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JOHN BROWN HOLDING HARPER'S FERRY.

to their friends to send a negro apiece as ransom. At daylight, the train proceeded, Brown walking over the bridge with the conductor. Whenever any one asked the object of their captors, the uniform answer was, "To free the slaves;" and when one of the workmen, seeing an armed guard at the Arsenal gate, asked by what authority they had taken possession of the public property, he was answered, "By the authority of God Almighty!" The passenger train that sped eastward from Harper's Ferry, by Brown's permission, in the early morning of Monday, October 17th, left that place completely in the military possession of the insurrectionists. They held, without dispute, the Arsenal, with its offices, workshops, and grounds. Their sentinels stood on guard at the bridges and principal corners, and were seen walking up and down the streets. Every workman, who ignorantly approached the Armory, as day dawned, was seized and imprisoned, with all other white males who seemed capable of making any trouble. By eight o'clock, the number of prisoners had been swelled to sixty-odd, and the work was still proceeding.

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guarded them, one of whom fell dead, and another-Brown's son Watson-was mortally wounded.. Still, throughout the forenoon, the liberators remained masters of the town. There were shots fired from one side or the other at intervals, but no more casualties reported. The prisoners were by turns permitted to visit their families under guard, to give assurance that they still lived and were kindly treated. Had Brown chosen to fly to the mountains with his few followers, he might still have done so, though with a much slenderer chance of impunity than if he had, according to his original plan, decamped at midnight, with such arms and ammunition as he could bear away. Why he lingered, to brave inevitable destruction, is not certain; but it may fairly be presumed that he had private assurances that the negroes of the surrounding country would rise at the first tidings of his movement, and come flocking to his standard; and he chose to court the desperate chances of remaining where arms and ammunition for all could abundantly be had. True, he afterward said that he had arms enough already, either on or about his premises; but, if so, why seize Harper's Ferry at all?

But it was no longer entirely onesided. The white Virginians, who had arms, and who remained unmolested in their houses, prepared to At all events, if his doom was aluse them. Soon after daybreak, as ready sealed, his delay at least hasBrown's guards were bringing two tened it. Half an hour after noon, citizens to a halt, they were fired on a militia force, one hundred strong, by a man named Turner, and, direct- arrived from Charlestown, the county ly afterward, by a grocer named seat, and were rapidly disposed so as Boerly, who was instantly killed by to command every available exit from the return fire. Several Virginians the place. In taking the Shenandoah soon obtained possession of a room bridge, they killed one of the insuroverlooking the Armory gates, and gents, and captured William Thompfired thence at the sentinels who | son, a neighbor of Brown at Elba,

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unwounded. The rifle-works were next attacked, and speedily carried, being defended by five insurgents only. These attempted to cross the river, and four of them succeeded in reaching a rock in the middle of it, whence they fought with two hundred Virginians, who 'lined either bank, until two of them were dead, and a third mortally wounded, when the fourth surrendered. Kagi, Brown's Secretary of War, was one of the killed. William H. Leeman, one of Brown's captains, being pursued by scores, plunged into the river, a Virginian wading after him. Leeman turned round, threw up his empty hands, and cried, "Don't shoot!" The Virginian fired his pistol directly in the youth's face--he was but twenty-two-and shattered his head into fragments.

By this time, all the houses around the Armory buildings were held by the Virginians. Capt. Turner, who had fired the first shot in the morning, was killed by the sentinel at the Arsenal gate, as he was raising his rifle to fire. Here Dangerfield Newby, a Virginia slave, and Jim, one of Col. Washington's negroes, with a free negro, who had lived on Washington's estate, were shot dead; and Oliver Brown, another of the old man's sons, being hit by a ball, came inside of the gate, as his brother Watson had done, lay quietly down without a word, and in a few moments was dead. Mr. Beckham, mayor of the town, who came within range of the insurgents' rifles as they were exchanging volleys with the Virginians, was likewise killed.

At the suggestion of Mr. Kitzmiller, one of Brown's prisoners, Aaron D. Stevens, one of his most trusted

followers from Kansas, was sent out with a flag of truce to call a parley, but was instantly shot down by the Virginians, receiving six balls in his person. Thompson, their prisoner, was attacked by scores of them in the parlor where he was confined, but saved for the moment by a young lady throwing herself between him and their presented rifles, because, as she afterward explained, she "did not want the carpet spoiled." He was dragged out to the bridge, there shot in cold blood, and his body riddled with balls at the base of the pier, whither he had fallen forty feet from the bridge.

By this time, more militia had arrived from every quarter, and a party from Martinsburgh, led by a railroad conductor, attacked the Armory buildings in the rear, while a detachment of the same force assailed them in front. Brown, seeing that his enemies were in overwhelming force, retreated to the engine-house, where he repulsed his assailants, who lost two killed and six wounded.

Still, militia continued to pour in; the telegraph and railroad having been completely repaired, so that the Government at Washington, Gov. Wise at Richmond, and the authorities at Baltimore, were in immediate communication with Harper's Ferry, and hurrying forward troops from all quarters to overwhelm the remaining handful of insurgents, whom terror and rumor had multiplied to twenty times their actual number. At five, P. M., Capt. Simms arrived, with militia from Maryland, and completed the investment of the Armory buildings, whence eighteen prisoners had already been liberated upon the retreat of Brown to the engine-house.

DEFEAT AND CAPTURE OF BROWN.

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At seven in the morning, after a parley which resulted in nothing, the marines advanced to the assault, broke in the door of the enginehouse by using a ladder as a battering-ram, and rushed into the building. One of the defenders was shot and two marines wounded; but the odds were too great; in an instant, all resistance was over. Brown was struck in the face with a saber and knocked down, after which the blow was several times repeated, while a soldier ran a bayonet twice into the old man's body. All the insurgents, it was said, would have been killed on the spot, had the Virginians been able to distinguish them with certainty from their prisoners.

Col. Baylor commanded in chief. | their loss-they had died in a good The firing ceased at nightfall. Brown cause. offered to liberate his prisoners, upon condition that his men should be permitted to cross the bridge in safety, which was refused. Night found Brown's forces reduced to three unwounded whites beside himself, with perhaps half a dozen negroes from the vicinity. Eight of the insurgents were already dead; another lay dying beside the survivors; two were captives mortally wounded, and one other unhurt. Around the few survivors were fifteen hundred armed, infuriated foes. Half a dozen of the party, who had been sent out at early morning by Brown to capture slaveholders, and liberate slaves, were absent, and unable, even if willing, to rejoin their chief. They fled during the night to Maryland and Pennsylvania; but most of them were ultimately captured. During that night, Col. Lee, with ninety United States marines and two pieces of artillery, arrived, and took possession of the Armory guard, very close to the engine-house.

Brown, of course, remained awake and alert through the night, discomfited and beyond earthly hope, but perfectly cool and calm. Said Gov. Wise, in a speech at Richmond soon after:

"Col. Washington said that Brown was the coolest man he ever saw in defying death and danger. With one son dead by his side, and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand, held his rifle | with the other, and commanded his men with the utmost composure, encouraging them to be firm, and to sell their lives as dearly as possible."

Conversing with Col. Washington during that solemn night, he said he had not pressed his sons to join him in this expedition, but did not regret

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Of course, all Virginia, including her Governor, rushed to Harper's Ferry upon learning that all was over, and the insurrection completely suppressed. The bleeding survivors were subjected to an alternation of queries and execrations, which they met bravely, as they had confronted the bullets of their numerous and ever-increasing foes. They answered frankly, save where their replies might possibly compromise persons still at liberty; and none of them sought to conceal the fact that they had struck for Universal Freedom at all hazards. The bearing of Brown was especially praised by his enemies (many of whom have since won notoriety in the ranks of the Rebellion), as remarkably simple and noble. Among others, Mr. C. L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, hastened to visit and catechise Brown, in the hope of making political capital out of his confessions, and was answered

frankly and fully. On his return to | first news of their attempt, and that Ohio, he said:

"It is in vain to underrate either the man

or the conspiracy. Capt. John Brown is as brave and resolute a man as ever headed an insurrection; and, in a good cause, and with a sufficient force, would have been a consummate partisan commander. He has coolness, daring, persistency, the stoic faith and patience, and a firmness of will and purpose unconquerable. He is the farthest possible remove from the ordinary ruffian, fanatic, or madman. Certainly, it was one of the best planned and best executed conspiracies that

ever failed."

On Wednesday evening, October 19th, after thirty hours of this discipline, the four surviving prisoners were conveyed to the jail at Charlestown under an escort of marines. Brown and Stevens, badly wounded, were taken in a wagon; Green and Coppoc, unhurt, walked between files of soldiers, followed by hundreds, who at first cried, "Lynch them !" but were very properly shamed into silence by Gov. Wise.

It is not necessary to linger here over the legal proceedings in this case; nor do the complaints, so freely made at the time, of indecent haste and unfair dealing, on the part of the Virginia authorities, seem fully justified. That the conviction and death of Brown and his associates were predetermined, is quite probable; but the facts and the nature of the case were notorious, beyond dispute; and Virginia had but this alternative to hang John Brown, or to abolish Slavery. She did not choose to abolish Slavery; and she had no remaining choice but to hang John Brown. And as to trying him and Stevens while still weak and suffering severely from their wounds-neither able at times to stand up-it must be considered that the whole State had been terror-stricken by the

fears of insurrection and of an armed rescue were still widely prevalent. That the lawyers of the vicinage who were assigned to the defense of the prisoners did their duty timidly and feebly, is certain; but they shared, of course, not only the prejudices but. the terrors of their neighbors, and knew that the case, at any rate, was hopeless.

Brown's conduct throughout commanded the admiration of his bitterest enemies. When his papers were brought into court to be identified, he said: "I will identify any of my handwriting, and save all trouble. I am ready to face the music." When a defense of insanity was suggested rather than interposed, he repelled it with indignation. When, after his conviction, he was suddenly brought into court, on the 1st of November, to listen to the judgment, and directed to stand up, and say why sentence should not be passed upon him, though taken by surprise and somewhat confused, he spoke gently and tenderly as follows:

"In the first place, I deny every thing but what I have all along admitted-the design on my part to free the slaves. I intended certainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter, when I went into Missouri, and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again, on a larger scale.

That was all I intended. I never did intend

murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to

rebellion, or to make insurrection.

"I have another objection: and that is, it is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I admit has been fairly proved-(for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case)—had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any

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