The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry, with Legends of the Surrounding Country

by Joseph Barry

The strangers continued to fire from their fortress and they now killed another very valuable citizen—Fountain Beckham, for many years agent of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad company at Harper's Ferry, and long a magistrate of Jefferson county. Being a man of nervous temperament he was naturally much excited by the occurrences of the day. Moreover, Heywood Shepherd, the negro shot on the railroad bridge on the previous night, had been his faithful servant and he was much grieved and very indignant at his death. Against the remonstrances of several friends he determined to take a close look at the enemy. He crept along the railroad, under shelter of a watering station, which then stood there and peeped 'round the corner of the building at the engine house opposite, when a bullet from one of Brown's men penetrated his heart and he died instantly. A man named Thompson, said to be Brown's son-in-law, had been taken prisoner a short time before by the citizens and confined in Fouke's hotel under a guard. At first it was the intention of the people to hand him over to the regular authorities for trial, but the killing of Mr. Beckham so exasperated them that the current of their feelings was changed. They rushed into the hotel, seized Thompson and were dragging him out of the house to put him to death, when Miss Christina Fouke, a sister of the proprietor, with true feminine instinct, ran into the crowd and besought the infuriated multitude to spare the prisoner's life. This noble act has elicited the warmest commendations from every party and it may be considered the one redeeming incident in the gloomy history of that unfortunate day. Miss Fouke's entreaties were unheeded, however, and Thompson was hurried to the railroad bridge, where he was riddled with bullets. He tried to escape by letting himself drop through the bridge into the river. He had been left for dead, but he had vitality enough remaining to accomplish this feat. He was discovered and another shower of bullets was discharged at him. He was either killed by the shots or drowned and, for a day or two, his body could be seen lying at the bottom of the river, with his ghastly face still showing what a fearful death agony he had experienced.

Another of the invaders, named Lehman, attempted to escape from the upper end of the armory grounds by swimming or wading the Potomac. He had been seen shortly before conducting one of the armory watchmen, named Edward Murphy, towards the engine house. He kept his prisoner between himself and an armed party of citizens who were stationed on a hill near the government works. More than a dozen guns were raised to shoot him by the excited crowd and, no doubt, he and Murphy would have been killed had not Mr. Zedoc Butt, an old citizen, induced the party not to fire, in consideration of the danger to the innocent watchman. Immediately afterwards, Lehman disappeared for a while, but soon he was seen endeavoring to escape as above mentioned. A volley was fired after him and he must have been wounded, as he lay down and threw up both his arms, as if surrendering. A temporary resident of Harper's Ferry waded through the river to a rock on which Lehman lay, apparently disabled, and deliberately shot him through the head, killing him instantly. His body, too, lay for a considerable time where he fell, and it could be seen plainly from the high ground west of the armory. The slayer now asserts that Lehman first drew his pistol to shoot at him.

A little before night Brown asked if any of his captives would volunteer to go out among the citizens and induce them to cease firing on the fort, as they were endangering the lives of their friends—the prisoners. He promised on his part that, if there was no more firing on his men, there should be none by them on the besiegers. Mr. Israel Russel undertook the dangerous duty—the risk arose from the excited state of the people who would be likely to fire on anything seen stirring around the prison house—and the citizens were persuaded to stop firing in consideration of the danger incurred of injuring the prisoners. Like Messrs. Kitzmiller and Cross, Mr. Russel, it will be readily supposed, did not return to captivity. It is certain that the people of the place would have disposed of Brown and his party in a very short time, had they not been prevented all along from pushing the siege vigorously, by a regard for the lives of their fellow townsmen, who were prisoners. As it was, they had killed, wounded or dispersed more than three-fourths of the raiders and, consequently, the sneers that were afterwards thrown out against their bravery, were entirely uncalled for and were by parties who, in the subsequent war, did not exhibit much of the reckless courage which they expected from peaceful citizens, taken by surprise and totally at a loss for information as to the numbers and resources of their enemies.

