Chapter II: Part 2

Meanwhile, Kagi, still at the rifle factory, was anxiously sending messages to Brown urging him to leave Harpers Ferry while they still had the chance. Brown ignored the pleas and continued to direct operations with no apparent thought that outside forces would be moving against him once the alarm had spread. Why, is anybody’s guess. Up until noon of October 17, despite the erratic fire from the townspeople, the raiders could have fought their way to safety in the mountains. Instead, Brown waited, doing nothing. By mid-day it was too late, and the jaws of the “steel-trap” foreseen by Frederick Douglass closed swiftly.

THE TIGER CAGED

The Charles Town militia, consisting of the regular company of the Jefferson Guards and a specially formed volunteer company, was armed and on its way by train to Harpers Ferry by 10 a.m. The militia commander, Col. John T. Gibson, had not waited for orders from Richmond but had set out as soon as the men could be gotten ready. Arriving at Halltown, about midway between Charles Town and Harpers Ferry, Gibson, fearing the track ahead might be torn up, took the militia off the train and marched by road to Allstadt’s Crossroads west of Bolivar Heights.

At Allstadt’s, Gibson divided his force. He sent Mexican War veteran Capt. J. W. Rowan with the Jefferson Guards in a wide sweep to the west of Harpers Ferry to capture the B & O bridge. Gibson himself would take the volunteer company on into town. Rowan’s men crossed the Potomac about a mile above Harpers Ferry and, advancing along the towpath of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, arrived at the Maryland end of the bridge by noon. With little difficulty they drove its defenders—Oliver Brown, William Thompson, and Dangerfield Newby—back toward the armory yard. Only Brown and Thompson made it. Newby, the ex-slave who had joined John Brown to free his wife and children, was killed by a 6-inch spike fired from a smoothbore musket. He was the first of the raiders to die.

In the meantime, Colonel Gibson’s force had arrived in Harpers Ferry and he sent a detachment of citizens under Capt. Lawson Botts, a Charles Town attorney, to secure the Gault House Saloon at the rear of the arsenal and commanding the Shenandoah bridge and the entrance to the armory yard. Another detachment under Capt. John Avis, the Charles Town jailer, took up positions in houses along Shenandoah Street from which to fire into the arsenal grounds.

The attack of the Charles Town militia cut off Brown’s escape route and separated him from his men in Maryland and those still holding the rifle factory. At last, perhaps realizing the hopelessness of his situation, Brown sought a truce. But when hostage Rezin Cross and raider William Thompson emerged from the enginehouse under a white flag, the townspeople ignored the flag, seized Thompson, and dragged him off to the Wager House where he was kept under guard.

Still not convinced, Brown tried again. This time he sent his son Watson and Aaron Stevens with Acting Armory Superintendent Kitzmiller, taken hostage earlier in the day. As the trio marched onto the street and came opposite the Galt House, several shots rang out and both raiders fell. Stevens, severely wounded, lay bleeding in the street; Watson Brown, mortally wounded, dragged himself back to the enginehouse. Joseph Brua, one of the hostages, volunteered to aid the wounded Stevens. As bullets richocheted off the flagstone walk, Brua walked out, lifted up the wounded raider, and carried him to the Wager House for medical attention. Then, incredibly, he strolled back to the enginehouse and again took his place among Brown’s prisoners. Kitzmiller escaped.

About the time Stevens and Watson Brown were shot, raider William Leeman attempted to escape. Dashing through the upper end of the armory yard, he plunged into the frigid Potomac, comparatively shallow at this point, and made for the Maryland shore. Soon spotted, a shower of bullets hit the water around him and he was forced to take refuge on an islet in the river. G. A. Schoppert, a Harpers Ferry resident, waded out to where Leeman lay marooned, pointed a pistol at his head, and pulled the trigger. For the rest of the day Leeman’s body was a target for the undisciplined militia and townspeople.

When a raider shot and killed George W. Turner about 2 p.m., the crowd grew ugly. Turner, a West Point graduate, was a prominent and highly respected area planter. When Fontaine Beckham, the mayor of Harpers Ferry and agent for the B & O Railroad, was killed, the townspeople turned into a howling, raging mob.

Beckham, a well-liked man of somewhat high-strung temperament, had been greatly disturbed by the earlier shooting of Hayward Shepherd, his friend and faithful helper at the depot. Despite warnings from friends to keep away, Beckham, unarmed, walked out on the railroad to see what was going on. He paced up and down the B & O trestle bordering the armory yard about 30 yards from the enginehouse. Several raiders spotted him peering around the water tower in front of their stronghold and thought that he was placing himself in position to fire through the doors. Edwin Coppoc, posted at the doorway of the enginehouse, leveled his rifle at the mayor.

“Don’t fire, man, for God’s sake!” screamed one of the hostages. “They’ll shoot in here and kill us all.”

Coppoc ignored the warning and pulled the trigger. Beckham fell, a bullet through his heart. Oliver Brown, standing beside Coppoc in the partly opened doorway, aimed his rifle at another man on the trestle, but before he could fire he keeled over with “a mortal wound that gave horrible pain.” Both of Brown’s sons now lay dying at their father’s feet.

