Brown\'s scout reached the town of Harper\'s Ferry on June 5, 1858. Themagnificent view which greeted his vision as he stepped from thetrain took his breath. The music of trembling waters seemed a grandaccompaniment to an Oratorio of Nature.
The sensitive mind of the young Westerner responded to its soul appeal.
He stood for half an hour enraptured with its grandeur. Two greatrivers, the Potomac and the Shenandoah, rushing through rock-hewn gorgesto the sea, unite here to hurl their tons of foaming waters against thelast granite wall of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Beyond the gorge, through which the roaring tide has cut its path, liesthe City of Washington on the banks of the Potomac, but sixty milesaway--a day\'s journey on a swift horse; an hour and a half by rail.
Cook at first had sharply criticized Brown\'s selection of such a placefor the scene of the Great Deed. As he stood surveying in wonder thesublimity of its scenery he muttered softly:
"The old man\'s a wizard!"The rugged hills and the rush of mighty waters called the soul to greatdeeds. There was something electric in the air. The town, the rivers,the mountains summoned the spirit to adventure. The tall chimneys of theUnited States Arsenal and Rifle Works called to war. The lines of hillswere made for the emplacement of guns. The roaring waters challenged theskill of generals.
The scout felt his heart beat in quick response. The more he studied thehills that led to High Knob, a peak two thousand four hundred feet inheight, the more canny seemed the choice of Brown. From the top of thispeak stretches the county of Fauquier, the beginning of the Black Beltof the South. Fauquier County contained more than ten thousand Slavesand seven hundred freed negroes. There were but nine thousand eighthundred whites. From this county to the sea lay a series of adjoiningcounties in which the blacks outnumbered the whites. These countiescontained more than two hundred and sixty thousand negroes.
The Black Belt of Virginia touched the Black Belts of North Carolina,South Carolina and Georgia--an unbroken stretch of overwhelming blackmajority. In some counties they outnumbered the whites, five to one.
This mountain gorge, hewn out of the rocks by the waters of the rivers,was the gateway into the heart of the Slave System of the South. And itcould be made the highroad of escape to the North if once the way wereopened.
Another fact had influenced the mind of Brown. The majority of theworkmen of Harper\'s Ferry were mechanics from the North. They would notbe enthusiastic defenders of Slavery. They were not slave owners. In afight to a finish they would be indifferent. Their indifference wouldmake the conquest of the few white masters in town a simple matter.
Cook felt again the spell of Brown\'s imperious will. He had thought theold man\'s chief reason for selecting Harper\'s Ferry as the scene was hisquixotic desire to be dramatic. He knew the history of the village.
It had been named for Robert Harper, an Englishman. Lord Fairfax, thefriend of George Washington, had given the millwright a grant of it in1748. Washington, himself, had made the first survey of the place andselected the Ferry, in 1794, as the site of a National Armory.
Colonel Lewis Washington, the great-grandson of Washington\'s brother,lived on the lordly plantation of Bellair, four miles in the country.
Brown had learned that the sword which Frederick the Great had given toWashington, and the pistols which Lafayette had given him hung on thewalls of the Colonel\'s library.
He had instructed Cook to become acquainted with Colonel Washington,and locate these treasures. He had determined to lead his negro army ofinsurrection with these pistols and sword buckled around his waist.
Cook was an adventurer but he had no trace of eccentricity in hischaracter. He thought this idea a dangerous absurdity. And he believedat first that it was the one thing that had led his Chief to selectthis spot. He changed his mind in the first thirty minutes............