John Brown and the Raid Upon Harper's Ferry: Brown's and Armory
Still militia continued to pour in, the telegraph and rail-road having been completely repaired, so that the government at Washington, Governor Wise at Richmond, and the authorities at Baltimore were in immediate communication with Harper's Ferry, and hurrying forward troops from all quarters to overwhelm the remaining handful of insurgents, whom terror and rumor had multiplied to twenty times their actual number. At five P. M. Captain Simms arrived, with militia from Maryland, and completed the investment of the Armory buildings, whence eighteen prisoners had already been liberated upon the retreat of Brown to the engine-house. Colonel Baylor commanded in chief. The firing ceased at nightfall. Brown offered to liberate his prisoners upon condition that his men should be permitted to cross the bridge in safety, which was refused. Night found Brown's forces reduced to three unwounded whites besides himself, with perhaps half a dozen negroes from the vicinity. Eight of the insurgents were already dead; another lay dying beside the survivors; two were captives mortally wounded, and one other unhurt. Around the few survivors were fifteen hundred armed, infuriated foes. Half a dozen of the party, who had been sent out at early morning by Brown to capture slave-holders and liberate slaves, were absent, and unable, even if willing, to join their chief. They fled during the night to Maryland and Pennsylvania; but most of them were ultimately captured. During that night Colonel [Robert E.] Lee, with ninety United States marines and two pieces of artillery, arrived, and took possession of the Armory ground, very close to the engine-house.
Brown, of course, remained awake and alert through the night, discomfited and beyond earthly hope, but perfectly cool and calm. Said Governor Wise, in a speech at Richmond soon after, "Colonel Washington said that Brown was the coolest man he ever saw in defying death and danger. With one son dead by his side, and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand, held his rifle with the other, and commanded his men with the utmost composure, encouraging them to be firm, and to sell their lives as dearly as possible." .
At seven in the morning, after a parley which resulted in nothing, the marines advanced to the assault, broke in the door of the engine-house by using a ladder as a battering-ram, and rushed into the building. One of the defenders was shot, and two marines wounded; but the odds were too great; in an instant all resistance was over. Brown was struck in the face with a sabre and knocked down, after which the blow was several times repeated, while a soldier ran a bayonet twice into the old man's body. All the insurgents, it is said, would have been killed on the spot, had the Virginians been able to distinguish them with certainty from their prisoners. .
On Wednesday evening, October 19th, the four surviving prisoners were conveyed to the jail at Charlestown under an escort of marines. Brown and Stevens, badly wounded, were taken in a wagon; Green and Coppoc, unhurt, walked between files of soldiers, followed by hundreds, who at first cried, "Lynch them!" but were very properly shamed into silence by Governor Wise.
The legal proceedings which followed, and the conviction and sentence to death of Brown and his companions, have been complained of as unduly hastened and unfairly conducted, yet with little warrant. They were what might have been expected anywhere under similar circumstances of excitement.
Brown's conduct throughout commanded the admiration of his bitterest enemies. When his papers were brought into court to be identified, he said, "I will identify any of my handwriting, and save all trouble. I am ready to face the music." When a defence of insanity was suggested rather than interposed, he repelled it with indignation. [When brought into court to be sentenced, he said,] "In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted,--the design on my part to free the slaves. I intended certainly to have made a clear thing of that matter, as I did last winter when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection... Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave-country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done." .
The 2d of December was the day appointed for his execution. Nearly three thousand militia were early on the ground. Fears of a forcible rescue or of a servile insurrection prevented a large attendance of citizens. Cannon were so planted as to sweep every approach to the jail and to blow the prisoner into shreds upon the first intimation of tumult. Virginia held her breath until she heard that the old man was dead. .