John Brown, Soldier of Fortune: A CritiqueWilson, Hill Peebles
History
John Brown, Soldier of Fortune: A Critique
Wilson, Hill Peebles
Brown, John, 1800-1859
He has left for Kansas; has been trying since he came out
of the Territory to secure an outfit, or, in other words,
the means of arming and thoroughly equipping his regular
minute-men, who are mixed up with the people of Kansas. And
he leaves the States with a feeling of deepest sadness,
that after having exhausted his own small means and with
his family and his brave men suffered hunger, cold,
nakedness, and some of them sickness, wounds, imprisonment
in irons with extreme cruel treatment, and others, death;
that after lying on the ground for months in the most
sickly, unwholesome, and uncomfortable places, some of the
time with sick and wounded, destitute of any shelter,
hunted like wolves, and sustained in part, by Indians; that
after all this, in order to sustain a cause which every
citizen of this "glorious republic" is under equal moral
obligation to do, and for the neglect of which he will be
held accountable by God--a cause in which every man, woman,
and child of the entire human family has a deep and awful
interest--that when no wages are asked or expected, he
cannot secure, amid all the wealth, luxury, and
extravagance of this "heaven-exalted" people, even the
necessary supplies of the common soldier. "How are the
mighty fallen?"
I am destitute of horses, baggage-wagons, tents, harness,
saddles, bridles, holsters, spurs, and belts; camp
equipage, such as cooking and eating utensils, blankets,
knapsacks, intrenching-tools, axes, shovels, spades,
mattocks, crowbars; have not a supply of ammunition; have
not money sufficient to pay freight and travelling
expenses; and left my family poorly supplied with common
necessaries.[246]
In a letter to Brown of April 17th, Mr. Thayer proposed a name for
Brown's prospective company, as follows:
... Will you allow me to suggest a name for your company? I
should call them, "The Neighbors," from Luke tenth chapter:
"Which thinkest thou was neighbor to him who fell among
thieves."
What Brown's thoughts were when he read this friendly suggestion can not
well be imagined. The association of the word "neighbors" with the
phrase "falling among thieves" may have caused him to suspect that
Thayer held the secret of his dishonor; and that his guilt, hypocrisy,
and mendacity might be on the verge of exposure. At any rate the effect
of the combination of these words must have sunk deep into his heart.
They could not but call up afresh, and vividly, a mental vision of the
scenes on the Pottawatomie, when he and his band of thieves fell among,
and upon, their neighbors, at midnight, and murdered and robbed them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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