The Insurrectionist

by Herb Karl

  Still, Brown’s willingness to act—in direct, often violent ways—captured the imaginations of the New England men and women who saw him as the embodiment of ideals they claimed to live by. Never was this more apparent than during the old man’s visit to Concord and its distinguished residents Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. They met at the Thoreau home, a boardinghouse run by his mother, and listened to Brown’s Kansas stories. They shared their mutual disdain for Judge Taney and the Dred Scott ruling, then attended a speech the old man was slated to give at the Concord town hall.

  “It is better,” Brown told his audience, “that a whole generation of men, women, and children should pass away by violent death rather than that a violation of the Holy Gospel or the Declaration of Independence be further tolerated.”

  Emerson and Thoreau bonded with the old man. His words echoed their doctrine of independent action engendered by obedience to a higher law, a doctrine they had been writing and lecturing about for years.

  But there was a trace of contempt in Brown’s voice when he told Mary, “I have done—and will continue to do—what they only talk about.” It was the same attitude he held toward highly regarded abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips. “All talk and no cider,” the old man groused.

  However, he didn’t question the authenticity of Thomas Wentworth Higginson—the thirty-three-year-old irascible minister from Worcester who used the pulpit to advance his political agenda. Higginson was a man of action. He wore a scar on his chin, the result of a saber slash received during an attempt to rescue the runaway slave Anthony Burns. Burns had been a victim of the Fugitive Slave Act, one of a series of federal laws—the so-called Compromise of 1850—that required local authorities in the North to assist Southern slave catchers. The Fugitive Slave Act radicalized many Northerners who previously favored more moderate approaches to the abolition of slavery. Higginson had led the charge up the steps of Boston’s city courthouse, where Burns was held prisoner. The rescue attempt failed, but that didn’t diminish Brown’s respect for Higginson and his courageous act.

  The old man had been introduced to two of Higginson’s coconspirators in the Burns affair: the radical cleric Theodore Parker and the social reformer Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, both active in the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. Like the men of letters from Concord, Parker and Howe were much impressed with Brown. They compared him to Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan warrior who overthrew the British monarchy in 1649. The old man smiled at the comparison. He admired Cromwell, even owned a copy of Joel Headley’s biography, which portrayed the Puritan as a patriot directed by God to rid his nation of sin and corruption. That both Cromwell and Brown were accused of committing bloody atrocities wasn’t a problem for the abolitionists from Massachusetts.

  Mary listened to her husband relate the story of the event that caused his hasty return home. In early April he’d received a letter from his son Jason, then farming in Ohio. Jason wrote that a deputy US marshal was on Brown’s trail and was coming to arrest him. The old man took refuge in the home of Judge Thomas Russell, one of the more moderate of the Massachusetts abolitionists. Russell lived in a secluded Boston suburb, and he and his wife offered their home as a temporary hideout. Brown barricaded himself in an upstairs bedroom for ten days and came to the dinner table each evening with two revolvers tucked under his belt. He rolled up a trouser leg to reveal the long bowie knife strapped to his leg.

  “I told Mrs. Russell I hoped I wouldn’t soil her expensive furniture or stain her plush carpets with my blood. I warned her—if the US hounds showed up, I’d not be taken alive.”

  It was at the Russells’ that Brown’s malarial sickness returned. In between episodes of violent tremors he wrote “Old Brown’s Farewell,” a document seething with sarcasm, intended for the New England benefactors he believed had deserted him. In the final lines he lamented that he was unable to secure “amidst all the wealth, luxury, and extravagance of this heaven exalted people, even the necessary supplies for a common soldier.”

  When Stearns’s wife visited Brown at the Russells’, he handed her a copy of his “Farewell.” After reading it, she felt embarrassed by the comfort her husband’s wealth afforded her family; she knew Brown’s family suffered constant deprivation as he struggled to raise money, and she later claimed she considered liquidating her husband’s estate and giving the proceeds to Brown so that he might accomplish his mission.

