The Insurrectionist

by Herb Karl

  With the sword of George Washington strapped to his waist, Brown led the conductor and Stevens—who carried a Sharps carbine over his shoulder—to the railroad platform and the waiting train.

  The locomotive’s boiler was fired and the train was ready to move. The engineer released a cloud of pent-up steam from the funnel-shaped stack. Seconds later all passengers were aboard. Flanked by Brown and Stevens, Phelps stepped in front of the locomotive and began the tedious work of examining the ties and rails, a task made more difficult in a gray dawn whose pale light filtered through the openings at the top of the covered bridge’s walls and barely illuminated the interior.

  The engineer eased the locomotive’s throttle forward, making sure to keep a safe distance behind the men who walked in front of the train. The B&O express—idle for nearly five hours—moved slowly ahead.

  It soon became clear to Phelps, as he reached the midpoint of the bridge, that sabotage was unlikely. Brown sensed the conductor’s relief and hoped to remove any tension that existed between them. He said, “You doubtless wonder that a man of my age should be here with a band of armed men. But if you knew my history you would not wonder at it so much.”

  Phelps still regarded Brown as a dangerous adversary and couldn’t put his distrust aside so easily. The welfare of his passengers was more important to him than Brown’s history. The conductor’s eyes stayed focused on the rails as he spoke: “You say it is not your intention to spill blood.” A pause. “But blood has been spilled. I tended to a man who was mortally wounded.”

  Phelps turned to face Brown directly. “What is puzzling to me,” he said, “is your claim that you have come here to liberate the blacks. Yet the person I saw dying was a black man, albeit a free black man, but a man respected by all who knew him.”

  The words startled Brown. It was his first knowledge that the cry of distress he’d heard had come from a black man. His mind flashed to Potomac Street and the confrontation with Watson and Oliver, the harsh words spoken in the light of a pine-knot torch. He felt a pang of nausea, not unlike the sensation he’d experienced long ago when he witnessed a defenseless slave boy being beaten with an iron shovel.

  “If someone dies,” Brown said, “I am very sorry. It was not by my orders.”

  Stevens heard the despair in the old man’s voice and felt compelled to speak out in his defense. “No fault of yours, Captain. Just a bad decision on the part of those stationed on the bridge.”

  Nothing Stevens could have said would dispel Brown’s regret that soldiers under his command were responsible for the unnecessary shooting of a black man. He was struck by the irony of it. And there was another possible consequence. If word of the shooting spread to the neighboring countryside through the underground wires, the slaves he expected to join him might feel betrayed. They might look at the invasion as a plot conceived by white men to entrap slaves who were contemplating rebellion against their masters.

  As the end of the bridge came into view, Phelps acknowledged the train was no longer in danger. Brown told him he was free to go, adding that he realized the conductor—at his first opportunity—would be informing his superiors about what was taking place at Harpers Ferry. “You may also tell them that this is the last train that shall be allowed to pass either east or west. Any attempts to do so will be at the peril of those in charge.”

  Then Brown did something that surprised Phelps. He reached for the conductor’s hand and said, “I hope those waiting for your passengers are not too troubled by their tardiness.”

  Phelps stepped aboard the moving mail car. He stood for a moment and watched Brown and Stevens disappear in the shadows. The conductor found himself somewhat mystified by the man he believed threatened the safety of his passengers. Despite the revelations of Patrick Higgins, the shooting of Heyward Shepherd, and the delaying of his train, Phelps’s attitude toward Brown was evolving. If the old man’s goal was truly what he said it was—to free the slaves of Virginia—he might be misguided or foolish, but he certainly was no thief, and he seemed genuinely concerned about the train’s passengers.

  The conductor couldn’t help being impressed by the sheer magnitude of the task Brown had set out to accomplish. Phelps had seen evidence of the old man’s success when he observed at daybreak a number of men—most of them black—congregating in the yard of the musket factory. The lingering fog prohibited an accurate estimate of how many men he saw, but at 7:05 AM, when the train made its first emergency stop at Monocacy, Maryland, Phelps telegraphed the B&O’s master of transportation in Baltimore that an insurrection was in progress at Harpers Ferry. Then—to ensure that his message would be given immediate attention—he added that the insurrectionists were 150 strong.

