"JOHN BROWN'S body lies a-mouldering in the grave; his soul is marching on!" In every public meeting, through village and town, along the lines of recruits marching to the front, around the army campfires, this song became the battle-cry. It had been but three years since John Brown, with seventeen whites and five negroes, seized the United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and began the freeing of slaves. It required eighteen hours and 1,500 militia and marines to subdue the ardent abolitionist. He took refuge in the armory engine house. The doors were battered down. Eight of the insurgents were killed. Brown, with three whites and a half dozen negroes, was captured and hanged. The Confederates planned its capture, but upon their approach on the eighteenth of April, in 1861, three days after the firing on Fort Sumter, they found only the burning arsenal. They held the coveted position with 6,500 men, but fearing the attack of 20,000 Unionists, deserted it. It was held by the Union troops until 1862, when, on the fifteenth of September, Stonewall Jackson bombarded the town and forced its surrender. The Union loss was 80 killed, 120 wounded, 11,583 captured. The Confederate loss was 500. In this engagement were the brave boys of the 12th New York State Militia; 39th, 111th, 115th, 125th and 126th New York; 32nd, 60th and 87th Ohio; 9th Vermont; 65th Illinois; 1st and 3rd Maryland "Home Brigade;" 15th Indiana Volunteers; Phillips' Battery; 5th New York; Graham's, Pott's and Rigby's Batteries; 8th New York; 12th Illinois, and 1st Maryland Cavalry. It was during these days that the Army of the Potomac engaged the Confederate forces in bloody conflict at Turner's and Crampton's Gap, South Mountain, Maryland, leaving Harper's Ferry again in the hands of the Union. [Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT HARPER'S FERRY]