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THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF JOHN BROWN

A Documentary Source Problem

From Allan Nevins' The Emergence of Lincoln.

"From Maryland Heights...a beautiful landscape extended to the south and west. An observer on the Heights could see the Shenandoah River winding through its rich valley to join the Potomac...Below was the village of Harper's Ferry... with its Federal armory.

"To this chosen base of operations came John Brown, two sons and a friend on July 3, 1859...[Brown] rented a rough two-story farmhouse...Here the men of the little force he had recruited trickled in, until by early fall he had twenty-one followers.

"Late in September, fifteen heavy boxes of 'tools' were brought down to the farm...containing 198 Sharps rifles...The fierce-eyed, iron-jawed Brown...awaited the best hour to strike...Members of the attacking party expressed fears when Brown first explained the plan to them...Several believed they were going to a certain death...

"Two factors gave him a certain amount of confidence. He knew upper Maryland and Virginia to be full of people who disliked slavery...and he believed great numbers of slaves would flock to him...

"About eight o'clock on the night of Sunday, Oct. 16 Brown ordered his troops to march upon [Harper's] Ferry...The moonless gloom...the somber silence...gave some of the marchers the impression [of a] funeral. As they came within sight of the town lights, nerves grew tauter. [Two men] turned aside to cut the telephone wires; the others pushed on.

"Turning up Potomac Street, the force [disarmed]the watchman at the armory gate and quickly took possession of both the armory and arsenal. All the Federal property, including several million dollars' worth of arms...was now in John Brown's hands. His next step was to send..six men to seize as his first hostage Col. L.W. Washington, great-grandnephew of the President and...four of his bewildered slaves...Meanwhile, John Brown was waiting for Negro and white recruits to pour in...

"As day broke, cold and gray, the alarm was spreading swiftly...Farmers from all the surrounding area caught up firearms and clattered toward the Ferry..Noon saw the Jefferson Guards seizing the Potomac bridge...while a volunteer army from Charlestown...occupied the heights...and swept down...to capture the Shenandoah bridge...Brown was now trapped.

"Seeing that his position was hopeless, he determined to negotiate a truce. But the first man he sent out for the purpose was taken prisoner...and soon afterward killed by the excited mob...

"While the Maryland and Virginia militia...sprang to arms, Federal troops were on their way...The President...instructed [his] officers to proceed at once to Harper's Ferry, where [Col. Robert E.] Lee would take command. Late that night they reached the town...

"Brown's losses during the day had been severe. His sons Oliver and Watson had been mortally wounded...

"Lee had resolved to [attack] at dawn at the point of the bayonet, not firing lest he injure the hostages...Instantly the [soldiers] sprang forward, some men battering at the doors with sledges...The little garrison inside fired with carbines...Lieutenant Green aimed a blow at Brown...Green beat him with the hilt [of his sword] until he sank unconscious...

"Within thirty-six hours...Brown's attempt had been utterly defeated. Ten of his crew had been killed, five were prisoners, and the others had escaped...He himself...was lodged in Charlestown jail..."

Assume that you are writing a history of the Civil War era and have just finished writing the above passage about the events at Harper's Ferry. You have already described the North's growing suspicion of Southern intentions to secede from the Union and the North's increasing support for anti-slavery actions, like the forcible rescue of Blacks from slavery. You now wish to explain in 600 to 800 words the purposes, meanings and effects of John Brown's raid, in describing his trial and execution. Interpret John Brown, his actions and personality. Describe what happened, why, and what its larger significance was. Select the best evidence based on its degree of credibility (believability).

The following questions are a guide. They will help you evaluate the documents and develop a broad explanation of the importance of the events you describe.

1. Did John Brown accomplish his purpose? If so, in what sense? If not, how not?

2. What appear to have been the major strengths and weaknesses in Brown's character?

3. Was the prosecution in his trial justified in charging him with trying to start a rebellion? Whom are we to believe on this question?

4. How would you assess Brown's honesty and credibility during his jailing and trial?

New York Herald account of John Brown's interrogation the day after his capture, Oct. 19, 1859.

