A Voice from Harper's Ferry

Osborne P. Anderson (1861)

Seventeen whites and five blacks participated in John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. Osborne Anderson was the only black person who survived to write about the experience. Here is his1 narrative of the raid. From Voices of A People's History, edited by Zinn and Arnove

PREFACE

My sole purpose in publishing the following Narrative is to save from oblivion the facts connected with one of the most important movements of this age, with reference to the overthrow of American slavery. My own personal experience in it, under the orders of Capt. Brown, on the 16th and 17th of October, 1859, as the only man alive who was at Harper's Ferry during the entire time the unsuccessful groping after these facts, by individuals, impossible to be obtained, except from an actor in the scene and the conviction that the cause of impartial liberty requires this duty at my hands alone have been the motives for writing and circulating the little book herewith presented. I will not, under such circumstances, insult or burden the intelligent with excuses for defects in composition, nor for the attempt to give the facts. A plain, unadorned, truthful story is wanted, and that by one who knows what he says, who is known to have been at the great encounter, and to have labored in shaping the same. My identity as a member of Capt. Brown's company cannot be questioned, successfully, by any in Canada or the United States familiar with John Brown and his plans; as those know his men personally, or by reputation, who enjoyed his confidence sufficiently to know thoroughly his plans. The readers of this narrative will therefore keep steadily in view the main point that they are perusing a story of events which have happened under the eye of the great Captain, or are incidental thereto, and not a compendium of the "plans" of Capt. Brown; for as his plans were not consummated, and as their fulfillment is committed to the future, no one to whom they are known will recklessly expose all of them to the public gaze. Much has been give as true that never happened; much has been omitted that should have been made known; many things have been left unsaid, because up to within a short time, but two could say them; one of them has been offered up, a sacrifice to the Moloch, Slavery; being that other one, I propose to perform the duty, trust ing to that portion of the public who love the right for an appreciation of my endeavor. O. P. A.











CHAPTER I







CHAPTER II







CHAPTER III







CHAPTER IV









CHAPTER V









CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

Captain Brown and J. H. Kagi Go to Philadelphia F. J. Merriam, J,. Copeland and S. Leary Arrive Matters Precipitated by Indiscretion Being obliged, form the space I propose to give to this narrative, to omit many incidents of my sojourn at the Farm, which from association are among my most pleasant recollections, the events now to be recorded are to me invested with the most intense interest. About ten days before the capture of the Ferry, Captain John Brown and Kagi went to Philadelphia, on business of great importance. How important, men there and elsewhere now know. How affected by, and affecting the main features of the enterprise, we at the Farm knew full well after their return, as the old Captain, in the fullness of his overflowing, saddened heart, detailed point after point of interest. God bless the old veteran, who could and did chase a thousand in life, and defied more than ten thousand by the moral sublimity of his death! On their way home. At Chambersburg, they met young F. J. Merriam of Boston. Several days were spent at C., when Merriam left for Baltimore, to purchase some necessary articles for the undertaking. John Copeland and Sherrard Lewis Leary reached Chambersburg on the 12th of October, and on Saturday, the 15th, at daylight, they arrived, in company with Kagi and Watson Brown. In the evening of the same day, F. J. Merriam came to the Farm. Saturday, the 15th, was a busy day for all hands. The chief and very man worked busily, packing up, and getting ready to remove the means of defence to the school-house, and for further security, as the people living around were in a state of excitement, from having seen a number of men about the premises a few days previously. Not being fully satisfied as to the real business of "J. Smith & Sons" after that, and learning that several thousand stand of arms were to be removed by the Government from the Armory to some other point, threats to search the premises were made against the encampment. A tried friend having given information of the state of public feeling without, and of the intended process, Captain Brown and party concluded to strike a blow immediately, and not, as at first intended, to await certain reinforcements from the North and East, which would have been in Maryland within one and three weeks. Could other parties, waiting for the word, have reached head-quarters in time for the outbreak when it took place, the taking of the armory, engine house, and rifle factory, would have been quite different. But the men at the Farm had been so closely confined, that they went out about the house and farm in the daytime during that week, and so indiscreetly exposed their numbers to the prying neighbors, who thereupon took steps to have a search instituted in the early part of the coming week. Capt. Brown was not seconded in another quarter as he expected at the time of the action, but could the fears of the neighbors have been allayed for a few days, the disappointment in the former respect would not have had much weight. The indiscretion alluded to has been greatly lamented by all of us, as Maryland, Virginia, and other slave States, had, as they now have, a direct interest in the successful issue of the first step. Few ultimately successful movements were predicated on the issue of the first bold stroke, and so it is with the institution of slavery. It will yet come down by the run, but it will not be because huzzas of victory were shouted over the first attempt, any more than at Bunker Hill or Hastings.









CHAPTER VIII









CHAPTER IX









CHAPTER X









CHAPTER XI









CHAPTER XII









CHAPTER XIII









CHAPTER XIV









CHAPTER XV









CHAPTER XVI









CHAPTER XVII









CHAPTER XVIII









CHAPTER XIX

Footnotes

1 Osborne P. Anderson, A Voice from Harper's Ferry (1861). First printed in Osborne P. Anderson. A Voice from Harpers Ferry: A Narrative of Events at Harper's Ferry; With, Incidents Prior and Subsequent to its Capture by Captain Brown and His Men (Boston: Printed for the author. 1861). Reprinted in Jean Libby, Black Voices from Harper's Ferry: Osborne Anderson and the John Brown Raid (Palo Alto, California: Jean Libby, 1979), pp. 59-62.