, — always reading, and then it was impossible to
catch his attention. But in his last few years he came out very fast.
His awkwardness left him. He read every solid book that he could
find, and was especially fond of Theodore Parker's writings, as was
his father. Had Oliver lived, and not killed himself by over-study,
684 APPENDIX
he would have made his mark. By his exertions the sale of liquor
was stopped at North Elba."
John Anthony Copeland, Jr., a free colored man, was born at
Raleigh, North Carolina, August 15, 1834, and executed at Charles-
town, December 16, 1859. His parents removed to Oberlin, Ohio, in
1842. He was for some time a student in the preparatory depart-
ment of Oberlin College, and was enlisted for John Brown in Septem-
ber, 1859, by Lewis Sheridan Leary, his uncle, who was at that time
also residing at Oberlin. He was one of the thirty-seven men con-
cerned in the famous Oberlin rescue of a fugitive slave, John Price,
for which he was for some time imprisoned at Cleveland. "Cope-
land," Judge Parker stated in his story of the trials (St. Louis Globe
Democrat, April 8, 1888), "was the prisoner who impressed me best.
He was a free negro. He had been educated, and there was a dignity
about him that I could not help liking. He was always manly."
Andrew Hunter at the same time was quoted as saying: "Cope-
land was the cleverest of all the prisoners . . . and behaved better
than any of them. If I had had the power and could have concluded
to pardon any man among them, he was the man I would have
picked out." On November 26, from his cell in Charlestown, Cope-
land sent a letter to his parents, now in the possession of his sister,
Miss Mary Copeland, of Oberlin, Ohio, of which the following is an
extract :
"DEAR PARENTS, — my fate as far as man can seal it is sealed,
but let this not occassion you any misery for remember the cause in
which I was engaged, remember that it was a 'Holy Cause,' one in
which men who in every point of vew better than I am have suffered
and died, remember that if I must die I die in trying to liberate a
few of my poor and oppress people from my condition of serveatud
which God in his Holy Writ has hurled his most bitter denunciations
against and in which men who were by the color of their faces re-
moved from the direct injurious affect, have already lost their lives
and still more remain to meet the same fate which has been by man
decided that I must meet."
Stewart Taylor, the only one of the raiders not of American birth,
was but twenty-three when killed, having been born October 29,
1836, at Uxbridge, Canada. Of American descent, and a wagon-
maker by trade, he went to Iowa in 1853, where in 1858 he became
acquainted with John Brown through George B . Gill . He is described
as being "heart and soul in the anti-slavery cause. An excellent
debater and very fond of studying history. He stayed at home, in
Canada, for the winter of 1858-59, and then went to Chicago, thence
to Bloomington, Illinois, and thence to Harper's Ferry. He was a
very good phonographer [stenographer], rapid and accurate. He
was overcome with distress when, getting out of communication
with the John Brown movement, he thought for a time that he was
APPENDIX 685
to be left out." — Letter of Jacob L. Taylor, Pine Orchard, Canada
West, April 23, 1860, to Richard J. Hinton, — in Hinton Papers,
Kansas Historical Society. Taylor was a spiritualist.
William H. Leeman, born March 20, 1839, and killed on October
J7» !859, the youngest of the raiders, had early left home, being of a
rather wild disposition. Owen Brown found him hard to control at
Springdale. Mrs. Annie Brown Adams writes of him: "He was only
a boy. He smoked a good deal and drank sometimes; but perhaps
people would not think that so very wicked now. He was very hand-
some and very attractive." Educated in the public schools of Saco
and Hallowell, Maine, he worked in a shoe-factory in Haverhill,
Massachusetts, at the age of fourteen. In 1856 he entered Kansas
with the second Massachusetts colony of that year, and became a
member of John Brown's "Volunteer Regulars" September 9, 1856.
He fought well at Osawatomie, when but seventeen years old.
George B. Gill says of him that he had "a good intellect with great
ingenuity."
Osborn Perry Anderson, colored, survived the raid to die of con-
sumption at Washington, D. C., December 13, 1872. Born July 27,
1830, at West Fallowfield, Pennsylvania, he was in his thirtieth year
at the time of the raid, of which and of his escape he left a record in
'A Voice from Harper's Ferry,' which contains, however, many
erroneous statements. He learned the printing trade in Canada,
where he met John Brown in 1858. After his escape he returned to
Canada. During the Civil War, in 1864, he enlisted, became a non-
commissioned officer, and was mustered out at the close of the war
in Washington.
Francis Jackson Meriam was born November 17, 1837, at Fram-
ingham, Massachusetts, and died suddenly November 28, 1865, in
New York City, after having served in the army as a captain in the
Third South Carolina Colored Infantry. Erratic and unbalanced,
he was forever urging wild schemes upon his superiors, and often
attempting them. In an engagement under Grant he was severely
wounded in the leg. Early in the war he married Minerva Caldwell,
of Galena, Illinois. He was in Boston, coming from Canada, on the
day of John Brown's execution, but was finally induced by friends to
go back to Canada. Mr. Sanborn has characterized Meriam as of
"little judgment and in feeble health," but "generous, brave and
devoted."
Lewis Sheridan Leary, colored, left a wife and a six months old
child at Oberlin, to go to Harper's Ferry. The latter was subse-
quently educated by James Redpath and Wendell Phillips; the
widow, now Mrs. Mary Leary Langston, is still a resident of Law-
rence, Kansas. Leary was descended from an Irishman, Jeremiah
686 APPENDIX
O'Leary, who fought in the Revolution under General Nathanael
Greene, and married a woman of mixed blood, partly negro, partly
of that Croatan Indian stock of North Carolina, which is be-
lieved by some to be lineally descended from the " lost colonists "
left by John White on Roanoke Island in 1587. Leary, like his
father, was a saddler and harness-maker. In 1857 he went to Oberlin
to live, marrying there, and making the acquaintance of John Brown
in Cleveland. He survived his terrible wounds for eight hours, dur-
ing which he was well treated and able to send messages to his
family. He is reported as saying: " I am ready to die." His wife was
in ignorance of his object when he left home. Leary was born at
Fayetteville, North Carolina, March 17, 1835, and was therefore
in his twenty-fifth year when killed.
»•;•"
Owen Brown,born November 4, 1824, at Hudson, Ohio, was John
Brown's third son, and his stalwart, reliable lieutenant both in
Kansas and at Harper's Ferry. It was due largely to his unfaltering
determination and great physical strength that the little group of
survivors of which he was the leader reached safe havens. After the
war he was for some time a grape-grower in Ohio, in association with
two of his brothers. Thence he removed to California, where he
died, January 9, 1891, in his mountain home, "Brown's Peak,"
near Pasadena, poor in worldly goods, but with the respect and re-
gard of his neighbors. A marble monument marks his mountain-side
grave. He never married. He was, like all the Browns, original
in expression and in thought, and not without considerable humor.
He was the only one of the five men who escaped from the raid
who did not enter the Union army, and he was the last of the raiders
to die.
Watson Brown, born at Franklin, Ohio, October 7, 1835, married
Isabella M. Thompson in September, 1856, and died of his wounds
at Harper's Ferry on October 18, 1859. He was: "Tall and rather
fair, with finely knit frame, athletic and active." Of little education,
he was a man of marked ability and sterling character, who bore
well the family responsibilities which fell to him when all the other
men of the clan went to Kansas. His son lived only to his fifth
year; his widow later married her husband's cousin, Salmon Brown.
Danger field Newby, colored, was born a slave in 1815, in Fauquier
County, Virginia. His father, a Scotchman, freed his mulatto chil-
dren. Newby's wife, from whom he received the touching letters
given in the text, was the slave of Jesse Jennings, of Warington, Vir-
ginia. She and her children were "sold South " after the raid, but it
is said that she subsequently lived in Ohio. The shot that gave to
Newby his death-wound cut his throat from ear to ear, the missile
being a six-inch spike in lieu of a bullet. Newby was six feet two
inches tall, a splendid physical specimen, of light color.
APPENDIX 687
Shields Green, colored, otherwise known as "Emperor," was born a
slave. After the death of his wife, he escaped on a sailing vessel from
Charleston, South Carolina, leaving a little son in slavery. He event-
ually found his way to Rochester, New York, three years after his
escape and after a sojourn in Canada. Here he became acquainted
with Frederick Douglass, and through him with John Brown, and
here he lived as a servant and a clothes-cleaner. He went with
Douglass to Chambersburg to meet John Brown, and went on with
Brown when Douglass turned back. Several reliable prisoners in the
engine house testified1 to Shields Green's cowardice during the fight.
He endeavored to avoid arrest by palming himself off as one of the
slaves impressed by Brown. O. P. Anderson, however, speaks of
Green's bravery, and declares that Green could have escaped with
him, but that the former slave protested that he would go back "to
de ole man," even if there was no chance of escape. Owen Brown
had a poor opinion of Green's staunchness, after his experience in
bringing him down from Chambersburg to the Kennedy Farm.
Green's age is said to have been twenty-three years. He was a full-
blooded negro.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS
The Kansas State Historical Society Archives contain one volume of letters
and manuscripts written by John Brown or members of his family. They contain
also a large set of scrap-books devoted exclusively to John Brown history, and
a bequest of the late Col. R. J. Hinton comprises a mass of letters and other
manuscript material collected by him when writing his 'John Brown and His
Men.' The manuscript executive minutes of the early governors of Kansas, and
vast masses of manuscript papers of many Kansas pioneers, make them a prime
field of interest for any student of John Brown.
In the Historical Society of Pennsylvania is the Dreer Manuscript Collection,
containing letters and papers of Brown and letters and official documents written
by and sent to the Virginia authorities at the time of the raid, as well as a volume
of the correspondence of President Buchanan. Most of the matter relating to the
raid was taken from the State House at Richmond and brought North by Fed-
eral soldiers and by Dreer himself. In the collection of Mr. Edwin Tatham of
New York City are similar letters and documents which supplement the Dreer
collection in a remarkable way. His valuable possessions also bear upon the
relation of the State of Virginia to the raid.
Two volumes of John Brown's diaries or note-books, the gift of the late Wendell
Phillips Garrison, are in the Boston Public Library, which also owns the 'priceless
Thomas Wentworth Higginson Collection of manuscripts and letters written
by John Brown and his New England allies concerning his enterprises. The
Public Library at Torrington, Connecticut, the Public Library at Omaha,
Nebraska, in its Byron Reed collection of manuscripts, Oberlin College, Ohio, and
Haverford College, Pennsylvania, are also possessors of Brown documents.
No student of John Brown's life can afford to overlook the collections of the
Massachusetts Historical Society, particularly the John Brown papers of the
late A. A. Lawrence, or the papers of the late George L. Stearns, some of which
are owned by the Kansas Historical Society and some in the possession of the
Stearns family, who also own John Brown's autobiography. As will be seen from
the Notes, many indispensable letters are in the possession of the various mem-
bers of the Brown family. In the author's collection are a number of the James
H. Holmes papers relating to John Brown, and many valuable papers of the late
Col. R. J. Hinton regarding John Brown and Richard Realf. The original Mason
Report papers and correspondence are in the Senate archives.
II. BIOGRAPHIES
(Chronologically arranged)
REDPATH, JAMES. — The Public Life of Captain John Brown. — Boston: Thayer
and Eldridge. 1860. Pp. 408.
WEBB, RICHARD D. — Life and Letters of Captain John Brown. — London:
Smith Elder & Co. 1861. Pp. 453.
SANBORN, FRANKLIN BENJAMIN. — The Life and Letters of John Brown. —
Boston: Roberts Bros. 1885. Pp. 645.
690 BIBLIOGRAPHY
HINTON, RICHARD J. — John Brown and his Men. With some Account of the
Roads they Travelled to Reach Harper's Ferry. — New York: Funk & Wag-
nails Co. 1894. Pp, 752.
CHAMBERLIN, JOSEPH EDGAR. — John Brown. — Boston: Small, Maynard &
Company. 1899. Pp. 138.
CONNELLEY, WILLIAM ELSEY. — John Brown. — Topeka, Kansas: Crane &
Company. 1900. Pp. 426.
NEWTON, JOHN. — Captain John Brown of Harper's Ferry. — London: T.
Fisher Unwin. 1902. Pp. 288.
Du Bois, W. E. B. — John Brown. — Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Com-
pany. 1909. Pp. 406.
VILLARD, OSWALD GARRISON. — John Brown, 1800-1859. A Biography Fifty
Years After. — Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1910.
Pp. 738.
III. MAGAZINE AND OTHER ARTICLES
ADAMS, S. H. — John Brown. Tabor, Iowa, College Monthly. May, 1894.
ALLABEN, A. E. — John Brown as a Popular Hero. Magazine of Western
History. November, 1893.
APPLETON, W. S. — John Brown and the Destruction of Slavery. Massachu-
setts Historical Society Proceedings. Second Series, vol. 14. 1901.
ATKINSON, ELEANOR. — The Soul of John Brown. American Magazine.
October, 1909.
BACON, LEONARD, D. D. — The Moral of Harper's Ferry. The New Englander.
November, 1859.
BACON, LEONARD WOOLSEY. — John Brown. New Englander and Yale Re-
view. April, 1886. (Review of Sanborn's Life and Letters of John Brown.)
BAUMGARTNER, J. HAMPTON. — Fifty Years after John Brown. Book of the
Royal Blue. Published by the Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co., Baltimore. De-
cember, 1909.
BEALE, JAMES. — A Famous War Song. Paper read before the United Service
Club, Philadelphia. Printed by the Author. (No date.)
BETZ, I. H. — An Hour with John Brown. The Pennsylvania German. Octo-
ber, 1909.
BOTELER, ALEXANDER R. — Recollections of the John Brown Raid, with com-
ment by F. B. Sanborn. The Century. July, 1883.
BOWMAN, GEORGE E. — Peter Browne's Children. The Mayflower Descendant.
January, 1902.
The Settlement of Peter Browne's Estate. The Mayflower Descend-
ant, January, 1903.
BROWN. — The John Brown Letters: Found in the Virginia State Library in
1901. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vols. 9-11. 1901-1903.
BROWN'S FUGITIVES, JOHN. — Anonymous article in Springfield Republican.
June 12, 1909.
BROWN, OWEN. — A Letter. Atlantic Monthly. July, 1874.
BUTLER, MRS. E. S. — A Woman's Recollections of John Brown's Stay in Spring-
dale. Midland Monthly. November, 1898.
CHAMBERS, JENNIE. — What a School-Girl saw of John Brown's Raid. Harper's
Monthly. January, 1902.
CHAPIN, Lou V. — The Last Days of Old John Brown. Overland Monthly.
April, 1899.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 691
CLEMENS, WILL M." — John Brown, the American Reformer. Peterson Maga-
zine. January-August, 1898.
COOKE, G. W. — Brown and Garrison. The American, vol. n. October, 1885-
April, 1886. [Philadelphia].
COPPOC, EDWIN. — [Article on; anonymous] Iowa Historical Records. April,
1895-
COPPOC, REV. J. L. — John Brown and His Cause. Midland Monthly. Sep-
tember, 1895.
COTTERELL, GEORGE. — Sanborn's Life and Letters of John Brown. Brown's
Character Estimated. The Academy, London. February 20, 1886.
COURTENAY, AUSTEN M. — The Actual John Brown. Chautauquan. January,
1897-
DAINGERFIELD, JOHN E. P. — John Brown at Harper's Ferry. The Century.
June, 1885.
DANA, RICHARD HENRY, JR. — How We Met John Brown. Atlantic Monthly.
July, 1871.
DAY, W. G. — John Brown's Invasion of Virginia. Southern Magazine.
October, 1873.
EMERY, INA CAPITOLA. — The Hero of Harper's Ferry. Nickell Magazine.
June, 1897.
ERB, EDWARD. — An Abolitionist. Pittsburg Post. May 28, 1899.
EWING, THOMAS. — The Struggle for Freedom in Kansas. Cosmopolitan
Magazine. May, 1894.
"F., M. H." — The Wife of Capt. John Brown of Osawatomie; a Brave Life.
Overland Monthly. October, 1885.
FEATHERSTONHAUGH, THOMAS, M. D. — A Bibliography of John Brown. — Balti-
more: The Friedenwald Company. 1897. Pp. 9. Reprint from Publications
of the Southern History Association. July, 1897.
John Brown's Men . . . with a Supplementary Bibliography of John
Brown. — Harrisburg, Pa.: Harrisburg Publishing Company. 1899. Pp. 28.
Reprinted from Publications of Southern History Association. October, 1899.
The Final Burial of the Followers of John Brown. New England
Magazine. April, 1901.
FELLOWS, COL. WILLIAM. — Saw John Brown Hanged. New York Sun. Feb-
ruary 13, 1898.
FLEMING, WALTER L. — The Buford Expedition to Kansas. American His-
torical Review. October, 1900.
FORSTER, W. E. — Harper's Ferry and "Old Captain Brown." Macmillan's.
February, 1860.
GREEN, ISRAEL. — The Capture of John Brown. North American Review.
December, 1885.
GRIFFIS, REV. WILLIAM ELIOT. — Refutation of Several Romances about the
Execution of John Brown. Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 13. Rich-
mond, 1885.
GUE, B. F. — John Brown and his Iowa Friends. Midland Monthly. February
and March, 1897.
HADLEY, DANIEL B.' — Reminiscences of John Brown. McClure's. January, 1898.
HALSTEAD, MURAT. — The Tragedy of John Brown. The Independent. De-
cember i, 1898.
HAMILTON, JAMES CLELAND. — John Brown in Canada. Canadian Magazine.
December, 1894.
HARRIS, RANSOM LANGDON. — John Brown and His Followers in Iowa. Mid-
land Monthly. October, 1894.
692 BIBLIOGRAPHY
HASSARD, J. R. G. — The Apology for John Brown. Catholic World. January,
1886.
HA WES, ALEXANDER G. : — In Kansas with John Brown. The Californian. July,
1881.
HILL, FREDERICK TREVOR. — Decisive Battles of the Law; The Commonwealth
vs. John Brown. Harper's Monthly. July, 1906.
HINTON, RICHARD J. — John Brown and His Men. Frank Leslie's Popular
Magazine. June, 1889.
Old John Brown and the Men of Harper's Ferry. Time [London].
July, 1890.
HUHNER, LEON. — Some Jewish Associates of John Brown. Magazine of His-
tory. September and October, 1908.
HUNTER, ANDREW. — John Brown's Raid. New Orleans Times-Democrat. Sep-
tember 5,1887.
John Brown's Raid. Southern History Association Publications, vol.
i. 1897.
INGALLS, JOHN J. — John Brown's Place in History. North American Review.
February, 1894.
ISELY, W. H. — The Sharp's Rifle Episode in Kansas. American Historical
Review. April, 1907.
JOYCE, BURR. — John Brown's Raids. St. Louis Globe-Democrat. April 15,
1888.
KEELER, RALPH. — Owen Brown's Escape from Harper's Ferry. Atlantic
Monthly. March, 1874.
KEIM, A. R. — John Brown in Richardson County [Nebraska]. — Nebraska
State Historical Society Transactions, vol. 2. 1887.
KEITH, JOHN. — John Brown as a Poet. Magazine of Western History. May,
1889.
KIMBALL, GEORGE. — Origin of the John Brown Song. New England Maga-
zine. New Series, vol. i. December, 1889.
LAMBERTON, JOHN PORTER. — John Brown. — Lippincott's. 1888.
LAMPSON, E. C. — The Black-String Bands. Cleveland Plain-Dealer. October
8, 1899.
LAWRENCE, SAMUEL. — Three Letters. ... I. John Brown. Old Residents'
Historical Association, vol. I. Lowell, Massachusetts. 1873.
LEE, FRANCIS W. — Letter, giving history of inscription on boulder on the North
Elba Farm. Garden and Forest. March n, 1896.
LEECH, REV. S. V. — The Raid of John Brown into Virginia. The Athenaeum
of West Virginia University. April 14, 1900.
LEWIS, WALTER. Life of Capt. John Brown. The Academy [London]. February
20, 1886.
LLOYD, FREDERICK. — John Brown among the Pedee Quakers. Annals State
Historical Society, Iowa, vol. 4. April-October, 1866.
McCLELLAN, KATHERINE ELIZABETH. — A Hero's Grave in the Adirondacks. —
Saranac Lake, New York: Published by the Author. 1896. Pp. 20.
McKiM, J. MILLER. — Mrs. Brown and Her Family. National Anti-Slavery
Standard. December 3, 1859.
MACLEAN, J. P., Ph. D. — The Shaker Community of Warren County. Ohio
Archaeological and Historical Society Publications, vol. 10. Columbus. 1901.
MARSHALL, G. A. — Another John Brown Song. The Independent. July 21,
1910.
[THE] MOCK AUCTION. — Hudibras Redivivus. A Review of Osawattomie Sold.
A Satire. Southern Literary Messenger. June, 1860.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 693
MORSE, J. T., JR. — Review of F. B. Sanborn's Life and Letters of John Brown.
Atlantic Monthly. February, 1886.
MORSE, SIDNEY H. — Editorial Commemoration of the Qth Anniversary of
Brown's Execution. The Radical. December, 1868.
NICHOLS, MAY E. — John Brown and His Adirondack Grave and Home.
National Magazine. July, 1903.
NORTON, C. E. — Review of Redpath's "Public Life of Captain John Brown."
Atlantic Monthly. March, 1860.
PARKER, JUDGE RICHARD. — John Brown's Trial. St. Louis Globe- Democrat.
April 8, 1888.
PHILLIPS, WILLIAM A. — Three Interviews with John Brown. Atlantic
Monthly. December, 1879.
-- Lights and Shadows of Kansas History. Magazine of Western His-
tory. May, 1890.
POINDEXTER, P. — The Capture and Execution of John Brown. Lippincott's.
January, 1889.
ROBINSON'S "The Kansas Conflict." Reviewed in the Nation, June 30, 1892.
ROCKWELL, JOEL CLARK. — How I Captured John Brown. (A grossly erroneous
narrative.) Independent. Vol. 62.
ROSENGARTEN, J. G. — John Brown's Raid. Atlantic Monthly. June, 1865.
SANBORN, F. B. — John Brown in Massachusetts. Atlantic Monthly. April, 1872.
-- John Brown and His Friends. Atlantic Monthly. July, 1872.
-- The Virginia Campaign of John Brown. Atlantic Monthly. December,
i875-
-- A Concord Note Book. The Critic. October, 1895.
New Hampshire Biography and Autobiography. — Concord, New
Hampshire. July, 1905.
-- Gerrit Smith and John Brown. The Critic. October, 1905.
-- The Real John Brown. Sunday Magazine. July 29, 1906.
-- The Early History of Kansas, 1854-1861. Proceedings of Massachu-
setts Historical Society. February, 1907.
SANBORN'S Life and Letters of John Brown. Reviewed in the Nation, October
15, 1885; in The Dial, October, 1885; in the (London) Academy, February 20,
1886; in the Atlantic Monthly, February, 1886.
SCOTT, MARY A. — Across Country in a Van. Midland Monthly. March, 1897.
SHACKLETON, ROBERT, JR. — John Brown's Raid and its Localities. National
Magazine. April, 1893.
-- What Support did John Brown Rely Upon? Magazine of American
History. April, 1893.
SHAW, ALBERT. — John Brown in the Adirondacks. Review of Reviews. Septem-
ber, 1896.
SHELDON, CHARLES M. — God's Angry Men. (Poem.) The Independent.
July 21, 1910.
SHOUP, SAMANTHA WHIPPLE. — The John Brown Song. The Independent.
July 21, 1910.
SMALL, CHARLES H. — The Last Letter of John Brown. New England Magazine.
July, 1899.
SMITH, NARCISSA MACY. — Reminiscences of John Brown. Midland Monthly.
September, 1895.
SPRING, LEVERETT W. — John Brown at Dutch Henry's Crossing. Lippincott's.
January, 1883.
-- Catching Old John Brown. Overland Monthly. June, 1883.
694 BIBLIOGRAPHY
SPRING, LEVERETT W. — John Brown and the Destruction of Slavery. Proceed-
ings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. March, 1900.
STEARNS, FRANK P. — John Brown and his Eastern Friends. New England
Magazine. July, 1910.
STIMSON, JOHN WARD. — An Overlooked American Shelley [Richard Realf]. The
Arena. July, 1903.
THAYER, WILLIAM [HARDY]. — The Black Strings of 1859. Weekly Indiana State
Journal. August 23, 1893. [Interview.]
TODD, J. E. — John Brown's Last Visitto Tabor. Annalsof Iowa. April-July, 1898.
UTTER, DAVID N. — John Brown of Osawattomie. North American Review.
November, 1883.
Review of Sanborn's Life of John Brown. The Dial. October, 1885.
VALLANDIGHAM, E. N. — John Brown — Modern Hebrew Prophet. Putnam's
Magazine. December, 1909.
VAN RENSSELAER, M. G. — Protest against erecting a Monument on the Adiron-
dack Farm. Garden and Forest. January 29, 1896.
VILLARD, OSWALD GARRISON. — How Patrick Higgins met John Brown. Harper's
Weekly. June 26, 1909.
WASHINGTON, B. C. — The Trial of John Brown. The Green Bag. April, 1899.
WAYLAND, JOHN W. — One of John Brown's Men [John H. Kagi]. The Pennsyl-
vania German. October, 1909.
WEEKS, STEPHEN B., Ph. D. — The Lost Colony of Roanoke: its Fate and Sur-
vival. [In relation to L. S. Leary]. Papers of the American Historical Society.
October, 1891.
WELLS, JOHN D. — The Scars of War in the Shenandoah. Metropolitan Maga-
zine. August, 1898.
WILLIAMS, HAROLD PARKER. — Brookline in the Anti-Slavery Movement. Brook-
line Historical Society Publications, no. n. 1900.
WILLSON, SEEL YE A. — Owen Brown's Escape from Harper's Ferry. Magazine
of Western History. February, 1889.
WITHERELL, L. R. — Old John Brown. A series of articles in the Davenport
(Iowa) Gazette of February and March, 1878.
WRIGHT, HARRY ANDREW. — John Brown in Springfield. New England Maga-
zine. May, 1894.
WRIGHT, GENERAL MARCUS J. — The Trial and Execution of John Brown. Papers
of the American Historical Association. October, 1890.
The Trial of John Brown, its Impartiality and Decorum Vin-
dicated. Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 16.
YOUNG, GEORGE W. — Story of John Brown's Capture. [An interview.] The
Confederate Veteran. February, 1907.
YOUNG, REV. JOSHUA, D. D. — The Funeral of John Brown. New England
Magazine. April, 1904.
X. V. B. — John Brown at Akron. Kansas Magazine. Topeka. October, 1873.
IV. AUTHORITIES ON THE KANSAS PERIOD
ADAMS, F. G., Letter-book of. MSS. In Kansas State Historical Society Library.
ANDREAS, A. T. — History of the State of Kansas. — Chicago. 1883. Pp. 1616.
ATCHISON, D. R., Russell, William H., Anderson, Jos. C., Boone, A. G., String-
fellow, B. F., Buford, J. — The Voice of Kansas. Let the South Respond.
De Bow's Commercial Review. August, 1856.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 695
BAILEY, JUDGE L. D. — Border Ruffian Troubles in Kansas. Some Newspaper
Articles written for the Garden City Sentinel and Kansas Cultivator. . . .
Edited by Charles R. Green. — Lyndon, Kansas. July, 1899. Pp. 101.
BLACKMAR, FRANK W. — Charles Robinson. The First Free-State Governor of
Kansas. — Topeka: Crane & Co. 1900. Pp. 115.
BREWERTON, G. DOUGLAS. — The War in Kansas. — New York: Derby and
Jackson. 1856. Pp. 400.
BRIGGS, C. W. — The Reign of Terror in Kansas. — Boston. 1856.
BROWN, G. W. — The Rescue of Kansas from Slavery, with False Claims Cor-
rected.— Rockford, 111.: The Author. 1902. Pp. 160.
— Reminiscences of Old John Brown. . . . — Rockford, 111.: Abraham
E. Smith. 1880. Pp. 80.
— Reminiscences of Gov. R. J. Walker. — Rockford, 111. : Printed and Pub-
lished by the Author. 1902. Pp. 204.
BROWN, SPENCER KELLOGG. — His Life in Kansas and his Death as a Spy, 1842-
1863, as disclosed in his diary. Edited by George Gardner Smith. — New York:
D. Appleton & Co. 1903. Pp. 380.
COLT, MRS. MIRIAM DAVIS. — Went to Kansas. . . . — Watertown: L. Ingalls
& Co. 1862. Pp. 294.
CONNELLEY, WILLIAM ELSEY. — An Appeal to the Record. — Topeka, Kansas:
Published by the author. Pp. 130.
— James Henry Lane. — Topeka: Crane & Company. 1899. Pp. 126.
CORDLEY, REV. RICHARD, D. D. — History of Lawrence, Kansas. — Lawrence,
Kansas: E. F. Caldwell. 1895. Pp. 269.
DOY, JOHN, OF LAWRENCE, KANSAS, Narrative of. — New York: Thomas
Halman. 1860. Pp. 132.
ELLIOTT, R. G. — Foot-Notes on Kansas History. — Lawrence, Kansas. 1906.
Pp. 30. Pamphlet.
GIHON, JOHN H. — Geary and Kansas. — Phila.: J. H.C. Whiting. 1857. Pp.348.
GLADSTONE, THOMAS H. — Kansas; or Squatter Life and Border Warfare in the
Far West. — London: G. Routledge & Co. 1857. Pp.295.
GOODLANDER, C. W. — Memoirs and Recollections of the Early Days of Fort
Scott. — Fort Scott, Kansas. 1899. Pp. 79.
HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH. — A Ride Through Kansas. — Pamphlet pri-
vately printed. 1857. Pp. 24.
HOLLOW AY, J. N. — History of Kansas. . . . — Lafayette, Ind. : James, Emmons
& Co. 1868. Pp. 584.
HOWARD REPORT. — Report of the Special Committee appointed to Investigate
the Troubles in Kansas. . . . — 34th Congress, ist Session. Report No. 200. —
Washington: Cornelius Wendell. 1856. Pp. 1206.
HUGHES, THOMAS. — A Sketch of the History of the United States, by J. M.
Ludlow, to which is added "The Struggle for Kansas," by Thomas Hughes. —
London: Macmillan & Co. 1862. Pp. 404.
JOHNSON, OLIVER. — The Abolitionists Vindicated, in a Review of Eli Thayer's
Paper on the N. E. Emigrant Aid Company. — Worcester: F. P. Rice. 1887,
JOHNSON, W. A. — History of Anderson County, Kansas. — Garnett, Kansas:
Kauffman & Her. 1877. Pp. 289.
KANSAS. — Report of Commissioners of Kansas Territory. Printed in Reports of
Committees of House of Representatives, 36th Congress, 2d session. Part I,
vols. 2 and 3. — March 2, 1861. Washington, 1861.
KANSAS. — [An] Illustrated Historical Atlas of Miami County, Kansas. — Phila-
delphia: Edwards Brothers. 1878. Pp. 60.
696 BIBLIOGRAPHY
KANSAS. — History of the New England Emigrant Aid Company. ... — Bos-
ton: John Wilson and Son. 1862. Pp. 33.
KANSAS. — The Kansas Memorial. . . . Charles S. Gleed, Editor. — Kansas
City, Mo.: Ramsey, Millett & Hudson. 1880. Pp. 261.
KANSAS. — Kansas State Historical Society Publications and Collections. 10 vols.
KANSAS. Minutes of the Big Springs Convention. No place. 1855.
KANSAS. — The Statutes of the Territory of Kansas. ... — Shawnee M. L.
School, Kansas: John T. Brady, Public Printer. 1855. Pp. 1509.
KANSAS. — U. S. Biographical Dictionary, Kansas Volume. — Chicago and Kan-
sas City: S. Lewis & Co. 1879. Pp. 883.
KANSAS STATE PAPERS. — Executive Papers, 1855-1859. — Kansas State His-
torical Society Archives. MSS.
Records of the Adjutant -General. State House, Topeka.
MARTIN, GEORGE W. — The First Two Years of Kansas. ... — Topeka, Kan-
sas: State Printing Office. 1907. Pp. 30.
MISSOURI. — History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri. (No author.) —
St. Louis: National Historical Company. 1885. Pp. 1121.
PAXTON, W. M. — Annals of Platte County, Missouri. — Kansas City, Mo.:
Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Company. 1897. Pp. 1182.
PHILLIPS, WILLIAM A. — The Conquest of Kansas by Missouri and Her Allies. —
Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1856. Pp. 414.
REESE, Louis A. — History of the Admission of Kansas as a State. MSS.
ROBINSON, CHARLES. — The Kansas Conflict. — Lawrence, Kansas: Journal
Publishing Company. 1898. Pp. 487.
ROBINSON, SARA T. L. — Kansas: its Interior and Exterior Life. ... — Boston:
Crosby, Nichols and Company. 1856. Pp. 366.
