“Whip the town and seize the muskets, free the negroes, and then arm them-- Carry the County and the State; ay, and all the potent South; On their own heads be the slaughter, if their victims rise to harm them-- These Virginians! who believed not, nor would heed the warning mouth.” Says Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, “The world shall see a Republic, or my name is not JOHN BROWN!” ’Twas the sixteenth of October, on the evening of a Sunday-- “This good work,” declared the Captain, “shall be on a holy night!” It was on a Sunday evening, and before the noon of Monday, With two sons, and Captain Stevens, fifteen privates--black and white-- Captain Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Marched across the bridged Potomac, and knocked the sentinel down; Took the guarded armory building, and the muskets and the cannon; Captured all the country majors and the colonels, one by one; Scared to death each gallant scion of Virginia they ran on, And before the noon of Monday, I say, the deed was done. Mad Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, With his eighteen other crazy men, went in and took the town. Very little noise and bluster, little smell of powder, made he; It was all done in the midnight, like the Emperor’s _coup d’etat_: “Cut the wires: stop the rail-cars: hold the streets and bridges!” said he-- Then declared the new Republic, with himself for guiding star-- This Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown! And the bold two thousand citizens ran off and left the town. Then was riding and railroading and expressing here and thither! And the MARTINSBURG SHARPSHOOTERS, and the CHARLESTOWN VOLUNTEERS, And the SHEPHERDSTOWN and WINCHESTER MILITIA hastened whither Old Brown was said to muster his ten thousand grenadiers! General Brown, Osawatomie Brown! Behind whose rampant banner all the North was pouring down. But at last, ’tis said, some prisoners escaped from Old Brown’s durance, And the effervescent valor of Ye Chivalry broke forth, When they learned that nineteen madmen had the marvellous assurance-- Only nineteen--thus to seize the place, and drive them frightened forth; And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Found an army come to take him encamped around the town.