A Plea for Captain John Brown | Page 5

bound themselves; and he stated that several of them had
already sealed the contract with their blood. When some one remarked
that, with the addition of a chaplain, it would have been a perfect
Cromwellian troop, he observed that he would have been glad to add a
chaplain to the list, if he could have found one who could fill that office
worthily. It is easy enough to find one for the United States army. I
believe that he had prayers in his camp morning and evening,
nevertheless.
He was a man of Spartan habits, and at sixty was scrupulous about his
diet at your table, excusing himself by saying that he must eat sparingly
and fare hard, as became a soldier, or one who was fitting himself for
difficult enterprises, a life of exposure.
A man of rare common-sense and directness of speech, as of action; a
transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles,--that was
what distinguished him. Not yielding to a whim or transient impulse,
but carrying out the purpose of a life. I noticed that he did not overstate
anything, but spoke within bounds. I remember, particularly, how, in
his speech here, he referred to what his family had suffered in Kansas,
without ever giving the least vent to his pent-up fire. It was a volcano
with an ordinary chimney-flue. Also referring to the deeds of certain
Border Ruffians, he said, rapidly paring away his speech, like an
experienced soldier, keeping a reserve of force and meaning, "They had

a perfect right to be hung." He was not in the least a rhetorician, was
not talking to Buncombe or his constituents anywhere, had no need to
invent anything but to tell the simple truth, and communicate his own
resolution; therefore he appeared incomparably strong, and eloquence
in Congress and elsewhere seemed to me at a discount. It was like the
speeches of Cromwell compared with those of an ordinary king.
As for his tact and prudence, I will merely say, that at a time when
scarcely a man from the Free States was able to reach Kansas by any
direct route, at least without having his arms taken from him, he,
carrying what imperfect guns and other weapons he could collect,
openly and slowly drove an ox-cart through Missouri, apparently in the
capacity of a surveyor, with his surveying compass exposed in it, and
so passed unsuspected, and had ample opportunity to learn the designs
of the enemy. For some time after his arrival he still followed the same
profession. When, for instance, he saw a knot of the ruffians on the
prairie, discussing, of course, the single topic which then occupied their
minds, he would, perhaps, take his compass and one of his sons, and
proceed to run an imaginary line right through the very spot on which
that conclave had assembled, and when he came up to them, he would
naturally pause and have some talk with them, learning their news, and,
at last, all their plans perfectly; and having thus completed his real
survey he would resume his imaginary one, and run on his line till he
was out of sight.
When I expressed surprise that he could live in Kansas at all, with a
price set upon his head, and so large a number, including the authorities,
exasperated against him, he accounted for it by saying, "It is perfectly
well understood that I will not be taken." Much of the time for some
years he has had to skulk in swamps, suffering from poverty and from
sickness, which was the consequence of exposure, befriended only by
Indians and a few whites. But though it might be known that he was
lurking in a particular swamp, his foes commonly did not care to go in
after him. He could even come out into a town where there were more
Border Ruffians than Free State men, and transact some business,
without delaying long, and yet not be molested; for, said he, "No little
handful of men were willing to undertake it, and a large body could not

be got together in season."
As for his recent failure, we do not know the facts about it. It was
evidently far from being a wild and desperate attempt. His enemy, Mr.
Vallandigham, is compelled to say, that "it was among the best planned
executed conspiracies that ever failed."
Not to mention his other successes, was it a failure, or did it show a
want of good management, to deliver from bondage a dozen human
beings, and walk off with them by broad daylight, for weeks if not
months, at a leisurely pace, through one State after another, for half the
length of the North, conspicuous to all parties, with a price set upon his
head, going into