ROBLEY, T. F. History of Bourbon County, Kansas, to the Close of 1865. Fort
Scott, Kansas: Published by the Author. 1894. Pp. 210.
ROPES, HANNAH ANDERSON. — Six Months in Kansas, by a Lady. — Boston:
John P. Jewett & Co. 1856. Pp. 231.
SMITH, SAMUEL C. — Kansas and the Emigrant Aid Co.; Reply to "T. W. H."
in Boston Advertiser. 1903. Pp. 35.
SPEER, JOHN. — Life of Gen. James H. Lane. — Garden City, Kansas: John
Speer, Printer. 1897. Pp. 352.
Perversions of History. — Archives of the Kansas Historical Society.
MSS.
SPRING, LEVERETT W. — Kansas, The Prelude to the War for the Union. —
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Company. 1885. Pp. 334.
SUMNER, CHARLES. The Crime against Kansas. Speech in -the Senate of the
United States, May 19-20, 1856. Washington: Buell& Blanchard. 1856. Pp. 32.
THAYER, ELI. — A History of the Kansas Crusade. ... — New York: Harper
& Brother. 1889. Pp. 294.
THREE YEARS ON THE KANSAS BORDER, BY A CLERGYMAN. — New York and
Auburn: Miller, Orton & Mulligan. 1856. Pp. 240.
TOMLINSON, WILLIAM P. — Kansas in Eighteen Fifty-Eight. — New York: H.
Dayton. 1859. Pp. 304.
TUTTLE, CHARLES R. — History of Kansas. — Madison, Wisconsin, and Law-
rence, Kansas: Interstate Book Company. 1876. Pp. 708.
WAR, SECRETARY OF- — Official Report for 1856. Exec. Doc. No. i, 34th Con-
gress, 3d Session, House of Representatives.
WEBB, THOMAS H. — Information for Kansas Immigrants. — Boston: Alfred
Mudge. 1855. Pp. 24.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 697
WEBB, THOMAS H. — Scrap-Books of Kansas happenings. In Kansas His-
torical Society Library.
WILDER, DANIEL W. — The Annals of Kansas. — Topeka, Kansas: George W.
Martin. 1875. Pp. 691.
WILLIAMS, R. H. — With the Border Ruffians . . . edited byE. W. Williams. —
New York: E. P. Button & Company. 1907. Pp. 478.
WILSON, HENRY. — State of Affairs in Kansas. Speech of Henry Wilson in the
Senate February 18, 1856. Washington: Republican Association of the Dis-
trict of Columbia. 1856. Pp. 15.
WINKLEY, J. W. John Brown the Hero. — Boston: James K. West Company.
1905. Pp. 126.
WOOD, MARGARET L. — Memorial of Samuel N. Wood. — Kansas City : Hudson-
Kimberly Publishing Company. 1892. Pp. 284.
V. BOOKS, PAMPHLETS AND DOCUMENTS RELATING PARTICU-
LARLY TO THE HARPER'S FERRY RAID
ADAM, L. — La Question Americaine. — Nancy. 1861. Pp. 72.
ANDERSON, OSBORN P. — A Voice from Harper's Ferry. . . . — Boston: The
Author. 1861. Pp. 72.
L'ANGLE-BEAUMANOIR, RAOUL DE. — La Correspondance de Harper's Ferry. —
Paris: M. de Brunkhoff. 1886. Pp. 271.
ANTI-ABOLITION TRACT, No. 3. — The Abolition Conspiracy to Destroy the
Union. — New York: Van Evrie, Horton & Co. 1863.
ANTI-SLAVERY HISTORY of the John Brown Year, being the Twenty-Seventh
Annual Report of the American Anti-Slavery Society. — New York: American
Anti-Slavery Society. 1861. Pp. 337.
ANTI-SLAVERY TRACT, No. 7. NEW SERIES. — Testimonies of Capt. John Brown
at Harper's Ferry. ... — New York: The American Anti-Slavery Society.
i860. Pp. 16.
ARBELLI, H. P. — John Brown, ou Le Pendu de Victor Hugo. — Bordeaux:
Durand. 1861. Pp. 8.
AVEY, ELIJAH. — The Capture and Execution of John Brown, a Tale of Martyr-
dom. . . . — Chicago: The Hyde Park Bindery. 1906. Pp. 144.
BAGBY, G. W. — 1860-1880. John Brown and William Mahone. A Historical
parallel foreshadowing civil trouble. — Richmond, Va.: C. F. Johnston. 1880.
Pp. 23.
BARKER, JOSEPH. — Slavery and Civil War, or The Harper's Ferry Insurrection.
With a Review of Discourses on the Subject by Rev. W. H. Furness, Hon. J. R.
Giddings, and Wendell Phillips, Esqre. — (Philadelphia. 1860?)
BOTTS, JOHN MINOR. — Interesting and Important Correspondence between
Opposition Members of the Legislature of Virginia and Hon. John Minor Botts,
January 17, 1860. — Washington: Lem. Towers. 1860. Pp. 16.
BRANDT, ISAAC. — History of John Brown. — Des Moines: Watters-Talbott
Printing Company. 1895. Pp. 26.
BROWN, CAPT. JOHN, The Life, Trial, and Conviction of. — New York: Robert
M. DeWitt. 1859. Pp. 108.
The Life, Trial, and Execution of . — New York: Robert M. DeWitt.
1859. Pp. 108.
CHANNING, WILLIAM ELLERY. — John Brown, and the Heroes of Harper's Ferry.
— Boston: Cupples, Upham & Company. 1886. Pp. 143.
698 BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHANNING, WILLIAM ELLERY. — The Burial of John Brown. — Boston : 1 860. Pp. 8.
CHAWNER, ROBERT. — The Life of John Brown. (In verse.) — Washington,
D. C.: Published by the author. 1896. Pp. 16.
CHEVALIER, HENRI EMILE, ET PHARAON F. — Un Drame Esclavagiste. Pro-
logue de la Secession Americaine. ... — Paris: Charlieu et Huillery. 1864.
Pp. 60.
CHILD, LYDIA MARIA, Correspondence between, and Governor Wise and Mrs.
Mason, of Virginia. — Boston: American Anti-Slavery Society. 1860. Pp. 28.
COOK, JOHN E., CONFESSIONS OF, Brother-in-Law of Governor A. P. Willard, of
Indiana. . . . Published for the Benefit of Samuel C. Young, a Non-Slave-
holder, who is Permanently Disabled by a Wound Received in Defense of
r Southern Institutions. — Charlestown: D. Smith Eichelberger. 1859. Pp. 16.
DREW, THOMAS. — The John Brown Invasion: an Authentic History of the Har-
per's Ferry Tragedy. — Boston: J. Campbell. 1860. Pp. 112.
FANATICISM AND ITS RESULTS: Fact versus Fancies. — By a Southerner. — Balti-
more: Joseph Robinson. 1860. Pp. 36.
FERNAND, JACQUES. — John Brown et ses amis Stephens, Copp, Green et Cop-
lands Morts pour I'Affranchissement des Noirs. — Paris: C. Vanier. 1861. Pp.
15. (Verse.)
FOUQUIER, A. — John Brown, 1'Abolitioniste. — Paris: Laine et Havard. 1861.
Pp. 1 6.
GARRISON, WENDELL PHILLIPS. — The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. — From An-
dover Review of December, 1890, and January, 1891, privately printed as a
pamphlet. 1891.
[GARRISON, WILLIAM LLOYD], — The New " Reign of Terror" in the Slave-holding
States 1859-1860. — New York: American Anti-Slavery Society. 1860. Pp.
144.
A Fresh Catalogue of Southern Outrages upon Northern Citizens. —
New York: American Anti-Slavery Society. 1860. Pp.72.
GLASGOW, J. EWING. — The Harper's Ferry Insurrection. — Edinburgh: Myles
MacPhail. 1860. Pp. 47.
GROVE, S. E. — Souvenir and Guide-Book of Harper's Ferry, Antietam and
South Mountain Battlefields. — Hagerstown, Maryland. 1905. Pp. 102.
HARPER'S FERRY, Rise and Progress of the Bloody Outbreak at. — Published by
direction of the New York Democratic Vigilant Association. New York. 1859.
HOVENDEN. — Last Moments of John Brown. Painted by Thomas Hovenden,
M. A., 1884. Etched by Thomas Hovenden, M. A., 1885. (A brief sketch of the
subject of the painting, and opinions of the press concerning the painting.) —
Philadelphia: G. Gebbie. 1885. Pp. 16.
HUGO, VICTOR. — John Brown. — Paris: E. Dentu. 1861. Pp. 8.
Letter from General C. F. Henningsen in reply to the letter of. — New
York: Da vies and Kent. 1860. Pp. 32.
HUGO, VICTOR, AND STEPHENS, MRS. ANN S. — Victor Hugo's letter on John
Brown with Mrs. Ann S. Stephens's Reply. — New York: Irwin P. Beadle &
Co. 1860. Pp. 24.
INSURRECTION AT HARPER'S FERRY, THE, and a Faithful History of Know Nothing-
ism and Black Republicanism and their Proposed Union under the Irrepressible
Conflict Doctrine of Seward and his Allies, North and South. — Baltimore.
1859. Pp. 12.
JOHN BROWN RAID, THE, Special Order Book of. MSS. — Virginia State Library,
Department of Archives and History.
JOSEPHUS, JUNIOR QOSEPH BARRY). — The Annals of Harper's Ferry! — Mar-
tinsburg, West Virginia. 1872. Pp. 126.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 699
KAPP, F. — Die erste politische Hinrichtung in den vereinigten Staaten, John
Brown. Demokratische Studien. — Hamburg. 1860-1861. Vol. I.
LEECH, REV. SAMUEL VANDERLIP. — The Raid of John Brown at Harper's Ferry
as I Saw It. — Washington: Published by the Author. 1909. Pp. 24.
LOGAN, FRANK G. — The Logan Emancipation Cabinet of Letters and Relics of
John Brown and Abraham Lincoln. Reprinted from Chicago Tribune. —
Chicago. 1892. Pp. 40.
LUCIENNES, VICTOR. — Le Gibet de John Brown. — Paris: Castel. 1861. Pp. 8.
(Poem.)
MACDONALD. — The Two Rebellions; or, Treason Unmasked. By a Virginian. —
Richmond: Smith, Bailey & Co. 1865. Pp. 144.
MARQUAND, HENRI. — John Brown. — Paris: Dentu. 1860. Pp.246.
MARYLAND STATE PAPERS. — Correspondence Relating to the Insurrection at
Harper's Ferry, I7th October, 1859. (Document Y.) — Annapolis; B. H.
Richardson. 1860. Pp. 79.
MASON REPORT. — Report of the Select Committee of the Senate appointed to
inquire into the late invasion and seizure of the public property at Harper's
Ferry. — Rep. Com. No. 278, 36th Congress, ist Session.
MOORE, CLEON. — John Brown's Attack on Harper's Ferry. — Point Pleasant,
West Virginia: Mrs. Livia Simpson Poffenbarger, Editor and Publisher. 1904.
Pp. 22.
[MooRE, WM. H.] — Startling Incidents & Developments of Osawotomy Brown's
Insurrectory and Treasonable Movements at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, October
1 7th, 1859. By a Citizen of Harper's Ferry. — Baltimore: John W. Woods,
Printer. 1859. Pp. 72.
PARKER, REV. THEODORE. — John Brown's Expedition Reviewed in a Letter
. from Rev. Theodore Parker at Rome to Francis Jackson, Boston. — Boston:
The Fraternity. 1860. Pp. 19.
PATE, H. CLAY. — John Brown as Viewed by H. Clay Pate. — New York: Pub-
lished by the Author. 1859. Pp. 48.
PRICE, WILLIAM THOMPSON. — "Old John Brown of Harper's Ferry;" a drama
in five acts. — (New York? 1895?) Pp. 8.
PROWE, A. — John Osawatomie Brown, der Negerheiland. Festschrift zur ersten
sakular Feier der Vereinigten Staaten von Nord Amerika. — Braunschweig:
W. Bracke, Jr. 1876. Pp. 148.
REDPATH, JAMES. — Echoes of Harper's Ferry. — Boston: Thayer & Eldridge.
i860. Pp. 513.
REPORT: A FULL AND AUTHENTIC REPORT of the Famous Case of The People,
upon the relation of John Brown, praying for a writ of habeas corpus to release
his soul from the custody of Lucifer Diavolo, Respondent. Pp. 8.
RICHMAN, IRVING B. — John Brown Among the Quakers. — Des Moines: His-
torical Department of Iowa. 1894. Pp. 239.
ROBINSON, WILLIAM S. — "Warrington" Pen- Portraits. — Boston: Edited and
Published by Mrs. W. S. Robinson. 1887. Pp. 587.
SANBORN, F. B. — Memoirs of John Brown, written for Rev. Samuel Orcutt's
History of Torrington, Ct. . . . with Memorial verses, by William Ellery
Channing. — Concord, Massachusetts. January, 1878. Pp. 107.
SCHILLING, JOHN L. — The Three Emancipators. — Bellaire, Ohio. 1892. Pp. 59.
The Story of John Brown's Raid and Capture and the Founding of
Historic Harper's Ferry. — Toledo, Ohio. 1895. Pp. 12.
SWAYZE, MRS. J. C. — Ossawatomie Brown, or the Insurrection at Harper's Ferry.
A Drama in Three Acts. New York: Samuel French. 1859.
700 BIBLIOGRAPHY
TODD, REV. JOHN. — Reminiscences, or Early Settlement and Growth of Western
Iowa. — Des Moines: Historical Department of Iowa. 1906.
TRIALS; REMARKABLE TRIALS OF ALL COUNTRIES, with the Evidence and Speeches
of Counsel. — New York: S. S. Peloubet & Co. 1882. Pp. 436.
VALENTINE, MANN S. — The Mock Auction. Ossawatomie Sold. — Richmond:
J. W. Randolph. 1860. Pp. 261.
VESINIER, PIERRE. — Le Martyr de la Liberte" des negres, ou John Brown Le
Christ des Noirs. — Berlin: Jules Abelsdorff. 1864. Pp. 403.
VILLEROI, B. De. — Subscription for the Erection of a Monument to the Memory
of the Brave and Unfortunate John Brown. — Philadelphia: Jones & Thacher.
1867. Pp. 8.
VIRGINIA STATE PAPERS. — Address of the Hon. C. G. Memminger, Special
Commissioner from the State of South Carolina, before the Assembled Authori-
ties of the State of Virginia. — Doc. No. LV II. January 19, 1860. Pp. 43.
Calendar of Virginia State Papers, vol.' n.
Court of Appeals of Virginia. Commonwealth vs. Brown. — Richmond.
1859. Pp. 16.
Document No. I. Appendix to Message i. Documents Relative to
the Harper's Ferry Invasion. — Richmond. December, 1859.
Document No. I. Appendix to Message 2. — Richmond. December,
1859.
Report of the Superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute to the
Board of Visitors. Doc. No. xxvm. January 20, 1860.
Communication from the Governor of Virginia enclosing letters from
the Governor of Ohio, relative to requisitions for fugitives from justice. Doc.
No. Lix. March 14, 1860.
Report of the Joint Committee of the General Assembly of Virginia
on the Harper's Ferry Outrages. Doc. No. xxxi. January 26, 1860. Pp. 24.
Executive's Letter Book, 1856-1860. — Virginia State Library, De-
partment of Archives and History.
Journal of the House of Delegates of Virginia. 1859-1860.
VIRGINIA STATE PUBLICATIONS. — List of Field Officers, Regiments and Battalions
in the Confederate States Army. 1861-1865.
VON HOLST, DR. HERMANN. — John Brown. Edited by Frank Preston Stearns.
— Boston: Cupples and Hurd. 1889. Pp. 232.
WILLIAMS, EDWARD W. — The Views and Meditations of John Brown. — Wash-
ington: The Author. 1893. Pp. 16.
WILLIAMS, JAMES, late United States Minister to Turkey. — Letters on Slavery
from the Old World; written during the Canvass for the Presidency of the
United States in 1860. To which are added a Letter to Lord Brougham on the
John Brown Raid. — Nashville, Tenn. : Southern Methodist Publishing House.
1861. Pp. 321.
WRIGHT, HENRY C. — The Natick Resolution. — Boston. 1859. Pp. 36.
ZITTLE, CAPT. JOHN H. — A Correct History of the John Brown Invasion.
Edited and published by his widow. — Hagerstown, Maryland. 1905. Pp. 259.
VI. REPORTS OF IMPORTANT MEETINGS DEALING WITH THE
RAID AND EXECUTION
AMERICAN SLAVERY. — Demonstration in favor of Dr. Cheever, in Scotland.
Letter of Sympathy from Distinguished Clergymen and other Gentlemen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 701
Speeches at Meetings in Edinburgh and Glasgow. — New York: John A. Gray.
i860. Pp. 17.
THE MARTYRDOM OF JOHN BROWN. — The Proceedings of a Public Meeting
Held in London on the 2nd December, 1863, to Commemorate the Fourth
Anniversary of John Brown's Death. — London: Emancipation Society. 1864.
Pp. 23.
SPEECHES OF HON. A. C. BARSTOW, Rev. George T. Day, Rev. A. Woodbury.
Hon. Thomas Davis, and Resolutions Adopted at a Meeting of Citizens held
in Providence, R. I. ... on the Occasion of the Execution of John Brown. —
Providence: Amsbury & Co. 1860. Pp. 32.
BOSTON COURIER Report of the Union Meeting in Faneuil Hall, Thursday,
December 8, 1859. — Boston: Published by Clark, Fellows & Company.
1859. Pp. 32.
GREAT UNION MEETING. — Philadelphia, December 7, 1859. — Philadelphia:
Cressy and Marks. 1859. Pp. 59.
REPORT of the Public Meeting held in Tremont Temple, Boston, December 2,
1859, on the Occasion of the Execution of John Brown. — See The Liberator
(Boston) for December 9 and 16, 1859.
REPORT of the Union Meeting held in Brewster's Hall, New Haven. . . . Decem-
ber 14, 1859. — New Haven: Printed by Thomas J. Stafford. 1860. Pp. 52.
A TRIBUTE of Respect Commemorative of the Worth and Sacrifice of John
. Brown. ... It being a full Report of ... a meeting held in the Melodeon.
... — Cleveland : Published for the Benefit of the Widows and Families of
the Revolutionists of Harper's Ferry. 1859. Pp. 62.
THE REPUBLIC AND ITS CRISES. — Speeches of Hon. Edward Everett, at the
Boston Union Meeting, December 8, 1858, and of ex-Gov. Thos. H. Seymour
and Professor Samuel Eliot, of Trinity College, at the Hartford Union Meeting,
December 14, 1859. — January, 1860. Pp. 28.
OFFICIAL REPORTS of the Great Union Meeting in the New York Academy of
Music, December 19, 1859. — New York: Davies & Kent. 1859. Pp. 176.
VII. IMPORTANT SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES ON JOHN BROWN
AS SEPARATELY PUBLISHED
ANDERSON, BENNING, PRESTON. — Addresses delivered before the Virginia State
Convention by Hon. Fulton Anderson, Commissioner from Mississippi, Hon.
Henry L. Benning, Commissioner from Georgia, and Hon. John S. Preston,
Commissioner from South Carolina, February, 1861. — Richmond: Wyatt M.
Elliott, Printer. 1861. Pp. 64.
ANDREW, JOHN A. — Speeches of, at Hingham and Boston, together with his
Testimony before the Harper's Ferry Committee of the Senate. ... — Boston.
1860. Pp. 1 6.
BARKER, JOSEPH. — Address: Slavery and Civil War, or the Harper's Ferry
Insurrection, with a Review of Discourses on the Subject by Rev. W. H.
Furness, Hon. J. R. Giddings, and Wendell Phillips, Esq. — Phila. 1860.
BEECHER, HENRY WARD. — Patriotic Address; Edited by John R. Howard. —
New York: Fords, Howard and Hulbert. 1889. Pp. 857.
BIERCE, GEN. L. V. — Address delivered at Akron, Ohio, on the Evening of the
Execution of John Brown. . . . — Columbus, Ohio. 1865. Pp. n.
CLARKE, DR. JAMES FREEMAN. An Address before the Massachusetts Historical
Society on John Brown. — Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings,
June, 1884.
702 BIBLIOGRAPHY
DOUGLASS, FREDERICK. — John Brown: An address ... at the Fourteenth
Anniversary of Storer College. — Dover, N. H. 1881. Pp. 28.
FURNESS, HORACE HOWARD. — Historical Address delivered in Connection with
the Installation of the Reverend Charles E. St. John as Minister of the First
Unitarian Church of Philadelphia. ... — Phila. 1908. Pp. 20.
HALL (N.). The Iniquity (Brown's execution); — The Man (Brown), the Deed,
the Event (two addresses). — Boston. 1859.
LAWRENCE, AMOS A. — An Address before the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings. May, 1884.
RAMEAU, S. — Oration on John Brown. — Aux Payes. 1860. Pp. 7.
ROE, ALFRED S. — John Brown: a Retrospect. — Worcester. Pp. 25. (A eulogy
read before the Worcester Society of Antiquities, December, 1884.)
Ross, ALEXANDER MILTON. — Speech, delivered October 21, 1864, at the Annual
Meeting of the Society for the Abolition of Human Slavery held in Montreal. —
Montreal: John Lovell. 1864. Pp. 8.
SHEARER, W. J. — John Brown's Raid. An address delivered at the Hamilton
Library (Carlisle, Pa.), January 17, 1905. — Pamphlet. Pp. 12.
SWINTON, JOHN. — Old Ossawattomie Brown. Speech . . . delivered in Turn
Theatre, New York, December 2, 1881. Pp. II.
TRUMBULL, LYMAN. — Remarks of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, on Seizure
of Arsenals at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and Liberty, Missouri. . . . Delivered
in the U. S. Senate, December 6, 7, and 8, 1859. — Washington: Buell and
Blanchard. 1859. Pp. 16.
VOORHEES, HON. DANIEL W. — Speech delivered at Charlestown, Virginia :
November 8, 1859, upon the trial of John E. Cook. — Tallahassee: Printed
by Dyke and Carlisle. 1860. Pp. 28.
Addresses of Hon. Daniel W. Voorhees, of Indiana; comprising his
Argument delivered at Charlestown, Virginia, November 8, 1859, upon the
Trial of John E. Cook, for Treason and Murder. — Richmond, Virginia: West
& Johnson. 1861. Pp. 55.
WADE, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. — The Invasion of Harper's Ferry. Speech de-
livered in the United States Senate, December 14, 1859. — Washington: Buell
& Blanchard. 1859. Pp. 8.
VIII. SOME TYPICAL SERMONS
AMES, REV. CHARLES GORDON. — The Death of John Brown. . . . Delivered at
Bloomington, 111., December 4, 1859. Reprinted in 1909. Pp. 38.
CHEEVER, REV. GEORGE BARRELL. — "The Curse of God against Political
Atheism." — Boston: Walker, Wise & Co. 1859. Pp.24.
CLARKE, REV. JAMES FREEMAN. Causes and Consequences of the Affair at Har-
per's Ferry. A Sermon preached in the Indiana Place Chapel on Sunday
morning, November 6, 1859. — Boston: Walker, Wise & Co. 1859. Pp. 14.
COLVER, REV. NATHANIEL, D. D. — The Harper's Ferry Tragedy: a symptom of
disease in the heart of the nation. . . . — Cincinnati. 1860. Pp. 16.
FURNESS, W. H. — Put up thy Sword. A Discourse delivered before Theodore
Parker's Society at the Music Hall, Boston, Sunday, March n, 1860. Boston:
R. F. Walcutt. i860. Pp. 23.
GREGORY, REV. JOHN. -^ . The Life and Character of John Brown. ... — Pitts-
burgh: A. A. Anderson. 1860. Pp. 16.
GULLIVER, REV. J. P. — The Lioness and Her Whelps. A Sermon on Slavery.
Preached in the Broadway Congregational Church, Norwich, Connecticut, De-
cember 18, 1859. — Norwich: Manning, Perry & Co. 1860. Pp. 12.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 703
HALL, NATHANIEL. — Two Sermons on Slavery and its Hero- Victim. — Boston:
John Wilson & Son. 1859. Pp. 37.
NEWHALL, REV. FALES HENRY. — A Funeral Discourse occasioned by the Death
of John Brown of Osawatomie. . . . — Boston: J. M. Hewes. 1859. Pp. 22.
PATTON, REV. W. W. — The Execution of John Brown . . . Delivered . . .
December 4, 1859. — Chicago: Church, Goodman & Gushing. 1859. Pp. 14.
RICE, REV. DANIEL. — Harper's Ferry and Its Lesson. — Lafayette, Ind.: Luse
& Wilson. 1860. Pp. 18.
TAFT, REV. S. H. — Discourse on the Character and Death of John Brown,
delivered at Martensburgh, New York, December 12, 1859. ... — Des
Moines: Carter & Hussey. 1872.
TOWER, REV. PHILO. — Slavery Unmasked and the Invasion of Kansas. —
Rochester. 1856.
TUFTS, REV. SAMUEL N. — Slavery and the Death of John Brown. Preached in
Auburn Hall, Auburn, December II, 1859. — Lewiston. 1859. Pp. 20.
WHEELOCK, REV. EDWIN M. — A Sermon for the Times. Preached at Music
Hall, Boston, Sunday, November 27, 1859. — Boston: The Fraternity. 1859.
YOUNG, JOSHUA. — Man Better than a Sheep: A Sermon preached Thanksgiving
Day, November 24, 1859. — Burlington, N. H.: E. A. Fuller. 1859. Pp. 22. j
IX. BIOGRAPHIES, AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, AND REMINISCENCES OF
CORRELATED OR IMPORTANT PERSONAGES
ANDREW, JOHN A., The Life of. — By' Henry Greenleaf Pearson. — Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1904. 2 vols.
ASHBY, GENERAL TURNER, Memoirs of, and his Compeers. — By Rev. James B.
Avirett. — Baltimore: Selby and Dulaney. 1867. Pp. 408.
BOWDITCH, HENRY INGERSOLL, Life and Correspondence of. — By Vincent Y.
Bowditch. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1902. 2 vols.
BOWLES, SAMUEL, Life and Times of. — By George S. Merriam. — New York:
The Century Company. 1885. 2 vols.
BUCHANAN, JAMES (President). Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of
the Rebellion. — New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1866. Pp. 296.
CHASE, SALMON P. — By Albert Bushnell Hart. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin &
Co. 1899. Pp. 465.
Correspondence of. — MSS. in Library of Congress.
CHILD, LYDIA MARIA, Letters of. — Introduction by J. G. Whittier. Appendix
by Wendell Phillips. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1883. Pp. 280.
CLARKE, DR. JAMES FREEMAN. — Anti-Slavery Days. — New York: J. W. Lovell
Co. 1883. Pp. 224.
COLEMAN, LUCY N. — Reminiscences. — Buffalo: H. L. Green. 1891. Pp. 86.
COLFAX, SCHUYLER, Life of. — By O. J. Hollister. — New York: Funk and
Wagnalls. 1886. Pp. 535.
CONWAY, MONCURE D. — Autobiography, Memories and Experiences. — Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1904. 2 vols.
DELANEY, MARTIN R., Life and Public Services of. — By Frank A. Rollins.
Boston. 1868.
DOUGLASS, FREDERICK, Life and Times of. (By Himself.) — Hartford: Park
Publishing Company. 1882. Pp. 564.
— the Colored Orator. — By Frederic May Holland. — New York: Funk
and Wagnalls. 1891. Pp. 423.
704 BIBLIOGRAPHY
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, A Memoir. — By James Elliot Cabot. — Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1888. 2 vols.
Miscellanies. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1888. Pp.425.
EVERETT, EDWARD. — Orations and Speeches. — Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
1868. 4 vols.
OTERRALL, CHARLES T. — Forty Years of Active Service. — New York and
Washington: The Neale Publishing Co. 1904.
FORBES, JOHN MURRAY, Letters and Recollections of. Edited by his daughter,
Sarah Forbes Hughes. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1899. 2 vols.
GARRISON, WILLIAM LLOYD. The Story of His Life Told by His Children. —
New York: The Century Company, 1885-89. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin &
Co. 1894. 4 vols.
Correspondence of. MSS. Boston Public Library.
GRANT, U.S. — Personal Memoirs. — New York: C. L. Webster & Co. 1885. 2vols.
GRINNELL, JOSIAH BUSNELL. — Men and Events of Forty Years. — Boston: D.
Lathrop Company. 1891. Pp. 426.
HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH. — Cheerful Yesterdays. — Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin & Co. 1898. Pp. 374.
Contemporaries. (A chapter entitled: "Capt. Brown — A Visit to his
Household in 1859.") — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1899.
HOWE, JULIA WARD. — Reminiscences. — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
1899. Pp. 465.
HOWE, SAMUEL GRIDLEY, Letters and Journals of. Edited by his daughter,
Laura E. Richards. — Boston: Dana Estes & Co. 1908-1909. 2 vols.
HOWE, DR. SAMUEL G., Memoir of. — By Julia Ward Howe. — Boston: Howe
Memorial Committee. 1866. Pp. 127.
HOWE, DR. S. G., the Philanthropist. — By F. B. Sanborn. — New York: Funk
and Wagnalls. 1891. Pp. 370.
JACKSON, STONEWALL, Memoirs of. — By his widow, Mary Anna Jackson. —
Louisville: The Prentice Press. 1895. Pp. 647.
JACKSON, THOMAS J. (Stonewall Jackson), Life and Letters of. — By his wife,
Mary Anna Jackson. — New York: Harper and Brothers. 1892. Pp. 479.
JACKSON, LIEUTENANT-GENERAL THOMAS J., Life and Campaigns of. — By R.
L. Dabney, D. D. — New York: Blelock and Company. 1866. Pp. 742.
JOHNSON, DR. WILLIAM HENRY, Autobiography of. Albany, N. Y.: The Argus
Printing Co. 1900.
LAWRENCE, AMOS A., Life of. — By his son, William Lawrence. — Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1888. Pp. 289.
MSS. in Massachusetts Historical Society.
LEE, GENERAL ROBERT E., Recollections and Letters of. — By his son, Captain
Robert E. Lee. — New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. 1904. Pp. 461.
LEE, ROBERT EDWARD, Soldier and Man, Life and Letters of. — By Rev. J.
William Jones, D. D. — New York: Neale Publishing Co. 1906. Pp. 486.
LESLEY, PETER AND SUSAN, Life and Letters of. — Edited by their daughter,
Mary Lesley Ames. — New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1909. 2 vols.
LIEBER, FRANCIS, Life and Letters of. — Edited by Thomas Sergeant Perry. —
Boston: J. R. Osgood. 1882. 2 vols.
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, Speeches of. — L. E. Chittenden, compiler. — New York:
Dodd, Mead & Co. 1895.
The True. — By William Elroy Curtis. — Philadelphia: J. B. Lippin-
cott. 1903.
By John G. Nicolay and John Hay. — New York: The Century Com-
pany. 1890. 10 vols.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 705
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH, Life of. — Edited by Samuel Longfellow.
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1891. 3 vols.
LONGFELLOW, SAMUEL, Memoir and Letters of. — Edited by Joseph May. —
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1894. Pp. 307.
LOWRY, HON. M. B., A Tribute of Gratitude to. — Philadelphia: Jas. B. Rodgers
Co., Printers. 1869. Pp. 36.
McCLURE, COLONEL ALEXANDER K. — Recollections of Half a Century. — Salem,
Massachusetts. 1902. Pp. 502.
Lincoln and Men of War Times. — Philadelphia: The Times Publishing
Company. 1892. Pp. 496.
McKiM, SARAH A. In Memoriam. — By Wendell Phillips Garrison. — New York:
De Vinne Press, Privately Printed. 1891. Pp. 23.
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personal history. — By his daughter. — Roanoke, Virginia: The Stone Com-
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INDEX
The letters noted in the Index include all those which are quoted, whether in whole or in part, in
the text. In some cases the names of the persons to whom the letters were addressed are found only
in the Notes. The Index contains also references to some of the more important matters of interest
embodied in the Notes; but no attempt has been made to index the Notes and Appendix as text.
The capital letter B refers always to the subject of the book.
Abbott, James Burnett, reinforces B at Black
Jack, 208; attacks Franklin, 212; in command
of defence of Lawrence, 258; 380.
Abolition, outlook for, never so hopeful as at
time of Harper's Ferry raid, 586.
Abolitionism, Owen Brown's conversion to, 14;
charge of, disavowed by Big Springs Con-
vention, 104.
Abolitionists, causes of B's later disgust with,
45; B's first contact with those of New Eng-
land, 49, 50; radical, disappointed by plat-
form of Big Springs Convention, 103; mili-
tant, reap harvest in sack of Lawrence, 188;
charged with responsibility for Pottawatomie
murders, 191; difference between their view
and B's of the slavery issue, 336; in their view
slavery was the sum of human wickedness,
384; Southern view of their wishes, 436. See
Radical Political Abolitionists.
