Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/286

276 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 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 so 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 the 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