CAPTAIN BROWN AND J. H. KAGI GO TO PHILADELPHIA--F. J. MERRIAM, J.
COPELAND AND S. LEARY ARRIVE--MATTERS PRECIPITATED BY INDISCRETION.
Being obliged, from the space I propose to give to this narrative, to
omit many incidents of my sojourn at the Farm, which from association
are among my most pleasant recollections, the events now to be recorded
are to me invested with the most intense interest. About ten days
before the capture of the Ferry, Captain John Brown and Kagi went to
Philadelphia, on business of great importance. How important, men
there and elsewhere _now_ know. How affected by, and affecting the
main features of the enterprise, we at the Farm knew full well after
their return, as the old Captain, in the fullness of his overflowing,
saddened heart, detailed point after point of interest. God bless the
old veteran, who could and did chase a thousand in life, and defied
more than ten thousand by the moral sublimity of his death!
On their way home, at Chambersburg, they met young F. J. Merriam, of
Boston. Several days were spent at C., when Merriam left for Baltimore,
to purchase some necessary articles for the undertaking. John Copeland
and Sherrard Lewis Leary reached Chambersburg on the 12th of October,
and on Saturday, the 15th, at daylight, they arrived, in company with
Kagi and Watson Brown. In the evening of the same day, F. J. Merriam
came to the Farm.
Saturday, the 15th, was a busy day for all hands. The chief and every
man worked busily, packing up, and getting ready to remove the means of
defence to the school-house, and for further security, as the people
living around were in a state of excitement, from having seen a number
of men about the premises a few days previously. Not being fully
satisfied as to the real business of “J. Smith & Sons” after that,
and learning that several thousand stand of arms were to be removed
by the Government from the Armory to some other point, threats to
search the premises were made against the encampment. A tried friend
having given information of the state of public feeling without, and
of the intended process, Captain Brown and party concluded to strike
the blow immediately, and not, as at first intended, to await certain
reinforcements from the North and East, which would have been in
Maryland within one and three weeks. Could other parties, waiting for
the word, have reached head-quarters in time for the outbreak when it
took place, the taking of the armory, engine house, and rifle factory,
would have been quite different. But the men at the Farm had been so
closely confined, that they went out about the house and farm in the
day-time during that week, and so indiscreetly exposed their numbers
to the prying neighbors, who thereupon took steps to have a search
instituted in the early part of the coming week. Capt. Brown was not
seconded in another quarter as he expected at the time of the action,
but could the fears of the neighbors have been allayed for a few days,
the disappointment in the former respect would not have had much weight.
The indiscretion alluded to has been greatly lamented by all of us,
as Maryland, Virginia, and other slave States, had, as they now have,
a direct interest in the successful issue of the first step. Few
ultimately successful movements were predicated on the issue of the
first bold stroke, and so it is with the institution of slavery. It
will yet come down by the run, but it will not be because huzzas of
victory were shouted over the first attempt, any more than at Bunker
Hill or Hastings.