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[Illustration: CAPT. JOHN BROWN]




                  The Raid of John Brown at Harper's
                          Ferry As I Saw It.


                                  BY

                  REV. SAMUEL VANDERLIP LEECH, D. D.


_Author of "Ingersoll and The Bible," "The Three Inebriates," "From West
  Virginia to Pompeii," "Seven Elements in Successful Preaching," Etc._


                       PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.


                              THE DESOTO
                          WASHINGTON, D. C.
                                 1909




                   Copyright by S. V. Leech, 1909.




THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN AT HARPER'S FERRY AS I SAW IT.

_By REV. SAMUEL VANDERLIP LEECH, D. D._


The town of Harper's Ferry is located in Jefferson County, West
Virginia. Lucerne, in Switzerland does not excel it in romantic grandeur
of situation. On its northern front the Potomac sweeps along to pass the
national capital, and the tomb of Washington, in its silent flow towards
the sea. On its eastern side the Shenandoah hurries to empty its waters
into the Potomac, that in perpetual wedlock they may greet the stormy
Atlantic. Across the Potomac the Maryland Heights stand out as the tall
sentinels of Nature. Beyond the Shenandoah are the Blue Ridge mountains,
fringing the westward boundary of Loudon County, Virginia. Between these
rivers, and nestling inside of their very confluence, reposes Harper's
Ferry. Back of its hills lies the famous Shenandoah Valley, celebrated
for its natural scenery, its historic battles and "Sheridan's Ride." At
Harper's Ferry the United States authorities early located an Arsenal
and an Armory.

Before the Civil War, the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church was constituted of five extensive districts in
Virginia, stretching from Alexandria to Lewisburg and two great
districts north of the Potomac, including the cities of Washington and
Baltimore. The first three years of my ministerial life I spent on
Shepherdstown, West Loudon and Hillsboro Circuits, being then all in
Virginia. The State of West Virginia, now embracing Harper's Ferry, had
not been organized by Congress as a war measure out of the territory of
the mother State. Our Methodist Episcopal Church was theoretically an
anti-slavery organization; but our Virginia and Maryland members held
thousands of inherited and many purchased slaves. These were generally
well-cared for and contented. Being close to the free soil of
Pennsylvania they could have gotten there in a night had they wished to
escape bondage, and then they could have easily reached Canada by that
Northern aid, called the "Underground Railroad."

On the Sunday night when John Brown and his men invaded Virginia, I
slept within a half mile of Harper's Ferry. That day I inaugurated
revival services at my westward appointment called "Ebenezer," in Loudon
County two miles from Harper's Ferry. I was twenty-two years of age.

Three months before this raid Captain John Brown with two of his sons,
Owen and Oliver, and Jeremiah G. Anderson, calling themselves "Isaac
Smith and Sons" rented a small farm on the Maryland side of the Potomac
four miles from Harper's Ferry. It was known as the "Booth-Kennedy
Place." They also carried on across the mountains at Chambersburg,
Pennsylvania, a small hardware store managed by John H. Kagi. It was a
depot for the munitions of war to be hauled to their Maryland farm.
Another of Brown's men, John E. Cook, sold maps in the vicinity. He was
a relative of Governor Willard of Indiana who secured the services of
Hon. Daniel W. Voorhees, Attorney General of Indiana, to defend Cook at
his after trial in Virginia. It was a time of profound national peace.
Brown and his men represented themselves as geologists, miners and
speculators. They had a mule and wagon with which to haul their boxes
from Chambersburg. A wealthy merchant of Boston, Mr. George Luther
Stearns, Chairman of the Massachusetts Aid Society had financed Brown's
Kansas border warfare work, as well as his approaching Harper's Ferry
raid. Other Northern friends assisted. Brown had completed his
preparations and collected his twenty-one helpers early in October,
1859. He had hidden in an old log cabin on the place 200 Sharpe's
rifles, 13,000 rifle cartridges, 950 long iron pikes, 200 revolving
pistols, 100,000 pistol caps, 40,000 percussion caps, 250 pounds of
powder, 12 reams of cartridge paper and other warlike materials. He
organized his twenty-two men, himself included, into a "=Military
Provisional Government=" to superintend the possible uprising of the
slaves of Virginia. Thirteen of these men had engaged in border warfare
in Kansas, in a successful effort to prevent Kansas from becoming a
slave state. He, sixteen other white men and five <DW64>s, constituted
his entire Virginia army. The white men were Captain John Brown,
Adjutant General John H. Kagi, Captains Owen Brown, Oliver Brown,