what inducements he had to offer to new recruits.
Promptly the rebel chieftain answered: "Poverty, hardships, battles,
wounds, and--victory!"

That was all Captain Brown had to offer his devoted followers, with
crushing defeat instead of victory at the end, and yet they enlisted
with a zeal that could not have been surpassed if the world's most
coveted prizes had been their promised reward.

Think of the utter abnegation, unselfishness and loftiness of purpose of
that valiant little band who marched deliberately into the jaws of hell
that October night to break the fetters of a despised and alien race!
How many of their detractors and persecutors were animated by motives so
pure and exalted?

No wonder that Victor Hugo protested so eloquently, albeit in vain,
against John Brown's execution. "Think of a republic," he indignantly
exclaimed, "murdering a liberator!" and when the bloody deed was done
the illustrious Frenchman flung back the prophetic challenge: "The time
will come when your John Brown will be greater than your George
Washington."

Among Brown's men in the attack on Harper's Ferry there were two Quaker
brothers, Edwin and Barclay Coppock, stalwart young abolitionists from
Iowa, whose unfaltering devotion to the cause, heroic self-sacrifice and
tragic death constitute one of the most thrilling and inspiring chapters
in American history.

Edwin, the elder brother, was captured with his leader and shared his
fate on the gallows. Barclay made good his escape with Owen Brown, to be
killed later as a lieutenant, while recruiting a regiment for the war
which had then actually begun.

Edwin and Barclay Coppock were born of Quaker parents near Salem, Ohio,
Edwin on June 30, 1835, and Barclay on January 4, 1839, so that Edwin
was 24 and Barclay not quite 21 when the attack was made on Harper's
Ferry.

Salem was at that time the center of abolitionism in that section. It
was settled by Quakers and they were strongly anti-slavery in sentiment.
The headquarters of the "Western Anti-Slavery Society" was located here,
and here also was published the "Anti-Slavery Bugle," official organ of
the movement, of which Benjamin S. Jones, Oliver Johnson and Warren R.
Robertson were editors. They waged uncompromising warfare against
slavery, attacked the United States constitution as it was then being
interpreted, and denounced the churches that would not come out openly
in favor of abolition. They were called "Disunion Ab