by Tony Horwitz
“Mother would not go”: Statement of Annie Brown Adams, written for Franklin Sanborn, Nov. 1886, Chicago Historical Society.
“in the enjoyment”: ibid.
“Sometimes in the night”: “Kennedy Farm Notes,” OGV.
“I always blush”: statement of Annie Brown Adams, Chicago Historical Society.
“the outlaw girl”: ibid.
“had a good excuse”: ibid.
“plague and torment”: ibid.
“earnest, kind-looking”: Annie Brown Adams to Garibaldi Ross, Dec. 15, 1887, Gilder Lehrman Collection.
“After bidding”: Thomas Featherstonhaugh, John Brown’s Men (Harpers Ferry, W.Va.: Harrisburg, 1899), 13.
“a sort”: statement of Annie Brown Adams, Chicago Historical Society.
“much more”: Annie Brown Adams to Richard Hinton, May 23, 1893, KSHS.
“i Received”: Albert Hazlett to “Dear Sir,” July 14, 1859, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 308.
“that he had nearly”: statement of Annie Brown Adams, Chicago Historical Society.
“chronic roamer”: interview with Charles Whipple, OGV.
“no place for a young man”: Stevens to “Dear Sister,” June 30, 1853. He writes of baked beans and apple pie in a letter to his sister, Jan. 25, 1855. Both are in Gilder Lehrman Collection.
“drunken riot”: Court Martial Case Files, May 21, 1855, War Department Office of the Judge Advocate General, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
“The grate battle is begun”: Stevens to “Dear Brother,” Oct. 3, 1857, Gilder Lehrman Collection.
“the finest specimen”: S. K. Donovan, “A Pennsylvania Man’s Recollections of Stevens,” OGV. Donovan was a reporter for the Baltimore Exchange and one of the first correspondents on the scene after the raid on Harpers Ferry.
“Jenny”: Aaron Stevens to Jennie Dunbar, Sept. 1, 1859, KSHS.
“We are rather”: ibid.
“furniture” and “very particular”: Villard, John Brown, 419.
“skulk into the kitchen”: ibid., 418.
“my invisibles”: Annie Brown Adams to Alexander Ross, undated, Gilder Lehrman Collection. At other times she capitalized “Invisibles”; see, e.g., Franklin Sanborn, Recollections of Seventy Years, 172.
“Press nobly on”: captured letter published in the Charleston Mercury, Oct. 26, 1859.
“all no where”: unsigned letter to “friend Ed,” Aug. 6, 1859, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 300.
“I suppose”: William Leeman to family, Aug. 14, 1859, KSHS.
“a Secret Asosiation”: William Leeman to “Dear Mother,” Oct. 2, 1859, KSHS.
“I do hope”: John Brown to John Kagi, Aug. 11, 1859, HSP.
“I have discovered”: testimony of John Floyd, Mason Report, A250–52.
“Besides”: ibid. For an account from the perspective of the Quakers who warned Floyd, see B. F. Gue, “John Brown and His Iowa Friends,” The Midland Monthly (Des Moines, Iowa), Feb. 1897, copy in BSC.
“I begin”: John Brown to John Brown, Jr., Aug. 1859, in Sanborn, The Life and Letters, 535–36.
“They were all”: John Brown, Jr., to “Friend Henrie,” Aug. 17, 1859, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 325.
“too fat”: John Brown, Jr., to “Friend J.H.,” Aug. 7, 1859, HSP.
“associations”: John Brown, Jr., to “Friend Henrie,” Aug. 27, 1859, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 315.
“I spent”: ibid., 317.
“If friend”: ibid.
“Northern tour”: John Brown, Jr., to “Friend J.H.,” Aug. 7, 1859, HSP.
“It is my chief”: Steward Taylor to “Dear Friend,” July 3, 1859, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 301.
“seem a slave stampede”: Hinton, John Brown and His Men, 673.
“It seemed to be”: Annie Brown Adams to Richard Hinton, June 7, 1894, KSHS.
“all of our men”: Sanborn, Recollections, 182–83.
“It nearly broke”: “Conversation with———,” Feb. 10, 1860, BPL. Higginson later disclosed that this conversation was with Charles Tidd.
“Dear Sir”: Note of Owen Brown, HSP.
“Give a slave”: Hinton Notes, Houghton Library.
“There was no”: Anderson, “A Voice from Harper’s Ferry,” 23.
“they were only”: George Gill to Richard Hinton, undated manuscript, 44, KSHS. African Mysteries was also known as the Order of the Men of Oppression.
“He thought”: statement of Annie Brown Adams, Chicago Historical Society.
“His face wore”: For Douglass’s account of the meeting at the quarry, see his Autobiographies, 758–60.
“wen”: Annie Brown Adams, quoted in Sanborn, Recollections, 174.
“buy her off”: statement of Annie Brown Adams, Chicago Historical Society.
