All the Powers of Earth

by Sidney Blumenthal

  On August 25, Secretary of War John B. Floyd received an urgent letter explaining in precise detail the plot of “Old John Brown” to “strike the blow in a few weeks” at Harpers Ferry. Floyd ignored the warning, later claiming the letter “confused me a bit” and that Brown’s scheme was beyond his comprehension. The authorship of what became known as the “Floyd letter” remained a mystery for thirty-six years. David J. Gue, twenty-three years old, a Quaker living in Iowa, had learned of Brown’s plan from a friend at the town of Springdale, where Brown spent a couple of weeks on his way east from Kansas. Gue believed that betraying Brown would prompt the army to increase the guard at Harpers Ferry, thwart the plan, and save Brown’s life. He “anxiously” scanned the papers for news that his letter had achieved his aim. (Gue would become a New York artist and paint Grant’s portrait.)

  In early September, Brown told his company of his plan to seize and hold the arsenal at Harpers Ferry. He faced a general revolt. “You know how it resulted with Napoleon when he rejected advice in regard to marching with his army to Moscow,” said his son Owen. Brown threatened to resign, but the dissenters caved, and “within five minutes, he was again chosen as the leader.” Brown told Owen, “We have here only one life to live, and once to die; and if we lose our lives it will perhaps do more for the cause than our lives could be worth in any other way.” His mission was revolutionary suicide.

  Brown summoned Frederick Douglass to meet him in an isolated quarry at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Brown appeared in the guise of a fisherman with a rod. Sitting among the rocks, he told Douglass, “He had completely renounced his old plan, and thought that the capture of Harper’s Ferry would serve as notice to the slaves that their friends had come, and as a trumpet, to rally them to his standard. He described the place as to its means of defence, and how impossible it would be to dislodge him if once in possession.” Douglass argued that his plan would be “fatal.” He was familiar with the geography of Harpers Ferry, a hub of transportation, with many avenues in and out, the arsenal exposed at a low point and an easy target from above—“a perfect steel-trap and that once in he would never get out alive; that he would be surrounded at once and escape would be impossible,” said Douglass. “He was not to be shaken by anything I could say.” Brown explained he would take “the best citizens” hostage and “dictate terms.” Douglass was astonished at his fantasy and told him, “Virginia would blow him and his hostages sky high.” Brown threw his arms around Douglass. “Come with me, Douglass, I will defend you with my life. I want you for a special purpose. When I strike, the bees will begin to swarm, and I shall want you to help hive them.” Douglass refused the offer. “Such then,” he wrote, “was my connection with John Brown.”

  The sudden arrival of a windfall of cash served as a preliminary trigger. On October 14, Francis Jackson Meriam, twenty-two years old, frail but volatile, blind in one eye, entered the law office of Alexander K. McClure in Chambersburg asking him to write his will, bequeathing his estate to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Meriam was the grandson and namesake of Francis Jackson, a prominent abolitionist devoted to Garrison and nonviolence, Boston city councilor, and wealthy real estate mogul. Meriam was an unstable manic-depressive, “in a state of mental excitement bordering on insanity,” said Howe. He had traveled to Haiti with Redpath as a sidekick and was desperate to join Brown’s expedition. On the street in Boston he encountered Lewis Hayden, a free black leader, former fugitive slave, recruiting agent for Brown, and privy to the proceedings of the Secret Six, who informed him that Brown was being held up by a lack of funds. Meriam drew $600 in gold from his inheritance and under the direction of Sanborn and Higginson, with the knowledge of Stearns, made his way to Brown’s hideout. “I consider him about as fit to be on this enterprise as the devil is to keep a powder house; but everything has its use and must be put to it if possible,” Sanborn wrote Higginson, adding “out of the mouths of babes and suckling come dollars by the hundred, and what is wisdom compared to that?” The day before the raid Meriam was inducted into the charmed circle. The articles of the Provisional Constitution were read aloud to him and Brown administered an oath of loyalty and secrecy. (Meriam would remain behind dispensing weapons, manage to flee, and escape with his life. During the war in an unexpected reunion he served as a captain under Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson with the South Carolina Colored Volunteers.)

