At every evacuation of the place the wildest excitement pervaded the town, and scenes of terror were frequently presented, mingled with ludicrous occurrences. Few, however, could at the time command equanimity enough to appreciate the laughter-moving side of those pictures and see where the joke came in. A few days prior to a retreat a vague rumor of approaching danger could be heard and immediate preparations would be put on foot for a "skedaddle." There were in the town many sympathizers with the rebellion, especially among the fair sex. These were in constant communication with the insurgents, who kept them informed of what was going on within the confederate lines, in return for the news with which they were supplied of the doings of the union troops. While, at heart, thoroughly loyal to the rebel cause, the women of southern proclivities could never keep their information concerning the movements of the confederates entirely secret. The love of talk and the pride in knowing more than their neighbors always betrayed them into giving some hints of what was impending and, in consequence, the townspeople were but seldom taken by surprise. As the enemy approached, the excitement would increase and, finally, a motley crowd of fugitives of every shade of color could be seen tramping along the turnpike to Frederick City, ankle deep in mud or enveloped in a cloud of dust and stewing with heat, according to the season. Ideal socialism existed among them for the time being and a practical illustration of the equality of mankind was frequently exhibited when a darkey of the blackest shade of color, with a wallet well supplied with hard tack and bologna sausages, or a bottle of whiskey, commanded more consideration than the purest Caucasian, though he could trace his lineage to the Crusades or the Norman conquest, if deficient in his commissariat. Uncle Jake Leilic's hotel in Frederick City was the headquarters of the fugitive Harper's Ferry people on these occasions, and assembled there, they contrived to receive intelligence about the movements of the rebels, until the danger had passed away, and the confederates had retreated up the valley. Mr. Leilic deserved well of many refugees whose pecuniary resources became exhausted while they were away from home, and he is remembered by many with gratitude. He was a good, honest, kindhearted, though blunt German—a native of Hesse Darmstadt. He has been dead many years and few there are to fill his place in the estimation of his surviving friends. The retreats were called "skedaddles," a term invented at the time by some wag. The originator in all probability was not aware that a similar word is used by Homer to express the same idea and, if at any time, the inventor should chance to read these pages, or should learn by any other means of the coincidence, the information, no doubt, will afford him the liveliest satisfaction. It must be confessed, however, that the termination "daddle" is not homeric, as it is lacking in dignity and such as would not be tolerated for a moment in the grand old language in which the great bard wrote his sonorous hexameters. A correction in the next edition is, therefore, respectfully suggested.
After the surrender of General Lee a garrison was left at Harper's Ferry, and for more than a year after the restoration of peace were the ear-piercing notes of the fife and the boom of the drum heard on the streets of that place. It may be said with truth that no spot in the United States experienced more of the horrors of the war than that village. The first act of the great tragedy—the Brown raid—was enacted there and, at no time until the curtain fell, was Harper's Ferry entirely unconnected with the performance. Even the cessation of military operations was far from restoring the tranquility that used to reign in this once prosperous and happy little community. In the spring and summer of 1865 many families that had cast their lots with the confederacy returned to the place to find their homes occupied by tenants to whom the national government had rented them as being in a condition of semi-confiscation. Some found their houses occupied by mere squatters who had seized them as so much Treasure Trove, and who impudently asserted their superior right to the property on the score of loyalty, although the government had given no sanction to their occupancy, and was simply passive with regard to the ownership. General Egan, a gallant soldier of the State of New York, was for a short time, in the summer of that year, in command of the post and, filled with pity for the forlorn condition of the hapless owners and indignation at the effrontery of the intruders, he, regardless of technicalities, cleared many of the houses of the riff-raff that had unjustly settled in them and restored them to the former and real proprietors. Unfortunately, this generous, brave and impulsive soldier was moved to some other command, before his noble work of restoration was completed. We have never been able to fully ascertain the identity of this gallant soldier with the General Egan so prominent in the late war with Spain, but assuredly our people at Harper's Ferry owe him a heavy debt of gratitude.
