The Insurrectionist

by Herb Karl

  That evening Brown sat down in the light of a campfire and began to compose a letter to his wife, Mary. He drew partly on a biblical passage: “We have been, like David of old, dwelling with the serpents of the rocks and wild beasts of the wilderness, being obliged to hide away from our enemies. We are not disheartened though nearly destitute of food, clothing, and money.”

  The part about being nearly destitute was not completely true. Owen and Oliver had just come back from a raid on a dry goods store owned by a proslavery sympathizer. Since Brown now saw himself engaged in a full-scale civil war, he felt he was taking what he was entitled to—the spoils of war. The raiding party returned with a supply of pants, shirts, coats, hats, bandanna handkerchiefs, and other provisions, including a cow, all of it worth hundreds of dollars.

  There were other peculiarities in the letter to Mary. Brown described the battle at Black Jack Springs in some detail but failed to mention Frederick’s charge into Pate’s guns. There was also a casual reference to Pottawatomie, Brown noting that “some murders had been committed at the time Lawrence was sacked.”

  Near the end of the letter he asked Mary to send a copy to Gerrit Smith, a wealthy New York abolitionist who had arranged for Brown’s move to the farm in the Adirondacks. Smith was a source of money and arms; it was important he be kept abreast of Brown’s successes.

  The old man fell asleep before finishing the letter. In the past four days he’d slept little.

  5

  A Month Later

  July 2, 1856

  Kansas Territory

  It was a Wednesday morning when John Brown rode into Lawrence at the head of a column of fourteen mounted Free State fighters, most of them newly recruited. Piles of rubble were still visible along Massachusetts Street, a reminder of damage sustained when the town was sacked in May. Women eyed the riders warily, scurried across board sidewalks, ducked into stores.

  Brown lifted his straw hat and wiped his brow on the sleeve of his black wool coat, a garment strikingly out of place in the oppressive heat. He came from the woods and thickets along Ottawa Creek, where he’d been dwelling with the serpents of the rocks and wild beasts of the wilderness, moving from one campsite to another, hiding from proslavery militias intent on killing him, avoiding contact with US troops not likely to be as lenient as Colonel E. V. Sumner.

  The old man had been tending to a collection of invalids. His son-in-law Henry Thompson was still recovering from the wound suffered at Black Jack. Salmon had accidentally shot himself in the shoulder, and Owen, Oliver, and Frederick had come down with chills and fever. Brown felt poorly too. He was thinner, the flesh on his face drawn so close to the bone that his head looked like a skull.

  Between the injured, the sick, and those who quit after Black Jack, Brown was left with only three able-bodied men—among them his son Jason, just released from the stockade in Lecompton. But the recruiting efforts of John Cook, together with the old man’s growing reputation, had attracted eleven volunteers. The prospect of returning to action with a new company under his command had energized Brown, and the symptoms of whatever illness he was experiencing had practically disappeared as the column of horsemen made its way to Lawrence’s Eastern House, a favorite lodging of Northern journalists.

  Brown was in town to call on William A. Phillips, thirty-two, another of Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune correspondents. Like James Redpath, Phillips was committed to the Free State cause. He was also a close friend of the Free State leader, Dr. Charles Robinson. Brown still had doubts about Robinson, saw him as a timid man who put too much faith in a peaceful solution to the troubles in Kansas. With regard to Phillips, though, the old man had heard good things. Redpath and other Tribune journalists saw Phillips as the most perceptive of Greeley’s correspondents, someone dedicated to making sense out of the Kansas struggle and its implications for a nation steadily becoming more divided over the issue of slavery. Rumors had Phillips writing a book. He’d be someone worth meeting, someone who might be interested in Brown’s purposes, what his beliefs were, and how they shaped his decisions.