Abolitionists in Kansas, in 1854 and 1855. See
Free State men.
Adair, Charles S., warns Osawatomie of ap-
proach of Border Ruffians, 243; 175.
Adair, Mrs. Florilla, half-sister of B, 82, 166,
196. Wife of
Adair, Rev. Samuel Lyle, settles at Osawa-
tomie, Kansas, 79; quoted concerning meet-
ing of settlers at Osawatomie, 134, 135; gives
shelter to Jason and John, Jr., after Pottawa-
tomie, 166; refuses to receive Owen, 167; later,
approves B's action, 167; receives slaves freed
by B in Missouri raid, 372; 82, 128, 179, 196,
210, 239, 242, 293, 304, 308, 358, 398. Letters
to Owen Brown, 606 n. 86, S. C. and Mrs.
Davis, 253 n., James Hanway, 372; from B,
136, 303, 306.
Adams, Annie (Brown), daughter of B, first heard
of proposed raid in 1854, 54, 55, 56; joins B
"at Kennedy Farm, 405; her recollections of
the life there, 416-420; sent away from Har-
per's Ferry, 420; enters Sanborn's school,
533; quoted, concerning Hazlett, 572, and
Tidd, 681 ; as to other matters, 78, 81 n., 408,
421, 422, 424, 594 n. 12, 595 n. 20.
Adams, F. G., 181.
Adams, George, letter from B, 542.
Adams, John Quincy, Pres. of U. S., 23.
Adamson, Mr., 239.
JJsop's Fables, 16.
Akron (Ohio), B's operations at, in 1855, 85; 27,
34-
Alabama, pro-slavery men from, in Kansas, 137,
138.
Albany Journal, quoted, 138, 139.
Alburtis, Capt. E. G., of the Martinsburg com-
pany, quoted concerning fight at Harper's
Ferry, 443, 444; 447.
Alcott, Amos Bronson, impressions of B in
1859, 398.
Alderman, Amos D., 121.
Alderman, Henry, 121.
Allan, Elizabeth Preston, Life and Letters of
Margaret Junkin Preston, quoted, 556.
Allegheny Mountains, B's first thought of, as
future scene of his operations, 48.
Allen, C. G., 236.
Allen, Ethan, and Co., 282.
Alistadt, John H., taken prisoner by B's men,
431, 432, 437, 439.
Alistadt, John Thomas, taken prisoner by B's
men, 432; quoted concerning killing of Mayor
Beckham, 441; and the wounding, 441, and
death, 448, of Oliver Brown.
American Anti-Slavery Society, 559.
Anderson, Col. Edward, 179.
Anderson, Capt. G. T., 351.
Anderson, Jeremiah Goldsmith, killed in en-
gine-house, 449, 454 and n.; sketch of, 681,
682; 400, 402, 407, 419, 462 n., 558 n.
Anderson, Osborn Perry (colored), elected
" member of Congress " at Chatham Conven-
tion, 333; quoted, 420; receives George
Washington's sword from Col. Washington,
431; his escape, 445, 471; his incredible ac-
count of his escape and Hazlett's, in A Voice
from Harper's Ferry, 445, 446, 685; sketch of,
685; 331, 413, 415, 419, 439, 537.
Anderson, Samuel, 175.
Andreas, A. T., History of the Stale of Kansas,
quoted, 117, 212, 350, 602 n. 13.
Andrew, John A., his impressions of and sym-
pathy with B, 400; criticises undue haste of
B's trial, 482; retains Chilton to defend B,
493; quoted, 557; before the Mason Commit-
tee, 634 n. 113; 479 n., 560, 561. Letters to
W. P. Fessenden, 530, Dr. S. G. Howe, 532 n.
And see Pearson, Henry G.
Anthony, Col. D. R., 574-
Anthony, Capt. J. M., his Old John Brown,
quoted, 154.
Anti-Slavery doctrines, disavowed by both
Free State conventions in autumn of 1855,
104, 105.
Anti-Slavery meetings, attended by B, 49.
Anti-Slavery party, depressed by result of first
election in Kansas, 95; designs of, as repre-
sented by pro-slavery leaders, 97.
Anti-Slavery Standard, 575.
Arabia, river steamer, 225.
Archibald, Eben, 380.
Army Appropriation Bill, 1856, 227.
Arny, William F. M., 276, 277, 361.
Arrest of judgment, motion for, in B's case,
argued and denied, 497.
Arsenal, at Harper's Ferry, 428, 429, 430.
Ashby, Capt. Turner, 555, 683 n. 128.
Atchison, David R., pro-slavery leader in Kan-
sas, urges Missourians to vote in Kansas
election, 94; his speech at Weston, 94, 97;
urges Missourians to invade Kansas, 117; and
the Lawrence treaty of peace, 124; commands
Platte County Riflemen, 144; incites Border
Ruffians to attack Free State Hotel, 145; pro-
slavery circular of, 216; commands forces
marching on Osawatomie, 240; disbandment
of his forces a fatal blow to hopes of Mis-
712
INDEX
sourians, 260; quoted, 596 a. 4; 130, 179, 192,
225, 229, 230, 250, 257-
Atchison Freedom's Champion, on the Har-
per's Ferry raid, 473.
Atlantic Monthly, 221, 304 n., 349, 362.
Austin, Freeman, captain of Osawatomie Com-
pany, 229, 244, 245, 246, 250.
Avery, Dr., 233.
Avis, Capt. John, B's kind and considerate
jailer at Charlestown, 488, 544; B pledged
not to attempt to escape, 512; his affidavit as
to his relations with B, 670, 671; 439, 499.
545, 546, 571, 578.
Ayres, name of two Missouri raiders, 368.
B., E., of Rhode Island, letter from B, 539.
B., T. A., letter to Gov. Wise, 518.
Babb, Edmund, suspected of writing " Floyd
letter," 411.
Babcock, Mr., 233.
Bacon, Rev. Dr. Leonard, schoolmate of B, 17;
interview with B at Tallmadge, Ohio, 293.
Bacon, Rev. Leonard W., his John Brown, 592
n. 15.
Baker, Mr., outrage on, 172.
Baillie, John A., 214.
Ball, A. M., master-machinist of B. & O. R. R.,
taken prisoner at Harper's Ferry, 439.
Baltimore, sends five militia companies to
Harper's Ferry, 444.
Baltimore American, quoted, 569.
Baltimore Convention (1860), 585.
Baltimore Greys, 467.
Baltimore Patriot, quoted, 568.
Baltimore Sun, 417, 568.
Baltimore and Ohio R. R., train of, held up by
B's men, 432, 433; employees of, in Martins-
burg Company, 443; and the precautions
taken for execution of B, 524, 525.
Bancroft, Frederic, his Life of W. H. Seward,
quoted, 475 n.
Barber, Gen., 189.
Barber, Thos.W., murdered by Clark, 118, 180,
330, 352; his the only life lost in the " Waka-
rusa War," 126; rival claimants to the honor
of having killed him, 126.
Barbour, Alfred W., 465.
Barnes, William, letters from B, 276, 283.
Bates County (Mo.) Standard, letter from Rev.
Martin White, 242.
Battle of the Spurs, the, 381-383; authorities
for account of, 634 n. 100.
Baumer, Mr., 388.
Baxter, Richard, his Saint's Rest, 16.
Baylor, Col. Robert W., at Harper's Ferry, 447,
452, 465; charges preferred against, 464;
court of inquiry, 464.
Beckham, Fontaine, Mayor of Harper's Ferry,
killed by Edwin Coppoc, 441; fierce indigna-
tion of citizens, 441, 442; a friend to the ne-
gro, 442 n.; 447, 479, 57O.
Beecher, Henry Ward, 188, 191, 518 n.
" Beecher's Bibles," Sharp's rifles so-called,
188, 306.
Bell, James M., colored, 330.
Benjamin, Jacob, 151, 152, 178, 240, 247.
Bernard, J., on the Pottawatomie murders, 190.
Bernard, J. M., his store pillaged, by B's orders,
210.
Berryville (Va.) Clarke Journal, quoted, 501.
Bertram, John, 281.
Bethune, Dr. George W., 563.
Bickerton, Capt. Thomas, concerning the second
attack on Franklin, 230, 234; 232, 256.
Bierce, Gen. Lucius V., 85, 153.
Big Springs Convention (Free State), Sept. 5,
1855, 91; nominates A. H. Reeder for Con-
gress, 103; its platform disappointing to radi-
cal Abolitionists, 103, 104; favors exclusion
from Kansas of all negroes, and denounces
attempts to interfere with slaves and slavery,
104; disavows charge of abolitionism, 104;
denounced by Charles Stearns, 104; its cow-
ardliness fails to mollify hostile Missourians,
104; entitled to a measure of credit, 105; but
attempts to face both ways, 105 ; creates Ter-
ritorial Executive Committee, 106.
Biggs, Dr., 461.
Black Jack, a spring on the Sante Fe trail, fight
at, 200 seqq.; described by B and by H. C.
Pate, 202-207; Pate's article in N. Y. Trib-
une, 204; crucial moment of, 207; list of par-
ticipants on B's side, 614 n. 25; authorities for
narrative of, 614 n. 28.
Black Laws of Shawnee Legislature, 91, 92, 101 ;
no genuine attempt to enforce, 101; effect of,
in north and east, 101.
Blair, Charles, contracts to make pikes for B,
283, 284, 400, 401; his delay in delivering
them, 284; the procedure of " a canny Yan-
kee," 284, 285.
Blair, Montgomery, 493, 508.
Blake, Major G. A. H., 224.
Blakesley, Levi, adopted brother of B, 2, 14, 17.
" Bleeding Kansas," direct relation of, to
Harper's Ferry and the Civil War, 201.
Blessing, John H., B gives his Bible to, 553.
Blood, James, quoted concerning Pottawa-
tomie affair, 154; 175. 176, 232.
Blue Lodges, in Kansas election, 98.
Blunt, John, 168.
Boerley, Thomas, shot by B's raiders, 435, 437,
479.
Boice, Capt., 247.
Bolivar Heights, 428, 429, 43i, 435, 437-
Bondi, August, his story of B's camp on Ottawa
Creek, 198, 199; his store burned and cattle
stolen, 200; concerning the outrages commit-
ted by pro-slavery men, 212, and the " lift-
ing " of Dutch Henry's horses, 235; 151, 152,
155, 175, 177, 178, 202, 210, 211, 229, 234,
236, 240, 247.
Boone, Col., 189.
Boonville (Mo.) Observer, quoted, 99, 216.
Booth, John Wilkes, 555.
Border Ruffians, eastern settlers' opinion of,
96; described by W. A. Phillips, 96, 97; and
by T. H. Gladstone and Sara T. L. Robinson,
97; misrepresentations of their leaders, 97;
destroy Free State Hotel, 145, 146; lawless
character of, 171; not guilty of assaults on
women, 173, 174; threats of violence common
among, 178, 179; elated by sack of Lawrence,
181; believed thoroughly in justice of their
cause, 1 86; causes of their bitterness against
Free State men, 186; under Rev. M. White, ar-
rest Jason Brown, 194; Jason's story of their
treatment of himself and John Brown, Jr.,
194 seqq.; bent on rescuing Pate, are headed
off by Col. Sumner, 209; blockade Missouri
River against Lane's Free State men, 225;
put to flight by Cline's company on South
Middle Creek, 237; their raid on Osawatomie,
240 seqq.; destroy the settlement, 246; losses
in Osawatomie fight, 248, 249; no worse than
" Kansas Ruffians " in summer of 1856, 264;
in the Marais des Cygnes massacre, 348 seqq.;
at Fort Scott, 352; 93, 130. See also Alaba-
ma, Georgia, Missourians as Kansas Militia,
Pro-slavery men, etc., and South Carolina.
Border Times, 193.
Boston, great meeting in Tremont Temple on
day of B's execution, 559, 560.
Boston Transcript, quoted, 481.
Boston Traveller, 498 n.
Boteler, A. R., concerning death of Kagi and
Leary, 445.
Botts, Capt., 439.
Botts, John Minor, quoted, 649 n. 50.
Botts, Lawson, assigned as counsel for B, 483,
John Brown]
INDEX
713
484; opening address of , 490; denounced by
B, and withdraws from defence, 492; assists
Hoyt, 493; sketch of, 645 n. 49; 486, 487, 489,
491, 507. Letter from A. H. Lewis, 506.
Bowditch, Henry I., 516.
Bowditch, William I., 516.
Bowen, Dr. Jesse, consignee of B's revolvers,
289; and B's escape from arrest in Iowa City,
388. Letter from B, 388.
Bowles, Samuel, quoted, 558.
Bowman, George E., 591 n. 6.
Brackett, Edwin A., sketches B in jail, 546; 574.
" Branded Hand, The," sobriquet of Jonathan
Walker, 51, 594 n. 13.
Branson, Jacob, arrest and rescue of (1855),
113, 114, 129, 140, 380.
Brennen, Francis, 121.
Brewster, Martha E. See Brown, Mrs. Martha
E.
Brockett, Lieut., Pate's lieutenant at Black
Jack, 202, 206, 207; declines to take part in
Marais des Cygnes massacre, 348; clerk in
Land Office at Fort Scott, 352; quoted by
Crawford, 374.
Brooks, Preston, assault on Charles Sumner,
154. 327.
Brown, Col. (pro-slavery), 240.
Brown, Dr. (pro-slavery), at public meeting in
Tabor, 385.
Brown, Mr., State Senator of Mississippi (pro-
slavery), quoted, 566.
Brown, Agnes, daughter of Salmon, 595 n. 22.
Brown, Amelia, daughter of B, death of, 35.
Brown, Annie, daughter of B. See Adams, Mrs.
Annie (Brown).
Brown, Austin, son of Jason, death of, 81.
Brown, Mrs. Dianthe (Lusk), first wife of B, her
character and disposition, 6, 7, 18; her mar-
riage to B, 18; mother of seven children, 19;
her lineage, 19; insanity in her family, 19,
592 n. 21 ; mental derangement, 19, 507; her
death, 19, 24, 592 n. 28; 22, 23.
Brown, Ellen, infant daughter of B, death of, 67.
Brown, Ellen, daughter of B. See Fablinger,
Mrs. Ellen (Brown).
Brown, Frederick, uncle of B, his children, 12;
18, 37.
Brown, Frederick, brother of B, birth of, 13.
Letter from B, 43.
Brown, Frederick, infant son of B, death of, 24.
Brown, Frederick, son of B, third sergeant of
Liberty Guards, 121; and the claim-jumper,
130; on B's surveying tour, 133; in the Potta-
watomie party, 153; keeps his hands un-
stained at Pottawatomie, 158; regrets Potta-
watomie murders, 165, 166; and the alleged
assault on Mary Grant, 173; at Black Jack,
203; his appearance there decisive, 207, 208;
his reasons for returning to Kansas with B,
224; his last parting withB, 239; murdered by
Rev. Martin White (Aug. 1856), 241, 242,
357; mental derangement of , 507; 19, 76,81,
83, 91, I2O, 121, 159, l6o, l62, 198, 2IO, 222,
247, 278, 598 n. 33.
Brown, Frederick, son of Watson, 415, 416.
Brown, George Washington, indicted for trea-
son, 142; B's opinion of his Herald of Free-
dom, 354.
Brown, Mrs. Isabella (Thompson), wife of Wat-
son, 422, 561. Letters from Watson Brown,
415, 416.
Brown, Jason, son of B, in Springfield office of
Perkins and Brown, 59; goes to Kansas, 75,
76; his " shanty " at Osawatomie, 89; and the
Indian*, 90; ignorant of real purpose of Pot-
tawatomie expedition, 153; horrified by the
murders, remonstrates with B, 165; questions
Frederick, 165, 166; returns to Osawatomie
with John, Jr., 166; taken in by the Adairs,
166; and the alleged assault on Mary Grant,
173; arrested by Border Ruffians under Rev.
Martin White, 194; his story of their treat-
ment of John, Jr. and himself, 194 seqq.;
taken to Lecompton and released, 197; joins
his father's company, 197; goes to Iowa with
B, 261, 262; with B in Chicago, 269; declines
to join B at Harper's Ferry, 413; quoted,
concerning B's temperance principles, 21, the
Browns' migratory habit, 28 n., the first
news of Pottawatomie murders, 151, B's part-
ing company with John, Jr. at Prairie City,
151, B and burning Osawatomie, 248; 19, 39,
44, 45, 46, 81, 91, 112, 118, 148, 179, 207, 210,
223, 245, 246, 247, 253, 287, 343, 397. Letters
to Mary Anne Brown, 172, 173, Ruth
(Brown) Thompson, 229.
Brown, Mrs. Jason, 173, 197, 223. Letter to
Mary Anne Brown, 112.
Brown, Jeremiah, brother of B, 270.
Brown, John, great-great-grandfather of B, 10.
Brown, John, great-grandfather of B, 10.
Brown, John, grandfather of B, a revolutionary
soldier, i, 10, 278, 543; children of, n.
Brown, John, uncle of B, 12.
Brown, John, of Osawatomie.
EARLY YEARS. — Birth (Torrington, Conn.,
May 9, 1800), I, 13; early years and charac-
ter described by himself in letter to Henry L.
Stearns, 1-7; descent, i, 10, 15; moved to
Ohio (1805), 2; in school of adversity, 2; ad-
dicted to lying in boyhood, 3; effect on, of
war of 1812, 4; interest in slavery question
first aroused, 4; taste for reading, 4, 5; desire
to excel, 5 ; an early convert to Christianity, 5 ;
familiar with the Bible, 6; his trading in-
stincts, 6; vanity fed by success in business,
6; marries Dianthe Lusk, 6, 18; liking for do-
mestic animals and for shepherd's calling, 7 ;
accustomed to adversity, 8; character, as
moulded by his early training, 9; resemblance
to his father, 1 1 ; " a representative of the best
type of old New England citizenship," 15; in-
fluence of ancestry on, 15; the first American
hanged for treason, 15; boyhood, 16; an ex-
cellent Bible-teacher, 16; the Bible his favorite
book, 16; range of reading, 16; schooling in
Ohio, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, 16,
17; thinks of entering ministry, 17; returns to
Ohio and tanning, 17; an excellent cook, 17;
opposition to slavery confirmed, 17, 18; kind-
ness of heart, 18; genuineness of his Christian
principles, 18; a domestic despot, 19, 36; his
children devoted to him, 19; his early severity
to them, 19, 592 n. 23; his tenderness and de-
votion in later years, 19, 20; requires strict
observance of the Sabbath, 20; his intense re-
ligious training of his sons results in a reaction,
2i ; views on temperance, 21; early married
life of, described by James Foreman, 21-23;
debate with Methodist minister, 22; moves
to Richmond, Penn. (1825), 23; his value to
that new settlement, 23; postmaster of Ran-
dolph, Penn., 23; his connection with school
and church work there, 24; marries his second
wife, Mary Anne Day, 24, 25; organizes an
independent Congregational Church, 25;
mail-carrier, 25; an " Adams man " in poli-
tics, 25; unabated interest in fugitive slaves,
25; Free Masonry and the murder of Morgan,
26; moves to Franklin Mills, Ohio (1835), 26;
in financial distress, 26; contractor for canal
construction, 27; unsuccessful land specula-
tions, 27; interested in Franklin Land Co.,
27; insolvency due to failure of real-estate
ventures, 28; his integrity unjustly ques-
tioned, 28; his business misfortunea ex-
plained, 28, 29, 593 n. 32, 33; returns to Hud-
son, Ohio (1837), 29; breeds race-horses, 29;
first visit to New York, 29; beginning of his
career as " John Brown, shepherd," 29; uses
INDEX
[John Brown
money placed in his hands by New England
Woolen Co. for purchase of sheep, 30; his dis-
tressing circumstances, 30; negotiations with
trustees of Oberlin College, concerning pur-
chase of land in Virginia, come to nothing
through his vacillation, 31-33; shepherd for
Capt. Oviatt, 33; moves to Richfield, Ohio
(1842), 33; loses four young children, 34; goes
through bankruptcy, 34; success in raising
cattle and sheep, 34; moves to Akron, Ohio
(1844), 34; in partnership with Simon Per-
kins, Jr. in sheep-raising, 34, 35 ; involved in
extensive litigation, 36, 37; suit of Western
Reserve Bank and its complications, 37-39;
his conduct in this litigation open to criti-
cism, 38; quarrel with A. P. Chamberlain, 30-
41. 593 n. 49.
GENSIS OF HIS GREAT PLAN. — When did the
forcible overthrow of slavery become " his
greatest or principal object "? 42 seqq.; no
documentary evidence of special interest in
slavery until 1834, 43; plans school for ne-
groes, 44; requires his children to swear to do
their utmost to abolish slavery (1839?), 45,
46; Gen. Carrington's anecdote of, 47; con-
fides his plan to Frederick Douglass, 47, 48;
idea of using force probably not conceived
until after 1840, 48; gradual evolution of his
plan, 48, 49; removes to Springfield, Mass.
(1846), 49; in touch with militant Boston
Abolitionists, 49; early acquaintance with the
Liberator, 49; approves of Greeley's doctrine
of opposing slavery with Sharp's rifles, but
not of the Garrisonian policy of non-resist-
ance, 49; his Sambo's Mistakes, 50, 650-661;
policy of armed resistance clearly developed
in 1851, 50,51; founds U. S. League of Gilead-
ites, 50; his Words of Advice to them, 50, 51,
52; strives to band negroes together to resist
slave-catchers, 51; obtains signatures of 44
negroes to his " agreement " and resolutions,
52, which contain direct counsel to resist of-
ficers of the law with force, and to " shoot to
kill," 53; his memorandum-book, no. 2, 53;
confides details of Virginia plan to Woodruff
and others in 1854 or 1855, 54; tries to secure
Woodruff's cooperation. 54; Harper's Ferry
design probably revealed to others as early,
54, 55, but may have been conceived much
earlier, 55; his plan and his object probably
varied from year to year, 55, 56; hopes to
help Southern leaders to secede, and his rea-
son therefor, 56; his main motive to come to
close quarters with slavery, 56.
WOOL-MERCHANT. — • Establishes headquar-
ters at Springfield for sale of Perkins and
Brown's wool, 57 ; his home and mode of life in
Springfield, described by Fred'k Douglass, 57;
his personal appearance and characteristics
at that period, 57, 58; interested in export of
wool, 59, 61; not fitted for the business, 60,
61; trip to Europe (1849), 61; on the conti-
nent, 61, 62; ill-success of trip, 62, 63; rela-
tions with Simon Perkins, 64, 65; litigation
with Warren, 65, and with Burlington Mills
Co., 66; close of his career as a wool-mer-
chant, 66; continues in farming and sheep-
raising with Perkins, till 1854, with some suc-
cess, 66, 67; deaths of infant children, 67;
residence in Springfield, 67 ; controversy with
Sunderland the hypnotist, 67, 68; attends
Zion Methodist Church, 68; disturbed by his
sons' religious backsliding, 68-70; his wish to
help negroes inspires his plan to move to
Adirpndacks, 70; visits North Elba, 71; be-
ginning of his friendship with Gerrit Smith,
71; removes family to North Elba (1849), 72;
hires farm there, 72; wins prize at cattle fair,
72; his counsel to the negroes, 72; defends
them against white residents of North Elba,
73 ; described by R. H. Dana, Jr., 74; urges
North Elba negroes to resist Fugitive Slave
Law, 75; commands his children to resist at-
tempts to enforce it, 75 ; leaves for Akron, 75 ;
continues farming and sheep-raising there four
years, 75; second removal to North Elba
(June, 1855), 76; buys three farms there, 72,
76; his restlessness leaves him no peace, and
he turns toward Kansas, 76, 596 n. 64.
FIRST DAYS IN KANSAS. — Metamorphosis
into Capt. John Brown of Osawatomie, 77,
78; a natural leader, 77; his straightforward
unselfishness, 78; parting words to his family
on leaving for Kansas, 78; receives letters
from John, Jr. in Kansas, reciting conditions
and appealing for arms, 82, 83; their effect on
him, 84, 85; leaves North Elba again (Aug.
1855), 85, 86; attends anti-slavery conven-
tion at Syracuse, 85; money raised for him,
85; ships firearms to Cleveland, 85; holds
meetings and receives contributions at
Akron and elsewhere in Ohio, 85; in Chicago,
86; journey thence described, 87; what he saw
in Missouri, 87; his meeting with a Missou-
rian, 88; joins sons at Osawatomie (Oct. 7,
1855), 88; his destitute condition, 88; finds
the settlement in distress, 88 ; his purpose not
to settle in Kansas, but to fight along the
Kansas-Missouri line, 93; believes in " med-
dling directly with the peculiar institution,"
93 ; prepared to take property or lives of
Border Ruffians, 93 ; effect upon him of crimes
of Missourians in Kansas, in; goes armed to
election of Free State delegate, 1 1 1 ; describes
relief of Lawrence by Free State men and end
of " Wakarusa War," 118-120; muster-roll of
his company, the Liberty Guards, 121; is
called captain, 121 ; his part in events at Law-
rence slurred over by himself, 122; R. G. El-
liott concerning, 122; impression of age pro-
duced by him, 122; James F. Legate concern-
ing, 122; his view of the treaty of Lawrence,
123, 124, 127; declares himself an Abolition-
ist and offers to attack Border Ruffian camp,
123; talk with Legate about slavery, 124; re-
turns, with sons, to Brown's Station, 126, 127 ;
visits Missouri, 127; chairman of Osawa-
tomie convention to nominate state officers,
127; position won by him in Kansas, 127; in
Missouri again, 128; his surveying tour, 133;
Henry Thompson's regard for him, 134; at
settlers' meeting at Osawatomie, 134; words
attributed to him by Rev. Martin White,
134; Judge Cato's court, 135, 136; his know-
ledge of surveying turned to account, 137.
POTTAWATOMIE. — His brief report of the
Pottawatomie murders, 148; question of his
criminality in the business still subject of
dispute in Kansas, 148; place in history de-
pends on view taken of his conduct in that
business, 148; leaves camp of John, Jr.'s com-
pany at Prairie City, 151; his action deter-
mined by complaints of Weiner, 151; his plan
revealed to a council of some of John, Jr.'s
company, 152; preparations for the expedi-
tion, 153; " tired of caution," 153; his manner
on the journey, 154; plan disclosed to
Townsley, 155; proposes to strike at night,
155. 157; his influence over his sons, 158; the
killing of the Doyles, 158-161; none of them
killed by his hand, 159; the killing of Wilkin-
son, 161, and of William Sherman, 162-164;
recognized by Harris, 163; satisfied at last,
164; did he intend to kill Judge Wilson? 165;
meets Jason Brown and talks with him, 165;
hue and cry after, 166; opinions of Free State
men concerning his action, 167-169; Charles
Robinson concerning, 169, 170; views of
James Hanway and T. W. Higginson, 170;
possible justification of his act discussed, 170
John Brown]
INDEX
715
seqq.; not recalled to Pottawatomie because
Free State women were in danger, 172, 173;
had not heard of attack on Morse, 175; was
he warned of threats by an unidentified
" messenger "? 175, 176; his conduct inconsist-
ent with" messenger " theory, 176; probable
grounds of his determination, 176; probably
impelled largely by general body of threats
against Free State settlers, 177, 178; why,
then, did he start for Lawrence? 178, 179; his
own statements of his reasons for the mur-
ders, 179, 180; E. A. Coleman's and Col. An-
derson's reports of his words, 179; logical re-
sult of this plea, 179; other excuses offered
for his crime, 180, 181; said to have been di-
vinely inspired, 181; his action a failure as a
peace measure, but successful as a war mea-
sure, 181, 182; was he obeying orders of Free
State leaders? 182-184; S. C. Pomeroy on
this point, 182, 183; not in Lawrence May 21,
as alleged by Pomeroy, 183; likened by C.
Robinson to the Saviour, 184; never claimed
to have acted under orders, 184; said to have
stated that victims were tried by jury, 184;
believed a conflict inevitable, 185; killed his
men in the honest belief that he was a faithful
servant of Kansas and the Lord, 185; his mo-
tives wholly unselfish, 185; his aim to free a
race, 185; his act no more excusable than
similar acts of Border Ruffians, 186; absurdity
of likening him to Grant, etc., 187; always
disingenuous about the murders, 187; ethic-
ally the Pottawatomie crime cannot be suc-
cessfully palliated or excused, 187, 188, 612
n. 90.
BLACK JACK TO OSAWATOMIE. — Prowls
about camp where Jason and John, Jr. were
prisoners, hoping to rescue them, 196; at Ja-
son's claim, 197; thence to Ottawa Creek, 198;
meets and eludes U. S. troops, 198; camp on
Ottawa Creek described by Bondi and Red-
path, 198-200; preparing " a handful of
young men for the work of laying the founda-
tions of a free commonwealth," 199; hears of
camp of Missourians at Black Jack, 200;
J. E. B. Stuart and H. C. Pate, 201; starts
with Prairie City Rifles for Pate's camp at
Black Jack, 201, 202; accused of violating
flag of truce, 203, 205, 206; describes battle of
Black Jack in letter to his family, 203, and in
N. Y. Tribune, 204-207; his and Shore's writ-
ten agreement with Pate, 207 ; releases Pate's
prisoners, 208; his views of Free State men,
208; his camp broken up, prisoners released,
and men dispersed, by Col. Sumner, 209;
orders pillaging of Bernard's stores, 209, 210;
thinks raiding for supplies justified, 210; in
hiding, 210, 211, 220; reign of terror at Osa-
watomie due to Pottawatomie murders, 213,
215; resumes activity in July (1856), 220; in
Lawrence en route to Topeka, 220; ride to
Topeka described by W. A. Phillips, 221; his
view of affairs in Kansas, 221; censures both
parties, 221; his sociological views, 221;
slavery " the sum of all villainies," 222; at the
Willets farm near Topeka, 222; leaves To-
peka neighborhood, 222-224; members of his
party, 222; his contest with his son Oliver,
223; S. J. Reader's impressions of him, 223,
224; first meeting with Aaron D. Stevens,
224; turns back at Nebraska City, 224; starts
with Walker and Lane for Lawrence, 228;
at Topeka again, 228; Walker deemed him
Insane, 228; talk with Walker on Pottawa-
tomie murders and responsibility therefor,
228; and with John, Jr., 228, 229 and n.; in
Lawrence, 229; the " old terrifier," 230;
probably not at capture of " Forts " Stanwood
and Titus, 232; demands extreme penalty
against prisoners taken at Titus, 233; his re-
newed activity after exchange of prisoners,
235 and n.; in Osawatomie, 235; his plans, ac-
cording to Bondi, 235; his concern for good
mounts for his men, 235; begins to organize his
" volunteer-regular " force, 236; the covenant
drawn up by him, 236, 661-664; his plan for
meeting the enemy, 236; marches south into
Linn County, 236; speech to his company,
236; his company and Cline's nearly fight
each other, 237; speech to his prisoners, 237,
238; raids pro-slavery settlement at Sugar
Creek, 238; returns to Osawatomie with 150
cattle, 238; camps at Crane's ranch, 238; his
activity, 238, 239; described by J. H.
Holmes, 239; urged by Lane to return to
Lawrence, 239; last parting with his son
Frederick, 239; anticipation of attack on
Osawatomie, 240; warned of Reid's approach,
243; his part in the battle, 244 seqq.; tactical
disadvantage of his position, 245; his forces
retreat into the river, 245; his linen duster,
etc., 245, 246; report of his death, 247; makes
no attempt to rally his force, 247; " I will
carry the war into Africa," 248; exaggerates
pro-slavery losses, 248, 249; his newspaper
account of the fight, 249; his arrival in Law-
rence (Sept. 7, 1856), described by H. Reisner,
253; movements in the interim, 253; offered
and declines command of expedition against
Leavenworth, 254; remains with John, Jr., 254,
255; his share in defence of Lawrence, 258,
259; his reasons for deciding to leave Kansas
for the East, 261; at Tabor, Iowa, 261, 267;
narrowly escapes arrest, 261, 621 n. 86; Jason
Brown's narrative of the journey, 261 ; contro-
versy concerning his private meeting with C.
Robinson, 263; condition of affairs in Kansas
when he left, 264; his then status in the coun-
try's eyes, 266; uncompromising hostility to
slavery his chief claim to a place in history,
266.
IN THE EAST. — Tabor, a congenial haven,
267 ; chooses it as headquarters of his " volun-
teer-regular " force, 268; unjustly denounces
Gov. Geary, 268; his plans for war on slavery,
268; in Chicago, 268, 269; returns to Tabor,
at request of Kansas Nat. Com., 269, 270; to
Chicago and North Elba, with his son Wat-
son, 270; quoted concerning defeat of Fre-
mont by Buchanan, 270 n.; in Boston early in
1857, 271; meets F. B. Sanborn, Theo.
Parker, William Lloyd Garrison, and others,
271; Sanborn's and Garrison's impressions,
271, 272; first visit to G. L. Stearns, 272; his
view of Free State leaders in Kansas, 272; A.
