John Brown: War Stories

Medford, Massachusetts

“Mary, meet the notorious John Brown,” George Stearns said. His small, grinning mouth was nearly lost to view in his great beard.

“Delighted, Mr. Brown!” Mary Stearns said with a slight clap of her hands. “We have heard so much.” Dark-haired Mary’s bow hinted at courtly curtsey. She wore a closely fitted dress in a blue that was almost black, in some ways not unlike the typical clothing of my missionary half-sister, Florilla. But the elegantly assembled, vertically ribbed bodice of this dress was decorated with two columns of extraordinary buttons, dark and gleaming, that drew my eyes. I quickly recognized these buttons as an unworthy focus of my attention and turned my mind elsewhere.

George and Mary Stearns and I sat at the main table with the fine china and silverware on a lace-trimmed tablecloth, the children at a separate, smaller table nearby. To one side an excellent fire snapped, flashed, and warmed us well. Lovely drapes graced the Stearns’s mansion. Outside snow was falling.

George detailed some innovative methods his factory workers used to manufacture metal pipes for transporting water. He had his thin, dark hair combed over to cap a receding hairline, but when he spoke lush curls of his great dark beard bounced like a carpet tacked to his jawbone. His small mouth often disappeared in the abundance. The hairy spectacle led me to stroke the prickly tip of my own now clean-shaven chin. I had only to nod and murmur during this ardent presentation about manufacturing methods and the great discipline and skill of his employees.

A white male servant ladled a fragrant clear soup into my bowl.

“Will you be meeting with Ralph Emerson?” George Stearns asked, just as I discovered the uncanny deliciousness of the broth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson! It became difficult for me to swallow. I had heard and even read that the famous philosopher and public speaker was interested in my struggle back in Kansas Territory.

“I hope to meet him. I’d love to.” My silver soup spoon was heavy and quivering in my fingers.

From across the table Mary Stearns was looking at me with a sharp attention that approached the unseemly. She occupied a high station, and I was a poor man. She evidently felt this gave her a certain latitude. Mary Stearns was a beautiful woman, and ordinary courtesy required me to avert my eyes. I found myself inventing possible pretexts for leaving the dining room, escaping into the cold night: I was dizzy, I needed fresh air.

“I recommend a meeting with Emerson,” George said. “Ralph reads up on you in the papers, as we all do. He feels you are setting a uniquely constructive example in our time of dismay and confusion. We see him and Henry Thoreau quite often.”

“How glorious.”

“Yes, it is quite a privilege. Our boys, Henry and Carl, get along well with Emerson’s son. Frank Sanborn is doing some teaching for them.”

“A man of many talents, Frank,” I said.

“Indeed.”

A servant brought mutton and potatoes. Such showy abundance put me off even further. I just wasn’t used to it. I kept my mind on eating calmly. I still knew how to sip, chew, and swallow.

To crown the rich meal, a servant brought in what was, for me, an unheard-of luxury: lemon pound cake. In later reflection I thought my shock at the arrival of this delectable sweet might have tipped me into my episode of poor judgment.

As we finished our cake, Mary Stearns directed the servants to pack the children off.

“We concealed a male fugitive in the very bedroom you are staying in,” George Stearns boasted once the children and the servants were well out of earshot. “It was one of my great satisfactions to help my fellow man in such a manner. Thrilling, really. The man is safe in Canada now, God be praised.”

“God be praised,” I said.

“It’s frustrating to be always at such distance and have our participation so limited. We want to hear real details of the fight,” George said.

Here was my moment to charm the rich and profit our cause. I knew the Stearns, like most well-situated people of Massachusetts, would prefer a quite tidied-up version of our story. They wanted gore, yes. Moral outrage, yes. Fierce conviction, sure. They would want to hear about “bravery.” But I no longer believed such a thing as “bravery” existed in human beings. Bravery was an add-on, a decoration for the story, put in place by the storyteller as a cook adds pepper and salt.

Foundational aspects would best be suppressed. I would particularly keep from view my all-encompassing satisfaction with the bloody work so far. To make the tale acceptable at the dinner table, we must veil the urge to kill. In these quarters, in these months, war still seemed distant. Openly welcoming the enemy’s death would show poor taste and failed discretion.

I presented the scraps of iron Tom Waters had sold me.

“This is a torture device used by the enslavers,” I said. “This iron projection is inserted into the mouth and pressed down hard against a human tongue. The whole thing is strapped on a person’s head with iron bands.”

“Barbarous!” George said. He gently slapped the cloth-covered table and rocked back in his chair.

“But how can a person eat?” Mary asked.

“Can’t. The bit makes swallowing impossible. The drool must pass out through the lips.” I twisted the grotesque iron pieces in my fingers, then passed them across the table to Mary, who examined them gingerly, then set them on the tablecloth at some distance from herself.

“What captures the minds and hearts of people to make them wish to cause so much harm in the world?” Mary asked.

“We have no answer for that,” I replied, now feeling very grand. “Their practice of enslavement has made them at home with atrocity. Drawing this enemy into our circle of love is our great challenge.”