Enraged by the shooting of Beckham, the townspeople turned on prisoner William Thompson. Led by Harry Hunter, a young Charles Town volunteer and the grandnephew of the murdered mayor, a group of men stormed into the Wager House, grabbed Thompson, and dragged him out onto the B & O bridge. “You may kill me but it will be revenged,” Thompson yelled; “there are eighty thousand persons sworn to carry out this work.” These were his last words. The mob shot him several times and tossed his body into the Potomac to serve, like Leeman’s, as a target for the remainder of the day.

While Brown’s situation at the fire enginehouse was growing progressively worse, his three-man detachment holding the rifle works came under fire. Under Kagi’s leadership these men had held the works uncontested during the morning and early afternoon. About 2:30 p.m. Dr. Starry organized a party of “citizens and neighbors” and launched an attack against the raiders from Shenandoah Street. After a brief exchange of shots, Kagi, Lewis Leary, and John Copeland dashed out the back of the building, scrambled across the Winchester and Potomac Railroad tracks, and waded into the shallow Shenandoah River. Some townspeople posted on the opposite bank spotted the fleeing men and opened fire. The raiders, caught in a crossfire, made for a large flat rock in the middle of the river. Kagi, Brown’s most trusted and able lieutenant, was killed in the attempt and Leary was mortally wounded. Copeland reached the rock only to be dragged ashore, where the excited crowd screamed “Lynch him! Lynch him!” But Dr. Starry intervened, and the frightened Negro was hustled off to jail.

At the enginehouse, the raiders continued to exchange occasional shots with the Charles Town militia and the townspeople. By now Brown had separated his prisoners. Eleven of the more important hostages who might be used for bargaining purposes were moved into the engineroom with his dwindling band, while the others remained crowded into the tiny guardroom. The two rooms were separated by a solid brick wall.

About 3 p.m., shortly after the raiders were driven out of the rifle works, a militia company arrived by train from Martinsburg, Va. Headed by Capt. E. G. Alburtis and comprised mostly of B & O Railroad employees, this company marched on the enginehouse from the upper end of the armory yard and came close to ending the raid. Brown positioned his men in front of the building to meet the attack. Alburtis’ contingent, advancing briskly and maintaining a steady fire, forced the raiders back inside. Smashing the windows of the guardroom, the militiamen freed the prisoners but were forced to withdraw after eight of their number were wounded from the constant fire pouring from the partly opened enginehouse door. Alburtis later complained that had his men been supported by the other militia companies present, John Brown’s raid would have been ended.

Other militia units now began to arrive. Between 3 and 4 p.m. the Hamtramck Guards and the Shepherdstown Troop, both from Shepherdstown, Va., came in. At dusk three uniformed companies from Frederick, Md., appeared, followed later in the evening by a Winchester, Va., company under R. B. Washington, and five companies of the Maryland Volunteers under General Stewart from Baltimore. None of them made any attempt to dislodge Brown and his men from the enginehouse, but all added to the general confusion and hysteria gripping the town.

On the other side of the Potomac, Cook, Owen Brown, Barclay Coppoc, Meriam, Tidd, and several Negroes had been transferring weapons to a tiny schoolhouse midway between Harpers Ferry and the Kennedy farm. As the day wore on and the firing from town became heavier, they began to suspect that something might have gone wrong. At about 4 p.m. Cook headed for the B & O bridge to see what was happening. To get a better vantage point, he climbed the craggy face of Maryland Heights where he could look directly into the center of the town. Seeing that his compatriots were “completely surrounded,” he decided to try to take some of the pressure off by firing across the river at men posted in the houses along High Street overlooking the armory. His shot was instantly answered by a volley of bullets that severed a branch he was clutching for support and sent him tumbling down the rocky cliff. Badly cut and bruised from the fall, he limped back to the schoolhouse and joined the others. Realizing there was nothing they could do to aid their comrades trapped in the enginehouse, they reluctantly gathered their belongings, climbed the mountain and headed north.

Time was quickly running out for John Brown. As resistance became partially organized at Harpers Ferry, steps were taken to seal off any possibility of support reaching the raiders. Fearing that Brown’s raid might be part of a general uprising, all approaches to the town were guarded, and all travelers not familiar to residents of the area were immediately arrested and shipped off to the county jail at Charles Town.

As night approached, the firing sputtered out. Brown, knowing escape was impossible, again attempted to bargain for freedom. In verbal and written pleas he offered to release his hostages if he and his men were allowed to leave unmolested. Col. Robert W. Taylor, now commanding the Virginia militia units at Harpers Ferry, rejected the offers, sending back word that if the prisoners were immediately released he would let the Government deal with Brown and his men. But the old abolitionist would not yield, and prisoners, slaves, and raiders alike settled down, as best they could, to what would be a long and depressing night.

