American Experience; John Brown's Holy War; Interview with historian Dennis Frye 4 of 6

you during one of these moments of truth is brown actually ordered meals meals for as many meals for sausages brown's men now have been going for hours and hours at nothing to eat nothing to drink the hostages of had nothing either drink and so brown came up with a plan that he would actually exchanged one of his hostages for hot food and drink and so sure enough of the man selected actually worked at one of the restaurants and hotels their harpers ferry and he was released and good he was good to his word they came back with food but it's interesting that despite the hunger despite the pain of hunger that just absorb brown's men and also lost because nobody touch that food or drink because they feared that it may have been poisoned so it's out there these plates these bowls of food of course a cool very quickly and became stale nobody dared any of that fear

the white flag i think you know i think this show around the issue here is that you can't relate to somebody served as poetic justice or is this something you know it's interesting that job brown became very concerned that the white flag a flag of truce an obvious symbol of let's calm down let's relax let's talk for a bit it's a heat he was frustrated that have been ignored not once but several times it's interesting and it's ironic that on occasion brown himself had ignored the white flight but the circumstances are now changing ours for were he now was the hunted and he was the one displaying the flag and he depended on that to try to negotiate for his men and his life what's interesting is that it seems like

it is we also need to serve the white flag a symbol of truce it's an international symbol of truce let's that i surrender or let's just back off let's relax for a moment and let's discuss this but only eighteen fifties in a varied violent period where emotions and passions are so high everyone is so incensed the white flight really on the time didn't seem to mean anything certainly high on a blackjack ignored the white flag and your harper's ferry says is a tale or wells and angered ah by what had happened and chose to ignore the white flag and even though they saw what symbol their fingers were on the triggers and readied pool brackets since this passion and

grace says a violation as the raid continue to be and rather than surrender or as the rate continued in brown now completely surrounded surrounded by local citizens and also by the militia it became the anger and the rage when the military the civilian military remorse arrived there really wasn't much control it wasn't like the national guard had arrived it was just more gasoline enormous very hot fire and exploded anything that moved around the armory anything that anybody sensed was the enemy was one of brown's men was met with without a shower hail storm of lots

of one point the mayor of the tail fontaine back on was wondering all the railroad trestle trying to get a school says it could to the internet and using the armory buildings and various will ruth structures to try to shield him from brown's man as he approached the engine house brown's men saw him and even though back he was unarmed and posed no threat it come within thirty to forty yards a browse headquarters brown's and then fired and shocked fontaine back the mayor of harper sphere the wound was moral fact he had almost immediate death when word spread through the tarot that fontaine back the mayor of person that people liked their leader they are good

corporate citizen had just been killed by brown's man it became mob rule there was no control at this point there was no discipline to be exercised the mall went wild end they went to one of the hotel buildings where a hostage one of brown's men had been taken was under guard and a stronger broke in through the door into the room grab when thompson and dragged you know the railroad bridge and just simply murdered him shot him in that body in the head and eventually thompson would drop down through the railroad bridge into the river itself and just to to show their rage and their scoring they would continue to tell citizens and the militia would continue to use young

thompson's corpse for target practice another young man twenty years old willie layman very frightened raider he was fortunate for a moment and that he was not in the engine house he was not tracked he actually was hiding in the armory grounds and when he mustered the courage to try to escape he ran to the toilet or threw himself into the water and began to swim town citizens quickly noticed a raider escaping north towards maryland and a shower of bullets began to explode in the water around young women about halfway across the river he got to iraq and once again we see a mailman frightened he raises his hands he puts things in the air to say i quit i surrender i know i can't escape man to quell

volunteers to go out into the river to capture and so indeed that's when he arrives on the rock or layman is where layman intends to surrender himself instead of accepting his surrender the man pulls a tree or was pistol and shoot flame in the head instantly killing laden's body weisel not rocking the river for the next several days and once again the militia and the town citizens use that corpse of this young man for target practice these people were enraged how dare you attack our top how dare you seize our citizens how dare you violate our state how dare you come into our state and tried to free our slaves you john brown and all of your men are nothing but thieves nothing but tillage nothing

