As to John
Brown himself, his friend F. B. Sanborn's LIFE AND LETTERS is a
mine of wealth. To its pages the present writer is greatly
indebted, and he commends them to others.
W. H.
Kilburn, May 1913.
CONTENTS
I. WHY WE WRITE OUR STORY
II. CHILDWOOD AND THE VOW
III. THE LONG WAITING-TIME
IV. HOW THE CALL CAME
V. BIBLE AND SWORD
VI. THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY
VII. HARPER'S FERRY
VIII. THE HALT OF THE BODY AND THE MARCH OF THE SOUL
CHAPTER I
WHY WE WRITE OUR STORY
There are few who have not a dim notion of John Brown as a name
bound up with the stirring events of the United States in the
period which preceded the Civil War and the emancipation of the
slave. Many English readers, however, do not get beyond the
limits of the famous couplet,
John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,
But his soul is marching on.
That statement is authentic in both its clauses, but it is
interesting to learn what he did with the body before it
commenced a dissolution which seems to have been regarded as
worth recording. Carlyle says in his grimly humorous way of the
gruesome elevation of the head of one of his patriotic heroes on
Temple Bar, 'It didn't matter: he had quite done with it.
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