Brown paced up and down like a caged tiger. It had been hours since he or any of them had tasted food or drink. The cold night air chilled their bones and the pungent odor of gunpowder stung their nostrils. The large-scale slave support that he had counted upon and for which the pikes were intended had not materialized. This was largely his own doing, however, for in his desire for absolute secrecy he had given no advance word that he was coming. The slaves had no idea that a raid was in progress. The few his men had picked up at the Washington and Allstadt farms were of no use to him. They were frightened and preferred to remain with the white hostages rather than take an active part in their own salvation. Most likely they would not have joined him at all had they not been taken from their homes at gunpoint.

From time to time Brown called out, “Men, are you awake?” Only five of the raiders were still unwounded and able to hold a rifle: Brown himself, Edwin Coppoc, J. G. Anderson, Dauphin Thompson, and Shields Green. Stewart Taylor, the Canadian soldier of fortune, lay dead in a corner, his presentiment of death come true. He had been shot like Oliver Brown while standing at the enginehouse doorway. Oliver himself, writhing in pain, begged to be killed and put out of his misery. “If you must die, then die like a man,” snapped his father. After awhile Oliver was quiet. “I guess he is dead,” Brown said. Nearby, Watson Brown lay quietly breathing his last. The attack that had begun but 24 hours before was fast coming to an end.

THE TRAP IS SPRUNG

The somberness that permeated the fire enginehouse contrasted sharply with the din outside. Hundreds of militiamen and townspeople jammed the streets, which echoed with whoops and yells. Anxious and hysterical friends and relatives of Brown’s hostages added to the confusion. While the quasi-military operations ended at nightfall, the non-military activities continued with increasing fervor. The bars in the Wager House and Gault House Saloon were enjoying an unprecedented business. Many men were intoxicated, and they fired their guns wildly into the air and occasionally at the enginehouse. All semblance of order was gone and the “wildest excitement” prevailed throughout the night.

During this confusion two of Brown’s men made their escape. Of the raiders caught in Harpers Ferry when the Jefferson Guards seized the B & O bridge at midday on October 17, Albert Hazlett and Osborn P. Anderson, occupying the arsenal, went unnoticed during the day. At night they crept out, mingled with the disorderly crowds, crossed the Potomac into Maryland, and fled north.

Into the midst of the chaos created by the drunken and disorderly militia and townspeople marched 90 U.S. Marines led by a 52-year-old Army colonel, Robert E. Lee. Lee had been at his home in Arlington, Va., that afternoon when Lt. J. E. B. Stuart brought him secret orders to report to the War Department at once. There President Buchanan and Secretary of War Floyd told him of Brown’s attack and ordered him to leave immediately for Harpers Ferry with the only Federal troops readily available, a detachment of Marines at the Washington Navy Yard. Upon his arrival at Harpers Ferry, Lee was to take command of all forces in the town. Lieutenant Stuart, scenting excitement, asked for and received permission to accompany Lee, who, in the hurry of departure, had no time to return home and don his uniform.

The Marines, under the immediate command of Lt. Israel Green, left Washington before Lee and arrived at Sandy Hook in late afternoon. Lee and Stuart joined them at 10:30 p.m. Marching into Harpers Ferry, the Marines entered the armory yard about 11 p.m. and replaced the disorganized militia. Lee would have ordered an immediate attack on the enginehouse “But for the fear of sacrificing the lives of some of the gentlemen held ... as prisoners....”

About 2:30 a.m., October 18, Lee wrote a surrender demand and handed it to Stuart for delivery to Brown under a white flag when so directed. He hoped that the raider chieftain could be persuaded to surrender peaceably and avoid further bloodshed, but he expected that he would be taken only by force and laid his plans accordingly. In the early morning hours, Lee, believing the raid to be chiefly aimed against State authority and not the Federal Government, offered the honor of assaulting the enginehouse to Colonel Shriver of the Maryland Volunteers. Shriver declined. “These men of mine have wives and children,” he said. “I will not expose them to such risks. You are paid for doing this kind of work.” Lee then offered the task to Colonel Baylor of the Virginia militia. Baylor promptly declined it for the same reasons. Lieutenant Green was then asked if he wished “the honor of taking those men out.” Green lifted his cap, thanked Lee, and picked a storming party of 12 men. He instructed them to use only their bayonets, as bullets might injure some of the hostages.

By 7 a.m. there was enough light for operations. All arrangements for the assault had been completed. The militia formed up outside the armory wall to keep the street clear of spectators and to prevent indiscriminate firing that might injure the storming party. The Marines took position at the northwest corner of the enginehouse, just out of the line of fire from the door. Then Lieutenant Stuart moved forward with the surrender demand. Brown opened the door a few inches and placed his body against the crack so the lieutenant could not see inside. He held a cocked rifle in one hand. Stuart read the terms offered by Lee:

Colonel Lee, United States Army, commanding 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 pillaged
property, they shall be kept in safety to await the orders of the
President. Col. 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.

Robert E. Lee and J. E. B. Stuart are pictured here about the time
of the raid.

According to Stuart, the parley was “a long one.” Brown refused to surrender. Instead he presented his own propositions “in every possible shape, and with admirable tact,” insisting that he, his men, and his hostages be permitted to cross the river unmolested.

