* * * * *
The great story of Harper's Ferry is of course the John Brown story.
Joseph I.C. Clarke, writing in the New York "Sun" of Sir Roger
Casement's execution for treason in connection with the Irish rebellion,
compared him with John Brown and also with Don Quixote. The spiritual
likeness between these three bearded figures is striking enough. All
were idealists; all were fanatics. Brown's ideal was a noble one--that
of freedom--but his manner of attempting to translate it into actuality
was that of a madman. He believed not only that the slaves should be
freed, but that the blood of slaveholders should be shed in atonement.
In "bleeding Kansas" he led the Ossawatomie massacre, and committed
cold-blooded murders under the delusion that the sword of the Lord was
in his hand.
In October, 1859, Brown, who had for some time been living under an
assumed name in the neighborhood of Harper's Ferry, led a score of his
followers, some of them negroes, in a surprise attack upon the
Government arsenal at this place, capturing the watchmen and taking
possession of the buildings. It was his idea to get the weapons the
arsenal contained and give them to the slaves that they might rise and
free themselves. Before this plan could be executed, however, Brown and
his men were besieged in the armory, and here, after a day or two of
bloody fighting, with a number of deaths on both sides, he was captured
with his few surviving men, by Colonel (later General) Robert E.
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