The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old John Brown, by Walter Hawkins

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Title: Old John Brown
The Man Whose Soul is Marching on

Author: Walter Hawkins

Posting Date: October 26, 2008 [EBook #2050]
Release Date: January, 2000

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD JOHN BROWN ***

OLD JOHN BROWN

THE MAN WHOSE SOUL IS MARCHING ON

by

WALTER HAWKINS

PREFACE

This book is for busy people who have not the time to read at large
upon the subject. Those who would adequately master all the bearings
of the story here briefly told must read American history, for which
facilities are rapidly increasing. As to John Brown himself, his
friend F. B. Sanborn's LIFE AND LETTERS is a mine of wealth. To its
pages the present writer is greatly indebted, and he commends them to
others.

W. H.

Kilburn, May 1913.

CONTENTS

I. WHY WE WRITE OUR STORY
II. CHILDWOOD AND THE VOW
III. THE LONG WAITING-TIME
IV. HOW THE CALL CAME
V. BIBLE AND SWORD
VI. THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY
VII. HARPER'S FERRY
VIII. THE HALT OF THE BODY AND THE MARCH OF THE SOUL

CHAPTER I

WHY WE WRITE OUR STORY

There are few who have not a dim notion of John Brown as a name bound
up with the stirring events of the United States in the period which
preceded the Civil War and the emancipation of the slave. Many English
readers, however, do not get beyond the limits of the famous couplet,

John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,
But his soul is marching on.

That statement is authentic in both its clauses, but it is interesting
to learn what he did with the body before it commenced a dissolution
which seems to have been regarded as worth recording. Carlyle says in
his grimly humorous way of the gruesome elevation of the head of one of
his patriotic heroes on Temple Bar, 'It didn't matter: he had quite
done with it.' And we might say the same of the body which was hanged
at Charlestown in 1859. In his devoutly fatalistic way John Brown had
presented his body a living sacrifice to the cause of human freedom,
and had at last slowly r