A. Lawrence's impressions of, 273; Thoreau's
impressions of, 273, 274; his connection with
Pottawatomie murders never known to
Stearns, and not thoroughly to other Boston
friends, 274; his Virginia plans not then made
known to them, 274, 275; Massachusetts
State Kansas Com. votes to furnish rifles and
money, 274; controversy concerning the
rifles, 275; at meeting of Kansas Nat. Com.,
275, 276; $5000 voted to him for defensive
measures, 276; charges National Com. with
bad faith, 276; his requisition for supplies,
276, 277, 664; visits Peterboro, N. Y., and
North Elba, 277; again in Boston, 277; wan-
dering restlessly through New England and
New York, 277, 278; speech before committee
of Mass. Legislature, 278; trying to raise
money for his volunteer-regulars, 278 seqq.;
at Canton, Conn., 278; contributions re-
ceived, 278 seqq.; his appeal in N. Y. Tribune,
279; assured by Lawrence that his family
shall be taken care of, 280; $1000 raised to
purchase homestead for family, 280; urges
collection of subscriptions, 281; purchase of
Thompson land in No. Elba consummated,
INDEX
[John Brown
281; makes addresses in Worcester, March,
1857, 281; his plans stated, 281; Dr. F. Way-
land and R. W. Emerson on his oratory, 281,
282; slim results of Worcester meetings, 282;
in Easton, Perm., with ex-Gov. Reeder, 282;
learns of his sons' decision to fight no more,
282; financial progress unsatisfactory, 283;
expected in Kansas, 283; makes contract for
pikes with C. Blair, 283, 284; for what pur-
pose were they ordered? 284, 285; delay in
delivery due to lack of funds, 284; first ac-
quaintance with Hugh Forbes, 285; attracted
by him and confides plans to him, 285, 286; an
unfortunate alliance, 286; his suspicions soon
aroused, 286; " helped " by Gerrit Smith,
287; threatened with arrest, 287; with
Judge Russell in Boston, 288; his "farewell
to the Plymouth Rocks," etc., 288; G. L.
Stearns buys revolvers for him, 289; at Al-
bany, N. Y., and Vergennes, Vt., 290; as-
sumes nom de guerre of Nelson Hawkins, 200 ;
John, Jr. fears for his safety in Kansas, 291 ;
leaves for Kansas with considerable supplies,
291, 292; Stearns's confidence in him, 292;
reduced to distress before reaching his desti-
nation, 292; stages of his retarded journey,
292-294; nom de guerre of James Smith, 292;
at Tallmadge, O., semi-centennial, 293; his
memorandum-book quoted, 293, 294; in Iowa
City, 294; learns that Pottawatomie indict-
ments are nol-pros'd, 294; in Tabor, Aug. 7,
1857, 294; his close friends, at Grasshopper
Falls Convention, oppose taking part in elec-
tion of delegate to Congress, 296; their de-
feat helped turn his mind to his contemplated
raid against slavery, 297; applies to G. L.
Stearns for money, 297; his addendum to
Forbes's Duty of a Soldier, 298 ; sends copies to
Wattles and others, with appeals for aid, 298;
Forbes's usefulness of brief duration, 298;
table-talk recalled by Rev. H. D. King, 299;
in his mind, slavery the one wrong, 209; disa-
greement with Forbes, 299; leaves Tabor,
Nov. 2, 1857, 299; reasons for delay, 299 seqq.:
appointed " brigadier-general " by Lane,
301; Jamison's mission, 301; his immediate
plans confided to Sanborn, 302; financial con-
dition, 302; apparent lack of determination
at this time, 302, 303; defended by Sanborn
in letter to Higginson, 303; "the best dis-
union champion you can find," 303, 304;
aided with money by E. B. Whitman, and the
Adairs, 304; goes to Lawrence, Kansas, 304,
and disappears after two days, 304, 305; stet
nominis umbra, 305; in Topeka, 305; not con-
tent with policy of Free State leaders to ac-
cept existing territorial government, 307 ; the
Free State secret society, 307; enrolls first re-
cruits for Harper's Ferry, 307, 308; J. E.
Cook concerning his recruiting operations,
308; his ultimate destination first made
known to his men, 308; his vacillation at an
end, 308, 309; henceforth all his energies bent
upon " troubling Israel " in Virginia, 309;
his men not pleased with Virginia plan, 310;
has words with Cook, 310; his magnetism pre-
vails, 310; travels across Iowa (Dec. 1857),
311, 312; at Springdale, 312; anecdote of, and
J. Townsend, 312; his diary quoted, 312; dis-
closes details of his plan, 313 seqq.; first men-
tion of Harper's Ferry, Jan. 15, 1858, 313;
differences with Forbes, 313; his Virginia
plan divulged by Forbes, 313, 314; " The
Well-Matured Plan," 314; Forbes's plan the
more practical, 314; efforts to dissuade him,
316; with F. Douglass in Rochester, 317; un-
pleasant relations with Forbes, 317 seqq.; dic-
tates disingenuous letter from John, Jr. to
Forbes, 318; tries to arrange meeting at Ger-
rit Smith's, 319; confides his plan to Smith,
420; reads to Smith and Sanborn his con-
stitution for governing the territory he might
redeem from slavery, 321; his will prevails,
321, 322; discloses his plan to the Gloucesters
and other negroes in Brooklyn and Phila.,
323; tries to enlist new recruits, 323; dis-
appointed by H. Thompson's refusal, 323,
324; in Boston, 324; asks Theo. Parker to
prepare addresses to U. S. troops and to citi-
zens generally, 324, 325; concern for his
men's reading, 325; method of raising funds
for him, 325; Higginson's characterization,
326; Senator Sumner's coat, 327; in various
parts of N. Y., 327; in St. Catherine's, Can-
ada, 327; and Harriet Tubman, 327; his stay
in Canada a reconnoissance, 328; Dr. De-
laney, 328; returns to Springdale for his
" sheep," 328; new recruits, 328; Springdale
to Chatham, Canada, via Chicago, 329, 330;
vain attempts to keep his men from writing
indiscreet letters, 330; speech to the Chatham
Convention, 331, 332; his " Provisional Con-
stitution," etc., 332, 333; chosen comman-
der-in-chief , 333 ; the constitution considered
as a revelation of his character and philoso-
phy, 334 seqq.; some provisions suggest in-
sanity, 334, 335; difference between his views
and those of the Abolitionists, 336; Chatham
Convention exhausts his funds, 336, 337;
needs of his men, 337; in Boston again, 338;
consents to temporary shelving of Virginia
plan, 339, 340; his opinion of his " backers,"
as reported by Higginson, 340; receives some
money and arms, 340, 341 ; attitude of Boston
group at this time (spring of 1858) the first
sign of the effort to evade responsibility, 342.
KANSAS AGAIN ; THE MISSOURI RAID. — In
North Elba and Cleveland, en route to Kansas,
343 ; loses five of his men by postponement of
his plan, 344; in Lawrence in disguise, June 25,
1858, 345; assumes name of Shubel Morgan
345; attracted by exploits of James Mont-
gomery, 352; in touch with Montgomery,
353; prepares "Articles of Agreement for
Shubel Morgan's Company," 353; describes
condition of affairs in southeastern Kansas,
354. 355; his opinion of the Herald of Free-
dom, 354; interesting personal disclosures in
letter to John, Jr. 355; directs him to collect
material for " A Brief History of John Brown,
otherwise (old B)," etc., 356; builds " Fort
Snyder," 356; did he acquire title to Snyder's
claim? 356, 357; tries to obtain revolvers sent
by National Kansas Com., 357 ; refuses to take
revenge on Martin White, 357, 358; ill at the
Adairs', Aug.-Sept., 1858, 358; in Lawrence,
359; need of funds supplied in part by notes
sent by G. L. Stearns, 359, 360; signs as agent
for National Kansas Com., 360; his authority
denied by H, B. Kurd, 360; a pardonable er-
ror of judgment, 360, 361; his view of the
slavery question, according to W. A. Phillips,
362 ; prophesies war, 362 ; his whereabouts in
Oct. (1858), 362, 363; state of his health, 363;
the Wattles family's recollection of him, 363;
with Montgomery in his raid on Paris, Kans.,
364; Acting-Gov. Walsh urges offer of reward
for his apprehension, 364; plot to capture,
364; drafts a peace agreement, which is
adopted at meeting of Free Soilers and pro-
slaverymen, 365, 366, 665, 666; joins Mont-
gomery in attack on Fort Scott, 366; his dislike
of serving under another keeps him from tak-
ing an active part, 366; wrongfully charged
by Robinson and others with responsibility
for Fort Scott affair, 367; why Montgomery
assumed leadership, 367; the Missouri raid
(Dec. 1858), 367 seqq.; due to the story told
by Jim Daniels, 367; his companions in the
raid, 368; slaves not the only property taken.
John Brown]
INDEX
368, 369; Pres. Buchanan and the Governor
of Missouri offer reward for his arrest, 371;
returns to Kansas with freed slaves, 371, 372;
prepares to repel counter-invasion, 373; in
camp on Turkey Creek, 373; at Osawatomie,
374; interview with G. A. Crawford, 374, 375;
his "Parallels " published in N. Y. Tribune,
375. 376; denounced by Gov. Medary and
censured by Kansas Legislature, 376, 377 ;
his presence in Kansas the cause of excite-
ment and strife, 378; effect of Missouri raid
on his Virginia plans, 378; his friends not
fully informed as to the trifling results of his
last visit to Kansas, 378, 379; peace restored
there as soon as he had gone, 379; leaves Osa-
watomie Jan. 20, 1859, 379; reticence in let-
ters to his family, 379; travels north through
Kansas with freed slaves, 379-383; case of
Dr. Doy, 380; finances recruited at Lawrence,
380; pursued, 381; the " Battle of the Spurs,"
and his escape, 381-383; the terror of his
name, 382; leaves Kansas for the last time,
Feb. 2, 1859, 383; receives a cool welcome at
Tabor, 384; requests church there to offer
thanksgiving for himself and his freed slaves,
384; addresses public meeting, 385; Dr.
Brown of St. Joseph, 385; disgusted with
timid resolutions of Tabor meeting, 385; from
Tabor to Springdale, 386, 387; at j. B. Grin-
nell's, 386; " coals of fire " message to back-
sliders in Tabor, 387; leaves Springdale, 387,
389; attempt to arrest him, 388; his claim on
the arms remaining at Tabor, 388, 389; jour-
neys with freed slaves to Chicago, Detroit,
and Canada line, 389, 390; lectures in Cleve-
land (March), 391; his person and lecture de-
scribed by " Artemus Ward," 391-393; his
account of his doings in Kansas and the Mis-
souri raid, 392,393, 635 n. 116; remark about
" fence stakes," 393; Cleveland Leader's re-
port of the lecture, 393; his " converted " cat-
tle, 393; his contempt for the U. S. authori-
ties, 393; reward offered for his capture, 393,
394; lectures in Jefferson, O., 394; reticent
with Giddings, 394; with Gerrit Smith at
Peterboro, N. Y., 395; ill at No. Elba, 395; at
Concord, Mass., with Sanborn, 395, 396;
everything ready for the great blow, 396;
meetings with secret committee in Boston,
397; address in Concord (May, 1859), 398;
A. B. Alcott's impressions, 398; and John M.
Forbes's, 398,399; conversation with Senator
Wilson as to Missouri raid, 399; A. A. Law-
rence's diary quoted as to him, 400; meets
Gov. Andrew, 400; last public appearance in
the North, 400; leaves Boston, June 3, 400;
negotiations with Blair for pikes, 400, 401;
again at No. Elba for the last time, 401 ; with
John, Jr. at West Andover, O., 401.
HARPER'S FERRY. — Preparing for attack
on Virginia, without mentioning his real plan,
402; in Ohio and Penn., 402; leaves Penn.
for " the seat of war," June 30, 1859, 402;
at Hagerstown (Md.), 402, 403; in quarters
at Sandy Hook near Harper's Ferry, July 3,
403; reconnoitring in Maryland, 403; looking
for land to buy, 403; rents Kennedy Farm
and moves thither, 403, 404; desires to have
women on hand to avert suspicion, 405; joined
by daughter Annie, and daughter-in-law
(Oliver's wife) 405; short of funds again, 406;
arms forwarded by John, Jr. , 406, 407 ; his suc-
cess endangered by inquisitiveness of neigh-
bors and indiscretion of his men, 408; dreads
Cook's loquacity, 408 ; disturbed by defection
of Gill and Carpenter, 409 ; his plan denounced
to Sec'y of War Floyd, by anonymous cor-
respondent, 410; story of the anonymous let-
ter and its purpose, 411, 412; financial diffi-
culties solved by F. J. Meriam and others,
412, 421; his plan disapproved by F. Doug-
lass, 412, 413; his chagrin at Douglass's de-
fection, 413; other disappointments, 413;
members of the "Provisional Government "
assembled at Kennedy Farm, 414, 415; their
confidence in him, 416; Mrs. Annie Brown
Adams's description of life at the farm, 416-
420; sends the women away, 420; frequent
absences from the farm during the summer,
420; assigns Meriam to duty of guarding arms
left at the farm, 421 ; imminence of the attack
foreshadowed in his letters to Kagi and John,
Jr., 422, 423; last obstacle to attack removed
by Meriam, 423; his previous delay discussed,
424; was the raid unduly delayed or unduly
hastened? 424.
Leaves Kennedy Farm for the Ferry, Oct.
16, 426; disposition of his forces, 426, 427; he
alone had faith in his purpose, 427; no plan of
campaign beyond seizing the town, 427, 438;
seemed bent on violating every military prin-
ciple, 427; had no well-defined purpose in at-
tacking Harper's Ferry except to begin his
revolution in a spectacular way, 427; attack
on arsenal, etc., described in detail, 429 seqq.;
his remark to the first prisoner, 430; Geo.
Washington's sword and pistol, 431; speech
to Col. L. Washington, 432; his orders as to
avoiding bloodshed violated at the outset, 433 ;
first alarm given prematurely for that reason,
434; fails to allow for the spirit of the people,
434; his men take many prisoners, 437; urged
by Kagi to leave Harper's Ferry, 438; why did
he not escape while there was time? 438; soon
put on the defensive, 438 ; cut off from his men
in the rifle works and the arsenal, 439; at bay
in the fire-engine house, 439, 440; kindly
treatment of his prisoners, 443 ; last avenue of
escape cut off, 443; surrounded in engine
house by increasing numbers of troops, 444;
his reply to a summons to surrender, 447 ; in-
terview with Capt. Sinn, 448; " I have
weighed the responsibility and shall not
shrink from it," 447; death of Oliver Brown,
448; but five men alive and unwounded, 449;
betrays no trepidation, 449; two of the five
refuse to fight more, 449; Lieut. Stuart, for
Col. Lee, demands his surrender, 450, 451 ; his
refusal and its result, 451; engine house
stormed by Lieut. Green, 452 seqq.; his brav-
ery at the supreme moment, 453; attacked
and wounded by Lieut. Green, 453 ; his escape
from death due to lightness of Green's sword,
453, 454; not seriously wounded, 455; Gov.
Wise quoted concerning him, 455; his " inter-
view " with Gov. Wise and others immedi-
ately after his capture, as reported in N. Y.
Herald, 456-463 ; circumstances of his surren-
der, 461, 462 and notes; colloquy with Gov.
Wise, 463; his act compared with Wise's con-
duct in 1861, 465, 466; his correspondence
left at Kennedy Farm, 467 ; portions of it read
to the crowd after the raid, 469, 470; removed
to jail at Charlestown, 470; his survival for-
tunate for the cause he had at heart, 47 1 ; his
act discussed in Democratic and Republican
press, 471 seqq.; gradual change of attitude of
latter toward the raid, 473, 474; southern
opinion concerning B, 474-476; possibility of
a speedy trial, 476, 477; question of jurisdic-
tion raised, 477; before the magistrates, 479,
486; was his trial unduly hastened? 479-482;
in court on a couch, 479, 480, 481, 488; ques-
tion of counsel, 483-485; the prosecuting at-
torneys, 485; committed for trial, 486; his
speech on that occasion, 487; indicted by
Grand Jury, Oct. 26, for treason to Virginia,
488; appeals for delay on account of wounds,
488, 489; the trial jury empanelled, 489; sug-
gestion of insanity in his family, 489, 506-510,
INDEX
[John Brown
595 n. 33. 647 n. too; declines to avail himself
of insanity plea, 490, 507; his suggestions to
his counsel, 490, 491; renewed appeal for de-
lay because of absence of witnesses, 491, 492;
denounces his counsel, 492; correspondence
with Judges Tilden and Russell, 493; takes
a hand in examining witnesses, 494; accused
by Hunter of feigning illness, 495; Hoyt
quoted concerning B's character and bearing,
495, 496; found guilty of treason, 496; how he
received the verdict, 406; his vision of the fu-
ture, 496; " I am worth inconceivably more
to hang than for any other purpose," 406,
546; his great speech to the court before sen-
tence, 498, 499; sentenced to be hanged pub-
licly on Dec. 2, 1859, 499; delay of execution
affords opportunity to influence public opin-
ion in the North, 499; diversity of opinion
concerning execution of sentence, 500 seqq.;
Gov. Wise declines to interfere with sentence,
503, 504; question of commutation of sen-
tence discussed, 506; plots to rescue, 511 seqq.;
declines to lend himself to any scheme of res-
cue, 512; his pledge to Capt. Avis, 512; for-
bids his wife to visit him, 513; anonymous
letters to, relating to plans of rescue, and
their effect, 518; precautions taken for his ex-
ecution, 522 seqq.; predicament and attitude
of his Northern supporters, 528 seqq.; Dr.
Howe's card concerning the raid, 531-533;
B's bearing after judgment, 536, 537; permis-
sion to write freely a dangerous weapon in his
hands, 538; tremendous power and influence
of his letters from the jail, 538, 539; detailed
reports of his life in jail spread through the
country, 544 seqq.; conversation with Rev.
Norval Wilson, 544; his visitors, 545-548; vis-
ited by H. C. Pate, 546; and by Gov. Wise,
547, 548; universal confidence in his veracity
and integrity, 547; writes to A. Hunter, 548;
his real object, 548; last interview with his
wife, 550; last injunctions to his family, 551-
553; gives his Bible to J. H. Blessing, 553; his
various wills, 553, 667-670; emotion of his
guards, 554; the journey to the scaffold, 554
seqq.; prophetic message to his countrymen,
554; on the scaffold, 556; his execution, 557,
653 n. 13; his body delivered to his wife and
taken to No. Elba, 559, 561 ; and there buried,
561, 562; views of prominent men North and
South concerning him and his raid, 562 seqq.;
and of representative newspapers, 568, 569;
Victor Hugo quoted concerning him, 569,
588; report of the minority of the Mason
committee, 580, 581; and of the majority,
581, 582; his name involved in speakership
contest, 583, 584; divergent views of B and
his achievements fifty years after, 586; the
truth lies between the extreme views, 586;
a fanatic, but one of those fanatics who, by
their readinesp to sacrifice their lives, are for-
ever advancing the world, 587; brave, kind,
honest, truth-telling, God-revering, 588 : his
rise to spiritual greatness after his sentence,
588; a great and lasting figure in American
history, 588; the lesson of his life, 588, 589.
Chronology of his movements, Aug. 1855
to his death, 672-678; details as to his " men-
at-arms " at Harper's Ferry, 678-687.
LETTERS TO Rev. S. L. Adair, 136, 303,
306, Geo. Adams, 542, E. B., 539, Wm.
Barnes, 276, 283, Jesse Bowen, 388, Ellen
Brown, 398, Frederick Brown, 43, John
Brown, Jr., 34, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 70, 79,
86 and n., 343, 353, 354-356, 358, 407, 409,
422, 423, Mary Anne Brown,1 29, 30, 35, 64,
1 Most of these letters were written to Mrs.
Brown and such of the children as were with
her: " My dear wife and children every one."
89, 118-120, 127, 128, 132, 148, 203, 248, 278,
282, 292, 299, 320, 337, 358, 365, 383, 395, 398,
404, 409, 422, 537, 540, 541, 542, 551, 553,
Levi Burnell, 32, 33, Amos P. Chamberlain,
40, Lydia Maria Child, 249, his children, 69,
John W. Cook, 85, J. T. Cox, 361, Orson Day,
123, 127, J. R. Giddings, 131, G. B. Gill, 337,
T. W. Higginson, 320, 513, 543, W. A. Hodges,
72, L. Humphrey, 543, A. Hunter, 548, J. H.
Kagi, 397, 402, 406, 408, Geo. Kellogg, 31,
Zenas Kent, 26, J. H. Lane, 301, A. A. Law-
rence, 279, Rev. Mr. McFarland, 545, Theo.
Parker, 324, S. Perkins, 59, F. B. Sanborn,
294, 302, 319, 320, 322, 353, 354, Geo. L.
Stearns, 281, 305, 320, Mrs. Stearns, 551,
H. L. Stearns, 1-7, John Teesdale, 93, 386,
Eli Thayer, 287, Ruth B. Thompson, 324,
Aug. Wattles, 290, 292.
LETTERS FROM John Brown, Jr., 82, 83,
229 n., 290, Mahala Doyle, 164, T. W. Hig-
ginson, 338, 397, J. H. Holmes, 300, J. H.
Lane, 300, 301, 304, A. A. Lawrence, 280, C.
Robinson, 262, 263, H. Stratton, 235 n., Aug.
Wattles, 30, Horace White, 269.
Brown, John, autobiography of, 43, 86, 87.
Brown, John, children of, general characteris-
tics, 21.
Brown, John, Jr., oldest son of B, quoted con-
cerning B and the Free Masons, 26; his con-
flicting statements as to date of B's requiring
his family to swear to fight slavery, 46; in
Springfield office of Perkins and Brown, 59;
goes to Kansas, 75, 76; his narrative of the
expedition, in the Cleveland Leader (1883),
81,82; describes conditions in Kansas and rec-
ommends arming anti-slaverymen there, 83,
84; his " shanty " at Osawatomie, 89; and the
Indians, 90; vice-president of Free State con-
vention at Lawrence, 91; member of first
Territorial Executive Com., 91; defies penal
code of Shawnee Legislature, 92; at Free
State convention, 102; at convention of
radical Free State men, 103; nominated for
Territorial legislature, 127, and elected, 130;
incident of the claim-jumper, 130; attends
session of Legislature, 132, 133; on committee
to memorialize Congress for admission of
Kansas to statehood, 133; other legislative
service of, 133; on B's surveying tour, 136; in
Judge Cato's court, 136; his article in the
Cleveland Leader (1883), quoted, 149, 152,
153; and the Pottawatomie murders, 149
seqq.; camps at Prairie City, en route to re-
lief of Lawrence, 149, 150; camp broken up by
U. S. cavalry, 150; deposed from command by
company, for freeing two slaves, 150; another
reason for his deposition, 151; vainly opposes
return of slaves to their masters, 15 1 ; returns
to camp after the murders, 165; his feeling
concerning them, 166; returns to Osawa-
tomie with " Pottawatomies," 166; taken in
by the Adairs, 166; his distress deprives him
of reason, 166, 167; affirms the resility of the
unidentified " messenger," 175; charges Rob-
inson with urging his father to other killings,
184; arrested, 193; maltreated by Border
Ruffians after arrest, 194 seqq.; driven on
foot from Paola to Osawatomie, 195; his con-
dition of mind and body, 195, 196; treatment
of, causes indignation in North, 197; taken to
Lecompton and held in custody on charge of
high treason, 197; Capt. Walker's testimony
concerning him and B, 228, 229; released
September 10, 1856, 254, 255; goes to Iowa
with B, 261; controversy with Gov. Robin-
son, 263; with B, in Chicago, 269; disturbed
by B's proposed return to Kansas, 290; his
views of the situation there, 291 ; with B in
Philadelphia, 323; entrusted with forwarding
of arms to Chambersburg, Pa., 406, 407; hto
INDEX
719
mental condition, 406, 413, 414; effect of his
aberration, 414; has ill-success in obtaining
recruits, 414; warned by Kagi and B of immi-
nence of attack on Harper's Ferry, 422, 423;
his extraordinary statements, 423; his mental
derangement, 507; reviews his. father's busi-
ness mistakes, 593 n. 33; 19, 28, 36, 39, 56, 81,
86, 106, 112, 118, 120, 121, 148, 178, 198, 207,
210, 233, 249, 262, 277, 343, 396, 397. 401,
402, 424, 516, 518, 533, 582, 601 n. 95. Letters
to B, 82, 83, 222, 290, Jason Brown, 222,
Mary Anne Brown, 92, Hugh Forbes, 31 8, J.H.
Kagi, 413, F. B. Sanborn, 45; from B, 34, 66,
67, 86 and n., 353, 354-356, 358, 407, 409,
C. W. Tayleure, 454, 455.
Brown, John Carter, 280.
Brown, Capt. John E., commands pro-slavery
force at Sugar Creek, 238.
Brown, Mrs. John E., 238.
Brown, Mrs. Martha E. (Brewster), wife of
Oliver, starts for Harper's Ferry, 405; sent
away, with her sister-in-law, 420; 417, 418,
419, 422, 561.
Brown, Mrs. Mary Anne (Day), second wife of
B, 24; mother of thirteen children, 25; her
sacrifices for the cause to which B gave his
life, 25; described by R. H. Dana, Jr., 74; B
appeals to A. A. Lawrence in behalf of, 280;
unwilling to join B at Harper's Ferry, 405;
urged by T. W. Higginson, starts to visit B
after sentence, in order to obtain his consent
to rescue, 513; is turned back by B, 513;
writes to Gov. Wise, 549; at Harper's Ferry,
549; last interview with B, 530; B's body de-
livered to, 558; 36, 43, 45, 46, 53, 76, 88, 277,
545, 546, 548, 555, 56o, 570, 574. Letters from
B, 128, 148, 248, 278, 282, 299, 320, 337,
358, 365, 383, 398, 404. 409, 422, 537, 540,
541, 542, 551, 553, Mrs. Jason Brown, 112,
Mrs. John Brown, Jr., 127, Gov. H. A. Wise,
549-
Brown, Mrs. Mary E. (Grant). See Grant,
Mary E.
Brown, Rev. Nathan, 15.
Brown, O. C., founder of Osawatomie, reproves
Pottawatomie murderers, 167; quoted, con-
cerning the reign of terror in Osawatomie,
214, and the power of B's name, 230; his safe
robbed, 246.
Brown, Old Man, name often applied to B. See
Brown, John, of Osawatomie.
Brown, Oliver, son of B, goes to Kansas, 76; in-
cident of the claim-jumper, 130; on B's sur-
veying tour, 133; in the Pottawatomie party,
153; his hands unstained, 158; his contest
with B, 223; starts for Harper's Ferry with B,
402; mortally wounded, 441; his death, 448;
sketch of, 683, 684; 81 n., 86, 112, 118, 160,
198, 2IO, 222, 404, 4O5, 419, 42O, 422, 432,
438, 439, 44L 537, 553, 558, 570.
Brown, Owen, father of B, descent of, i; in the
War of 1812, 4; quoted concerning his mo-
ther, n ; stood well with everybody, n; in
one locality in Ohio 51 years, 12; marries
Ruth Mills, 12; early married life of, at Can-
ton, Norfolk and Torrington, Conn., and
Hudson, Ohio, 12, 13; describes conditions in
Ohio, 13; marries (2) Sallie Root, and (3)
Lucy Hinsdale, 14; how he became an Aboli-
tionist, 14; an agent of the Underground Rail-
road 14; ceases to support Western Reserve
College, 15; trustee of Oberlin College, 15;
loses heavily in B's insolvency, 28; an early
subscriber to the Liberator, 49; his philosophy
of marriage, 591 n. 10; his autobiography
(MS.) quoted, n, 12-14; 3O, 31. 43, 507. Let-
ter to B, ii.
Brown, Owen, son of B, goes to Kansas, 76, 81;
in B's Pottawatomie party, 153; personally
concerned in Doyle murders, 160; and the
murder of Sherman, 162, 163, 164; denied
shelter by Adair, 167; goes to Iowa with B,
261; leaves Tabor for Kansas with B, 299;
elected " Treasurer " at Chatham conven-
tion, 333; starts for Harper's Ferry with B,
402; left on guard at Kennedy Farm, 426;
escapes, 471; sketch of, 686; his diary,
quoted, 31 1, 312, 3i5,3i6;i9, 39, 45,46, 72, 75,
83, I2O, 121, 165, 197, 198, 2O2, 2O8, 22O, 222,
262, 270, 294, 298, 302, 308, 329, 330, 343.
344, 397. 402, 406, 407, 414, 415, 416, 418,
421, 424, 437, 446, 468.
Brown, Peter, of Windsor, Conn., ancestor of
B, not the Mayflower Peter, 10, 591 n. 6.
Brown, Peter, of the Mayflower, 10, 543. '
Brown, Capt. Reese P., killed at Leavenworth,
129, 133, 180, 352.
Brown, Ruth, daughter of B. See Thompson,
Mrs. Ruth (Brown).
Brown, Mrs. Ruth (Mills), mother of B, 3, 12;
death of (1808), 3, 13; descent of, 15; insan-
ity in family of, 507.
Brown, Mrs. Sallie (Root), stepmother of B, 3,
16.
Brown, Salmon, brother of B, 12, 14.
Brown, Salmon, son of B, goes to Kansas, 76; in
Judge Cato's court, 135, 136; concerning B's
surveying tour, 137; concerning the Pottawa-
tomie plan, 151, 152; in the Pottawatomie
party, 153; reports effect of news of assault on
Sumner, 154; as to the time chosen for mur-
ders, 1 55; as toTownsley and Weiner, 157, 158;
as to attack on Doyles, 159 seqq.; personally
concerned in latter, 160; as to murders of
Wilkinson and W. Sherman, 162, 164; denies
that Judge Wilson was on proscribed list, 165 ;
denies that there was a " messenger," 175; or
that Pottawatomie victims were " tried " by
jury, 184; accidentally wounded after Black
Jack, 203, 210; describes contest between B
and Oliver, 223; second visit to Kansas, 269,
270; declines to join B at Harper's Ferry, 413;
his reasons for declining, 424; as to B's pecu-
liarities, 424; as to " retreat " from Kansas in
1856, 616 n. 68; 20, 24, 54, 56, 72, 81 and n.,
83, 91, 120, 121, 128, 149, 168 n., 173, 177,
183, 198, 202, 222, 405, 561. Letter to B, 82,
Rev. Joshua Young, 612, n. 90.
Brown, Sarah, daughter of B, and the plan to
attack Harper's Ferry, 55; quoted, concern-
ing Watson Brown, 683; 405, 533.
Brown, Spencer Kellogg, 244, 246, 250.
Brown, Rev. Theodore, alias of T. W. Higgin-
son, S73, 576.
Brown, Watson, son of B, not personally con-
cerned in Pottawatomie murders, 159; his first
journey to Kansas, 269, 270; turns back at
Tabor, and goes with B to North Elba, 270;
starts for Harper's Ferry, 405; mortally
wounded carrying flag of truce, 439; his death
described by C. W. Tayleure, 454, 455;
sketch of, 686; 20, 58, 72, 76, 407, 409, 414,
419, 448, 449, 537, 553, 558 and n., 570. Let-
ters to Mrs. Isabella Brown, 415, 416; from
Mrs. Wealthy Brown, 92.
Brown, Mrs. Wealthy, wife of John Jr., describes
conditions at Osawatomie, 88; 118. Letters
to John Jr., 172, Mary Anne Brown, 88, 89,
127, Watson Brown, 92.
" Brown and Thompson's addition to Franklin
Village," 27, 28.
Brown settlement, near Osawatomie, various
names of, 112.
Brown's Station, temporary name of Brown set-
tlement, 112.
Browne, Charles F. See Ward, Artemus.
Browne, William Hand, his Maryland, the His-
tory of a Palatinate, quoted, 475.
Brownsville, temporary name of Brown settle-
ment, 82, 112.
720
INDEX
Brua, Joseph A., 438, 439. 440, 443.
Brussels, visited by B, 62.
Bryant, Joseph, and Hugh Forbes, 286; 293.
Buchanan, James, Pres. of U. S., and Gov.
Walker, 295; offers reward for capture of B,
371; notified by Garrett, of Harper's Ferry
raid, 434; orders artillery and marines thither,
449, and Robert E. Lee and J. E. B. Stuart,
450; message to Congress in Dec., 1859, 566;
374, 381, 478, 523, 524.
" Buckskin," 233.
Buffum, D0yid C., murdered, 260.
Buford, Major Jefferson, in command of Border
Ruffians in Kansas, 137, 138; his pro-slavery
circular, 216; appeals for aid, 231; 144, 146,
150, 192.
Bunyan, John, the Pilgrim's Progress familiar
to B, 16.
Burlington (Iowa) Gazette, denounces Potta-
watomie murders, 191.