  Brown confessed to his wife that even though he appreciated the tangible and moral support given him by the Massachusetts abolitionists, something about them gnawed at his conscience. Yes, they hated slavery. But did they truly believe men and women of color were their equals? Brown’s black sympathizers, especially Frederick Douglass, warned him to be wary of the subtle racism that lingered among well-meaning white people.

  Only a few times did Brown’s nocturnal soliloquies at the North Elba farmhouse reveal genuine optimism. He told Mary of a fundraising visit to Canton, Connecticut—the town in which his mother and father had lived for many years. While there he visited his family’s former homestead and noticed a granite tombstone leaning against a wall. The stone once marked the grave of his grandfather, a captain in the Revolutionary War. The old man spoke proudly of his grandfather, a man he said died fighting for liberty. “The stone shall be delivered here to North Elba,” he told Mary, “and I will add to it the name of Frederick, who perished in Kansas for the same cause.”

  He also told Mary about Charles Blair, a forge-master who worked for the Collins Company—a Connecticut foundry with an excellent reputation for manufacturing fine-edged tools. Blair attended one of Brown’s speaking engagements and responded to it favorably. The two men chanced to meet the following day at a drugstore. After learning of Blair’s occupation, Brown reached into his carpetbag and pulled out a two-edged dirk, a knife with an eight-inch blade carried by soldiers in the Scottish Highland regiments during the eighteenth century. He’d taken it from one of Pate’s men at Black Jack.

  Brown handed the knife to Blair and asked, “If I had a use for one of these attached to a six-foot pole, could you fashion such a formidable weapon?”

  Blair nodded.

  “What if I needed a thousand?”

  Brown told Mary he signed a contract with Blair for the manufacture of one thousand pikes. He didn’t tell her for what purpose the pikes were intended, but he did say that rifles and pistols had no place in the hands of inexperienced men. And he didn’t mention the cost of the pikes. At a dollar each, the deposit on the $1,000 investment depleted a fair amount of his cash.

  The last piece of favorable news was about a forty-five-year-old Scotsman named Hugh Forbes whom Brown met during a fundraising trip to New York City. Forbes had fought with Garibaldi in the failed Italian Revolution of 1848–49. He’d written a book based on his experiences and said he came to New York to be part of a second American revolution, a conflict he hoped would result in the abolition of slavery. When Brown met him, Forbes was barely scraping by as a part-time journalist and fencing instructor.

  Brown explained to Mary that Forbes might be the missing piece to a puzzle—someone who could drill recruits and prepare them for any eventuality, including an invasion of the South. Forbes had signed on as Brown’s drill officer and agreed to write a handbook, an introduction to the strategies and tactics of modern warfare and the duties of a soldier. His services didn’t come cheap. Forbes wanted a monthly salary of one hundred dollars and additional money to cover expenses. And he expected to be paid in advance.

  Between the cost of Blair’s pikes and the demands of Forbes, Brown had practically exhausted his remaining funds. He’d return to Kansas, he told Mary, believing that God would somehow see fit to help him.

  For ten consecutive evenings, lying beside his wife in the darkness, Brown talked as his dutiful and compassionate wife listened, both of them waiting for the symptoms of his illness—which had become chronic—to subside.

  Now, on
the eve of his departure, Brown stood outside the North Elba farmhouse and watched an immense cloud continue its descent onto Whiteface Mountain. It was growing late and he felt a chill in the air, yet he didn’t turn away until the mountain disappeared.

  His family was waiting for him, crowded around the iron stove, its warmth radiating into the candlelit parlor that served as Brown’s writing room. They knew he’d be leaving in the morning, and he still hadn’t disclosed his plans. Mary had heated a large pot of cider. And of course there would be singing, one of the few indulgences the old man allowed himself.

  The room was filled with his sons, young daughters, and eldest daughter Ruth and her husband Henry Thompson, the wounds he sustained at Black Jack now healed. Of those gathered in the parlor only little Ellen was oblivious to the moment. She still was not totally at ease with the father she viewed as a stranger. Brown went to her, hands extended, but she retreated into Mary’s arms.

