Richard Johnson - "An Address to the Inhabitants Of The Colonies, established in"

Kathleen Norris - "Martie The Unconquered"

Pierre Loti - "Madame Chrysantheme, v3"

Upton Sinclair - "The Pot Boiler"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Man in Gray

T >> Thomas Dixon >> The Man in Gray




Yet as they studied his strange personality more than one member of the
Committee began to suspect him as the only man in the West capable of
the act.

The Committee refused to vote the rifles and compromised on the money
by making a qualification that would make the gift of no service.
They voted the appropriation, "in aid of Captain John Brown in any
_defensive_ measures that may become necessary." He was authorized to
draw five hundred dollars when he needed it for this purpose.

The failure rankled in the old man's heart and he once more poured out
the vials of his wrath on all politicians,--North and South.

For months he became an incessant and restless wanderer throughout New
York and the New England States.

He finally issued a general appeal for help through the _New York
Tribune_ and other friendly papers.

The contributions came slowly. The invitations to speak came slower. At
Collinsville, Connecticut, however, after his lecture he placed with
Charles Blair, a blacksmith and forge-master, an important secret order
for a thousand iron pikes. Blair pledged his loyalty. He received his
first payment on account, for a stand of weapons destined to become
souvenirs in marking the progress of civilization in the new world.

In the midst of his disappointing canvas for funds he received a letter
from his son, Jason, that a Deputy United States Marshal had passed
through Cleveland on the way East with a warrant for his arrest for the
Pottawattomie murders.

On the receipt of this news he wrote his friend, Eli Thayer:

"One of the U. S. hounds is on my track: and I have kept myself hid for
a few days to let my track get cold. I have no idea of being taken: _and
intend_ (if God _will_) to go back with Irons _in_ rather than _upon_ my
hands. I got a _fine lift_ in Boston the other day; and hope Worcester
will not be _entirely behind_. I do not mean _you_; or _Mr. Alien &
Company_."

So dangerous was the advent of the U. S. Marshal from Kansas that Brown
took refuge in an upper room in the house of Judge Russell in Boston
and remained in hiding an entire week. Mrs. Russell acted as maid and
allowed no one to open the front door except herself during the time of
his stay.

The Judge's house was on a quiet street and his connection with the
Abolition movement had been kept secret for political reasons. His
services to their cause were in this way made doubly valuable.

Brown daily barricaded his door and told his hostess that he would not
be taken alive. He added with the nearest approach to a smile ever seen
on his face:

"I should hate to spoil your carpet, Madame."

While in hiding at Judge Russell's he composed a sarcastic farewell to
New England. It is in his best style and true character as a poseur:

"Old Brown's _Farewell_: to the Plymouth Rock; Bunker Hill Monument;
Charter Oaks; and _Uncle Tom's Cabins_.

"Has left for Kansas. Was trying since he came out of the Territory to
secure an outfit; or, in other words, the means of arming and equipping
thoroughly, his regular minute men, who are mixed up _with the People of
Kansas_: and _he leaves the States_, with a _deep feeling of sadness_:
that after exhausting _his own_ small means: and with his _family and
his brave men_: suffered hunger, nakedness, cold, sickness, (and some of
them) imprisonment, with most barbarous and cruel treatment: _wounds
and death_: that after laying on the ground for months; in the most
unwholesome _and_ sickly as well as uncomfortable places: with sick and
wounded destitute of any shelter part of the time; dependent in part on
the care, and hospitality of the Indians: and hunted like Wolves: that
after all this; in order to sustain a cause, which _every Citizen_ of
this _Glorious Republic_, is under equal moral obligation to do: (_and
for the neglect of which HE WILL be held accountable TO GOD:) in which
every Man, Woman and Child of the human family;_ has a deep and awful
interest; and that _no wages are asked or expected:_ he cannot secure
(amidst all the wealth, luxury and extravagance of this _'Heaven
exalted'_ people) even the necessary supplies for a common soldier. HOW
ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN?

"JOHN BROWN."

Following his usual tactics of interminable delays and restless, aimless
wandering, it was the 7th of August before he reached Tabor, Iowa, the
appointed rendezvous of his disciples.

