A voice from Harper's Ferry; a narrative of events at Harper's Ferry

by Osborne P. Anderson

CHAPTER XIX.

THE BEHAVIOR OF THE SLAVES—CAPTAIN BROWN’S OPINION.

Of the various contradictory reports made by slaveholders and their satellites about the time of the Harper’s Ferry conflict, none were more untruthful than those relating to the slaves. There was seemingly a studied attempt to enforce the belief that the slaves were cowardly, and that they were really more in favor of Virginia masters and slavery, than of their freedom. As a party who had an intimate knowledge of the conduct of the colored men engaged, I am prepared to make an emphatic denial of the gross imputation against them. They were charged specially with being unreliable, with deserting Captain Brown the first opportunity, and going back to their masters; and with being so indifferent to the work of their salvation from the yoke, as to have to be forced into service by the Captain, contrary to their will.

On the Sunday evening of the outbreak, when we visited the plantations and acquainted the slaves with our purpose to effect their liberation, the greatest enthusiasm was manifested by them—joy and hilarity beamed from every countenance. One old mother, white-haired from age, and borne down with the labors of many years in bonds, when told of the work in hand, replied: “God bless you! God bless you!” She then kissed the party at her house, and requested all to kneel, which we did, and she offered prayer to God for His blessing on the enterprise, and our success. At the slaves’ quarters, there was apparently a general jubilee, and they stepped forward manfully, without impressing or coaxing. In one case, only, was there any hesitation. A dark-complexioned free-born man refused to take up arms. He showed the only want of confidence in the movement, and far less courage than any slave consulted about the plan. In fact, so far as I could learn, the free blacks South are much less reliable than the slaves, and infinitely more fearful. In Washington City, a party of free colored persons offered their services to the Mayor, to aid in suppressing our movement. Of the slaves who followed us to the Ferry, some were sent to help remove stores, and the others were drawn up in a circle around the engine-house, at one time, where they were, by Captain Brown’s order, furnished by me with pikes, mostly, and acted as a guard to the prisoners to prevent their escape, which they did.

As in the war of the American Revolution, the first blood shed was a black man’s, Crispus Attuck’s, so at Harper’s Ferry, the first blood shed by our party, after the arrival of the United States troops, was that of a slave. In the beginning of the encounter; and before the troops had fairly emerged from the bridge, a slave was shot. I saw him fall. Phil, the slave who died in prison, with fear, as it was reported, was wounded at the Ferry, and died from the effects of it. Of the men shot on the rocks, when Kagi’s party were compelled to take to the river, some were slaves, and they suffered death before they would desert their companions, and their bodies fell into the waves beneath. Captain Brown, who was surprised and pleased by the promptitude with which they volunteered, and with their manly bearing at the scene of violence, remarked to me, on that Monday morning, that he was agreeably disappointed in the behavior of the slaves; for he did not expect one out of ten to be willing to fight. The truth of the Harper’s Ferry “raid,” as it has been called, in regard to the part taken by the slaves, and the aid given by colored men generally, demonstrates clearly: First, that the conduct of the slaves is a strong guarantee of the weakness of the institution, should a favorable opportunity occur; and, secondly, that the colored people, as a body, were well represented by numbers, both in the fight, and in the number who suffered martyrdom afterward.

The first report of the number of “insurrectionists” killed was seventeen, which showed that several slaves were killed; for there were only ten of the men that belonged to the Kennedy Farm who lost their lives at the Ferry, namely: John Henri Kagi, Jerry Anderson, Watson Brown, Oliver Brown, Stewart Taylor, Adolphus Thompson, William Thompson, William Leeman, all eight whites, and Dangerfield Newby and Sherrard Lewis Leary, both colored. The rest reported dead, according to their own showing, were colored. Captain Brown had but seventeen with him, belonging to the Farm, and when all was over, there were four besides himself taken to Charlestown, prisoners, viz: A. D. Stevens, Edwin Coppic, white; John A. Copeland and Shields Green, colored. It is plain to be seen from this, that there was a proper per centage of colored men killed at the Ferry, and executed at Charlestown. Of those that escaped from the fangs of the human bloodhounds of slavery, there were four whites, and one colored man, myself being the sole colored man of those at the Farm.

That hundreds of slaves were ready, and would have joined in the work, had Captain Brown’s sympathies not been aroused in favor of the families of his prisoners, and that a very different result would have been seen, in consequence, there is no question. There was abundant opportunity for him and the party to leave a place in which they held entire sway and possession, before the arrival of the troops. And so cowardly were the slaveholders, proper, that from Colonel Lewis Washington, the descendant of the Father of his Country, General George Washington, they were easily taken prisoners. They had not pluck enough to fight, nor to use the well-loaded arms in their possession, but were concerned rather in keeping a whole skin by parleying, or in spilling cowardly tears, to excite pity, as did Colonel Washington, and in that way escape merited punishment. No, the conduct of the slaves was beyond all praise; and could our brave old Captain have steeled his heart against the entreaties of his captives, or shut up the fountain of his sympathies against their families—could he, for the moment, have forgotten them, in the selfish thought of his own friends and kindred, or, by adhering to the original plan, have left the place, and thus looked forward to the prospective freedom of the slave—hundreds ready and waiting would have been armed before twenty-four hours had elapsed. As it was, even the noble old man’s mistakes were productive of great good, the fact of which the future historian will record, without the embarrassment attending its present narration. John Brown did not only capture and hold Harper’s Ferry for twenty hours, but he held the whole South. He captured President Buchanan and his Cabinet, convulsed the whole country, killed Governor Wise, and dug the mine and laid the train which will eventually dissolve the union between Freedom and Slavery. The rebound reveals the truth. So let it be!

[From the New York Tribune.]

