THE GREAT PLAN
“Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of
wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go
free, and that ye break every yoke?”
“Sir, the angel of the Lord will camp round about me,” said John Brown
with stern eyes when the timid foretold his doom.[137] With a steadfast
almost superstitious faith in his divine mission, the old man had walked
unscathed out of Kansas in the fall of 1856, two years and a half before
the slave raid into Missouri related in the last chapter. In his mind
lay a definitely matured plan for attacking slavery in the United States
in such a way as would shake its very foundations. The plan had been
long forming, and changing in shape from 1828, when he proposed a Negro
school in Hudson, until 1859 when he finally fixed on Harper’s Ferry. At
first he thought to educate Negroes in the North and let them leaven the
lump of slaves. Then, moving forward a step, he determined to settle in
a border state and educate slaves openly or clandestinely and send them
out as emissaries. As gradually he became acquainted with the great work
and wide ramifications of the Underground Railroad, he conceived the
idea of central depots for running off slaves in the inaccessible
portions of the South, and he began studying Southern geography with
this in view. He noted the rivers, swamps and mountains, and more
especially, the great struggling heights of the Alleghanies, which swept
from his Pennsylvania home down to the swamps of Virginia, Carolina and
Georgia. His Kansas experiences suggested for a time the southwest
pathway to Louisiana by the swamps of the Red and Arkansas Rivers, but
this was but a passing thought; he soon reverted to the great spur of
the Alleghanies.
“I never shall forget,” writes Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “the quiet
way in which he once told me that ‘God had established the Alleghany
Mountains from the foundation of the world that they might one day be a
refuge for fugitive slaves.’ I did not know then that his own home was
among the Adirondacks.”[138]
More and more, as he thought and worked, did his great plan present
itself to him clearly and definitely until finally it stood in 1858 as
Kagi told it to Hinton:
“The mountains of Virginia were named as the place of refuge, and as a
country admirably adapted in which to carry on guerrilla warfare. In the
course of the conversation, Harper’s Ferry was mentioned as a point to
be seized, but not held,—on account of the arsenal. The white members of
the company were to act as officers of different guerrilla bands, which,
under the general command of John Brown, were to be composed of Canadian
refugees, and the Virginia slaves who would join them. A different time
of the year was mentioned for the commencement of the warfare from that
which had lately been chosen. It was not anticipated that the first
movement would have any other appearance to the masters than a slave
stampede, or local insurrection, at most. The planters would pursue
their chattels and be defeated. The militia would then be called out,
and would also be defeated. It was not intended that the movement should
appear to be of large dimension, but that, gradually increasing in
magnitude, it should, as it opened, strike terror into the heart of the
slave states by the amount of the organization it would exhibit, and the
strength it gathered. They anticipated, after the first blow had been
struck, that, by the aid of the free and Canadian Negroes who would join
them, they could inspire confidence in the slaves, and induce them to
rally. No intention was expressed of gathering a large body of slaves,
and removing them to Canada. On the contrary, Kagi clearly stated, in
answer to my inquiries, that the design was to make the fight in the
mountains of Virginia, extending it to North Carolina, and Tennessee,
and also to the swamps of South Carolina if possible. Their purpose was
not the extradition of one or a thousand slaves, but their liberation in
the states wherein they were born, and were now held in bondage. ‘The
mountains and swamps of the South were intended by the Almighty,’ said
John Brown to me afterward, ‘for a refuge for the slave, and a defense
against the oppressor.’ Kagi spoke of having marked out a chain of
counties extending continuously through South Carolina, Georgia,
Alabama, and Mississippi. He had traveled over a large portion of the
region indicated, and from his own personal knowledge, and with the
assistance of Canadian Negroes who had escaped from those states, they
had arranged a general plan of attack.
“The counties he named were those which contained the largest proportion
of slaves, and would, therefore, be the best in which to strike. The
blow struck at Harper’s Ferry was to be in the spring, when the planters
were busy, and the slaves most needed. The arms in the arsenal were to
be taken to the mountains, with such slaves that joined. The telegraph
wires were to be cut, and the railroad tracks torn up in all directions.
As fast as possible other bands besides the original ones were to be
formed, and a continuous chain of posts established in the mountains.
They were to be supported by provisions taken from the farms of the
oppressors. They expected to be speedily and constantly reënforced;
first, by the arrival of those men, who, in Canada, were anxiously
looking and praying for the time of deliverance, and then by the slaves
themselves. The intention was to hold the egress to the free states as
long as possible, in order to retreat when that was advisable. Kagi,
however, expected to retreat southward, not in the contrary direction.
The slaves were to be armed with pikes, scythes, muskets, shotguns, and
other simple instruments of defense; the officers, white or black, and
such of the men as were skilled and trustworthy, to have the use of the
Sharps rifles and revolvers. They anticipated procuring provisions
enough for subsistence by forage, as also arms, horses, and ammunition.