Burlington Mills Co., suit against Perkins and
Brown, 66.
Burnell, Levi, treasurer of Oberlin College, 32.
Letters from B, 32, 33.
Burns, Anthony, fugitive slave, 384, 511.
Burns, Col. James N., disputes Major Clarke's
claim to have murdered Barber, 126.
Burns, John, 520.
Butler, Rev. Pardee, maltreated by pro-slavery
men, no; stripped and "cottoned," 141.
Buzton, Canada, 327.
Byrne, Terence, captured by B's raiders, 437,
439-
Cabot, James Elliot, A Memoir of Ralph Waldo
Emerson, quoted, 282.
Cabot, Dr. Samuel, Jr., 271, 273, 325.
Cackler, Christian, the Recollections of an Old
Settler, quoted, 9.
Calais (France), visited by B, 6r.
Calhoun, John, 296, 307.
California, rush of gold-seekers to, 80.
Callender, W. H. D., 278, 279, 286.
Campbell, Bishop, 59.
Campbell, John F., murdered by Hamilton and
his men, 348, 375-
Campbell, Sheriff, 537, 538, 539, 556.
Canterbury (Conn.), suppression of schools for
negroes in, 45.
Canton (Conn.), 278, 279.
Cantrall, Mr., murder of, 181, 213; mock trial
of, by court-martial, 213.
Carleton, Silas, 533, 534-
Carpenter, Henry, defection of, 409; 576.
Carpenter, Howard, 198.
Carpenter, O. A., guides B's Pottawatomie
party to Ottawa Creek, 198; 210.
Carr, a settler, 239, 242.
Carr, Lieut. Eugene A., 621 n. 86.
Carrington, Gen. Henry B., quoted, 47.
Carruth, James H., 167.
Carter, Mr., murder of, 214.
Carter, Charles P., alias of T. W. Higginson,
573-
Carter, T. W., agent of Mass. Arms Co., 289.
Case, A. H., quoted, 601 n. 104.
Cass, Lewis, Sec'y of State, letters from Gov.
Denver, 351, Acting-Gov. Walsh, 364.
Castele, A., 168.
Cato, Judge Sterling G., holds court at Sher-
man settlement, 135, 136; issues warrants
for arrest of the Browns, 135; 137, 195, 254,
260.
Central Committee for Kansas, 275.
Chadwick, Rear-Adm. French E., The Causes of
the Ciril War, quoted, 341.
Chamberlain, Amos P., and the title to West-
lands, 38 seqq.; B's quarrel with, 39-41, 593
n. 49. Letter from B, 40.
Chambers, George W., shoots A. D. Stevens.
439; and the killing of W. Thompson, 442;
49i.
Chambersburg (Penn.), Kagi's headquarters at,
406, 407.
Chapin, Messrs., 278.
Chapin, Lou V., Last Days of Old John Brown,
quoted, 36.
Charleston Convention, 1860, 585.
Charleston Courier, quoted, 97.
Charleston Independent Democrat, B quoted
in, 545-
Charleston Mercury, quoted, 97, 568.
Charles Town (West Va.), 429. And see Charles-
town.
Charlestown (Va.), news of raid carried to, by
Dr. Starry, 436; dread of a slave rising, 436;
militia and other volunteers turn out, 436; B
and others lodged in jail, 470; trial of B, 486
seqq.; reception of verdict, 497; self-control
of people after sentence, 499, 500; proposed
attack on, 516 seqq.; rescue scares, 519, 520;
numerous fires, 520; end of reign of terror,
522; preparations for execution, 522 seqq.
" Charley." See Kaiser, Charles.
Chase, Salmon P., Gov. of Ohio, 271 and n.,
298. 524.
Chatham (Canada), convention of B's followers
there, 330 seqq.; really two conventions, 331;
327, 328.
Chatham Convention, proceedings of, 330 seqq.;
oath of secrecy imposed, 333; " Provisional
Constitution " adopted, 333; second conven-
tion called under new constitution, 333; offi-
cers elected at, 333; list of colored men in at-
tendance, 628 n. 55.
Chicago Tribune, 46, 352.
Child, D. Lee, 293.
Child, Lydia Maria, her proposed visit to B, 479
n.; 510. Letter to Gov. Wise, 479.
Chilton, Samuel, retained by John A. Andrew
to defend B, 493 ; prays that government be
required to elect on which count they will
proceed, 494, 495; argues for defence, 406;
motion in arrest of judgment, 497.
Chippewa Indians, 9.
Church Anti-Slavery Society, B at meeting in
Boston, 400.
Church, Lieut. John R., breaks up John Brown,
Jr.'s camp, 150.
Claim- Jumper, a, expulsion of, by minute-men,
130.
Clark, Malcolm, killed by C. McCrea, 109, no.
Clark, Rev. Wm. C., assault on, in.
Clarke, Major Geo. E., soi-disant murderer of
Barber, 126, 352.
Clarke, James Freeman, Anti-Slavery Days,
Gen. Carrington quoted in, 47; his characteri-
zation of B, 186, 187; 213, 326, 327.
Clarke, Wm. Penn, 388, 390.
Clay, C. C., quoted, 584.
Cleveland (Ohio), public sentiment in, 394.
Cleveland Herald, quoted, 569.
Cleveland Leader, John Brown, Jr.'s statement
in (1883), 81, 82, 149; announces B's lecture,
March 18, 1859. 39i; its report of the lec-
ture, 393; and the raid, 472.
Cleveland Plain Dealer, " Artemus Ward's " de-
scription of B and Kagi in, 391, 392; and of
B's lecture, 392, 393.
Cline, Capt. James B., his company marches
south from Osawatomie with B, 236: meets
pro-slavery force at South Middle Creek and
puts it to flight, 237 ; accidental collision with
B's company, 237; in battle of Osawatomie,
244; 238, 230, 249.
Cochrane, Benjamin, 200, 293.
Cochren. Benjamin L., 121.
Coffee, Gen., and Col. Sumner, 209.
Coffin, W. H. The Settlement of the Friends in
Kansas, 192.
INDEX
721
Coine, W. W., 121.
Colby, Deputy Marshal, 381.
Coleman, E. A., reports B's words justifying
Pottawatomie murders, 179.
Coleman, Franklin N., murderer of C. Dow,
113; political consequences of his act, 113
seqq.; suspected of shooting Stewart, 142.
Coleman, William, 343.
Collamer, Jacob, U. S. Senator from Vermont,
of minority of Mason Committee, 580.
Collins, Samuel, shot by P. Laughlin, 112, 113,
180.
Collinsville (Conn.), 278, 279.
Collis, Daniel W., 121.
Columbia (Mo.) Statesman, 99.
Colpetzer, William, murdered by Hamilton's
gang, 348, 375.
Colt, Mrs. M. D., Went to Kansas, 89 n.
Concord (Mass.), B's address at, in May, 1859,
398; arrest of F. B. Sanborn at, 533, 534.
Congress of the U. S., and the Lecompton Con-
stitution, 347; passes the English compro-
mise, 347.
Conkling, Rev. Mr., 68.
Contempt of court, extraordinary charge of,
made by Sheriff Jones, 140.
Conway, Martin F., Free State leader, 101, 103,
106, 272, 277, 282, 293, 296, 339, 360.
Cook, Gen. Joe, alias of J. H. Lane, 225, 231,
235 n., 252.
Cook, John E., B's first recruit for Harper's
Ferry, 307, 308; his confession, 308, 680; de-
scribes B's recruiting operations, 308; has
words with B about Virginia plan, 310, 311;
corresponds with friends in Springdale, 330;
his indiscretion, 338; sent to Harper's Ferry
to reconnoitre, in June, 1858, 344; lock-
tender there, 408; his perilous loquacity, 408;
with the rear-guard, 446, 447; arrested in
Penn., 487; convicted and sentenced, 569,
570; executed, after almost escaping, 570-
572; sketch of, 680, 681; 142, 215, 216, 315,
329. 412, 415, 419, 426, 427, 429, 431, 435,
437. 468, 469, 471, 477, 478, 483, 510, 531,
554-
Cook, John W., letter from B, 84.
Cooke, Lt.-Col. Philip St. George, reports as to
changed conditions in Kansas, 213, 214; de-
clines to obey Woodson's order to invest To-
peka, 250, 251; and Lane and Walker's de-
monstration against Lecompton, 252; his
good advice to them rejected, 252; escorts
Gov. Geary to Lawrence, 257; with Gov.
Geary averts threatened attack o-t Lawrence,
259; narrowly misses arresting B, 261; 211,
217, 258, 260.
Cooper Union, New York, great meeting in, 562.
Copeland, John Anthony, Jr., in the Harper's
Ferry party, 415, 421. 43i; captured, 445;
saved from being lynched by Dr. Starry, 445;
convicted and sentenced, 569, 570; executed,
570; sketch of, 684; 454, 486, 572.
Coppoc, Barclay, joins B at Springdale, 328,
3 9; in Harper's Ferry party, 414, 420, 421;
left on guard at Kennedy Farm, 426; final
escape of, 471; sketch of, 682, 683; 446, 468,
S7i.
Coppoc, Edwin, joins B at Springdale, 328, 329;
in Harper's Ferry party, 414, 421, 426, 430,
441, 449; kills Mayor Beckham, 441; made
prisoner in engine house, 454; trial of, 497;
convicted and sentenced, 569, 570; commuta-
tion of sentence prevented by his letter to
Mrs. Brown, 570; executed after almost escap-
ing, 570-572; sketch of, 682; 470, 471, 486.
Coppoc, Mrs., mother of Barclay and Edwin,
329, 571.
Cox, J. T., letter from B, 361.
Cracklin, Capt. Jos., in command of defence of
Lawrence, 258.
Craft, Ellen, 384.
Crafts and Still, letter from Perkins and Brown,
59-
Crane, Smith, and his tale of rescuers from
Kansas, 520, 521.
Cransdell, Archie, shoots Dutch Henry Sher-
man, 236.
Crawford, Geo. A., his interview with B in Jan.
1859, 374. 375; 370. Letters to Eli Thayer,374,
608 n. 12.
Cromwell, Oliver, life of, one of the books which
influenced B, 16.
Cross, Mr., taken prisoner by the raiders, 439.
Cruise, David, murdered by A. D. Stevens in
Missouri raid, 369; great excitement caused
by his death, 370.
Curtis, Geo. William, quoted, 563, 564.
Cushing, Caleb, on the law of B's case, 644 n.
28; 565.
Cutter, George, a Free State settler, 239, 242 ;
seriously wounded, 243.
Cyrus, negro boy, 75.
Daingerfield, J. E. P., paymaster's clerk of the
armory at Harper's Ferry, 439, 443; his con-
versation with B, 443.
Dana, Richard H., Jr., How we met John Brown.
quoted, 74; entertained by B at No. Elba, 74;
his description of B, his family, and his home,
74-
Daniels, Jim, slave, whose appeal led to B's
Missouri raid, 367, 368, 376.
Davenport, Col. Braxton, presiding justice at
preliminary hearing in case of B and others,
487-
David, William, 293.
Davis, Henry, Border Ruffian, killed by Lucius
Kibbey, 109.
Davis, Jefferson, as Sec'y of War, censures Col.
Sunnier, 217; and Col. Sumner, 217, 218,
219; instructions to Gen. Smith, 251 ; as U. S.
Senator from Miss., quoted, 565; joins in re-
port of majority of Mason Committee, 580;
130. Letter to Col. Sumner, 218.
Davis, Col. J. Lucius, quoted, 519, 520 and n.;
521, 522.
Davis, S. C., letter from S. L. Adair, 253 n.
Davis, Mrs. S. C., quoted, 270 n.
Day, Charles, father of B's second wife, 24.
Day, Horace H., 178.
Day, Mary Anne, married to B (1833), 24, 25.
See Brown, Mary Anne (Day). Sister of
Day, Orson, 7i,:i48, 178. Letters fromE, 123,127.
Dayton, Oscar V., secretary of settlers' meeting
at Osawatomie, 135.
Deitzler, Geo. W., indicted for treason, 142;
arrested, 145; 98.
Delahay, Mark W., Free Soil candidate for
delegate in Congress, 129.
Delamater, Geo. B., 24, 46.
Delany, Dr. Martin R., colored, 328, 331, 333.
Democratic pro-slavery press, and the Potta-
watomie murders, 191 ; and the Harper's
• Ferry raid, 471, 472.
Democrats, Northern, vote for Kansas-Ne-
braska Act, 80.
Denver, James Wilson, Acting-Gov. and Gov.
of Kansas, adjusts troubles growing out of
Marais des Cygnes massacre, 349, 350; hos-
tile to Montgomery, 351; his peace compact
substantially renewed by Sugar Mound Con-
vention, 366; 346, 364, 376. Letter to Secretary
Cass, 351.
Des Moines (Iowa), 387.
Dix, John A., 563.
Donaldson, J. B., U. S. marshal, his proclama-
tion to law-abiding citizens, 143; is sent first
to pro-slavery strongholds, 143; his forces
composed of Border Ruffians, 144, 145; 144 n.,
180, 185, 211, 252, 354.
722
INDEX
Doniphan (Kansas), scene of murder of Saml.
Collins, 112.
Doolittle, James R., U. S. Senator from Wiscon-
sin, of minority of Mason Com., 580.
Douglas, Stephen A., U. S. Senator from Illi-
nois, favors Kansas-Nebraska Act, 80; and
the Toombs bill, 227; opposed to Lecompton
Constitution, 306, 347; quoted, 365; nomin-
ated for President, 585.
Douglass, Frederick, his Life and Times of
Frederick Douglass, quoted, 47, 48, 57, 58;
describes B's home in Springfield, Mass., and
his personal aspect, 57, 58; urges contribu-
tions for B, at Syracuse convention, 85; B's
first confidant as to his Virginia plan, 317; B
visits him early in 1858, 317; gives money to
Forbes, 317; B's disappointment with him,
323; feeling of B's family toward him, 323,
627 n. 33; at final conference with B disap-
proves plan of raid, 412, 413; withdraws his
support from B, 413; leaves the country after
the raid, 529; 67, 269, 390, 398.
Dow, Charles, shot by F. N. Coleman, 113, 180.
Doy, Dr. John, captured with his liberated
slaves, and rescued, 380; 511, 514, 546, 575.
Doyle, Mr., husband of Mahala, and father of
Drury, John, and William; murder of, 159
seqq.
Doyle, Drury, murder of, 159 seqq.
Doyle, John, quoted concerning Doyle murders,
160; 164.
Doyle, Mrs. Mahala, describes murder of her
husband and sons, 158 seqq.; Salmon Brown
concerning, 159; 156, 190, 195. Letter toft, 164.
Doyle, William, murder of, 159 seqq.
Doyle family, on Pottawatomie Creek, character
of, 156; attack on, 158-161; John Doyle and
Townsley concerning mutilation of their
bodies, 160, 161; alleged intimidation by, 172;
and the Morse case, 174; said by some to
have deserved their fate, 180.
Dunbar, Jennie (Mrs. Garcelon), 572.
Duncan, L. A., 388.
Dutch Henry. See Sherman, Henry.
Dutch Henry's Crossing, 151, 155, 157.
Duty of the Soldier, The, by Hugh Forbes, 297,
298; disapproved by Sanborn and Theodore
Parker, 298.
Eastin, Brig.-Gen. Lucien J., publishes call to
arms against Free State men, 116; Woodson's
letter to him denounced as forgery, 116.
Easton (Kansas), Leavenworth election held at
(Jan. 1856), 128.
Edwards, Rev. Jona., his works owned by B, 16.
Eldredge, Col., 260.
Eldridge, Charles, 574.
Elections Committee of House of Representa-
tives reports against Whitfield and in favor of
Reeder as delegate, 226.
Elgin Association, a colony for escaped slaves,
327.
Eliot, George, Adam Bede, 326.
Elliott, R. G., quoted, 122, 230, 307.
Ellsworth, Alfred M., elected member of Con-
gress, at Chatham Convention, 333.
Elmore, Rush, Justice of Kansas Terr., upholds
legality of Shawnee Legislature, 100; 377,
378.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, meets B, 273; quoted,
282, 560, 563 ; as to B's speech before sentence,
646 n 81; 561.
Emigrant Aid Societies, New England, recruits
of, in Kansas, 95, 96; 98, 265.
Emigrant Aid Society, ships Sharp's rifles to
C. Robinson, 98; saw-mill of, at Osawa-
tomie spared by Border Ruffians, 246; 146,
227.
English bill. The, a compromise measure passed
by Congress, 347 ; a pro-slavery victory, 347 ;
a bribe to Kansas to accept Lecompton Con-
stitution, 347.
Epps, Lyman, colored neighbor of B at No.
Elba, 55, 562.
Erickson, Aaron, concerning B's insanity, 595 n.
33.
Ervin, Dr., 369.
Everett, Edward, 565.
Executive Committee. See Free State Execu-
tive Committee and Territorial Executive
Committee.
Fablinger, Mrs. Ellen (Brown), daughter of B.
405. Letter from B, 398.
Fain, U. S. Deputy Marshal, at Free State Ho-
tel, 145; makes arrests in Lawrence, 145.
Fairfield, temporary name of Brown settlement
near Osawatomie, 112.
Faneuil Hall, Union meeting in, 562, 563, 565.
Faulkner, Charles J., assigned as counsel for
B, and declines, 483; his opinion of the trial,
483; 456, 486, 487. Letter to M. W. Cluskey,
483; from A. H. Lewis, 506.
Fauquier Cavalry, 549.
Fayette, Mr., a colored preacher, 45, 46.
Featherstonhaugh, Dr. Thomas, 558 n.
Fessenden, Wm. Pitt, letter from John A. An-
drew, 530.
Field, David Dudley, 230.
Filer, James N., shoots Sheriff Jones, 140.
Fisher, Ellwood, letter to Gov. Wise, 47 n. 93.
Fitch, G. N., U. S. Senator from Indiana, joins
in majority report of Mason Com., 580.
Flanders farm at No. Elba, hired by B, 72.
Flirt (yacht), 515-
Floyd, John B., Sec'y of War, anonymous letter
to, denouncing B's plan, 410; discredits the
warning, 410; publishes the letter after the
raid, 411; 450,470. And see " Floyd letter."
" Floyd letter," authorship and motive of, 411.
And see Gue, David J.
Fobes, E. Alexander, 343, 406.
Forbes, Hugh, B's first acquaintance with, 285;
his antecedents and character, 285; becomes
instructor of B's " volunteer- regular " com-
pany, 286; his Manual of the Patriotic Volun-
teer, 286, 298, 313; B becomes suspicious of
him, 286; money raised by him, 287; his The
Duty of the Soldier, 297, 298; his usefulness to
B of brief duration, 298; disagreement with
B as to future operations, 209; denounces the
" Humanitarians," 299; his differences with B,
313, 314; his own plan, 314; abuses B and his
supporters, 317 seqq.; his blackmailing oper-
ations, 317, 318; postponement of B's plan
caused by his threats, etc., 338, 339; quoted,
467 n.; authorities for story of B's relations
with him, 624 n. 49; 291, 293, 302, 304, 337,
338, 340, 343, 396, 478, 531. Letters to S.
G. Howe, 313, 318; from John Brown Jr.,
318.
Forbes, John M., his impressions of B, 398, 309.
Foreman, James, recollections of B's early life,
21-23, 25; does not mention B's project of
abolishing slavery, 46, 47. Letter to James
Redpath, 21-23.
Fort Scott (Kansas), young men of, form a
watch-guard, 192, 193; attempt to burn, 34?,
351; " the only place in Kansas where the
Border Ruffians now (April, 1858) show their
teeth," 352; attacked by Montgomery, 366;
evil effects of attack on, 366, 367.
Foster, Abby Kelley, 50 and n.
Foster, Daniel, 293.
Fouke, Christine, 442.
Fowler, O. S., phrenologist, on B, 20.
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Paper, 520.
Frankfort (Ky.) Yeoman, quoted, 502.
Franklin (Kansas), attacked by Major Abbott,
212; second Free State attack on, 230, 231.
INDEX
723
Franklin, Benjamin, influence of bis writings on
B, 16, so.
Franklin Land Co., 27.
Franklin Mills (Ohio), 26 seqq.
Frazee, Mr., 292, 293.
Frederick (Md.), militia of, at Harper's Ferry,
444.
Frederick the Great, sword reputed to have
been given by him to Geo. Washington, 431,
worn by B throughout the fight, 447.
Free Soil. See Free State.
Free State cause, helped on by Lawrence out-
rages, 146; lost a great moral advantage by
Pottawatomie murders, 187, 188; prejudiced
by Montgomery's attack on Fort Scott, 366,
367.
Free State Central Committee, 304.
Free State Convention, at Lawrence, resolu-
tions of, 91; in Topeka, in 1857, 295, 296.
Free State election of Aug. 9, 1857, 296.
Free State emigrants, in Lane's " caravan,"
225; Missouri River closed against, 225; go
from Chicago to Kansas via Iowa and Ne-
braska, 225; forwarded by National Kansas
Com., 227.
Free State Executive Committee, appointed by
Topeka Convention, 108.
Free State Hotel at Lawrence, meetings at, 123,
124; its demolition recommended by U. S.
Grand Jury, 143; demolished, 145, 146.
Free State leaders, the claim that B was carry-
ing out their orders in Pottawatomie exploit,
180, 182.
Free State Legislature, election of members
of, 128; assembles, elects U. S. senators, me-
morializes Congress for admission of Kansas,
and is dispersed by Sumner's troops, 132;
only fifteen members sign memorial to Con-
gress, 133.
Free State men, code of punishments for, en-
acted by Shawnee Legislature, 91 ; early drift
of affairs in Kansas adverse to, 94; fewer in
numbers at first than bona-fide Missouri set-
tlers, 95; elected to Kansas Legislature and
ousted by pro-slavery majority, 99; decide to
repudiate Shawnee Legislature, 101-103;
their policy, to call a constitutional conven-
tion, 101, 102; of divers opinions, roi; classed
as moderates and radicals, 102; jealousies
among, 102; six conventions of, June 8 to
Aug. 14, 1855, 102, 103; conflict of opinion
between radicals and moderates, 102; two
conventions on same day, distinction be-
tween, 103; two constitutional conventions
called, 103; forced to abandon platform of
Big Springs Convention, 104; hold Topeka
Constitutional Convention, 105; abstain
from voting for delegate in election ordered
by Shawnee Legislature, 106; elect Reeder at
election ordered by Big Springs Convention,
106; appointment of Howard Com. a triumph
for them, 107; duality of management among,
107; enraged by McCrea-Clark murder, 109;
rescue of Branson by, 113, 114; answer to ap-
peal for help from Lawrence', 118; B's descrip-
tion of the relief expedition, 118-120; de-
nounced by Pres. Pierce in special message to
Congress, 130; several indicted for treason
after Pottawatomie, 142, 143; their attitude
toward the murders, 167, 168, 169, 170; no
law for them in Kansas, 180, 181 ; some of the
indicted men arrested, 192; others banished,
192; out, under arms, after the murders, 197;
Pate's prisoners released by B, 208; after
Black Jack fight, 208; attack and sack Frank-
lin, 212; their robberies treated as lawful acts
of war by Northern press, 212; less guilty
than pro-slavery men in respect of crimes of
violence, 215; aggressive guerrilla warfare
carried on by, 215, 216, 229 seqq.; drive out
pro-slavery settlement at New Georgia, 229;
: second attack on Franklin, 230, 231; enraged
by murder of Major Hoyt, 231; attack
"Fort" Saunders, 231; real fighting at
" Fort " Titus, 231 ; Lt.-Col. Cooke's good ad-
vice, 252; movement against Leavenworth,
253, 254; offer command to B, then to Col.
Harvey, 254; large number in confinement,
256; Capt. Wood's " haul " checks their law-
lessness, 256; from Iowa, including S. C.
Pomeroy, arrested, 260; losses between Nov.
1855 and Dec. 1856, 264; indictments on Pot-
tawatomie score nol pros'd, 294; pouring into
Kansas in 1857, 295; decline to take part in
election of delegates to Constitutional Con-
vention, June, 1857, 296; vote at Free State
election in Aug. shows their preponderance in
Kansas, 296; vote at Grasshopper Falls to take
part in election of delegate, 296; predomin-
ance of peace party among, 296; victorious
in election of Territorial Legislature and dele-
gate, Oct. 1857,306; decide to work under ex-
isting government, 307; and the Marais des
Cygnes massacre, 348, 349; in southeastern
Kansas, 352; in joint meeting with pro-slav-
ery men, adopt B's peace agreement, 366.
Free State movement, great gains of, in 1855,
108.
Free State party, divided counsels of, in first
territorial election, 95; defeated in second
election, 98 seqq.; vote of, cast for Delahay as
delegate and C. Robinson for governor, Jan.
1856, 129; blamed for incident in judge
Cato's court, 137, and for Pottawatomie
murders, 190; its position and prospects in
June, 1858, 346 seqq.; refrains from voting at
first election on Lecompton Constitution,
346; at second election secures rejection of
the constitution, 346.
Free State settlers, reports of threats against
those near Osawatomie, not spread by any
one man, 177; general threats against, prob-
ably B's impelling motive in Pottawatomie
murders, 177, 178; some deed of violence
thought by some necessary to rouse them,
1 80; their previous good reputation of value
• to them in the crisis, 191, 192; criticised by
Democrats, 226.
Fremont, John C., 220, 265.
Fremont-Buchanan campaign of 1856, Kansas
a le_ading issue in, 226.
Frothingham, Octavius B., his Life of Gerrit
Smith, quoted, 535, 536; 627 n. 27.
Fugit (or Fugert), Mr., murders Wm. Hoppe on
a wager, 215; tried and acquitted, 215; 352.
Fugitive Slave Law, 50, 74, 75.
Fuller, Abram, 381.
Fuller, Bain, 153.
Fuller, W. B., 246.
Fulton (Mo.) Telegraph, 09.
Furness, Wm. H., 560; quoted as to B's speech
before sentence, 646 n. 81.
Gait House, Harper's Ferry, 429, 439, 440.
Garcelon, Mrs. Jennie Dunbar. See Dunbar,
Jennie.
Gardner, Joseph, 575, 576, 578, 580.
Garnett, Rev. H. H., colored, 323.
Garrett, John W., Pres. B. & O. R. R., acts on
news of hold-up of train, 434; 449, 519.
Garrison, David, murder of, 181, 210, 242, 243.
Garrison, Wendell P. The Preludes of Harper's
Ferry, 46 and n., 594 n. 2.
Garrison, Wendell P. and Francis J., their
William Lloyd Garrison quoted, 272.
Garrison, William Lloyd, his first meeting with
B, and his impressions, 271, 272; quoted,
500, 654 n. 9; at Tremont Temple meeting,
560; his sonnet, Freedom of the Mind, 651 n.
84; 50, 139, 191, 510, 562, 565.
724
INDEX
Garrisonian doctrine of non-resistance, not ac-
ceptable to B, 49.
Gaston, Geo. B., 267.
Gaston, Mrs. Geo. B., quoted, concerning con-
ditions in Tabor, 267, 268.
Gay, Hamilton, letter from Perkins and Brown,
59.
Gay, William, murder of, 181, 215.
Gaylord, Daniel C., 37, 38, 41.
Geary, John W., succeeds Shannon as Gov. of
Kansas (Sept., 1856), 234; his arrival ushers
in a better era, 255; issues address and pro-
clamations, 255; orders disbandment of pro-
slavery militia and organization of a new body,
255', equally severe on pro-slavery murderers
and Free State marauders, 255; more and
more favorable to Free State cause, 255;
in Lawrence, with U. S. troops under Cooke,
256, 257; averts pro-slavery attack there,
259; unjustly denounced by B, 268; resigns,
294; his administration, 294; leaves Kansas a
Free State man, 294; 254, 263, 264, 277.
Georgia, pro-slavery men from, in Kansas, 137,
138.
Gibbons family, 327.
Gibson, Col. John T., 438, 440, 452.
Giddings, Joshua R., attacked in majority re-
port of Mason Com., 582; 394, 398, 459, 472,
474. Letter to B, 134; from B, 131.
Giddings, Mrs. Joshua R., 394.
Gihon, Mr., 173.
Gilbert, Isaac, 442 n.
Gileadites, U. S. league of, organized in Spring-
field (1851), 50; B's " Words of Advice " for,
50, 51, 52; object of, 51; agreement and reso-
lutions of, 52, S3; 55, 75-
Gill, Geo. B., elected " Sec'y of the Treasury "
at Chatham Convention, 333; and Jim Dan-
iels's story, 367, 368; in Missouri raid, 368;
quoted, 363, 364, 379, 382, 389, 680, 682;
final parting from B, 300 n.; his defection, 409;
328, 330, 344. 353, 364, 37O, 380, 381, 385,
386, 413, 414, 424, 510. Letters from B, 337.
Gill, Dr. H. C., 316. Letter from R. Realf, 330.
Oilman, Charles P., quoted, 254.
Gil patrick, Rufus, elected judge of Squatters'
Court as " Old Brown," 168, 175, 358.
Gist, Gov., of So. Carolina, 567.
Gladstone, Thomas H., The Englishman in Kan-
sas, quoted, 97; 179.
Glasgow (Mo.) Times, 99.
Gloucester, J. N., colored, B discloses his plans
to, 323.
Gloucester, Mrs. J. N., colored, 323, 412.
Golding, R., 168.
Goodin, Joel K., Sec'y of Territorial Exec.
Com., 106, and of Free State Exec. Com.,
108.
Gordon, William, 247.
Graham, Dr., 208.
Graham, Mr., quoted as to B's last day in Kan-
sas, 383.
Grand Jury, Federal, indicts Free State men
for treason without hearing witnesses, 142;
recommends abatement of Free State news-
papers as nuisances, 143, and demolition of
Free State Hotel, 143.
Grant, Charles, son of John T. Grant, 173.
Grant, Geo. W., son of John T. Grant, and the
case of Morse, 174, 175; not the mysterious
messenger, 175; quoted, 245; 153, 156, 169.
Grant, Henry C., son of John T. Grant, 156, 169.
Grant, J. G., son of John T. Grant, 167, 175.
Grant, John T., condemns Pottawatomie raid,
167; 169, 172, 173.
Grant, Mrs. John T., 173.
Grant, Mary E., daughter of John T. Grant, al-
leged assault of W. Sherman on, 172, 173, 175,
177; quoted, 230.
Grasshopper Falls Convention, 296.
Gray, Dr., 53S-
Greeley, Horace, quoted as to G. Smith, 71, 72;
quoted, 95. 104, 126, 147, 476, 480 ; challenged
by H. C. Pate, 613 n. 19; 49, 138, 139, 188,
230, 287, 472, 510. Letter to S. Colfax, 476.
Green, Lieut. Israel, commands marines at
Harper's Ferry, 440, 450; leads attack on en-
gine house, 452-454; his Capture of John
Brown, quoted, 453; sketch of, 642 n. 61;
462 n., 470.
Green, Shields, colored, decides to go with B.
despite advice of F. Douglass, 412, 413; in
Harper's Ferry party, 414, 418, 421, 431, 449;
made prisoner in engine house, 454; convicted
and sentenced, 569, 570; executed, 570;
sketch of, 687; 470, 471, 486, 571, 572.
Green, Thomas C., mayor of Charlestown, as-
signed as counsel for B, 483, 484; denounced
by B and withdraws, 492; sketch of, 645 n. 49;
490, 491, 507, 520.
Green, William, employed as counsel for B be-
fore the Court of Appeals, 646 n. 75.
Greenlaw, Wm. P., 591 n. 6.
Gregg, E. H., letter to J. H. Holmes, 389.
Grinnell, Josiah B., his warm welcome of B,
386,387:390.
Griswold, Hiram, sent by D. R. Tilden to assist
in B's defence, 493, 495; argues for defence,
406; lays evidence of B's insanity before
Gov. Wise, 507, 508.
Grover, Capt. Joel, at " Fort " Titus, 231.
Grover, Mr., 380.
Grow, Galusha A., his bill for admission of Kan-
sas under Topeka Constitution passed by
House of Representatives, 226.
Gue, Benjamin F., 411.
Gue, David J., author of Floyd letter, 411; his
motive in writing it, 411, 412.
Hadley, Daniel B., 594 n. 12.
Hadsall, C. C., and the sale of Eli Snyder'a
claim at Moneka, 356, 357.
Hagerstown (Md.), 402, 403.
Hame, Deputy Sheriff, 215.
Hairgrove, Asa, 348, 354, 375.
Hale, John P., U. S. Senator from New Hamp-
shire, 339.
Hall, Amos, murdered by Charles A. Hamilton
and his men, 348, 375.
Hall, Austin, 348, 375.
Haller, William, kills J. T. Lyle, 295.
Hallock, Rev. Jeremiah, 12.
Hallock, Rev. Moses, 17.
Hallock, William H., quoted, 17.
Hamburg, visited by B, 61.