  The old man was usually skeptical of anyone with a preference for words over actions. He disliked many of the antislavery orators and editors, including the highly regarded William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the Liberator, considering them weak men who had no stomach for taking the fight directly to the enemy. Journalists who were at the front and witnessed firsthand the stubbornness of the slave power were the exception. Brown admired Elijah Lovejoy, the Illinois newspaper editor assassinated by proslavery thugs. When he was a young man mired in financial difficulties, Brown had attended a church service in honor of the slain editor. He’d listened to an account of Lovejoy’s heroic stand against slavery and found himself slowly overcome by guilt. Lovejoy had sacrificed his life for a cause to which Brown was no less dedicated. But Brown had been consumed with fighting off creditors and responding to lawsuits. Near the end of the service he stood up, raised his right hand as though swearing an oath, and declared, “Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.”

  Now, years later, Brown was intent on keeping his promise. Maybe Phillips was cut from the same cloth as Lovejoy.

  The old man had his reasons for seeking out the Tribune correspondent. The first was to hand him a letter—Brown’s personal account of the battle at Black Jack, written as a rebuttal to a Tribune story authored by Henry Clay Pate. Pate had written that deceitful tactics were used at Black Jack, that a pistol was held to his head when Brown ordered him to surrender.

  Brown also wanted to escort Phillips to a convention of Free State legislators slated to meet two days hence, on Independence Day, in Topeka. He correctly assumed Phillips would be attending the convention, an assembly certain to be challenged as treasonous by federal and territorial authorities. If a crisis arose Brown wanted to be there, helping in any way he could, even if it meant fighting federal troops. He felt Phillips ought to take advantage of the protection he was being offered.

  “I’m sure you are aware of the danger in traveling alone these days,” Brown warned Phillips. “The border ruffians kill for the sake of killing.”

  Phillips didn’t need to be reminded. He reported to the Tribune that murders along the border were frequent, many remaining undisclosed.

  It also was obvious he wasn’t awed by Brown’s reputation. “The past thirty days have been described as a reign of terror, Captain,” Phillips said caustically, “and the blame has been laid on the perpetrators of the Pottawatomie affair.”

  Brown had no desire to justify himself to Phillips. He hoped their meeting would be amicable and that the ride to Topeka would be an opportunity for a respected journalist to get to know the real John Brown. “Come with us,” the old man urged. “You will be safe and we can talk about such matters as will make my purposes clear. I shall only say now that what I do, I do for the cause of liberty—and because I regard it necessary.”

  That afternoon Phillips joined Brown and his soldiers for the ride to Topeka. They took the California Road, headed west, skirting the proslavery capital of Lecompton, where John Jr. was still imprisoned. At dusk they reached Big Springs, turned off the trail, and moved onto the open prairie, a precautionary measure to avoid a confrontation with the enemy. They made camp on a hill near a creek. The horses were unsaddled, watered, and picketed in the tall grass. The men ate what they had—dried beef, cornmeal rolled into balls and cooked in the ashes of the campfire, all of it washed down with creek water.

  Brown noticed that Phillips was reluctant to sample the charred bread balls. He chided the journalist. “I’m afraid, Phillips, you will hardly be able to eat a soldier’s harsh fare.”

  Conversation around the campfire touched on a number of subjects, including Brown’s theories of military tactics and strategy, the old man underscoring once again his belief in the superiority of the individual soldier over the most stalwart fortifications. “A few good men in the
right, and knowing they are, can overturn a king,” he said, noting that Nat Turner and his fifty rebel slaves held the entire state of Virginia at bay for five weeks. Brown reiterated his belief that a ravine could sometimes be a more defensible position than a hilltop.

  During a lull in the conversation, Phillips turned to Jason and asked about the arrests that took place after Pottawatomie. One of Phillips’s fellow correspondents, William Hutchinson of the New York Times, had written an account of the treatment John Jr. received while being conveyed to Lecompton by a troop of federal cavalry. Phillips found parts of the story hard to believe and was curious to hear what Jason had to say.

  “What is it you would like to know, Mr. Phillips?” There was sadness in Jason’s voice, and Phillips must have regretted broaching the subject.