Kagi said one of the reasons that induced him to go into the enterprise
was a full conviction that at no very distant day forcible efforts for
freedom would break out among the slaves, and that slavery might be more
speedily abolished by such efforts, than by any other means. He knew by
observation in the South, that in no point was the system so vulnerable
as in its fear of slave-rising. Believing that such a blow would soon be
struck, he wanted to organize it so as to make it more effectual, and
also, by directing and controlling the Negroes, to prevent some of the
atrocities that would necessarily arise from the sudden upheaval of such
a mass as the Southern slaves.”[139]
The knowledge of the country was obtained by personal inspection. Kagi
and others of Brown’s lieutenants went out on trips; the old man himself
had been in western, northern and southern Virginia, and his Negro
friends especially knew these places and routes. One of Brown’s men
writes:
“My object in wishing to see Mr. Reynolds, who was a colored man (very
little colored, however), was in regard to a military organization
which, I had understood, was in existence among the colored people. He
assured me that such was the fact, and that its ramifications extended
through most, or nearly all, of the slave states. He, himself, I think,
had been through many of the slave states visiting and organizing. He
referred me to many references in the Southern papers, telling of this
and that favorite slave being killed or found dead. These, he asserted,
must be taken care of, being the most dangerous element they had to
contend with. He also asserted that they were only waiting for Brown, or
some one else to make a successful initiative move when their forces
would be put in motion. None but colored persons could be admitted to
membership, and, in part to corroborate his assertions, he took me to
the room in which they held their meetings and used as their arsenal. He
showed me a fine collection of arms. He gave me this under the pledge of
secrecy which we gave to each other at the Chatham Convention.
“On my return to Cleveland he passed me through the organization, first
to J. J. Pierce, colored, at Milan, who paid my bill over night at the
Eagle Hotel, and gave me some money, and a note to E. Moore, at Norwalk,
who in turn paid my hotel bill and purchased a railroad ticket through
to Cleveland for me.”[140]
Speaking of this league, Hinton also says:
“As one may naturally understand, looking at conditions then existing,
there existed something of an organization to assist fugitives and for
resistance to their masters. It was found all along the borders from
Syracuse, New York, to Detroit, Michigan. As none but colored men were
admitted into direct and active membership with this ‘League of
Freedom,’ it is quite difficult to trace its workings or know how far
its ramifications extended. One of the most interesting phases of slave
life, so far as the whites were enabled to see or impinge upon it, was
the extent and rapidity of communication among them. Four geographical
lines seem to have been chiefly followed. One was that of the coast
south of the Potomac, whose almost continuous line of swamps from the
vicinity of Norfolk, Va., to the northern border of Florida afforded a
refuge for many who could not escape and became ‘marooned’ in their
depths, while giving facility to the more enduring to work their way out
to the North Star Land. The great Appalachian range and its abutting
mountains were long a rugged, lonely, but comparatively safe route to
freedom. It was used, too, for many years. Doubtless a knowledge of that
fact, for John Brown was always an active Underground Railroad man, had
very much to do, apart from its immediate use strategically considered,
with the captain’s decision to begin operations therein. Harriet Tubman,
whom John Brown met for the first time at St. Catherines in March or
April, 1858, was a constant user of the Appalachian route.”[141]
The trained leadership John Brown found in his Kansas experience, and
his wide acquaintance with colored men; the organization of the Negroes
culminated in a convention at Chatham, Canada. The raising of money for
this work, as time went on, was more and more the object of his various
occupations and commercial ventures. These visions of personal wealth to
be expended for great deeds failed because the pressure of work for the
ideal overcame the pressure of work for funds to finance it. When once
he discovered at Syracuse men of means, ready to pay the expenses of men
of deeds, he dropped all further thought of his physical necessities,
gave himself to the cause and called on them for money. In his earlier
calls he regards this not as charity but as wages. He said once: “From
about the 20th of May of last year hundreds of men like ourselves lost
their whole time, and entirely failed of securing any kind of crop
whatever. I believe it safe to say that five hundred free state men lost
each one hundred and twenty-five days, at $1.50 per day, which would be,
to say nothing of attendant losses, $90,000. I saw the ruins of many
free state men’s houses at different places in the Territory, together
with stacks of grain wasted and burning, to the amount of, say $50,000;
making, in lost time and destruction of property, more than
$150,000.”[142]
And again: “John Brown has devoted the service of himself and two minor
sons to the free state cause for more than a year; suffered by the fire
before named and by robbery; has gone at his own cost for that period,
except that he and his company together have received forty dollars in
cash, two sacks of flour, thirty-five pounds bacon, thirty-five pounds
sugar, and twenty pounds rice.
“I propose to serve hereafter in the free state cause (provided my
needful expenses can be met), should that be desired; and to raise a
small regular force to serve on the same condition. My own means are so
far exhausted that I can no longer continue in the service at present
without the means of defraying my expenses are furnished me.”[143]
Finally, however, he had to appeal more directly to philanthropy. He was
especially encouraged by the Kansas committees. These committees had
sprung up in various ways and places in 1854, but had nearly all united
in Thayer’s New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1855. This company
proposed to aid free state emigration as an investment, but it failed in
this respect because of the political troubles, and the panic of 1857.
It did, however, arouse great interest throughout the nation. The
National Kansas Committee, formed after the sacking of Lawrence, was
more belligerent than philanthropic in its projects, while the Boston
Relief Committee was distinctly radical. John Brown had some connection
with Thayer’s company, but his hopes were especially built on the
National Kansas Committee, which Lane had done so much to bring into
being, and to which Gerrit Smith contributed many thousands of dollars.