  Brown walked with a heavy heart as he and Stevens followed the tracks back to the village. The old man was still anguishing over the shooting of Heyward Shepherd and wondered if the slaves in Maryland and northern Virginia were coming to the schoolhouse and the Kennedy farm as they had the Ferry.

  The two men stopped at the junction inside the bridge, where Will Thompson, Oliver, and several runaways had taken over sentry duties for Watson and Stewart Taylor. Brown had made a decision. He dispatched Will to the farmhouse with a message for Owen: “Tell him our friends are finding their way to the musket factory. If all continues to go well, we shall be leaving the Ferry very soon.”

  When Brown emerged from the bridge, Potomac Street was eerily quiet. The buildings fronting the street, including the Wager House and Galt saloon, were devoid of activity. Inside the musket factory’s gate, however, there was movement—though not the kind Brown expected. He hoped to find the yard teeming with runaways. Instead he saw white men lined up next to the firehouse; Watson, along with Jerry Anderson and Stewart Taylor, was herding them into the watch room.

  Watson spotted Stevens and the old man and stepped forward to meet them. He said he’d been detaining villagers since the train departed. He said most of the detainees were workers reporting for their morning shifts but some were armory officials—including the armory’s acting superintendent, A. M. Kitzmiller, captured on Shenandoah Street by Dangerfield Newby.

  Brown asked Watson if any new volunteers had come.

  “None, Father.”

  “They will come,” the old man said. “There is still time.”

  In truth, though, there was no time—or precious little of it—remaining. The golden hour was at hand, and the opportunity for Brown to collect his people and arms and escape from the Ferry was diminishing with each passing minute. Earlier, when Jerry Anderson brought Conductor Phelps to the firehouse, Stevens was trying to persuade Brown that they should leave immediately, that the men and arms at the Kennedy farm should be brought directly to the musket factory and from there, via the Shenandoah Bridge, the entire company ought to flee to the natural strongholds that lay within the Blue Ridge. “We can be hiding safely in the mountains before noon,” Stevens had argued.

  But Brown wouldn’t hear it. He still expected a surge of new volunteers. “We must be patient, Aaron,” he said. “The Lord will not let our work go unrewarded.”

  Now, as he stood with Watson in the yard of the musket factory, the burden of leadership was weighing on the old man. Decisions had to be made that would affect the outcome of the invasion, and Brown never liked making a decision unless he was comfortable with its probable consequences. Yet he had found himself constantly making decisions, none of which he was able to give more than a moment’s thought. His actions were no longer of his choosing; they were being dictated by circumstances over which he had no control. That the runaways had stopped coming added to his frustration.

  His burden seemed to grow even larger when he was told by Watson that the prisoners in the watch room had expressed fears; they were concerned about their families. “They want their wives and children to know they’ll not be harmed, Father.”

  “I don’t want to create fear among the villagers when it is not warranted,” Brown said. Then, after a pau
se, he added, “Nor is it my intention to harm innocent civilians.”

  If Brown’s response contained a veiled reference to the shooting of Heyward Shepherd, Watson chose to ignore it—though he sometimes wondered if his father realized how his words, so often a source of inspiration, were capable of inflicting deep wounds.

  Brown lowered his head, tugged at his beard, thought about what his son had said. Maybe the prisoners who were especially fearful could be allowed to return to their homes—with an armed escort, of course. After alleviating the worries of their families, they would be brought back to the watch room.

  Watson was on his way back to the railroad bridge when Brown looked up to see Jerry Anderson running toward him, arms waving. “Captain,” he shouted. “A message from Kagi . . . He says a man on horseback came to the rifle works . . . Rode off in an awful hurry when he didn’t see the watchman . . . Kagi says we must leave the Ferry, sir.”

