When the news of Brown’s raid was telegraphed to Washington, Lieutenant Stuart, who was at the capital attending to the sale of his patent saber attachment, was requested to bear a secret order to Lieutenant-Colonel Robert E. Lee, his old superintendent at West Point, who was then at his home, Arlington, near Washington city. Stuart learned that Colonel Lee had been ordered to command the marines who were being sent to suppress the insurrection at Harper’s Ferry, and he at once offered to act as aid-de-camp. Colonel Lee, who remembered Stuart well as a cadet, immediately accepted his offer of service.

Upon arriving at Harper’s Ferry on the night of October 17, they found that John Brown and his men were still in the engine house, defying the citizen soldiers who surrounded the building. Colonel Lee proceeded to surround the engine house with the marines; at daylight, wishing to avoid bloodshed, he sent Lieutenant Stuart to demand the surrender of the fanatical men, promising to protect them from the fury of the citizens until he could give them up to the United States government.

When Lieutenant Stuart advanced to the parley, Brown, who had assumed the name of Smith, opened the door four or five inches only, placed his body against it, and held a loaded carbine in such a position that, as he stated afterward, he might have “wiped Stuart out like a mosquito.” Immediately the young officer recognized in the so-called Smith the identical John, or “Ossawatomie,” Brown who had caused so much trouble in Kansas. Brown refused Colonel Lee’s terms and demanded permission to march out with his men and prisoners and proceed as far as the second tollgate. Here, he declared, he would free his prisoners and if Colonel Lee wished to pursue he would fight to the bitter end.

Stuart said that these terms could not be accepted and urged him to surrender at once. When Brown refused, Stuart waved his cap, the signal agreed upon, and the marines advanced, battered down the doors, and engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the insurgents. Ten of Brown’s men were killed by the marines and all the rest, including Brown himself, were wounded.

That same day, Lieutenant Stuart, under Colonel Lee’s orders, went to a farm about four miles and a half away that Brown had rented and brought back a number of pikes with which Brown had intended to arm the negroes. Colonel Lee was then ordered back to Washington and Stuart went with him. John Brown and seven of his men were tried, were found guilty of treason, and were hanged.

The John Brown Raid cast a great gloom over the country. While many people in the North regarded Brown as a martyr to the cause of emancipation, the southern people were justly indignant at the thought that their lives and property were no longer safe from the plots of the Abolition party which Brown had represented. The bitter feelings aroused by this affair culminated, in 1861, in the bloody War of Secession.

CHAPTER III
A COLONEL OF CONFEDERATE CAVALRY
1861

There seems to have been no doubt in the mind of Lieutenant Stuart as to what he should do in the event of Virginia’s withdrawal from the Union. As soon as he heard that the Old Dominion had seceded, he forwarded to the War Department his resignation as an officer in the United States army, and hastening to Richmond, he enlisted in the militia of his native state. Like most other southerners, he preferred poverty and hardships in defense of the South to all the honors and wealth which the United States government could bestow.

On May 10, 1861, Stuart was commissioned as lieutenant colonel of infantry, and was ordered to report to Colonel T. J. Jackson at Harper’s Ferry. While he was at Harper’s Ferry, Stuart organized several troops of cavalry to assist the infantry and he was soon transferred to this branch of the service.

On May 15, General Joseph E. Johnston was sent by the Confederate government to take command of all the forces at Harper’s Ferry; while Colonel Jackson, who had previously been in command of the place, was assigned charge of the Virginia regiments afterwards famous as the “Stonewall Brigade.” General Johnston found that he was unable to hold the town against the advancing Federal force; so he destroyed the railway bridge and retired with his guns and stores to Bunker Hill, twelve miles from Winchester, where he offered battle to the Federals. They declined to fight and withdrew to the north bank of the Potomac river.