Leaving Kansas secretly in October, 1856, John Brown hastened to the
Chicago headquarters of this National Kansas Committee with a proposal
that they equip a company for him. The Chicago committee referred this
proposal to a full meeting of the members to be held in New York in
January. John Brown immediately started East, clad in new clothes which
the committee furnished and armed with letters from the governors of
Kansas and Ohio. Gerrit Smith welcomed him and said: “Captain John
Brown,—you did not need to show me letters from Governor Chase and
Governor Robinson to let me know who and what you are. I have known you
for many years, and have highly esteemed you as long as I have known
you. I know your unshrinking bravery, your self-sacrificing benevolence,
your devotion to the cause of freedom, and have long known them. May
Heaven preserve your life and health, and prosper your noble
purpose!”[144]
But his half-brother in Ohio wrote:
“Since the trouble growing out of the settlement of the Kansas
Territory, I have observed a marked change in brother John. Previous to
this, he devoted himself entirely to business; but since these troubles
he has abandoned all business, and has become wholly absorbed by the
subject of slavery. He had property left him by his father, and of which
I had the agency. He has never taken a dollar of it for the benefit of
his family, but has called for a portion of it to be expended in what he
called the Service. After his return to Kansas he called on me, and I
urged him to go home to his family and attend to his private affairs;
that I feared his course would prove his destruction and that of his
boys.... He replied that he was sorry that I did not sympathize with
him; that he knew that he was in the line of his duty, and he must
pursue it, though it should destroy him and his family. He stated to me
that he was satisfied that he was a chosen instrument in the hands of
God to war against slavery. From his manner and from his conversation at
this time, I had no doubt he had become insane upon the subject of
slavery, and gave him to understand that this was my opinion of
him!”[145]
Mrs. George L. Stearns, the wife of the Massachusetts anti-slavery
leader, writes:
“At this juncture, Mr. Stearns wrote to John Brown, that if he would
come to Boston and consult with the friends of freedom, he would pay his
expenses. They had never met, but ‘Osawatomie Brown’ had become a
cherished household name during the anxious summer of 1856. Arriving in
Boston they were introduced to each other in the street by a Kansas man,
who chanced to be with Mr. Stearns on his way to the committee rooms in
Nilis’s Block, School Street. Captain Brown made a profound impression
on all who came within the sphere of his moral magnetism. Emerson called
him ‘the most ideal of men, for he wanted to put all his ideas into
action.’ His absolute superiority to all selfish aims and narrowing
pride of opinion touched an answering chord in the self-devotion of Mr.
Stearns. A little anecdote illustrates the modest estimate of the work
he had in hand. After several efforts to bring together certain friends
to meet Captain Brown at his home, in Medford, he found that Sunday was
the only day that would serve their several conveniences, and being a
little uncertain how it might strike his ideas of religious propriety,
he prefaced his invitation with something like an apology. With
characteristic promptness came the reply: ‘Mr. Stearns, I have a little
ewe-lamb that I want to pull out of the ditch, and the Sabbath will be
as good a day as any to do it.’
“It may not be out of place to describe the impression he made upon the
writer on this first visit. When I entered the parlor, he was sitting
near the hearth, where glowed a bright, open fire. He rose to greet me,
stepping forward with such an erect, military bearing, such fine
courtesy of demeanor and grave earnestness, that he seemed to my instant
thought some old Cromwellian hero suddenly dropped down before me; a
suggestion which was presently strengthened by his saying (proceeding
with the conversation my entrance had interrupted), ‘Gentlemen, I
consider the Golden Rule and the Declaration of Independence one and
inseparable; and it is better that a whole generation of men, women,
children should be swept away than that this crime of slavery should
exist one day longer.’ These words were uttered like rifle balls; in
such emphatic tones and manner that our little Carl, not three years
old, remembered it in manhood as one of his earliest recollections. The
child stood perfectly still, in the middle of the room, gazing with his
beautiful eyes on this new sort of a man, until his absorption arrested
the attention of Captain Brown, who soon coaxed him to his knee, though
the look and childlike wonder remained. His dress was of some dark brown
stuff, quite coarse, but its exactness and neatness produced a singular
air of refinement. At dinner, he declined all dainties, saying that he
was unaccustomed to luxuries, even to partaking of butter.
“The ‘friends of freedom,’ with whom Mr. Stearns had invited John Brown
to consult, were profoundly impressed with his sagacity, integrity, and
devotion; notably among these were R. W. Emerson, Theodore Parker, H. D.
Thoreau, A. Bronson Alcott, F. B. Sanborn, Dr. S. G. Howe, Col. T. W.
Higginson, Governor Andrew, and others.”[146]
Sanborn says:
“He came to me with a note of introduction from George Walker of
Springfield—both of us being Kansas committee men, working to maintain
the freedom of that Territory, and Brown had been one of the fighting
men there in the summer of 1856, just before. His theory required
fighting in Kansas; it was the only sure way, he thought, to keep that
region free from the curse of slavery. His mission now was to levy war
on it, and for that to raise and equip a company of a hundred well-armed
men who should resist aggression in Kansas, or occasionally carry the
war into Missouri. Behind that purpose, but not yet disclosed, was his
intention to use the men thus put into the field for incursions into
Virginia or other slave states. Our State Kansas Committee, of which I
was secretary, had a stock of arms that Brown wished to use for this
company, and these we voted to him. They had been put in the custody of
the National Committee at Chicago, and it was needful to follow up our
vote by similar action in the National Committee. For this purpose I was
sent to a meeting of that committee at the Astor House, in New York, as
the proxy of Dr. Howe and Dr. Samuel Cabot—both members of the National
Committee. I met Brown there, and aided him in obtaining from the
meeting an appropriation of $5,000 for his work in Kansas, of which,
however, he received only $500. The committee also voted to restore the
custody of two hundred rifles to the Massachusetts committee which
bought them, well knowing that we should turn them over to John Brown,
as we did. He found them at Tabor, Ia., in the following September, and
took possession; it was with part of these rifles that he entered
Virginia two years later.