The new State of West Virginia had been created during the war, and Harper's Ferry is the eastern extremity of that state. The then dominant political faction, as usual, persecuted those, who in their day, were so intolerant, and harsh election and school laws were enacted for the purpose of rendering the defeated party incapable of ever again asserting itself. During this state of affairs the writer was elected superintendent of free schools, and never will he forget the perplexities imposed on him by the office. It was his bounden duty to establish schools all over the county, but it was equally incumbent on him by law to see that no teacher was employed for any of the public schools who refused to take an iron-clad oath setting forth his or her unfaltering love for the union and hatred for its enemies, and also, that the applicant for the place of teacher had never given aid in any way to the late rebels. When it is considered that ninety-nine in every hundred of the inhabitants of the county had been in active sympathy with the rebellion, it will be evident that the school superintendent's only way to escape a dilemma was to send to the loyal states for teachers. Again, the salaries paid were too small to tempt people from the north to reside in a hostile land to train pupils rendered refractory by the bad examples of the war and imbued by their parents with a hatred for "Yankees" as all northern people were styled. Finally, the writer, finding it impossible to comply with the letter of an absurd and contradictory law, resolved on following the spirit and underlying principle of all public school legislation, and he took on himself to dispense with all test oaths and employ teachers without reference to their politics. His action in the matter brought him very near to impeachment, but he brazened it out until the expiration of his term. Again, a registration law then enacted, depriving sympathizers with the south of the right to vote at elections, put into the power of county boards to allow or refuse this right at their own sweet wills. Of course, the boards were composed of "loyal men" and it is easy to imagine how petty spite or interest in the election of some candidate for office too often swayed the judges. Those whose property had been injured by the rebels sought recompense by suing before the courts the officers whose men had inflicted the damage, and all these causes, with many others, combined to keep the town and neighborhood in a ferment for several years, so that many thought that they had gained but little by the cessation of actual warfare. Time, however, has happily cured the wounds, though the scars will ever remain, and it is confidently hoped that the historic village—the theme of this little book will flourish again some day—the better, perhaps, for the fiery ordeal through which it has passed—so mote it be!
This concludes an imperfect account of Harper's Ferry in the war, and the writer is impelled to comment on a fact which, although it may have been accidental, appears to have a strange significance for a reflecting mind. Of all the government buildings in the armory inclosure before the war, the only one that escaped destruction in that fearful struggle was John Brown's famous engine-house or fort. Of the occurrence that gave fame to that little building there can be but one opinion from a legal standpoint—that it was a violation of law for which the aggressors paid a just penalty, if we consider obedience to human enactments without reference to the moral code as obligatory on man. On the other hand, it must be admitted that slavery was not only an evil that affected perniciously every member of any community in which it existed, but an anomaly in the model republic of modern times and this civilized century. Who knows then by what providential interference an enthusiastic fanatic may have been selected as an instrument in removing that anomalous stain of slavery from the state that boasts of having given birth to Washington and of containing his ashes, and from this whole nation that now, at least, can truly call itself the Land of the Free! The preservation of this little building was certainly remarkable and, although the present owners of the old armory property have sold—unfortunately, it is thought by many—this interesting little relic of stirring times, and every brick of it has been conveyed away by Chicago speculators, the actions of man do not lessen the significance of the protection accorded to it by Providence from the day when the first active protest against the great wrong of slavery was uttered in fire from its door, until that sin was finally banished from the land. The writer has no intention to dictate to property owners what they ought to do with what belongs to them justly, but he cannot help heaving a sigh for this great sacrifice of sentiment, as well as for the material loss of a great attraction that brought hundreds of people every year to the place to see a curiosity, and incidentally and necessarily, to leave some money behind when they departed. But the site is there yet and it takes but a slight stretch of imagination to prophesy that it will be the Mecca to which many a pilgrim of this land and of other lands will journey in future times as to a shrine consecrated to liberty. Some seventy-five miles farther down the Potomac is another shrine—the grave of Washington—and it is not his countrymen alone who bare their heads in honor of the great man who rests in the consecrated ground. From all civilized lands they come to venerate, and even his ancient foes have been known to lower the haughty flag of their country in his honor. They who come to Mount Vernon do not ask how much right the British or the Americans had on their respective sides in the war of the Revolution. They come to honor the heroic man who did so much for humanity in obedience to his conscience and the same motive will bring many to the site of the famous engine house—people who will not take the trouble to examine the fine-spun sophistries and subtleties we used to hear from politicians before the war, but will honor and revere bona-fide honesty and the heroism that upholds the right and combats wrong, even to the death, despite of legal quibbles. Many will consider it sacrilege to compare George Washington with John Brown, but all must admit that what the former began the latter completed or, at least, put in the way of completion by Abraham Lincoln. All three deserve imperishable monuments for all of them did the best according to their light for the cause of humanity, and "Angels could no more." In 1859 it was a high crime against the laws of Virginia and, we believe, of other states, to teach a man of color the alphabet. In 1866, within a quarter of a mile of John Brown's fort, was established "Storer College" for the education of the ex-slaves and their descendants. Mistaken, fanatical, or criminal as John Brown may have been, if we judge him by the results of his actions at Harper's Ferry, we will not be considered unreasonable, we hope, when we point to this flourishing seat of learning to justify a great deal of favorable consideration for him by posterity. He is getting it already, even in the life-time of many who clamored for his blood, and the heroic old confederate soldiers are not behind in doing honor to his undoubted courage and honesty. Brave men will ever honor the brave.
"Exegi monumentum aere perennius" may well be inscribed on the graves or monuments of those three extraordinary men. No one now grudges it to Washington or Lincoln, and the day will be when all will concede the right to John Brown as well. "Tempora mutantur, nos et, mutamur in illis."
