CHAP. XI.

Nine days later Brown went to Boston, where the conspiracy was enlarged and strengthened by the promises and encouragements of a little coterie of radical abolitionists.1 Within the next two months the funds he desired were contributed and sent him. Meanwhile Brown returned West, and moved his company of recruits from Iowa, by way of Chicago and Detroit, to the town of Chatham, in Canada West, arriving there about the 1st of May. By written invitations, Brown here called together what is described as "a quiet convention of the friends of freedom," to perfect his organization. On the 8th of May, 1858, they held a meeting with closed doors, there being present the original company of ten or eleven white members and one colored, whom Brown had brought with him, and a somewhat miscellaneous gathering of negro residents of Canada. Some sort of promise of secrecy was mutually made; then John Brown, in a speech, laid his plan before the meeting. One Delany, a Testimony, colored doctor, in a response, promised the assistance of all the colored people in Canada. The provisional constitution drafted by Brown at Rochester was read and adopted by articles, and about forty-five persons signed their names to the "Constitution," for the "proscribed and oppressed races

Realf,

Report, p. 99.

1"Meantime I had communicated his plans at his request to Theodore Parker, Wentworth Higginson, and Dr. Howe, and had given Mr. Stearns some general conception of them. . No other person in New England except these four was informed by me of the affair, though there were many who knew or suspected Brown's general purpose. .

Brown's first request, in 1858, was for a fund of $1000 only; with this in hand he promised to take the field either in April or May. Mr. Stearns acted as treasurer of this fund, and before the 1st of May nearly the whole amount had been paid in or subscribed."- Frank B. Sanborn, "Atlantic," April, 1875, pp. 456-7.

of the United States." Two days afterwards, the CHAP. XI. meeting again convened for the election of officers; John Brown was elected commander-in-chief by acclamation; other members were by the same summary method appointed secretary of war, secretary of state, secretary of the treasury, and two of them members of congress. The election of a president was prudently postponed.

The col

This Chatham Convention cannot claim consideration as a serious deliberative proceeding. John Brown was its sole life and voice. ored Canadians were nothing but spectators. The ten white recruits were mere Kansas adventurers, mostly boys in years and waifs in society, perhaps depending largely for livelihood on the employment or bounty, precarious as it was, of their leader. Upon this reckless, drifting material the strong despotic will, emotional enthusiasm, and mysterious rhapsodical talk of John Brown exercised an irresistible fascination; he drew them by easy gradations into his confidence and conspiracy. The remaining element, John Brown's son in the Chatham meeting, and other sons and relatives in the Harper's Ferry attack, are of course but the long educated instruments of the father's thought and purpose.

With funds provided, with his plan of government accepted, and himself formally appointed commander-in-chief, Brown doubtless thought his campaign about to begin; it was however destined to an unexpected interruption. The discarded and disappointed adventurer Forbes had informed several prominent Republicans in Washington City that Brown was meditating an unlawful

Stearns

May 14,

1858; Howe, Testimony, Mason Report, p. 177.

CHAP. XI. enterprise; and the Boston committee, warned that certain arms in Brown's custody, which had been contributed for Kansas defense, were about to be flagrantly misused, dared not incur the public odium of complicity in such a deception and breach of faith. The Chatham organization was scarcely completed when Brown received word to Brown, from the Boston committee that he must not use the arms (the 200 Sharps rifles and 200 revolvers) which had been intrusted to him for any other purpose than for the defense of Kansas. Brown hurried to Boston; but oral consultation with his friends confirmed the necessity for postponement; and it was arranged that, to lull suspicion, he should return to Kansas and await a more favorable opportunity. He yielded assent, and that fall and winter performed the exploit of leading an armed foray into Missouri, and carrying away eleven slaves to Canada-an achievement which, while to a certain degree it placed him in the attitude of a public outlaw, nevertheless greatly increased his own and his followers' confidence in the success of his general plan. Gradually the various obstacles melted away. Kansas became pacified. The adventurer Forbes faded out of sight and importance. The disputed Sharps rifles and revolvers were transferred from committee to committee, and finally turned over to a private individual to satisfy a debt. He in turn delivered them to Brown without any hampering conditions. The Connecticut blacksmith finished and shipped the thousand pikes. The contributions from the Boston committee swelled from one to several thousands of dollars. The recruits, with a few

changes, though scattered in various parts of the CHAP. XI. country, were generally held to their organization and promise, and slightly increased in number. The provisional constitution and sundry blank commissions were surreptitiously printed, and captains and lieutenants appointed by the signature of John Brown "Commander-in-Chief," countersigned by the "Secretary of War."

Gradually, also, the commander-in-chief resolved on an important modification of his plan: that, instead of plunging at once into the Virginia mountains, he would begin by the capture of the United States armory and arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Two advantages seem to have vaguely suggested themselves to his mind as likely to arise from this course: the possession of a large quantity of Government arms, and the widespread panic and moral influence of so bold an attempt. But it nowhere appears that he had any conception of the increased risk and danger it involved, or that he adopted the slightest precaution to meet them.

Harper's Ferry was a town of five thousand inhabitants, lying between the slave States of Maryland and Virginia, at the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah rivers, where the united streams flow through a picturesque gap in the single mountain-range called the Blue Ridge. The situation possesses none of the elements which would make it a defensible fastness for protracted guerrilla warfare, such as was contemplated in Brown's plan. The mountains are everywhere approachable without difficulty; are pierced by roads and farms in all directions; contain few natural resources for sustenance, defense, or concealment;

CHAP. XI. are easily observed or controlled from the plain by superior forces. The town is irregular, compact, and hilly; a bridge across each stream connects it with the opposite shores, and the Government factory and buildings, which utilized the water-power of the Potomac, lay in the lowest part of the point of land between the streams. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crosses the Potomac bridge.

On the 4th of July, 1859, John Brown, under an assumed name, with two sons and another follower, appeared near Harper's Ferry, and soon after rented the Kennedy Farm, in Maryland, five miles from town, where he made a pretense of cattle-dealing and mining; but in reality collected secretly his rifles, revolvers, ammunition, pikes, blankets, tents, and miscellaneous articles for a campaign. His rather eccentric actions, and the irregular coming and going of occasional strangers at his cabin, created no suspicion in the neighborhood. Cautiously increasing his supplies, and gathering his recruits, he appointed the attack for the 24th of October; but for some unexplained reason (fear of treachery, it is vaguely suggested) he precipitated his movement in advance of that date. From this point the occurrences exhibit no foresight or completeness of preparation, no diligent pursuit of an intelligent plan, nor skill to devise momentary expedients; only a blind impulse to act.

On Sunday evening, October 16, 1859, Brown gave his final orders, humanely directing his men to take no life where they could avoid it. Placing a few pikes and other implements in his one-horse wagon, he started with his company of eighteen followers at 8 o'clock in the evening, leaving