“At this Astor House meeting Brown was closely questioned by some of the
National Committee, particularly by Mr. Hurd of Chicago, as to what he
would do with money and arms. He refused to pledge himself to use them
solely in Kansas, and declared that his past record ought to be a
sufficient guarantee that he should employ them judiciously. If we chose
to trust him, well and good, but he would neither make pledges nor
disclose his plans. Mr. Hurd had some inkling that Brown would not
confine his warfare to Kansas, but the rest of us were willing to trust
Brown, and the money was voted.”[147]
John Brown immediately made a careful estimate of the cost of the
necessary equipment which with “two weeks of provisions for men and
horses” amounted to $1,774. The funds of the committee, however, were
low and the officers suspicious; in April they informed Brown: “The
committee are at present out of money, and compelled to decline sending
you the five hundred dollars you speak of. They are sorry this has
become the case, but it was unavoidable. I need not state to you all the
reasons why. The country has stopped sending us contributions, and we
have no means of replenishing our treasury. We shall need to have aid
from some quarter to enable us to meet our present engagements.”[148]
Immediately Brown set out to raise his own funds and for three months
worked fervently. Just before the Dred Scott Decision he spoke to the
Massachusetts legislature from which his friends hoped to secure an
appropriation for Kansas. This failed, and Brown started on a tour in
New England. He spoke at his old home and made a contract for securing
one thousand pikes near there. He showed a Kansas bowie-knife and said:
“Such a blade as this, mounted upon a strong shaft, or handle, would
make a cheap and effective weapon. Our friends in Kansas are without
arms or money to get them; and if I could put such weapons into their
hands, they could make them very useful. A resolute woman, with such a
pike, could defend her cabin door against man or beast.”[149]
In Hartford he spoke and said:
“I am trying to raise from twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars in the
free states to enable me to continue my efforts in the cause of freedom.
Will the people of Connecticut, my native state, afford me some aid in
this undertaking? Will the gentlemen and ladies of Hartford, where I
make my appeal in this state, set the example of an earnest effort? Will
some gentleman or lady take hold and try what can be done by small
contributions from counties, cities, towns, societies, or churches, or
in some other way? I think the little beggar children in the street are
sufficiently interested to warrant their contributing, if there was any
need of it, to secure the object.
“I was told that the newspapers in a certain city were dressed in
mourning on hearing that I was killed and scalped in Kansas, but I did
not know of it until I reached the place. Much good it did me. In the
same place I met a more cool reception than in any other place where I
have stopped. If my friends will hold up my hands while I live, I will
freely absolve them from any expense over me when I am dead. I do not
ask for pay, but shall be most grateful for all the assistance I can
get.”[150]
On the day that Buchanan was inaugurated and two days before the Dred
Scott Decision, he published a similar appeal in the New York _Tribune_
“with no little sacrifice of personal feeling.” Once he writes: “I am
advised that one of Uncle Sam’s hounds is on my track, and I have kept
myself hid for a few days to let my track get cold. I have no idea of
being taken, and intend (if God will) to go back with irons in, rather
than upon, my hands.”[151]
Dr. Wayland met him in Worcester where a Frederick Douglass meeting was
being arranged just after Taney’s decision and says: “I called at the
house of Eli Thayer, afterward member of Congress from that district, to
ask him to sit on the platform. Here I found a stranger, a man of tall,
gaunt form, with a face smooth-shaven, destitute of full beard, that
later became a part of history. The children were climbing over his
knees; he said, ‘The children always come to me.’ I was then introduced
to John Brown of Osawatomie. How little one imagined then that in less
than three years the name of this plain homespun man would fill America
and Europe! Mr. Brown consented to occupy a place on the platform, and
at the urgent request of the audience, spoke briefly. It is one of the
curious facts, that many men who _do_ it are utterly unable to _tell_
about it. John Brown, a flame of fire in action, was dull in
speech.”[152]
Later in the same month Brown accompanied Sanborn and Conway to
ex-Governor Reeder’s home in Pennsylvania to induce him to return to
Kansas, but he declined. April 1st found Brown back in Massachusetts,
where for a week or more he was again in hiding from United States
officers, probably among his Negro friends in Springfield. It was in
April, too, that he took another step in his plan, namely, toward
securing military training for his band. He stated according to Realf
that, “for twenty or thirty years the idea had possessed him like a
passion of giving liberty to the slaves; that he made a journey to
England, during which he made a tour upon the European continent,
inspecting all fortifications, and especially all earthwork forts which
he could find, with a view of applying the knowledge thus gained, with
modifications and inventions of his own, to a mountain warfare in the
United States. He stated that he had read all the books upon
insurrectionary warfare, that he could lay his hands on: the Roman
warfare, the successful opposition of the Spanish chieftains during the
period when Spain was a Roman province,—how, with ten thousand men,
divided and subdivided into small companies, acting simultaneously, yet
separately, they withstood the whole consolidated power of the Roman
Empire through a number of years. In addition to this he had become very