Hamilton, Charles A., Border Ruffian, bloody
deed of, 186, 187, 348, 349, 375; motive for
his crime, 349; authorities for the story of,
629 n. 3.
Hammond, Col. C. G., 390.
Hamtramck Guards, at Harper's Ferry, 444,
464, 465.
Hannibal (Mo.) Messenger, 99.
Hanway, James, The Settlement of Lane and
Vicinity, quoted, 136; in Kansas Monthly,
153; condemns Pottawatomie murders, 167;
but later approves, 167, 170; 175, 358. Letter
to R. J. Hinton, 3s8;/rom S. Walker, 228, 229.
Harding. Charles B., State's attorney, character
of, 485, 645 n. 53; sums up for prosecution,
495! 483, 489, 494-
Harper, Gen. Kenton, 465.
Harper's Ferry, B's plan to seize arsenal dis-
closed to Col. Woodruff in 1854 or 1855, 54;
but may have been conceived much earlier,
55 ; details of plan discussed, 313 ; B arrives at,
July 3, 1859, 403; details of attack on, 426
seqq.; B moves his force from Kennedy Farm
to, 426, 427; place ill-chosen for an attack on
slavery, 437, 428; the arsenal, 428, 429, 430;
INDEX
725
description of the town, 428, 429; unfavorable
strategic position, 429; approaches to, 429;
unsuspecting of invasion, 430; rush of militia
to, 444; conduct of citizens of, 447, 448.
Harper's Ferry Raid, assumes national propor-
tions only because of B's survival, 471, 472;
Southern opinion concerning, 474-476; its
real significance, 476.
Harris, James, his story of the murder of W.
Sherman, 162-164.
Harris, James H., colored, 331, 4*3-
" Harrisburg," letter to Gov. Wise so signed,
518.
Harrison, Jeremiah, 121.
Harrison, William H., alias of R. J. Hinton and
of A. Hazlett, 572.
Harrisonville (Mo.) Democrat, quoted, 370.
Hartford (Conn.), 278.
Hartford Evening Press and the raid, 472.
Harvey, James A., commands abortive expedi-
tion against Leavenworth, 254; captures pro-
slavery force at Hickory Point, 256; many of
his men taken prisoners by Capt. Wood, 256;
233, 252, 253.
Hawes, Alexander G., 239, 245, 247.
Hawkins, Nelson, nom de guerre adopted by B,
in 1857, 290, 325 and n., 339.
Hayden, Lewis, and F. J. Merriam, 421.
Haymaker, Mr., 27.
Haynau, Mr. See Haine.
Hay ward, Shephard, colored, shot to death by
B's raiders, 433, 434; 441, 461, 479.
Hazlett, Albert, in Harper's Ferry party, 414,
419, 420, 430, 439; his escape, 445, 446; cap-
tured in Penn., 446; ignored by B and the
other prisoners in the hope of saving his life,
554, 572; attempts to save him after B's exe-
cution, 573 seqq.; executed, 580; sketch of,
682; 368, 369, 471, 554, 558 n.
Heiskell, Gen., 189, 257.
Helper, Hinton Rowan, his Impending Crisis,
568, 583, 584, 585, 587.
" Henry," letter to B, 518.
Herald of Freedom, 91, 143, 231, 354, 371, 632
n. 71.
Hicklan (or Hicklin), Harvey G., Jim Daniels 'a
temporary master, 368; his account of B's
Missouri raid, 368.
Hickory Point, pro-slavery force at, threatened
by Lane and captured by Harvey, 256.
Hicks, Gov., of Maryland, 524.
Higgins, Patrick, first man wounded at Har-
per's Ferry, 432 and n.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, his Cheerful
Yesterdays quoted, 170, 326, 397, 579, 580,
595 n. 21 ; on Lane's eloquence, 226; angry at
delay in autumn of 1857, 303; his characteri-
zation of B, 326; his memorandum on post-
ponement of Virginia plan, 340; disinclined to
aid B in May, 1859, 397; his feeling on hearing
of Harper's Ferry raid, 397; one of the first
to move for rescue of B, 511; his temperament
and principles, 511; appeals to Mrs. Brown to
induce B to consent to rescue, 512, 513; Mr.
Spooner's plan to kidnap Gov. Wise, 515;
after the failure at Harper's Ferry, 529; re-
proaches Dr. Howe, 532; his part in attempts
to save Stevens and Hazlett, 573 seqq.; his
aliases, 573; 324, 421, 471, 514, 515, 517, 570.
Letters to B, 338, 397, Dr. Howe, 533, F. B.
Sanborn, 529; from B, 320, 513, 543, Dr.
Howe, 532, F. B. Sanborn, 303, 325, 326,339,
396, 530.
Higginson, Mrs. T. W., 573, 577, 581.
Hill, Mr., 214, 292.
Hinckley, Alexis, 413.
Hinsdale, Abel, 29.
Hinton, R. J., his John Brown and his Men,
quoted, 17,484, 625 n. 97 ; his journal, quoted,
258; and the attempt to save Stevens and
Hazlett, 572 seqq.; 175. 308, 336, 352, 413,
414, 424, 512, 516, 570.
Hoadley, George, letter to S. P. Chase, 587.
Hoar, E. Rockwood, 396, 534.
Hobart, Mrs. Danley, quoted, 18.
Hodges, Willis H., cooperates with B in assist-
ing negroes at No. Elba, 73. Letter from B, 72.
Holbrook, James J., 3d Lieut, of Liberty
Guards, 121.
Holland, F. M., Frederick Douglass: the Colored
Orator, quoted, 85.
Holman, Mrs. Mary L., 591 n. 6.
Holmes, James H., 234, 236, 238, 239, 240, 243,
245, 247, 261, 290, 293. Letter to B, 300.
Holmes, Mrs., 172.
Holt, J. H., captures Copeland, 445.
Hopkins, Mr., murder of, 215.
Hoppe, Wm., murder of, 181, 215, 352.
Hopper family, 327.
House of Representatives (U. S.), votes to ad-
mit neither Whitfield nor Reeder as delegate,
226; passes Grow bill for admission of Kansas,
under Topeka Const., 226; and rejects
Toombs bill, 227; attaches Free State rider to
Army Appropriation bill, which fails of pas-
sage, 227; Speakership contest in 1859-60,
583, 585.
Howard Committee of House of Representa-
tives, appointed in March, 1856, to investi-
gate Kansas situation, 94 and n., 100, 116,
117, 141, 143, 183; decision of, on election of
Territorial delegate, 106, 107 and n.; reports
of, 107, 109, 120, 226; their value, and effect
on public opinion, 107.
Howard, William A., chairman of Howard Com-
mittee, 94 n.; and John Sherman, report of,
quoted, 120.
Howe, Dr. Samuel G., accused of duplicity and
prevarication by Adm. Chadwick, 341; and
the proposed attack on Charlestown, 517;
goes to Canada after the raid, 530; his self-
exculpatory card, 531; his attitude discussed,
531-533; attacked by Higginson, 532; before
the Mason Com. ,532; 271, 324,325, 326, 340,
397,399, 484, 582. Letters to T. W. Higgin-
son, 532, Henry Wilson, 341 ; from H. Forbes,
313, T. W. Higginson, 533, Henry Wilson,
339-
Hoyt, David S., murder of, 181, 215, 231.
Hoyt, George H., retained by Le Barnes to de-
fend B, 484; his instructions, 484; his youth
arouses A. Hunter's suspicions, 484,485; his
first appearance in court, 490; allowed to act
as counsel, 490; asks for delay, 492; becomes
sole counsel, 493 ; reinforced by Chilton and
Griswold, 493; proceeds with defence, 494,
495; submits affidavits concerning B's insan-
ity to Gov. Wise, 508; tells B of plan to rescue
him, 512; forced to leave Charlestown, 520;
quoted, concerning Stevens, 680; 517, 540,
544. Letters to J. W. Le Barnes, 479 n., 495,
512.
Hudson (Ohio), 9.
Huffmaster, Mrs., an inquisitive neighbor of
Kennedy Farm, 417, 418, 419.
Hughes,, Mrs. Sarah F., her John Murray
Forbes quoted, 398, 399.
Hugo, Victor, his John Brown quoted, 569, 588.
" Humanitarians, The," H. Forbes's name for
B's friends in Mass., 299.
Humphrey, Rev. Heman, 15.
Humphrey, Rev. Luther, 15. Letter from B, 543.
Hunnewell, James, 302.
Hunt, Washington, 563.
Hunter, Andrew, special prosecutor to try B.,
442; suspicious of Hoyt's youth, 484, 485; his
character and ability, 485; his conduct of the
prosecution, 485; opening address to jury,
490; and his son's story of the shooting of
Wm. Thompson, 491; accuses B of feigning
726
INDEX
illness to gain time. 495; his John Brown's
Raid quoted, 495, 522, 525, 527; his closing
argument, 496; and the rescue scares, 521,
522; makes B's will, sso; sketch of, 645 n. 55;
456, 491, 494. 499, 524. 525. 526, 527, 548 and
n., 570, 571, 588. Letters to Gov. Wise, 477;
from B, 548, Gov. Letcher, 578, Dr. Peticolas,
504 n., Gov. Wise, 478, 504, 521. Father of
Hunter, Starry, describes killing of Wm. Thomp-
son by himself and Chambers, 442, 491.
Hurd, H. B., Sec'y of National Kansas Com.,
denies B's authority to sign as agent, 360;
275, 276. Letters to G. L. Stearns, 275. E. B.
Whitman, 360.
Hutchings, John, 175.
Hutchinson, William, 307. 373. 374- Letter to
Mrs. Hutchinson, 373.
Hyatt, Thaddeus, Journal of Investigations in
Kansas, 89 n.; Pres. of National Kansas
Com., 227; arrested and released, 582, 583;
235. 287. 298.
Imboden, Gen. J. D., 465.
Imdependence (Mo.) Messenger, 09.
Indians, near Hudson, Ohio, 9, 13; in Osawa-
tomie neighborhood, 89, 90.
Ingersoll (Canada), 328.
Insanity, suggested plea of, in B's family, 489,
490; the whole question discussed, 508-510.
Iowa, Historical Dept. of, 384.
lowans, in B's force in Kansas, 236.
Irrepressible Conflict, The, imminence of, indi-
cated by Mr. Spooner's plan to kidnap Gov.
Wise, 514; §27, 586.
Irving, Washington, his Life of Washington,
325.
Isaaks, A. J., U. S. Dist.Att'y for Kansas, up-
holds legality of Shawnee Legislature, 100.
Iverson, Lieut., 196.
Iverson, Alfred, U. S. Senator from Georgia,
584, 587, 596 n. 4.
Jackson, Andrew, President of the U. S., 14.
Jackson, Mrs. B. P., quoted, 155; 173.
Jackson, Congrave, and Maughas, G. B. M.,
their report of the fight at Osawatomie, 247.
Jackson, Francis, 420.
Jackson, J. P., 525.
Jackson, M. V. B., 151, 178.
Jackson, Patrick T., 271, 274.
Jackson, Prof. T. J. (" Stonewall "), 523. 555.
556.
Jacobs, Judge, befriends Jason Brown, 194,
195-
Jamison, " Quartermaster General," 301.
" Jayhawkers," 350, 513.
Jefferson, Thomas, President of the U. S.: his
Notes on the State of Virginia quoted, 428;
559.
Jefferson, Thomas, B's colored driver, 72.
Jefferson City Inquirer, 09, 189.
Jefferson Guards, turn out at Charlestown, 436 ;
well led, 437; 438, 465.
Jenkins, Gaius, indicted for treason, 142, and
arrested, 145.
Jennison, Charles, Free State leader of an
armed band, and a raider 187, 366; in Mis-
souri raid, 368; 513.
ierry Rescue Committee, 536.
ohn Brown Song, The, 506, 585.
ohnson, Oliver, 575.
ohnston. Lt.-Col. Joseph E., at Lawrence, in
command of U. S. troops, 257, 259, 260.
Jones, Rev. Elijah B., letter from John Sher-
man, 506 n.
Jones, H. L., describes feeling of Free State men
as to Pottawatomie murders, 167, 168.
Tones, John, shooting of, 141, 142, 180.
Jones, John, colored, 390.
Jones, Lieut. J. P., 633 n. 85.
Jones, John T. (" Ottawa "), his house de-
stroyed, 253 and n.; 154, 165, 195, 196, 207,
277.
Jones, Mrs. John T., 253.
Jones, Jonas, 276, 277, 293, 299, 388.
Jones, Samuel J., Sheriff, and the rescue of
Branson, 113, 114; appeals to Gov. Shannon,
114; blamed in report of Howard Com., 120;
his alleged language, 120; correspondence
with Robinson and Lane, 129; declares
treaty of Lawrence violated by Free State
men, 130; again in Lawrence, 139; arrests
S. N. Wood, 140; resisted, brings U. S. troops
to Lawrence, 140; wholesale arrests by, 140;
wounded by J. N. Filer, 140; his death an-
nounced by pro-slavery papers, 140; shooting
of, unfortunate for people of Lawrence, 140,
141; at burning of Free State Hotel, 146; 124,
145, 179, 180, 185, 190.
Joyce, Burr, his John Brown's Raids, quoted,
368, 369.
Jurisdiction, question of, as between State and
Federal Courts in matter of the raid, 477, 478.
Kagi, John Henry, approves B's Harper's Ferry
plan when first broached, 313; secretary of
Chatham Convention, 331; elected "Secre-
tary of War " at Chatham Convention, 333;
quoted, 364, 365; in Missouri raid, 368; at-
tempt to arrest, 368; stationed at Chambers-
burg, Penn., 406, 407; " a melancholy
brigand " according to A. Ward, 392; urges
B to leave Harper's Ferry, 438; his steadfast
conduct and death, 444, 445; sketch of, 679;
254, 308 and n., 315, 330, 337, 343, 344, 353.
357, 358, 359, 360, 362, 363, 366, 374. 375.
379, 386, 387, 390, 391, 393, 394, 395, 397,
401, 402, 412, 417, 419, 420, 427, 429, 431,
510. Letters to John Brown, Jr., 422, N. Y.
Tribune, 362, 363, his sister, 358; from B,
397, 402, 406, 408, John Brown, Jr., 413.
Kaiser, Charles, murdered, 250; 199, 200, 246.
Kansas, evil days in, 54; objects of coloniza-
tion in, 80; its natural characteristics, 80;
the slavery issue in, 80; conditions in, as seen
by John Brown, Jr., 83; hardships of settlers
in, during winter of 1855-1856, 89 and n.;
rival parties in, 94; first election in, decided
by fraudulent votes of Missourians, 94; H.
Greeley concerning prospects in, 95; New
Englanders sent to, by Emigrant Aid Socie-
ties, 95; second election in, 98 seqq.; first
Territorial legislature, elected in 1855, solidly
pro-slavery, 99; effect of that election on
sentiment at the North and in Missouri, 09,
100; meeting of first legislature at Pawnee,
and later at Shawnee, 100; its voters in favor
of excluding all negroes, 105; two elections
for delegate to Congress, Oct. 1855, 106; two
hostile governments in, 107; Constitution
framed by Topeka Convention ratified by
people, 107; claimed to be an organized free
state, 107; invaded by Missourians posing as
Kansas militia, 115, 116; Free State Legisla-
ture memorializes Congress for admission
under Topeka Const., 133; pro-slavery men
from other states in, 137, 138; colonists from
New England in, 138; fears of Free State
sympathizers of rush of settlers from South-
ern States, 139; Marshal Donaldson's pro-
clamation to law-abiding citizens, 143; rush
of colonists to, after Lawrence outrages, 146,
147; nation's attention centred on, as result
of Lawrence raid, 147; Pottawatomie murders
the most prolific subject of discussion in its
history, 148; conditions in 1856 as bearing
on resort to extra-legal methods, 171 seqq.;
seething with lawlessness, 211; in Fremont-
Buchanan campaign, 226; and the Howard
Com. report, 226; discussions on, in Congress,
INDEX
727
226; Grow bill, for admission under Topeka
Const., passed by House of Representatives,
226; Tpombs bill, for taking census in, etc.,
227; minor warfare in (Aug. 1856), 234 seqq.;
situation intensified by B's defeat, and burn-
ing of Osawatomie, 250 seqq.; Gov. Geary's
arrival ushers in a better era, 255; last organ-
ized Missourian invasion of, 257 seqq.; peace
prevails in Nov. 1856, 260; destruction of life
and property between Nov. 1855, and Dec.
1856, 264; effect of climate and soil on politi-
cal views of settlers, 265 ; no one man decided
its fate, 265, 266; Mass. Legislature asked to
appropriate money for Free State cause in,
277; fate of, as concerned in B's plans, 284;
Gov. Walker's administration, 294, 295;
1857 a year of quiet and progress, 293; Free
State and pro-slavery conventions in that
year, 295, 296; Free State victory in election
of Oct. 1857, 306; peace-party in ascendant in
autumn of 1857, 306, 307; success at polls
more effective than " Beecher's Bibles," 306,
307; policy of Free State leaders, 307; causes
of freedom and prosperity of, 307; in June,
1838, 346 seqq.; Lecompton Const. — with
slavery — adopted at fraudulent election,
346; rejected at second election, 346; state
officers chosen, 346; bribe offered to, by Con-
gress, in English bill, 347; Lecompton Const,
finally rejected, 347; renewal of lawlessness in
S. E. counties, 348; B's description of condi-
tions in those counties in July and Aug. 1858,
354; Legislature of, and B's Missouri raid,
377; B's presence in 1858 a cause of excite-
ment and strife, 378; peace restored when he
had left the Territory, 379; legislative act of
amnesty for certain crimes, 379; enjoys peace
and quiet thereafter until the Civil War, 379.
And see Free State, Lawrence, Lecompton
Constitution, Pottawatomie Creek, Pro-slav-
ery, Shawnee Legislature, Topeka Constitu-
tional Convention.
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1834), 75, 79. 80, 587.
Kansas Free State, 122, 143.
Kansas Historical Society, collections of, 174.
"Kansas Legion," 112, 113.
Kansas militia, Atchison's army poses as, 250;
organization of, ordered by Pres. Pierce, 251;
disbanded by order of Gov. Geary, 255; new
organization of, to be mustered into service of
U.S., 255.
Kansas Pioneer, accessory before the fact to
murder of Reese P. Brown, 129.
" Kansas Ruffians," compared with Border
Ruffians, 264.
Kansas Weekly Herald, quoted concerning pro-
slavery triumph in 1854, 95, 157, 169, 190.
Kapp, Friedrich, 575.
Kellogg, George, agent of New England Woolen
Co., 30. Letter from B, 31.
Kelly, J. W. B., thrashed for holding abolition
views, no.
Kemper, Gen. James L., quoted, 566.
Kennedy, Dr., B rents farm of, near Harper's
Ferry, 403.
Kennedy, Mary V., married to John E. Cook,
408, 68 1.
Kennedy Farm, rented by B, description of,
404; B's force of 21 men-at-arms at, in Aug.
1859, 414, 415; daily life at, described by
Mrs. Annie Brown Adams, 416-420; all B's
correspondence left there, 467.
Kent (Ohio), 27.
Kent, Marvin, quoted as to B's character, 28;
27, 58.
Kent, Zenas, B's partner at Franklin Mills, 27,
28. Letter from, 26.
Kibbey, Lucius, his killing of Davis not a po-
litical crime, 109.
Kickapoo Rangers, 129, 144, 223, 260.
Kiene, Llewellyn L., describes the " Battle of
the Spurs," 381, 382.
Kilbourne, Mr., 196.
King, Charles, 230.
King, Rev. H. D., recalls B's table-talk, 298.
299; and B's request for a thanksgiving ser-
vice at Tabor, 384, 385.
King Brothers, arms stored in their ware-rooms,
343-
Kinnaird, Thomas M., 333.
Kirk wood, Samuel J., Gov. of Iowa, quoted,
567. 568.
Kitzmiller, A. M., temporarily in charge of
arsenal at Harper's Ferry, 435, 439.
Ladd, Benj. W., letter from Perkins and Brown,
60.
Lafayette, Marquis de, pistol presented to Geo.
Washington by, 431.
Lane, James H., chairman of a convention in
Lawrence, 103; joins Free Soilers, 103; chair-
man of Topeka Const. Conv., 105; at Big
Springs Conv., 106; early attitude on negro
question, 106; chairman of Free State Exec.
Com., 108; rival of C. Robinson, 108; refused
leave to act as counsel for McCrea, 109; ad-
dresses meeting at Lawrence after treaty of
peace, 123; addresses meeting of pro-slavery
captains at Franklin, 124; authorized by
Shannon to preserve peace at Lawrence, 125;
elected provisionally U. S. Senator by Free
State Legislature, 132; indicted for treason,
142; escapes arrest, 143; said to have inspired
B's Pottawatomie expedition, 183, 184; his
Free State " caravan," 223; at Nebraska City
with his caravan, 225; assumes alias of Cook,
225; speech at Chicago, 225, 226; his elo-
quence described by T. W. Higginson, 226;
leaves Nebraska City for Lawrence with B
and S. Walker, 228; reaches Lawrence alone.
228; with S. Walker makes demonstration
against Lecompton and effects release of
prisoners, 252; returns to Lawrence, 252; mes-
sage from, recalls expedition against Leaven-
worth, 254; leaves for Nebraska on Geary's
arrival, 256; projected siege of pro-slavery
men at Hickory Point abandoned, 256; again
in Kansas, 291; presides over Topeka Con-
ventions, June and July, 1857, 295, 296; desires
B's presence in Kansas, 300; appoints B
"brigadier-general," 301; and B's Missouri
raid, 370, 371; 121, 129, 140, 229, 231, 233,
235 n., 239, 255,262, 265, 266,296,297,302,
306, 346, 514. Letters to B, 300, 301, 304;
from B, 300, 301.
Lane, Samuel A., testifies in 1898 as to B's
movements en route to Kansas in 1855, 85;
his Fifty Years and over of Akron and Summit
County, 593 n. 32; 597 n. 14.
Larue, John, his slaves liberated by B in Mis-
souri raid, 369.
Larue, John B., 369.
Laughlin, Patrick, shoots S. Collins, 112, 113.
Law-and-Order Party, formed by pro-slavery
men, 108; address concerning Pottawatomie
murders, 192; meeting of protest, 192; ap-
points vigilance committee, 192; 212.
Lawrence (Kansas), Free State convention at,
91; radical meeting at, Aug. 1855, 91; con-
ventions of Free Soilers at, June to Aug., 1855,
102, 103; the rescue of Branson by citizens of,
and ks consequences, 113 seqq.; Committee,
of Safety formed, 113, 114; threatened by
pro-slavery forces, 114; number of troops as-
sembled against, 116; appeals to all Free
State men to come to her rescue, 118; opera-
tions for relief of, 118-120; end of siege of,
120; open-air meetings, 123; terms of treaty,
123; treaty of, accepted by both parties, 124;
protection of, intrusted to Lane and Robin-
728
INDEX
son by stratagem, 125; treaty of, an ill-fated
pact, 126; invasion of, characterized in report
of Howard Com., 120; citizens of, condemn
shooting of Jones, to no effect, 140, 141; pro-
slavery appeals for her destruction, 141;
movement of force under Donaldson against,
144, 145; committee of citizens offer submis-
sion, and surrender their arms, 145; helpless-
ness of her citizens, 146; destruction of news-
paper offices and Free State Hotel, 146; sack
of, 180, described by S. C. Pomeroy, 182;
sources for story of sack of, 607 n. 100;
threatened by pro-slavery force, 257 seqq.;
R. J. Hinton concerning conditions at, 258;
fortifications of, 258; defence of, in hands of
Maj. Abbott and Capt. Cracklin, 258; attack
on, averted by Gov. Geary and Lt.-Col.
Cooke, 259.
Lawrence, Amos A., first impressions of B, 273;
calls him the " Miles Standish of Kansas,"
273; his admiration for B cools, 400; his
diary quoted, 400; 279,281,291. Letter to B,
280; from B, 279.
Lawrence, Wm. R., 280.
Lawrence Republican, 364, 365, 370, 480.
Lawrence " Stubbs," J. B. Abbott's company,
reinforces B at Black Jack, 208.
Le Barnes, J. W., retains G. H. Hoyt to defend
B, 484; among the first to plan rescue of B,
511; and the Spooner plan to kidnap Wise,
515 seqq.; and the proposed attack on Charles-
town, 516, 517; and the attempt to save
Stevens and Hazlett, 574; 312, 515, 528, 570.
Letter to T. W. Higginson, 515; from G. H.
Hoyt, 479 n., 495, 512.
Leary, Lewis Sheridan, in B's Harper's Ferry
party, 415, 421, 431; his death, 445; sketch
of, 685.
Leather Manufacturers' Bank of New York, 37.
Leavenworth, vote of, not counted in vote rati-
fying Topeka Const., 107, 108; public meet-
ing at, applauds outrage on W. Phillips, no;
disturbances at, in Jan. 1856, 128, 129; pro-
slavery mayor prohibits election under To-
peka Const., 128; election adjourned to
Easton, 128; murder of Reese P. Brown, 129;
news of Pottawatomie murders at, 192; Free
State expedition against, under Harvey, 254,
recalled by Lane, 254.
Leavenworth Herald, no, 116, 129, 230, 370.
Leavenworth Times, " Battle of the Spurs "
described in, 382, 383.
Leavitt, Rev. Joshua, introduces Hugh Forbes
to B, 285; 318.
Lecompte, S. D., Chief Justice of Kansas Ter-
ritory, upholds legality of Shawnee Legisla-
ture, 100; and the trial of McCrea for the
murder of Clark, 109; his pro-slavery charge
to Grand Jury after Pottawatomie, 142; his
novel definition of constructive treason, 142.
Lecompton Constitution, slavery question, how
affected by, 346; two elections on adoption of,
346; election of officers under, 346; In Con-
gress, 347; rejected at election of Aug. 2,
1858, 347; 296, 306, 351.
Lecompton Constitutional Convention, in pro-
slavery hands, 296; 306, 307.
Lecompton Union, and the Pottawatomie mur-
ders, 190.
Lee, Col. Robert E., sent to Harper's Ferry to
command all the forces there, 450; prepares
to attack at daylight, 450; his orders as de-
tailed by Stuart, 450, 451; execution of his
Slan, 451 seqq.; at the interview following
's capture, 456 seqq., 463, 464; in Harper's
Ferry for execution of B, 523; 470, 555.
Leeman, William H., indiscreet letter to his
mother, 408; circumstances of his death, 440;
sketch of, 685; 308, 311, 329, 330, 337. 343.
344. 4U. 419. 437.
Legate, James F., 126, 175.
Lenhart, Charles, wrongfully suspected of
shooting Sheriff Jones, 140; attempts to ef-
fect escape of Cook and Coppoc, 571, 572;
sketch of, 655 n. 46; 142, 215, 216, 414.
Leonard, O. E., 232.
Letcher, John, Gov. of Virginia, 572; warned of
attempt to rescue Stevens and Hazlett, 578.
Letter to A. Hunter, 578.
Lewis, A. H., despatch to Faulkner and Botts,
596.
Lexington (Mo.) Express, 117, 189.
Liberator, The, B's acquaintance with, 49; ig-
nores Pottawatomie murders, 191; and the
_raid, 473; 501, 383, 599 n. 50.
Liberty (Mo.), arms stolen from U. S. armory
there by Missourians invading Kansas, 117.
Liberty Guards, B's company of Kansas mili-
tia so-called, 121; muster-roll, 121; their
length of service, 121, 122.
Liberty Platform, 96.
Lieber, Francis, letter to Dr. H. Drisler, 564.
Limerick, W., quoted, 240, 241. Letter to Gen.
Shields, 240.
Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, 364; nominated for
President, and elected, 385.
Lincoln, Levi, ex-Gov. of Mass., 363.
Little, J. H., killed in attack on Fort Scott, 366 .
Lodge, John E., 280.
Loguen, J. W., colored, 323, 327, 328.
London, B's visit to, 61, 63.
London Times, 473 n., 368.
Longfellow, H. W., his diary quoted, 363.
Longstreet, James, Lieut.-Gen., myth concern-
ing, 224 n.
Loudpn Heights, 428, 429.
Lovejoy, Elijah P., 51, 394 n. 13.
Lowry, Grosvenor P., 140.
Lowry, M. B., visits B in jail, 346.
Lucas, Judge, 320.
" Limber Jim," 519.
Lusk, Mrs. Amos, B's mother-in-law and house-
keeper, 1 8.
Lusk, Dianthe. See Brown, Dianthe (Lusk).
Lusk, Milton, B's brother-in-law, 19.
Luther, Martin, 310.
Lyle, James T., killed by Haller, 293.
Lynch law, when justifiably resorted to, 171, 181.
McClellan, Geo. B., report on the armies of
Europe, 323.
McClellan, H. B., Life and Campaigns of J. E.
B. Stuart quoted, 430, 451.
McClure, Alex. K., 421.
McClure's Magazine, 394 n. 12.
McCrea, Cole, charged with murder of Clark,
109; treatment of, by Chief Justice Le-
compte, 109; indicted and escapes, 109, no.
McCrea-Clark homicide, of marked political
significance, 109.
McDaniel, Sheriff, 349, 364, 363.
McDow, W. C., 168.
McFarland, Rev. Mr., letter from B, 544, 343.
Mcllvaine. Messrs., 137.
Mclntosh, Lieut. James, supports Sheriff Jones
with U. S. troops, 140; concerning disorders
in Kansas, 214; 197.
McKim, J. Miller, 313, 349, 561, 562.
Mace, J. N., shooting of, 141.
Manes, John B., 178.
Manes, Poindexter, 172.
Manning, Rev. Jacob M., 360.
Mansfield, James, 338 and n.
" Manual of the Patriotic Volunteer," transla-
tion by H. Forbes, 286, 298.
Marais des Cygnes, 149, 196, 229, 233, 236, 239,
244, 247, 249.
Marais des Cygnes Massacre, 186, 187, 354.
333, 373. And see Hamilton, Charles A.
" Marais da Cygne, Le," by J. G. Whittier, 349.
INDEX
729
Marais des Cygnes River, 198.
Marcy, W. L., Sec'y of State, 255.
" Marion Rifles," 149, 150.
Martin, Henry, alias of Montgomery, 573, 576.
Martin, Hugh, 369.
Martinsburg company, at Harper's Ferry, 443 ;
cuts off B's only avenue of escape, 443.
Maryland Heights, 428, 429.
Mason, Dr., jail-physician, 489, 495.
Mason, J. M., U. S. Senator from Virginia, his
questions to B in the interview following his
capture, 457 seqq.; quoted, 469; chairman of
investigating committee of U. S. Senate, 478;
and F. B. Sanborn, 533; and G. L. Stearns,
534; presents majority report of his commit-
tee, 580; 456, 470, 505 n., 529, 566.
Mason Committee, F. B. Sanborn's testimony
before, 533; and G. L. Stearns's, 534, 535;
its sessions, 580; reports of majority, 580,
581-583, and minority, 580, 581; 182, 331,
342, 359, 399, 409.
Massachusetts and the Anthony Burns case,
384.
Massachusetts Arms Co., sells revolvers to G.
L. Stearns, for B, 289; 341.
Massachusetts Kansas Committee, votes to
give B 200 rifles previously sent to Tabor,
Iowa, 274, 275; controversy as to arms and
money, 341-343; accused of duplicity, 341;
its defence, 342 ; its affairs confused with those
of National Kansas Com. ,360, 361; 227, 271,
279, 289, 317, 339, 340, 359-
Massachusetts Legislature, urged to appropri-
ate $100,000 for Free State cause in Kansas,
277; B before Committee on Federal Rela-
tions, 277; refuses appropriation, 278.
Massasoit House, Chicago, color-line drawn at,
329.
Massasoit House, Springfield, B a welcome vis-
itor at, 278; 282, 284.
Maughas, G. B. M. See Jackson, Congrave.
Mazson, William, 312, 315, 316, 328.
May, Samuel J., 85.
Mayflower Company, i, 10.
Medary, Gov. Samuel, prejudiced against Free
State leaders by Montgomery's attack on
Fort Scott, 366, 367 ; applies for U. S. troops,
and for arms for Kansas militia, 367; his ac-
tion on B's Missouri raid, 376, 377; 364, 370,
371, 374. 378, 379, 381.
Memminger, O. G., quoted, 567.
Memorandum Book, No. 2, B's (in Boston Pub-
lic Library), quoted, 53.
Mendenhall, Richard, 134.
Meriam, Francis J., joins B at Chambersburg,
and supplies him with funds, 412, 420, 421;
his character and antecedents, 421; at Har-
per's Ferry, 421; left to guard arms at Ken-
nedy Farm, 421, 426; his arrival removes last
obstacle to making attack, 423; his final es-
cape, 471; sketch of, 685; 415, 446, 468.
" Meridezene." See Marais des Cygnes.
Messenger, the, who brought news to " Pot-
tawatomies' " camp of threats against Free
State settlers, his identity, or actuality, dis-
puted, 175, 176; probably non-existent, 176,
177-
Metternich, Col. Richard, 575, 579.
