The program had worked exactly as Brown had predicted. Not a shot had
been fired and they were masters of the town, its two bridges, the
United States Arsenal, Armory and Rifle Works.

The men were now despatched through the town for the real work of the
night--the arming of the black legion with pikes and torches.

It was one o'clock before the first accident happened. Patrick Higgins,
the second night watchman, came to relieve Williams on the Maryland
bridge.

Oliver Brown, on guard, cried:

"You're my prisoner, sir."

The Irishman grinned.

"Yez don't till me!"

Without another word he struck Oliver a blow. The crack of a rifle was
the answer. In his rage young Brown was too quick with the shot. The
bullet plowed a furrow in Higgins' skull but failed to pierce it.

He ran into the shadows.

Once inside the Wager House, he gave the alarm. The train from the West
pulled into the station and was about to start across the bridge when
Higgins, his face still streaked with blood, rushed up to the conductor
and told him what had happened. He went forward to investigate, was
fired on and backed his train out to the next station.

As the train pulled out Shepherd Haywood, a freedman, the baggage master
of the station, walked toward the bridge to find the missing watchman.
The raiders shot him through the breast and he fell mortally wounded.
The first victim was a faithful colored employee of Mayor Beekham, the
station master of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.

The shot that killed him roused a man of action. Dr. John D. Starry
lived but a stone's throw from the spot where Haywood had fallen.
Hearing the shot and the groans of the wounded man, the doctor hastened
to his rescue and carried him into the station. He could give no
coherent account of what had happened and was already in a dying
condition.

The doctor investigated. He approached two groups of the raiders, was
challenged and retreated. Satisfied of the seriousness of the attack
when he saw two armed white men lead three negroes holding pikes in
their hands into the Armory gate, he saddled his horse and rode to his
neighbors in town and country and gave the alarm.

While this dangerous messenger was on his foam-flecked horse, Brown,
true to his quixotic sense of the dramatic, sent a raiding party of
picked men to capture Colonel Washington and bring to his headquarters
in the Arsenal the sword and pistols. On this foolish mission he
despatc