Two days after his arrival the Free State election of the ninth of
August was held in Kansas and the heavy vote polled was a complete
triumph of the men of peace within the party. Kansas, in his absence,
had settled down to the tried American plan of the ballot box for the
decision of political disputes. Brown wrote Stearns a despairing letter.
He was discouraged and utterly without funds. He begged for five hundred
to one thousand dollars immediately for secret service and no questions
asked. He promised interesting times in Kansas if he could secure this
money. Of his disciples for the great coming deed but one had arrived
at Tabor, his faithful son Owen. The old man lingered at Tabor with his
religious friends until November before starting for Kansas.

Higginson, his chief backer in Massachusetts, was growing angry over his
repeated delays and senseless inaction. Sanborn, always Brown's staunch
defender, wrote Higginson a letter begging patience:

"You do not understand Brown's circumstances. He is as ready for
revolution as any other man, and is now on the border of Kansas safe
from arrest, prepared for action. But he needs money for his present
expenses and active support.

"I believe that he is the best Dis-union champion you can find, and with
his hundred men, when he is put where he can raise them and drill them
(for he has an expert drill officer with him) WILL DO MORE TO SPLIT THE
UNION than a list of 50,000 names for your Convention, good as that is.

"What I am trying to hint at is that the friends of Kansas are looking
with strange apathy at a movement which has all the elements of fitness
and success--a good plan, a tried leader, and a radical purpose. If you
can do anything for it _now_, in God's name do it--and the ill results
of the new policy in Kansas may be prevented."

The new policy in Kansas must be smashed at all hazards, of course. To
the men who believed in bloodshed as the only rational way to settle
political issues, the ballot box and the council table were the
inventions of the Devil. It was the duty of the children of Light to
send the Lord's Anointed with the Sword of Gideon to raise anew the
Blood Feud.

It is evident from this letter of F. B. Sanborn to Higginson that even
Sanborn had not penetrated the veil of the old Puritan's soul. The one
to whom he had revealed his true plan was his faithful son in Kansas.
The Territory was not the objective of this mission. It was only a feint
to deceive friend and foe.

And he succeeded in doing it.

That his purpose was the disruption of the Union in a deluge of blood,
Sanborn, of course, understood and approved. He was utterly mistaken as
to the time and place and method which the Man of Visions had chosen for
the deed.

On entering the Territory, now as peaceful as any State in the Union,
Brown gathered his disciples, Oliver, Kagi, Stevens, and Cook and
despatched them to Tabor, Iowa. Here they were informed for the first
time of the real purpose of their organization--the invasion of Virginia
and the raising of a servile insurrection in which her soil would be
drenched in blood within sight of the Capitol at Washington. With
Stevens, as drill master, they began the study of military tactics. They
moved to Springdale and established their camp for the winter.



CHAPTER XXIV


Suddenly the old man left Springdale. He ordered his disciples to
continue their drill until he should instruct them as to their next
march.

Two weeks later he was in Rochester, New York, with Frederick Douglas.
In a room in this negro's house Brown composed a remarkable document as
a substitute for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of
the United States.

He hurried with his finished manuscript to the home of Gerrit Smith at
Peterboro for a consultation with Smith, Sanborn, Higginson and Stearns.

Only Sanborn and Smith appeared. Brown outlined to them in brief his
plan of precipitating a conflict by the invasion of the Black Belt of
the South and the establishment of a negro empire. Its details were as
yet locked in his own breast.

Smith and Sanborn discussed his plans and his Constitution for the
Government of the new power. In spite of its absurdities they agreed
to support him in the venture. Smith gave the first contribution which
enabled him to call the convention of negroes and radicals at Chatham,
Canada, to adopt the "Constitution."

Brown went all the way to Springdale, Iowa, to escort the entire body of
his disciples to this convention. And they came across a continent
with him--Stevens, Kagi, Cook, Owen Brown, and six new men whom he had
added--Leeman, Tidd, Gill, Taylor, Parsons, Moffit and Realf.

Thirty-four negroes gathered with them. Among the negroes were Richard
O. P. Anderson and James H. Harris of North Carolina.

The presiding officer was William C. Monroe, pastor of a negro church in
Detroit. Kagi, the stenographer, was made Secretary of the Convention.

Brown addressed the gathering in an unique speech:

"For thirty years, my friends, a single passion has pursued my soul--to
set at liberty the slaves of the South. I went to Europe in 1851 to
inspect fortifications and study the methods of guerrilla warfare which
have been successfully used in the old world. I have pondered the
uprisings of the slaves of Rome, the deeds of Spartacus, the successes
of Schamyl, the Circassian Chief, of Touissant L'Overture in Haiti, of
the negro Nat Turner who cut the throats of sixty Virginians in a single
night in 1831.

