Tom Strong, Lincoln's Scout

Men-John Brown-The Attack upon Harper's Ferr

eath the rays of the setting sun. To their right, low hills, wooded to the top, bounded the view. They had left the little town of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, an hour before;

of that great town had given him a comfortable fortune. He had decided to buy a farm somewhere and a friend had told him that Western Maryland was almost a paradise. So it was, but this Eden had its serpent. Slavery was there. It was a mild and patriarchal kind of slavery, but it had left its black mark upon the countryside. Across the nearby Maso

ndant of the Billy-boy General Washington had given to the first Tom Strong, many years before. Jennie was a descendant of the Jennie Tom Strong, thir

house for miles, Fa

were riding through Pennsylvania. There's always

r. What

free, in the course of years, but I'm beginning to think the right kind of white people won't come where the only work is done by slaves. We must f

r. Just around the turn of the road there were three horses. Three armed

op! Who

ful highroad? The boy glanced at his father and tried to imitate his father's cool demeanor. He felt the shock of surprise, but his heart beat joyously with the thought: "This is an adven

, who seemed both awkward and unea

r," the leader of the highwaymen answered, with a note almost of pleadin

y with us--" bro

ll do all the talk

do best," the o

to spend the night." He faced his captors. "This is a queer performance of yours. You don't loo

er. "You've got to come with us, but you nee

a couple of log huts. The sun had set; the short twilight was over. Firelight gleamed in the larger of the huts. The prisoners were taken to it. A man who was lounging outside the door had a whispered ta

re all on their feet, eyeing keenly the unexpected prisoners. Their eyes

and your hosses are safe and we won't keep

n slaveholders from Missouri and freedom-lovers under John Brown had turned it into a battlefield), and he was soon to be John Brown of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, first martyr in the cause of Freedom on Virginian soil. To him "the day of the Lord" was the day when he was to attack slavery in its birthplace, the Old Dominion, and that attack had been set by him for Sun

few folk scattered through the countryside had begun to be suspicious of this strange gathering of men. All sorts of wild stories circulated, though none was as wild as the truth. The men themselves were tense under the str

n B

arned to know a real man when he met one. He soon found out that Mr. Strong was a real man. He told him of his plans, and urged him to join in the pr

. "And with twenty armed men cannot I pull down the walls of the citadel of Sl

response, qu

der, hammering the table with his mighty fist. "Here, Jim,

he darkness afoot, while Billy-boy and Jennie and the other horses in the corral whinnied uneasily, sensing, as animals do, the stir of a departure which is to leav

the bridge. He heard the trampling of many feet upon t

ed somebody i

n," Patrick testified afterwards, "anny

ce. He fell, but his shouts had alarmed the town. There were two or three watchmen at the arsenal. They came forward, only t

er, George Washington. At midnight, Colonel Washington was awakened by a blow upon his bedroom door. It swung open and the light of a burning torch showed th

gave George Washington and a swo

es

e are

nsta

downstairs with him. Pi

said Stevens. "You hand

e its being sent George Washington by Frederick the Great is doubtful-the story runs that the Prussian king sent with it

ld to come and fight for their freedom. Too scared to resist, they came as they were bidden to do, but they did no fighting. At Harper's Ferry they and their fellow-slaves, seized at a neighboring plantation, escaped back to

house of the armory. The militia refused to charge the engine-house, saying that this might cost the captives their lives. Many of them were drunk; all of them were undisciplined; their commander

s shot and glad to know the wound was slight, but sharing in the skirmish, even in the humble capacity of a captive, had excited the boy immensely. Now that there was almost constant firing back and forth, when two or three wounded men were lying on the floor, and when his father and he and Colonel Was

put us. The only other danger is when the regulars rush in here, but unless they mistake us for the raiders, there'll be no har

The hush was broken by a comman

surrender," quot

t broke at the second blow. The marines poured in, shooting and striking. The battle was over. John Brown, wounded a

ON THE EN

h Southern planter. The Colonel asked his guests to stay until after the trial of their recent jailer. They did so and Mr. Strong, after some hesitation, decided to take Tom to the trial and afterwards to the final scene of all. He wrote to his wife: "Life is rich, my dear, in proportion to the

and Colonel Washington at the trial. He heard them testify. He noted the angry stir of the m

for I believe he is an honest, conscientious old man." Virginia, Lee's State, t

mber 2. The next day he added this postscript to a l

nged on Decem 2d next. Do not grieve on my accou

aside the offer with the calm statement: "I am fully persuaded tha

was upon the threshold of a far more beautiful country. The gallows were guarded by a militia company from Richmond, Virginia. In its ranks, rifle on shoulder, stood Wilkes Booth, a dark and sinister figure, who was to win eternal infamy by assassinat

allows. In 1859 United States troops captured him that he might die. In 1899 United States troops fired a volley of honor over his grave in North Elba that the memory of him might live. Victor Hugo called him "an apostle and a hero." Emerso