FROM SLAVE TO COLLEGE PRESIDENT

There are few to whom the lines,

are not familiar, but few are now aware that they came into being as the marching song, made and used by the followers of "John Brown of Harper's Ferry," or of "Ossawatomie," after he had been executed. His was a stirring life. Having conceived the idea of becoming the liberator of the negro slaves in the Southern States of North America, he emigrated in 1855 from Ohio to Kansas, where he took an active part in the contest against the pro-slavery party. He gained, in August 1856, a victory at Ossawatomie over a superior number of Missourians who had invaded Kansas (whence the surname "Ossawatomie"). On the night of October 16, 1859, he seized the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, at the head of a small band of followers with a view to arming the negroes and inciting an insurrection. He was captured October 18th, was tried by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and was executed at Charlestown, December 2, 1859.

Mr Newton has been at pains to inform himself from every available source upon which it was possible to draw for a biography of John Brown. The result is a most exhaustive work, in which the part Brown took in the Kansas border wars, all his preparations for Harper's Ferry and what occurred there, and his trial are fully related. Practically no day between Brown's condemnation and his execution—nearly a month—is ignored, and many most interesting particulars are given of Brown's family. The judgments of his great countrymen, Whittier, Thoreau and Emerson, as well as that of the great romancer, Victor Hugo, are related, and interesting sketches are given of many prominent men of all parties with whom Brown came in contact.