"I have developed a plan of my own to sweep the South. You must trust
me with its details. I shall depend on the blacks for the body of my
soldiers. And I expect every freedman in the North to flock to my
standard when the blow has fallen. I know that every slave in the South
will answer my call. The slaveholders we will not massacre unless
we must. We will hold them as hostages for our protection and the
protection of any prisoners who may fall into their hands."

The men listened in rapt attention and when he read his "Constitution
and Preamble," it was unanimously adopted.

The Constitution which they adopted was a piece of insanity in the
literal sense of the word, a confused medley of absurd, inapplicable
forms.

The Preamble, however, which contained the keynote of Brown's philosophy
of life, was expressed in clear-cut, logical ideas.

He read it in a cold, vibrant voice:

"Whereas, Slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United States
is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked and unjustifiable war of
one portion of its citizens upon another portion: the only conditions
of which are perpetual imprisonment, and hopeless servitude or absolute
extermination, in utter disregard and violation of those eternal and
self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence:
_Therefore_, we CITIZENS OF the UNITED STATES, and the OPPRESSED PEOPLE
who by a RECENT DECISION of the SUPREME COURT ARE DECLARED to have NO
RIGHTS WHICH the WHITE MAN is BOUND to RESPECT; TOGETHER WITH ALL OTHER
PEOPLE DEGRADED by the LAWS THEREOF, DO, for the TIME BEING ORDAIN and
ESTABLISH for OURSELVES, the FOLLOWING PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION and
ORDINANCES the BETTER to protect, our PERSONS, PROPERTY, LIVES and
LIBERTIES: and to GOVERN our ACTION."

The first result of his Radical Convention was the exhaustion of his
treasury. He had used his last dollar to bring his men on from the West
and no money had been collected to pay even their return fares.

They were compelled to go to work at various trades to earn their bread.
Brown determined to return to Kansas and create a sensation that would
again stir the East and bring the money into his treasury. He would at
the same time test the first principle of his plan by an actual raid
into a neighboring Southern State. In the meantime, he issued his first
order of the Great Deed. He selected John E. Cook as his scout and spy
and dispatched him to Harper's Ferry, Virginia, to map its roads, study
its people and reconnoiter the surrounding territory.

He raised the money to pay Cook's fare and saw him on the train for
Virginia before he started for Kansas to spring his second national
sensation.



CHAPTER XXV


Brown's scout reached the town of Harper's Ferry on June 5, 1858. The
magnificent view which greeted his vision as he stepped from the
train took his breath. The music of trembling waters seemed a grand
accompaniment to an Oratorio of Nature.

The sensitive mind of the young Westerner responded to its soul appeal.
He stood for half an hour enraptured with its grandeur. Two great
rivers, the Potomac and the Shenandoah, rushing through rock-hewn gorges
to the sea, unite here to hurl their tons of foaming waters against the
last granite wall of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Beyond the gorge, through which the roaring tide has cut its path, lies
the City of Washington on the banks of the Potomac, but sixty miles
away--a day's journey on a swift horse; an hour and a half by rail.

Cook at first had sharply criticized Brown's selection of such a place
for the scene of the Great Deed. As he stood surveying in wonder the
sublimity of its scenery he muttered softly:

"The old man's a wizard!"

The rugged hills and the rush of mighty waters called the soul to great
deeds. There was something electric in the air. The town, the rivers,
the mountains summoned the spirit to adventure. The tall chimneys of the
United States Arsenal and Rifle Works called to war. The lines of hills
were made for the emplacement of guns. The roaring waters challenged the
skill of generals.

The scout felt his heart beat in quick response. The more he studied the
hills that led to High Knob, a peak two thousand four hundred feet in
height, the more canny seemed the choice of Brown. From the top of this
peak stretches the county of Fauquier, the beginning of the Black Belt
of the South. Fauquier County contained more than ten thousand Slaves
and seven hundred freed negroes. There were but nine thousand eight
hundred whites. From this county to the sea lay a series of adjoining
counties in which the blacks outnumbered the whites. These counties
contained more than two hundred and sixty thousand negroes.

The Black Belt of Virginia touched the Black Belts of North Carolina,
South Carolina and Georgia--an unbroken stretch of overwhelming black
majority. In some counties they outnumbered the whites, five to one.

