John Brown (Chamberlin)/Chapter 6
But Brown had not been back in Kansas long before he had a trail of fire behind him. He had grown a long white beard, which was, for a time at least, an effectual disguise. He went under the name of Shubel Morgan there, being still an outlaw, and immediately organized a company of fighting men. Disorder and reprisals had by no means ceased. Brown was soon very ill with fever, but for the most part kept the field. His letters show that his thoughts were on the Virginia expedition. Time hung a little heavily on his hands; and, when midwinter came, he made a slave-liberating foray into Missouri which was one of the most brilliant and theatrical exploits of his life.
It was toward the end of December when a negro man came over from Missouri, and told Brown that he, his wife, two children, and another negro man were to be sold within a day or two, and begged for help to get away. Brown, according to one of his companions, George B. Gill, was waiting for something to tnm up, and accepted this call as heaven-sent. He at once organized two parties of men, and within twenty-four hours rode into Missouri. With one of the parties he surrounded the place where the five negroes were kept, and summoned the people to surrender. They did so. Brown took the slaves, and also certain property belonging to the estate, including horses and wagons. He had a theory that this property was made by the labor of the negroes, and rightfully belonged to them. At any rate, they were entitled to means of conveyance. Then he went on to another plantation, seized five more slaves and more of the "negroes' property," and captured two white men. The other party, under Brown's man, Stephens, did not do so well. A white man was killed while resisting the liberation of a negro, and the party got but one slave.
Brown ran his party of fugitives and captives over into Kansas, liberated his prisoners there, and deliberately organized a flight—with the negroes—to Canada! It was midwinter, and the negro women and children had to be transported in slowly lumbering Conestoga wagons. By this time rewards were offered for Brown even by the Free State authorities of Kansas, so that he was doubly and trebly an outlaw. This attempt would have proved Brown's insanity if he had not actually accomplished the feat. Inasmuch as he accomplished it, it proved his genius.
The Free State men—the best of them, at any rate—gave him shelter and helped him to conceal his captives, but protested against his act. Even Augustus Wattles, a Quaker and a loyal friend of Brown's, said to him: "You ought not to do this. Kansas is too greatly harassed." "Well," answered Brown, "I will soon remove the seat of the trouble elsewhere." Ottawa Jones, and Indian, who had befriended Brown innumerable times, now sheltered and hid him once more, through his previous aid to Brown had cost him all his earthly possessions, destroyed by the Missourians. Brown went on with his negroes over a frozen road. On the way one of the black women gave birth to a son, who was promptly named John Brown. Knowing that a band of Missourians was lying in wait for him, a party of some twenty-three young Kansans, who had not the fear of the Territory's rulers and cautious counsellors before their eyes, started out with them. They met the Missourians in ambush on the opposite shore of Muddy creek, covering a ford. They rode straight at them by Brown's command, and put the whole party to ignominious flight. Five of this valiant party Brown captured and march with him a considerable distance. He did not deem it prudent to allow them to ride their horses, lest they should escape and betray his whereabouts; but, after the very knightly way he had of treating his prisoners, he dismounted and went on foot with them all night, "to show that he meant them no unkindness." In the morning, after he had prayed over them, he told them to make their way back home as best they might. Naturally, he retained their horses; and we can imagine that the tired men were long in reaching home.
Brown's little party marched on, undergoing fearful hardships. Brown himself was found by a kindly abolitionist on the way to be without underclothing in the frightful cold and snowdrifts. Nobody knew to what negro refugee he had given his own garments. The fugitives were pursued, but they managed to get into Nebraska safely; and from there on Brown begged his way, the negroes being met now and then with demonstrations of welcome and rejoicing, but often with cold reprobation. He reached Chatham, Canada, in March, 1859, with all his fugitives alive and well. Then he went to Ohio, and at Cleveland sold his captured Missouri horses and mules at public sale, "warning the purchasers," Mr. Sanborn says, "that there might be a defect in the title."
He made sure that his Virginia stores were safe. His son John had kept the two hundred rifles and other arms and munitions, first in a furniture warehouse at Cherry Valley, Ohio, covered over with ready-made coffins, and then, upon an alarm, in an abolitionist farmer's bam. In the early summer of 1859 John Brown, Jr., shipped themas "hardware" to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, which was only forty-five miles from Harper's Ferry, Virginia. The curtain was about to rise on the last act of the tragedy.