“they were some friends”: ibid.
“used her power”: ibid.
“taking the dishes”: ibid.
“When there was”: Villard, John Brown, 420.
“He was impatient”: Annie Brown Adams, quoted in Sanborn, Recollections, 179. For more on Newby, see the remarkable study by Philip Schwarz, Migrants Against Slavery: Virginians and the Nation (University Press of Virginia, 2001), 149–68. Schwarz has tracked down every available document to reconstruct Newby’s story.
“Oh, Dear”: Harriett Newby to Dangerfield Newby, April 11, 1859, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 310.
“commenced to Crall”: Harriett Newby to Dangerfield Newby, April 22, 1859, ibid, 311.
“Dear Dangerfield”: ibid, 310–11.
“I want you”: Harriett Newby to Dangerfield Newby, Aug. 16, 1859, ibid., 311.
“Post of Duty”: Aaron Stevens to “Jenny,” Oct. 7, 1859, KSHS.
“Parts unknown”: Dauphin Thompson to brothers and sisters, Sept. 4, 1859, Gilder Lehrman Collection.
“I think of you all day”: Watson Brown to wife, Sept. 8, 1859, in Sanborn, The Life and Letters, 542–43.
“They nearly all”: Sanborn, Recollections, 177.
“He knew”: statement of Annie Brown Adams, Chicago Historical Society.
“very intimate”: Annie Brown Adams, quoted in Sanborn, Recollections, 177.
“tall,” “fine-looking,” and so forth: Sanborn, Recollections, 177; Annie Brown Adams to Richard Hinton, May 23, 1893, KSHS; statement of Annie Brown Adams, Chicago Historical Society; interview with Annie Brown Adams, OGV.
“first lover”: Lou Chapin, “The Last Days of Old John Brown,” Overland Monthly, April 1899.
“a perfect”: statement of Annie Brown Adams, Chicago Historical Society.
“took a fancy”: undated note and letter from Los Gatos, Dauphin Thompson file, OGV.
“I know your sister”: statement of Annie Brown Adams, Chicago Historical Society.
“Mother and Father”: Annie Brown Adams to Richard Hinton, May 23, 1893, KSHS.
“mothers, sisters”: statement of Annie Brown Adams, Chicago Historical Society.
“We were”: Anderson, “A Voice from Harper’s Ferry,” 25.
“Of course”: statement of Annie Brown Adams, Chicago Historical Society.
“Home Again”: Sanborn, Recollections, 180.
“I want you”: John Brown to family, Oct. 1, 1859, BPL.
“Sharp’s rifle”: Hugh Forbes, Extracts from the Manual for the Patriotic Volunteer (New York: W. H. Tinson, 1857). The story of the Ritner girl peering through the keyhole is told in Virginia Ott Stake, John Brown in Chambersburg (Chambersburg: Franklin Co. Heritage, 1977), 31–32.
“General Orders”: October 10, 1859, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 274–75.
“A Declaration of Liberty”: ibid., 275–79.
“just the right time”: This and other quotations of Kagi’s about the timing of the attack are from John Kagi to John Brown, Jr., Oct. 10, 1859, in Villard, John Brown, 422.
“He goes to”: Franklin Sanborn to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Oct. 6, 1859, BPL.
“half-crazy�
��: Thomas Wentworth Higginson to Richard Hinton, March 15, 1895, KSHS.
“white men alone”: John Copeland to his brother, Dec. 10, 1859, quoted in Franny Nudelman, John Brown’s Body (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 68.
“business operation”: Franklin Sanborn to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Oct. 13, 1859, BPL. Also see John Cook confession: “The attack was made sooner than it was intended, owing to some friends in Boston writing a letter finding fault with the management of Capt. B, and what to them seemed his unnecessary delay and expense.”
“this is perhaps”: Charles Tidd letter, quoted in Bangor (Maine) Daily Whig & Courier, Nov. 17, 1859.
“I am now”: William Leeman to his mother, Oct. 2, 1859, KSHS.
“to worrie”: ibid.
“Home,” “peculiar condition,” and other quotes in this passage: Oliver Brown to Martha Brown, Oct. 9, 1859, Houghton Library.
“I sometimes think”: Watson Brown to Belle Brown, undated, in Sanborn, The Life and Letters, 549.
“a few more lines” and other Stevens quotes: Aaron Stevens to “Jenny,” Oct. 7, 1859, KSHS.
Chapter 8: Into the Breach
For press accounts of the events of October through December 1859, I have in almost all cases cited original newspaper reports. But many of the reports were reprinted in abridged form in two publications compiled soon after the raid. See The Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown: Known as “Old Brown of Ossawatomie,” with a Full Account of the Attempted Insurrection at Harper’s Ferry (New York: Robert M. De Witt, 1859), and Thomas Drew, The John Brown Invasion: An Authentic History of the Harper’s Ferry Tragedy, a series of pamphlets that are available online at BSC.
