There was little feeling of fraternity, then, to stand in the way when the issues involved seemed to require the arbitrament of war, and it was as enemies rather than as quarrelling brothers, that the men of the North and the South rallied to their respective standards. * * * * * {8} [Illustration: INTERIOR OF FORT SUMTER AFTER THE BOMBARDMENT IN 1863--FROM GOVERNMENT PHOTOGRAPH. (Presented to participants in Sumter Celebration, April 14, 1865.)] An episode which occurred about a year before the war, which was inherently of minor importance, brought to the surface the bitter feeling which was preparing the way for the fraternal strife. John Brown, an enthusiastic abolitionist, a man of undoubted courage, but possessing poor judgment, and who had been very prominent in a struggle to make Kansas a free State, in 1859 collected a small company, and, invading the State of Virginia, seized the United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry. His expectation was that the blacks would flock to his standard, and that, arming them from the arsenal, he could lead a servile insurrection which would result in ending slavery. His project, which was quixotic in the extreme, lacking all justification of possible success, failed miserably, and Brown was hung as a criminal. At the South, his action was taken as an indication of what the abolitionists would do if they secured control of the Government, and the secessionist sentiment was greatly stimulated by his attempt. At the North he became a martyr to the cause of freedom; and although the leaders would not at first call the war for the Union an anti-slavery war, the people knew it was an anti-slavery war, and old {9} John Brown's wraith hung over every Southern battlefield. The song, "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, His soul is marching on." became a battle-cry, sung at every public meeting, sending recruits to the front, and making the echoes ring around the army campfires. So long as the Democratic party, which was in political alliance with the South, retained control of the Federal Government, there was neither motive nor excuse for secession or rebellion. Had the Free Soil Party elected Frémont in 1856, war would have come then. When the election of 1860, through Democratic dissension and adherence to several candidates, resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the Free Soilers, the die was cast, and the South prepared for the struggle it was about to precipitate. * * * * *