Stuart, instructed not to accept any counter-proposals, sensed that further discussion was useless. Stepping back from the door, he waved his hat, a pre-arranged signal for the Marines to attack. Brown slammed the door shut and the troops came on. Three men with sledge hammers pounded the center door of the enginehouse, but it would not yield; the raiders had placed the fire engines against it. Spotting a heavy ladder nearby, Lieutenant Green directed his men to use it as a battering-ram. On the second blow the door splintered and a small opening was effected.

Lieutenant Green was the first man through. Maj. W. W. Russell, armed only with a rattan cane, followed immediately. Pvt. Luke Quinn squeezed through behind Russell and fell dead at the door, shot through his groin. Another Marine, Pvt. Mathew Ruppert, stepped over Quinn, then dropped his gun and clawed his face in pain where a bullet had torn through his cheek. The rest of the storming party entered without injury.

The hostages cowered at the rear of the building; Brown knelt between the fire engines, rifle in hand. As Green came through the row of engines, Colonel Washington greeted him and pointed at Brown. Green raised his sword and brought it down with all his strength, cutting a deep wound in the back of the raider chieftain’s neck. As Brown fell, Green lunged with his sword, striking part of the raider’s accouterments and bending the blade double. Green then showered blow after blow upon Brown’s head until he fell unconscious. Two of the raiders were killed almost immediately after the Marines entered the building: Dauphin Thompson, pinned against the rear wall by a bayonet, and Jeremiah Anderson, run through by a saber as he sought refuge under one of the fire engines. Edwin Coppoc and Shields Green surrendered. The fight was over in about 3 minutes.

None of the hostages was injured, although Lieutenant Green considered them the “sorriest lot of people I ever saw.” The dead, dying, and wounded raiders were carried outside and laid in a row on the grass. As Brown slowly regained consciousness, the Marines had trouble keeping back the throngs of militia and townspeople who wanted to see the wounded raider leader. After noon, Brown and Stevens, still suffering from the wounds he received on October 17, were carried to the paymaster’s office where a group of inquisitors, including Virginia’s Governor Henry A. Wise and Senator James M. Mason, and Ohio Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham, questioned them for 3 hours in an effort to learn their purpose and the names of their supporters in the North.

During the interrogation Brown lay on the floor, his hair matted and tangled, his face, hands, and clothes soiled and smeared with blood. He talked freely, and while he readily admitted his intention to free the slaves, “and only that,” he refused to divulge the names of his Northern backers. “No man sent me here,” he said; “it was my own prompting and that of my Maker, or that of the devil, whichever you ascribe it to. I acknowledge no man in human form.” He continued:

I want you to understand, gentlemen ... that I respect the rights of
the poorest and weakest 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 has
prompted me to come here.

Brown then issued a prophetic warning:

I wish to say furthermore, that you had better—all you people at the
South—prepare yourselves for a settlement 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.

JOHN BROWN’S BODY

The day after their capture, Brown and his surviving followers—Stevens, Edwin Coppoc, Shields Green, and John Copeland—were taken to Charles Town under heavy guard and lodged in the county jail. The cell doors had hardly banged shut when they learned that they were to receive speedy trials. The grand jury was then in session, and the semiannual term of the circuit court, presided over by Judge Richard Parker, had begun.

The five raiders were arraigned on October 25, just one week after their capture. The next day they were indicted for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, for conspiring with slaves to rebel, and for murder. Each defendant pleaded “Not guilty” and each asked for a separate trial. The court consented and elected to try Brown first. Two court-appointed attorneys, 36-year-old Lawson Botts, who had helped to capture the raiders, and Thomas C. Green, the 39-year-old Mayor of Charles Town, were called upon to defend him. Charles Harding, Commonwealth Attorney for Jefferson County, and Andrew Hunter, a veteran Charles Town lawyer, served as prosecutors for the State.

The trial began on October 27. It lasted 3½ days. Still suffering from his wounds, Brown was carried back and forth from jail to courthouse, and lay on a cot during much of the proceedings. Judge Parker had hardly brought the court to order when defense counsel Botts astounded the packed courtroom (including Brown himself) by reading a telegram from A. H. Lewis of Akron, Ohio, dated October 26:

John Brown, leader of the insurrection at Harper’s Ferry, and several
of his family, have resided in this county for many years. Insanity 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 by
witnesses residing here, who will doubtless attend the trial if
desired.

After receiving the telegram, Botts had gone to the jail to talk with Brown about it. The raider leader had readily admitted that there were instances of insanity in his mother’s side of the family (in fact, his mother had died insane), but asserted that there was none at all on his father’s side. He said his first wife had shown symptoms of it, as had two of their sons, Frederick and John, Jr. Clearly, by introducing the Lewis telegram, the defense hoped to save Brown’s life by having him declared insane and committed to an institution. But the old abolitionist refused to sanction such a plea. Rising up on his cot, he exclaimed:

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 different
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.

Lawson Botts and Thomas C. Green were appointed by the court to
defend the raider leader. Brown, however, did not trust them to
provide him an adequate defense.

Brown had more faith in the three lawyers provided by his Northern
friends. Their efforts to save him from the gallows, however, proved
fruitless.