CHAPTER VI.
AFTER THE WAR.
In 1862 Mr. Daniel J. Young, formerly master machinist at the rifle factory, was sent from Washington City to take charge of the ordnance at Harper's Ferry, as also, of all the government property at that place. He was the same who, on the morning of the Brown Raid, ventured to remonstrate with and warn the invaders. We have already given an account of his services to the government and his promotion to the rank of captain in the regular army, and how he was retained at Harper's Ferry from the time of his appointment in 1862 until the end of the war, and still farther, until 1869, when the government interests at the place were disposed of at public sale. In the meantime, he was made defendant in a suit against the government for possession of the most important part of the armory grounds—the plaintiff being Mr. Jacob Brown, of Charlestown, West Virginia, who had a long-standing claim for said property, arising from alleged irregularities in the original purchase. The case was decided in Parkersburg, West Virginia, in August, 1869, Chief Justice Chase presiding at the trial. The verdict was in favor of Captain Young and the government. Some years before Mr. Brown had another suit with the government for another piece of property. This first trial took place in the United States Courts, at Staunton, Virginia, and the result was adverse to Mr. Brown's claim.
During the winter of 1868-69 a bill was introduced into Congress and passed, providing for the sale of the government property at Harper's Ferry. On the 30th of November and the 1st of December, 1869, therefore, it was put up at public auction, and the armory grounds and the site of the rifle factory were purchased by Captain F. C. Adams, of Washington, D. C., for the sum of two hundred and six thousand dollars, with one and two years time for the payment. Most of the houses and lots belonging to the government in other parts of the town were disposed of to citizens on terms similar as to time, and very high prices were offered. Captain Adams represented, as he said, some northern capitalists, and great hopes were entertained for the revival of manufactures at the place and the renewal of the old-time prosperity.
Notwithstanding the great depression of the times—since the war—as far, at least, as Harper's Ferry is concerned—a good deal of enterprise has been exhibited by many of the old citizens of the place. In July, 1867, Mr. A. H. Herr, an extensive manufacturer and the owner of the Island of Virginius, of whom mention has been made in this book several times heretofore, sold his interest at Harper's Ferry to the firm of Child & McCreight, of Springfield, Ohio,—both now deceased. This property is romantically situated on the Shenandoah which bounds it on the south. On the north and east it is bounded by the canal, constructed to facilitate the navigation of the Shenandoah, and on the west by a waste way of the canal communicating with the river. The island contains thirteen acres on which were, before the war, twenty-eight neat dwellings, one flour mill, one cotton factory, one carriage factory, one saw mill, a machine shop and a foundry. It will be remembered that in 1861, shortly after the skirmish at Bolivar, a party of confederates visited the town and destroyed the flour mill. From that time there was no business conducted on the island until the sale of that property to the above mentioned firm. These gentlemen, having availed themselves of the talents of Mr. William F. Cochran, then so well known for his thorough knowledge—theoretical and practical—of machinery, immediately commenced fitting up the cotton factory for a flour mill. A large force of men was kept in employment for fifteen months, preparing the building and putting up the machinery, under the direction of Mr. Cochran. The works were of the most approved description, set in motion by four turbine wheels, the power being that of three hundred horses. There were ten run of buhrs, which turned out five hundred barrels of flour daily and, in the whole, it was said by adepts in that business, to be a marvel of ingenuity, which greatly added to the previous and well-established fame of Mr. Cochran. That gentleman, after varied fortunes and many vicissitudes, lost his life in a railroad accident in Michigan, in January, 1889. He was a native of Scotland and he served some years in the British navy. Messrs. Child & McCreight, the new proprietors of this desirable property, soon won for themselves golden opinions among the people of the place for their courteous demeanor, and the success which at first attended them, gave unalloyed pleasure to all with whom they came in contact. They associated with them as a partner, Mr. Solomon V. Yantis, an old resident and long a merchant of Harper's Ferry, where his character was of the very best as a business man and a good citizen generally. Of the twenty-eight dwellings on the island nearly all were put in repair and the work performed on them, as well as on the new flour mill, gave employment to many who otherwise must have suffered from extreme destitution. Many other improvements have been made in the town since the close of the war and the traces of that fearful struggle were gradually disappearing when the calamity of the great flood of 1870 befell the place and, not only retarded its recovery, but left a part of it in far worse condition than it was at any time in its history. The Presbyterian church had been put, during the rebellion, to the most ignoble uses, the upper part being used for a guard house and the basement for a horse stable. The venerable Dr. Dutton, a gentleman of great piety and deserved popularity, took charge of the congregation soon after war, and by great exertions succeeded in restoring the building to its pristine, neat appearance. Dr. Dutton died some years ago and his death was a severe loss, not only to his own flock, but to the general society of the town and neighborhood.