e never experienced any compunction; he believed that he
was directed by Providence in these "executions," as he called them, and
after they were over, he held divine services. His fearful deed sent a
thrill of horror through the country, and Brown and his sons became
marked men. Their houses were burned, and one of the sons went insane
from brooding over the father's deed. Brown himself was charged with
murder, treason and conspiracy, and a price put on his head, but no one
attempted to arrest him. Another of his sons was soon afterwards shot
and killed by pro-slavery men and Brown, hastily collecting a small
force, attacked the marauders, and killed or wounded many of them,
himself being injured by a spent rifle ball. The fight was known as "the
battle of Osawatomie," and Brown was thereafterwards known as
"Osawatomie" Brown.

But the fight in Kansas was about won, and Brown again took up the idea
of a slave insurrection. He went to Boston to raise the necessary money,
and succeeded in getting it without much trouble, though most of the
people who gave it to him had only the haziest kind of an idea of what
it was he proposed to do. He bought rifles and ammunition, and also had
a thousand pikes made with which to arm the negroes, who, of course,
would not know how to use the rifle. Then he got together a band of
young men, secured a military instructor; and on July 3, 1859, he
appeared at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, hired a small farm near there, and
quietly assembled his men and munitions.

Harper's Ferry had been selected because there was a well-equipped
arsenal there which would furnish the arms and munitions which he had
been unable to buy, and would also serve as a base of operations. Brown
intended to proceed to the mountains, gathering up the slaves as he
went, and establish headquarters in some strong position, where he could
drill his forces and prepare for a raid on the rest of the state. He
believed the slaves would flock to him, and that he would soon be at the
head of a great army. He tried to get Frederick Douglass to join him,
but Douglass refused, and, at last, on the night of Sunday, October 16,
1859, at the head of a little band of twenty-two men, whites and
negroes, he moved on the arsenal. They reached the covered bridge over
the Potomac without adventure, crossed until they were near the Virginia
side, seized the solitary sentinel who challenged them, broke down the
armory gate with a sledge hammer