It was now dark and the wildest excitement existed in the town, especially among the friends of the killed, wounded and prisoners of the citizens' party. It had rained some little all day and the atmosphere was raw and cold. Now, a cloudy and moonless sky hung like a pall over the scene of war and, on the whole, a more dismal night cannot be imagined. Guards were stationed 'round the engine house to prevent Brown's escape and, as forces were constantly arriving from Winchester, Frederick City, Baltimore and other places to help the Harper's Ferry people, the town soon assumed quite a military appearance. The United States' authorities in Washington had been notified in the meantime, and, in the course of the night, Colonel Robert E. Lee, afterwards the famous General Lee of the Southern Confederacy, arrived with a force of United States' marines, to protect the interests of the government, and kill or capture the invaders. About 11 o'clock at night Brown again endeavored to open negotiations for a safe conduct for himself and his men out of the place. Colonel Shriver and Captain Sinn, of the Frederick troops, had a conference with him which, however, did not result in anything satisfactory. About 7 o'clock on Tuesday morning—October 18th—Colonel Lee sent, under a flag of truce, Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, of the 1st Cavalry regiment—afterwards so famous for his exploits in the service of the confederacy—who had accompanied Colonel Lee from Washington, to summon the garrison to surrender. Knowing the character of Brown, Colonel Lee did not hope for any success in trying to induce him to lay down his arms, and he sent Lieutenant Stuart merely through solicitude for the prisoners and a desire to use every expedient in his power before ordering an assault and subjecting them to the danger of being injured by mistake in the melee. As anticipated, Brown stubbornly refused to surrender and, therefore, about 8 o'clock, an attack was made by the marines under Lieutenant Greene. At first, they tried to break open the door with sledge hammers, but failing in this they picked up a large ladder that lay near and with that used as a battering ram they succeeded in making a breach. Through a narrow opening thus made, Lieutenant Greene squeezed himself, but he found that the insurgents had barricaded the door with a fire engine and hose that were in the building. Over these obstructions Lieutenant Green scrambled, followed by his men and attacked Brown who, with his party, was fortified behind the engine. It is said that one of Brown's men offered to surrender and that Brown announced the man's willingness to do so, but, for some reason, the offer was not accepted. While the marines were effecting a breach and when they commenced to rush in, the enemy fired on them and one of the soldiers—Luke Quinn—was mortally wounded and another, named Rupert, had his upper lip badly lacerated. The former was shot through the body and, if the latter is still alive, he certainly has an ugly scar to remind him and the others of John Brown's raid. The insurgents were all bayoneted or captured, but fortunately none of the citizen prisoners received any injury. Their escape, indeed, was almost miraculous, as it was difficult for the marines to distinguish them from the enemy. Brown himself was wounded severely by Lieutenant Greene and he was taken to another building where his injuries were examined by a physician and his wounds dressed. He received a cut on the head and a sword thrust in the shoulder. Two or three survivors of his men were kept in the engine house, under a guard of marines. The bodies of the slain raiders were collected soon after from the streets and rivers and, with one exception, buried in a deep pit on the southern bank of the Shenandoah, about half a mile above Harper's Ferry, and the prisoners—Brown included—were lodged in Charlestown jail. One body was taken away by some physicians for dissection, and, no doubt, the skeleton is now in some doctor's closet. After having lain just forty years in this rude grave by the Shenandoah, the bodies of the slain raiders were disinterred about three years ago (1899) and taken to North Elba, New York, where they now rest close to the grave of their famous leader. This removal and reinterment were accomplished through the efforts and under the auspices of Professor Featherstonhaugh, of Washington, D. C., who has ever taken a deep interest in everything appertaining to John Brown and famous raid. Can fiction imagine anything more weird than the reality of the sad fate of those men?

