vernor Wise, and thanked him for my release; was
introduced to Colonel Lee, (now the Rebel general,) and to the officers
of the little squad of marines who had carried the stronghold of the
"invaders," as the Governor persistently called them. In company with
"Porte Crayon," Mr. Strothers, a native of that part of Virginia, and
well known by his sketches of Southern life in "Harper's Magazine," I
went to the engine-house, and there saw the marks of the desperate
defence and of the desperate bravery of John Brown and his men. I saw,
too, John Brown himself. Wounded, bleeding, haggard, and defeated, and
expecting death with more or less of agony as it was more or less near,
John Brown was the finest specimen of a man that I ever saw. His great,
gaunt form, his noble head and face, his iron-gray hair and patriarchal
beard, with the patient endurance of his own suffering, and his painful
anxiety for the fate of his sons and the welfare of his men, his
reticence when jeered at, his readiness to turn away wrath with a kind
answer, his whole appearance and manner, what he looked, what he
said,--all impressed me with the deepest sense of reverence. If his
being likened to anything in history could have made the scene more
solemn, I should say that he was likest to the pictured or the ideal
representation of a Roundhead Puritan dying for his faith, and silently
glorying in the sacrifice not only of life, but of all that made life
dearest to him. His wounded men showed in their patient endurance the
influence of his example; while the vulgar herd of lookers-on, fair
representatives of the cowardly militia-men who had waited for the
little force of regulars to achieve the capture of the engine-house and
its garrison, were ready to prove their further cowardice by maltreating
the prisoners. The marines, who alone had sacrificed life in the
attack, were sturdily bent on guarding them from any harsh handling. I
turned away sadly from the old man's side, sought and got the
information he wanted concerning "his people," as he called them, and
was rewarded with his thanks in a few simple words, and in a voice that
was as gentle as a woman's. The Governor, as soon as he was told of the
condition of the prisoners, had them cared for, and, in all his
bitterness at their doings, never spoke of them in terms other than
honorable to himself and to them. He persistently praised John Brown for
his bravery and his endurance; and he was just as fir