Page:Report of Senate Select Committee on the Invasion of Harper's Ferry.pdf/17

Rh Hurd, resulted in such equivocation and evasion on his part as led them peremptorily to refuse these arms to him, as their act.

The facts exposed in this part of the testimony speak for themselves. It will be remembered that the period referred to, when Mr. Wilson communicated his suspicions to Dr. Howe, and through him to the chairman of the Massachusetts committee, was so late as May, 1858. Order had then been restored in Kansas. The troops of the United States had been long previously withdrawn, and the only contests remaining in the Territory were conducted through the ballot-box. Notwithstanding all which, it would seem Brown was to be kept afoot, intrusted with arms for military organization, and amply supplied with money. The testimony shows that after his treasonable proceedings at Chatham he went back to New England, traveled through its several villages, collecting money, which was freely contributed under the auspices both of Dr. Howe and Mr. Chairman Stearns and others, with a knowledge that he retained the large supply of arms of which they had failed to dispossess him.

Upon the whole testimony, there can be no doubt that Brown's plan was to commence a servile war on the borders of Virginia, which he expected to extend, and which he believed his means and resources were sufficient to extend through that State and throughout the entire South. Upon being questioned, soon after his capture, by the Governor of Virginia, as to his plans, he rather indignantly repelled the idea that it was to be limited to collecting and protecting the slaves until they could be sent out of the State as fugitives. On the contrary, he vehemently insisted that his purpose was to retain them on the soil, to put arms in their hands, with which he came provided for the purpose, and to use them as his soldiery. (Pages 61, 62.)

This man (Brown) was uniformly spoken of, by those who seemed best to have known him, as of remarkable reticence in his habits, or, as they expressed it, "secretive." It does not appear that he intrusted even his immediate followers with his plans, fully, even after they were ripe for execution. Nor have the committee been enabled clearly to trace knowledge of them to any. The only exception would seem to be in the instance of the anonymous letter received by the Secretary of War in the summer preceding the attack, referred to in his testimony. The Secretary shows that he could get no clue to the writer; nor were the committee enabled in any way to trace him. Considering that the letter was anonymous, as well as vague and apparently incoherent in its statements, it was not at all remarkable, in the opinion of the committee, that it did not arrest the attention of the officer to whom it was addressed.

The point chosen for the attack seems to have been selected from the two-fold inducement of the security afforded the invaders by a mountain country, and the large deposit of arms in the arsenal of the United States there situated. It resulted in the murder of three most respectable citizens of the State of Virginia without cause, and in the like murder of an unoffending free negro. Of the military force brought against them, one marine was killed and one wounded; whilst eight of the militia and other forces of the neighborhood were wounded, with more or less severity, in the several assaults made by them. Rep. No. 2782