Some of Brown's men had escaped, however, from the place, in the course of the skirmish, and Cook had not been noticed at all in the fray or in the town since an early hour on Monday morning, when he was seen to cross the Potomac on the bridge into Maryland with a few others, taking with him two horses and a wagon captured at Colonel Washington's place on the previous night, and two or three slaves belonging to that gentleman. There was satisfactory evidence, however, of his being fully implicated in the outrage and it was ascertained that he, Owen Brown—one of old John's sons—and others had been detailed to operate on the Maryland shore and that they had seized a schoolhouse, taken the Domine—McCurrie—prisoner and driven away the pupils, for the purpose of establishing at the place a depot for arms convenient to Harper's Ferry. It was learned, also, that all the day of the 17th, they had kept up a musketry fire from the Maryland mountain on the people of the town, and that late in the evening Cook had got supper at the canal lockhouse, on the Maryland side of the river. Moreover, it was supposed that, finding the fate of war against them, they had fled towards Pennsylvania. A large body of men, under Captain Edmund H. Chambers, an old citizen and a man of well known courage, marched towards the Schoolhouse and the Kennedy farm and, at each place they found a large number of Sharp's rifles, pistols, swords, &c., with a corresponding quantity of powder, percussion caps and equipments of various kinds. A swivel cannon carrying a one pound ball was discovered, also, in a position to command the town, although it is not known that it was used during the skirmish. A large number of pikes of a peculiar form, and intended for the hands of the negroes, was also found. The blacks were expected to turn out at the first signal, and this weapon was considered to be better suited to them than firearms, especially at the commencement of the campaign. It should have been mentioned before that Brown had put into the hands of his negro prisoners some of these pikes, but, up to the time of the discovery of the magazine at the Kennedy farm, the object of this novel weapon was not fully understood. Captain Chambers' party found, also, a great number of papers which tended to throw light on the conspiracy and several hundred copies of a form of provisional government to be set up by Brown as soon as he had got a footing in the south.

The Governor of Virginia, Henry A. Wise, had arrived in the meantime. He immediately took every precaution to secure the prisoners and guard the state against any attempt from the many allies Brown was thought to have in the north. Governor Wise indulged in many uncalled for strictures on the people of Harper's Ferry, for their supposed inefficiency as soldiers on this occasion, boasting that he could have taken Brown with a penknife. This he might have done if the handle was long enough to allow him to keep beyond rifle range while he was punching the old man through the key hole, but with an ordinary penknife or even with a minie musket and bayonet, it is doubtful if the governor could have done more than was performed by many a mechanic of Harper's Ferry in the skirmish of Monday. In the subsequent war Governor Wise held quite an important command and history does not record of him any of the wonderful feats of skill or courage that might be expected from a man so confident of his own prowess as the governor was when sneering at a brave people taken by surprise and unarmed, when an unexpected attack was made on them. To Governor Wise Brown confessed the whole plan for liberating the slaves and, indeed, he had, all along, communicated to his prisoners his intentions, but, as before noted, he kept his captives isolated as much as possible and, in consequence, the people generally had but a vague suspicion of his purpose. It is true that the party at the rifle factory had informed Mr. Young of their objective, but so many wild rumors had been started before his interview with them, and there was so much general confusion that "neither head nor tail" could be found for the strange occurrences of the day. The governor who, although he exhibited a great deal of petulance on this occasion, was certainly a gallant man himself, could not refrain from expressing admiration for Brown's undaunted courage, and it is said that he pronounced the old man honest, truthful and brave.

The interview between these two men of somewhat similar character, though of diametrically opposite views on politics, is said to have been very impressive. It lasted two hours and those who were present reported that Brown exhibited a high order of uncultivated intellect in his conversation with the highly educated and polished governor of Virginia. It is said, also, that in the course of this interview, Brown foretold the utter destruction of Harper's Ferry to take place in a very short time—a prophecy which, if uttered at all, has met with a terrible and literal fulfillment. Brown, Wise and the group surrounding them while this conversation was in progress, would furnish a fine theme for a picture. The stern, old Puritan with his bleeding wounds and disordered dress, his long, gray beard and wild gleaming eyes, like some prophet of old, threatening the wrath of Heaven on a sinful generation, and the stately governor of Virginia reminding one of some cavalier of Naseby or Worcester—each firm and true as the blade he carried and each a type of the noble though fanatical race from which he sprang, would make an impressive picture and, perhaps, the scene will exercise, some day, the genius of a future painter.