familiar with the successful warfare waged by Schamyl, the Circassian
chief, against the Russians; he had posted himself in relation to the
wars of Toussaint L’Ouverture; he had become thoroughly acquainted with
the wars in Hayti and the islands round about.”[153]
Despite his own knowledge, however, he felt the need of expert advice,
and meeting a former lieutenant of Garibaldi, one Hugh Forbes, he was
captivated by him, and forthwith hired him to drill his men. Forbes was
an excitable, ill-balanced Englishman, who had fought in Italy and at
last landed penniless in New York. He thought Brown simply an agent of
wealthy and powerful interests and that the whole North was ready to
attack slavery. He proposed translating and publishing a manual of
guerrilla warfare and John Brown gave him $600 for this work. He was
then to join the leader and they would together go to the West and
gather and drill a company. This large outlay left John Brown but little
in his purse, for, after all, his efforts had been disappointing, and he
departed from New England with a quaint half-sarcastic “Farewell to the
Plymouth Rocks, Bunker Hill monuments, Charter Oaks and Uncle Tom’s
Cabins.” He wrote:
“He has left for Kansas; has been trying since he came out of the
Territory to secure an outfit, or, in other words, the means of arming
and thoroughly equipping his regular minutemen, who are mixed up with
the people of Kansas. And he leaves the states with the deepest sadness,
that after exhausting his own small means, and with his family and with
his brave men suffering hunger, cold, nakedness, and some of them
sickness, wounds, imprisonment in irons with extreme cruel treatment,
and others death; that, lying on the ground for months in the most
sickly, unwholesome, and uncomfortable places, some of the time with the
sick and wounded, destitute of shelter, hunted like wolves, and
sustained in part by Indians; that after all this, in order to sustain a
cause which every citizen of this ‘glorious Republic’ is under equal
moral obligation to do, and for the neglect of which he will be held
accountable by God,—a cause in which every man, woman, and child of the
entire human family has a deep and awful interest,—that when no wages
are asked or expected, he cannot secure, amid all wealth, luxury, and
extravagance of this ‘heaven-exalted’ people, even the necessary
supplies of the common soldier. ‘How are the mighty fallen!’
“I am destitute of horses, baggage wagons, tents, harness, saddles,
bridles, holsters, spurs, and belts; camp equipage, such as cooking and
eating utensils, blankets, knapsacks, intrenching tools, axes, shovels,
spades, mattocks, crowbars; have not a supply of ammunition; have not
money sufficient to pay freight and traveling expenses; and left my
family poorly supplied with common necessaries.”[154]
Forbes also disappointed him by his delay, lingering in New York and not
appearing in Iowa until August. Brown, who had been sick again, was
nevertheless pushing matters among his Kansas friends. He wrote in June:
“There are some half-dozen men I want a visit from at Tabor, Ia., to
come off in the most quiet way; ... I have some very important matters
to confer with some of you about. Let there be no words about it.”[155]
Arriving at Tabor early in August, Brown’s first business was to secure
the arms voted him. Because of a previous failure to equip emigrants at
points further east, the Massachusetts Kansas State Committee had sent
200 Sharps rifles to Tabor, Ia. Here they were stored in a minister’s
barn until John Brown called for and removed them. Hugh Forbes finally
arrived August 9th, bringing with him copies of his “Manual for the
Patriotic Volunteer.” Brown wrote home that he and his son Owen were
“beginning to take lessons and have, we think, a capable teacher.”
Differences, however, soon arose. Forbes wanted $100 per month in
addition to the $600 previously paid, while Brown apparently considered
that he had already advanced a half year’s wage. Then too matters were
on a meaner scale than Forbes had dreamed; there was no money, few
followers and little glory in sight. He felt himself duped; he despised
Brown’s ability and proposed taking full command himself, projecting
slave raids into Missouri and other states. Brown was obdurate, and
early in November, the foreign tactician suddenly left for the East.
This disturbed Brown’s plans. He had intended to establish two or three
military schools, one in Iowa, one in northern Ohio and one in Canada.
Forbes’s desertion made him determine to give up the Iowa school and
hasten to Ohio. He therefore passed quickly to Kansas, arriving in the
vicinity of Lawrence, November 5, 1857.
Cook says:
“I met him at the house of E. B. Whitman, about four miles from
Lawrence, K. T., which, I think, was about the first of November
following. I was told that he intended to organize a company for the
purpose of putting a stop to the aggressions of the pro-slavery men. I
agreed to join him and was asked if I knew of any other young men who
were perfectly reliable whom I thought would join also. I recommended
Richard Realf, L. F. Parsons, and R. J. Hinton. I received a note on the
next Sunday morning, while at breakfast in the Whitney House, from
Captain Brown, requesting me to come up that day, and to bring Realf,
Parsons, and Hinton with me. Realf and Hinton were not in town, and
therefore I could not extend to them the invitation. Parsons and myself
went and had a long talk with Captain Brown. A few days afterward I
received another note from Captain Brown, which read, as near as I can
recollect, as follows:
“‘CAPTAIN COOK:—Dear Sir—You will please get everything ready to join me
at Topeka by Monday night next. Come to Mrs. Sheridan’s, two miles south
of Topeka, and bring your arms, ammunition, clothing and other articles
you may require. Bring Parsons with you if he can get ready in time.
Please keep very quiet about this matter. Yours, etc.,
JOHN BROWN.’
