This is Harper’s Ferry and this was the point which John Brown chose for his attack on American slavery. He chose it for many reasons. He loved beauty: “When I met Brown at Peterboro in 1858,” writes Sanborn, “Morton played some fine music to us in the parlor,—among other things Schubert’s Serenade, then a favorite piece,—and the old Puritan, who loved music and sang a good part himself, sat weeping at the air.”[[199]] He chose Harper’s Ferry because a United States arsenal was there and the capture of this would give that dramatic climax to the inception of his plan which was so necessary to its success. But both these were minor reasons. The foremost and decisive reason was that Harper’s Ferry was the safest natural entrance to the Great Black Way. Look at the map (page 274). The shaded portion is “the black belt” of slavery where there were massed in 1859 at least three of the four million slaves. Two paths led southward toward it in the East:—the way by Washington, physically broad and easy, but legally and socially barred to bondsmen; the other way, known to Harriet Tubman and all fugitives, which led to the left toward the crests of the Alleghanies and the gateway of Harper’s Ferry. One has but to glance at the mountains and swamps of the South to see the Great Black Way. Here, amid the mighty protection of overwhelming numbers, lay a path from slavery to freedom, and along that path were fastnesses and hiding-places easily capable of becoming permanent fortified refuges for organized bands of determined armed men.
The exact details of Brown’s plan will never be fully known. As Realf said: “John Brown was a man who would never state more than it was absolutely necessary for him to do. No one of his most intimate associates and I was one of the most intimate was possessed of more than barely sufficient information to enable Brown to attach such companion to him.”[[200]]
Map Showing the Great Black Way
A glance at the map shows clearly that John Brown intended to operate in the Blue Ridge mountains rising east of the Shenandoah and known at Harper’s Ferry as Loudoun Heights. The Loudoun Heights rise boldly 500 to 700 feet above the village of Harper’s Ferry and 1,000 feet above the sea. They run due south and then southwest, dipping down a little the first three miles, then rising to 1,500 feet, which level is practically maintained until twenty-five miles below Harper’s Ferry where the mountains broaden to a dense and labyrinthical wilderness, and rise to a height of 2,000 or more feet. Right at this high point and insight of High Knob (a peak of 2,400 feet) began, in Fauquier County, the Great Black Way. In this county in 1850 were over 10,000 slaves, and 650 free Negroes, as compared with 9,875 whites. From this county to the southern boundary of Virginia was a series of black counties with a majority of slaves, containing in 1850 at least 260,000 Negroes. From here the Great Black Way went south as John Brown indicated in his diary and undoubtedly in the marked maps, which Virginia afterward hastily destroyed.
The easiest way to get to these heights was from Harper’s Ferry. An hour’s climb from the arsenal grounds would easily have hidden a hundred men in inaccessible fastnesses, provided they were not overburdened; and even with arms, ammunition and supplies, they could have repelled, without difficulty, attacks on the retreat. Forts and defenses could be prepared in these mountains, and before the raid they had been pretty thoroughly explored and paths marked. In Harper’s Ferry just at the crossing of the main road from Maryland lay the arsenal. The plan without a doubt was first, to collect men and arms on the Maryland side of the Potomac; second, to attack the arsenal suddenly and capture it; third, to bring up the arms and ammunition and, together with those captured, to cross the Shenandoah to Loudoun Heights and hide in the mountain wilderness; fourth, thence to descend at intervals to release slaves and get food, and retreat southward. Most writers have apparently supposed that Brown intended to retreat from the arsenal across the Potomac. A moment’s thought will show the utter absurdity of this plan. Brown knew guerrilla warfare, and the failure of Harper’s Ferry raid does not prove it a blunder from the start. The raid was not a foray from the mountains, which failed because its retreat was cut off, but it was a foray to the mountains with the village and arsenal on the way, which was defeated apparently because the arms and ammunition train failed to join the advance-guard.
This then was the great plan which John Brown had been slowly elaborating and formulating for twenty years—since the day when kneeling beside a Negro minister he had sworn his sons to blood-feud with slavery.
The money resources with which John Brown undertook his project are not exactly known. Sanborn says: “Brown’s first request in 1858 was for a fund of a thousand dollars only; with this in the hand he promised to take the field either in April or May. Mr. Stearns acted as treasurer of this fund, and before the 1st of May nearly the whole the amount had been paid in or subscribed,—Stearns contributing three hundred dollars, and the rest of our committee smaller sums. It soon appeared, however, that the amount named would be too small, and Brown’s movements were embarrassed from the lack of money before the disclosures of Forbes came to his knowledge.”[[201]] From first to last George L. Stearns gave in cash and arms about $7,500, and Gerrit Smith contributed more than $1,000. Merriam brought with him $600 in gold in October. Between March 10th and October 16th, Brown expended at least $2,500. In all Sanborn raised $4,000 for Brown. Hinton says: “As near as can be estimated, the money received by Brown could not have exceeded $12,000, while the supplies, arms, etc., furnished may have cost $10,000 more. Of course, there were smaller contributions and support coming in, but if the total estimate be placed at $25,000, for the period between the 15th of September, 1856, when he left Lawrence, Kan., and the 16th of October, 1859, when he moved on Harper’s Ferry, Va., with twenty-one men, it will certainly cover all of the outlay except that of time, labor, and lives.”[[202]]
This total, however, does not include a fund of $1,000 raised for his family.
The civic organization under which Brown intended to work has been spoken of. The military organization was based on his Kansas experience and his reading. In his diary is this entry: