ignature of John Brown "Commander-in-Chief,"
countersigned by the "Secretary of War."

Gradually, also, the commander-in-chief resolved on an important
modification of his plan: that, instead of plunging at once into the
Virginia mountains, he would begin by the capture of the United States
armory and arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Two advantages seem to have
vaguely suggested themselves to his mind as likely to arise from this
course: the possession of a large quantity of Government arms, and the
widespread panic and moral influence of so bold an attempt. But it
nowhere appears that he had any conception of the increased risk and
danger it involved, or that he adopted the slightest precaution to
meet them.

Harper's Ferry was a town of five thousand inhabitants, lying between
the slave-States of Maryland and Virginia, at the confluence of the
Potomac and the Shenandoah rivers, where the united streams flow
through a picturesque gap in the single mountain-range called the Blue
Ridge. The situation possesses none of the elements which would make
it a defensible fastness for protracted guerrilla warfare, such as was
contemplated in Brown's plan. The mountains are everywhere
approachable without difficulty; are pierced by roads and farms in all
directions; contain few natural resources for sustenance, defense, or
concealment; are easily observed or controlled from the plain by
superior forces. The town is irregular, compact, and hilly; a bridge
across each stream connects it with the opposite shores, and the
Government factory and buildings, which utilized the water-power of
the Potomac, lay in the lowest part of the point of land between the
streams. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crosses the Potomac bridge.

On the 4th of July, 1859, John Brown, under an assumed name, with two
sons and another follower, appeared near Harper's Ferry, and soon
after rented the Kennedy Farm, in Maryland, five miles from town,
where he made a pretense of cattle-dealing and mining; but in reality
collected secretly his rifles, revolvers, ammunition, pikes, blankets,
tents, and miscellaneous articles for a campaign. His rather eccentric
actions, and the irregular coming and going of occasional strangers at
his cabin, created no suspicion in the neighborhood. Cautiously
increasing his supplies, and gathering his recruits, he appointed the
attack for the 24th of October; but for some unexplained reason (fear
of treachery, it is vaguely suggested