“I made all my arrangements for starting at the time appointed. Parsons,
Realf, and Hinton could not get ready. I left them at Lawrence, and
started in a carriage for Topeka. Stopped at a hotel over night, and
left early next morning for Mrs. Sheridan’s to meet Captain Brown. Staid
a day and a half at Mrs. S.’s—then left for Topeka, at which place we
were joined by Whipple, Moffett, and Kagi. Left Topeka for Nebraska
City, and camped at night on the prairie northeast of Topeka. Here, for
the first, I learned that we were to leave Kansas to attend a military
school during the winter. It was the intention of the party to go to
Ashtabula County, Ohio.”[156]
In this way Brown enlisted John E. Cook, whom he had met about the time
of the turn of the battle of Black Jack; Luke F. Parsons, who was a
member of his old Kansas company; and Richard Realf, a newspaper man. At
Topeka Aaron D. Stevens, a veteran free state fighter, joined, with
Charles W. Moffett, an Iowa man, and John Henry Kagi, who became his
right hand. With these six he returned to Tabor, where he found William
H. Seeman and Charles Plummer Tidd, two of his former followers; Richard
Richardson, an intelligent Negro fugitive; and his son Owen. This party
of eleven started hurriedly for Ashtabula, O., late in November.
“Good-bye,” said John Brown, “you will hear from me. We’ve had enough
talk about ‘bleeding Kansas.’ I will make a bloody spot at another point
to be talked about.”[157]
So the band started and pressed on their lonely way over two hundred and
fifty miles across the wild wastes of Iowa until they came to the
village of Springdale, about fifty miles from the Missouri. This was a
little settlement intensely anti-slavery in sentiment. Here Brown had
planned to stop long enough to sell his teams and then proceed by
railroad, eastward. The panic of this year, beginning late in August,
was by December in full swing, and he found himself without funds, and
with no remittances from the East. He therefore decided to have his men
spend the winter at Springdale while he went East alone. The Quakers
received them gladly and they were quartered at a farmhouse three miles
from the village, where they paid only a dollar a week for board. The
winter passed pleasantly but busily.
Stevens was made drill-master; all arose at five, breakfasted, studied
until ten and drilled from ten to twelve. In the afternoon they
practiced gymnastics and shooting at targets. Five nights in the week a
mock legislature was held either at the home or in the schoolhouse near
by. Sometimes Realf and others listened to the townspeople, and there
was much visiting. Before John Brown left for the East, he revealed his
plans in part to his landlord and two other citizens of Springdale.
“Some time toward spring, John Brown came to my house one Sunday
afternoon,” said this man. “He informed me that he wished to have some
private talk with me; we went into the parlor. He then told me his plans
for the future. He had not then decided to attack the armory at Harper’s
Ferry, but intended to take some fifty to one hundred men into the hills
near the Ferry and remain there until he could get together quite a
number of slaves, and then take what conveyances were needed to
transport the Negroes and their families to Canada. And in a short time
after the excitement had abated, to make a strike in some other Southern
state; and to continue on making raids, as opportunity offered, until
slavery ceased to exist. I did my best to convince him that the
probabilities were that all would be killed. He said that, as for
himself, he was willing to give his life for the slaves. He told me
repeatedly, while talking, that he believed he was an instrument in the
hands of God through which slavery would be abolished. I said to him:
‘You and your handful of men cannot cope with the whole South.’ His
reply was: ‘I tell you, Doctor, it will be the beginning of the end of
slavery.’ He also told me that but two of his men, Kagi and Stevens,
knew what his intentions were.”[158]
The landlord several times sat late into the night arguing with Brown
about his plans. Some of the neighbors were persuaded to join the band,
among them the two Coppocs, and George B. Gill, a Canadian. Stewart
Taylor also enlisted there. Hinton, however, still supposed the
battle-ground would be Kansas. He says:
“There was no attempt to make a secret of their drilling, and as Gill
shows and Cook stated in his ‘confession,’ the neighborhood folks all
understood that this band of earnest young men were preparing for
something far out of the ordinary. Of course Kansas was presumed to be
the objective point. But generally the impression prevailed that when
the party moved again, it would be somewhere in the direction of the
slave states. The atmosphere of those days was charged with disturbance.
It is difficult to determine how many of the party actually knew that
John Brown designed to invade Virginia. All the testimony goes to show
that it is most probable that not until after the assembling at the
Maryland farm in 1859 was there a full, definite announcement of
Harper’s Ferry as the objective point. That he fully explained his
purpose to make reprisals on slavery wherever the opportunity offered is
without question, but except to Owen, who was vowed to work in his early
youth, and Kagi, who informed me at Osawatomie in July, 1858, that Brown
gave him his fullest confidence upon their second interview at Topeka in
1857, there is every reason to believe that among the men the details of
the intended movement were matters of after confidence. My own
experience illustrates this. I was absent from Lawrence when John Brown
recruited his little company. He had left already for Iowa before I
returned. I met Realf just as he was leaving, and we talked without
reserve, he assuring me that the purpose was just to prepare a fighting
nucleus for resisting the enforcement of the Lecompton Constitution,
which it was then expected Congress might try to impose upon us. Through
this, advantage was to be taken of the agitation to prepare for a
movement against slavery in Missouri, Arkansas, the Indian Territory and
possibly Louisiana. At Kagi’s request (with whom I maintained for nearly
two years an important, if irregular, correspondence), I began a
systematic investigation of the conditions, roads and topography of the
Southwest, visiting a good deal of the Indian Territory, with portions
of southwest Missouri, western Arkansas, and northern Texas, also, under
the guise of examining railroad routes, etc.”[159]
Forbes in the meantime hurried East, nursing his wrath. He had all of a
foreigner’s difficulty in following the confused threads of another
nation’s politics at a critical time. He classed Seward, Wilson, Sumner,
Phillips and John Brown together as anti-slavery men who were ready to
attack the institution _vi et armis_. This movement which he proposed to
lead had been started, and then, as he supposed, shamelessly neglected
by its sponsors while he had been thrust upon the tender mercies of John
Brown. He was angry and penniless and he intended to have reparation. He
first sought out Frederick Douglass, but was received coldly. He appears
to have been more successful with McCune Smith and the New York group of
Negro leaders. He immediately, too, began to address letters to
prominent Republicans.
