The South was unnaturally and unjustifiably excited. The people of the slave States could not see the situation accurately, but, like a man with disordered nerves, they exaggerated every thing. Their sense of proportion seemed to be destroyed, so that they could no longer perceive the intrinsic relation which one incident had to another. In this condition of mind, when the most ordinary events were misapprehended and mismeasured, they were startled and alarmed by an occurrence of extraordinary and exceptional character. On the quiet morning of October, 1859, with no warning whatever to the inhabitants, the United-States arsenal, at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, was found to be in the possession of an invading mob. The town was besieged, many of its citizens made prisoners, telegraph wires cut, railway-trains stopped by a force which the people, as they were aroused from sleep, had no means of estimating. A resisting body was soon organized, militia came in from the surrounding country, regular troops were hurried up from Washington. By the opening of the second day, a force of fifteen hundred men surrounded the arsenal, and, when the insurgents surrendered, it was found that there had been but twenty-two in all. Four were still alive, including their leader, John Brown.
Brown was a man of singular courage, perseverance, and zeal, but was entirely misguided and misinformed. He had conceived the utterly impracticable scheme of liberating the slaves of the South by calling on them to rise, putting arms in their hands, and aiding them to gain their freedom. He had borne a very conspicuous and courageous part in the Kansas struggles, and had been a terror to the slave-holders on the Missouri border. His bravery was of a rare type. He had no sense of fear. Governor Wise stated that during the fight, while Brown held the arsenal, with one of his sons lying dead beside him, another gasping with a mortal wound, he felt the pulse of the dying boy, used his own musket, and coolly commanded his men, all amid a shower of bullets from the attacking force. While of sound mind on most subjects, Brown had evidently lost his mental balance on the one topic of slavery. His scheme miscarried the moment its execution was attempted, as any one not blinded by fanaticism could have from the first foreseen.