He’s kneeling by the sofa, the lamplight shining on his black hair. “Give the spear to your son,” he says. “When he’s old enough to value it.” He’s still appalled by the raid, the lives lost, the terrible idea of slaves with guns. He’s glad Brown went to the gallows. But he can’t help but note the old man’s stoicism. He admires men of action, men who live their principles without apology or compromise. Brown is an instrument of evil, but also a Shakespearean hero.

On December 2nd, John was there, in the crowd to see Brown hang.

—

He returns to Richmond to learn he’s been fired from the theater for desertion. But his brothers-in-arms, the Richmond Grays, lay siege to the Marshall until he’s hired again. Though he says to Asia that he’s less interested in acting now. Maybe being a soldier is his true vocation. “He’s wild to do it,” she tells Mother and Rosalie next morning.

Mother responds with alarm. War seems more likely with every passing day. She should never have said a word to anyone about that long-ago night when, baby John at her breast, the harbinger of an anointing arm rose from the fire. She really can’t bear to lose him. It makes her hysterical to think of it.

She tells him it would kill her if he enlisted. “I love my children above my country,” she says. “I love my children above all.” She sobs into her hands. From behind the screen of tears, she whispers the names of Frederick, Mary Ann, Elizabeth, and Henry—her sad roster of lost loves. By the time she’s finished, he’s promised never to go to war.

Lincoln Goes to Kansas

John Brown has shown great courage, rare unselfishness . . . But no man, North or South, can approve of violence or crime.

—Abraham Lincoln, December 1859

As Brown is being hanged, Lincoln is traveling to Kansas, braving the weather and the uncertain roads. This is much appreciated, all the more so since the audiences are small and hardly worth the effort. Few politicians come to Kansas in December. Fewer have Lincoln’s national profile.

So the Republicans there are gratified, but also firmly Seward’s people, their own feelings about slavery radicalized by the boil of terrorism and murder in which they’ve been living. They see no reason to switch to Lincoln, much as they like him. Despite this, Lincoln’s chances for nomination have materially improved and their own John Brown is responsible.

In the shock of the insurrection, Seward is suddenly too extreme. Every effort must be made to disassociate the Republican Party from Harpers Ferry. John Brown, it is said, has killed the Seward presidency dead.

If Seward is too radical for the conservatives, Bates is too conservative for the radicals. What’s needed now is a moderate. What’s needed now is Lincoln.

—