Meulen, Peter Wouter van der, maternal an-
cestor of B, 15.
Mexican War, 59, 79.
Middle West, difficulties of pioneering in, in
early I9th century, 8, 9.
Miller, Col. C. D., G. Smith's son-in-law, 535.
Mills, Benj., master-armorer at Harper's Ferry,
a prisoner, 439, 455.
Mills, Rev. Gideon, B's maternal great-grand-
father, 15.
Mills, Lieut. Gideon, B's maternal grandfather,
IS.
Mills, LuciUS, 220, 222, 223.
Mills, Owen, 30.
Mills, Peter, son of Peter van der Meulen, and
B's maternal great-great-grandfather, 15.
Mills, Ruth, descent of, 15; marries Owen
Brown, 12. And see Brown, Ruth (Mills).
Mills, Ruth (Humphrey), B's maternal grand-
mother, 15.
Mills, Lt.-Cpl. S. S., 467.
Mina, Spanish leader of guerrillas, 53.
Missouri, crucial position of, 80; her relation to
Kansas controversy, 83; effect of Kansas
election of 1855 on soberer elements, 99; B's
raid into, 367 seqq.; its deplorable results,
370 seqq.; governor offers reward for B's
arrest, 371.
Missouri Compromise, repeal of, 79.
Missouri Democrat, 99, 382.
Missouri River, blockaded by Missourians
against Lane's Free State force, 225.
Missourians, armed, at Osawatomie, 90; fraud-
ulent votes cast by, in Kansas election of
1854, 94; and New England emigrants to
Kansas, 96; their preparations for the second
election in Kansas, 98, and easy triumph, 98,
99; posing as Kansas militia, 115, 116, 123,
124; refrain from voting in election under
Topeka Const., except in Leavenworth, 128;
in camp at Black Jack, 200; raided at Frank-
lin, 212; large force invades Kansas, 257 seqq.;
their threatened attack on Lawrence averted
by Geary and Cooke, 259; disbandment of
Atchison's army a fatal blow to their hopes,
261.
Mitchel, Prof. Ormsby M., 563.
Mitchell, Col. R. R., 349, 365.
Mitchell, W. A., his Historic Linn quoted, 356,
357. i
Mobile Tribune, 231.
Moffet, Charles W., suspected of writing
" Floyd letter," 411; 308, 330, 344, 406, 409.
Moneka (Kansas), B at, 353, 354.
Monroe, S., alias used by B in 1859, 402.
Montgomery, James, one of the most interest-
ing figures of the border warfare, 350; his
Civil War record, 350, 351; his exploits in
Kansas, 351 ; a border chieftain after B's own
heart, 352; in touch with B, 353; attempted
assassination of, 363 ; his raid on Paris, Kan-
sas, 364; the plot to capture him and B, 365;
at Sugar Mound meeting, 365, 366; attacks
Fort Scott, in violation of agreement adopted
by that meeting, 366 ; his reason for assuming
leadership of this exploit, 367; reward offered
for his arrest, 371; writes to Lawrence Re-
Publican, 377; surrenders, 377; speaks in
church at Lawrence, 377 ; his efforts for peace,
378; T. W. Higginson concerning, 573; inter-
ested in attempt to save Stevens and Haz-
lett, 573 seqq.; his daring venture in that
cause, 577, 578; 179, 180, 187, 349, 362, 370,
373, 374. 375, 376, 377, 379, 514-
Montgomery, Mrs. James, 350.
Moore, Mr., a preacher, 201, 202, 208.
Moore, Eli, murderer, 352.
Morey, Joseph H, 246.
Morgan, Shubel, alias assumed by B on his last
visit to Kansas, 345, 352 seqq.; articles of
agreement and roster of his company, 666,
667.
Morgan, William, murder of, 26.
Morse, Mr., ill-treated by Wilkinson, Doyles,
and Sherman, 174, 175.
Morse, Mrs. Emma Wattles, describes B's re-
turn after Missouri raid, 371, 372; describes
one of his narrow escapes, 621 n. 86.
Morse, O. E., his Attempted Rescue of John
Brown, 656 n. 62.
Morton, Edwin, 320, 322, 535.
Mott, Lucretia, 50 n., 510, 549.
730
INDEX
Mnnroe, Rev. W. C., colored, president of Chat-
ham Convention, 331.
Myers, Henry, 54.
Myers, Mrs. Henry, 54.
Napoleon I, life of, among books which influ-
enced B, 16, 325.
Napoleon III, 564.
National Democratic Party in Kansas, abortive
attempt to form, 102.
National Kansas Committee, organized at Buf-
falo, 227; work of, 227; meeting in New York,
Jan. 24, 1857, 275; controversy concerning
rifles, 275; votes B $5000 for defensive mea-
sures, 276; charged by B with bad faith, 276;
its affairs confused with those of Mass. Kan-
sas Com., 360, 361; B's requisition on, for
outfit for volunteer-regulars, 664 seqq.; 269,
294, 298, 317, 342, 357, 359, 36o, 388, 389,
581.
National Republican Party, organized at Pitts-
burg, 132; 147.
Nebraska City, Lane's caravan at, 225.
Negroes, B's plan for their education, 44; de-
nounced by B in Sambo's Mistakes for their
" supineness " in face of wrong, 50; B founds
U. S. League of Gileadites in their interest,
50, 5 1 ; signatures of, to B's agreement and re-
solutions, 52; B's counsel to those in No.
Elba, 72; assisted by B, 73; their settlement
at No. Elba not a success, 73; advised by B to
resist Fugitive Slave Law, 75; in Canada, 327,
328; in B's party at Chatham, 330, 331; signi-
ficance of Chatham Convention to, 333, 334;
no uprising among them induced by B's
Harper's Ferry raid, 468, 469; B's negro fol-
lowers could not be convicted of treason, 570.
Negroes, free, two conventions of Free State
party in Kansas vote to exclude, 104, 105;
excluded by popular vote, 105.
New England, recognizes distinction between
" butchery " and " killing," 264, 265.
New England Emigration Society, 101, 227.
New England Woolen Co., and B's misuse of
money advanced, 30.
New Englanders in Kansas, epithets applied
to, 96.
New Georgia, pro-slavery settlement at, broken
up, 229.
New Haven, suppression of schools for negroes
in, 45; colony from, in Kansas, 138; 278.
New Lucy, steamboat, 81.
New Orleans Bee, 14.
New York, law of, concerning indictments like
B's, 494 n.
New York Abend-Zeitung, 474.
New York City, union meeting in, 563.
New York Evening Post, 350.
New York Herald, report of " interview " be-
tween B , Gov. Wise, and others, in issue of
Oct. 21, 1859, 456-463; H. Forbes in, 467; at-
tacks Gerrit Smith and Seward, 472 ; quoted,
492, 493, 535; 125, 480, 486, 501, 518 n., 568,
583.
New York Independent, 285, 318.
New York Journal of Commerce, quoted, 501.
New York Observer, 501.
New York Times, quoted concerning maltreat-
ment of Jason Brown and John, Jr. as prison-
ers, 196; concerning release of John, Jr., 254,
255; 230, 373.
New York Tribune, aimed at by penal code of
Shawnee Legislature, 92; Black Jack affair
discussed in, 202; publishes B's account of
Black Jack affair, 204-207; quoted, 378, 488;
and the attack on Harper's Ferry, 472; mis-
taken editorial comment of, 631 n. 42; 40, 93,
95, 96, 123, 126, 129, 137, 138, 139, 172, 174.
175, 179, 192, 197, 199, 213, 220, 234, 235,
244, 285, 287, 480, 490, 518, 520, 548 n., 570.
Newby, Dangerfield, in B's Harper's Ferry
party, 415, 419; killed by R. B. Washington,
439; the first of the raiders to die, 439; his
body treated with shocking indignity, 439;
sketch of, 686.
Nicolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, 326.
" Noble Sons of Liberty, The," 519.
North, ignorance in, of demoralization and law-
lessness of Free State men, 265; opinion hi,
unfavorably affected by B's speedy trial, 479,
480; predicament of B's supporters in, after
the failure at Harper's Ferry, 528 seqq.; out-
burst of feeling in, after B's execution, 559.
North Elba, negro settlement in Adirondacks,
67; visited by B, 71; B's first settlement at,
72; settlers displeased by arrival of negroes,
73; why negro settlement there was not a
success, 73; B's second home at, 76.
Northern press, attitude of, toward raids com-
mitted by Free State men and by pro-slavery
men in Kansas, 212; ignores Free State out-
rages, 264.
Nute, Rev. Ephraim, 215, 255.
Oberlin College, Owen Brown a supporter and
trustee of, 15; B's negotiations with trustees
of, concerning purchase of real estate in Vir-
ginia, 31-33-
O'Conor, Charles, 563.
Ohio, early settlement, 8, 9; wild animals hi, 9.
Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal, 27.
" Old Osawatomie Brown," name by which B
was known after battle of Osawatomie, 244.
Oliver, Mordecai, member of Congress from
Missouri, on Howard Com., 94 n.; quoted
concerning A. Wilkinson, 156; charges Free
State leaders with inspiring B's Pottawato-
mie expedition, 183, 184; files report of mino-
rity of Howard Com., 226; 161, 191.
Orsini, his attempt on Louis Napoleon com-
pared by A. Lincoln to B's raid, 564.
Osawatomie, Rev. S. L. Adair settles at, 79; B's
sons settle at, 81; B arrives at, 88; condition
of Brown settlement, in freezing weather, 88;
first brigade of Kansas volunteers enrolled at,
121 ; election of Jan. 1856, 130; settlers' meet-
ing, 134, 135; public meeting at, condemns
Pottawatomie murders, 168, 169; no killings
and but five definite pro-slavery offences in
neighborhood prior to those murders, 171,
172; pillaged by Whitfield's men, 212, 213;
" reign of terror " in, 214; B and Free State
men at, Aug. 29, 1856, 239, 240; attack on.
241; destroyed after battle, 246; sources for
story of the battle, 619 n. 50.
Osawkee, raided by A. D. Stevens, 254.
Ottawa Indians, 9, 133.
Ottawa Jones. See Jones. J. T.
Ottendorfer, Oswald, 575.
Oviatt, Heman, 27, 28, 33, 37~39-
Oviatt, Orson M., 17.
Owen, Mr., 380.
Packer, William F., Gov. of Pennsylvania, 524
Painter, John H., 312, 316, 389.
Palmyra, Battle of, B's name for Black Jack
fight, 204.
Paola (Kansas), 193, 194.
" Parallels ": the Marais des Cygnes massacre,
contrasted with B's Missouri raid, by B, 375,
376.
Paris (France), B's visit to, 61.
Paris (Kansas), raided by B and Montgomery,
364.
Paris (Mo.) Mercury, 99.
Parker, Laben, murder of, 215.
Parker, Nathaniel, 253.
Parker, Judge Richard, presides at trial of B
and other raiders. 476, 479 seqq.; reviews the
trial hi 1888 (St. Louis Globe- Democrat), 481,
INDEX
73i
482; his impartiality and judicial spirit, 482;
charges grand jury, 488; denies B's request
for delay, 489; refuses to delay trial on ac-
count of change of counsel, 493, 494; denies
motion to require prosecution to elect, 494
and n.; his decisions upheld by Court of Ap-
peals, 494; denies motion for arrest of judg-
ment, 497; pronounces sentence of death,
499; sketch of, 644 n. 36; 484, 485, 490, 492,
521, 546, 588.
Parker, Rev. Theodore, his attitude toward B,
272; his John Brown's Expedition, quoted,
529; after the failure at Harper's Ferry, 529;
quoted, 564; 269, 271, 273, 274, 289, 298, 320,
324, 326, 339, 340, 397, 565. Letters to B, 325,
F. Jackson, 564; from B, 324.
Parkville (Mo.) Luminary, destroyed by pro-
slavery mob, 99, 100.
Parrott, Marcus j., elected delegate to Con-
gress in Oct. 1857, 306.
Parsons, Luke F., in battle of Osawatomie. 243
seqq.; 232,250, 253,308, 313, 314, 315, 330,
343, 344, 409.
Partridge, George W., killed in the river, 245;
196, 237, 239, 514-
Partridge, Mary, and the plot to rescue B, 514.
Partridge, William, 121, 358.
Pate, Henry C., his John Brown as viewed by
Henry Clay Pate, quoted concerning Potta-
watomie murders, 156; and concerning Black
Jack, 202, 203; in Missouri Republican, 189;
goes to assist U. S. marshal to arrest murder-
ers, 193; his earlier and later history, 201; in
camp at Black Jack, 202; B's story of the
" battle " with him, 202, 203; claims to have
been taken prisoner by treachery, 203; his
story in N. Y. Tribune, 203; why he resorted
to a flag of truce, 203, 204, 205; his story re-
viewed by B in the Tribune, 204-207; his
written agreement with B and Capt. Shore,
207; his later account of the battle, after the
Harper's Ferry raid, 207; his captivity and
release, 208; visits B in jail, 546; his challenge
to Horace Greeley, 613 n. 19; 200, 211, 212.
283.
Pawnee Legislature. See Shawnee Legislature,
Peabody, S. E., 281.
Pearson, Henry G., his Life of John A. An-
drew, quoted, 557.
Pennington, William, of New Jersey, chosen
Speaker of the House over John Sherman,
58s.
Perham, Josiah, 524, 525.
Perkins, Anna, daughter of Simon, quoted, 65,
595 n. 42.
Perkins, George T., son of Simon, letter to
author. 64.
Perkins, Simon, Jr. partner of B in sheep-raising
(1844), 34, 35, 39, 41; B's admiration of
him, 64; his generous treatment of B, 64, 65;
further business relations with B, 66, 67.
Perkins and Brown, office of, in Springfield, 57;
business of, 58, 59; exporting wool, 59;
troubles with manufacturers, 60; ill-success of
B's trip to Europe, 61 seqq.; increasing diffi-
culties and final failure, 64, 65; law-suits by
and against, 64, 65, 75; their creditors, 64; 75.
Letters to Crafts and Still, 59, Hamilton Gay,
59, B. W. Ladd, 60.
Perkins Hill, 35.
Perry, Gov. of Florida, his message to the legis-
lature, 584.
Peticolas, Dr. A. E., letter to A. Hunter, 504 n.
Phelps, B. and O. conductor, 432, 433, 434-
Phil (Allstadt's negro), 468.
Philadelphia, B's body at, 561; anti-slavery
convention at, 562.
Philadelphia North American, quoted concern-
ing dispersal of Topeka Free State Legisla-
ture, 220.
Phillips, Wendell, his address at B's grave, 562 ;
271, 281. 330, 510, 516, 545, 554, 560, 561,
563, 565. 574-
Phillips. William, friend of C. McCrea, tarred
and feathered, no; murdered at Leaven-
worth, 252; 123, 124, 125, 129, 179, 181.
Phillips, W. A., his Conquest of Kansas, quoted,
96, 97, 602 n. 13; concerning pro-slavery out-
rages, 214; starts for Topeka with B, 220; de-
scribes the journey in Atlantic Monthly, 221;
293, 296, 304 n., 352, 362.
" Pickles," with B in Missouri raid, 368.
Pickman, W. D., 281.
Pierce, Franklin, President of U. S., special
message concerning Shawnee Legislature, and
acts of Free State men, 130; proclamation in
favor of pro-slavery men, 130, 131; Gov.
Shannon reports fight at Black Jack to, 211;
his despatches to Shannon, 211; makes Col.
Sumner a scapegoat, 217; calls Congress in
special session (Aug. 1856), 227; removes
Gov. Shannon from office, 234; failure of his
administration to support Gov. Geary causes
Geary's resignation, 294; 93,115, 117, 132,
134, 135, 138, 139, 144 n., 169, 209, 233.
Pike, J. A.. S7S, 576, 580.
Pike, J. D., quoted, 599 n. 43.
Pinkerton, A., and B's party of freed slaves, 390.
Platte County Argus, quoted, 96.
Platte County Riflemen, commanded by Atchi-
son in movement on Lawrence, 144.
Pleasant Valley (Md.), false alarm at, 470, 471.
Plummer, Charles, alias of C. P. Tidd, 579-
Plutarch's Lives, 16, 325.
Pomeroy, S. C., concerning Pottawatomie mur-
ders, 182; inaccuracies in his letter, 183; ar-
rested on entering Kansas, 260; visits B in
jail, 546; 119, 272, 512. Letter to Rebecca B
Spring, 182.
Pomeroy Guards, 149, 150.
Portage (O.) Sentinel, 473, 474, 569.
Post, Zina, 41.
Pottawatomie Creek, murders on. May 24-25,
1856, 148 seqq.; first reported to Free State
companies, 151; attitude of Free State men
toward, 167, 168; possible justification of, dis-
cussed, 170 seqq.; not due to meeting at
Dutch Henry's, 177; were they a peace mea-
sure? 1 80; called a just act of retaliation for
sack of Lawrence, etc., 180; not both a peace
and a war measure, 181 ; did not put an end to
Border Ruffian violence, 181; successful as a
war measure, 181, 182; defended by S. C.
Pomeroy, 182, 183; victims not tried by jury,
184, 185 ; deprived Free State cause of a great
moral advantage, 187, 188; ethically and
morally without excuse or palliation, 187,
188; sensational announcement of, by Mis-
souri journals, 189; persons under arrest for,
189; press comments on, 190, 191; not men-
tioned by Liberator, 191; reported to Pres.
Pierce by Shannon, 192; news of, posted in
Leavenworth, 192; meeting of Law-and-Order
party concerning, 192; Whitfield's men take
revenge for, at Osawatomie, 212, 213; coun-
try not " at peace " after, 213; in Oliver's re-
port of minority of Howard Com., 226; did
not injure Free State cause in the North,
226; little known about them in Boston at
time of B's first visit, 274; B's connection
with them never known to G. L. Stearns, 274;
what of other Boston friends? 274; B's con-
nection with them, 545; authorities for story
of, 608 headnote. And see Doyle family,
Wilkinson, and Sherman, Dutch Bill.
" Pottawatomies," John Brown, Jr.'s company,
149, 150; revulsion of feeling among, after the
murders, 166.
Potter, Rt. Rev. H. C., 558 n.
Powers, Theo. P., 244.
732
INDEX
Prairie City Rifles, B's force at Black Jack so-
called, 201.
Press, North and South, comments of, on B
and the raid, 568, 569.
Preston, Col. J. T. I/., 556, 557- And see Allen,
Elizabeth Preston.
Preston, Wm. J., deputy U. S. marshal, afraid
to serve warrants, 210.
Price, C. H., chairman of public meeting at
Osawatomie, 168, 169. .
Price, Hiram, 390.
Pro-slavery Congressmen, effect of their ac-
tion, to unify Free State determination, 139.
Pro-slavery leaders, of Missouri, contemptuous
of Free State movement, 108; meet at Frank-
lin after treaty of peace, 124; and Border
Ruffian invasion of Kansas under Buford,
138; exultation over Lawrence burnings, 146;
ascribe all virtues to Pottawatomie victims,
156, 157.
Pro-slavery men, unseated in Kansas, 99; div-
ers outrages perpetrated by, 110, in and n.;
Weiner's complaints of their outrages re-
sponsible for B's Pottawatomie plan, 151,
152; names of certain men selected by H. H.
Williams for death, 152; offences committed
by, in Osawatomie region prior to murders,
171, 172; raided by Free State men at Frank-
lin, 212; W. A. Phillips, concerning outrages
committed by, 214; more guilty than Free
State men in respect to crimes of violence,
215; attitude of non-slaveholders among,
216; plunder Quaker mission, 235: in force in
neighborhood of B's company, 237; attacked
by Cline, and put to flight, 237; raid Osawa-
tomie, 240 seqq.; deny charges of outrages,
264; control Lecompton Const. Conv., 296;
joint meeting with Free State men adopts B's
peace agreement, 366; attempt to check B's,
journey with freed slaves, 381 seqq., 388.
Pro-slavery outrages in Kansas in summer of
1856, 214, 215.
Pro-slavery party, in Kansas, early triumphs of,
94, 95 ; its hatred of Gov. Reeder the true
reason of his dismissal, 100; its duty accord-
ing to Stringfellow, 101; Law-and-Order
party formed by, 108; homicides by, 112,
113; and the rescue of Branson, 113, 114;
forces raised by, to besiege Lawrence, 114
seqq.; Pres. Pierce's proclamation in support
of, 130, 131; finds in Pottawatomie murders
an answer to Northern criticisms of sack of
Lawrence, 188; turns against Gov. Walker,
295; and the vicissitudes of the Lecompton
Const., 346 seqq.; passage of English bill by
Congress a victory for, 347 ; finally defeated
in election of Aug. 2, 1858, 347, 348.
Pro-slavery press, attitude of, concerning Pot-
tawatomie murders, 189-191.
Pro-slavery settlements in Linn and Bourbon
counties threatened by B, 235.
" Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for
the People of the U. S.," drawn up by B., 332
seqq.; preamble of, 334; provisions of, dis-
cussed, 334, 335; some parts suggest insanity,
334, 335 ; extraordinary provisions concerning
treaty-making, 335; Article 46, 336.
Provisional Constitutional Convention at Chat-
ham, 331 seqq. And see Chatham Conven-
tion.
Pryor, Judge Roger A., 506 n.
Quaker Mission, plundered by pro-slavery
men, 235.
Quin, Luke, marine, killed in engine house, 454.
Radical Political Abolitionists, hold convention
at Syracuse, 85.
Ram's Horn, Sambo's Mistakes published in, 50.
Randolph, Penn., B postmaster at, 43.
Ravenna (Ohio), 27, 36, 37.
Reader, Samuel J., his impressions of B, 223,
224.
Realf , Richard, his report of B's speech to Chat-
ham Convention, 331, 332; elected " Sec'y of
State " at that convention, 333; suspected of
writing "Floyd letter," 411; 308, 310, 311,
312, 3IS, 3l6, 329. 337, 338, 343. 344. 413-
Letter to B, 294, H. C. Gill, 330.
Recruiting of settlers for Kansas, 137 seqq.
Redpath, James, his Public Life of Captain
John Brown, quoted, 63, 199, 345; describes
B's camp on Ottawa Creek, 199, 200; his book
hastily written, 574; 139, 174, 179, 296, 301,
352, 421, 517, 533, 582, 583. Letter from
James Foreman, 21-23.
Reed, Rev. B. L., 348, 375.
Reed, J. H., alias of R. J. Hinton, 576.
Reeder, Andrew H., first territorial governor of
Kansas, orders second election (1855), 98;
unseats pro-slavery men elected to legisla-
ture, 99; declares first Territorial legislature
illegal, 100; his contention denied by judges,
100; dismissed by Pres. Pierce, ostensibly for
speculation in Indian lands, 100; becomes
leader of Free Soilers, 100; regarded in East
as martyr to abolition cause, 100; leaves
Kansas in disguise (1856), 101, 143; elected
delegate to Congress by Free State votes,
106; his election ignored by Shannon, 106,
and declared illegal by Howard Com., 107 n.;
elected provisionally U. S. Senator by Free
State Legislature, 132; indicted for treason,
142; his election as delegate confirmed by
Committee on Elections, but denied by
House, 226; declines B's invitation to return
to Kansas and assume leadership of Free
State party, 282; but sympathizes with B's
plans, 282; 140, 190, 294.
Reese, Louis A. The Admission of Kansas
(MSS.), 629 n. i.
Reid. Gen. John W., in attack on Osawatomie,
240 seqq.; denies that there was a battle, 246;
protests in vain against destruction of Osa-
watomie by his men, 246; his report of the
affair, 246, 247; 257.
Reisner, Henry, describes B's arrival at Law-
rence, Sept. 7, 1856, 253.
Republican National Convention (the first), and
Kansas, 226.
Republican Press, and the Pottawatomie mur-
ders, 191; and Harper's Ferry, 472-474.
Rescue, plans of Le Barnes and others, 511
seqq.; frowned upon by B, 512.
Reynolds, Ephraim, Sergeant of Liberty
Guards, 121.
Reynolds, Robert, 246.
Rhodes, James Ford, his History of the U. 5.,
191, 294, 612 n. 89.
Rice, Benjamin, 366, 576, 580.
Richardson, Richard, a runaway slave, 308,
316; discriminated against in Chicago, 329;
330, 337, 338, 344, 413.
Richardson, Gen. W. P., and the " Wakarusa
War," 114, 116; 192.
Richman, Irving B., his John Brown among the
Quakers, 316.
Richmond (Penn.), 23 seqq., 43.
Richmond (Va.) sends militia to Harper's Ferry ,
444.
Richmond Despatch, quoted, 518.
Richmond Enquirer, quoted, 475, 476, 568.
Richmond Grays, 469.
Richmond Whig, quoted, 500.
Riddle, Albert G., his Personal Recollections of
War Times, 646 n. 74.
Ripley (Va.), 31, 48.
Ritchie, Capt. John, reinforces B near Topeka
(Jan. 1859), 381 seqq.; 449.
INDEX
733
Robertson, Richard. See Richardson, Richard.
Robinson, Charles, Free Soil leader, obtains
rifles from Emigrant Aid Society, 98; chair-
man of Com. on Resolutions in Free State
Convention of Aug. 14-15, 1856, 102; in sec-
ond convention of Aug, 15, 103; chairman of
Territorial Exec. Com., 106; addresses meet-
ing at Lawrence after treaty of peace, 123,
and pro-slavery meeting at Franklin, 124;
invites Shannon and Jones to peace gather-
ing, 124; his ruse and its result, 125, 126;
Free Soil candidate for governor, 129; his
inaugural address, 132; Kansas member of
Nat. Republican Com., 132; at indignation
meeting for shooting of Mace, 141; indicted
for treason, 142 ; and for avoiding arrest on in-
dictment not yet found, 142, 143; in confine-
ments four months, 143; his house burned,
146; quoted concerning Pottawatomie mur-
ders, 169, 170; said to have inspired the mur-
ders, 183, 184; denies all complicity in them,
184; likens B to Jesus, and later denounces
him, 184; his Kansas Conflict, 232 n., 596 n. 4;
and Gov. Shannon, 234; favorably impressed
by Gov. Geary, 257; significance of his letters
as bearing on the question who saved Kan-
sas 262; controversy with John Brown, Jr.,
concerning interview with B, 263; at Topeka
Convention, 296; 101, 108, 122, 140, 150, 190,
191, 255, 265, 266, 271,272,297,307,346,367.
Letters to B, 262, 263.
Robinson, Michael, murdered by Hamilton's
gang, 348, 375.
Robinson, Mrs. Sara T. L., wife of Charles,
her Kansas: its Interior and Exterior Life,
89 n., 97, 98, 142; concerning assaults on wo-
men, 173, 174; 179, 192, 598 n. 31,611, n. 64,
613 n. 7.
Rollin's Ancient History, 16.
Ropes, Hannah Anderson, her Six Months in
Kansas, 89 n.
Rosengarten, Joseph G., his account of the
aftermath of the raid, 469, 470.
Ross, Patrick, murdered by Hamilton's gang,
348.
Rosser, Col. P. H., 240.
Root, Dr. J. P., conductor of Nat. Kansas Com.
" train " to Tabor, 269, 270. Letter from J.
D. Webster, 269.
Rotch, W. J., 281.
Rowan, Captain, 436, 438.
Russell, G. R., 325.
Russell, Judge Thomas, B in hiding at his house
in Boston, 288; quoted concerning B's speech
before sentence, 498 n.; visits B in jail, 545;
quoted, 647 n. 83; 271, 493, 512.
Russell, Mrs. Thomas, 288, 512, 545.
Russell, Maj. W. W., a volunteer in Lieut.
Green's storming party, 452 seqq.; sketch of,
642 n. 62; 450, 462 n.
Rutherford, Dr. W. W., 576.
St. Joseph, Mo., city attorney of, a fraudulent
voter in Kansas, 94.
St. Louis Evening News, quoted as to affairs in
Kansas, 216; as to the raid, 472.
St. Louis Intelligencer, 99, 117.
St. Louis Missouri-Democrat, 199, 371.
St. Louis Missouri-Republican, 83, 156, 189,
190, 191, 193, 201.
St. Louis Morning Herald and the Pottawa-
tomie murders, 191; 247.
St. Louis Pilot, 95.
Sacs and Foxes, in Kansas, 90.
Sambo's Mistakes, 50; quoted in full, 659-661.
Sanborn, Franklin Benjamin, B's first meeting
with, 271; his first impressions of B, 271; in-
troduces B to other friends of the cause, 271 ;
and sale of Thompson farm to B, 281 ; defends
B against blame for delay, 303; with Bat Ger-
rit Smith's, 321, 322; agrees with Smith to
support B, 322; B visits him in May, 1859,
395; his faithful labors in the cause, 395, 396;
his statement as to the conspirators' know-
ledge of B's plans, 397; after the failure at
Harper's Ferry, 529, 530; his opinion of Dr.
Howe's card, 533; his account of his own
movements, 533; arrested. 533, 534; his Life
and Letters of John Brown, quoted, 28, 29, 46,
341, 361; his Recollections of Seventy Years,
quoted, 321, 530, 533, 627 n. 27; his John
Brown and his Friends, and Virginia Cam-
paign of John Brown, quoted, 421; 184, 275,
277, 282, 284, 298, 299, 305, 319, 320, 324.
325. 330, 336, 338, 340, 342, 399, 421, 512,
517, 536, 582. Letters to T. W. Higginson,
271, 303, 325, 326, 339, 396, 530; from B, 322,
353, 354. John Brown, Jr., 45.
Sanborn, Miss, 534.
Saunders, " Fort," near Lawrence, attacked by
Free State men, 231.
Savannah Republican, quoted, 500.
Sayre, Dr. Lewis A., 504 n.
Scadsall, C. C. See Hadsall, C. C.
Schoppert, G. A., and the killing of Leeman,
440.
Scott, Sir Walter, 326.
Seaman, Benjamin, 576.
Seaman, Henry C., 576, 580.
Secession issue, as affected by B's execution,
506.
Secession movement, too far advanced before
the raid for peaceable solution, 587.
Sedgwick, Major John, quoted concerning
Lawrence raid and Pottawatomie murders,
169; concerning dispersal of B's force after
the battle of Black Jack, 209; 197, 212, 217,
232, 234.
Self-Defensive Association, in Platte Co., Mo.,
proceedings of, 98; compelled to disband,
599 n. 66.
Senate of U. S., passes Toombs bill, but rejects
Grow bill, 227; appoints committee to inves-
tigate raid, 478. And see Grow, G. A., and
Toombs, Robert.
Seneca Indians, 9.
Sennott, George, 513, 570.
Severns, Charles, 372.
Sewall, S. E., 559, 560.
Seward, W. H., and H. Forbes, 318; attacked
by N. Y. Herald, 472; quoted, 564, 565; 339,
474, 502, 566.
Shaler, Nathaniel S., autobiography, quoted, 10.
Shannon, Wilson, second Territorial Governor
of Kansas, his character, 103; ignores Reed-
er's election as delegate, 106; and the Cole-
man-Dow murder and rescue of Branson,
114 seqq.; orders out militia against Lawrence,
114; his duplicity, 115; addresses meeting at
Lawrence after treaty of peace, 123, and pro-
slavery meeting at Franklin, 124; deceived by
Robinson, gives him and Lane authority to
preserve peace, 125; his letter to the N. Y.
Herald, 125; blamed by pro-slavery men, 126;
U. S. troops in Kansas put under his orders,
131; returns to Kansas, 132; refuses to send
troops to protect citizens of Lawrence, 144;
reports to Pres. Pierce as to effect of Potta-
watomie murders, 169, 192; reports Black
Jack affair to same, 211; his difficulties, 211;
his proclamation, 211; makes requisition for
U. S. troops, 21 1 ; Col. Sumner and the dis-
persal of the Free State legislature, 217-220;
effects release of Titus and other prisoners,
and resigns governorship, 233, 234; his fare-
well speech to citizens of Lawrence, 234; hia
resignation not accepted, 234; removed by
Pres. Pierce, 234; his later residence in Law-
rence, 234; 92, 108, 130, 133, 209. Letter to
Col. Sumner, 218.
734
INDEX
Sharp's rifles, doctrine of opposing slavery
with, commended by N. Y. Tribune, 49;
shipped to Robinson as " Revised Statutes '
and " books," 98; supplied by Mass. Kans.
Com., controversy about, 275; story of trans-
fer of, to B, in spring of 1858, 340 seqq.
Shawnee Legislature, denounced by Free State
Convention, 91; code of punishments for
Free State men, enacted by, 91, 92; meeting
and organization (at Pawnee), 100; declared
illegal by Gov. Reeder, 100; petitions Pres.
