Great American Adventure Stories

by Tom McCarthy

  On Sunday morning, October 16th, 1859, Brown assembled his men and informed them that on that night their invasion into Virginia would take place. They took the oath of allegiance to the “provisional government.” Adjutant General Kagi presented to each officer his commission.

  The contents of the armory, arsenal, and Hall’s Rifle Works were daily open to public inspection. Captain John Brown well knew that Daniel Whelan was the only watchman during the nighttime at the armory grounds. He believed that if he could secure the arms and ammunition in these buildings, carry them into the fastnesses of the adjacent mountains, and then unfurl the flag of freedom for all slaves who would flock to his standard, the result would be a general uprising of the negro population throughout the border states. A more idiotic and senseless theory never entered an American mind. In the superlative degree, it was unreasonable and ridiculous. I personally know of the general loyalty of the slaves to their masters in that locality at that period in our national history. Federal generals were astonished at the devotion of the negroes to their masters everywhere in the South after the war had begun. This was especially true along the border states. But John Brown—honest, enthusiastic, and intensely fanatical on the slavery question—issued his commands. On this Sunday he assigned to each his earliest work. Captain Owen Brown, Barclay Coppoc, and Francis J. Merriam were to remain at the farm to guard the arms and ammunition. Hence only nineteen left the Kennedy farm. They were to walk down the river road on the Maryland side to the Maryland end of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge. The Virginia end was close to the depot, hotel, armory, and the arsenal. Captain John Brown was to ride in the wagon with the necessary guns, pistols, and tools. Captains Cook and Tidd were to go in advance and cut the telegraph wires on the Maryland side. Captain Stephens and Adjutant General Kagi were to capture Mr. Williams, the guard of the bridge. Captain Watson Brown and Taylor were to hold up the passenger train due from the west at 1:40 a.m. It would be bound for Washington and Baltimore. Captain Oliver Brown and Thompson were to hold the bridges spanning the two rivers. Captain Dauphin Adolphus Thompson and Lieutenant Anderson were to hold the first building in the armory grounds, popularly known afterward as “John Brown’s Fort.” It was the engine house where Brown held his most distinguished prisoners. From the portholes of it that they made after his entrance, his men did their final fighting. Captain Coppoc and Lieutenant Hazlitt were to hold the arsenal outside and opposite the armory gates. Adjutant General Kagi and Copeland were to seize and retain Hall’s Rifle Works. They were half of a mile up the western shore of the Shenandoah. Captain Stephens and such men as he might select were to go out to the home of Colonel Lewis W. Washington, the grand-nephew of General George Washington, and bring him and some of his adult male slaves to the engine house. They were also to secure the swords presented to General George Washington by Frederick the Great and by General Lafayette. For this object Stephens selected as his helpers Captains Tidd and Cook and Privates Leary, Green, and Anderson. Brown made the raid at 11:30 that night. Mr. Williams, the bridge guard, was captured by Stephens and Kagi. The watchman at the armory, Daniel Whelan, refused Brown and his men admission to the grounds. They broke the locks with tools, captured Whelan, and took possession of the armory and also of the arsenal outside. The following prisoners were brought in early on Monday and placed in the engine house: Jesse W. Graham, who was master workman; Colonel Lewis W. Washington; Terence Byrne; John M. Allstadt; John Donohue, who was clerk of the railroad company; Benjamin F. Mills, the master armorer; Armstead M. Ball, the master machinist; Archibald M. Kitzmiller, assistant superintendent; Isaac Russell, a justice of the peace; George D. Shope of Frederick; and J. Bird, arsenal armorer. The white prisoners were to be held as hostages, and the blacks were to be armed and placed in Brown’s army. Cook and Tidd evidently mistrusted their surroundings. During the night they made their way back to the farm and hastily escaped into Pennsylvania. Captain Watson Brown and Taylor held up the train bound for Baltimore, detaining it for three hours. The colored porter of the depot, Shepherd Hayward, went out on the bridge to hunt for Williams. He was brutally shot by one of Brown’s bridge guards. Hayward managed to crawl to the baggage room, where he died at noon on Monday. Dr. John Starry dressed his wounds and ministered to his every want. The physician was under the impression that a band of train robbers had captured the depot. He told this to Mr. Kitzmiller before Kitzmiller’s imprisonment. Captain E. P. Dangerfield, clerk to the paymaster, entered the grounds and was hustled into the engine house quite early in the morning. Numerous arriving workmen were imprisoned in an adjoining building. Colonel Washington said that fully sixty men were imprisoned by eight o’clock on Monday morning. The citizens were hearing of the situation. Newby and Green, negroes, were stationed at the junction of High and Shenandoah Streets. Newby shot at and killed Captain George W. Turner, a graduate of West Point. Green shot and killed Mr. Thomas Boerley, a grocer. Dr. Claggett attended Boerley, who also soon died. After the mulatto had shot Turner, a man named Bogert entered the residence of Mrs. Stephenson by a rear door. Having no bullet he put a large nail into his gun, went upstairs, and shot Newby, the nail cutting his throat from ear to ear. He was also shot in the stomach by someone else. I saw him die in great agony, with an infuriated crowd around him. About ten o’clock in the morning, armed citizens crossed the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers to prevent the escape by the bridges or by water of any of the raiders. Some walked down the Maryland river road and wounded Captain Oliver Brown on the bridge. He reached the engine house but soon died beside his father. Citizens seized the uninjured prisoner, Captain Thompson, and put him under guard at the Galt Hotel. Captain Stephens tried to reach the hotel to propose, as he stated, terms of surrender. George Chambers wounded him and then assisted him into the Galt Hotel, where his wounds were dressed. About eleven o’clock in the morning, the Jefferson Guards from Charlestown commanded by Captain J. W. Rowen arrived. A half hour passed, and the Hamtramck Guards under Captain V. M. Butler came to the Ferry. They were followed by the Shepherdstown Mounted Troop commanded by Captain Jacob Reinhart. Then a military company from Martinsburg, twenty miles distant, reached the place, under the command of Captain Alburtis. Colonels W. R. Baylor and John T. Gibson took the general direction of the military affairs. Some soldiers crossed the Shenandoah along with armed citizens to intercept the four raiders Kagi, Leary, Leeman, and Copeland, when they should be driven out of Hall’s Rifle Works. These raiders also had in these works one of Colonel Washington’s slaves pressed into their service. All of them ran out into the river to swim across to the Loudon County shore. All were shot to death in the river with the exception of Copeland. He threw up his hands and surrendered. During the excitement Hazlitt and the negro Anderson left the arsenal and, undetected, escaped into Pennsylvania. Early in the morning, Captain Owen Brown, Barclay Coppoc, and Merriam had deserted the Kennedy farm and gone north. Thus seven of the twenty-two men fled to the North. Cook and Hazlitt were captured. They were returned to Virginia, tried, and executed.