“Through Christ’s mercy, may it be done,” Mary said.

Underneath the table I was quite sure the tip of Mary’s shoe brushed my pant leg. Her parts visible above the line of her dress slowly turned a lovely rose color, as did her hands.

“Please go on,” George said. I was grateful for the urging. I supposed he would be accustomed to men admiring his beautiful wife. Still, it was obviously best to deemphasize the effect Mary was having on me. “Please continue. Tell us more about the fight in Kansas.”

I put my attention on the tales I had prepared.

“At the outset of our most recent battle, my son Fred confronted the oncoming cavalry. A proslavery reverend raised a pistol and shot him dead.”

“Goodness!” Mary burst out, her voice high, clear, preternaturally melodious. The flower petals of her smile became a sweet gift from some distant land where men and women were ruled by the warmer forces. I then suffered a profound and most inconvenient and untimely alteration in disposition. Mary squirmed and I envisioned the movement of her precious behind against the chair seat in arresting specificity. With the very fine napkin at hand, I tamped some dribble on my chin.

“Mary,” I said absently.

Her dark eyebrows stitched together. I made out some individual long, black hairs at the peak of the arch.

“Yes?” she said.

Her voice rang like the sweetest bell. It was then I designated her graceful lips as the measure of my performance. I would attempt to lift her smile. The right detail, properly timed and placed in my story, might even bring an outright laugh from these precious lips and signal my momentary triumph.

“Through that day and the following night, my son lay unattended on the open road for the ants and vultures to feed upon,” I said.

Yes, Mary was smiling.

“Running men swarmed toward us across the field, giving shrill yells, swinging their rifles at all angles. A horseman carried a flag, tilted forward, near the front. A second man lay dead beside Fred on open ground. Another man I knew was shot through the neck. Blood oozed down in a great red bib.”

I was alert for Mary’s breathless gasp. Not yet.

“How could you bear it?” she asked.

I laughed. This shallow bravado I was now parading was in good supply.

“The enemy leader, Major General John W. Reid, a cocky fellow, fancied himself a swordsman. Reid led at the front of his three hundred troops on foot, swinging his blade.” I made slashing motions at the air with my flattened hand. This image of Reid must have come from a dream, definitely not from a memory.

“Should have been quite a spectacle,” George said.

“Stunning. Dazzling. Beyond any I could have imagined. And the roar. They had cannon. They fired buckshot into the trees. Falling leaves and branches scared some of our volunteers into retreat. I had to chase down several and reacquaint them with their duty.”

“I can imagine quite a scolding,” George said.

At this I laughed out loud. Mary Stearns, I was gratified to observe, laughed with me.

“The truth here may seem strange to you. I felt myself drunk from blessed union with the righteous forces of history. My pleasure was, I dare estimate, a hundred times the incompetent joy of a person drunk on mere alcohol. I walked directly forward onto the open, sloping grassland separating us from the enemy. I felt a hundred feet tall. Any rifle shot I might fire could reach, it seemed, to California.

“I saw myself lead my valiant Northern Army’s stealthy assault on the federal arsenal, not the pathetic antics of General Reid. No, we were suave, a canny, invisible force. We quickly found and shrewdly exploited the enemy’s weaknesses. We surprised the guards and soon took control of the vital facility. Liberated people roared in great waves and took up the thousands of rifles and swords and knife-tipped pikes. This was my personal loaves and fishes. Such abundance!”

“Excuse me? What federal arsenal do you speak of?” George asked.

“So sorry,” I said. “I’m afraid I have allowed myself to become distracted. I’ve just been looking ahead, you might say, lost in the Knowledge.”

“The knowledge?”

“I see so very clearly to the fight ahead. So sorry. I forget myself.”

“You seem discomfited. If there’s anything we can do,” George said. The thin lips of his little mouth wiggled almost comically in the midst of his great dark beard. And yet, in the light of the fire and so many candles, the walls of the room and the fine draperies and the faces of my newfound friends shivered with seemingly boundless promise.

I felt the caress of God’s fingers and laughed aloud.

“Have you ever in your life committed an act that was truly terrible?” I asked. “I mean terrible in the sense of great. Terrifying. And great in its capacity to shift the world’s course for the better?”

“I do make it a practice to take the larger path when I can manage it, particularly in my business activities,” George answered.

“Yes, but bigger than that. Something world-altering. A dream that excites you beyond measure?”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

My host and hostess gave me their profound attention.

“Our human powers are rarely fully tapped.”

“True,” George said. “I believe this is so.”

You’re like me, aren’t you? I was thinking and hoping. Your calm is forced. Inside you are flying and falling and dreaming and suffering as I am. You are trying to climb the great mountain as I am. Tell me this is true. Tell me I am not alone in my ecstasy and my terror.

I lifted George Stearns’s left hand in my right. His fingers were fat and short, and surprisingly rough-textured for a rich man. There seemed to me just then the possibility of overcoming my terrifying loneliness. I could drop all pretense, end the charade. I could let my blessing and my curse show.

