I have written almost entirely of John Brown, and because of
necessities of space I have given little attention to the brave youths
who fought under him at Harper’s Ferry. Yet here I must stop and with
only the facts, paint some portrait of the men who followed John Brown.
It will be seen that they were no ordinary ruffians, no bandits,
adventurers or madmen, as the South called them at the time. They were
young crusaders, thoughtful, sensitive and brave. They had a philosophy
of life; and they were filled with passion for social justice. One may
disagree with such men, but one must not fail to respect them.
There were twenty-one men with John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, sixteen of
whom were white and five colored. Only one was of foreign birth; nearly
all were of old American pioneer stock.
_John Henry Kagi_ was the best educated of the raiders, largely
self-taught, a fine debater and speaker, and an able correspondent
for the New York Tribune and the New York Evening Post. He had been
a school-teacher in Virginia, and had come to know and hate slavery
there, protesting so vigorously that he was finally run out of the
State. He practised law in Nebraska, but left this to join John Brown
in the Kansas fighting. He was killed at Harper’s Ferry.
_Aaron Dwight Stevens_ was in many ways the most attractive and
interesting of the personalities about John Brown. He ran away from
his home in Massachusetts at the age of sixteen, and joined the United
States army, serving in Mexico during the Mexican War. Later he was
sentenced to death for leading a soldiers’ mutiny against an offensive
pro-slavery Major at Taos, New Mexico. President Pierce commuted the
sentence to three years at hard labor in Fort Leavenworth. Stevens
escaped from this prison, and joined the Free State forces in Kansas,
for he had always been a firm abolitionist. Stevens came of old Puritan
stock, his great-grandfather having been a captain in the Revolutionary
War. He was a man of superb bravery and of wonderful physique; well
over six feet, handsome, with black penetrating eyes and a fine brow.
He had a charming sense of humor, and a beautiful baritone voice, with
which he sang in camp and in prison. He was hung soon after John Brown
for the Harper’s Ferry raid.
_John E. Cook_ was a young law student of Brooklyn, New York, a
reckless, impulsive and rather indiscreet youth, to whom much was
forgiven because of his genial smile and generous nature.
_Charles Plummer Tidd_ escaped after the raid, and died a First
Sergeant in one of the battles of the Civil War. He had not much
education, but good common sense, and was always reading and studying
in an attempt to repair his lack of training. Quick-tempered, but
kindhearted, a fine singer and with strong family affections.
_Jeremiah Goldsmith Anderson_, killed at Harper’s Ferry in his 27th
year, was also of Revolutionary American stock. A sworn abolitionist,
he wrote in a letter three months before his death: “Millions of
fellow-beings require it of us; their cries for help go out to the
universe daily and hourly. Whose duty is it to help them? Is it yours?
Is it mine? It is every man’s, but how few there are to help. But there
are a few to answer this call, and dare to answer it in a manner that
shall make this land of liberty and equality shake to the center.”
_Albert Hazlett_, executed after Brown, was a Pennsylvania farm worker,
“a good-sized, fine-looking fellow, overflowing with good nature and
social feelings.”
_Edwin Coppoc_, also one of those captured and hung, was well-liked
even by the Southerners who saw him in jail, and some of them hoped to
get him pardoned. He came of Quaker farmer stock.
_Barclay Coppoc_, his brother, was not yet twenty-one when he fought
at the Arsenal. He escaped after the raid, but was killed in the Civil
War. After the raid he had returned to Kansas, and had nearly lost his
life in an attempt to free some slaves in Missouri.
_William Thompson_, a neighbor of the Browns at North Elba, in New
York, was killed at Harper’s Ferry, in his 26th year. He was full of
fun and good nature, and bore himself unflinchingly when face to face
with death.
_Dauphin Osgood Thompson_, his brother, was only twenty years old, when
he met the same fate for the cause of freedom. Dauphin was a handsome,
inexperienced country boy, “more like a shy young girl than a warrior,
quiet and good,” said one of the Brown women later.
_Oliver Brown_, John Brown’s youngest son, was also twenty years old
when he died at Harper’s Ferry. His girl-wife and her baby died early
the next year. “Oliver developed rather slowly,” says Miss Sarah Brown.
“In his earlier teens he was always pre-occupied, absent-minded--always
reading, and then it was impossible to catch his attention. But in his
last few years he came out very fast. His awkwardness left him. He
read every solid book that he could find, and was especially fond of
Theodore Parker’s writings, as was his father. Had Oliver lived, and
not killed himself with over-study, he would have made his mark. By his
exertions the sale of liquor was stopped at North Elba.”
_John Anthony Copeland_, a free colored man, 25 years old, was educated
at Oberlin College. He was dignified and manly, and in jail there were
prominent Southerners who were forced to admit his fine qualities. He
was hung for the raid.
_Stewart Taylor_, the only one of the raiders not of American birth,
was a young Canadian wagon-maker, 23 years old. He was fond of history
and debating, and heart and soul in the abolition cause. Killed in the
Arsenal.
_William H. Leeman_, the youngest of the raiders, killed in his 19th
year. He had gone to work in a shoe factory at Haverhill, Mass., when
only 14 years old, and though with little education, “had a good
intellect and great ingenuity.” He was the “wildest” of Brown’s men,
for he smoked and drank occasionally, but the Old Puritan captain liked
him, nevertheless, for he was boyish, handsome, and brave.
_Osborn Perry Anderson_ was also a Negro. He escaped after the raid,
and fought through the Civil War.
_Francis Jackson Meriam_, was a wealthy, young abolitionist who put
all his fortune into the cause, and came from New England to join John
Brown in the raid. He escaped also, and died in 1865, after having been
the captain of a Negro company in the Civil War.
_Lewis Sheridan Leary_, colored, left a wife and a six-months-old baby
at Oberlin, Ohio, to go to Harper’s Ferry. He was a harness maker by
trade, and descended on one side from an Irishman, Jeremiah O’Leary,
who fought in the Revolution. Leary was 25 years old when he died of
his terrible wounds in the Arsenal fighting.
_Owen Brown_, another of John Brown’s sons, was stalwart and reliable,
and is reported original in expression and thought, like all the
Browns. He is also said to have been quite humorous. He survived the
raid, and died in Pasadena, Calif., in 1891.
_Watson Brown_, another son, 24 years old when killed at the Ferry,
was tall and rather fair, very strong, and a man of marked ability and
sterling character.
_Dangerfield Newby_ was born a slave in Virginia, but his father, a
Scotchman, freed him with other mulatto children. Newby had a wife and
seven children still in slavery, and he was trying to raise money to
buy them, for they were to be sold further south. He failed at this;
and joined John Brown in desperation. He was killed at the Ferry, and
so failed to free his poor family, as he had dreamed.
_Shields Green_, colored, was also born a slave, but escaped, leaving
a little son in slavery. He met Brown through Frederick Douglass, the
great Negro orator, and joined in the raid, though many warned him it
would mean his death. He was uneducated, but deeply emotional, and
deeply attached to the “ole man,” as he called John Brown. He was hung
after the raid; his age 23.
They were all young men; the average age of the band was 25 years and
five months. They were all strong, intelligent, in love with life and
eager for the future; but they chose to attempt this mad, dangerous
deed rather than consent any longer to the lie and to the power of
black slavery.
John Brown they followed and loved as one would a strong and kindly
father. There was always something patriarchal about John Brown and his
soldiers, many observers said. It made his deed seem like some story
out of the Bible, the swift and terrible Justice of the Lord of Hosts.