“It was late” and “block of stone”:
New York Tribune,
Nov. 5, 1859.
“say why sentence”:
New York Herald,
Nov. 3, 1859.
“He seemed to be”:
New York Tribune,
Nov. 5, 1859.
“I have” and other quotes from Brown’s speech:
New York Herald,
Nov. 3, 1859, and
Baltimore American,
Nov. 3, 1859. The two accounts differ only slightly.
“in the hurry”: John Brown to Andrew Hunter, Nov. 22, 1859, in Franklin Sanborn,
The Life and Letters of John Brown,
584.
“You have been found” and other quotations of Parker’s: Jefferson County Court Records, OGV.
“damned”:
New York Tribune,
Nov. 5, 1859.
“This indecorum”:
Baltimore American,
Nov. 3, 1859.
“composure”:
New York Herald,
Nov. 3, 1859.
“spoke timidly”:
New York Tribune,
Nov. 3, 1859.
“indifferent”: Cleon Moore to David Hunter Strother, Nov. 4, 1859, BSC.
“said he”: Jefferson County Court Records, BSC.
“Has anything”: William Henry Furness to J. M. McKim, Nov. 3, 1859, quoted in Villard,
John Brown,
646–47.
“no consciousness” and “ends of justice”: Brown’s speech to the court, Nov. 2, 1859, in
New York Herald
, Nov. 3, 1859.
“the two best”: Ralph Waldo Emerson,
The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
vol. 8 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), 125. This appears in the essay “Eloquence.”
“lost his head” and “fatal blunder”: Ralph Waldo Emerson to William Emerson, Oct. 23, 1859, in Ralph Rusk, ed.,
Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
vol. 5 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), 178.
“his simple, artless” and Emerson’s other observations concerning Brown: Emerson, “Remarks at a Meeting for the Relief of the Family of John Brown, November 18, 1859,” in
The Complete Works,
vol. 10.
“He believes in two articles”: quoted in John J. McDonald, “Emerson and John Brown,”
New England Quarterly,
Sept. 1971, 383.
“None purer”: James Elliot Cabot,
A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1888), 597. Cabot notes that Emerson omitted these lines from a published version of the essay ten years later, “distance of time having brought the case into a juster perspective.” For more on Emerson and Thoreau and their impact, see David S. Reynolds,
John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights
(New York: Knopf, 2005), 344–47, 363–36.
“I have been”: John Brown to Mary Brown, Nov. 10, 1859, HSP.
“You know”: John Brown to “My Dear Friend E.B.,” Nov. 1, 1859, in Louis Ruchames,
A John Brown Reader,
137.
“often covered my head”: John Brown to Rev. Heman Humphrey, Nov. 25, 1859, in Ruchames,
A John Brown Reader,
158.
“
Jesus of Nazareth”
: John Brown to family, Nov. 8, 1859, HSP.
“will do vastly more”: ibid.
“I am worth”: John Brown to Jeremiah Brown, Nov. 12, 1859, in Ruchames,
A John Brown Reader,
142.
“No theatrical”: Thoreau, quoted in Franny Nudelman,
John Brown’s Body
, 18.
“something more”: John Brown to Rebecca Spring, Nov. 24, 1859, quoted in letter from Spring to Mary Brown, Dec. 1, 1859, BSC.
“irascible”:
New York Herald,
Nov. 10, 1859.
“Mr. Brown”: George Sennott telegram to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Nov. 5, 1859, BPL.
“Mr. Brown fears”: George Hoyt to Mary Brown, Nov. 11, 1859, BSC.
“scanty means”: John Brown to family, Nov. 8, 1859, HSP.
“
gazing stock”
: ibid.
“Her presence here”: John Brown to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Nov. 4, 1859 (contents forwarded by Samuel Gridley Howe in letter to Higginson, Nov. 9, 1859), BPL.
“heeding”: John Brown to Mary Brown, Nov. 10, 1859, HSP.
“In the world”: ibid.
“If after”: ibid.
Chapter 11: A Full Fountain of Bedlam
“run off slaves”: Thomas Drew, “The John Brown Invasion,” 36, BSC.
“beings of”:
Dred Scott v. Sandford,
60 U.S. 393 (1857).
“more fully”: Voorhees is quoted in Charles S. Voorhees, ed.,
Speeches of Daniel W. Voorhees
(Cincinnati: Robert Clark & Co., 1875), 1—26.
“a face”: ibid, 12. See also
Virginia Free Press,
Nov. 17, 1859, which reported that some were carried away by the “magic eloquence of Mr. Voorhees,” and “the sternest men had their hearts so opened that they wept like women.”
“Happily”:
Virginia Free Press Extra,
Nov. 11, 1859, BSC.
“Those who were”: Oswald Villard,
John Brown,
469.
“The inhabitants”:
New York Herald,
Nov. 1, 1859.
“had at least”: ibid. See also Charles White, “John Brown’s Raid at Harper’s Ferry”: “One negro was drowned—a slave—the only one of whom we have doubts as to his complicity with them—& that because he ran with them.”
“Pneumonia and fright”: Office of the Circuit Court, Jefferson County, West Virginia, BSC. See also
Virginia Free Press,
Nov. 3, 1859.
“manifested many of”: “Petition John H. Allstadt of Jefferson County Virginia for compensation to the extent of the value of two negro slaves, his property, deceased from fright at their capture at night, by John Brown’s party,” Jan. 9, 1860, Dept. of Military Affairs, State Library of Virginia.
“destroyed by Civil War”: ibid.
“tractable and faithful”: “Memorial of W. McP. Fuller of Winchester Frederick
Co. praying indemnity for the loss of his slave Jim at the Harpers Ferry Invasion,” Jan. 5, 1860, State Library of Virginia.
