their masters, and to extend the murderous and incendiary programme to the furthest limits of the South. His passion was to become the instrument of abolishing slavery, by the strong arm, throughout the slaveholding States. His plan was larger than was generally supposed. After his arrest he declared that he had been promised aid from Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, and Canada. With an army, then, consisting of blacks and whites, he designed to make the Blue Ridge his base; and, advancing southward, extending as he went his conquests and his power, he expected to penetrate into Northern Georgia and form a junction there with a column, which was to proceed in the same triumphant manner from Beaufort, South Carolina, along a route which had been already defined.

The first step of this extensive design was on the frontier of Virginia. The outlaw had purchased two hundred Sharpe's carbines, two hundred revolver pistols, and about one thousand pikes, with which to arm the slaves. These arms he had collected and deposited in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry. When the plot was ripe for execution, a little before midnight on Sunday evening, the 16th October, 1859, he, with sixteen white and five negro confederates, rushed across the Potomac to Harper's Ferry, and there seized the armory, arsenal, and rifle factory belonging to the United States. When the inhabitants awoke in the morning, they found, greatly to their terrour and surprise, that these places, with the town itself, were all in possession of John Brown's adventurous force.

The slaves in the adjoining county did not rise as Brown had expected, and made no response to his signal of attack. The news spread rapidly over the country; public rumor greatly exaggerated the strength of the outlaw's force; and large numbers of volunteers from Virginia and Maryland were soon hastening to the scene of action. The action of the Government at Washington was prompt, and President Buchanan immediately sent forward a detachment of marines under Col. Robert E. Lee, who was accompanied by his aide, Lieut. J. E. B. Stuart. Col. Lee and his command arrived at the Ferry in the night of the 17th. The news was too late in reaching Richmond to enable the Governor of the State, Henry A. Wise, to reach the ground with State forces; but a large number of militiamen and volunteers had collected at the Ferry when Col. Lee arrived, and were meditating an attack

upon Brown and his party, who had now gathered in the engine-house, and debating the policy of storming the refuge, and running the hazard of having the prisoners massacred, whom the outlaw held in the building. This weak hesitation was terminated by Col. Lee's appearance. His manner was cool and severe. He determined that the next morning the engine-house should be stormed by the marines, unless, before that time, the enemy surrendered. During the night, volunteer parties of the hot-blooded Virginians, jealous of the honour of their State, and ashamed of their former hesitation, besought Col. Lee to let them have the privilege of storming the engine-house. All such propositions were, however, refused. As daylight dawned, troops were stationed around the engine-house to cut off all hope of escape, and the United States marines were divided into two squads for storming purposes.

At seven o'clock in the morning Brown was summoned to surrender, under a regular flag of truce, and was promised protection from violence, and a trial according to law. He replied with the absurd proposition: "That his party should be permitted to march out with their men and arms, taking their prisoners with them; that they should proceed unpursued to the second toll-gate, when they would free their prisoners, the soldiers then being permitted to pursue them, and they would fight, if they could not escape." Col. Lee ordered the attack. The marines advanced by two lines. quickly on each side of the door, battered it down, and in a moment terminated the affair; but one volley being fired, which killed one of their number, while Brown was brought to the ground by a blow on the skull from Lieut. Stuart's sword. The whole band of insurgents, with the exception of two who had escaped, were either killed or captured. John Brown himself was wounded almost mortally, but was to survive for the gallows. In the meantime, however, his party had murdered five individuals, four of them unarmed citizens, and had wounded nine others. Col. Lee had terminated a threatening revolt with singular nerve and decision; and having done his duty, at once withdrew from the scene of excitement, turned his prisoners over to the United States District-Attorney (Mr. Robert Ould), and quietly returned to Washington to resume his cavalry command.

The blood shed at Harper's Ferry was the first drops of the crimson deluge that was to overwhelm the South, and whose tides

were to flow across the breadth of a continent. It was no accidental event. It was not the isolated act of a desperate fanatic. The Abolitionists of the North gave significance to the John Brown expedition by their enthusiastic and permanent approbation of its object, and spread alarm and apprehension through the South by their displays of honour to his memory. After his death on the gallows, prayers were offered up for him as if he were a martyr, and even blasphemy was employed to consecrate his memory. It is curious, indeed, that the party that afterwards made war upon the South carried the memory of this man in the van of their armies, and have ever since honoured him as a saint or a martyr in a holy cause.

