Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/340

302 leader of a bloody night attack on a Southern force. John Brown having fled from Kansas, conceived a plan which he secretly but not fully divulged in a meeting of a few fanatics like himself. (American Conflict, 287.) In pursuance of his scheme to excite an insurrection of slaves in one State of the South, and to place himself at the head to organize a general uprising, he chose Virginia as the location of his first blow. He conceived the bold plan of attacking Harper s Ferry, and to prepare for the surprise, he rented a small farm in Maryland, July, 1858, under an assumed name, and collected a small amount of fire arms and ammunition, besides 1,000 pikes. A few followers, part of them his sons, gathered at his residence and were secreted until the hour came to strike his blow which captured Harper s Ferry, October, 1859. Brown held his captured garrison for a day and night, put out pickets, distributed arms for the use of negroes and for the short while terrified the citizens. He was, however, soon attacked and driven into an engine house. Part of his small force of twenty men were killed, in cluding his two sons. Some others escaped and he him self was wounded, but he continued his defiant resistance until overpowered by a force of United States marines sent from Washington. He and six of his companions were lawfully tried, condemned and hung the following December.

This small affair had no significance apart from the general agitation which had pervaded a large part of the Union for several years. It was merely an awkward but fierce single bolt hurtling from a political sky charged with explosives by other men who had method in their madness. (American Conflict, 278-287.) Had the event been treated as the act of a fanatic, whose madness no more exempted him from death than the fanaticism of Booth could shield him from an assassin s fate, there would have been no serious fears felt in the South. In surrections very few in number had been attempted