Whatever may be the judgment now, the Eastern abolition leaders at that time had no thought of suppressing him, they furnished him sbme moneys and supplies for whatever plan he privately deemed best, feeling sure at least of some bold, heartening stroke for the cause. For many years he had entertained the project of establishing, in the Maryland or Virginia moun tains, a stronghold for fugitive slaves, where they could withstand attacks and if necessary reach Pennsylvania. He thought the knowl edge of this refuge might stimulate the slaves into a dash for freedom, and the insecurity of slave property might drive the South into emancipation. That he could suppose the United States would allow such a guerrilla fortress and firebrand within itsjurisdiction for a day seems scarcely compatible with sanity, but Brown was insane only as all religious, intense idealists tend to become so. At the last, his plan developed into one for a stroke that should startle the country into action, draw recruits to him and leave no chance for compromise or delay. Characteristically, he seems not to have doubted that the country would stand by him He chose to assault the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, thus not only securing arms for his presumed fugitives, but making the country ring; without reflection that this was open war against the nation, and that even the abolitionists could not uphold him. In 1857 he began drilling a small band of adherents at Tabor and Springfield, Iowa, but his trusted drillmaster, Forbes, gave the alarm, and the scheme was postpone& At length, in June 1859, he and some of his men hired a farm near Har per's Ferry, and two of his women came to keep house there; he gradually collected the remainder, 22 men besides himself, with some arms; and late Sunday evening, 16 October, with 18 men, seized the armory and took pos session of the village. He made hostages of some leading citizens, and had a few neighbor ing planters and their slaves brought in. But the remaining citizens armed themselves, as sailed and shot several of Brown's men and surrounded the rest, and on Monday evening Col. Robert E. Lee came from Washington
with a company of marines and cooped Brown and his six remaining men into the engine house. Brown fought there till the two sons with him were killed, and himself supposed to be mortally wounded, before he would sur render. Why he had not retreated to the mountains on capturing the arsenal was never explained, even by himself. He was tried be fore a Virginia court, but defended by Mas sachusetts counsel, sentenced as was inevitable and just, and hanged at Charlestown, W. Va. His testimony at the trial, and his demeanor and language all through, produced an inefface able impression on the North, revealing a char acter of heroic simplicity, purity and grandeur; if his action was mad, he himself was not; and even his adversary, Governor Wise, of Virginia, admired his "clear head, courage, fortitude and simple ingenuousness," and felt him to be wholly truthful. The actual importance of the Harper's Ferry raid, in determining or hasten ing secession, has always been exaggerated, by his friends as praise and by his foes as detrac tion: to suppose that secession would not have come after Lincoln's election, had, there been no such raid, is to ignore all American history for many years previous. But the revolt of the slave power seemed to justify his prevision and action; he became the popular incarnation of the spirit of liberty, its great pioneer and mar tyr; and the slogan of the North was: ((John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on P His nature had something of the sublime; and great natures have their function and service as well as great intellects. No community could exist with such men for statesmen; perhaps none can be great without some such men for prophets.
Sanborn, F. B., (Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas and Martyr of Virginia' (Boston 1885); Bur gess, Civil War and the Constitution' (New York 1901) ; Rhodes, (History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850' (Vol. II, New York 1893) ; Villard, (John Brown, 1800-1859: A Biography Fifty Years After' (Boston and New York 1910).