In relation to this Mr. Sanborn says:[272]
It was about this time that Brown made the unlucky acquaintance of Hugh Forbes, was pleased with him, and engaged him to drill his soldiers at a salary of one hundred dollars a month, even going so far as to pay him six hundred dollars in advance.
Both of these major transactions—the placing of the order for the spears, and the employment of Forbes, as stated—are so discreditable to ordinary intelligence, that they impeach Brown's sanity, except upon the sole hypothesis, that these two men had, at that time, so matured their plans for attempting a revolution, through an insurrection of the slaves, that Brown felt justified in placing the order for the spears, and in engaging the services of a man capable of directing large military operations. It is impossible to believe that Brown contemplated giving up a thousand dollars for a purpose so tame and absurd as the distribution of a thousand spears among the Free-State settlers of Kansas. They were already well armed with modern weapons—fire-arms—and knew how to use them; while the proposal to employ a "drill-master" at such a salary, in view of the state of his treasury, to drill such a lot of nightriders as he could use in Kansas, is quite as preposterous. If Brown needed the services of a drill-master, he knew where one could be had for less money. There were plenty of men available who had served in the volunteer army in Mexico, or had been discharged, or had deserted from the regular army—men of the Aaron D. Stevens class—who were competent to command as well as to drill. He also knew that many such men were ready and anxious to engage in adventures in the Kansas field, who would serve without compensation, other than a share of the prospective plunder.
From the time of his alliance with Forbes, Brown pressed forward steadily, with a single definite ultimate purpose. The conquest of the Southern States was on; and the Osawatomie Guerrilla had become the Soldier of Fortune.
Brown and Forbes moved upon the theory that the slaves were the rightful owners of their masters' property. They believed that every slave regarded his master as an enemy, who denied him a right to his family, and appropriated to himself the fruits of his labor; that freedom was the hope and the dream of every slave; that each lived in a state of expectancy, awaiting the coming of a "Liberator" who would lead them in a crusade for liberty. Also, they believed that every slave would fight for his freedom. Self-constituting themselves "Liberators," they regarded each slave as already enrolled in their service. The problems before them were how to arouse these units of energy; how to incite the slaves to simultaneous activity, and how to organize and direct them as an operating force. The man who had killed his friendly neighbors with nonchalance, and had taken their horses, could not understand why another man, a slave, should hesitate to kill an enemy, such as has been described, and take his horses and lands, and be further rewarded by the benefaction of liberty.
As results of their plotting, and planning, and scheming, they seem to have figured out to their entire satisfaction, how they could destroy the slave-holding population of the Southern States and confiscate their property; and then, with the aid of their negro allies, thus liberated from slavery, and with the assistance of the non-slave-holding whites in the South and the ambitious and daring in the North, who would be lured to join them, they could create an army; invade the South; take possession of the several State governments, and reorganize them under the jurisdiction of a Provisional Government.
Brown was a disunionist,[273] and believed his revolution would result in a dissolution of the Union. His friends—Redpath, Sanborn, Higginson, Smith et al., were disunionists, and he lived in an atmosphere saturated with the toxin of disunion sentiment. Also, he was an optimist, and believed that while he ravaged the South with his bloody scourge, the disunion propaganda in the North would assert itself to his advantage, and create such a diversion in his favor, as would leave him and Forbes free to deal with the South and its problems in their own way. Only under such conditions could he hope to seize the property of slave-holders, "personal and real, wherever and whenever it may be found in either Free or Slave States." From their point of view, or as they hoped to make it appear, their revolution was to be an affair between the citizens of a block of sovereign States, in the result of which the Federal Government would not be especially concerned. They would act within the limits of the States involved for revolutionary purposes, and not in unnecessarily aggressive hostility toward the United States. At the same time, these adventurers well understood that no matter how successful they might be in starting their revolution, there would probably come a time when the Federal army would have to be reckoned with; that the General Government would attempt to intervene in behalf of local order, at least, and might seriously embarrass their operations or wholly defeat them. This visible menace they not only planned to overcome, or eliminate from the problem, but actually to turn it into a valuable asset, by transposing it bodily to their side of the military equation. They planned, in apparent sincerity of purpose, to accomplish what appears to be the most colossal of all imaginable absurdities: to have the men of the United States army abandon their colors and accept service in their army; or, as Brown expressed it, to make an "actual exchange of service from that of Satan to the service of God."
To poison the minds of the soldiery of the Union and to ripen them for revolt against their colors, they planned to begin a campaign of education; to publish and distribute in the army, a series of tracts, for the instruction of the officers and enlisted men in public morals and in patriotism. In the division of their labors, to Forbes was assigned the Department of Literature. In pursuance of his duties, he proceeded to prepare a "Manual of the Patriotic Volunteer," and a tract, which was the first of what was to be a series of tracts, entitled "The Duty of the Soldier."[274] The tract was headed in small type: "Presented with respectful and kind feelings, to the Officers and Soldiers of the United States Army in Kansas." Mr. Villard says[275] the object of the tract was to win them from their allegiance to their colors. That it does this indirectly by asking whether the "Soldiers of the Republic" should be "vile living machines and thus sustain Wrong against Right." That it contained "three printed pages of rambling and discursive discussion of the soldiery of the ancient Republics and of the princes of Antiquity, and a consideration of Authority, legitimate and illegitimate—as ill-fitted as possible an appeal to the regular soldier of 1857." Appended to the copy in his possession is a closing remark in Brown's handwriting as follows:
It is as much the duty of the common soldier of the U. S. Army according to his ability and opportunity, to be informed upon all subjects in any way affecting the political or general welfare of his country; and to watch with jealous vigilance, the course and management of all public functionaries both civil and military: and to govern his actions as a citizen Soldier accordingly: as though he were President of the United States.
Respectfully yours,
A Soldier.