John Brown was annoyed at Forbes’s behavior but seems at first not to
have taken it seriously. He left his men at Springdale, and started East
in January, arriving at Douglass’s Rochester home in February. Douglass
says:
“He desired to stop with me several weeks, but added, ‘I will not stay
unless you will allow me to pay board.’ Knowing that he was no trifler,
but meant all he said, and desirous of retaining him under my roof, I
charged him three dollars a week. While here he spent most of his time
in correspondence. He wrote often to George L. Stearns, of Boston,
Gerrit Smith, of Peterboro, and many others, and received many letters
in return. When he was not writing letters, he was writing and revising
a constitution, which he meant to put in operation by means of the men
who should go with him in the mountains. He said that to avoid anarchy
and confusion there should be a regularly constituted government, which
each man who came with him should be sworn to honor and support.... His
whole time and thought were given to this subject. It was the first
thing in the morning and the last thing at night till, I confess, it
began to be something of a bore to me. Once in a while he would say he
could, with a few resolute men, capture Harper’s Ferry and supply
himself with arms belonging to the government at that place; but he
never announced his intention to do so.
“It was, however, very evidently passing in his mind as a thing that he
might do. I paid but little attention to such remarks, although I never
doubted that he thought just what he said. Soon after his coming to me
he asked me to get for him two smoothly planed boards, upon which he
could illustrate, with a pair of dividers, by a drawing, the plan of
fortification which he meant to adopt in the mountains. These forts were
to be so arranged as to connect one with the other by secret passages,
so that if one was carried, another could easily be fallen back upon,
and be the means of dealing death to the enemy at the very moment when
he might think himself victorious. I was less interested in these
drawings than my children were; but they showed that the old man had an
eye to the means as well as to the end, and was giving his best thought
to the work he was about to take in hand.”[160]
From Rochester went letters sounding his friends, as he was uncertain of
the real devotion of the many types of Abolitionists. He wrote Theodore
Parker:
“I am again out of Kansas and at this time concealing my whereabouts;
but for very different reasons, however, from those I had for doing so
at Boston last spring. I have nearly perfected arrangements for carrying
out an important measure in which the world has a deep interest, as well
as Kansas; and only lack from five to eight hundred dollars to do
so,—the same object for which I asked for the secret-service money last
fall. It is my only errand here; and I have written to some of my mutual
friends in regard to it, but they none of them understand my views so
well as you do, and I cannot explain without their first committing
themselves more than I know of their doing. I have heard that Parker
Pillsbury, and some others in your quarters hold out ideas similar to
those on which I act; but I have no personal acquaintance with them, and
know nothing of their influence or means. Cannot you either by direct or
indirect action do something to further me? Do you know of some parties
whom you could induce to give their Abolition theories a thoroughly
practical shape? I hope that this will prove to be the last time I shall
be driven to harass a friend in such a way. Do you think any of my
Garrisonian friends, either at Boston, Worcester, or any other place,
can be induced to supply a little ‘straw,’ if I will absolutely make
‘brick’? I have written George L. Stearns, of Medford, and Mr. F. B.
Sanborn, of Concord; but I am not informed as to how deeply-dyed
Abolitionists those friends are, and must beg you to consider this
communication strictly confidential, unless you know of parties who will
feel and act, and hold their peace. I want to bring the thing about
during the next sixty days.”[161]
To Higginson he wrote: “Railroad business on a somewhat extended scale
is the identical object for which I am trying to get means. I have been
connected with that business, as commonly conducted, from my childhood,
and never let an opportunity slip. I have been operating to some purpose
the past season; but I know I have a measure on foot that I feel sure
would awaken in you something more than a common interest if you could
understand it. I have just written to my friends G. L. Stearns, and F.
B. Sanborn, asking them to meet me for consultation at Peterboro, N. Y.
I am very anxious to have you come along, as I feel certain that you
will never regret having been one of the council.”[162]
The Boston folk hesitated and suggested that Brown come there. He
demurred on account of his being too well known. Finally Sanborn alone
went to meet Brown and thus relates his experience:
“After dinner, and after a few minutes spent with our guests in the
parlor, I went with Mr. Smith, John Brown, and my classmate Morton, to
the room of Mr. Morton in the third story. Here, in the long winter
evening which followed, the whole outline of Brown’s campaign in
Virginia was laid before our little council, to the astonishment and
almost the dismay of those present. The constitution which he had drawn
for the government of his men, and of such territory as they might
occupy, was exhibited by Brown, its provisions recited and explained,
the proposed movements of his men indicated, and the middle of May was
named as the time of the attack. To begin his hazardous adventure he
asked for but eight hundred dollars, and would think himself rich with a
thousand. Being questioned and opposed by his friends, he laid before
them in detail his methods of organization and fortification; of
settlement in the South, if that were possible, and of retreat through
the North, if necessary; and his theory of the way in which such an
invasion would be received in the country at large. He desired from his
friends a patient hearing of his statements, a candid opinion concerning
his plan, and, if that were favorable, then such aid in money and
support as we could give him. We listened until after midnight,
proposing objections and raising difficulties; but nothing could shake
the purpose of the old Puritan. Every difficulty had been foreseen and
provided against in some manner; the grand difficulty of all,—the
manifest hopelessness of undertaking anything so vast with such slender
means,—was met with the text of Scripture: ‘If God be for us, who can be
against us?’ He had made nearly all his arrangements: he had so many men
enlisted, so many hundred weapons; all he now wanted was the small sum
of money. With that he would open his campaign in the spring, and he had
no doubt that the enterprise ‘would pay’ as he said.
