CHAPTER X

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JOHN BROWN

    It must not be forgotten, in connection with the exciting times that preceded the war, that Montgomery County was located not far from the scene of the earlier actions of John Brown and his followers. The history of this strange enthusiast, whose wild actions undoubtedly precipitated the Civil War, is well known, but it was of such vast importance that a short reference to his history may not be out of place in this book.

    John Brown was a New Yorker who went to Osawatomie, Kansas, to find a home, and it was not long after that the conflict with slavery was precipitated, when Kansas sought admission to the Union. Had the Kansans been left to themselves, there would have been no difficulty, for the sentiment of the people of the territory was all for freedom. The trouble came from interference of the wild and lawless slavery forces from the adjoining state of Missouri, and the history of the murders and cruelties perpetrated by these guerrillas is too well known to necessitate repeating. John Brown could not stand by and see injustice of this kind. He met force with force and very soon a state of war existed in Kansas. He recognized the slave question as being at the bottom of the whole difficulty and in a moment of fanaticism, he conceived the idea of endeavoring to wipe out this great wrong by resort of force. While he has generally been regarded as of unbalanced mind, the system and careful plann[i]ng which he showed in his undertaking would seem to indicate that he was more of a fierce enthusiast than a lunatic.

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    It is not generally known that southwestern Iowa was the scene of his preparations for action. Rev. Dr. Hill of Atlantic, an old time resident of Tabor, is responsible for the statement: "John Brown was in Tabor most of his time for six months and, more or less, for a year or two preceding his incursion in Virginia. Tabor, in fact, was his headquarters for his earlier operations in Kansas. I saw him almost daily in pubic and in private." It seems, however, that the citizens of the town, while thoroughly in sympathy with Brown's attitude against slavery, were not in favor of the warlike methods which he was adopting. A meeting appears to have been held to consider the effect of these on the community and Dr. Hill goes on to say:

    "The meeting in Tabor of which Brown complained was held while he was there with a company of his men, having with them a number of negroes whom they had brought from Missouri. Brown had taken slaves, teams and other necessaries for their journey by force. He claimed that slavery had no legal right; that it was a state of war, and the slaves were only prisoners of war, held by force and not by right, and therefore they might be released from servitude by force. I took part in the public meeting held to consider the situation. After a warm debate, a resolution was adopted, declaring that while we held it right to assist the fleeing slaves in every way, and would do this, still, it was not expedient to invade the slave states by force, thus virtually making war and precipitating a serious disturbance. These are not the exact words of the resolution but the sentiment and force of them. Brown was a very logical man and very little influenced by difficulties in the application of his principles. A number of interesting events occurred during his stay in Tabor."

    He proceeded with system and selected from his oldest associates a dozen or more of trusty companions, including his son, Owen, who had seen with him service in the Kansas border conflict. He employed Hugh Forbes, who had seen service

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in Europe, to drill his men at Tabor for this military expedition. And, while, as we have seen, the town was full of sympathy with his cause, the measures which he adopted were scarcely approved. This school for military instruction was of short duration and would probably not have been tolerated at all in other county, so strong, even in the north, was the sympathy with slavery in the south. Tabor, however, was made up of a colony from Oberlin, Ohio, and of people who were unusually radical for the time. It is said that when the conflict came, this town gave more men and treasures in behalf of freedom in proportion to its population than any other town in the United States. Brown and his small squad next appeared at Springdale, a small village in the southwestern corner of Cedar County, Iowa. Their former drill master had been dismissed and Aaron Stevens of the U. S. Army was substituted. Stevens had been court martialed for assaulting Major Longstreet, Gen. Lee's Lieutenant-General in the War of the Rebellion. He had been ordered to be shot but the President commuted his sentence to three years imprisonment. He made his escape, changed his name to Whipple and became a colonel in the free state war in Kansas.

    On page 379, Vol. 1, of B. F. Gue's History of Iowa, is a description of John Brown's followers:

    "John Henri Kagi was an accomplished writer and stenographer, a correspondent of the New York Post and an eloquent public speaker. Richard Realf was a young Englishman of rare talents, a poet and orator, and had been a protege of Lady Byron. John E. Cook was a young man, brave and chivalrous, a fine writer and poet. His young wife was a sister of the wife of Governor Willard of Indiana. Such were some of the men enlisted in the Harper's Ferry plan for liberating the slaves."

