as hostages,
and informed one or two that, after daylight, he would exchange them
for slaves. Before the general fighting began, he endeavored to effect
an armistice or compromise with the citizens, to stop bloodshed, on
condition that he be permitted to hold the armory and retain the
liberated negroes. All this warrants the inference that he expected to
hold the town, first, by the effect of terror; secondly, by the
display of leniency and kindness; and supposed that he could remain
indefinitely, and dictate terms at his leisure. The fallacy of this
scheme became quickly apparent.

As the day dawned upon the town and the truth upon the citizens, his
situation in a military point of view was already hopeless--eighteen
men against perhaps 1000 adults, and these eighteen scattered in four
or five different squads, without means of mutual support,
communication, or even contingent orders! Gradually, as the startled
citizens became certain of the insignificant numbers of the
assailants, an irregular street-firing broke out between Brown's
sentinels and individuals with firearms. The alarm was carried to
neighboring towns, and killed and wounded on both sides augmented the
excitement. Tradition rather than definite record asserts that some of
Brown's lieutenants began to comprehend that they were in a trap, and
advised him to retreat. Nearly all his eulogists have assumed that
such was his original plan, and his own subsequent excuses hint at
this intention. But the claim is clearly untenable. He had no means of
defensive retreat--no provisions, no transportation for his arms and
equipage, no supply of ammunition. The suggestion is an evident
afterthought.

Whether from choice or necessity, however, he remained only to find
himself more and more closely pressed. By Monday noon the squad in the
rifle-works, distant one mile from the armory, had been driven out,
killed, and captured. The other squads, not so far from their leader,
joined him at the armory, minus their losses. Already he was driven to
take refuge with his diminished force in the engine-house, a low,
strong brick building in the armory yard, where they barricaded doors
and improvised loop-holes, and into which they took with them ten
selected prisoners as hostages. But the expedient was one of
desperation. By this movement Brown literally shut himself up in his
own prison, from which escape was impossible.

A desultory fire was kept up through doors and loo