Judge Parker ruled out the insanity plea on the basis that the evidence had not been presented in a reliable form. He also rejected Bott’s request for a delay in the proceedings to allow new counsel of Brown’s own choosing to come from Ohio. The trial continued.

The defense lawyers were increased to three when George Hoyt joined Botts and Green. Hoyt, a 21-year-old Boston lawyer, was sent to Charles Town by some of Brown’s Northern supporters ostensibly to defend the raider chieftain; his real mission was to gather information that might be useful to those plotting Brown’s escape.

As the trial progressed, Brown became more and more irritated with his court-appointed lawyers and openly expressed his lack of confidence in them. Botts and Green thereupon withdrew, leaving Hoyt, the woefully inexperienced “beardless boy” who was entirely unacquainted with the code and procedure of the Virginia courts and knowing very little about the case, burdened with the sole responsibility for conducting the defense in one of the most sensational trials the country had ever witnessed. He was soon reinforced, however, by more seasoned counsel. Samuel Chilton of Washington, D.C., and Hiram Griswold of Cleveland, Ohio, were persuaded by Brown’s influential friends to join the fight to save the abolitionist’s life. But their arrival made little difference; the outcome of the trial was inevitable.

The prosecution’s parade of witnesses recounted the story of the attack on Harpers Ferry, the arming of the slaves, and the deaths of Hayward Shepherd, Fontaine Beckham, and George W. Turner. Brown’s contention that, as commander in chief of a provisional army, he should be tried according to the laws of war and not as a common criminal was rejected. Other arguments offered by the defense met with equally fruitless results. Finally, on October 31, closing arguments by the prosecution and the defense were heard and at 1:45 p.m. the case went to the jury. Deliberations lasted for 45 minutes. The verdict: guilty on all three counts. A newspaper correspondent described the reaction:

Not the slightest sound was heard in the vast crowd as this verdict
was thus returned and read. Not the slightest expression of elation or
triumph was uttered from the hundreds present, who, a moment before,
outside the court, joined in heaping threats and imprecations upon his
head; nor was this strange silence interrupted during the whole of the
time occupied by the forms of the Court. Old Brown himself said not
even a word, but, as on previous days, turned to adjust his pallet,
and then composedly stretched himself upon it.

Sentence was passed on November 2: John Brown would hang on Friday, December 2, 1859. The other raiders—Coppoc, Stevens, Copeland, and Green—were tried subsequently, found guilty, and received like sentences. Of the seven raiders who escaped from Harpers Ferry, John Cook and Albert Hazlett were captured in Pennsylvania, brought to Charles Town for trial, convicted, and hanged.

In the days following Brown’s sentencing, Virginia’s Governor Wise was swamped with mail. Many letters pleaded for clemency, some contained outright threats, while others warned of fantastic plots to effect the abolitionist’s escape. Martial law was declared in Charles Town. Militiamen were everywhere, and armed patrols kept a vigilant watch on all roads leading into town. The day of execution came, and not one of the schemes to free Brown materialized.

PROCLAMATION!

IN pursuance of instructions from the Governor of Virginia, notice is hereby given to all whom it may concern,

That, as heretofore, particularly from now until after Friday next the 2nd of December, STRANGERS found within the County of Jefferson, and Counties adjacent, having no known and proper business here, and who cannot give a satisfactory account of themselves, will be at once arrested.

That on, and for a proper period before that day, stangers[sic] and especially parties, approaching under the pretext of being present at the execution of John Brown, whether by Railroad or otherwise, will be met by the Military and turned back or arrested without regard to the amount of force, that may be required to effect this, and during the said period and especially on the 2nd of December, the citizens of Jefferson and the surrounding country are _EMPHATICALLY_ warned to remain at their homes armed and guard their own property.

On the afternoon before the execution, Brown’s grief-stricken wife was allowed to visit him in his cell. They spent several hours talking. Toward evening they parted, and Mary Brown went to Harpers Ferry to await the delivery of her husband’s body. It would be her agonizing duty to return Brown’s remains to their North Elba home for burial.

A few minutes after 11 a.m. on December 2, 1859, John Brown walked down the steps of the Charles Town jail, climbed into the back of a horse-drawn wagon, and sat down on his own coffin. Flanked by files of soldiers, the wagon moved off toward a field a short distance from the town where a scaffold had been erected. No civilians were permitted near the execution site. The field was ringed by 1,500 soldiers, among them a company of Virginia Military Institute cadets commanded by a stern-looking professor who would soon gain fame and immortality as the Confederate Gen. “Stonewall” Jackson. In the ranks of a Richmond company stood another man who, in a few short years, would also achieve immortality by committing one of the most infamous deeds in American history—John Wilkes Booth.

As the hushed military watched, Brown climbed the scaffold steps. Sheriff John W. Campbell pulled a white linen hood over the prisoner’s head and set the noose. John Avis, the jailer, asked Brown to step forward onto the trap. “You must lead me,” Brown replied, “for I cannot see.” The abolitionist’s last words were directed to Avis as one final adjustment of the noose was made. “Be quick,” he said.

At 11:30 a hatchet stroke sprung the trap and John Brown died. The voice of a militia colonel broke the stillness: “So perish all such enemies of Virginia! All such enemies of the Union! All such enemies of the human race!”