  Brown grimaced. “Tell him he must hold on.” The old man wanted to add a few more words of encouragement but was distracted.

  The village suddenly was besieged by the sound of church bells.

  At the same moment, aboard the B&O express bound for Baltimore, Conductor Phelps had managed to convince his superiors—during the train’s second emergency stop at Ellicott’s Mills—that what he described in his first telegraph message was genuine. The new message was forwarded to the White House and President James Buchanan, who in turn relayed it to Virginia governor Henry Wise and Major General George Stewart, commander of the First Light Division, Maryland Volunteers.

  At Harpers Ferry the church bells finally fell silent.

  From where he stood on the grounds of the musket factory, Brown had a good view of the village, with its tiny houses clinging to the steep hillside. He felt something of a kinship with the men who lived in the houses. They weren’t slaveholders. They worked in the armory’s mills. Some probably possessed attitudes toward slavery similar to his. And they certainly wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice their lives to preserve a plantation system that was as remote from their experience as someone living in New York or Massachusetts.

  Then, as his eyes continued tracing the hillside, the old man noticed the smoke that had been curling upward from chimneys was beginning to disappear. Fires on hearths and in stoves were being extinguished. The streets slowly were coming alive. Men, women, and children were abandoning their homes, scurrying toward higher ground as though escaping a rising flood.

  Brown turned around and faced the mountains that rose vertically above the converging rivers. To the east, across the Potomac, the fog that earlier covered the lower village floated in wispy bands along the rocky face of the Maryland Heights. To the south, across the Shenandoah, the brilliant fall colors had faded from the Blue Ridge.

  The old man recalled his last meeting with Frederick Douglass at the quarry on the outskirts of Chambersburg.

  This place, Douglass had said, is no different from where you are going. Here there are high walls; there you will be surrounded by mountains and hemmed in by water. . . . You will be entering a perfect steel trap.

  17

  Four Hours Later

  October 17, 1859

  Harpers Ferry, Virginia

  All morning there had been intermittent rain.

  Shortly before noon Watson came running from the railroad bridge. He was heading for the firehouse to let Brown know that a large body of armed men was poised to enter the bridge from the Maryland side of the Potomac. “You must hurry, Father!”

  Brown had just selected ten prisoners from the thirty crammed into the watch room and was moving them into the adjacent engine room. These were the ten he planned to use as bargaining chips in the event he needed them to negotiate a retreat. The surge of runaway slaves he anticipated hadn’t materialized, so he was forced to consider all his options.

  Earlier, as Brown watched the villagers abandon their hillside homes, Aaron Stevens brought him the news that one of the men had killed another resident of the Ferry. Stevens said it was an act of self-defense. Though the shooting may have been justified, Brown loathed drawing civilians into his war on slavery. If they continued to become casualties, his purpose would be misunderstood. He needed to do something to reassure the people of Harpers Ferry that they were not the enemy.

  He decided to take Watson’s earlier suggestion. “The prisoners with families will be taken to their homes, Aaron, and they will be brought back when it is made clear we intend them no harm. I don’t wish to cause wives and children undue suffering.”

  Stevens nodded.

  “And Aaron . . .”

  “Captain?”

  “We don’t want the prisoners to go hungry.” A pause. “Perhaps we can release the man employed at the Wager House . . .”

  “The bartender?”

  “Yes, the bartender. We shall negotiate an exchange: the bartender for breakfasts for the prisoners.”

  As Stevens turned to leave, the old man was feeling lightheaded, as though he were on the verge of another episode of his chronic illness. But he wasn’t going to let the symptoms interfere with his duties. The invasion may have been foundering, but he’d right the ship. Allowing the prisoners to meet with their families, feeding them—these were decisions that would demonstrate his humanity, show that his captives weren’t his enemies and that he was holding them only so he could make a successful retreat from the Ferry.

  By ten o’clock, the prisoners—including those who had enjoyed a brief reprieve with their families—were back in the watch room eating the breakfasts supplied by the Wager House.

