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“The citizen captives, released from their long and trying confinement, hurried out to meet their friends with every demonstration of joy; while the bloody carcasses of the dead and dying outlaws were dragged into the lawn amidst the howls and execrations of the people. It was a hideous and ghastly spectacle. Some, stark and stiff, with staring eyes and fallen jaws, were the dead of yesterday; while others, struck with death wounds, writhed and wallowed in their blood. Two only were brought out unhurt,--Coppoc, and Green the negro, --and they only escaped immediate death by accident, the soldiers not at once distinguishing them from the captive citizens and slaves.”
Here is only one account of the conversation of John Brown, as he lay wounded and bloody on the lawn. It is thus narrated:
A short time after Captain Brown was brought out, he revived, and talked earnestly to those about him, defending his course, and avowing that he had done only what was right. He replied to questions substantially as follows:
“Are you Captain Brown, of Kansas?”
“ I am sometimes called so.”
“ Are you Ossawatomie Brown?”
“I tried to do my duty there.”
These two replies are eminently characteristic — so manly and so modest. He never himself assumed the title of Captain, even in Kansas, where titles were as common as proper names. “I tried to do my duty there,” --the sentence was a key to his whole life. Neither honor nor glory moved him; the voice of duty was the only one he heard.
“What was your present object?”
“To free the slaves from bondage.”
“Were any other persons but those with you now connected with the movement?”
“ No.”
“Did you expect aid from the North?”
“No; there was no one connected with the movement but those who came with me.”
“Did you expect to kill people in order to carry your point ”
“ I did not wish to do so, but you force us to it.”
Various questions of this kind were put to Captain Brown, which he answered clearly and freely, with seeming anxiety to vindicate himself.
He urged that he had the town at his mercy; that he could have burned it, and murdered the inhabitants, but did not; he had treated the prisoners with courtesy, and complained that he was hunted down like a beast. He spoke of the killing of his son, which he alleged was done while bearing a flag of truce, and seemed very anxious for the safety of his wounded son. His conversation bore the impression of