But the end was not yet. True, Brown was dead; but he had helped to arouse popular passions both North and South to the point where compromise would be impossible. The raid created a national furor and generated a wave of emotionalism that widened the sectional breach that had divided the country for so many years. Although conservative Northern opinion quickly condemned the raid as the work of a madman, the more radical hailed it as “the best news America ever had” and glorified Brown as “the new saint” whose martyrdom in the cause of human freedom would make the gallows “glorious like the cross.”

Southerners shuddered. For decades they had been defending their “peculiar institution” of slavery against the ever-increasing attacks of Northern abolitionists, but anti-slavery agitation had always followed a course of non-violence. Then Brown had come with his pikes and guns to change all that. In the false atmosphere of crisis that gripped the South in the wake of the raid, the small voices of moderates were lost in the din of extremists who saw Brown’s act as part of a vast Northern conspiracy to instigate servile insurrections throughout the slave States.

To meet this threat, real or imagined, vigilance committees were formed, volunteer military companies were organized, and more and more Southerners began to echo the sentiments of the Richmond Enquirer: “if under the form of a Confederacy our peace is disturbed, our State invaded, its peaceful citizens cruelly murdered ... by those who should be our warmest friends ... and the people of the North sustain the outrage, then let disunion come.”

Disunion sentiment increased during the presidential campaign of 1860, stimulated by a split in the Democratic Party that practically guaranteed a Republican victory in the November elections. When Abraham Lincoln was elected President, the secessionist movement could no longer be contained. On December 20, unable to tolerate a President “whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery,” South Carolina severed her ties with the Union. By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had followed her lead. One week later the Confederate States of America was formed at Montgomery, Ala., and the country drifted slowly toward civil war. Before many months had passed, soldiers in blue would be marching south to the tune of “John Brown’s Body” as if to fulfill the prophecy Brown had left in a note to one of his Charles Town guards shortly before the execution:

EPILOGUE

The war that John Brown predicted would come, and which his raid helped to precipitate, began in April 1861. When it ended almost 4 years to the day later, slavery had been destroyed along with some 600,000 lives and millions of dollars worth of property. Among the casualties of the war was Harpers Ferry. The town’s strategic position on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley made it a prime target for both Union and Confederate forces. It changed hands again and again, and by war’s end in 1865 the place was a shambles.

As early as February 1862 a young Union staff officer assigned to the Harpers Ferry area could write of the town: “The appearance of ruin by war and fire was awful. Charred ruins were all that remain of the splendid public works, arsenals, workshops and railroads, stores, hotels, and dwelling houses all mingled in one common destruction.” Much the same observation was made 3 years later in the summer of 1865 by John T. Trowbridge, a New England writer, during a tour of the South: “[T]he town is the reverse of agreeable. It is said to have been a pleasant and picturesque place formerly. The streets were well graded, and the hill-sides above were graced with terraces and trees. But war has changed all. Freshets tear down the centre of the streets, and the hill-sides present only ragged growths of weeds. The town itself lies half in ruins.... Of the bridge across the Shenandoah only the ruined piers are left; still less remains of the old bridge over the Potomac. And all about the town are rubbish, filth and stench.”

The once-imposing armory complex along the Potomac River and the rifle works on Hall Island in the Shenandoah were burned-out hulks. Only the armory enginehouse remained basically intact, “like a monument which no Rebel hands were permitted to demolish.” Large sections of the town had been burned by various troop contingents to prevent their use by enemy soldiers. Many homes, churches, schools, and business establishments were damaged beyond repair by shot and shell fired from the surrounding heights. Still other buildings, subjected to long military use, were on the verge of ruin. The industries on Virginius Island—the iron foundry, the flour mill, the sawmill, the machine shops, the cotton mill—were also gone, and Harpers Ferry no longer had the activity and bustle of an economically healthy community.

Besides the material damage inflicted by powerful weaponry and by the seemingly endless procession of soldiers who filched or requisitioned everything that could be carried away, the town suffered an even greater loss—its people. During the war most of the townspeople moved away, some to escape the dangers of military operations, some to seek employment elsewhere after the armory and the industries were destroyed, and some to join one or the other opposing armies. Many never came back. Those who did return found their town in ruins and themselves the citizens of a new State.

In 1861 the people in the mountainous western counties of Virginia strongly opposed secession. When the rest of the State voted overwhelmingly in a statewide referendum on May 23, 1861, to withdraw from the Federal Union, the loyal western residents, in a series of conventions at Wheeling, voted to “secede” from Virginia and set up their own State. The bill for admission passed Congress on December 11, 1862, and on June 30, 1863, by Presidential proclamation, West Virginia became the 35th State. For years, however, many Jefferson County residents refused to use “West” as part of the designation.

Harpers Ferry never recovered from the devastation of the Civil War. Staring at the stark chimneys and charred remains of once impressive buildings, one of the townspeople concluded: “This place will never be anything again unless the government rebuilds the armory—and it is doubtful if that is ever done.” The Government never did, and the ground on which it stood was auctioned off in 1869. Mills and factories remained closed. The railroad did a small percentage of its previous business. Hopes for a renewal of the town’s former prosperity were dashed in 1870 when a flood destroyed or badly damaged nearly every building on Virginius Island and along the south side of Shenandoah Street. Subsequent floods destroyed still more of the town and ruined the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The canal was finally abandoned after the flood of 1924.