  The old man’s taut lips gave way to a rare smile as he drew himself into the most erect posture his ailing body would allow. His eyes burned with the familiar glow.

  “I have promised others I would return to Kansas,” he said, “and I shall keep that promise.” He turned to Mary. “Our family has sacrificed much, but the Lord has chosen us to make sacrifices. He has given our family a purpose that requires sacrifices.”

  Ruth, sitting on the floor beside Henry, reached for her husband’s arm. Intelligent, perceptive, pregnant Ruth—the daughter with flaming red hair who respected and loved her father but feared his power to hold sway over an audience. “Father,” she said, “even those not of our blood have sacrificed much.” She wasn’t seeking validation for Henry’s service; rather, she was worried her father would ask her husband to follow him into yet another violent skirmish.

  Almost whispering, Brown responded, “My dear Ruth, many shall be called upon to remember those that are in bonds as bound with them. But only a few shall have the courage to answer.”

  Ruth squeezed Henry’s hand. Little Ellen hugged her mother. Annie and Sarah, on the cusp of adolescence, sat motionless. The sons nodded compliantly.

  Brown’s dominating will was at work again, his rasping metallic voice slowly rising in volume: “For twenty years—since the time I took an oath consecrating my life to the destruction of slavery—it has been my aim to fight slavery on the enemy’s soil. I fought in Kansas and I shall return to Kansas. But I sense the hour is near when I shall take this war into Africa.” He let the words settle, studying the faces of Oliver, Salmon, Watson, Owen, and Henry, then added, “Those who are willing to act should be prepared.”

  Young Oliver wasn’t going to let the old man spoil the evening. “Enough, Father,” he said, “lest we are dispatched to the infernal regions before tasting Mother’s cider.”

  Watson went outside for wood, and he and Oliver stoked the iron stove. Mary and Ruth ladled the hot liquid into cups. When everyone was seated, Brown asked the Almighty to bless the occasion, reminding everyone present not to forget those millions still held in bondage. Then he called for Annie to bring Ellen to him. With Annie perched on one knee and Ellen on the other, the doting father sang his favorite hymn, “Blow Ye Trumpet, Blow,” while the rest joined in the refrain:

  The year of jubilee is come!

  Return, ye ransomed sinners, home!

  The next morning Brown embraced the members of his North Elba family, including little Ellen, who finally had come to accept as her father the strange man with the glittering eyes. The old man kissed Mary and told her he’d write often and that the girls should continue to study their Bibles. Annie and Sarah wept.

  Of his three unmarried sons, only Owen agreed to accompany the old man on his journey back to Kansas Territory. The two men tossed their carpetbags onto the bed of a wagon owned by Lyman Epps, a neighbor and former slave. Epps would take them the thirty miles to Westport on Lake Champlain. From there they would travel by steamboat to the southernmost tip of the lake, then to Albany by canal boat on the Champlain Canal, then to points west aboard the cars of the recently completed New York Central Railroad.

  9

  One Year and Eight Months Later

  December 20, 1858

  Vernon County, Missouri

  Snow swirled in the hazy glow of a moon veiled by clouds as twenty-four horsemen—rifles slung across their backs, pistols holstered under wool coats—traversed the undulating farmland of southwestern Missouri. They slouched in their saddles and retreated deeper into their coats as the temperature dropped steadily.

  Their leader struggled to follow a trail slowly disappearing beneath the falling snow. He’d adopted the alias Shubel Morgan and wore a full beard. To those strung out in a column behind him and to the runaway slave Jim Daniels who rode at his side, the new name and beard were irrelevant. He was still John Brown.

  “No need to worry, Captain,” Daniels called out. “Been down this road before.”

  Daniels had fled across the Missouri border in search of Brown, rumored at the time to be in southeastern Kansas Territory near Fort Scott. If Daniels could find the old man and get his help, he hoped to rescue his pregnant wife and two children from being put up for auction at a nearby plantation whose owner had recently died. The members of Daniels’s family were to be sold separately, and at least one of them was bound for Texas.