  By two o’clock p.m., the town and hills swarmed with militia and citizens. Brown had barricaded the engine house doors with the engine and reel. Inside were Captains John Brown and his son Watson; also Captain Oliver Brown, who was soon dead; Shields Green, Captain Edwin Coppoc, Lieutenant Jeremiah G. Anderson, Captain Dauphin Adolphus Thompson, and ten white prisoners. The numerous prisoners, mostly workmen, in the adjoining structure had all escaped from the grounds, Brown having no portholes on that side of his fort. The militia were afraid to fire into the portholes for fear of killing some of the prominent prisoners. About four o’clock the mayor, Mr. Fontaine Beckham, aged sixty years, who was also station agent of the railroad company, went out on the platform unarmed. He was shot dead by the negro Shields Green. Captain Watson Brown in the engine house received his death wound soon afterward. Mayor Beckham was very much beloved by the people. A number of citizens hurried into the hotel and brutally seized Captain Thompson, threw
him over the wall into the Potomac, and riddled him with bullets. Mrs. Foulke of the hotel and her colored porter went to the platform and brought in the dead body of the mayor.

  As night was settling on the excited city, a military company from Winchester, Virginia, commanded by Captain B. B. Washington arrived by a Shenandoah Valley train. Shortly thereafter a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad train brought several companies of soldiers from Frederick, Maryland. They were commanded by Colonel Shriver. Soon several independent companies from Baltimore, accompanied by the Second Light Brigade, arrived under the general command of General Charles C. Edgerton. Colonel Robert E. Lee of the United States Army overtook these troops at Sandy Hook, a mile and a half below the Ferry on the Maryland side. He had come from Washington with several companies of marines. He was accompanied by Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, afterward a famous Confederate cavalry general, also by Major Russell and by Lieutenant Israel Green, who died several months ago in the West. All were regular army officers. Colonel Lee regarded it as unwise to attack the engine house that night, fearing that Colonel Lewis W. Washington or other prisoners might be killed. Early in the morning, he sent Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, who had once held Brown as a prisoner in Kansas, to demand an immediate and unconditional surrender. Brown refused to trust himself and men to the United States officers. About this time Colonel Robert E. Lee got within range of Captain Coppoc’s rifle. Prisoners said that Mr. Graham knocked the muzzle aside. Lee’s life was saved. Had he been then killed, who knows that the battles of Antietam, Gettysburg, and the final conflicts north of the Appomattox would have ever been fought? On the Confederate side, no abler general or more magnificent man ever sat on a saddle than Robert E. Lee. He was the son of “Light Horse Harry Lee,” a brave major general of the Revolutionary War. He was the father of William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, who became a major general of the Confederate forces of Virginia at a later date. General Robert E. Lee made a brilliant record in the Mexican War as chief engineer of the United States Army. After surrendering his decimated army to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, he accepted the political situation with dignity. He became president of the Washington University at Lexington, Virginia. The South lavished on him every possible honor. During the late summer, the Virginia legislature placed in the National Hall of Fame at the United States Capitol two fine statues of two representative men of their state. One was the statue of General George Washington, the other that of General Robert E. Lee.

