The day after their capture, Brown and his surviving followers—Stevens,
Edwin Coppoc, Shields Green, and John Copeland—were taken to Charles
Town under heavy guard and lodged in the county jail. The cell doors had
hardly banged shut when they learned that they were to receive speedy
trials. The grand jury was then in session, and the semiannual term of
the circuit court, presided over by Judge Richard Parker, had begun.
The five raiders were arraigned on October 25, just one week after their
capture. The next day they were indicted for treason against the
Commonwealth of Virginia, for conspiring with slaves to rebel, and for
murder. Each defendant pleaded “Not guilty” and each asked for a
separate trial. The court consented and elected to try Brown first. Two
court-appointed attorneys, 36-year-old Lawson Botts, who had helped to
capture the raiders, and Thomas C. Green, the 39-year-old Mayor of
Charles Town, were called upon to defend him. Charles Harding,
Commonwealth Attorney for Jefferson County, and Andrew Hunter, a veteran
Charles Town lawyer, served as prosecutors for the State.
The trial began on October 27. It lasted 3½ days. Still suffering from
his wounds, Brown was carried back and forth from jail to courthouse,
and lay on a cot during much of the proceedings. Judge Parker had hardly
brought the court to order when defense counsel Botts astounded the
packed courtroom (including Brown himself) by reading a telegram from A.
H. Lewis of Akron, Ohio, dated October 26:
John Brown, leader of the insurrection at Harper’s Ferry, and several
of his family, have resided in this county for many years. Insanity is
hereditary in that family. His mother’s sister died with it, and a
daughter of that sister has been two years in a Lunatic Asylum. A son
and daughter of his mother’s brother have also been confined in the
lunatic asylum, and another son of that brother is now insane and
under close restraint. These facts can be conclusively proven by
witnesses residing here, who will doubtless attend the trial if
desired.
[Illustration: John Brown was tried in the courthouse at Charles
Town, about 10 miles from Harpers Ferry. The trial was presided over
by the Hon. Richard Parker (below), circuit judge for Jefferson
County.]
[Illustration: Richard Parker]
After receiving the telegram, Botts had gone to the jail to talk with
Brown about it. The raider leader had readily admitted that there were
instances of insanity in his mother’s side of the family (in fact, his
mother had died insane), but asserted that there was none at all on his
father’s side. He said his first wife had shown symptoms of it, as had
two of their sons, Frederick and John, Jr. Clearly, by introducing the
Lewis telegram, the defense hoped to save Brown’s life by having him
declared insane and committed to an institution. But the old
abolitionist refused to sanction such a plea. Rising up on his cot, he
exclaimed:
I will add, if the Court will allow me, that I look upon it as a
miserable artifice and pretext of those who ought to take a different
course in regard to me, if they took any at all, and I view it with
contempt more than otherwise. As I remarked to Mr. Green, insane
persons, so far as my experience goes, have but little ability to
judge of their own sanity; and, if I am insane, of course I should
think I know more than all the rest of the world. But I do not think
so. I am perfectly unconscious of insanity, and I reject, so far as I
am capable, any attempt to interfere in my behalf on that score.
Lawson Botts and Thomas C. Green were appointed by the court to
defend the raider leader. Brown, however, did not trust them to
provide him an adequate defense.
[Illustration: Lawson Botts.]
[Illustration: Thomas C. Green.]
Brown had more faith in the three lawyers provided by his Northern
friends. Their efforts to save him from the gallows, however, proved
fruitless.
[Illustration: George Hoyt, shown here as an officer during the
Civil War.]
[Illustration: Samuel Chilton.]
[Illustration: Hiram Griswold.]
Judge Parker ruled out the insanity plea on the basis that the evidence
had not been presented in a reliable form. He also rejected Bott’s
request for a delay in the proceedings to allow new counsel of Brown’s
own choosing to come from Ohio. The trial continued.
The defense lawyers were increased to three when George Hoyt joined
Botts and Green. Hoyt, a 21-year-old Boston lawyer, was sent to Charles
Town by some of Brown’s Northern supporters ostensibly to defend the
raider chieftain; his real mission was to gather information that might
be useful to those plotting Brown’s escape.
As the trial progressed, Brown became more and more irritated with his
court-appointed lawyers and openly expressed his lack of confidence in
them. Botts and Green thereupon withdrew, leaving Hoyt, the woefully
inexperienced “beardless boy” who was entirely unacquainted with the
code and procedure of the Virginia courts and knowing very little about
the case, burdened with the sole responsibility for conducting the
defense in one of the most sensational trials the country had ever
witnessed. He was soon reinforced, however, by more seasoned counsel.
Samuel Chilton of Washington, D.C., and Hiram Griswold of Cleveland,
Ohio, were persuaded by Brown’s influential friends to join the fight to
save the abolitionist’s life. But their arrival made little difference;
the outcome of the trial was inevitable.
The prosecution’s parade of witnesses recounted the story of the attack
on Harpers Ferry, the arming of the slaves, and the deaths of Hayward
Shepherd, Fontaine Beckham, and George W. Turner. Brown’s contention
that, as commander in chief of a provisional army, he should be tried
according to the laws of war and not as a common criminal was rejected.
Other arguments offered by the defense met with equally fruitless
results. Finally, on October 31, closing arguments by the prosecution
and the defense were heard and at 1:45 p.m. the case went to the jury.
Deliberations lasted for 45 minutes. The verdict: guilty on all three
counts. A newspaper correspondent described the reaction:
Not the slightest sound was heard in the vast crowd as this verdict
was thus returned and read. Not the slightest expression of elation or
triumph was uttered from the hundreds present, who, a moment before,
outside the court, joined in heaping threats and imprecations upon his
head; nor was this strange silence interrupted during the whole of the
time occupied by the forms of the Court. Old Brown himself said not
even a word, but, as on previous days, turned to adjust his pallet,
and then composedly stretched himself upon it.
[Illustration: Andrew Hunter, special prosecutor for the State of
Virginia, vowed to see Brown “arraigned, tried, found guilty,
sentenced and hung, all within ten days.”]
[Illustration: The courtroom in which Brown was tried was not as
large as this drawing would indicate, but it was packed with
witnesses and spectators. Brown lay on a cot during most of the
proceedings, rising only occasionally to make a point in his
defense.]
[Illustration: Jefferson County Sheriff James Campbell.]
[Illustration: The jailer, John Avis.]
Sentence was passed on November 2: John Brown would hang on Friday,
December 2, 1859. The other raiders—Coppoc, Stevens, Copeland, and
Green—were tried subsequently, found guilty, and received like
sentences. Of the seven raiders who escaped from Harpers Ferry, John
Cook and Albert Hazlett were captured in Pennsylvania, brought to
Charles Town for trial, convicted, and hanged.
In the days following Brown’s sentencing, Virginia’s Governor Wise was
swamped with mail. Many letters pleaded for clemency, some contained
outright threats, while others warned of fantastic plots to effect the
abolitionist’s escape. Martial law was declared in Charles Town.
Militiamen were everywhere, and armed patrols kept a vigilant watch on
all roads leading into town. The day of execution came, and not one of
the schemes to free Brown materialized.
[Illustration: Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia]
[Illustration: Proclamation]