The event of Harper's Ferry was not without its lesson to Virginia. Governor Wise was one of those who saw the impending conflict. With the ostensible design of providing against a rescue of the criminals from the Charlestown jail, he encouraged the organization of military companies throughout the State, and used every legitimate means to excite a war spirit among the people. Companies were received at Charlestown, and after a short stay there, were sent away to make room for others, in order that the war spirit might be disseminated throughout the State. The attention of the Legislature was called to the state of the Commonwealth, and initiatory steps were taken to put Virginia upon a war footing. All over the State, military organizations sprang up, and serious preparations were made for war. It was to come sooner than any man of that day expected.

CHAPTER III.

Abraham Lincoln elected President of the United States.-Anxiety and hesitation of Lee at the commencement of hostilities.-His sense of duty.-He debates the question of his allegiance to Virginia.-His peculiar school of politics.-A reply to a Northern newspaper.-Attitude of Virginia.-A sublime struggle in Lee's mind. He goes to Richmond.-Appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Virginia forces. His reception by the State Convention.-Appearance and carriage of the man.―Military preparations in Virginia.—She joins the Southern Confederacy.

THE election of Abraham Lincoln by the votes of the Republican or Anti-Slavery party, President of the United States, alarmed the South. When he assumed office, March 4, 1861, the States of South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, had withdrawn from the Union; and what were loosely called the Border Slave States, were agitated by the discussion of instant and dread necessities.

In the first commotions which threatened war, Robert E. Lee, as a member of the United States Army and a native Virginian, gave evidence of the most painful anxiety. His mind was torn by conflicting emotions. He was ardently attached to the Federal service; he had spent more than thirty years in it; he had obtained in it the best honours of his life. He was unskilled in politics, but he had a sentimental attachment to the Union and its traditions. He saw with alarm and anxiety the indications of a movement to dissolve the old Federal compact, and array against it a new league of States. He was sincerely opposed to such a movement; he saw no necessity for it; and in the doubts and anxieties of his mind, he could determine no other course than to await the action of his native State, Virginia, and to adopt in an overruling sense of duty, whatever she should decide. In the subsequent development of events, when Lee had decided to stand by his mother State, when she drew the sword, a letter from his wife referred to the terrible trials of his mind in reaching this conclusion. She wrote: "My husband has wept tears of blood over this terrible

war; but he must, as a man of honour and a Virginian, share the destiny of his State, which has solemnly pronounced for independence."

Lee's early hesitation at the commencement of hostilities was simply the doubt of duty. Ambition, the bribes of office, personal interest, did not enter into a mind pure, conscientious, introspective, anxious only to discover the line of duty, and then prompt and resolute to follow it. As long as Virginia wavered, Lee stood irresolute. While he maintained an attentive neutrality and waited for events, the Federal authorities at Washington used every effort to commit him to the service of the Union, and did not hesitate to urge his choice by the most splendid bribes. Mr. Blair, senior, has freely admitted that at this time he was deputed by President Lincoln to sound Lee, and to suggest to him his early appointment to the chief command of the Federal forces, in the event of his declaration for the Union. Those who thus approached Lee to tempt his ambition little knew the man. They did not have the key to those quiet meditations which made him reticent and kept him undecided. His only thought was duty. There is a very noble letter written several years before the war by Lee, which exhibits the man and indicates his characteristic idea of the conduct of life. He wrote to his son, who was at West Point in 1852, the following lesson:

"In regard to duty, let me in conclusion of this hasty letter, inform you that nearly a hundred years ago there was a day of remarkable gloom and darkness-still known as 'the dark day'

a day when the light of the sun was slowly extinguished, as if by an eclipse. The Legislature of Connecticut was in session, and as its members saw the unexpected and unaccountable darkness coming on, they shared in the general awe and terrour. It was supposed by many that the last day-the day of judgment—had come. Some one, in the consternation of the hour, moved an adjournment. Then there arose an old Puritan legislator, Devenport, of Stamford, and said, that if the last day had come, he desired to be found at his place doing his duty, and, therefore, moved that candles be brought in, so that the house could proceed with its duty. There was quietness in that man's mind, the quietness of heavenly wisdom and inflexible willingness to obey present duty. Duty, then, is the sublimest word in our language.