  By the advice of Colonel Lewis W. Washington, all of Brown’s prisoners mounted the fire engine and the reel carriage and lifted up their hands when the attack began. Three marines undertook to batter down the doors with heavy sledgehammers. They were not successful. Then twelve marines struck the doors with the end of a strong ladder. They opened. Lieutenant Green entered first of all amid a shower of bullets. Discovering Brown reloading his rifle, he sprang on him with his sword and cut his head and stomach. The raider Captain Anderson rose to shoot Green. A marine named Luke Quinn ran his bayonet through him. Another raider shot Luke Quinn, who soon died. Two other marines were wounded. I saw Captains Anderson and Watson Brown as they lay dying on the grass after their capture. The dead body of Captain Oliver Brown lay beside them. Captain Watson Brown had been dying for sixteen hours. Captain John Brown, bleeding profusely, and Captain Stephens from the hotel were carried into the paymaster’s office. Brown’s long gray beard was stained with wet blood. He was bare-headed. His shirt and trousers were gray in color. His trousers were tucked into the top of his boots. Captain Coppoc and the negro Green were also taken prisoners. They were not wounded.

  As Brown lay on the floor of the paymaster’s office, he was very cool and courageous. Governor Henry A. Wise, United States Senator J. M. Mason of Virginia, and Honorable Clement L. Vallandingham of Ohio plied him with many questions. To all he gave intelligent and fearless replies. He refused to involve his Northern financiers and advisers. He took the entire responsibility on himself. He told Governor Wise that he, Brown, was simply “an instrument in the hands of Providence.” He said to some newspaper correspondents and others: “I wish to say that you had better—all you people of the South—prepare for a settlement of this question. You may dispose of me very easily. I am nearly disposed of now. But this question is yet to be settled—this negro question I mean. The end is not yet.” Before thirteen months had passed, one of the greatest Americans of any century, Abraham Lincoln, had been elected president of the United States; the Republican Party was for the first time dominating national affairs, and soon thereafter, the Civil War was begun, which culminated in the physical freedom of every slave in this republic.

  On Wednesday Captains John Brown, Stephens, and Coppoc, along with Copeland and Green, were removed to the county jail at Charlestown, ten miles south of Harpers Ferry. Being acquainted with the jailor, Captain John Avis, I was permitted to visit Brown on one occasion. Captain Aaron D. Stephens was lying on a cot in the same room. I was told that Brown had ordered out of his room a Presbyterian minister named Lowrey when he had proposed to offer prayer. He had also said to my first colleague, Rev. James H. March, “You do not know the meaning of the word Christianity. Of course I regard you as a gentleman but only as a heathen gentleman.” I was advised to say nothing to him about prayer. He had told other visitors that he wanted no minister to pray with him who would not be willing to die to free a slave. I was not conscious that I was ready for martyrdom from Brown’s standpoint. I have never been anxious to die to save the life of anybody. My life is as valuable to me and my family as any other man’s is to him and his family. But young as I was, I hated American slavery. I was a “boy minister” of a great antislavery denomination of Christians. For more than a century, the Methodist Episcopal Church has carried in its disciplines its printed testimony against slavery. It is today the largest fully organized antislavery society on earth. I would have gladly offered prayer in Brown’s room at Charlestown if an honorable opportunity had been afforded.

  At his preliminary examination before five justices, Colonel Davenport presiding, Brown said,

  Virginians! I did not ask for quarter at the time I was taken. I did not ask to have my life spared. Your governor assured me of a fair trial. If you seek my blood, you can have it at any time without this mockery of a trial. I have no counsel. I have not been able to advise with anyone. I know nothing of the feelings of my fellow prisoners and am utterly unable to attend to my own defense. If a fair trial is to be allowed, there are mitigating circumstances to be urged. But, if we are forced with a mere form, a trial for execution, you might spare yourselves that trouble. I am ready for my fate.

  Two very able Virginia attorneys were assigned as a matter of state form as counsel for Brown. They were Honorable Charles J. Faulkner of Martinsburg, afterward United States envoy extraordinary to France, and Judge Green, ex-mayor of Charlestown. The county grand jury indicted Brown on three separate charges: first, conspiracy with slaves for purposes of insurrection; second, treason against the commonwealth of Virginia; third, murder in the first degree. Mr. Faulkner withdrew from the case, and Mr. Lawson Botts took his place. Mr. Samuel Chilton, a learned lawyer of Washington, DC, and Judge Henry Griswold of Ohio, another distinguished attorney, volunteered their services as counsel for John Brown and were accepted. Some of Brown’s friends sent an excellent young lawyer named George H. Hoyt from Boston as additional counsel. These attorneys made an able defense, whatever may have been their private opinion as to Brown’s guilt or innocence. The prosecuting attorney for the state of Virginia was Andrew Hunter, an exceptionally brilliant orator and able lawyer. He was a courtly and commanding speaker. He was gifted with a rich and powerful voice. After the indictment of Brown by the court of justices, the prosecuting attorney of Jefferson County, Mr. Charles B. Harding, left the prosecution almost exclusively to Mr. Andrew Hunter, who represented the state. So, too, after the arrival of Brown’s chosen outside counsel, Judge Green and Mr. Lawson Botts withdrew i
n good taste from his defense.