Mr. Vallandigham. Mr. Brown, who sent you here?

Brown. No man sent me here; it was my own prompting...

Vallandigham. Did you get up the expedition yourself?

Brown. I did.

Vallandigham. Did you get up this document that is called a Constitution?

Brown. I did.

.....

Mr. Mason. What was your object in coming?

Brown. We came to free the slaves, and only that.

.....

Lieutenant Stuart. But don't you believe in the Bible?

Brown. Certainly I do.

.....

A Bystander. Do you consider this a religious movement?

Brown. It is, in my opinion, the greatest service man can render to God.

Bystander. Do you consider yourself an instrument in the hands of Providence?

Brown. I do.

Bystander. Upon what principle do you justify your acts?

Brown. Upon the Golden Rule. I pity the poor in bondage that have none to help them: that is why I am here...It is my sympathy with the oppressed and the wronged that are as good as you and as precious in the sight of God...You may dispose of me very easily...but this question is still to be settled, this Negro question I mean.

.....

A Bystander. To set [the slaves] free would sacrifice the life of every man in this community.

Brown. I do not think so.

Bystander. I know it. I think you are fanatical.

Brown. And I think you are fanatical...You are mad.

The Richmond (Va.) Enquirer, Oct. 21, 1859.

"Virginia has been assailed. All the memories of her sacrifices for the Union avail nothing...The name and family of Washington offered no protection from the assaults of these fanatics...Shall the South...fall to marauding bands of Northern fanatics?"

The National Intelligencer, Oct. 29, 1859, account of court proceedings.

"Charlestown is full to overflowing with people, and the excitement...is intense...The Court met at ten o'clock...the indictments against each prisoner were read: First, for conspiring with Negroes to create an insurrection; second, for treason against...Virginia; third, for murder...The prisoners each responded to the usual question, 'Not Guilty', and desire to be tried separately...

"Mr. Botts [Brown's attorney] read the following dispatch received by him this morning [from] Akron, Ohio, Oct. 26, 1859. 'John Brown, the leader of the insurrection at Harper's Ferry, Va., and several of his family, have resided in this county many years. Insanity is hereditary in that family. His mother and sister died with it, and a daughter of that sister has been two years in the Lunatic Asylum. A son and daughter of his mother's brother have also been confined. These facts can be conclusively proved by witnesses here...(signed) A.H. Lewis.'

"Mr. Botts said that he read it to Brown. On his mother's side there have been repeated instances of it [insanity]...Brown also desired his counsel to say that he does not put in a plea of insanity, and if he has ever been at all insane, he is totally unconscious of it..."

William Lloyd Garrison, Editor, The Liberator, Nov. 4, 1859.

"...now that sentence of death has been pronounced against the brave martyr...let the day of his execution...be the occasion of such a public moral demonstration against the bloody and merciless slave system as the land has never witnessed. Friends of freedom everywhere! Begin at once to make the necessary arrangements."

DOCUMENT #5

The Baltimore Sun, Nov. 5, 1859. Report of John Brown's words upon being condemned to death.

"I went last winter into Missouri and there took slaves...,moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to incite slaves to rebellion...

"It is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty...Had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful,...it would have been all right, and every man in this Court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward, rather than punishment.

"Now, if it is deemed necessary that I 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 the millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I submit. So let it be done!"

The Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 15, 1859. An editorial.

"With all due reverence to the memory of our forefathers, I think the time has arrived in our history for a separation from the North...The Constitution has been violated...We must separate, unless we are willing to see our daughters and wives become the victims of a barbarous passion and worse insult.

"With five million Negroes turned loose in the South, what would be the state of society? It would be worse than the 'Reign of Terror'...The day of compromise is past..."

DOCUMENT #7

Mrs. Mahala Doyle to John Brown, Nov. 20, 1859 (Mrs. Doyle's pro-slavery husband and sons were killed by John Brown and his supporters three years earlier in Kansas).