Inundated too often by high water, the residents of Harpers Ferry eventually left the old buildings in the lower town and moved up the heights to the high ground of Camp Hill and toward Bolivar. For years the old shops and stores, those that remained, stood empty, neglected, and deteriorating. When Harpers Ferry became a national historical area, the National Park Service began an intensive campaign to preserve the fragile remains of the 18th- and 19th-century industries, homes, churches, stores, and shops, and to restore much of the old town to its pre-Civil War appearance, a time when it was at its peak as a thriving, bustling industrial community and transportation center.

Today, while much of the old historical town remains, few of the structures that figured prominently in John Brown’s raid survive. (See maps on pp. 29 and 30.) The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge across the Potomac, by which Brown and his raiders entered Harpers Ferry in October 1859, was destroyed by Confederate soldiers early in the Civil War. More modern structures span the river now, but the stone supports of the old bridge can still be seen. Nothing at all remains of the bridge across the Shenandoah. The stone piers now standing in the river near the Point section of the town are from a later structure.

The ruins of the armory buildings stood for many years after the war and eventually disappeared. In 1893 the site itself disappeared under 30 feet of fill when the B & O Railroad changed the line of its tracks. The outlines of two of the armory buildings have been marked by flat stones and the spot where the enginehouse was located is marked by a small monument. The enginehouse itself (now called “John Brown’s Fort”) stands nearby on the old arsenal grounds, and is little changed from its appearance at the time of the raid. Here also can be seen the excavated remains of the small U.S. arsenal and some of the partially exposed burned muskets destroyed when the building was gutted by Federal troops in April 1861.

In February 1862 Federal soldiers burned the Point area of Harpers Ferry to keep Confederate sharpshooters from using the buildings. Among the structures destroyed were the railroad depot, the water tower around which Mayor Fontaine Beckham was peering when he was shot by one of the raiders, several stores and shops, the Potomac Restaurant, the Wager House Hotel, and the Gault House Saloon. The Wager House (not to be confused with another structure of the same name that still exists) was the scene of several notable events. It was here that many of the wounded were carried, including two of the raiders, Aaron Stevens and William Thompson. Many of the militiamen did their “best fighting” at its bar. From the Wager House porch, Gov. Henry Wise of Virginia read letters taken from Brown’s men to the angered townspeople. Wise also lived here during his brief stay in Harpers Ferry. Mrs. John Brown stayed here when she came to Harpers Ferry in December 1859 for her last visit with her husband, and it was here that she received his body after the execution.

The Shenandoah islands are deserted today except for the line of the Winchester and Potomac Railroad. All of the buildings are gone now except for the foundations of some of the mills and the retaining walls of the rifle factory, nestled in among the weeds, brush, and trees. Many disappeared through neglect after the industries were destroyed during the Civil War, some washed away in the many floods with which Harpers Ferry has been plagued, and others, like Herr’s flour mill and the rifle works, were deliberately destroyed by Union and Confederate troops.

Several structures associated with the raid still exist outside Harpers Ferry. The courthouse at Charles Town, W. Va., is little changed since John Brown was tried and sentenced there more than a century ago. The Kennedy farm, Brown’s headquarters during the months he was planning the raid, lies in the Maryland countryside about 5 miles from Harpers Ferry. Col. Lewis Washington’s home, “Beallair,” which several raiders broke into on the night of October 16 and took its owner hostage, stands near Halltown, about 4 miles west of Harpers Ferry. And nearby, at the foot of Alstadt Hill, west of Bolivar, is the home of John H. Alstadt, another hostage taken by Brown’s men on October 16.

APPENDIX
The Capture of John Brown[1]
by Israel Green

At noon of Monday, October 18, 1859, Chief Clerk Walsh, of the Navy Department, drove rapidly into the Washington Navy-yard, and, meeting me, asked me how many marines we had stationed at the barracks available for immediate duty. I happened to be the senior officer present and in command that day. I instantly replied to Mr. Walsh that we had ninety men available, and then asked him what was the trouble. He told me that Ossawatomie Brown, of Kansas, with a number of men, had taken the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, and was then besieged there by the Virginia State troops. Mr. Walsh returned speedily to the Navy Department building, and, in the course of an hour, orders came to me from Secretary Tousey to proceed at once to Harper’s Ferry and report to the senior officer; and, if there should be no such officer at the Ferry, to take charge and protect the government property. With a detachment of ninety marines, I started for Harper’s Ferry that afternoon on the 3:30 train, taking with me two howitzers. It was a beautiful, clear autumn day, and the men, exhilarated by the excitement of the occasion, which came after a long, dull season of confinement in the barracks, enjoyed the trip exceedingly.