“HEAD-QUARTERS”: Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 324.
“In pursuance”: ibid.
“applicable”: Osborne Anderson, “A Voice from Harper’s Ferry,” 28.
“Throughout”: ibid.
“You all know”: ibid., 29.
“Men, get”: ibid., 31.
“Come, boys!”: ibid., 32.
“They all felt”: Franklin Sanborn, Recollections of Seventy Years, 177–78. See also “Kennedy Farm Notes,” OGV, in which Annie reports that Osborne Anderson told her: “It seemed like a funeral march the night we left the house and went down to Harper’s Ferry. We all shook hands with, and bade the boys who stayed behind at the house, goodbye. The Coppoc brothers embraced, kissed one another and parted like they felt they would never meet again.”
“Which way?” and “Not far”: “Statement of Patrick Higgins,” Baltimore American, Oct. 21, 1859. See also Oswald Garrison Villard, “How Patrick Higgins Met John Brown,” OGV, and interview with Higgins by Thomas Featherstonhaugh, KSHS.
“Lock your doors”: “Statement of W. W. Throckmorton,” New York Herald, Oct. 24, 1859.
“I was nearly”: Daniel Whelan testimony, Mason Report, A021.
“I knew Cook well”: ibid, A022.
“The head”: ibid.
“I want to free”: ibid.
“by the servants”: Washington is quoted from his testimony, Mason Report, A029–39, and in the Baltimore American, Oct. 25, 1859. Lewis Washington’s account books are at the Jefferson County (West Virginia) Museum, Charles
“Murder!”: D. E. Henderson to David Strother, Oct. 19, 1859, RWL. See also testimony of John Allstadt, Mason Report, A040–41.
“merely a robbing party”: Washington is quoted from the Mason Report, A034.
“newly fitted up”: Virginia Free Press, Oct. 13, 1859. On May 5, the paper had reported that the hotel was losing business because “the Bar had apparently become the main attraction.”
“gypsy wagon” and “some rowdies”: “Statement of W. W. Throckmorton.”
“Stand and deliver!”: Baltimore American, Oct. 28, 1859.
“I am shot”: ibid. Little is known about Shepherd. According to the 1860 census, he left a widow and five children in Winchester, Virginia. See Mary Johnson, “An ‘Ever Present Bone of Contention’: The Heyward Shepherd Memorial,” West Virginia History, 1997, 1—26.
“There he goes now!”: Baltimore American, Oct. 28, 1859.
“Passengers”: New York Herald, Oct. 24, 1859.
“It was filled”: Simeon Franklin Seely, letter to his wife, Oct. 17, 1859, West Virginia and Regional History Collection, West Virginia University Libraries. See also the letter of Oct. 20, 1859, from a Maryland woman, telling of what train passengers saw, in “An Account of the John Brown Raid,” Maryland Historical Magazine, June 1944, 162–63, Maryland Historical Society.
“Never mind”: testimony of John Starry, Mason Report, A024.
“was to free”: Baltimore American, Oct. 29, 1859.
“You will furnish”: “Statement of W. W. Throckmorton.” Additional information about the food is from the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (interview with Thomas Allstadt in West Virginia Folklore File). See also Lewis Washington’s testimony, Mason Report: he feared eating the food because it “may be drugged.”
“have to be rather rough”: “Statement of W. W. Throckmorton.”
“You no doubt wonder”: Baltimore American, Oct. 28, 1859.
“Express train”: A. J. Phelps to W. P. Smith, Oct. 17, 1859, Correspondence Relating to the Insurrection at Harper’s Ferry (Annapolis: B. H. Richardson, 1860), at Western Maryland Historical Library, www.whilbr.org.
“The leader of those men”: ibid.
“The Captain” and “he expected”: ibid.
“strapping negroes”: Baltimore American, Oct. 18, 1859.
“escape with their booty”: Harper’s Weekly, Nov. 5, 1859.
Passengers flinging notes: New York Herald, Oct. 19, 1859.
Newspaper headlines from Oct. 18, 1859: New York Herald, Baltimore American, New York Times.
“something startling”: Douglass, Autobiographies, 759.
“to get the citizens”: testimony of John Starry, Mason Report, A025. For more on Boerly and shooting, see George Mauzy letter to “My dear Children,” Dec. 3, 1859, HFNHP; Mauzy writes of Boerly and his neighbor: “When they made the first attack at Taylor’s corner upon the guard at the Arsenal gate, & from whence the latter recd a dead shot by a negro with a Sharps rifle.” See also Joseph Barry, The Strange Story of Harper’s Ferry, 51–52.
Byrne exchange: testimony of Terence Byrne, Mason Report, A013–A020.
“should not be interrupted”: For this and other exchanges with Cook, see the testimony of Lind Currie, Mason Report, A054–A059.