  The old man had intended by now to be in the southern Appalachians raiding plantations from Virginia to Alabama, but because of threats made by someone he once trusted, he had to change his plans. He was looking for an excuse to draw attention to himself, something worthy of inclusion in Northern newspapers, something that would placate his principal benefactors: New York’s Gerrit Smith and the five men from Massachusetts—George Luther Stearns, Franklin Sanborn, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Samuel Gridley Howe, and Theodore Parker—all of whom anguished over the possibility they would be linked to him as coconspirators in a slave uprising intended to terrorize the South. Brown was convinced that his God had sent Jim Daniels to him in a time of need. And so—instead of taking his war on slavery into Africa—he was back in Kansas attempting to snatch a handful of slaves from a plantation in Missouri.

  He and his men had left at dusk from the tiny settlement of Trading Post, north of Fort Scott, with Daniels as their guide. Brown recruited half the company himself; the rest were volunteers from James Montgomery’s Free State militia, the Jayhawkers.

  At midnight the column reached the Little Osage River in Missouri’s Vernon County. The plantation where Daniels’s family was quartered was less than a mile away. During the ride Daniels spoke of slaves kept at a neighboring farm; they would be grateful, he said, to be freed from bondage. Brown responded by dividing his men into two groups. Fifteen would stay with him; the remaining eight would go with Aaron Stevens, once introduced to Brown as Colonel Whipple, the powerfully built, dark-eyed young man who escaped from the military stockade at Leavenworth and was the leader of Jim Lane’s Second Kansas Militia. Stevens was now one of the old man’s trusted soldiers.

  “Take whatever you need from the enemy,” Brown told Stevens. “We shall have many miles to travel, many mouths to feed, before we deliver the children of Israel out of Egypt.”

  Stevens nodded. He was accustomed to the biblical allusions. The two men parted, agreeing to rendezvous at the Little Osage when the work was done.

  The wind had freshened, battering Brown with squalls of wet snow, but the weather was of little concern to him. He was leading an armed incursion into a slave state and soon would be liberating human beings from the shackles of slavery. At last he’d been given an opportunity to carry out his mission. It wasn’t what he expected, but he was grateful, and he closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer of thanks.

  At length his party came to a split-rail fence, then an iron-picketed gate hinged between stone pillars. On either side of the pillars the rail fence faded into darkness.

  Daniels said his wife and children waited somewhere beyond the padl
ocked gate.

  Brown pointed to a section of the fence. “Take it down!”

  The men poured through the breach, turning their horses onto a tree-lined lane. In the moon’s dim light the old man was able to make out a two-story house. It loomed like a fortress.

  More than a year and a half had elapsed since Brown departed North Elba with his son Owen, climbing aboard the cars of the New York Central Railroad at Albany. His destination was Kansas with an intermediate stop in Ohio. During the journey he spoke to Owen of his disillusionment with what was happening in the territory. The letters he’d received, the newspaper accounts—all confirmed his worst fears. If politicians like Dr. Charles Robinson had their way, Northern settlers would yield to policies of appeasement and compromise. There would be no more fighting. The slave power was entrenched in Washington and would find a way to perpetuate itself—if not in Kansas, then elsewhere.

  “I may be an old man,” Brown told Owen, “but I don’t intend to die before I fulfill my destiny. God has charged me with a mission. It matters not where I fight. I can die on a plantation in Virginia just as easily as on the prairies of Kansas.”

  Brown came close to dying before he reached Kansas. He spent two months with friends and relatives in Ohio—most of the time recuperating from his chronic illness.

  During his convalescence he wrote letters to Kansas friends inquiring about the likelihood of renewed border conflicts and the availability of recruits for an army of one hundred soldiers. And he continued to ask for money from his principal benefactors.

  Responses were disappointing. His friends urged him to stay put; the border was quiet. Several of his former soldiers had returned to farming. James Holmes, one of the old man’s stalwarts, had staked out a claim in Emporia. In the Northeast, the recession was becoming more severe, money was getting tighter, and Brown’s financial backers were feeling the effects.