but march we will give you know poor you deserve no quarter you will die in your attempt to talk about that for the people are perspiring people virginia the people of the south a slave is not a human being a slave his property property protected by the constitution and by the walls of virginia and other states throughout the south indeed this property waltz talks and eats and sleeps

by definition of slavery as property he's not a human being for the people of the south john brown did not come to harpers ferry to free slaves from their perspective brown came to steal property well he was not so saintly moses who came to lead a group of people out of slavery he was a man who was a thief accompli for a robber a man who simply intended to steal someone else the night of october seventeenth eighteenth

was just a terrible night for brown and his men in the engine house and of course the hostages there were still nine hostages that were in the the brick building the brown had only four other men that are still able to bear arms up to his sons were lying on the the dale bryk for both of the mortally wounded one of them fairly quiet and saying little breathing heavily an unlikely and helen unlikely i'm oliver brown was in great pain he had been shot earlier in the day also while he was standing at the engine house door and i made were made his way back to leave the building itself but the courageous was in terrible terrible aggravating pain and brown spoke to both of his sons throughout the evening and at times he lectured oliver oliver wanted to be put out was pain brown would say to him are you must stop or on you must be a man must

die like a man and i wish that all over eventually would quiet himself and how he would pass away but it was a dreadful might and the suspense continue to matt brown knew that he was trapped there was no escape there was no way out from the room had god finally fail john brown ink is that isn't lying there it is the losses that fathers two of brown's sons on the night of september seventh rome up to a brown sons on the night of october seventeenth at light dining at his feet both of them casualties were only wounded from the fighting that occurred earlier that day

brown it was very hard but not all sympathetic call and deliver he would carry on power station with his two dying son's what he really gave him very little attention he was focused i think on something much bigger than himself and something much bigger than his own for him and perhaps the lack of sympathy was not the intentional lack of sympathy for his sons but an expression of that my sons must die in this battle to read this nation of slavery then god knows what is best for my sons and i will they got so brown believed i think that that's his two sons had to die in this great cause that they were giving themselves to their lower their

father he was very proud of it has been shortly before midnight a contingent of ninety nine states marines arrived at the fair and the command of a man who never was a marine or are really curly leaves an immediately place the marines in the armory grounds and surrounded the internet's that we determine that that night was not the time to attack it recalls too much danger to the hostages and my attacks generally were not common at that period anyway and so we determined that the morning would be the best time to attack while nasa spear but before attacking we intended to discuss the matter with brown and attempting and the bases without

any further boxer bloodshed about seven am on tuesday morning opt for the eighteenth he gave a message to lieutenant stored and to store them when it in front of the engine house in kansas hears ok are in for the seven o'clock on tuesday morning after we need to be confirmed with his assistant bettina jeb stuart he asked jeb stuart to go and parlay with brown to see if we get into this this event without any further bloodshed stewart agreed li's message was simple that brown will surrender and that we will assure him of a trial while also the nation

it's been liz's ferocious storm reversible go meet with brown tell me to surrender tell a free sausages and we will assure him safe passage but passage under marine escort to the nearest gao where he will be placed on trial and tried by a jury of peters as all virginians or will all the united states requires so that was the deal as a tribal us or virginia mall so i think i got both of them and there was a yes the us that decision and then they all although we know it the emcee he could've faced a federal

jury or a stager at this point although he was saying is you get balls amelie have to restate again colonel these instructions to jeb stuart reversible go meet with brown thelma he must surrender that he will be escorted by marines to the nearest jail that he will be safe and that he will have his opportunity to present his position before a judge and here stuart bravely i might say passes to the friendly engine house in this game the dark morning air where he could've easily been killed by brow really was meg but instead of iran's brown opens the door to the engine house ever so slightly and stored in fact recognizes osawatomie brown from his days in kansas city to begin discussions

and jeb stuart lays out these demands surrender brown says no no i have hostages i'm not going anywhere nor are they wells report was your free me my man with my hostages you allow safe passage of me mr hostages in a maryland i promise you brown says stewart that i will release the hostages and harp and after that if you wish to follow me five well the two negotiated back and forth for quite some time and finally stuart realized that he was not brown was not going to accept police unconditional command to surrender and so with that story is that for the world stanza from one of the pillars of the engine house

