Samuel V. Leech

“ I was not conscious that I was ready for martyrdom from Brown's standpoint. I have never been anxious to die to save the life of any body. My life is as valuable to me and my family as any other man's is to him and his family. But young as I was I hated American slavery. ”

“ THE town of Harper's Ferry is located in Jefferson County, West Virginia. Lucerne, in Switzerland does not excel it in romantic grandeur of situation. On its northern front the Potomac sweeps along to pass the national capital, and the tomb of Washington, in its silent flow towards the sea. On its eastern side the Shenandoah hurries to empty its waters into the Potomac, that in perpetual wedlock they may greet the stormy Atlantic. Across the Potomac the Maryland Heights stand out as the tall sentinels of Nature. ”

“ Brown's statement was not exactly sustained by the facts. Why had he collected the Sharpe's rifles, the pikes, the kegs of powder, many thousands of caps and much warlike material at the Kennedy farm? Why did he and other [16] armed men, break into the United States Armory and Arsenal, make portholes in the engine house, shoot and kill citizens and surround their own imprisoned persons with prominent men as hostages? But everybody in the court house believed the old man when he said that he did everything with a solitary motive, the liberation of the slaves. ”

“ Whether they be from the North or the South, fair-minded men, who are thoroughly conversant with the history of this raid, can hardly cherish any doubt concerning the turpitude of the invasion, the fairness of Brown's trial and the justice of his conviction and execution. He fell under the direction of a misguided conscience. The noble endowment that philosophers call conscience that gives its verdicts as to the moral merit or demerit of actions and affections, was strangely warped in Brown's intense and brave character. ”

“ A few weeks after Brown's execution Victor Hugo said, "What the South slew last December was not John Brown but slavery." His statement developed into a colossal historical truth. The great statesman, orator and senator, John J. Ingalls of Kansas, closed an oration with these remarkable words:
"Carlyle says that when any great change in human society is to be wrought God raises up men to whom that change is made to appear as the one thing needful and absolutely indispensable. ”

“ The contents of the Armory, Arsenal and Hall's Rifle Works were daily open to public inspection. Captain John Brown well knew that Daniel Whelan was the only watchman, during the night time, at the Armory grounds. He believed that if he could secure the arms and ammunition in these buildings, carry them into the fastnesses of the adjacent mountains, and then unfurl the flag of freedom for all slaves who would flock to his standard, the result would be a general uprising of the negro population throughout the border states. A more idiotic and senseless theory never entered an American mind. ”

“ Already the great intellectual leaders of the movement for the abolition of slavery are dead. The student of the future will exhume their orations, arguments and state papers, as a part of the subterranean history of the epoch. ”

“ He is a man of clear head, of courage, fortitude and simple ingenuousness. He is cool, collected, indomitable; and it is but just to him to say that he was humane to his prisoners. He is a fanatic, but firm, and truthful and intelligent." Colonel Lewis W. Washington and Captain John E. P. Dangerfield bore testimony to his courage.
Brown's wonderful moral heroism became resplendent after Judge Richard Parker had sentenced him to death. ”

“ The possession of this faculty of conscience is the massive foundation of all human responsibility. Illustrations of the moral enormities that a perverted conscience can perpetrate are manifold along the pages of sacred and secular history. ”

“ If you seek my blood you can have it at any time without this mockery of a trial. I have no counsel. I have not been able to advise with any one. I know nothing of the feelings of my fellow prisoners and am utterly unable to attend to my own defense. If a fair trial is to be allowed there are mitigating circumstances to be urged. But, if we [13] are forced with a mere form, a trial for execution, you might spare yourselves that trouble. I am ready for my fate."
Two very able Virginia attorneys were assigned as a matter of State form as counsel for Brown. ”

“ Scholars, orators, poets, philanthropists, play their parts, but the crisis comes at last through some one who is stigmatized as a fanatic by his contemporaries, and whom the supporters of the systems he assails crucify between theives or gibbet as a felon. The man who is not afraid to die for an idea is the most potential and convincing advocate. ”

“ When Jesus looked down the aisles of the future, He said to His disciples that the men who would finally transfigure them into martyrs would murder them in the belief that they were rendering acceptable service to God. ”

“ The militia were afraid to fire into the port-holes for fear of killing some of the prominent prisoners. About 4 o'clock the Mayor, Mr. Fontaine Beckham, aged sixty years, who was also station agent of the railroad company, went out on the platform unarmed. He was shot dead by the negro Shields Green. Captain Watson Brown in the engine house received his death wound soon afterwards. Mayor Beckham was very much beloved by the people. A number of citizens hurried into the hotel and brutally seized Captain Thompson, threw him over the wall into the Potomac and riddled him with bullets. ”

“ They have not deserved the traduction Brown's eulogists have heaped on them. His unfortunate execution was the logical result of his criminal and bloody raid. The Virginia people have been noble in chivalry, bounteous in hospitality, sublime in kindness of heart and life and models of high social and moral purity. ”

“ Fuller success than his heart ever dreamed of God had granted him. He sleeps in the blessings of the crushed and the poor. Men believe more firmly in virtue now that such a man has lived." Personally I remained in Virginia.
On the day that Brown was hung Martyr Services, as they were called, were held in many Northern localities. ”

“ All were regular army officers. Colonel Lee regarded it as unwise to attack the engine house that night, fearing that Colonel Lewis W. Washington or other prisoners might be killed. Early in the morning he sent Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, who had once held Brown as a prisoner in Kansas, to demand an immediate and unconditional surrender. Brown refused to trust himself and men to the United States officers. ”

“ They are not sold at any store. The object of the publication is to place on the shelves of Libraries, Colleges, Universities and Historical societies, from the southern standpoint, an accurate narrative of the raid, and the events associated with it. I was 22 years of age, was preaching close to Harper's Ferry, saw the fighting and capture and visited Brown in his prison. I was a witness of the events of the forty four days intervening between the raid and his execution. ”

“ Thus seven of the twenty-two men fled to the North. Cook and Hazlitt were captured. They were returned to Virginia, tried and executed.
By 2 o'clock P. M., the town and hills swarmed with militia and citizens. Brown had barricaded the engine house doors with the engine and reel. Inside were Captains John Brown and his son Watson; also Captain Oliver Brown, who was soon dead; Shields Green, Captain Edwin Coppoc, Lieutenant Jeremiah G. Anderson, Captain Dauphin Adolphus Thompson and ten white prisoners. ”

“ Thirteen of these men had engaged in border warfare in Kansas, in a successful effort to prevent Kansas from becoming a slave state. He, sixteen other white men and five negroes, constituted his entire Virginia army. The white men were Captain John Brown, Adjutant General John H. Kagi, Captains Owen Brown, Oliver Brown, Watson Brown, Aaron D. Stephens, John E. Cook, Dauphin Adolphus Thompson, George P. Tidd, William Thompson and Edwin Coppoc. The Lieutenants were Jeremiah G. Anderson, Albert Hazlitt and William Henry Leeman. The privates numbered eight. ”