    The old emancipator revealed to three or four citizens of Springdale the purpose he had in view in drilling his men. He

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firmly believed that in a righteous cause, "One could chase a thousand and two would put ten thousand to flight," and that he would strike a blow that would ultimately overthrow slavery in this country. His strong and commanding personality influenced several young men of Springdale and vicinity to enlist, among whom were George B. Gill, Edwin and Barclay Coppoc and Steward Taylor. Dr. H. Gill, to whom Brown revealed his plan of liberation, even going into details, said to him, "You and your handful of men cannot cope with the whole South." His reply was, "I tell you, Doctor, it will be the beginning of the end of slaver." Brown was elected Commander in Chief. Secretaries of War, of State and of the Treasury were chosen. John Brown would not be dissuaded from his purpose. In the east, where he had gone, Gerrit Smith, F. B. Sanborn, Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker remonstrated with him in vain. In April, 1859, he arrived in Springdale and ordered his men to move east. The enterprise for a time was delayed and his forces permitted to scatter to re-assemble when called. Brown went to Kansas, with Tidd, Kagi and two others, crossed into Missouri to liberate slaves who were to be sold and their families separated. They took twelve slaves, horses, wagons, cattle and other property, to which Brown claimed the slaves were entitled for years of unpaid labor. One slave holder resisted and was killed by Stevens. Large rewards were offered by the Governor of Missouri for the arrest of Brown and his men and the recovery of the slaves.

    Early in January, Brown and several members of his party began the journey with the slaves in wagons, by way of Nebraska and Iowa to Canada. They reached Tabor, Iowa, on the 5th day of February, 1859, where they remained until the 11th. The citizens of Tabor became alarmed at Brown's invasion of Missouri and forcible liberation of slaves, fearing retaliation from the MIssourians, as they were near the State line. "To relieve themselves from the charge of complicity with

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Brown, the citizens held a public meeting and passed resolutions condemning the acts of him and his followers." On the 11th, the slaves were conveyed on their journey along the line of the Underground Railroad. Their route was by way of White Cloud and up the Botna as far as the stone quarry at the mouth of Farm Creek and up that stream to Wheeler's Grove, thence to Lewis, where Oliver Mills was the chief agent. They arrived there on the 13th and from there on by Grove City, Dalmanuth, Redfield, Adel, Des Moines and Grinnell, thence to Canada. At Wheeler's Grove and Grove City there was talk of interfering with Mr. Brown's plans but his crowd was not an attractive one for such a program.

    John Brown made several trips through our county in traveling back and forth from Kansas to the east. He made the home of the Bond's, the parents of Jacob, Ellis and Amasa Bond and Mrs. A. Milner of this county, then living at Frankfort, his stopping place, and it was there that the late J. B. Packard conversed with him. But little information was obtained concerning his business. He left the impression that he was reticent, non-communicative and not easily approached by strangers. He had the air of one deeply engrossed with his own thoughts; silent, yet restlessly walking back and forth with measured steps and in deep meditation. If he could have read the future and have foreseen the part he was to play in the great drama soon to be enacted in his country, it would have been to him an awe-inspiring scene.He doubtless would have calmly and heroically yielded up his life for freedom. He said in the presence of his executioners, "I do not reproach myself for my failures. I did what I could. I think I cannot better serve the cause I love so much than to die for it." On the day of his execution, Victor Hugo, then in exile, wrote these prophetic words:

    "John Brown, condemned to death, is to be hanged today. His hangman is not Governor Wise nor the little State of Vir-

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ginia. His hangman (we shudder to think and say it) is the whole American Republic. Politically speaking, the murder of John Brown will be an irrevocable mistake. It will deal the Union a concealed wound which will finally sunder the States." This great apostle of liberty a few months later wrote: "Slavery in all its forms will disappear. What the South slew last December was not John Brown, but slavery. The American Union must be considered dissolved. Between the North and the South, the gallows of Brown. Union is no longer possible. Such a crime can not be spared."

    Two years later the great army of the Potomac, of a hundred thousand men, marched through Virginia singing, "John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on." Appomatox sealed the fate of slavery and reunited the disintegrated states into one glorious, inseparable Union.