Studies in American History 
243 
captured those who were yet alive. Brown’s prisoners were 
promptly released. Not one of them had been hurt. A severe 
sword cut on the scalp and two bayonet wounds in the body 
had all but killed the old man.^® 
The contest was over. Of the nineteen raiders who 
had passed over the bridge on Sunday evening, ten lay dead; 
five, the leader among them, were prisoners; and four had 
escaped. Two of these were afterward captured and brought 
back. Five of the inhabitants and attacking parties had been 
killed and nine wounded.^^ 
One looks in vain for anything of merit in Brown’s under- 
taking even when considered from his own viewpoint. His 
plan involved not only treason and murder, but it invited de- 
feat and death from the very start. He attacked not only the 
federal government when he seized the armory and arsenal, 
but he also made deliberate war upon the state of Virginia. 
To attempt such a move with the force at his command was 
the act of a madman. It was worse than supreme folly. The 
slaves brought into Harper’s Ferry on the first night refused 
his offer of freedom, and, deserting as soon as possible, re- 
turned to their masters and their former state of bondage.^® 
At any time prior to ten or possibly eleven o’clock on Mon- 
day forenoon he might have retreated with his little band 
into Maryland and thereby have greatly improved their 
chances of final escape. When urged to do this by some of 
his best men he refused, and allowed their one chance to be 
cut off.2^ 
2® Lieutenant Israel Green, “The Capture of John Brown”, in Nai'th American Review, 
CXLI, 564 ff. (December, 1885) ; Villard, (rp. cit., 452, 453 ; S. K. Donovan (an eye- 
witness), Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XXX, 318 ff. Colonel Lee while 
directing operations stood in an exposed position for a brief time. Edwin Coppoc, one 
of Brown’s men in the engine-house, drew a bead upon him with a Sharpe’s rifle 
but was dissuaded from firing. Statement of J. W. Graham, one of Brown’s prisoners 
in the engine-house, in Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XXX, 413, 
2'^ Villard, op. cit., 454 ; Colonel Lee’s Report. 
Villai’d, op. dt., 446, 447 ; A. R. Boteler, in Century Magazine, XXVI, 400, 401 ; 
see also testimony of Washington and Allstadt, in Mason’s Report. 
Villard, op. cit., 438, A few years before his death S. K, Donovan, of Columbus, 
Ohio, personally gave to the writer many interesting facts about the John Brown raid. 
When it occurred he was a reporter on the Baltimore Daily Exchange. Learning of the 
trouble at Harper’s Ferry he hurried over there and was the first newspaper man to 
enter the town. From a vantage point he watched the fighting and saw the engine- 
house stormed and Brown with his followers captured. He went with them afterward 
to Charlestown where he frequently interviewed Brown in jail, attended and reported 
his trial, and was present at the execution. He made and kept very careful notes of 
everything at the time. From them he afterward prepared a lecture which he some- 
times delivered before audiences in Ohio and other states. This was printed in the 
Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XXX, 3C0-336. Donovan was afterward 
colonel of a Pennsylvania regiment in the Civil War. 
