+------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN OF HARPER'S | | FERRY | | | | BY | | | | JOHN NEWTON | | | | Crown 8vo, Cloth, 6s. Fully Illustrated. | | | | There are few to whom the lines, | | | | "John Brown's body lies a-mould'ring in the grave, | | But his soul's marching on," | | | | are not familiar, but few are now aware that they came into being as | | the marching song, made and used by the followers of "John Brown of | | Harper's Ferry," or of "Ossawatomie," after he had been executed. His | | was a stirring life. Having conceived the idea of becoming the | | liberator of the negro slaves in the Southern States of North America, | | he emigrated in 1855 from Ohio to Kansas, where he took an active part | | in the contest against the pro-slavery party. He gained, in August | | 1856, a victory at Ossawatomie over a superior number of Missourians | | who had invaded Kansas (whence the surname "Ossawatomie"). On the | | night of October 16, 1859, he seized the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, | | Virginia, at the head of a small band of followers with a view to | | arming the negroes and inciting an insurrection. He was captured | | October 18th, was tried by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and was | | executed at Charlestown, December 2, 1859. | | | | Mr Newton has been at pains to inform himself from every available | | source upon which it was possible to draw for a biography of John | | Brown. The result is a most exhaustive work, in which the part Brown | | took in the Kansas border wars, all his preparations for Harper's | | Ferry and what occurred there, and his trial are fully related. | | Practically no day between Brown's condemnation and his | | execution--nearly a month--is ignored, and many most interesting | | particulars are given of Brown's family. The judgments of his great | | countrymen, Whittier, Thoreau and Emerson, as well as that of the |