raises is hat waves in the air and that was the signal for the marines to attack first the marines attempted to break down the doors the engine house three of them with a sledgehammer be on the heavy wooden doors but the doors did not break they didn't even banned so with that the marines discovered a heavy ladder nearby and they determined they would use this latter as a battering ram and so a dozen marines were selected they grabbed the latter they crouch down in front of the engine house and they drove toward the doors and smashed the doors but didn't wait for him the marines tried again a second time they thrust with full speed at the doors this time they didn't break the door's wide open but they placed a small hole in the door where the latter

and the and the sledge hammers had weakened the fiber of the door the whole was a very large in fact according to most accounts it was big enough for one man at a time to enter the building that is real green the first marine to enter would go through that small hole crawl under the fire engines and suddenly appear in the middle ordering hostages lined up along the wall brown's men with their guns still pointing out the portals firing anything that moved outside the engine house at that point browne hear some discussion behind him one of the hostages apparently carlos washington points out brown to lieutenant greene and saying that the man is carrying a weapon green lunges at brown with a sword and strikes him up around the neck on the side of the shoulder and brown fall down to the ground but not yet finished rouse to have lots of life and

kicking them so green then takes a saver for the fatal blow oh boy that certainly will kill this insurgent and he strikes were around or right in the middle of his chest a perfect death blow but the sword does not penetrate instead the sword strikes an object that brown was wearing hearing breastplate or a belt buckle and instead of piercing brown and telling him the sword balances off this object is a commitment and in fact a sword actually has been bent over double it looks almost like a sickle brian mr roy is certain death below one it's to the right or left or

one inch above or below that correct john brown would have breathed his last he will fall on that engine house as a corpse but instead the sort of bounces off miraculously bounces off of john brown's very alive body had indeed the hand of god stopped that sort of this is a sound with that was the ultimate seduction the status of that

now the failure of lieutenant green to kill john brown props was the greatest turning point in brown's life browne realized at that moment that although surrounded although trapped and although almost be it that he has survived god has given him new life god has again saved him for a much bigger mission god had prevented him from dying before his job was complete and now all a captive a completely bizarre and john brown sets out on his final mission using his words rather than the sword

as its new weapon dr dever another opportunity and i don't know that bar out and intentionally work to make himself a martyr i think it was much bigger than that i think that his mission was to bring into slavery now if that meant his death and the analysis of the country in the press of him as a more fine so be it but i believe brown decided that if he had to die he would willingly that he will only do god's work now in death valley was assembled for those who would follow him and he would inspire people

through his death and so brown would become a great more but i think that he felt that his mission was use my new opportunity that god has given me so that i may speak against the evil of slavery so that i may preach against this terrible terrible scourge that has infected our land and i made art but when i do many people have heard me and many people are following the curriculum you have to remember this as brown had died on that brick floor in an engine house i believe he would have been noted in history but only with a few sentences maybe even only a footnote brown's a real

effect came in his failure are pushed for his real meaning is and what happens after his capture the range is important because it incensed people made people angry how dare someone be so bold to attack us so directly but i think that if he had been killed people were forgotten pretty quickly would have just simply labeled him a madman in and say man he would not have been there to defend himself or justify his actions and he would be a corpse be buried and quickly forgotten but because he lived because he had a new chance he becomes not just the attacker on harpers ferry and a survivor of harpers ferry but the man who would make harpers ferry words that would live in history

for years and years and years so there's fifteen of those overseas you know that's you know the last few months the point at all john brown's first fifty nine years suddenly became meaningless in that fire engine house when he survived that's sort of blow the next few weeks will become the only weeks that were really important and john brown's life he would change the destiny of a country in the weeks that followed his failure harper sharing and he would do it not through violence but through his voice a voice for freedom of voice of action a measured deliberate voice that brown himself would tell you was not his voice nor his words but the words of

god being preached from him as his instrument