The first of the twelve men to attempt to follow their leader was instantly killed by gunshot.Others rushed in and slew two of Brown's men by the use of the bayonet.To save the prisoners from harm, Lee had given careful instruction to fire no shot, to use only bayonets.The other insurgents were made prisoners."The whole fight," Green reported, "had not lasted over three minutes."Of all the prisoners taken and held as hostages, not one was killed or wounded.They were made as safe as the conditions permitted.The eleven prisoners who were with Brown in the engine-house were profoundly impressed with the courage, the bearing, and the self-restraint of the leader and his men.
Colonel Washington describes Brown as holding a carbine in one hand, with one dead son by his side, while feeling the pulse of another son, who had received a mortal wound, all the time watching every movement for the defense and forbidding his men to fire upon any one who was unarmed.The testimony is uniform that Brown exercised special care to prevent his men from shooting unarmed citizens, and this conduct was undoubtedly influential in securing generous treatment for him and his men after the surrender.
For six weeks afterwards, until his execution on the 2d of December, John Brown remained a conspicuous figure.He won universal admiration for courage, coolness, and deliberation, and for his skill in parrying all attempts to incriminate others.
Probably less than a hundred people knew beforehand anything about the enterprise, and less than a dozen of these rendered aid and encouragement.It was emphatically a personal exploit.On the part of both leader and followers, no occasion was omitted to drive home the lesson that men were willing to imperil their lives for the oppressed with no hope or desire for personal gain.
Brown especially served notice upon the South that the day of final reckoning was at hand.
It is natural that the consequences of an event so spectacular as the capture of Harper's Ferry should be greatly exaggerated.
Brown's contribution to Kansas history has been distorted beyond all recognition.The Harper's Ferry affair, however, because it came on the eve of the final election before the war, undoubtedly had considerable influence.It sharpened the issue.It played into the hands of extremists in both sections.On one side, Brown was at once made a martyr and a hero; on the other, his acts were accepted as a demonstration of Northern malignity and hatred, whose fitting expression was seen in the incitement of slaves to massacre their masters.
The distinctive contribution of John Brown to American history does not consist in the things which he did but rather in that which he has been made to represent.He has been accepted as the personification of the irrepressible conflict.
Of all the men of his generation John Brown is best fitted to exemplify the most difficult lesson which history teaches: that slavery and despotism are themselves forms of war, that the shedding of blood is likely to continue so long as the rich, the strong, the educated, or the efficient, strive to force their will upon the poor, the weak, and the ignorant.Lincoln uttered a final word on the subject when he said that no man is good enough to rule over another man; if he were good enough he would not be willing to do it.
