, seized the remainder of the guard, and
a few citizens, who attempted to interfere, and were soon firmly in
possession of not only the arsenal, but also the little town.

Meanwhile, the country round about was arming, and by noon, of Monday,
Brown was so surrounded that he could not escape. Why he had not got
away to the mountains in the morning, as he had intended doing, no one
knows. The Virginia militia gathered, and in the early evening, a
company of United States marines arrived from Washington, under command
of Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart. They soon found
out how small Brown's force was, carried the arsenal by assault, and
took Brown and the survivors of his little band prisoners. Brown's two
sons were dead, as were seven others of his followers, and seven more
had succeeded in escaping, though two were afterwards captured.

The rest is soon told. Brown was swiftly tried and convicted of "treason
and conspiring and advising with slaves and others to rebel, and of
murder in the first degree," was sentenced to death, and was hanged on
December 2, 1859. The affair made the South wild with rage and
apprehension, for a slave insurrection was a thing to be trembled at,
and Brown's execution similarly affected his friends at the North. He
had once remarked, "I am worth a good deal more to hang than for any
other purpose," and this was, in a sense, true, for in the words of the
great marching song of the Northern armies during the war which
followed, "his soul was marching on."

Another branch of philanthropy with which the name of a woman is closely
identified is that of caring for the wounded and destitute in time of
war or disaster, and the woman is Clara Barton. Born in Massachusetts
about 1830, she started in life as a school-teacher, but in 1854 secured
a position in the patent office at Washington, where she remained until
the opening of the Civil War. The sight of the suffering in the
Washington hospitals revealed to her her real vocation, and she
determined to devote herself to the care of wounded soldiers on the
battlefield. This work of mercy was one that carried with it a wide
appeal, and she soon secured influential backing and support.

Her work was so effective that in 1864, she was appointed "lady in
charge" of the hospitals at the front of the Army of the James, and in
the following year was sent to Andersonville, Georgia, to identify and
mark the graves of the Union soldiers