This mountain gorge, hewn out of the rocks by the waters of the rivers,
was the gateway into the heart of the Slave System of the South. And it
could be made the highroad of escape to the North if once the way were
opened.

Another fact had influenced the mind of Brown. The majority of the
workmen of Harper's Ferry were mechanics from the North. They would not
be enthusiastic defenders of Slavery. They were not slave owners. In a
fight to a finish they would be indifferent. Their indifference would
make the conquest of the few white masters in town a simple matter.

Cook felt again the spell of Brown's imperious will. He had thought the
old man's chief reason for selecting Harper's Ferry as the scene was his
quixotic desire to be dramatic. He knew the history of the village.
It had been named for Robert Harper, an Englishman. Lord Fairfax, the
friend of George Washington, had given the millwright a grant of it in
1748. Washington, himself, had made the first survey of the place and
selected the Ferry, in 1794, as the site of a National Armory.

Colonel Lewis Washington, the great-grandson of Washington's brother,
lived on the lordly plantation of Bellair, four miles in the country.
Brown had learned that the sword which Frederick the Great had given to
Washington, and the pistols which Lafayette had given him hung on the
walls of the Colonel's library.

He had instructed Cook to become acquainted with Colonel Washington,
and locate these treasures. He had determined to lead his negro army of
insurrection with these pistols and sword buckled around his waist.

Cook was an adventurer but he had no trace of eccentricity in his
character. He thought this idea a dangerous absurdity. And he believed
at first that it was the one thing that had led his Chief to select
this spot. He changed his mind in the first thirty minutes, as he stood
studying the mountain peak that stood sentinel at the gateway of the
Black Belt.

With a new sense of the importance of his mission he sought a boarding
house. He was directed by the watchman at the railroad station, a
good-looking freedman, an employee of the Mayor of the town, to the
widow Kennedy's. Her house was situated on a quiet street just outside
the enclosure of the United States Arsenal.

Cook was a man of pleasing address, twenty-eight years old, blue-eyed,
blond, handsome, affable, genial in manner and a good mixer. Within
twenty-four hours he had made friends with the widow and every boarder
in the house.

They introduced him to their friends and in a week he had won the good
opinion of the leading citizens of the place. A few days later the
widow's pretty daughter arrived from boarding school and the young
adventurer faced the first problem of his mission.

She was a slender, dark-eyed, sensitive creature of eighteen. Shy,
romantic, and all eyes for the great adventure of every Southern girl's
life--the coming of the Prince Charming who would some day ride up to
her door, doff his plumed hat, kiss her hand and kneel at her feet?

Cook read the eagerness in her brown eyes the first hour of their
meeting. And what was more serious he felt the first throb of emotion
that had ever distressed him in the presence of a woman.

He had never made love. He had tried all other adventures. He had never
met the type that appealed to his impulsive mind. He was angry with
himself for the almost resistless impulse that came, to flirt with this
girl.

It could only be a flirtation at best and, it could only end in
bitterness and hatred and tragedy in the end. He had done dark deeds on
the Western plains. But they were man deeds. No delicate woman had been
involved in their tangled ethics.

There was something serious in his nature that said no to a flirtation
of any kind with a lovely girl. He had always intended to take women
seriously. He did take them seriously. He wouldn't hesitate to kill a
man if he were cornered. But a woman--that was different. He tried
to avoid the eyes of Virginia. He couldn't. In spite of all, seated
opposite at the table, he found himself looking into their brown liquid
depths. They were big, soulful eyes, full of tenderness and faith and
wonder and joy. And they kept saying to him:

"Come here, stranger man, and tell me who you are, where you came from,
where you're going, and what's your hurry."

There was nothing immodest or forward in them. They just kept calling
him.

She was exactly the type of girl he had dreamed he would like to marry
some day when life had quieted down. She was of the spirit, not the
flesh. Yet she was beautiful to look upon. Her hair was a dark, curling
brown, full of delicate waves even on the top of her head. Her hands
were dainty. Her body was a slender poem in willowy, graceful lines. Her
voice was the softest Southern drawl.

The Kennedys were not slave holders. The pretty daughter joyfully helped
her mother when she came home from school. Her sentiments were Southern
without the over emphasis sometimes heard among the prouder daughters
of the old regime. These Southern sentiments formed another impassable
barrier. Cook said this a hundred times to himself and sought to make
the barrier more formidable by repeating aloud his own creed when in his
room alone.

