117
A little before dawn of the next day, April 18 th, a brilliant light arosefrom near the point of confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers.General Harper, who up to that moment had expected a conflict with theMassachusetts regiment supposed to be at Harper’s Perry, was making hisdispositions for an attack at daybreak, when this light convinced him thatthe enemy had fired the arsenal and fled. He marched in and took posses-sion, but too late to extinguish the flames. Nearly twenty thousand riflesand pistols were destroyed. The workshops had not been fired. The people ofthe town told us the catastrophe, for such it was to us, was owing to decla-rations made the day before by the ex-superintendent, Alfred M. Barbour.He reached Harper’s Perry, via Washington, on the 17 th about noon, and,collecting the mechanics in groups, informed them that the place would be capt-ured within twenty-four hours by Virginia troops. He urged them to protectthe property, and join theSouthern cause, promising,if war ensued, that the placewould be held by the South, andthat they would be continued atwork on high wages. His influencewith the men was great, and most ofthem decided to accept his advice. ButLieutenant Roger Jones, who com-manded the little guard of forty-
five men, hearing what was goingon, at once took measures
mm a**®--
^ 7-
itesrsp
A
vr gg
b
to destroy the placeif necessary. • Trainsof gunpowder
XIIE ENGINE-HOUSE. HARPER’S FERRY —“ JOHN
wliom were added, on the morning of Tuesday, aforce of United States marines, sent from Wash-ington under Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieuten-ants Green and J. E. B. Stuart. The marinesbattered down the door of the engine-house andcaptured the insurgents, after a brave resistance.In the conflict John Brown was wounded; his sonsWatson and Oliver were mortally wounded, andeight others of the party were killed. Five, in-cluding another son, Owen Brown, escaped. Seven
BROWN’S FORT,” IN WHICH IIE WAS CAPTURED.
were captured, and, after trial and conviction,were hanged at Charlestown, Virginia,— JohnBrown on the 2d of December, 1859; John E.Cook, Edwin Coppoc, John A. Copeland (a mulat-to), and Shields Green (a negro) on the 16th ofDecember; and Aaron D. Stevens and Albert Haz-lett on the 16th of the following March. Threecitizens and a number of negroes were killed bythe insurgents, and others were wounded.
Editors.