A voice from Harper's Ferry; a narrative of events at Harper's Ferry : $b with incidents prior and subsequent to its capture by Captain Brown and his menAnderson, Osborne P. (Osborne Perry)
History
A voice from Harper's Ferry; a narrative of events at Harper's Ferry : $b with incidents prior and subsequent to its capture by Captain Brown and his men
Anderson, Osborne P. (Osborne Perry)
Brown, John, 1800-1859; Harpers Ferry (W. Va.) -- History -- John Brown's Raid, 1859
The charge of running away from danger could only find form in the
mind of some one unwilling to encounter the difficulties of a Harper’s
Ferry campaign, as no one acquainted with the out-of-door and in-door
encounters of that day will charge any one with wishing to escape
danger, merely. It is well enough for men out of danger, and who could
not be induced to run the risk of a scratching, to talk flippantly
about cowardice, and to sit in judgment upon the men who went with John
Brown, and who did not fall into the hands of the Virginians; but to
have been there, fought there, and to understand what _did_ transpire
there, are quite different. As Capt. Brown had all the prisoners
with him, the whole force of the enemy was concentrated there, for
a time, after the capture of the rifle factory. Having captured our
commander, we knew that it was but little two of us could do against
so many, and that our turn to be taken must come; so Hazlett and I
went out at the back part of the building, climbed up the wall, and
went upon the railway. Behind us, in the Arsenal, were thousands of
dollars, we knew full well, but that wealth had no charms for us, and
we hastened to communicate with the men sent to the Kennedy Farm. We
travelled up the Shenandoah along the railroad, and overtook one of the
citizens. He was armed, and had been in the fight in the afternoon.
We took him prisoner, in order to facilitate our escape. He submitted
without resistance, and quietly gave up his gun. From him, we learned
substantially of the final struggle at the rifle factory, where the
noble Kagi commanded. The number of citizens killed was, according
to his opinion, much larger than either Hazlett or I had supposed,
although we knew there were a great many killed and wounded together.
He said there must be at least seventy killed, besides wounded. Hazlett
had said there must be fifty, taking into account the defence of the
three strong positions. I do not know positively, but would not put
the figure below thirty killed, seeing many fall as I did, and knowing
the “dead aim” principle upon which we defended ourselves. One of
the Southern published accounts, it will be remembered, said twenty
citizens were killed, another said fifteen. At last it got narrowed
down to five, which was simply absurd, after so long an engagement. We
had forty rounds apiece when we went to the Ferry, and when Hazlett and
I left, we had not more than twenty rounds between us. The rest of the
party were as free with their ammunition as we were, if not more so. We
had further evidence that the number of dead was larger than published,
from the many that we saw lying dead around.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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