  The day after their capture, Brown and his surviving followers—Stevens, Edwin Coppoc, Shields Green, and John Copeland—were taken to Charles Town under heavy guard and lodged in the county jail. The cell doors had hardly banged shut when they learned that they were to receive speedy trials. The grand jury was then in session, and the semiannual term of the circuit court, presided over by Judge Richard Parker, had begun. The five raiders were arraigned on October 25, just one week after their capture. The next day they were indicted for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, for conspiring with slaves to rebel, and for murder. Each defendant pleaded “Not guilty” and each asked for a separate trial. The court consented and elected to try Brown first. Two court-appointed attorneys, 36-year-old Lawson Botts, who had helped to capture the raiders, and Thomas C. Green, the 39-year-old Mayor of Charles Town, were called upon to defend him. Charles Harding, Commonwealth Attorney for Jefferson County, and Andrew Hunter, a veteran Charles Town lawyer, served as prosecutors for the State. The trial began on October 27. It lasted 3½ days. Still suffering from his wounds, Brown was carried back and forth from jail to courthouse, and lay on a cot during much of the proceedings. Judge Parker had hardly brought the court to order when defense counsel Botts astounded the packed courtroom (including Brown himself) by reading a telegram from A. H. Lewis of Akron, Ohio, dated October 26:
John Brown was tried in the courthouse at Charles Town, about 10 miles from Harpers Ferry. The trial was presided over by the Hon. Richard Parker (below), circuit judge for Jefferson County. Richard Parker After receiving the telegram, Botts had gone to the jail to talk with Brown about it. The raider leader had readily admitted that there were instances of insanity in his mother’s side of the family (in fact, his mother had died insane), but asserted that there was none at all on his father’s side. He said his first wife had shown symptoms of it, as had two of their sons, Frederick and John, Jr. Clearly, by introducing the Lewis telegram, the defense hoped to save Brown’s life by having him declared insane and committed to an institution. But the old abolitionist refused to sanction such a plea. Rising up on his cot, he exclaimed:
Lawson Botts and Thomas C. Green were appointed by the court to defend the raider leader. Brown, however, did not trust them to provide him an adequate defense. Lawson Botts. Thomas C. Green. Brown had more faith in the three lawyers provided by his Northern friends. Their efforts to save him from the gallows, however, proved fruitless. George Hoyt, shown here as an officer during the Civil War. Samuel Chilton. Hiram Griswold. Judge Parker ruled out the insanity plea on the basis that the evidence had not been presented in a reliable form. He also rejected Bott’s request for a delay in the proceedings to allow new counsel of Brown’s own choosing to come from Ohio. The trial continued. The defense lawyers were increased to three when George Hoyt joined Botts and Green. Hoyt, a 21-year-old Boston lawyer, was sent to Charles Town by some of Brown’s Northern supporters ostensibly to defend the raider chieftain; his real mission was to gather information that might be useful to those plotting Brown’s escape. As the trial progressed, Brown became more and more irritated with his court-appointed lawyers and openly expressed his lack of confidence in The prosecution’s parade of witnesses recounted the story of the attack on Harpers Ferry, the arming of the slaves, and the deaths of Hayward Shepherd, Fontaine Beckham, and George W. Turner. Brown’s contention that, as commander in chief of a provisional army, he should be tried according to the laws of war and not as a common criminal was rejected. Other arguments offered by the defense met with equally fruitless results. Finally, on October 31, closing arguments by the prosecution and the defense were heard and at 1:45 p.m. the case went to the jury. Deliberations lasted for 45 minutes. The verdict: guilty on all three counts. A newspaper correspondent described the reaction:
Andrew Hunter, special prosecutor for the State of Virginia, vowed to see Brown “arraigned, tried, found guilty, sentenced and hung, all within ten days.” The courtroom in which Brown was tried was not as large as this drawing would indicate, but it was packed with witnesses and spectators. Brown lay on a cot during most of the proceedings, rising only occasionally to make a point in his defense. Jefferson County Sheriff James Campbell. The jailer, John Avis. Sentence was passed on November 2: John Brown would hang on Friday, December 2, 1859. The other raiders—Coppoc, Stevens, Copeland, and Green—were tried subsequently, found guilty, and received like sentences. Of the seven raiders who escaped from Harpers Ferry, John Cook and Albert Hazlett were captured in Pennsylvania, brought to Charles Town for trial, convicted, and hanged. In the days following Brown’s sentencing, Virginia’s Governor Wise was swamped with mail. Many letters pleaded for clemency, some contained outright threats, while others warned of fantastic plots to effect the abolitionist’s escape. Martial law was declared in Charles Town. Militiamen were everywhere, and armed patrols kept a vigilant watch on all roads leading into town. The day of execution came, and not one of the schemes to free Brown materialized. Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia Proclamation PROCLAMATION! IN pursuance of instructions from the Governor of Virginia, notice is hereby given to all whom it may concern, That, as heretofore, particularly from now until after Friday next the 2nd of December, STRANGERS found within the County of Jefferson, and Counties adjacent, having no known and proper business here, and who cannot give a satisfactory account of themselves, will be at once arrested. That on, and for a proper period before that day, stangers[sic] and especially parties, approaching under the pretext of being present at the execution of John Brown, whether by Railroad or otherwise, will be met by the Military and turned back or arrested without regard to the amount of force, that may be required to effect this, and during the said period and especially on the 2nd of December, the citizens of Jefferson and the surrounding country are EMPHATICALLY warned to remain at their homes armed and guard their own property. On the afternoon before the execution, Brown’s grief-stricken wife was allowed to visit him in his cell. They spent several hours talking. Toward evening they parted, and Mary Brown went to Harpers Ferry to await the delivery of her husband’s body. It would be her agonizing duty to return Brown’s remains to their North Elba home for burial. A few minutes after 11 a.m. on December 2, 1859, John Brown walked down the steps of the Charles Town jail, climbed into the back of a horse-drawn wagon, and sat down on his own coffin. Flanked by files of soldiers, the wagon moved off toward a field a short distance from the town where a scaffold had been erected. No civilians were permitted near the execution site. The field was ringed by 1,500 soldiers, among them a company of Virginia Military Institute cadets commanded by a stern-looking With soldiers lining the streets, John Brown comes down the steps of the Charles Town jail on the way to his execution, December 2, 1859. The wagon containing his coffin stands nearby. As the hushed military watched, Brown climbed the scaffold steps. Sheriff John W. Campbell pulled a white linen hood over the prisoner’s head and set the noose. John Avis, the jailer, asked Brown to step forward onto the trap. “You must lead me,” Brown replied, “for I cannot see.” The abolitionist’s last words were directed to Avis as one final adjustment of the noose was made. “Be quick,” he said. At 11:30 a hatchet stroke sprung the trap and John Brown died. The voice of a militia colonel broke the stillness: “So perish all such enemies of Virginia! All such enemies of the Union! All such enemies of the human race!” But the end was not yet. True, Brown was dead; but he had helped to arouse popular passions both North and South to the point where compromise would be impossible. The raid created a national furor and generated a wave of emotionalism that widened the sectional breach that had divided the country for so many years. Although conservative Northern opinion quickly condemned the raid as the work of a madman, the more radical hailed it as “the best news America ever had” and glorified Brown as “the new saint” whose martyrdom in the cause of human freedom would make the gallows “glorious like the cross.” The hanging of John Brown took place at 11:30 a.m., December 2, 1859, in a field just outside Charles Town. The field no longer exists, but the site is identified by a simple stone marker. 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: Charlestown, Va, 2d, 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. |
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