People demanded answers. Who had led the insurrection at Harpers Ferry? What was its purpose? Who had abetted this rebellion? And why?

Almost no one knew it was John Brown until his capture. After he was seized in the U.S. Armory fire-engine house (October 18, 1859), Marines carried the wounded Brown into the neighboring paymaster’s office. Brown was food-barren and without sleep for nearly 40 hours; he was bruised, bandaged, and bloodied from the fight just ended. Despite these calamities, Brown’s mind remained sharp. He was “glad to make himself and his motives understood.” The interrogation commenced.

 “If you would tell us who sent you here,” asked U.S. Senator James Mason, “that would be information of some value.”

“I will answer feely and faithfully about what concerns myself,” responded Brown, “but not about others.”

Mason, who represented Virginia in the U.S. Senate, probed further. “What was your object in coming?”

Brown admitted, with no hesitation, “We came to free the slaves, and only that.”

The juxtaposition of these two adversaries, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, symbolized the fractious fissure between North and South over slavery. They represented extremes. Mason—author of the infamous 1850 Fugitive Slave Act—versus Brown, the most fanatical abolitionist. 

 “How do you justify your acts?” Mason demanded.

 “I think, my friend, you are guilty of a great wrong against God and humanity,” moralized Brown. “It would be perfectly right [for] any one to interfere with you so far as to free those you willfully and wickedly hold in bondage.”

About a dozen onlookers witnessed this exchange—two historical giants demonstrating proslavery and antislavery dogmas. Cramped inside the paymaster’s office also were Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, representing Brown’s U.S. Army captors. Virginia Governor Henry Wise had just arrived from Richmond via railroad. They collectively represented an assemblage of Virginia denizens who soon would become generals in a seceded Southern Confederacy—an indirect result of Brown’s Harpers Ferry attack against slavery.

A notable non-Virginian, however, asked the most questions.

“Did you expect a general rising of the slaves in case of your success?” queried Ohio congressman Clement Vallandigham.

“No sir; nor did I wish it,” replied Brown. “I expected to gather them up from time to time and set them free.”

Vallandigham remained persistent. The pro-Southern Democrat, from a Northern state, had become a darling of proslavery interests. Serving his first term in Congress, Vallandigham had gained national notoriety for his outspoken abhorrence of abolitionists in Ohio and throughout the North. He had, as well, a closer-to-home interest: nearly half of Brown’s guerilla force were natives of his state or had resided in Ohio, including Brown himself. John Brown, Jr., also had been operating and staging from Ohio.

“Mr. Brown, who sent you here?” Vallandigham demanded.

“No man sent me here,” scoffed Brown. “[I]t was my own prompting and that of my Maker, or that of the devil, which ever you please to ascribe it to. I acknowledge no man in human form.”

The overall interview lasted about three hours. Recording it word for word were newspaper reporters for the New York Herald and the Baltimore American. Baltimore was the largest city (in 1859) in the slave-holding South. Its initial reports were repeated in newspapers throughout the nation, spreading Brown’s words to every corner of the country. Brown became a media sensation.

“He [Brown] converses freely, fluently and cheerfully, without the slightest manifestation of fear or uneasiness,” marveled the Herald journalist. Considering Brown was a prisoner, “his manner is courteous and affable,” the journalist noted, “while he appears to be making a favorable impression upon his auditory.”

Governor Wise summarized Brown succinctly. “He is the gamest man I ever saw.”

At the conclusion of the questioning, the Herald reporter asked Brown if he had anything further to add.

“I wish to say furthermore that you had better—all you people [of] the South—prepare yourselves for a settlement,” Brown warned. “The sooner you are prepared the better. You may dispose of me very easily . . . but this question is still to be settled—this [slavery] question I mean—the end of that is not yet.”

John Brown prophesized the Civil War.