The fight was vain. He drifted into seeing her a few minutes alone each
day. She had liked him from the first. He felt it. He knew it. He had
liked her from the first, and she knew it.

Each night he swore he'd go to bed without seeing her and each night he
laughed and said:

"Just this once more and it won't count."

He felt himself drifting into a tragedy. Yet to save his life he
couldn't lay hold of anything that would stand the strain of the sweet
invitation in those brown eyes.

To avoid her he spent days tramping over the hills. And always he came
back more charmed than ever. The spell she was weaving about his heart
was resistless.



CHAPTER XXVI


Brown returned to Kansas with Stevens and Kagi, his two bravest and most
intelligent disciples.

If he could make the tryout of his plan sufficiently sensational, his
prestige would be restored, his chief disciples become trained veterans
and his treasury be filled.

When he arrived, the Free State forces had again completely triumphed at
the ballot box. They had swept the Territory by a majority of three to
one in the final test vote on the new Constitution. The issue of Slavery
in Kansas was dead. It had been settled for all time.

Such an inglorious end for all his dreams of bloodshed did not depress
the man of visions. Kansas no longer interested him except as a
rehearsal ground for the coming drama of the Great Deed.

He had carefully grown a long gray beard for the make-up of his new
role. It completely changed his appearance. He not only changed his
make-up, but he also changed his name. The title he gave to the new
character which he had come to play was, "Shubel Morgan."

The revelation of his identity would be all the more dramatic when it
came.

When his men and weapons had been selected, he built his camp fire on
the Missouri Border. His raid was carefully planned in consultation with
Stevens, Kagi and Tidd. With these trusted followers he had rallied a
dozen recruits who could be depended on to obey orders. Among them was a
notorious horse thief and bandit known in the Territory by the title of
"Pickles."

As they entered the State of Missouri on the night of the twenty-fifth
of January, Brown divided his forces. Keeping the main division under
his personal command, he despatched Stevens with a smaller force to
raid the territory surrounding the two plantations against which he was
moving.

Between eleven and twelve o'clock Brown reached the home of Harvey G.
Hicklin, the first victim marked on his list.

Without the formality of a knock he smashed his door down and sprang
inside with drawn revolver.

Hicklin surrendered.

"We have come to take your slaves and such property as we need," the old
man curtly answered.

"I am at your mercy, gentlemen," Hicklin replied.

Gill was placed in charge of the robbers who ransacked the bureau
drawers, closets and chests for valuables.

Brown collected the slaves and assured them of protection. When every
watch, gun, pistol, and every piece of plate worth carrying had been
collected, and the stables stripped of every horse and piece of leather,
the old man turned to his victim and coolly remarked:

"Now get your property back if you can. I dare you and the whole United
States Army to follow me to-night. And you tell this to your neighbors
to-morrow morning."

Hicklin kept silent.

Brown knew that his tongue would be busy with the rising sun. He also
knew that his message would be hot on the wires to the East before the
sun would set. He could feel the thrill it would give his sentimental
friends in Boston. And he could see them reaching for their purses.

The men were still emptying drawers on the floor in a vain search for
cash. Hicklin never kept cash over night in his house. He lived too near
the border.

Brown called his men from their looting and ordered them to the next
house which he had marked for assault--the house of James Lane,
three-quarters of a mile away.

They smashed Lane's door and took him a prisoner with Dr. Erwin, a guest
of the family.

From Hicklin he had secured considerable booty and his men were keen for
richer spoils. The first attack had netted the raiders two fine horses,
a yoke of oxen, a wagon, harness, saddles, watches, a fine collection
of jewelry, bacon, flour, meal, coffee, sugar, bedding, clothing, a
shotgun, boots, shoes, an overcoat and many odds and ends dumped into
the wagon.

From Lane they expected more. They were sore over the results. They got
six good horses, their harness and wagons, a lot of bedding, clothing
and provisions, but no jewelry except two plain silver watches.

Brown added five negroes to his party and told them he would take them
to Canada. Thus far no blood had been shed. The attacks had been made
with such quiet skill, the surprise was complete. In spite of all the
talk and bluster of frontier politicians no sane man in the State of
Missouri could conceive of the possibility of such a daring crime. The
victims were utterly unprepared for the assault. And no defense had been
attempted.