  Of all Brown’s sons, thirty-three-year-old Jason came closest to being a pacifist. Though he shared the abolitionist sentiments of his father and brothers, he wanted nothing more than to lead the quiet life of a farmer. His trip west was marred by the death of his infant son Austin, struck down by cholera. He brought grape vines and fruit trees and dreamed of cultivating the rich soil of Kansas Territory and raising a family. While he was imprisoned at Lecompton the Missourians burned his house near Osawatomie, then trampled his plantings. His wife, Ellen, and their surviving child were able to find a safe haven in the village. After his release from prison, Jason believed he had no choice but to join his father’s company. Though he was ready to leave the territory, he wasn’t going anywhere until his brother was freed from the stockade at Lecompton.

  Brown picked up a stick and poked at the embers in the smoldering campfire.

  Jason gazed absently at the rekindled flames. He began to tell his story: “We all suffered, but none so much as my brother. They found him in the brush. He had been wandering for days, eluding the federals. He wasn’t well. They tied his wrists behind him, then the upper part of his arms. The rope was hard and the commander of the troop set it with his teeth. Another length of rope was yoked to the bindings and tied to a wagon. They drove him afoot to Osawatomie—some eight or nine miles—while I rode in the wagon and witnessed his agony. They never loosened the rope around his arms. His flesh was so swollen it covered the rope. They drove him through the water of Bull Creek and the yellow flints at the bottom cut through his boots and lacerated his feet. When we arrived at Osawatomie and made camp, I found him chained to the center pole of the prisoners’ tent. By this time he was quite insane, shrieking military orders, jumping up and down, casting himself about—”

  Brown interrupted. “Enough, Jason. I’m sure by now Mr. Phillips has a good idea of the privations suffered by your brother.”

  Phillips turned to the old man. “I can understand why you would want to avenge such cruelty, Captain.”

  After a short pause, Brown said, “I do not act from revenge, Mr. Phillips. It is a feeling that does not enter my heart.”

  The sky was darkening as the men retired to their blankets—but not before listening to Brown recite the customary prayer. He gave thanks for the meager rations.

  A cooling breeze provided some relief from the sweltering heat.

  Having placed their blankets and saddles only a few feet apart, Brown and Phillips lay on the ground looking up at the night sky. The stars seemed exceedingly close, almost within their grasp. As the rest of the men slept, Brown talked and Phillips listened.

  “How admirable is the symmetry of the heavens,” the old man mused. “Everything moves in sublime harmony in the government of God.” He paused. “Not so with us poor creatures. We put too much faith in the governments of men, I think, and not enough in the government of God.”

  Then Brown began to excoriate what he called the “professional” politicians. “You can never trust a professional politician,” he said, “for even if he has convictions, he will sacrifice them for his own selfish advantage.”

  Phillips agreed. “I’m afraid we are all by nature a selfish lot.”

  “And therein lies our downfall,” Brown acknowledged. “If our nation were organized on a less selfish basis, we would be better for it.” He noted that selfishness cultivated material interests, a desire for personal pleasures, and that men and women had lost much by it. “When selfishness is deified, it can corrupt an entire society,” he said, pointing to the elite Southern planters as an example. “They have grown accustomed to living a life unfettered by work and are unwilling to part with that life. To satisfy their selfish desires they have torn the humanity from the bosom of a people, adopting the belief that their slaves are less than human, mere property, no different from plows or livestock. Such a belief eases the slaveholders’ guilt, but it brutalizes them, makes them capable of great cruelty.”

  Apparently Phillips was as willing to forgo sleep as Brown. The journalist redirected the conversation to a more personal subject. “They say you’re a man of deep religious convictions, Captain. I should think your faith has influenced your actions in Kansas.”

  Brown took some time before responding: “My faith requires many things of me, among them a personal responsibility for those in need—and a responsibility to right the wrongs in society as I find them. It is my duty to act on these responsibilities—for duty is the voice of my God. A man is neither worthy of a good home here on earth, nor one in heaven, who is not willing to put himself in peril for a good cause.”

