The papers are teeming with accounts of the late out-break
at Harper's Ferry. It seems that Capt. John Brown –“old Brown” – “Ossawattomie Brown” of Kansas notoriety,
has astonished the Country by the opening scene of his wild and mad project to
abolish slavery by a general servile insurrection.
With only 17 or 18 white men, and 5 or 6 free negro[e]s, to
aid him, he took possession of the armory and other public works at Harper's
[Ferry] and had full possession of the town. This was all done by a coup de main in the night[.]
Troops, regular and volunteers, were soon brought to bear
upon him, and after the killing of several citizens and soldiers, and of the most
of Brown's men white and black (including his two sons) the old man, and two or
three of his men were taken.
Brown himself, tho' badly wounded in the head, by sabre
cuts, and in the body, by a bayonet through the kidneys, is said to have exhibited,
in a very marked manner, a calm self-possession, and a cool, quiet courage,
very rarely seen. He must be a madman – to say nothing of the wickedness of the
design, the wild extravagance and utter futility of his plan, prove it. And his
cool intrepidity and, apparently, conscious rectitude do but confirm it.
At last accounts, he was undergoing examination before the
preliminary Court.
[Marginal Note.] There was found among Brown's papers, a
plan of a Provisional Governmen[t] of the U S, of which it seems, he was the
chief.
For the moment, the Country, especially Virginia, is mad
with excitemen[t] . And, as might have been expected, the Democracy is turning
every stone to make party capital out of it. Very probably, they will overdo
the thing and produce a reaction.
SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, The Diary of Edward Bates, 1859-1866, p. 50-1
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