Mary Ann Day Brown to John Brown, November 29, 1859

NEAR PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 29.

My dear Husband: I have just received your letter to Mr. M., saying that you would like to have me stay here until you are disposed of. I felt as if I could not go any further away until that sad event. You are the gainer, but we are the losers; but God will take care of us all. I am with Mrs. Lucretia Mott. . . . I find warm friends every where I go. I cannot begin to tell you the good this Sacrifice has done, or is likely to do, for the Oppressed. O, I feel it is a great Sacrifice; but hope that God will enable us to bear it. . . . I went to hear Mrs. Mott preach to-day, and heard a most excellent sermon; she made a number of allusions to you, and the preaching you are doing, and are likely to do. I expect to hear Wendell Phillips tomorrow night. Every one thinks that God is with you. I hope he will be with you unto the end. Do write to me all you can. I have written to Governor Wise for your body and those of our beloved sons. I find there is no lack of money to effect it if they can be had. Farewell, my dear, beloved husband, whom I am never to see in this world again, but hope to meet in the next.

From your most affectionate wife,

Mary A. Brown.

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 428

George L. Stearns to Mary Hall Stearns, August 17, 1863

Stanton has waked up and ordered me to plump myself down in Tennessee, right in the centre of the accursed institution, and go to work. Having sent Fred Douglas there to stir up, I suppose, he wants me to organize and utilize the batch. Well, it is what I came here to do and as that is undoubtedly the best place to do it, I am most happy to go. McKim said I could not reasonably expect to be obliged “to rough it at the Continental” all the time.

My new place for work is to the South what Buffalo was to the West and East — a centre from which to radiate, and I have determined either to burn slavery out, or be burnt by it myself.

Yesterday I went out to camp with Morris L. Hallowell and stopped a few minutes to see Lucretia Mott. She accepts very gracefully the present state of affairs, but looks forward to a state of society when war will be unnecessary. So do I, but told her that this war was a civiliser, not a barbarism. The use of the musket was the first step in the education of the black man. This she accepted. She is a great woman. If you want to know how great she is draw her out on principles not on specialties.

SOURCE: Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 308

Rebecca Buffum Spring to the Family of John Brown, November 30, 1859

Eagleswood, Perth Amboy, N. J., Nov. 30th, '59.

To the family of Mr. John Brown.

Dear Friends:

I would gladly say some words of my own to comfort you, and carry you through this great trial and affliction, but I have them not. May the God of your dear father sustain you as He has him.

I heard also from your mother yesterday. Her note came part way with your father's letter. She is with most lovely and excellent friends, who will do all in their power to sustain her. I like better to have Mrs. Brown with Mrs. Lucretia Mott than in any other place, except in that prison. I should like better to have her there in that now sacred place which is now

“‘In the very verge of heaven.’”

SOURCE: Lillie Buffum Chace Wyman and Arthur Crawford Wyman, Elizabeth Buffum Chace, 1806-1899: Her Life and Its Environment, Volume 1, p. 352