At Frederick Junction I received a dispatch from Colonel Robert E. Lee, who turned out to be the army officer to whom I was to report. He directed me to proceed to Sandy Hook, a small place about a mile this side of the Ferry, and there await his arrival. At ten o’clock in the evening he came up on a special train from Washington. His first order was to form the marines out of the car, and march from the bridge to Harper’s Ferry. This we did, entering the enclosure of the arsenal grounds through a back gate. At eleven o’clock Colonel Lee ordered the volunteers to march out of the grounds, and gave the control inside to the marines, with instructions to see that none of the insurgents escaped during the night. There had been hard fighting all the preceding day, and Brown and his men kept quiet during the night. At half-past six in the morning Colonel Lee gave me orders to select a detail of twelve men for a storming party, and place them near the engine-house in which Brown and his men had intrenched themselves. I selected twelve of my best men, and a second twelve to be employed as a reserve. The engine-house was a strong stone [actually brick] building, which is still in a good state of preservation at the Ferry, in spite of the three days’ fighting in the building by Brown and his men, and the ravages of the recent war between the States. The building was ... perhaps thirty feet by thirty-five. In the front were two large double doors, between which was a stone abutment. Within were two old-fashioned, heavy fire-engines, with a hose-cart and reel standing between them, and just back of the abutment between the doors. They were double-battened doors, very strongly made, with heavy wrought-iron nails. Lieutenant J. E. B. Stewart [Stuart], afterwards famous as a cavalry commander on the side of the South, accompanied Colonel Lee as a volunteer aid. He was ordered to go with a part of the troops to the front of the engine-house and demand the surrender of the insurgent party. Colonel Lee directed him to offer protection to Brown and his men, but to receive no counter-proposition from Brown in regard to the surrender. On the way to the engine-house, Stewart and myself agreed upon a signal for attack in the event that Brown should refuse to surrender. It was simply that Lieutenant Stewart would wave his hat, which was then, I believe, one very similar to the famous chapeau which he wore throughout the war. I had my storming party ranged alongside of the engine-house, and a number of men were provided with sledge-hammers with which to batter in the doors. I stood in front of the abutment between the doors. Stewart hailed Brown and called for his surrender, but Brown at once began to make a proposition that he and his men should be allowed to come out of the engine-house and be given the length of the bridge start, so that they might escape. Suddenly Lieutenant Stewart waved his hat, and I gave the order to my men to batter in the door. Those inside fired rapidly at the point where the blows were given upon the door. Very little impression was made with the hammers, as the doors were tied on the inside with ropes and braced by the hand-brakes of the fire-engines, and in a few minutes I gave the order to desist. Just then my eye caught sight of a ladder, lying a few feet from the engine-house, in the yard, and I ordered my men to catch it up and use it as a battering-ram. The reserve of twelve men I employed as a supporting column for the assaulting party. The men took hold bravely and made a tremendous assault upon the door. The second blow broke it in. This entrance 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.

“Hello, Green,” said Colonel Washington, and he reached out his hand to me. I grasped it with my left hand, having my saber uplifted in my right, and he said, pointing to the kneeling figure, “This is Ossawatomie.”

As he said this, Brown turned his head to see who it was to whom Colonel Washington was speaking. Quicker than thought I brought my saber down with all my strength upon his head. He was moving as the blow fell, and I suppose I did not strike him where I intended, for he received a deep saber cut in the back of the neck. He fell senseless on his side, then rolled over on his back. He had in his hand a short Sharpe’s-cavalry carbine. I think he had just fired as I reached Colonel Washington, for the marine who followed me into the aperture made by the ladder received a bullet in the abdomen, from which he died in a few minutes. The shot might have been fired by some one else in the insurgent party, but I think it was from Brown. Instinctively as Brown fell I gave him a saber thrust in the left breast. The sword I carried was a light uniform weapon, and, either not having a point or striking something hard in Brown’s accouterments, did not penetrate. The blade bent double.

By that time three or four of my men were inside. They came rushing in 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 ordered 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. My only thought was to capture, or, if necessary, kill, the insurgents, and take possession of the engine-house.

I saw very little of the situation within until the fight was over. Then I observed that the engine-house was thick with smoke, and it was with difficulty that a person could be seen across the room. In the rear, behind the left-hand engine, were huddled the prisoners whom Brown had captured and held as hostages for the safety of himself and his men. Colonel Washington was one of these. All during the fight, as I understood afterward, he kept to the front of the engine-house. When I met him he was as cool as he would have been on his own veranda entertaining guests. He was naturally a very brave man. I remember that he would not come out of the engine-house, begrimed and soiled as he was from his long imprisonment, until he had put a pair of kid gloves upon his hands. The other prisoners were 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. Some of them have endeavored to give an account of the storming of the engine-house and the capture of Brown, but none of the reports have been free from a great many misstatements, and I suppose that Colonel Washington and myself were the only persons really able to say what was done. Other stories have been printed by people on the outside, describing the fight within. What they say must be taken with a great deal of allowance, for they could not have been witnesses of what occurred within the engine-house. One recent account describes me as jumping over the right-hand engine more like a wild beast than a soldier. Of course nothing of the kind happened. The report made by Colonel Lee at the time, which is now on file in the War department, gives a more succinct and detailed account than any I have seen.