  Another trigger appeared to be the information that many of the weapons stored at the Harpers Ferry armory were about to be shipped to forts elsewhere. Brown did not understand that he had picked up the first evidence of Floyd’s early orders to shift matériel out of reach of the North to Southern armories in anticipation of an unfavorable result in the 1860 election that would prompt secession. Brown simply wanted to grab the guns.

  Some within the company believed that further recruits to “headquarters” would arrive within three weeks. But it’s likely that no more volunteers were coming, that their hope was rumor. Brown told them the date for the attack was fixed on October 25, but he had been enigmatically changeable in the past. Osborne P. Anderson, a surviving black member of the party, wrote “the men at the Farm had been so closely confined, that they went out about the house and farm in the day-time during that week, and so indiscreetly exposed their numbers to the prying neighbors.” Brown impulsively moved the attack forward against the resistance of most of his men. How much longer could he hold the claustrophobic group without risking exposure? From a rigid preconception he created an internally unstable and unsustainable environment that was combustible. Ultimately, Brown was his own trigger.

  Early on Sunday morning, October 16, John Brown roused the men, read Bible verses, and led a prayer for “the liberation of the bondmen.” The Provisional Constitution was recited, military commissions formally assigned, and orders given. Eighteen men were to be in the attacking unit and four to handle matters at “headquarters.” At eight that evening, Brown said, “Men, get on your arms. We will proceed to the Ferry.” He climbed into his wagon filled with weapons and a crowbar, doffed the cap he wore in Kansas, and announced, “Come, boys!”

  Upon entering Harpers Ferry, Brown’s men cut the telegraph wires, seized two watchmen as prisoners, and easily occupied the armory and arsenal. Meanwhile, six of his men broke into the house several miles away of Lewis W. Washington, great-grandnephew of President Washington. They demanded his guns, Lafayette’s pistol, and the sword that Frederick the Great had given as a gift to George Washington. Then they asked for his watch and cash, which Washington refused. “I presume you have heard of Ossawatomie Brown?” he was asked. He had not. “Well,” he was told, “you will see him this morning.” He and four of his slaves were taken hostage. The entourage moved to the farm of a neighbor, John H. Allstadt, and also took him, his son, and six slaves. To Washington’s astonishment they were driven to the armory. Until then he had assumed he was the victim of a robbery. Brown and his men broke the gates to the armory with a sledgehammer and crowbar. “I want to free all the negroes in this state,” Brown told the watchman. “I have possession now of the United States armory, and if the citizens interfere with me I must only burn the town and have blood.” The captured slaves were handed pikes and ordered to guard their masters and drill holes for shooting. “I presume you are Mr. Washington,” said Brown. “I wanted you particularly for the moral effect it would give our cause, having one of your name as a prisoner.”

  The plan began to unravel from a single isolated incident that soon cascaded out of control. One watchman on the Maryland bridge, Patrick Higgins, escaped, though suffering a superficial scalp wound from a bullet. When the Baltimore and Ohio train pulled into town at 1:25 a.m. he warned the conductor there were dangerous men shooting. The engineer and baggage-master walked out to see for themselves and were fired on. Shepherd Hayward, the porter at the station, a free black, appeared, searching for the missing Higgins. Brown’s men shouted for him to halt, but confused or scared he turned to walk back to th
e station and was shot in the back. He writhed in agony for twelve hours until he died. Thus, the first victim of Brown’s liberation of the slaves was a free black man.

  The next man killed was Thomas Boerley, a grocer, who wandered out of his home to check on the nighttime racket. He was shot by Dangerfield Newby, a free slave who had joined Brown’s band with the dream of freeing his slave wife and seven children. Boerley was shot “without a word of warning . . . with as little compunction as if he had been a mad dog,” according to an eyewitness. Then, on High Street, Newby shot dead George Turner, a West Point graduate and well-respected local squire, who came to town because he had heard his friend Lewis Washington had been abducted.

