cause. He had strong convictions on the subject of slavery and was willing to risk all for them. "You will all be killed," cried a friend who heard his plan. "Yes, I know it, Hinton, but the result will be worth the sacrifice." Hinton adds: "I recall my friend as a man of personal beauty, with a fine, well-shaped head, a voice of quiet, sweet tones, that could be penetrating and cutting, too, almost to sharpness."[1] Anderson writes that Kagi "left home when a youth, an enemy to slavery, and brought as his gift offering to freedom three slaves, whom he piloted to the North. His innate hatred of the institution made him a willing exile from the state of his birth, and his great abilities, natural and acquired, entitled him to the position he held in Captain Brown's confidence. Kagi was indifferent to personal appearance; he often went about with slouched hat, one leg of his pantaloons properly adjusted, and the other partly tucked into his high boot-top; unbrushed, unshaven, and in utter disregard of 'the latest style.'"[2]
Stevens was a handsome six-foot Connecticut soldier of twenty-eight years of age, who had thrashed his major for mistreating a fellow soldier and deserted from the United States army. He was active in Kansas and soon came under John Brown's discipline.
"Why did you come to Harper's Ferry?" asked a Virginian.
- ↑ Hinton, p. 453
- ↑ Anderson, A Voice from Harper's Ferry, p. 15.