  Brown allowed his words to settle before adding, “There are many wrongs that need to be made right, Phillips. But slavery is clearly the sum of all villainies and its abolition the first essential work. I came to Kansas to do this work. If the American people do not end slavery speedily, human freedom and republican liberty will soon be empty phrases in these United States.”

  For a time neither man spoke as they both peered into the night sky. Brown, who relied on his own ability to tell time by observing the positions of the stars, suddenly stood. “It is nearly two o’clock, Phillips, and it is nine or ten miles to Topeka. We must be on our way.”

  The old man intended to reach Topeka before sunrise and wanted to conceal his movement as much as possible. Although Phillips tried to dissuade him from the route he chose—a rugged passage that required the fording of several creeks—Brown’s mind was made up. He would take a straight course guided by the stars. When he awakened the men, they responded without saying a word, and in ten minutes all were in the saddle riding across the dark prairie.

  The result was as Phillips predicted. After four hours of battling thickets and fording rivers, dawn arrived with the men wandering in the timber along a creek. Then, in the distance, came the faint strains of a bugle sounding reveille.

  Brown guided his horse into the creek and up the opposite bank. The men followed. After he passed through the timber bordering the creek, he saw the movement of soldiers, the glint of the sun reflecting off the barrels of artillery. The old man had unknowingly come within a mile of the encampment of Colonel E.V. Sumner, the cavalry officer who had stripped him of his captives at Black Jack Springs.

  Brown dismounted and removed the brass spyglass from his saddlebag. Beyond the encampment he could make out a cluster of buildings.

  “It appears we have arrived at Topeka,” he said, then turned to Phillips and suggested he ride into town with one of the men. Two riders were less likely to draw attention from the federals than a company of militiamen. Brown picked twenty-two-year-old August Bondi—an Austrian immigrant who was with him at Black Jack Springs. The rest of the company would camp in the timber and wait for Bondi to report back on conditions at the convention.

  Brown said to Phillips, “You must urge the legislature to resist all who would interfere—even, if necessary, the federal troops. My men and I shall be ready when called.”

  Phillips reached for Brown’s hand. “You have my gratitude,” he said. “I hope we shall meet again—under happier circumstances.”

  “Well, Phillips,” Brown said, “tomorrow is the anniversary of our nation�
��s birth—a day when our ancestors declared their independence from the shackles of an unjust government. Perhaps history will be repeated in Topeka.”

  When Bondi returned the following afternoon, July 4, he told of Free State supporters filling the streets of Topeka. Colonel Sumner came into town and had his soldiers line up in front of the building where the convention was being held. His objective, Bondi learned, was to break up the Free State convention; he had a cannon aimed at the door while he read the order requiring the legislators to disperse. Then Sumner told the people assembled in the street that carrying out his orders on this matter was “the most disagreeable duty of his life.”

  The legislators agreed to leave, and the people made no effort to protest. In fact, Bondi said, someone in the crowd called for three cheers for the colonel. “Up went three loud cheers and then three more for the Free State constitution and three more for the legislators.” As the troops rode off, someone called for three groans for President Pierce. “The colonel saluted us,” Bondi said, “and we kept up the groaning until the soldiers were out of sight.”

  Brown listened to Bondi’s report but said nothing. Sumner’s response had been a sympathetic one, yet the old man was bothered by it. As long as the Free State settlers believed that important people—people like Colonel E. V. Sumner—were supportive of their cause, they could be lulled into a false sense of security. Brown knew the enemy was intransigent and uncompromising and would take advantage of any sign of weakness.

  Before breaking camp, the old man thought about snatching John Jr. from the military stockade at nearby Lecompton, where several other Free State men, including Dr. Charles Robinson, were being held as political prisoners. The plan was scrapped when Brown received word that his son was against any attempt to rescue him. Apparently John Jr. was being treated well; his wife Wealthy and their young son were permitted to live with him in the stockade, and—more important—John Jr. didn’t want to complicate matters for the other prisoners. He and the others were likely to be set free anyway—possibly within two or three months.