"Sir: I feel grateful to hear that you have been stopped in your fiendish career at Harper's Ferry. With the loss of your two sons you can now appreciate my distress in Kansas when you, then and there, entered my house at midnight and arrested my husband and two boys, and took them out of the yard and in cold blood shot them dead...You can't say you did it to free our slaves. We had none and never expected to own one...While I feel for your folly, I do hope and trust that you will meet your just reward."

The following sentence was written on a piece of paper and handed to one of the guards by John Brown on the morning of his execution, Dec. 2, 1859.

"I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done."

Springfield (Ill.) Republican (newspaper) Dec. 1859.

"We can conceive of no event that could so deepen the moral hostility of the people of the free states to slavery as this execution. This is not because the acts of Brown are generally approved, for they are not. It is because the nature and spirit of the man are seen to great and noble."

Reminiscences of Ruth Brown Thompson, Brown's eldest daughter, in 1885.

"...When I was six or seven years old [and we were living in Ohio], Father hired a colored man and his wife to work for him...One Sunday the woman went to church and was seated near the door, or somewhere back. This aroused father's indignation at once. He asked both of them to go the next Sunday; they followed the family in, and he seated them in his pew. The whole congregation were shocked; the minister looked angry; but I remember father's firm, determined look..."

Frederick Douglass, the former slave and famous Black abolitionist, described in his Life and Times (1881) his first meeting with John Brown in 1847.

"He denounced slavery...thought that slaveholders had forfeited their right to live, that the slaves had the right to gain their liberty any way they could, did not believe that moral [per]suasion could ever liberate the slave, or that political action would abolish the system..."

James Weld, an Ohio friend of John Brown, describing a discussion with Brown in 1858.

"He replied that with a hundred men he could free Kansas and Missouri too, and he could march them to Washington and turn the President and Cabinet out of doors...He seemed unable to think of anything else or talk of anything else [than slavery]..."

T.W. Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, 1898.

"Brown's plan was simply to penetrate Virginia with a few comrades, to keep utterly clear of all attempt to create slave insurrection [rebellion], but to get together... families of fugitive slaves, and then be guided by events...All this he explained to me and others, plainly and calmly...We helped him in raising the money..."

DOCUMENT #14

Testimony of George Stearns, a Northern abolitionist, before U.S. Senate Select Committee investigating the 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry, 1860.

Question (by a Senator). Did you...understand that Brown [intended] to make any inroad upon the subject of slavery in any of the States?

Answer. No, sir...I did not suppose that he had any organized plan.

Question. My idea is, making any forcible entry upon Virginia, or any other State?

Answer. No, sir.

Question. Had you ever any [hint] of that kind, any idea of it?

Answer. No, sir...I did suppose he would go into Virginia or some other State and relieve slaves.

Question. In what way?

Answer. In any way he could give them liberty.

Question. Did you understand that he contemplated doing it by force?

Answer. Yes, sir; by force if necessary.

Question. ...In what manner, by force?

Answer. I cannot explain any manner, because...I never talked with him on the subject.

...........

Question. ...Do you disapprove of such an action as that at Harper's Ferry?

Answer. I should have disapproved of it if I had known of it; but I have since changed my opinion; I believe John Brown to be the representative man of this century, as Washington was of the last...

Testimony of Richard Realf, a friend of Brown's, before the Senate Committee, 1860.

"John Brown stated that...he had drawn the conclusion...that upon the first [hint] of a plan for the liberation of the slaves, they would immediately rise all over the Southern States. He supposed that they would come into the mountains to join him...and if any hostile action were taken against us, either by the militia of the separate States, or by the armies of the United States, we [intended] to defeat them....and then organize the freed blacks in all that mountainous region...in which they were to be taught the useful and mechanical arts...Schools were also to be established...The slaveholders...were not to be killed..."

DOCUMENT #16

Popular song from the 1860s, to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".

John Brown's body lies a-molderin' in the grave,

John Brown's body lies a-molderin' in the grave,

John Brown's body lies a-molderin' in the grave,

But his soul goes marching on.