When all the school children had read the death of little Eva and of Uncle Tom, and all the farmers and working men—the dwellers in city and country, from seaboard to mountains and prairie—had followed the career of these slaves to the end, and the people of the North were fully awake to the horror of the slave traffic, the multitudes began to look with questioning eyes into each other's faces, asking, "What can be done? What is the next step?" And then it was that a fanatic entered the scene.
His name was John Brown, descended from Peter Brown, a Pilgrim of the Mayflower. He had been cattle-drover, tanner and wool-merchant. When about forty years of age he was living in Springfield, Massachusetts. One night, in 1849, a runaway slave knocked at his door and told Brown the story of his flight, of the weeks he had spent hiding in the swamps, of his escape to the fastnesses of the mountains, of his life in the forest, and how he finally reached New York and Springfield. It was a story of starvation, hunger, cold, blows and piercing anguish. Long after the children had gone to bed at midnight, while the slave was sleeping in a blanket beside the fire, John Brown sat musing over the national infamy. All the next day and night the conference continued with this runaway, who was also a negro preacher. The following night John Brown assembled his sons. He closed the door and told his family his decision. He was a tall man, over six feet, straight and lithe, slightly gray, with thin lips and smooth face. The Bible was almost the only book in the house, and no sound was so familiar as the voice of prayer. Brown was lifted into the prophetic mood. He told his family that he had decided to give himself, and to consecrate them, to righting the wrongs of the slaves; that he had heard a voice calling him to the work of the deliverer; that he would be killed, and that they must expect also to die the martyr's death, and that henceforth they must expect only crusts, wounds, bitter enmity, and finally martyrdom. A little later and Brown had moved the younger children of his family to North Elba, in the Adirondack woods, that the slaves on the underground route might be able to hide in the forest, in the event of the pursuers overtaking them. Brown then began to travel along Mason and Dixon's line from the city of Washington through to Topeka, Kan. From time to time he would cross the line, take charge of a little group of slaves, and hiding by day and travelling by night, carry them from one underground station to another. It was said that he had personally conducted runaway slaves along every route for a thousand miles from East to West, between the Atlantic and the Missouri River.
One of the friends of Brown's childhood was the Hon. James B. Grinnell, who founded the town and college in Iowa. This congressman loved to tell the story of the night when John Brown knocked at his door. Outside was a wagon, packed with slaves, whom Brown had carried across the line from Missouri. He had driven four horses at their limit of speed for a hundred miles and had no defenders, save two or three men and as many guns. "I am a dealer in wool," said the stranger, "and my name is Captain John Brown of Kansas." The first thing Mr. Grinnell did was to find a shelter for these slaves, with food and beds. The next thing was to hide the wagon and the horses in the thick grove near by. Early the next morning the news spread like wild-fire, and the settlers began to pour in. John Brown made a speech to the farmers and justified his act. The villagers were terrified lest the pursuers come any moment and burn their houses. The three Congregational ministers offered prayers, asked for help, and started out to raise money. When the night fell the slaves were rushed to the terminus of the railway and carried through to Chicago, being shipped in a freight car as sheep, to distinguish their woolly heads from the goats, named white men.
In 1855 John Brown led his five sons and their families into Kansas, to help preëmpt the State for freedom. When at length the free state voters won an election and enthroned their governor, two thousand pro-slavery men from Missouri crossed the State line, burned the little town of Lawrence, and at the point of the pistol compelled the State officials to resign; issued writs for a new election, put in a slavery governor, captured the government, and started back into Missouri. On their way they passed through Pottawatamie. It was a guerrilla warfare. When John Brown reached his son's cabin, he found the settlers preparing for flight. He denounced them as cowards, and when one urged caution, answered, "I am tired of that word Caution. It is nothing but cowardice!" Either the border ruffians had to go, or else the settlers must leave without striking a single blow in defense of their homes. A man's cabin was his castle. Without waiting for the next attack to be made, John Brown pointed the settlers to the smoking ashes of cabins already burned and to the bodies that the Missouri guerrillas had left on the ground, and took the aggressive himself. He seized five of the outlaws and killed them for their crime.
The deed fired Kansas, some say freed Kansas, while others think it opened the Civil War. Withdrawing to the forest, hiding in the cottonwood swamps, John Brown organized his company. A reporter of the New York Tribune finally penetrated the thicket. "Near the edge of the creek a dozen horses were tied, already saddled for a ride for life. A dozen rifles were stacked against the trees. In an open space was a blazing fire with a pot above it. Three or four armed men were lying on red and blue blankets on the grass. John Brown himself stood near the fire with his shirt sleeves rolled up and a piece of pork in his hand. He was poorly clad, and his toes protruded from his boots. The old man received me with great cordiality, and the little band gathered about me. He respectfully, but firmly, forbade conversation on the Pottawatamie affair. After the meal, thanks were returned to the bountiful Giver. Often, I was told, the old man would retire to the densest solitudes to wrestle with his God in prayer. He said he was fighting God's battles for his children's sake: 'Give me men of good principles, God-fearing men, men who respect themselves, and with a dozen of them I will oppose a hundred such men as these border ruffians.' I remained in the camp about an hour. Never before had I met such a band of men. They were not earnest, but earnestness incarnate."
After several years of bloody conflict and political struggles between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery parties, in 1859 the Constitution prohibiting slavery was passed, and freedom had won in Kansas. In January of that year John Brown returned to the mountains of Virginia, and "The Great Black Way," and the dark shadows of the night following the North Star to liberty. For many years he had been planning an uprising of the slaves, and an attack upon Virginia. Some biographers think he conceived the plan as early as 1849. Away back in 1834 Brown wrote to his brother his determination to war on slavery; but at first only through educating the blacks. As time went on he came into sterner conflict with it.
Brown, in fact, became a fanatic who really believed that the millions of slaves would rise at his call, and that he could lead his host as a new Moses, out of the land of bondage. He intended to operate in the Blue Ridge Mountains, because the paths into the black belt of slavery were easily followed. Men like Douglas and other escaped slaves who were living in the North did not see their way clear to join the movement.
On Sunday, October 16, 1859, John Brown, with sixteen men, started out to capture Harper's Ferry and redeem three million slaves. Brown rode in a one-horse wagon, that held provisions, pikes, one sledge-hammer and one crowbar; his sixteen men, with guns, followed on foot. Without a single shot they captured the armoury and the rifle factory, and at daylight, without the snap of a gun or any violence whatsoever, they were in possession of Harper's Ferry. On Monday morning the panic spread like wild-fire. The rumour went abroad of an uprising of all the slaves of the South. In a few hours the governor called out the militia, Jefferson guards marched down the Potomac, and two local companies took positions on the heights. The assault began in the afternoon. One by one Brown's handful were killed, his two sons, Oliver and Watson, were shot down, and Brown, badly wounded, was captured.
The trial and examination of the old fanatic makes a fascinating story. At noon of Tuesday, the governor of Virginia bent over him as he lay wounded and blood-stained upon the floor. "Who are you?" asked the governor. "My name is John Brown; I have been well known as old John Brown of Kansas. Two of my sons were killed here to-day, and I am dying too. I came here to liberate slaves, and was to receive no reward. I have acted from a sense of duty, and am content to await my fate. I am an old man. If I had succeeded in running off slaves this time, I could have raised twenty times as many men as I have now for a similar expedition; but I have failed."
Then Governor Wise said, "The silver of your hair is reddened by the blood of crime. You should think upon eternity."