HOW OLD JOHN BROWN TOOK HARPER’S FERRY.

A BALLAD FOR THE TIMES.

[Containing ye True History of ye Great Virginia Fright.]

John Brown in Kansas settled, like a steadfast Yankee farmer,

Brave and godly, with four sons—all stalwart men of might;

There he spoke aloud for Freedom, and the Border-strife grew warmer,

Till the Rangers fired his dwelling, in his absence in the night—

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Came homeward in the morning, to find his house burned down.

Then he grasped his trusty rifle, and boldly fought for Freedom;

Smote from border unto border the fierce invading band;

And he and his brave boys vowed—so might Heaven help and speed ’em!—

They would save those grand old prairies from the curse that blights the land;

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Said—“Boys, the Lord will aid us!” and he shoved his ramrod down.

And the Lord did aid these men, and they labored day and even,

Saving Kansas from its peril—and their very lives seemed charmed;

Till the Ruffians killed one son, in the blesséd light of heaven—

In cold blood the fellows slew him, as he journeyed all unarmed;

Then Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Shed not a tear, but shut his teeth, and frowned a terrible frown.

Then they seized another brave boy—not amid the heat of battle,

But in peace, behind his plough-share—and they loaded him with chains,

And with pikes, before their horses, even as they goad their cattle,

Drove him, cruelly, for their sport, and at last blew out his brains;

Then Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Raised his right hand up to Heaven, calling Heaven’s vengeance down.

And he swore a fearful oath, by the name of the Almighty,

He would hunt this ravening evil, that had scathed and torn him so—

He would seize it by the vitals; he would crush it day and night: he

Would so pursue its footsteps—so return it blow for blow—

That Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Should be a name to swear by, in backwoods or in town!

Then his beard became more grizzled, and his wild blue eye grew wilder,

And more sharply curved his hawk’s nose, snuffing battle from afar;

And he and the two boys left, though the Kansas strife waxed milder,

Grew more sullen, till was over the bloody Border War,

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Had grown crazy, as they reckoned, by his fearful glare and frown.

So he left the plains of Kansas and their bitter woes behind him—

Slipt off into Virginia, where the statesmen all are born—

Hired a farm by Harper’s Ferry, and no one knew where to find him,

Or whether he had turned parson, and was jacketed and shorn,

For Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Mad as he was, knew texts enough to wear a parson’s gown.

He bought no ploughs and harrows, spades and shovels, or such trifles,

But quietly to his rancho there came, by every train,

Boxes full of pikes and pistols, and his well-beloved Sharp’s rifles;

And eighteen other madmen joined their leader there again.

Says Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

“Boys, we have got an army large enough to whip the town!

“Whip the town and seize the muskets, free the negroes, and then arm them—

Carry the County and the State; ay, and all the potent South;

On their own heads be the slaughter, if their victims rise to harm them—

These Virginians! who believed not, nor would heed the warning mouth.”

Says Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

“The world shall see a Republic, or my name is not John Brown!”

’Twas the sixteenth of October, on the evening of a Sunday—

“This good work,” declared the Captain, “shall be on a holy night!”

It was on a Sunday evening, and before the noon of Monday,

With two sons, and Captain Stevens, fifteen privates—black and white—

Captain Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Marched across the bridged Potomac, and knocked the sentinel down;

Took the guarded armory building, and the muskets and the cannon;

Captured all the country majors and the colonels, one by one;

Scared to death each gallant scion of Virginia they ran on,

And before the noon of Monday, I say, the deed was done.

Mad Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

With his eighteen other crazy men, went in and took the town.

Very little noise and bluster, little smell of powder, made he;

It was all done in the midnight, like the Emperor’s coup d’etat:

“Cut the wires: stop the rail-cars: hold the streets and bridges!” said he—

Then declared the new Republic, with himself for guiding star—

This Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown!

And the bold two thousand citizens ran off and left the town.

Then was riding and railroading and expressing here and thither!

And the Martinsburg Sharpshooters, and the Charlestown Volunteers,

And the Shepherdstown and Winchester Militia hastened whither

Old Brown was said to muster his ten thousand grenadiers!

General Brown,

Osawatomie Brown!

Behind whose rampant banner all the North was pouring down.

But at last, ’tis said, some prisoners escaped from Old Brown’s durance,

And the effervescent valor of Ye Chivalry broke forth,

When they learned that nineteen madmen had the marvellous assurance—

Only nineteen—thus to seize the place, and drive them frightened forth;

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Found an army come to take him encamped around the town.

But to storm with all the forces we have mentioned was too risky;

So they hurried off to Richmond for the Government Marines—

Tore them from their weeping matrons—fired their souls with Bourbon whiskey—

Till they battered down Brown’s castle with their ladders and machines;

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Received three bayonet stabs, and a cut on his brave old crown.

Tallyho! the old Virginia gentry gathered to the baying!

In they rush and kill the game, shooting lustily away![A]

And whene’er they slay a rebel, those who come too late for slaying,

Not to lose a share of glory, fire their bullets in his clay;

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Saw his sons fall dead beside him, and between them laid him down.

How the conquerors wore their laurels—how they hastened on the trials—

How Old Brown was placed, half-dying, on the Charlestown Court-House floor—

How he spoke his grand oration, in the scorn of all denials—

What the brave old madman told them—these are known the country o’er.

“Hang Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,”

Said the Judge, “and all such rebels!” with his most judicial frown.

But, Virginians, don’t do it! for I tell you that the flagon,

Filled with blood of Old Brown’s offspring, was first poured by Southern hands:

And each drop from Old Brown’s life-veins, like the red gore of the dragon,

May spring up a vengeful Fury, hissing through your slave-worn lands;

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

May trouble you more than ever, when you’ve nailed his coffin down!