Tell me you are my true companions. Tell me I am not traveling alone.

George Stearns looked at my hand atop his on the tabletop. It appeared he might pull his hand free but he did not.

“I live in spiritual emergency,” I said. “I writhe and twist and somersault within, in crisis never-ending, seeking to make my connection to this world bearable. I have often thought my anguish would drive me from living reality, that our world’s blights and horrors would overwhelm my tiny capacity. I felt diminished, backward-moving, doomed permanently to moral distortion and waste of my own being.

“But God opened for me the Knowledge. My inspiration came whole and complete. I have attempted only to grow worthy of my responsibility. I have devoted my daily life to rearranging my chaotic nature to better serve my purpose. In this process I have sacrificed home and family. I have suffered much truncation of human feeling.”

George and Mary Stearns looked toward me with the attentive focus any tale-teller would envy. In fact, I had something to say. Now was my moment to say it. “I will destroy slavery at the foundation.”

George responded, “Well, yes. We support you in that. Eventually. It must be so.”

My anger flashed. Eventually. This was always the way with the good people. One day the corrections would be made. Someday, some month, some year. They were never ready.

“I am through with half-measures,” I said, frightening myself as spoken words crossed my lips and tongue and betrayed the truth of my terrible commitment. “We will seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia,” I said.

“What?” George sputtered.

Mary stood up and stared.

“We will place the arms there in the hands of the newly freed righteous,” I said.

Mary gasped. “That’s impossible,” George said. This big man seemed small to me now. His hands flapped up and down. His face above the beard assumed strange colors: purple, rose. “Excuse me. I am astonished.” He drew several deliberate breaths. “You are committed to this plan?”

“I am.”

“You must keep this secret.”

“There are no secrets from God.”

“Well, yes, of course. Nevertheless, I advise your keeping this plan secret from our human brethren, particularly those in our circle. Most are not ready for such outspokenness.”

I was now receiving an absurd scolding. George Stearns thought he held the more sound grasp on the situation. How odd.

“Now we really must end this conversation,” George said, raising a stiff, polite smile. He crumpled and dropped his napkin onto his plate. “I can’t thank you enough. This has been an evening I will never forget.”

* * *

The fire in my bedroom had burned down to warm ashes. I pushed the luxurious drape aside and through the glass window saw large, tumbling snow flurries falling on the enormous yard.

A tap came at the door.

“Mr. Brown?” I pulled the door open. Mary Stearns was there, a pewter candleholder in hand. “Inquiring about your comfort,” she said.

“Very good,” I said.

“We have greatly enjoyed your presentation,” she said.

“Excuse the failings of an old man.”

As her breath lifted and fell, candlelight momentarily illuminated one or another of the dark buttons on the front of her dress. The dangling ring curls of her hair bounced against the right side of her neck, a cruelty. Her free hand rose and hovered near her lips.

“I wish to tell you, face to face, I have never admired another man as I do you,” she said in near whisper. All motion ceased, both in the visible world and within my own mind. A barely detectable tremor affected Mary’s body. She seemed to begin a step forward, then rescinded that motion. We sank once again into tense stillness. I was as a clock awaiting its next tick. I felt like crying, a most useless impulse. A half hour later, it seemed, she resumed speaking. “I understand you as my husband cannot.”

“Do you?”

She nipped the inside of her lower lip in her teeth and nodded.

“I have taken some training in pistol-handling. Were circumstances different, I, myself, might be at your side in the field, handling a firearm and advancing the great project.”

“I can’t dare to imagine deserving such a privilege.”

“You have shown great bravery.”

“Bravery…”

She nodded and stepped further into my room. Her small hands closed about my low ribs on both sides in the back. I closed my eyes. I felt warmth and moisture on my bony cheek, the peck of her kiss.

When I looked again she was in the hallway, pulling the door shut. I went again to the window and looked up at the black, starlit sky. The snow had stopped. My loneliness assumed new dimensions.

I kneeled on the floor with elbows on the bed. With concentration of mental power, I drove sensual hunger aside and composed my mind for intimate prayer.

* * *

In the following weeks, with Franklin’s help, I came to know many more wealthy and well-connected supporters of abolition. This was a giddy time. The news from Kansas was good. Free-state supporters were gaining control politically. Briefly I tantalized myself with believing that the forces of justice were finally coming into the ascendancy, and our nation would soon be set right. The great war, I dared believe, might be avoided.

My optimistic fancies were short-lived. On March 4, 1857, the morally vapid coward James Buchanan took office as President. A few days later Robert B. Taney, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, delivered the crushing decision that guaranteed great internal violence for the United States. Taney wrote that a Negro whose ancestors had been imported into this country and sold as slaves could never join our political community and, therefore, could not plead his or her case in court. Taney was not satisfied with condemning millions of people to permanent omission from the protections and privileges our government so proudly boasted of in its Bill of Rights. He also declared any federal effort to legislate against slavery unconstitutional. Slavery immediately became legal in all U.S. territories. The Dred Scott decision was, for us, like the jumping of a locomotive from the rails. The government of the United States had wrecked.