“On the 23d of February the discussion was renewed, and, as usually
happened when he had time enough, Captain Brown began to prevail over
the objections of his friends. At any rate, they saw that they must
either stand by him, or leave him to dash himself alone against the
fortress he was determined to assault. To withhold aid would only delay,
not prevent him; nothing short of betraying him to the enemy would do
that. As the sun was setting over the snowy hills of the region where we
met, I walked for an hour with Gerrit Smith among those woods and fields
(then included in his broad manor) which his father had purchased of the
Indians and bequeathed to him. Brown was left at home by the fire,
discussing the points of theology with Charles Stewart, an old captain
under Wellington, who also happened to be visiting at the house. Mr.
Smith restated in his eloquent way the daring propositions of Brown,
whose import he understood fully; and then said in substance: ‘You see
how it is; our dear old friend has made up his mind to this course, and
cannot be turned from it. We cannot give him up to die alone; we must
support him. I will raise so many hundred dollars for him; you must lay
the case before your friends in Massachusetts and perhaps they will do
the same. I see no other way.’ For myself, I had reached the same
conclusion, and engaged to bring the scheme at once to the attention of
the three Massachusetts men to whom Brown had written, and also of Dr.
S. G. Howe, who had sometimes favored action almost as extreme as this
proposed by Brown. I returned to Boston on the 25th of February, and on
the same day communicated the enterprise to Theodore Parker and
Wentworth Higginson. At the suggestion of Parker, Brown, who had gone to
Brooklyn, N. Y., was invited to visit Boston secretly, and did so on the
4th of March, taking a room at the American House, in Hanover Street,
and remaining for the most part in his room during the four days of his
stay. Mr. Parker was deeply interested in the project, but not very
sanguine of its success. He wished to see it tried, believing that it
must do good even if it failed. Brown remained at the American House
until Monday, March 8th, when he departed for Philadelphia.”
On the 6th of March he wrote to his son John from Boston: “My call here
has met with a hearty response, so that I feel assured of at least
tolerable success. I ought to be thankful for this. All has been
effected by quiet meeting of a few choice friends, it being scarcely
known that I have been in the city.”[163]
Leaving the money-raising to Sanborn and Smith, Brown turned to his
Negro friends, saying to his eldest son, meantime: “I have been thinking
that I would like to have you make a trip to Bedford, Chambersburg,
Gettysburg, and Uniontown in Pennsylvania, traveling slowly along, and
inquiring of every man on the way, or every family of the right stripe,
and getting acquainted with them as much as you could. When you look at
the location of those places, you will readily perceive the advantage of
getting some acquaintance in those parts.”[164]
And then he wrote two touching letters; one to his eldest daughter and
one to his staunch friend, Sanborn.
To Ruth Brown he wrote: “The anxiety I feel to see my wife and children
once more I am unable to describe. I want exceedingly to see my big baby
Ruth’s baby, and to see how that little company of sheep look about this
time. The cries of my poor sorrow-strieken, despairing children, whose
‘tears on their cheeks’ are ever in my eyes, and whose sighs are ever in
my ears, may however prevent my enjoying the happiness I so much desire.
But, courage, courage, courage!—the great work of my life (the unseen
hand that ‘guided me, and who had indeed holden my right hand, may hold
it still,’ though I have not known Him at all as I ought) I may yet see
accomplished (God helping), and be permitted to return, and ‘rest at
evening.’
“Oh, my daughter Ruth! Could any plan be devised whereby you could let
Henry go ‘to school’ (as you expressed it in your letter to him while in
Kansas), I would rather now have him ‘for another term’ than to have a
hundred average scholars. I have a particular and very important, but
not dangerous, place for him to fill in the ‘school,’ and I know of no
man living so well adapted to fill it. I am quite confident some way can
be devised so that you and your children could be with him, and be quite
happy even, and safe; but God forbid me to flatter you in trouble!”[165]
To his friend Sanborn he said: “I believe when you come to look at the
ample field I labor in, and the rich harvest which not only this entire
country but the whole world during the present and future generations
may reap from its successful cultivation, you will feel that you are in
it, an entire unit. What an inconceivable amount of good you might so
effect by your counsel, your example, your encouragement, your natural
and acquired ability for active service! And then, how very little we
can possibly lose! Certainly the cause is enough to live for, if not
to—for. I have only had this one opportunity, in a life of nearly sixty
years; and could I be continued ten times as long again, I might not
again have another equal opportunity. God has honored but comparatively
a very small part of mankind with any possible chance for such mighty
and soul-satisfying rewards. But, my dear friend, if you should make up
your mind to do so, I trust it will be wholly from the promptings of
your own spirit, after having thoroughly counted the cost. I would
flatter no man into such a measure, if I could do it ever so easily.
“I expect nothing but to endure hardness; but I expect to effect a
mighty conquest, even though it be like the last victory of Samson. I
felt for a number of years, in earlier life, a steady, strong desire to
die; but since I saw any prospect of becoming a ‘reaper’ in the great
harvest, I have not only felt quite willing to live, but have enjoyed
life much; and am now rather anxious to live for a few years more.”[166]