The Conspirators

The information that follows is compiled from two sources: William Elsey Connelley, John Brown (Topeka: Crane & Company, 1900), 340-347; and Oswald Garrison Villard, John Brown 1800-1859: A Biography Fifty Years After (1910, reprint, Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1965), 678-687. I have also updated the languge, and deleted some extra (in my opinion) information. The black and white drawings, come from Richard J. Hinton, John Brown and His Men (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1894; Reprint New York: The Arno Press, 1968). The drawings are scattered throughout the text.--ASR 3/21/95

John Brown's band consisted of twenty-one men besides himself sixteen of whom were white and five black. Most of the whites he commissioned as officers in his army; according to the best obtainable printed list, Stevens, Cook, Brown's three sons,--Oliver, Owen, and Watson,--and Tidd were captains. But this is incomplete. There is conflicting testimony as to whether Hazlett was a captain or a lieutenant. Cook states that only two lieutenants were commissioned, Edwin Coppoc and Dauphin Thompson. Colonel Lee in his official report rates Hazlett, Edwin Coppoc, and Leeman as lieutenants. A captain's commission was found on Leeman's body. Probably William Thompson and J. G. Anderson were also captains. The white private soldiers were Stewart Taylor, Barclay Coppoc, and F. J. Meriam. The colored were Shields Green, Lewis Sheridan Leary, John A. Copeland, Jr., Osborn Perry Anderson, and Dangerfield Newby. The eldest of the band after Brown was Newby, aged forty-four; Owen Brown came next, at thirty-five; all the others were under thirty. Oliver Brown, Barclay Coppoc, and Newby, aged forty-four; Owen Brown came next, at thirty-five; all the others were under thirty. Oliver Brown, Barclay Coppoc, and Leeman were not yet twenty-one. The average age of the twenty- one followers was twenty-five years and five months. Only one was of foreign birth; nearly all were of old American stock.