l messages from his father. Poor fellow! he
paid the forfeit of his rebellious treason with his life at Roanoke
Island. His father pays the heavier penalty of living to see the civil
war fomented by him making its dreadful progress, and in its course
crushing out all his ancient popularity and power.

In spite of many scenes of noble heroism and devoted bravery in
legitimate warfare, and in the glorious campaigns of our own successful
armies, I have never seen any life in death so grand as that of John
Brown, and to me there is more than an idle refrain in the solemn chorus
of our advancing hosts,--

"John Brown's body lies mouldering in the ground,
As we go marching on!"

In the summer of 1862, I was brought again to Harper's Ferry, with my
regiment, and the old familiar scenes were carefully revisited. The
terrible destruction of fine public buildings, the wanton waste of
private property, the deserted village instead of the thriving town, the
utter ruin and wretchedness of the country all about, and the bleak
waste of land from Harper's Ferry to Charlestown, are all set features
in every picture of the war in Virginia. At my old head-quarters in
Charlestown jail there was less change than I had expected; its sturdy
walls had withstood attack and defence better than the newer and more
showy structures; the few inhabitants left behind after the ebb and flow
of so many army waves, Rebel and Union succeeding each other at pretty
regular intervals, were the well-to-do of former days, looking after
their household gods, sadly battered and the worse for wear, but still
cherished very dearly. Of my old acquaintances, it was a melancholy
pleasure to learn that Colonel Baylor, who was mainly anxious to have me
hanged, had in this war been reduced to the ranks for cowardice, and
then was shot in the act of desertion. Kennedy was still living at home,
but his brother was in the Rebel service. The lesser people were all
scattered; the better class of workmen had gone to Springfield or to
private gun-shops in the North,--the poorer sort, either into the Rebel
army or to some other dim distance, and all trace of them was lost.

The thousands who have come and gone through Harper's Ferry and past
Bolivar Heights will recall the waste and desolation of what was once a
blooming garden-spot, full of thrift and industry and comfort almost
unknown elsewhere south of the fatal slave-line; thousands who are yet
to pass that w