Free Terror Attacks : From the Zealots to Bin Laden (True Crime) by Anne Williams, Vivian Head Page B

men in the armoury by firing from high points behind the town. Some of the locals were shot, and of course it was impossible for them to get hold of any further arms or ammunition as the arsenal was being closely guarded by Brown’s men. By noon a company of militiamen blockaded the bridge, which was Brown’s only escape route. Brown decided to move his men and prisoners into the engine house, which was a small brick building next to the armoury. They barricaded the doors and windows and knocked holes in the brick walls so that they could fire at the encroaching army. Completely surrounded and outnumbered Brown begrudgingly sent his son Watson and another of his men out carrying a white flag of surrender. But the crowd were angry and they shot them, which caused another bout of shooting, in which Brown’s son Oliver was wounded. By nightfall Brown’s group of men were trapped in the engine house, and all but five were wounded. That night 90 marines arrived from Washington to assist in the fight against Brown.
    By the morning of October 18 the engine house, which later became known as John Brown’s Fort, was surrounded by the marines. They were informed that if they surrendered their lives would be spared, but Brown refused and said that he would prefer to die than give up. The marines stormed the building, using sledge hammers and a makeshift battering ram to break down the door. During the ensuing chaos one of the marines, a Lieutenant Green, cornered Brown and thrust him so hard with his sword that his body actually left the ground and broke the soldier’s sword. His life was spared, however, because the sword luckily struck his belt. Brown fell forward from the force of the attack, and Green subsequently struck him several times wounding his head.
    In total, Brown’s men killed four people and wounded a further nine. Ten of Brown’s men were killed, including his two sons Watson and Oliver, seven were captured along with Brown, and five managed to escape, including his son Owen.
    Brown and his men were held in the office at the armoury and questioned for three hours before being taken to a jail at Charles Town to await trial.
     
    T RIAL AND  S ENTENCE
     
    It was October 27 when a doctor pronounced that Brown was fit enough to stand trial. He was charged with murdering four whites and a black, conspiring with slaves to rebel and with treason against Virginia. Following a week-long trial, and 45 minutes of deliberation, the jury at Charles Town found John Brown guilty on all three counts. He was sentenced to be hanged in public on December 2, 1859, along with four of his men.
    Following the hearing of his sentence, Brown was allowed to make one last address to the court:
     
. . . I believe to have interfered as I have done . . . in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done.
     
    The month that Brown spent in jail awaiting his forthcoming hanging, he received and sent letters. A friend of Brown’s from Kansas, Silas Soule, somehow managed to gain access into the prison, but when he tried to rescue his friend, Brown told him that he was ready to die as a martyr and Silas left him to his fate. The letters that Brown wrote were soon picked up by the local press, and his unfaltering beliefs and support for abolition gained him increasing numbers of supporters in the North, while infuriating the population of the South.
    Brown’s loyal wife joined him for his last meal on December 1, but when they denied her permission to spend the night with her husband, it was the only time that John Brown was seen to lose his