“in the common market”: “Petition John H. Allstadt.”
“being deprived of his property”: ibid.
“ready & glad”: “Conversation with Tidd,” Feb. 10, 1860, BPL.
“go over”: “Owen Brown’s Escape from Harper’s Ferry,”
Atlantic Monthly,
March 1874, 345.
“But when they heard firing”: “Conversation with Tidd,” BPL.
“It was not”: interview with Charles Conklyn, OGV.
“have a warlike”: Mary Mauzy letter to her daughter, Nov. 10, 1859, HFNHP.
“the great scamp Cook”: ibid.
“I asked them”: “John Cook’s confession,” Hinton,
John Brown and His Men
, 712.
“Abolitionist incendiaries”:
Baltimore American,
Nov. 12, 1859.
“monstrous scoundrel”:
Virginia Free Press,
Nov. 10, 1859. The paper also called him a “consummate villain” who insinuated himself among trusting Virginians so he could “whisper the blessings of freedom into the ears of our slaves, and to prepare them to aid in the blow that was to be struck for their liberation.”
“It is to his”: J. W. Ware to Henry Wise, Nov. 13, 1859, BSC.
“There is considerable excitement”: B. S. Brooke to John T. Blake, Nov 14, 1859, in online archives,
The Valley of the Shadow,
Valley Personal Papers,
http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/
. Panic also spread to other states, including Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia, where it was feared “a squad of Brown’s emissaries” were hiding near Pine Mountain (
New York Tribune,
Nov. 21, 1859).
“They are”: Journal of James Hooff, Nov. 18, 1859, Virginia Historical Society.
“There is a”:
New York Herald,
Nov. 20, 1859. The excitable Colonel Davis had previously alerted Wise of the jail defenses: “If attack be made, the prisoners will be shot by the inside guards” (Villard,
John Brown,
520).
“Dishonorable Gov Wise” and other threats: Governor’s Office, Letters Received, Henry A. Wise, State Library of Virginia, and “The John Brown Letters Found in Virginia State Library 1901,”
Virginia Historical Magazine of History and Biography,
Jan. 1902, 273–82.
“Contemptible Nonsense” and other notations: ibid.
“It is alarming”: Gov. Wise to Rev. James McKennan of Wheeling, undated, copied from original by Clarence Gee, HLHS.
“Everything”:
Baltimore American,
Nov. 26, 1859.
“too dry”: Journal of James Hooff, Nov. 3, 1859. He also comments on dryness and wind on Nov. 10, Nov. 14, and Nov. 17.
“that there are rockets”: John Thompson to wife, Nov. 27, 1859, Virginia Historical Society. Thompson wrote that he was about to go on patrol, adding “If any thing happens good bye darling, take care of mother.” Nothing happened that night. Thompson died five years later, in the Battle of the Wilderness.
“daguerreotype wagon” and “tragedy”:
Baltimore American,
Nov. 23–24, 1859.
The Filibuster
: Michael Kaufmann,
American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the
Lincoln Conspiracies
(New York: Random House, 2004), 105. A further discussion of Booth and Brown appears on 103–7.
“He was a remarkably”: George Libby, “John Brown and John Wilkes Booth,” in
The Confederate Veteran,
April 1930.
“positively refused”: Villard,
John Brown,
512.
“
There is no
”: ibid.
“Orsini bombs”: J. W. LeBarnes to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Nov. 22, 1859, BPL. This letter also speaks of the scheme to kidnap Wise. On November 28, LeBarnes telegraphed “projects abandoned.”
“If the prisoner”: Gov. Wise to Francis Stribling, Nov. 10, 1859, quoted in McGinty,
John Brown’s Trial,
243.
“To hang”: Villard,
John Brown,
501.
“Brown deserves”: John Tyler to Henry Wise, November 2 and 9, 1859, HSP.
“uncompromising abolitionist”: Lydia Maria Child to Gov. Wise, Oct. 26, 1859, in “Correspondence between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason of Virginia,” BSC.
“the hoary-headed”: Eliza Mason to Lydia Child, Nov. 11, 1859, in
Letters of Lydia Maria Child
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1883), 280.
“I will not”: Gov. Wise to Andrew Hunter, Nov. 6, 1859, in
Magazine of History,
Aug. 1908, HLHS.
“Gov. Wise told me”:
Baltimore American,
Nov. 30, 1859.
“Shall John Brown”: The quotations from Wise in this passage are from his speech to the Assembly on Dec. 5, 1850, in
Governor’s Message and Reports of the Public Officers of the State.
“Governor Wise left”:
New York Herald,
Nov. 23, 1859.
“I have now”: John Brown to his children, Nov. 22, 1859, in Louis Ruchames,
A John Brown Reader,
150.
“able to sit up”: John Brown to Mary Brown, Nov, 26, 1859, in Ruchames,
A John Brown Reader,
159.
“I have many”: John Brown to Rebecca Spring, Nov. 24, 1859; an extract appears in a letter Spring wrote to Mary Brown, Dec. 1, 1859, BSC.
“He said”: Father Michael Costello to Father Harrington, Feb. 11, 1860, HFNHP.
“they had better pray”: Cleon Moore to David Strother, Nov. 4, 1859, BSC.
“amalgamation”:
Baltimore American,
Nov. 23, 1859.
“I feel no”:
Independent-Democrat
(Charlestown, Va.), Nov. 22, 1859, OGV.
“Question”: ibid.
“Life is made up”: John Brown to Mary Brown, Nov. 26, 1859, in Ruchames,
A John Brown Reader,
159–60.
“If you
now feel
”: ibid.