  Brown, meanwhile, had received another plea from John Kagi. Gunsmiths were showing up for their shifts at the rifle works, and though they were being turned away, Kagi feared they’d return, armed and ready to take back their workplace. Brown could only respond with the words he’d already uttered: “You must hold on.”

  The old man hadn’t given up hope that a favorable outcome to the invasion was still possible, that an army of runaways still might come to the musket factory, that Owen—having transported the weapons and supplies to the schoolhouse—would be marching across the railroad bridge with a small army of his own, and that using hostages to negotiate a retreat would prove unnecessary.

  When Will Thompson and Billy Leeman trudged back from the Maryland Heights with the captured slaveholder Terence Byrne, Brown was counting on an encouraging report. Had Owen and the others finished moving the arms to the schoolhouse? Had any new volunteers showed up?

  “The work is still going on, Captain,” Thompson said, adding that the rain had turned the road into a quagmire and that a large wagon like Colonel Washington’s—even though drawn by four strong horses—was having difficulties with the heavy load. He said he’d overtaken Tidd and his helpers as they were making their first run to the schoolhouse. Another remained before the transfer of weapons and supplies was completed.

  Then Thompson disclosed information he knew would please the old man: “We have new recruits, Captain. Owen said they came last night.”

  Brown asked for numbers, but Thompson wasn’t sure. All he could say was that the black men he saw unloading the wagon at the schoolhouse were jubilant at having rid themselves of the shackles of slavery.

  While Thompson and Brown talked, Leeman was silent; his glossy slouch hat was pulled low and shaded his eyes. He’d done what the old man ordered—the slaveholder Terence Byrne had been removed from his estate and was now in the watch room with the other prisoners.

  Brown acknowledged Thompson’s report, told him to return to his post on the railroad bridge. And though there was something about Leeman’s behavior that bothered the old man, he ordered him to rejoin Newby’s patrol on Shenandoah Street.

  As the noon hour approached, Brown was jarred by a wave of self-doubt. His belief that he’d be joined by hundreds of runaway slaves hadn’t happened. Not a single volunteer had appeared since the predawn hours when an excited Jerry Anderson announced that sm
all groups of black men were converging on the musket factory. And at the Maryland farmhouse the number of new arrivals sounded modest at best. Brown wondered: Had he waited too long? Had he wasted time attempting to allay the fears of the prisoners? Was his release of the train premature? These questions, coupled with the return of symptoms of his illness, left him struggling to control an invasion that was rapidly deteriorating. Perhaps the Lord had a different plan for him, a plan he wasn’t yet privileged to know.

  He’d deliberately not spoken to the prisoners about terms of retreat, knowing that to do so would have been an admission the invasion wasn’t going well and that he needed to prepare for the worst. As the morning wore on, however, he decided to meet with those he intended to use as hostages.

  He summoned Stevens, told him to bring out the ten prisoners deemed most influential, a group that included slaveholders Lewis Washington, Terence Byrne, and the Allstadts, and A. M. Kitzmiller, the armory’s acting superintendent. As they were being moved from the watch room to the engine room, a breathless Watson—having sprinted from his post on the covered bridge—reached the firehouse. Armed men, he shouted, were entering the bridge from the Maryland side of the Potomac.

  “You must hurry, Father!”

  The old man stood rigidly in place and said nothing as Stevens ordered the hostages to return to the watch room.

  It was now clear to Brown that he’d delayed too long and, as a consequence, was in a position he’d hoped to avoid. His aim was to accomplish his goals without the shedding of blood: Occupy the musket factory, the arsenal, and the rifle works. Capture high-profile hostages. Wait to be joined by the runaways and others who learn of the invasion. Seize whatever arms can be carried off easily. Retreat to the mountains before having to deal with organized resistance. But blood had been shed, and now he’d have to fight. To do otherwise—to surrender—would mean the invasion was an aberration, something that ought not to be taken seriously. He’d come too far to see his efforts vanish in the shadows of irrelevance.