  Brown boasted to the train conductor that he had captured Harpers Ferry to free the slaves and inexplicably allowed the train to continue on its route in the morning. When it arrived in Monocacy at seven a.m., the conductor telegraphed the superintendent, and the news spread at lightning speed up a chain of command to Governor Wise and President Buchanan, and quickly down the chain to the Maryland Volunteers, who set out for Harpers Ferry. Meanwhile, the town’s physician, John D. Starry, after treating the lightly wounded Higgins and mortally wounded Hayward, observed Brown bringing the hostages into the armory, jumped on a horse, and rode all night, arousing everyone along the way. By the time he reached Charles Town on the morning of the 17th church bells were sounding the alarm and the Jefferson Guards were hurtling toward Harpers Ferry.

  Feeling secure within the engine house of the armory, Brown captured more than thirty more prisoners, workers and soldiers coming to the armory as they did every morning. Brown ordered breakfast for forty-five people from the local tavern. Kagi, stationed at the rifle works, urged Brown to flee immediately with his weaponry into the countryside. Townspeople began shooting at the armory. Brown decided he would negotiate with his prisoners about arranging a cease-fire that would allow him to hold the fortified position unmolested. “Hold on a little longer, boys, until I get matters arranged with the prisoners,” he told his men, who took the “tardiness of our brave leader,” according to Anderson, “to be an omen of evil by some of us.” By noon, the Jefferson Guards marched in. Dangerfield Newby was shot through the throat with a six-inch spike. His corpse was dragged through the street, his ears cut off, and pigs herded to feast on his body. Brown was trapped. Hundreds of militiamen from far and wide occupied the heights and started a festive turkey shoot. Jugs of whiskey were passed around. “Kill them, kill them!” they chanted.

  Brown sent out one of his raiders, Will Thompson, under a flag of truce with a delusional idea he would negotiate something. Thompson was instantly arrested. Brown sent out two more men under a white flag, Aaron D. Stevens and Brown’s son Watson, who were cut down. Stevens was badly wounded. Watson was mortally shot but managed to drag himself back to the engine house. Willie H. Leeman, a frightened teenaged recruit, dashed out of the armory hoping to escape across the Potomac. His brains were blown out and his body rolled into the river where it was used for target practice. Kagi and two others at the rifle works tried to get away. He was killed at once and left in the shallow water. Another was mortally wounded and died the next day. A third was arrested. Fontaine Beckham, the decades-long serving mayor and B&O station agent, closely attached to Heyward Shepherd, and unarmed, was shot dead standing on the depot platform while trying to see what was going on. His death inflamed the militiamen, who dragged Will Thompson to the Potomac, shot him in the head, shoved his body next to Leeman’s, and also used it for target practice.

  Oliver Brown, another son, caught a bullet while he was firing from the engine house. He asked his father to put him out of his misery. “Oh, you will get over it,” said Brown. “If you must die, die like a man.” During the cold dark night in the engine house, Oliver Brown curled in a corner and died. When Brown called out to him and he failed to answer, he said, “I guess he is dead.” Watson Brown lay in another corner bleeding to death. Two of Brown’s men, Dauphin Thompson and Jeremiah G. Anderson, spoke up. “Are we committing treason against our country by being here?” they asked Brown. “Certainly,” he replied. “If that is so, we don’t want to fight any more,” they said. “We thought we came to liberate the slaves and did not know that that was committing treason.” Two others, Albert Hazlett and Osborne Anderson, slipped out the back, and managed to get across the river into the hills. (Hazlett was captured and hung. Anderson was guided through the Underground Railroad to Canada and would later join the Union army.) The handful of slaves that had been taken from nearby plantations and armed quietly ran away into the night. Brown sleeplessly walked around inside the engine house wearing the sword of Frederick the Great.

