By mid-morning, after much careful reconnoitering, we had taken up our position like watchful ravens at the quarry where Mr. Douglass in his narrative says that he finally found us — upon a cut-stone platform walled in and set high amongst slabs of gray rock from which we could obtain a good view of anyone approaching us without being seen ourselves. Father was still a fugitive then, with a federal price on his head, and I imagine that I was, too, although, so far from Kansas and with no one any longer actively pursuing us, it was easy to forget. But it was also true that, this early in the game and this late, it would be reckless for the Old Man to be seen meeting with Frederick Douglass so close to the border of a slave state. And, of course, Father enjoyed the accoutrements of clandestinity for their own sake. Thus we hid ourselves up amongst the rocks from Mr. Douglass and made him find us.
And eventually, after considerable trouble, which we watched from above, he did. He came clambering over sharp-edged layers of granite with a companion, a balding, large-eyed Negro man of early middle years and athletic build. Mr. Douglass, as always, was dressed in a fine woolen suit and wore a black cravat and brimmed hat; his companion was in a workingman’s blouse and pants and boots, with a tattered old straw on his head; and the two were puffing and wet with sweat when they suddenly came around a granite pylon and encountered us — no doubt unexpectedly, for they had by then probably begun to believe that we had been delayed or that they had misunderstood Father’s directions to the quarry or perhaps had gone to the wrong place in it.
“Ah, Brown, here you are!” Mr. Douglass exclaimed, much relieved. He smiled, and the two men shook hands warmly and embraced.
Father began at once to speak of the purpose of the meeting, but Mr. Douglass interrupted him and elaborately introduced his friend Shields Green, who he said was very interested in meeting the famous Osawatomie Brown and possibly in “joining him down here in the fray,” as he put it. Then he greeted me with a smile and handshake and gave Father to understand that he and Mr. Green needed to catch their breath for a moment or two. He was sorry, he said, that he had not brought water or refreshment with him.
It was impossible not to honor Frederick Douglass. His handsome presence was commanding without ever seeming pompous or condescending, and he was gregarious and gracious without a taint of servility. He made you feel that you and he were equals on a very high plane. And he was the only man I ever saw silence Father good-naturedly.
He leaned against the rock wall of our aerie and fanned his dark, bearded face with his hat-brim, while Shields Green sat and rested upon a table-sized stone nearby and wiped down his neck and face with a large blue handkerchief. Finally, Mr. Douglass said to Father, “All right, Old John, let me hear it. There are some wild rumors circulating up North about you and your boys, and I need to know the truth of the matter. I’ll tell you, friend, some of your strongest supporters and allies are afraid that you’re about to commence some wild, foolhardy action down here, and I’d like to go home and tell them otherwise.”
“There’s nothing wild or foolhardy about my plans, except to men who lack courage and principles,” Father began, and here he commenced the recitation with which I and the others hidden back at the attic of the Kennedy farmhouse had become so familiar that we could recite it word by word ourselves. He told Mr. Douglass how the old plan had been modified to such a degree that it amounted now to a new plan, and, just as with us, he brought out and unrolled his maps and went over each step of the raid, until he had got to the end of the raid and our rendez-vous in the wilderness with Frederick Douglass and the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of newly liberated slaves.
Mr. Douglass was silent for a few moments and studied the maps with pursed lips and furrowed brow. At last, he sighed and said, “I love you, John Brown. I do. You’ve been a true hero, and I don’t want you killed. You and those brave young men with you.”
“We may suffer losses” Father said, interrupting. “It’s inevitable in war. But we will triumph over our enemies in the end. We will. I know it, Frederick. The Lord will protect us.”
“The Lord can’t protect you from the nature of that place, Harpers Ferry. It’s a steel trap, John. You’ll get in and not be able to get out. Please, forget this.”
“Our hostages will shield us while we’re down there, and the wilderness and the mountains will preserve us when we’ve left.”
“No, no, no, no! Impossible! Remember, I know these white Southerners; you don’t. These men will cut down every tree from here to Tennessee but one, and when they have caught you, they’ll hang you from it. And along the way, they’ll butcher any slave who even dreams of rebellion in his sleep.”
“We’ll be too many too soon for them to go against us, and we’ll be everywhere across the South, so they’ll never be able to unite against us in any one place. This is no conventional war I’m fomenting here, Frederick.”
“The federal army, John. Remember that.”
“Yes, and remember the Seminoles. The Alleghenies will be my Everglades.”
“And our Negroes, are they to be your Indian warriors?”
“If you will lead them with me. If you are at my side, they will rise up and follow me into battle against their white masters.” Then for a long while Father explained how their army of escaped slaves would be divided into two parts, one to conduct raids on the plantations and towns of the South, the other to provide logistical support for the raiders and safe transportation out of the South for those escaping slaves who, because of age or infirmity or temperament, were unable to join the battle or merely wished to flee into the North. It all seemed so logical and so likely to succeed that Mr. Douglass’s persistent objections and skepticism began to look, to me, like a reflection of his character more than his mind, as if a fearful heart had shut down his brain.
Back and forth they went, first one arguing his case, then the other, like attorneys pleading before a stern, inscrutable judge. Who was right, Father or Frederick Douglass? Not in hindsight, but at the moment of their argument. In hindsight, Mr. Douglass obviously seems to have been right. But back then, before the raid, was not Father right to believe that if Mr. Douglass made the raid on Harpers Ferry the opening act of a slave rebellion led by him and Old John Brown together, then it almost had to be a successful rebellion?
“With you at my side, this enterprise will be larger than any previous event in American history. It will be a true revolution, the revolution we should have fought back in ’76!”
“No, Brown, it won’t. It’ll be suicidal. Worse than Nat Turner. With or without me, it’s destined to fail. We are too few, too poorly armed, too ill-equipped, and too untrained as soldiers to accomplish what you have imagined.”
Father stepped away and stared down at the large, open pit of the quarry below. In a low, sulky voice, he said, “I’m glad you weren’t around to advise our Revolutionary forebears, Frederick. We’d all still be British subjects.”