Pierce to remove Reeder, 100; acts of, 101;
no genuine attempt made to enforce " Black
Laws," 101; attacked by successive Free
State conventions, 102, 103; denounced by
Big Springs Convention, 104; declared a legal
body by Pres. Pierce, 130; defied by settlers'
meeting at Osawatomie, 134, 135; its laws
declared effective by Judge Lecompte, 142;
resistance to its laws declared to be high trea-
son, 142; 131, 136, 156.
Shawnee Mission, sessions of pro-slavery legis-
lature held at. See Shawnee Legislature.
Shelby, Col. Joseph, 225.
Shepherdstown Troop at Harper's Ferry, 444.
Sheridan, Mrs., 308.
Sherman, Dutch Bill, murder of, 162-164;
Harris's story of the murder, 162-164; and
Mary Grant, 172, 173, 177; and the Morse
case, 174; 151. iSS, 182.
Sherman, Dutch Henry, his horses taken by
B, 235; murdered by Cransdell, 236; and Ot-
tawa Jones, 253 and n.; 135, 156, 162, 163,
212.
Sherman, Dutch Pete, 155.
Sherman, John, member of Congress from
Ohio, on Howard Com., 94 n.; and W. A.
Howard, report of, quoted, 120; his indorse-
ment of Helper's book causes his defeat in
Speakership contest, Dec. 1859, 583, 584, 585;
184, 227. Letter to Rev. E. B. Jones (1897),
506 n.
Sherman, William. See Sherman, Dutch Bill.
Shermans, pro-slavery settlement of, on Potta-
watomie Creek, 135: their unsavory reputa-
tion, 155, 156; alleged intimidation by, 172;
180.
Shields, Gen., letter from W. Limerick, 240.
Shirley, Walter, 520.
Shore, Samuel T., captain of Osawatomie com-
pany, 150; in Black Jack fight, 202 seqq.;
many of his men quit, 202, 204; and return
after the battle, 208; killed at " Fort " Titus,
231, 232; 200, 240.
Shriver, Col., 452.
Silsbee, Benj. H., 281.
Silsbee, John H., 281.
Sinn, Capt., his interview with B in the engine
house, 447 ; disgusted with conduct of citizens,
447, 448; protects Stevens, 448; his fine spirit,
448 and n.; visits B in jail, 544.
Slave States, their political supremacy endan-
gered by the carving of new states out of
western territory, 80.
Slaveholders, B's object at one time to terror-
ize, 56; to be held as hostages according to B's
plan, 332.
Slavery, B's first personal knowledge of, 4; his
second experience with, 17, 18; hatred of, in
his family, 21; its forcible overthrow his
"greatest and principal object," 42 seqq.;
gradual evolution of his plan to abolish, 48
seqq.; to be attacked elsewhere than in Kan-
sas, to relieve pro-slavery pressure there, 56;
B's main purpose to come to close quarters
with, 56; and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, 79;
to be fastened on Kansas, 83; opposition to,
made a disqualification for holding office by
Shawnee Legislature, 91; mere belief in its il-
legality a grave crime, 92; its existence de-
pendent on its fate in Kansas, according to
pro-slavery leaders, 97 ; the one issue in Kan-
sas, according to Stringfellow, 101; opposi-
tion to, disavowed by Big Springs Conven-
tion, 104; tendency of, to induce lawless ac-
tion, 171; B's plan to attack it in Virginia di-
vulged to his recruits, 308; all his recruits bit-
terly hostile to, 310; characterized in " Pro-
visional Constitution," 334; and the Lecomp-
ton Const., 346; Abolitionist view of, 384; its
fear of free speech, 568; the sole issue in cam-
paign of 1860, 585; would have been abol-
ished had B never lived, 586, 587; intolerable
morally and economically, 587.
Slavery issue, B's views on, 362; impossible to
be put aside after B's execution, 506.
Slaves, severe penalty for encouraging disaffec-
tion among, enacted by Shawnee Legislature,
i- 91, 92; two freed by J. Brown, Jr., 150, 151;
small number in Kansas, 295; part assigned
to them in B's Virginia plan, and in Forbes's
plan, 314, 332; a fugitive, in Canada, 327,
328; freed by B in Missouri raid, 368, 369, 372,
373; more carefully guarded after Missouri
raid, 378; B's journey to Canada with his
freed slaves, 379-390; Northern sentiment
concerning fugitives, 384; fears of general in-
surrection aroused by news of Harper's Ferry,
436; conduct of those impressed by B there,
468.
"Smelly, Capt. James," 519.
Smith, A. L., and the " Floyd letter," 411, 412.
Smith, Geo. W., commanding first brigade of
Kansas Volunteers, 121; indicted for treason,
142, and arrested, 145; elected Gov. of Kan-
sas under Lecompton Const., 346.
Smith, Gerrit, his suit against Chicago Tribune,
46; offers land to negroes, 71; becomes B's
warm friend, 71; his earnest opposition to
slavery, 71; described by Greeley, 71, 72;
gives money to B and to Forbes, 287; ap-
proves of Forbes's tract, 298; his affection for
B, 320; B's plans made known to and ap-
proved by him, 320; agrees with Sanborn to
support B, 322; rejoices in result of B's Mis-
souri raid, 379; B's last visit to, 395; his pub-
lic approval of B's course contrasted with his
later attitude, 395; after the raid, 535, 336;
his insanity, 535; his quick recovery and sub-
sequent denial of complicity in, or knowledge
of, the raid, 536; 84, 85, 269, 272, 277, 281,
291, 293, 319, 327, 330, 333, 339, 340, 396,
460, 472, 474, 522, 565.
Smith, I., alias assumed by B in 1859, 402, 404.
" Smith, I., and Sons," B, Oliver and Owen so
known at Chambersburg, 402, 409.
Smith. Dr. J. V. S., 06.
Smith, James, one of B's noms de guerre, 292.
Smith, Judge, 255.
Smith, Owen, alias of Owen Brown, 416.
Smith, Gen. Persifpr T., succeeds Col. Sumner
in Kansas, 217; his instructions from J. Davis,
Sec'y of War, 251; condemns acts of Reid's
force, 251; 260.
Smith, Rev. Stephen, 323.
Smith, W. P., master of transportation of B.
& O. R. R., Conductor Phelps's dispatch to,
433, 434; is incredulous, 434; 519, 525.
Snyder, Charles, 348, 375.
Snyder, Eli, headquarters of B's party with,
353; the disputed title to his claim, 356, 357;
tells of B's encounter with Rev. M. White,
357! 348, 354-
Snyder, Elias. 348.
Soule, Silas C., 514, 575, 576, 577, 578.
South, the, not a colonizing section, 265; atti-
tude toward B, 474-476; division of opinion
in, concerning B's fate after sentence, 500.
South Carolina, pro-slavery men from, in Kan-
sas, 137, 138; attitude of, 585.
INDEX
735
South Middle Creek, fight at, 237.
Spartacus, 362.
Speakership contest, in House of Representa-
tives in 1859-1860, 583, 585.
Speer, John, 181.
Spinner, F.. E., 505 n.
Spooner, Lysander, and his scheme to kidnap
Gov. Wise, 514 seqq.
Spring, Rebecca B., visits B in jail, 546 and n.;
549. Letter from S. C. Pomeroy, 182.
Springdale (Iowa), B and his party at, 312;
their life there, 314 seqq.; B and his party of
freed slaves at, 387; 328, 329.
Springdale " Legislature," a mock body, 315.
Springfield (Mass.), B's residence at, 48,49,67;
278.
Springfield Republican, 558.
Squatter Sovereign, quoted, 93, no, 129, 131,
141, 178, 617 n. i, 618 n. 39; and the Potta-
watomie murders, 190.
Squatter Sovereignty Idea, all of Kansas's mis-
fortunes due to, 347.
Squatters' Court, judge of, called " Old Brown,"
305.
Staats-Zeitung, 575.
" Standish, Miles, of Kansas," B so called by
A. A. Lawrence, 400.
Stanton, Frederick P., Sec'y of State of Kansas
under Gov. Walker, removed by Pres. Bu-
chanan, 295; acting governor, 306, 346.
Star of the West (steamer), 142, 225.
Starry, Dr. John D., the " Paul Revere of
Harper's Ferry," 434, 435; rides about, giving
the alarm, 435; quoted as to progress of
events, 435, 436, and concerning Kagi's
death, 445 ; saves Copeland from being
lynched, 445; quoted, 510; 548 n.
Startling Incidents and Developments of Osa-
watomie Brown's Insurrectory and Treason-
able Movements at Harper's Ferry, Virginia,
635 n. 116.
Stearns, Charles, denounces Big Springs Con-
vention in Kansas Free Stale, 104.
Stearns, Frank P., his Life and Public Services of
George Luther Stearns, quoted, 272, 274. :
Stearns, George Luther, B's first visit to, 272;
never knew of B's connection with Pottawa-
tomie murders, 274; buys revolvers for B,
288, 289; his confidence in B and large gener-
osity to the cause, 292; advises contest at
polls and only defensive fighting, 306, 307;
treachery to B's policy in the home of its
friends, 307; controversy over notes sent to
B, 359-361 ; turns to Kansas for aid in effect-
ing B's escape, 513; goes to Canada after
raid, 530; his testimony before Mason Com.,
534- 535; 7, 271, 279, 280, 281, 291, 297, 319,
320, 324, 325, 326, 333, 338, 339, 34O, 341,
342, 343, 396, 397, 399, 582. Letters to B, 339,
E. B. Whitman, 306; from B, 305, E. B. Whit-
man, 304.
Stearns, Mrs. G. L., Alcott's statement in her
Emancipation Evening Album, quoted, 398;
544, 546.
Stearns, Henry L., letter from B, 1-7.
Stephens, Alex. H., quoted, 587.
Sterns, Henry, 279.
Stevens, Aaron Dwight, his first meeting with
B, 224; why he used an alias, 224; raids Osaw-
kee, 254; his men arrested by Marshal Don-
aldson, 254; kills David Cruise in Missouri
raid, 369, 37O; " a born crank," 419; shot by
G. W. Chambers while carrying flag of truce,
439, 440; protected by Capt. Sinn, 448; made
prisoner in engine house, 454; his pitiable
condition at his trial, 486; his personality,
572, 573; attempts to save him after B's exe-
cution, 572 seqq.; executed, 580; sketch of,
679, 680; 256, 308, 312, 315, 329, 330, 343,
344. 353. 363, 364, 366, 368, 379, 381, 382.
38S. 389. 390, 414, 420, 421, 427, 429. 431,
432, 442, 456, 459, 460, 470, 471, 477. 478,
479,485,487,488,489,510, 545, 558 n. Letter
to his brother, 254.
Stevens, " Thad.," anecdote of, 505 n.
Stewart, Capt., 217.
Stewart, Maj.-Gen. Geo. H., Maryland Volun-
teers, notified by Garrett of B's raid, 434.
Stewart, James, 513.
Stewart, John, shot by Border Ruffians, 142,
180.
Still, John, 239.
Still, William, 323, 549.
Stilwell, W. E., murdered by Hamilton's gang,
348, 375-
Stocqueler, J. H., his Life of Field-Marshal the
Duke of Wellington, 53-
Stow, Joshua, 37.
Stratton, H., letter to B, 235 n.
Scribbling, Dr., 508.
Strickler, Adj.-Gen. H. J., and the " Wakarusa
War," 114, 116.
Strider, Samuel, summons B to surrender, 447.
Stringfellow, B. F., 92, 94, 144, 145, 192, 216,
229, 230, 257.
Stringfellow, Gen. J. H., Speaker of Kansas
Territorial House of Representatives, 92, 93,
94, lor, 124, 144, 145.
Stuart, Alex. H. H., 526.
Stuart, Charles, 85, 322.
Stuart, Lieut. J. E. B., sent to Harper's Ferry,
450; describes disposition made and parley
with " Smith " (B), 450, 451; text of his sum-
mons to 8,451; 201, 209, 456, 458, 462 and n.,
467, 470.
" Stubbs," 258. See " Lawrence Stubbs."
Sturtevant, Mrs. C. M., 391.
Stulz, Capt., 233.
Sugar Mound meeting of Free State and pro-
slavery men, adopts B's peace agreement,
366.
Sultan (steamer), 225.
Sumner, Charles, effect on Pottawatomie party
of news of Brooks's assault on, 154; his
" Crime against Kansas " speech, 188, 599 n.
61; his only meeting with B, 327; Brooks's
assault on, 587.
Sumner, Col. Edwin V., under Gov. Shannon's
orders, 132; his troops disperse Free State
legislature, 132, 217-220; releases Pate and
his men, 208; disperses B's band and heads
off Border Ruffians under Whitfield and Cof-
fee, 209; criticised by pro-slavery men for not
arresting B, 210; and Deputy- Marshal Pres-
ton, 210; and Whitfield's breach of faith, 213;
on furlough, 217; in disfavor with Pierce ad-
ministration, 217; slighted by Jefferson Da-
vis, 217, 219; made a scapegoat by Pres.
Pierce, 217, 219; his speech to the legisla-
ture, 219; career and character of, 615 n. 58;
115, 144, 145, 206, 226, 381. Letter to Acting-
Gov. Woodson, 218; from Jefferson Davis,
218, Gov. Shannon, 218.
Sunderland, La Roy, hypnotist, B's controversy
with, described by himself, 67, 68.
Tabor (Iowa), a colony of Ohioans, an important
station on Underground Railroad, 267 ; condi-
tions in, in autumn of 1856, as described by
Mrs. Gaston, 267, 268; B arrives at, with only
$25, 292, 294; intensely " Abolition," and
loyal to B, 302; conditions at, in Feb. 1859.
383, 384; public opinion disapproves of some
aspects of Missouri raid, 384; B coolly wel-
comed, 384; public meeting, and resolutions
passed thereat, 385; fear of pro-slavery at-
tacks, 386. And see Todd, Rev. John.
Taliaferro, Maj.-Gen. W. B., Gov. Wise's in-
struction to, 523; 522, 527, 549, 550, 558.
Tallmadge (Ohio), semi-centennial, 293.
INDEX
Tappan, Lewis, 85.
Tappan, Samuel F., resists arrest, 140; assistant
clerk of Topeka Free State Legislature, 219;
380.
Tate, Geo. H., 520.
Tayleure, C. W., letter to John Brown, Jr., 454,
455-
Taylor, Dr., 448.
Taylor, Jacob L., quoted concerning Stewart
Taylor, 684, 685.
Taylor, Stewart, in B's Harper's Ferry party,
414, 419, 424; death of, 449; sketch of, 684,
685; 328, 330, 343, 344-
Teesdale, John, editor of Des Moines Register,
386; Letter from B, 386.
Territorial Executive Committee, created by
Big Springs Convention, 106; report of, 132;
PL 304.
Tessaun, half-breed Indian, 383,
Texas, annexation of, 79.
Thayer, Eli, his History of the Kansas Crusade,
quoted, 146; B's host in Worcester, Mass.,
281; contributes weapons, 282; 265, 287, 289.
Letter from G. A. Crawford, 374.
Thayer, Wm. W., 574, 579-
Thomas, H. K., 246.
Thomas, John A., colored, 338.
Thomas, Thomas, 55.
Thompson, Dauphin Osgood, in B's Harper's
Ferry party, 414, 419, 420; death of, in en-
gine house, 449, 454 and n.; sketch of, 683;
462 n., 537, 558 n.
Thompson, George, first condemns, then ap-
proves Pottawatomie murders, 168.
Thompson, Henry, marries B's daughter Ruth,
76; goes to Kansas, 76; en route to Kansas
with B, 86; anecdote of B told by, 88; and the
claim- jumper, 130; on B's surveying tour,
133; his regard for B, 134; in B's Pottawa-
tomie party, 153; Wilkinson and Sherman
killed by Wiener and him, 162, 164; denies
that Judge Wilson was on prescribed list, 165;
charges Robinson with urging B to further
killings, 184; denies that Pottawatomie vic-
tims were tried by jury, 184; wounded at
Black Jack, 203, 208; quoted, 224; declines
to reenlist for Virginia expedition, 323, 324;
declines to join B at Harper's Ferry, 413; 81
n., 112, 118, 127, 135, 136, 149, 155, 159, 160,
198, 202, 210, 220, 222, 561. Letters to Mrs.
Ruth (Brown) Thompson, 133.
Thompson, Isabella, sister of Dauphin O..
Henry, and William, marries Watson Brown.
See Brown, Mrs. Isabella (Thompson).
Thompson, Mrs. Ruth (Brown), B's daughter,
wife of Henry Thompson, quoted, 16, 73, 74,
75; her carelessness causes a sister's death ,3 5;
19, 20, 36, 76, 591 n. 10. Letters from Jason
Brown, 229, B, 324, Henry Thompson, 133.
Thompson, Seth. 41.
Thompson, William, in B's Harper's Ferry
party, 414, 419, 437; taken prisoner, 439;
killing of, by Harry Hunter and Chambers,
described by H. H., 442 and n., 491 ; his death
a disgrace to Virginia and condemned by best
public sentiment, 443; sketch of, 683; 537.
Thompson, Mrs. Wm., 561.
Thompson brothers, sell land at No. Elba to B,
281.
Thompson, Mr., B's partner in real-estate spec-
ulations in 1835, 27.
Thomson, Rev. Mr., and his runaway slave, 14.
Thoreau, Henry D., his Plea for Captain John
Brown, quoted, 273, 274, 563.
Three Years on the Kansas Border, 89 n.
Tidd, Charles P., in B's Harper's Ferry party,
414, 416, 417, 426, 427, 431, 446, 468; final
escape of, 471; sketch of, 681; 303, 306, 308,
311, 329, 330, 343, 344. 353, 357, 363. 368,
379. 406, 468, 574, 577.
Tieman, Dan'l F., Mayor of New York, 563. '
Tilden, Judge Daniel R., 492, 493.
Timbucto. See North Elba.
Titus, " Fort," captured, after severe fighting,
by Free State men under Captain S. Walker,
231, 232.
Titus, Col. H. T., captured with his " fort " by
Free State men, 231, 232; owed his life to S.
Walker, 232, 233; finally released by Gov.
Shannon, 233, 234; 352.
Todd, Rev. John, his action on B's request for
thanksgiving service at Tabor, 384, 385; 267,
270, 274, 299, 386.
Toole's, a station on Underground Railroad,
386.
Toombs, Robert, U. S. Senator from Georgia,
his bill for taking census as basis for election
of a new constitutional convention, passed by
Senate, and rejected by House, 227; speech
in Senate, 565, 566; 191, 226.
Topeka, Free State conventions in (1857), 295,
296.
Topeka Constitution, ratified by the people,
107, 127; its adoption angers pro-slavery
party, 108; election under, 128- 132.
Topeka Constitutional Convention (Oct. 23,
1855), favors exclusion of free negroes, as
well as slaves, but submits question to the
people, 105; constitution framed by, 107, and
ratified by popular vote, 107, 127; 131, 184.
Topeka Free State Legislature, dispersed by
Col. Sumner, 217-220; meetings of, in 1857,
295; 227, 346, 347.
Topeka Tribune, 473.
Torrey, Rev. Charles H., 51, 594 n. 13.
Torrington (Conn.), B's birthplace, I.
Toussaint 1'Ouverture, 331.
Townsend, James, of the " Traveller's Rest,"
312, 316.
Townsley, James, and the Pottawatomie expe-
dition, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155; tries to dis-
suade B, 157; and the Doyle murders, 158
seqq.; concerning the murders of Wilkinson
and Sherman, 162; at Black Jack, 208; 165,
166, 167, 175, 177, 178, 184, 198.
Tracy, John F., 390.
Traveller's Rest, Springdale, 312, 316.
Tremont Temple (Boston), great meeting in, on
day of B's execution, 559, 560.
Tribute of Respect, A, commemorative of the
Worth and Sacrifice of John Brown of Osa-
watomie, quoted, 559.
Trimble, Governor of Ohio, 18.
Trowbridge, Colonel, 388.
Truth, Sojourner, 48.
Tubman. Harriet, colored, " the Moses of her
people," 327, 396.
Tucker, Captain, 233.
Turner, Capt. Geo. W., slave-holder, effect of
killing of, 440, 441; sketch of, 640 n. 33; 469,
479.
Turner, James, with Pate at Black Jack, 205.
Tyndale, Hector, 549, 550, 558, 561.
Uncle Tom's Cabin, 583.
Underground Railroad, Owen Brown, senior, an
agent of, 14; 43, 267, 367, 386, 412.
United States Artillery, ordered to Harper's
Ferry, 449.
United States marines at Harper's Ferry, 449,
450; storm engine house, 452-454.
United States troops, criticised by Atchison and
others, 216, and by Free State writers, 217;
reinforcements sent to Kansas, 251; ordered
to Lawrence (Sept. 1856), 257.
Unseld, John.C., B's conversation with, 403 ; 404.
Updegraff, Captain, of Marion Rifles, 150.
Updegraff, H. Harrison, 121.
Updegraff, Dr. Wm. W., lieut. of Liberty Guards,
121, 240, 243, 245, 293.
INDEX
737
Vaill, Rev. H. L., 541, 592 n. 16.
Vallandigham, C. L., 456, 457, 458, 459, 460, 461 .
Vandaman, S. V., 168.
Varney, Moses, and the "Floyd letter," 411,
412; 316.
Vigilance Committee of 52, of Kansas, 304.
Virginia General Assembly, report of Joint In-
vestigating Com. of, 500, 567-
Virginia militia, behavior of, at Harper's Ferry,
464, 465.
Volunteer-regulars, B's covenant for enlist-
ment of, 66 1 seqq.
Von Hoist, Hermann, his John Brown, 334. 335-
Voorhees, Dan'l W., quoted as to B's trial, 483 ;
defends John E. Cook, 570. Letter to Flor-
ence Hunter, 485.
Wadsworth, Frederick, 27.
Wadsworth, Tertius, 37.
Wager House, Harper's Ferry, scenes in, after
the raid, 469, 47O; 429, 437, 438, 440, 441,
442, 448.
Wakarusa Company, at Franklin, 212.
Wakarusa River, 116.
" Wakarusa War," end of, 126.
Wakefield, W. H. T., quoted, as to conditions
in Kansas, 1854 to 1858, 601 n. 104.
Walker, Jona., alias " The Branded Hand,"
594 n. 13.
Walker, Robert J., becomes governor of Kan-
sas, 294; his previous career, 294; is opposed
by pro-slavery party and Pres. Buchanan,
and resigns, 295 ; and the election for delegate
to Congress, 296; guarantees free election,
296; 306.
Walker, Capt. Samuel, memoir of, 89 n.; mal-
treated, as a Yankee, in n.; statements of,
concerning Robinson's and Lane's connection
with Pottawatomie murders, 184; rides from
Nebraska City Kansasward with B and Lane,
228; deems B to have been then insane, 228;
his talk with B concerning the murders, 228;
as to correspondence between B and John
Brown, Jr., 228, 229; commands Free State
forces at " Fort " Titus, 231, 232; saves Ti-
tus's life after his surrender, 232, 233; his de-
scription of scene at Lawrence, 233; with
Lane at Lecompton, 252. Letters to James
Hanway, 184, 228, 229.
Walker Tariff, the, 59.
Walsh, Hugh S., acting-governor of Kansas,
364. Letter to Lewis Cass, 364.
" Ward, Artemus," his description of B in
March, 1859, 392 ; and of Kagi, 392 ; his report
of B's lecture in Cleveland, 392, 393.
Warren, Mr., creditor of Perkins and Brown,
litigation with, 65, 66.
Wasc9tt, Laura, 315.
Washington, George, Pres. of U. S., Harper's
Ferry arsenal established during his term,
428; his Lafayette pistol and Frederick the
Great sword, 431-
Washington, Col. Lewis W., and the historic
sword and pistol, 431; compelled to deliver
the sword to a negro, 43 1 ; made prisoner, 43 1 ;
quoted as to B's bearing during siege of en-
gine house, 453; 437, 438, 448, 455, 456, 463,
467, 468, 487.
Washington, Richard B., 439.
Waterloo, visited by B, 62.
Waters, R. P., 281.
Watertown (N. Y.) Reformer, 167.
Watson, Henry, colored, 412.
Wattles, Augustus, 277, 298, 353, 356, 358, 363,
371, 373, 375, 398, 575, 576. Letters to B, 293,
300; from B, 290, 292.
Wattles, Mrs. Aug., 371.
Wattles, J. O., 372.
Wayland, Francis, on B's oratory, 281, 282.
Letter to_F. B. Sanborn, 281.
Weaver, Capt. A. J., 364, 365.
Webster, Col. Fletcher, 585.
Weiner, Theodore, complains to B of ill-treat-
ment by pro-slavery men, 151; in B's Potta-
watomie party, 153-154; Salmon Brown's
description of, 157, 158; Wilkinson and Sher-
man killed by Thompson and, 162, 164; not
concerned in Sherman murder, according to
Townsley, 162; was he the mysterious mes-
senger? 175; and Orson Day, 178; his store
plundered, 200; 155, 159, 177, 198, 210,211.
Weiss, John, his Life and Correspondence of
Theodore Parker quoted, 272.
" Well-matured Plan, The," 314.
Wellington, Duke of, Stocqueler's life of, 53.
Wells, Joseph, 37.
Western Despatch, and the Pottawatomie mur-
ders, 189.
Western Reporter, 99.
Western Reserve Bank, suit of, against Brown
and others, 37-39.
Western Reserve College, denies admission to a
colored man, 15.
Westfall, Dr., 200.
Westlands, B's curious manipulation of, in
Western Reserve Bank litigation, 38-41.
Westport (Mo.) Border Times, its sensational
announcement of news of Pottawatomie mur-
ders, 189; appeals to South for men and
money, 189.
Wetmore brothers, 37 .
Wharton, Lieutenant, 217.
Whedan, B., 13.
Whelan, Daniel, second prisoner taken at
Harper's Ferry, 430.
Whipple, Charles, alias of Stevens, 224, 365.
And see Stevens, Aaron Dwight.
White, Horace, and G. Smith's feigned insan-
ity, 651 n. 83; 275, 276, 277, 357. Letter to B,
269.
White, Rev. Martin, represents Border Ruf-
fians at settlers' meeting, 134; his report
thereof to Shawnee Legislature, 134; as to
A. Wilkinson, 156; leader of band that ar-
rested Jason Brown, 194 seqq.; his house
raided by Free State men, 234; kills Fred'k
Brown, 241 ; his own version of the killing,
241, 242; B declines to take revenge on him,
357, 358; 90, 269, 270. Letter to Bates County
Standard, 242.
Whiteman, John S., 163, 164.
Whitfield, Gen. J. W., pro-slavery candidate
for governor of Kansas, elected by fraudulent
votes, 94; elected delegate to Congress at elec-
tion ordered by Shawnee Legislature, 106;
seated by the House and ousted after report
of Howard Com., 106, 107 and n.; and Col.
Sumner, 208, 209; his men pillage Osawa-
tomie, 212, 213; his election as delegate de-
nied by Elections Com., and by the House,
226; 95, 211, 257. Letter to editor of Border
Times, 193.
Whitman, Edmund B., B at his house in Kansas,
304; vexed at B's disappearance, 304; 255,
277, 294, 305, 307, 359. Letter to G. L.
Stearns, 304; from H. B. Hurd, 360, G. L.
Steams, 304.
Whittier, John G., his Le Marais du Cygne,
349-
Wilberforce Institute, 327.
Wilder, D. W., his Annals of Kansas, 92; 183.
Wilkinson, Allen, member of Shawnee Legisla-
ture, his character from both sides, 156, 157;
his murder by Thompson and Weiner de-
scribed by his wife, 161, 162; and the Morse
case, 174; 173, 180, 182, 192.
Wilkinson, Mrs. Allen, quoted, 156, 157, 161,
162.
Willard, A. P., Gov. of Indiana, 477, 483, 571.
Willard, Mrs. A. P., 571.
738
INDEX
Williams, Henry H., lieutenant of Liberty
Guards. 121; member of Free State Legisla-
ture, 133; lieutenant in John Brown Jr.'s com-
pany, 149; his story of Pottawatomie, 149
seqq.; deposes John, Jr. from command, 150;
declared by Salmon Brown to have led in the
council that decided on necessity of Pottawat-
omie massacre, and to have prepared list of
men to be killed, 152; secretary of public
meeting at Osawatomie, 168; his attitude
toward Pottawatomie expedition, 168 and n.,
169; his claim to have been the mysterious
messenger, 175; 166, 177. Letter to C. A.
Foster, 133.
Williams, J. M. S., 280.
Williams, R. H., his With the Border Ruffians,
607 n. 100.
Williams, William, 249.
Williams, William, the first prisoner at Harper's
Ferry, 429, 430, 432.
Willis, S. J., 575, 576, 580.
Wilson, George, Probate Judge, was he on B's
proscribed list? 165.
Wilson, Henry, U. S. Senator from Mass., con-
versation with B, 399; 317, 318, 340, 342.
Letter to S. G. Howe, 339; from S. G. Howe,
341-
Wilson, Rev. Norval, visits B in jail, 544.
Winchester Company, at Harper's Ferry, 444.
Winkley, Dr. J. W., his John Brown the Hero,
quoted, 237, 238.
Wise, Barton H., his Life of Henry A. Wise,
quoted, 466, 527, 547.
Wise, Henry A., Gov. of Virginia, notified by
Garrett of attack on Harper's Ferry, 434; at
Harper's Ferry, 444; quoted concerning B,
455; his " interview " withB, 455 seqq.; collo-
quy with B, 463 ; speech concerning behavior
of Virginia militia, 463, 464; his later char-
acterization of B, in light of his own capture
of the same arsenal, 465, 466; quoted, 468,
469; after the raid, 469, 470; and the ques-
tion of jurisdiction, 477, 478; receives much
contradictory advice as to his course, 500
seqq.; declines to interfere with sentence,
503, 504; his message to the legislature, 504,
SOS, 517; weakness of his logic, 506; theques-
tion of B's insanity, 507-509; L. Spooner's
scheme to kidnap, 514; warned of plots of
rescue, 518; warning letters received by him,
519; effect of rescue scares on him, 521; calls
out troops, 522; appeals to Pres. Buchanan,
523; his unfounded fears of a rescue, 524;
criticized for excessive precautions taken,
526; sustained by legislative committee, 526;
his conduct discussed, 526, 527; possible ul-
terior views in display of force at Charles-
town, 526, 527; at Charlestown, 546; visits B
in jail, 547, 548; and Mrs. Brown, 549, 550;
in favor of leneincy to E. Coppoc, 570; John
Minor Botts quoted concerning 649 n. 50;
164, 293, 472, 474 and n., 479, 481,485, 505 n.,
528, 5S4, 559. 56s, 572, 587, 588. Letters to
Mrs. Mary A. Brown, 549, A. Hunter, 478,
504, 521, F. Wood, 503; /rcwLydia M. Child,
479, F. Wood, 502.
Wise, John S., his End of an Era, quoted,
474 n.
Wise, O. Jennings, prefers charges against Col.
R. W. Baylor for inefficiency at Harper's
Ferry, 464. Letter to Col. J. T. Gibson, 464.
Witherspoon, Rev. John, his works read by B,
16.
Wood, A. P., pursues B and his band of freed
slaves, 381.
Wood, Fernando, urges that B be not hanged,
502. Letter to Gov. Wise, 502; from, Gov.
Wise, 503.
Wood, R. W., sergeant in Liberty Guards, 121.
Wood, Sam'l N., leader of rescuers of Jacob
Branson, 113; arrested by Sheriff Jones, and
escapes, 140; indicted for treason, 142; 132.
Wood, Capt. Thos. J., his cruelty to John
Brown, Jr., 195, 196; searches vainly for B
after Pottawatomie, 196; later, a distin-
guished Northern general, 197; captures
many of Col. Harvey's force after fight at
Hickory Point, 256; 210.
Woodruff, Col. Daniel, B tries to obtain his co-
operation in his Virginia project, 54, 55.
Woodson, Dan'l, Sec'y of Kansas Territory,
his alleged letter to Gen. Eastin denounced as
forgery, 116; acting-governor of Kansas, 217;
Col. Sumner and the dispersal of the Free
State Legislature, 217-220; his proclama-
tion, 218, 250, not enforced against Atchison's
and Reid's force, 250; orders Cooke to invest
Topeka, 250, 251; 252, 257. Letter from Col.
E. V. Sumner, 218.
Wool-growing, effect of Walker tariff on, 59;
Perkins and Brown's operations in, 59 seqq.
" Words of Advice " for the Gileadites, so,
52.
Workman, Samuel, 387.
Wooster (Ohio), Bank of, sues B, 37.
Wright, S. H., 293.
Wyandotte City Western Argus, quoted, 370.
Yankees, frowned upon, merely as such, in
Kansas, in.
Yelton, John, brings warning of attack on
Osawatomie, 240; 121, 246.
Young, Rev. Joshua, 558 n., 561, 562.
Zion Methodist Church, in Springfield, Mass.,
attended by B, 68.
NOTE. This index was compiled for the author by Mr. George B. Ives of the Riverside Press,
to whom the author makes special acknowledgment for his skill and thoroughness.
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