  Before midnight, the U.S. Marines arrived under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart. They waited for dawn. Stuart delivered a note from Lee addressed to Brown demanding his surrender and telling him he could not escape. “Well, lieutenant, I see we can’t agree,” he told Stuart. Lee ordered the building stormed. The door was broken down. Brown’s men opened fire, killing two marines. Soldiers bayoneted Dauphin Thompson and Jeremiah Anderson to death. Lieutenant Israel Greene struck Brown with his sword but only wounded him. The troops took eleven prisoners, “the sorriest lot of people I ever saw,” said Greene. Apart from the dead, dying, and wounded, the survivors were cold, hungry, and in terror of being killed. As they were brought out, the crowd chanted, “Hang them, hang them!” Brown was taken into the paymaster’s office of the armory, his wounds tended, and given food and water. “I recovered the sword,” Lewis Washington would testify. “Brown carried that in his hand all day Monday, and when the attacking party came on he laid it on a fire engine, and after the rescue I got it.”

  Had Israel Greene’s sword been sharper and his blow decisive, John Brown would only be remembered for the raid and not the trial and execution. His martyrdom would have been wretched. His mad revolution, his willful incompetence, his defiance of all caution and reason, and his trail of murders, thievery, frauds, and dissembling would have hung his reputation without the last noble chapter to cast a glow. Brown’s great good luck was to escape being run through in the engine house. Nothing he planned went right, and his survival was a thing of chance. It was what he was playing for all along, but his death came off better than anything he ever organized.

  Brown would not become a new Cromwell and his ragtag band bore no resemblance to the New Model Army, but with his doom foreordained he followed the stations of the cross of Charles I. Brown drew on a familiar text. His self-possession and sympathetic gestures paralleled the description of the monarch awaiting execution in Brown’s favorite biography of Cromwell, by Headley, a volume that had once inspired him to contemplate an autobiography casting himself in the role of Cromwell. He failed as Cromwell triumphant, but succeeded as Cromwell defeated, acting out Charles condemned.

  Through his self-control, the captive King Charles I gains control. He no longer holds mastery over his realm but of himself in the inexorable circumstances of his death. “I am not afraid,” Charles tells a weeping supporter. He refuses plans for escape, blesses his children, and hides his grief. “The last hours of Charles, were his best,” wrote Headley, “and he never appeared so much a king, as when he mounted the scaffold. After forgiving his enemies—praying in the presence of the awe-struck multitude, and declaring his confidence that he was going from a corruptible, to an incorruptible, crown, he lay calmly down, and putting aside his clustering hair, himself gave the signal to strike.” Confounding his executioners, the “death of the king was compared to the crucifixion of Christ.” His saintlike performance removed the burden from his murderous tyranny. The regicides bore the guilt. “So, the execution of Charles, who accounted the rights of his people as nothing, was a damning act. . . . Sympathy, rather than principle, has converted him into a martyr.”

  Brown brought to his own last act the same zealotry but greater persuasiveness than he had brought to his thirty-six-hour r
evolution. His ultimate fiasco became his ultimate coup. His failed role as blood-curdling liberator was a rehearsal for his successful curtain call as suffering scapegoat. His invasion of Harpers Ferry was a tragic catastrophe, but his performance as a prisoner was a tragic masterpiece.

  On the afternoon of October 19, John Brown lay on his side on the floor of the armory, his face and clothes streaked with blood, his hair matted, his wounds bandaged, exhausted, crushed, two of his sons dead nearby. Standing around him assembled his first questioners, a notable and intimidating panel of Senator James M. Mason of Virginia, who had hurried to the scene from his Winchester home; Congressman Alexander R. Boteler, who represented the district and had witnessed many of the events; Congressman Clement Vallandigham of Ohio, who would later become the leader of the pro-Confederate Copperheads opposed to President Lincoln; Governor Wise; Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart; a local doctor; and a reporter from the New York Herald, who recorded the interrogation. Bedraggled and filthy, Brown rose in stature with every question from those looming above him. His arms had proved ridiculously inadequate in his defense, but his words defeated whatever they fired at him. He summoned a reserve of eloquence more pointed than his pikes. They had him as their prisoner, but they could not escape him. The more they tried to fasten the crime to him, the tighter he bound the chains of their greater guilt around them.