On Wednesday night, October 19th, while the fever of excitement was yet at its height, a gentleman residing in Pleasant Valley, Maryland, about three miles from Harper's Ferry, heard a rumor that the "abolitionists" and the slaves were butchering the people around Rohrsville, a few miles farther up the same valley, and very properly gave notice of what he had heard, riding furiously through Sandy Hook, towards the centre of the trouble, the government armory. The people of Sandy Hook, men, women and children rushed wildly towards the same point for protection at the hands of the troops there assembled, while the people of Harper's Ferry were equally wild with this new excitement. The marines who were yet at the place turned out and marched to the point designated, where their appearance caused another and more reasonable alarm among the people there, who had not been disturbed by Brownites, white or black and who, for a long time, could not be convinced that the soldiers had come to protect and not molest them. Sandy Hook was totally deserted by its people on this occasion, and many of them hurried away whatever of their portable property they deemed most valuable. It is said that one man shouldered a half-grown hog of a favorite breed and made tracks to Harper's Ferry, and, as he and his neighbors scoured along the road, the squeals of the indignant pig blended harmoniously with the multifarious noises of the flying column. The marines, finding no enemy, returned to Harper's Ferry, but, for many weeks afterwards, similar alarms were started by nervous or mischievous people with nearly the same results.

Harper's Ferry was now patrolled every night by details of citizens until the execution of Brown, which took place near Charlestown, December 2d, 1859. Many a midnight tramp did the author take along the muddy streets that winter with an old Hall's rifle on his shoulder when his turn came to watch out for prowling abolitionists. The companion of his watch was a worthy Milesian gentleman named Dan. O'Keefe, from "the beautiful city called Cork." They made it a point to watch Dan's house particularly, through a very natural praiseworthy anxiety on the part of that gentleman for the safety of his better half and several pledges of love presented from time to time by that excellent lady to her lord and master, as well as for the sake of a corpulent flask which the hospitable Hibernian never failed to produce from a cupboard, near the door, when in their rounds, they came to his house. As the night and the contents of the flask waned, the courage of the brothers-in-arms arose and it is fortunate, perhaps, for the fame of Horatius Cocles, Leonidas and other celebrated defenders of bridges or passes that no abolitionists attempted to cross to "the sacred soil of Virginia" while those worthies were on guard and full of patriotic enthusiasm and whiskey punch. No doubt, their exploits would have eclipsed those of the above mentioned Roman and Greek and of anybody else who has gained celebrity by blocking the passage of an enemy. Several companies of armorers were organized for the defense of the place and, once a week did they display all "the pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war" marching and countermarching along the streets, to the delight of the ladies, the children and, no doubt, of themselves, as well as to the terror of any book peddler from the north who might be in the neighborhood and who might reasonably be suspected of being opposed to slavery. A force of United States troops under Captain Seth Barton, afterwards prominent in the service of the confederacy, was stationed at Harper's Ferry and, gradually, quiet was restored. A Milesian warrior, named Sergeant McGrath of the above troop was detailed to instruct the awkward squad of citizens in the manual of arms and his deep Munster Doric could be heard on parade evenings thundering his commands to refractory recruits.

Cook and another of Brown's party, named Albert Hazlett, were arrested in Pennsylvania and brought back to Virginia on requisitions. This circumstance furnished a lesson to the fanatics who unhappily abounded on both sides of Mason and Dixon's line. To the southern men it ought to have proved that the people of the north did not sympathize to any great extent with the invaders of Virginia and to the northern people who expressed themselves as being shocked at the want of clemency exhibited by the state of Virginia on this occasion, it showed that among themselves were men who were ready to deliver over Brown's party to the tender mercies of the slave holders for the sake of a few hundred dollars offered as a reward for this service.