THE CAPTURE OF CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN AT THE ENGINE HOUSE.
One great difference between savages and civilized nations is, the
improved mode of warfare adopted by the latter. Flags of truce are
always entitled to consideration, and an attacking party would make a
wide departure from military usage, were they not to give opportunity
for the besieged to capitulate, or to surrender at discretion. Looking
at the Harper’s Ferry combat in the light of civilized usage, even
where one side might be regarded as insurrectionary, the brutal
treatment of Captain Brown and his men in the charge by the marines on
the engine house is deserving of severest condemnation, and is one of
those blood-thirsty occurrences, dark enough in depravity to disgrace a
century.
Captain Hazlett and myself being in the Arsenal opposite, saw the
charge upon the engine house with the ladder, which resulted in opening
the doors to the marines, and finally in Brown’s capture. The old hero
and his men were hacked and wounded with indecent rage, and at last
brought out of the house and laid prostrate upon the ground, mangled
and bleeding as they were. A formal surrender was required of Captain
Brown, which he refused, knowing how little favor he would receive,
if unarmed, at the hands of that infuriated mob. All of our party who
went from the Farm, save the Captain, Shields Green, Edwin Coppic and
Watson Brown, (who had received a mortal wound some time before,) the
men at the Farm, and Hazlett and I, were either dead or captured before
this time; the particulars of whose fate we learned still later in the
day, as I shall presently show. Of the four prisoners taken at the
engine house, Shields Green, the most inexorable of all our party, a
very Turco in his hatred against the stealers of men, was under Captain
Hazlett, and consequently of our little band at the Arsenal; but when
we were ordered by Captain Brown to return to our positions, after
having driven the troops into the bridge, he mistook the order, and
went to the engine house instead of with his own party. Had he remained
with us, he might have eluded the vigilant Virginians. As it was, he
was doomed, as is well-known, and became a free-will offering for
freedom, with his comrade, John Copeland. Wiser and better men no doubt
there were, but a braver man never lived than Shields Green.