Southerners shuddered. For decades they had been defending their “peculiar institution” of slavery against the ever-increasing attacks of Northern abolitionists, but anti-slavery agitation had always followed a course of non-violence. Then Brown had come with his pikes and guns to change all that. In the false atmosphere of crisis that gripped the South in the wake of the raid, the small voices of moderates were lost in the din of extremists who saw Brown’s act as part of a vast Northern conspiracy to instigate servile insurrections throughout the slave States. To meet this threat, real or imagined, vigilance committees were formed, volunteer military companies were organized, and more and more Southerners began to echo the sentiments of the Richmond Enquirer: “if under the form of a Confederacy our peace is disturbed, our State invaded, its peaceful citizens cruelly murdered ... by those who should be our warmest friends ... and the people of the North sustain the outrage, then let disunion come.” Disunion sentiment increased during the presidential campaign of 1860, stimulated by a split in the Democratic Party that practically guaranteed a Republican victory in the November elections. When Abraham Lincoln was elected President, the secessionist movement could no longer be contained. On December 20, unable to tolerate a President “whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery,” South Carolina severed her ties with the Union. By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had followed her lead. One week later the Confederate States of America was formed at Montgomery, Ala., and the country drifted slowly toward civil war. Before many months had passed, soldiers in blue would be marching south to the tune of “John Brown’s Body” as if to fulfill the prophecy Brown had left in a note to one of his Charles Town guards shortly before the execution: [Illustration: Charlestown, Va, 2^d, december, 1859 I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.] EPILOGUE The war that John Brown predicted would come, and which his raid helped to precipitate, began in April 1861. When it ended almost 4 years to the day later, slavery had been destroyed along with some 600,000 lives and millions of dollars worth of property. Among the casualties of the war was Harpers Ferry. The town’s strategic position on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley made it a prime target for both Union and Confederate forces. It changed hands again and again, and by war’s end in 1865 the place was a shambles.