Harper's Ferry was a town of five thousand inhabitants, lying between the slave-States of Maryland and Virginia, at the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah rivers, where the united streams flow through a picturesque gap in the single mountain-range called the Blue Ridge. The situation possesses none of the elements which would make it a defensible fastness for protracted guerrilla warfare, such as was contemplated in Brown's plan. The mountains are everywhere approachable without difficulty; are pierced by roads and farms in all directions; contain few natural resources for sustenance, defense, or concealment; are easily observed or controlled from the plain by superior forces. The town is irregular, compact, and hilly; a bridge across each stream connects it with the opposite shores, and the Government factory and buildings, which utilized the water-power of the Potomac, lay in the lowest part of the point of land between the streams. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crosses the Potomac bridge. On the 4th of July, 1859, John Brown, under an assumed name, with two sons and another follower, appeared near Harper's Ferry, and soon after rented the Kennedy Farm, in Maryland, five miles from town, where he made a pretense of cattle-dealing and mining; but in reality collected secretly his rifles, revolvers, ammunition, pikes, blankets, tents, and miscellaneous articles for a campaign. His rather eccentric actions, and the irregular coming and going of occasional strangers at his cabin, created no suspicion in the neighborhood. Cautiously increasing his supplies, and gathering his recruits, he appointed the attack for the 24th of October; but for some unexplained reason (fear of treachery, it is vaguely suggested) he precipitated his movement in advance of that date. From this point the occurrences exhibit no foresight or completeness of preparation, no diligent pursuit of an intelligent plan, nor skill to devise momentary expedients; only a blind impulse to act.