day their leader bore that sword.

Silently marched that little band of about a score under shelter of the
darkness. They had their plans complete, even a Constitution ready
framed, should they be successful. The telegraph wires were cut. They
contrived to terrify all on guard without firing a shot, and as the sun
rose, Harper's Ferry, arsenal, armoury, and rifle works, and many
prisoners were in the hands of John Brown. The day wore on, but the
expected reinforcements came not; the spreading news, however, brought
hostile troops around the captured place, and they hourly increased.
Brown took not his one chance of escape to the mountains--why, it is
difficult to say. In prison afterwards he said his weakness in
yielding to the entreaties of his prisoners ruined him. 'It was the
first time I ever lost command of myself, and now I am punished for
it,' he added. At another time when questioned he gave fatalistic
answers, and said it was 'ordained so ages before the world was made.'
By afternoon he was on the defensive within the armoury, and a fierce
fight ensued. Even then his simple notions of justice were uppermost,
and to the last as his men fired from the portholes he would be heard
saying of some one passing in the street, 'That man is unarmed don't
shoot.' Two of his sons--Watson and Oliver Brown--were pierced with
bullets. As he straightened out the limbs of the second, he said,
'This is the third son I have lost in the cause.' Always the cause!
The night fell and the fight was in abeyance, but in the morning he was
summoned to surrender, and refused, saying he would die there. At
length the engine-house, their last resort, held stubbornly, was
captured, and Brown fell, wounded by the sword of a young lieutenant
who had marked him for his stroke. One of his prisoners who was by
says truly of his last fight, 'Almost any other man who saw his sons
fall would have exacted life for life, but he spared all of us who were
in his power.' Of the force of twenty-two men, ten were killed, seven
captured and hanged, and five escaped. On the other side six were
killed and eight wounded.

He was now a captive, suffered to recover from his wounds that he might
die a felon's death. Many were those who, from various motives, came
to see the wounded prisoner, and from many interviews reported at the
time we may take a few extracts:

Q. Can you tell us who furnished money for your expedition?

A. I furnished most