Page:The rising son, or, The antecedents and advancement of the colored race (IA risingsonthe00browrich).pdf/352

 CHAPTER XLII.

JOHN BROWN'S RAID ON HARPER'S FERRY.

The year 1859 will long be memorable for the bold attempt of John Brown and his companions to burst the bolted door of the Southern house of bondage, and lead out the captives by a more effectual way than they had yet known; an attempt in which, it is true, the little band of heroes dashed themselves to bloody death, but, at the same time, shook the prison walls from summit to foundation, and shot wild alarm into every tyrant heart in all the slave-land. What were the plans and purposes of the noble old man is not precisely known, and perhaps will never be; but whatever they were, there is reason to believe they had been long maturing,—brooded over silently and secretly, with much earnest thought, and under a solemn sense of religious duty.

Of the five colored men who were with the hero at the attack on Harper's Ferry, only two, Shields Green and John A. Copeland, were captured alive. The first of these was a native of South Carolina, having been born in the city of Charleston, in the year 1832. Escaping to the North in 1857, he re