ing a small detachment on the bridge, and a few occupying the lower part of the town. Express riders quickly alarmed the country as far as Charlestown, Va., some ten miles distant, and by ten o'clock on the morning of the 17th, the Jefferson Guards, a military company of the Virginia volunteers, and citizens singly and in quickly organized detachments, armed with whatever was at hand, were en route to the rescue. The Jef ferson Guards crossed the Potomac above the town, and came down to the mouth of the railroad bridge on the Maryland side, fired a volley and charged the bridge, killing several insurgents and capturing most of the others stationed on it. There was desultory firing between the insurgents and citizens in the streets of the town. Mr. Fontaine Beckham, an aged and respected citizen and local agent for the rail road company, was shot and killed by the insurgents near the bridge, and Mr. George Turner, a prominent citizen, a graduate of West Point, was killed on High Street by an insurgent from the corner of the street be low. About the same time Mr. Samuel Young, a citizen of Charlestown, and a number of others were more or less severely wounded. Military companies from neigh boring towns came in upon the scene during the day. Brown and the remainder of his party had now withdrawn within the enginehouse in the armory grounds, barricaded the doors and from loopholes fired upon their assailants. On the evening of the 17th, an attack was made on the small party of insur gents who had occupied the Hall rifleworks, when one of them was killed. A parley was opened by Brown's sending one of his hostages under parole to return, with a verbal proposition to the effect that if he would be allowed to retire with his men, living, dead, wounded and prisoners, a short distance across the bridge, he would release the prisoners. To this Col. Robert W. Baylor, command ing the volunteer forces, replied, declining
the proposal, but agreeing that if he would release the citizens held as prisoners, he would leave the United States government to deal with him as to the property he had seized. Substantially the same proposal, submitted in writing, was declined, and operations ceased for the night. On the night of the 17th, a company of United States marines arrived at Sandy Hook, on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, a short distance east from Harpers Ferry, under Colonel, afterwards General, Robert E. Lee. They were immediately marched over and stationed so as to closely invest the enginehouse. Early in the morning Colonel Lee demanded the surrender upon terms previ ously offered by Colonel Baylor, which were declined, and the attack by the marines im mediately began. An attempt was made to batter down the doors of the engine-house with heavy sledge hammers, but failed. An improvised bat tering ram consisting of a ladder operated by an assaulting* party of marines led by Lieutenants J. E. B. Stuart and Israel Green, was successfully used against the doors, which gave way, and the marines pouring in soon overpowered Brown and his party and released the prisoners. One marine was killed in the attack and several wounded. Brown was twice wounded before he sur rendered, and two of his sons killed. Of the twenty-two insurgents who invaded Har pers Ferry, twelve were killed and five taken prisoners; two others were subsequently captured in Pennsylvania. They were conveyed as soon as possible on the day of their capture to Charlestown, the county seat of Jefferson county, Virginia, and confined there in the county jail. On October the 20th, there was a formal commitment of the prisoners by Roger Chew, Esq., a justice of the peace, upon oaths of Hon. Henry A. Wise, governor of Virginia, Andrew Hunter, a leader of the Jefferson bar,
