On Oct. 10, 1859 he issued his general order No.1, which was to organize his provisional army into companies, regiments, brigades, and divisions, and signed his name John Brown, Commander in Chief .

This order was issued while at the Kennedy farm, but he soon after moved to an empty schoolhouse near Harper's Ferry, where he stored hundreds of carbines, pistols, spears, sabers, cartridges, caps, powder, and military supplies with which he intended to arm the Negroes when they rose in insurrection in response to his call.

Everything was now ready, and the unsuspecting Virginians were to receive a thunderbolt from a clear sky. , On Sunday night Oct. 16, 1859, about eleven o-clock, John Brown, the assumed Commander in Chief, at the head of four- . teen white men from Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Iowa, Pa, Maine, Indiana, and Canada, with five free Negroes from Ohio, Pa., and New York, in all twenty insurgents fully armed, crossed ~ the Potomac into Virginia at Harper's Ferry; they overpowered the guard at the Baltimore and Ohio R. R. Bridge and also captured the armory and arsenal in the town and the rifle factory on the Shenandoah above the town, and placed guards on the corners of certain streets. Brown established himself in a thick walled brick house at the armory gate, one room of this house was used for a fire engine. He then sent out six men under Capt. Stephens in the dead hours of the night, to sei7:e a number of leading citizens in the neighborhood, and incite the Negroes to rise and murder their owners.

This party broke into the house of Col. L. W. Washington, five miles out from Harper's Ferry at 1.30 A. M., and forced him and four of his servants to go with them, they also took a farm wagon of the Colonel's.

On their way back at 3 A. M. they captured Mr. Allstadt and f six of his Negro men, and armed the latter on the spot.

When they arrived at Harper's Ferry, Cook, the spy, was sent ,with five of the captured Negroes and Col. Washington's four horse wagon over to the schoolhouse on the Maryland side, to bring up the ordinance stores that Brown had deposited there.

Brown then halted a railroad train on the Baltimore and Ohio Road, one of his men killing the guard at the bridge.

His men captured the citizens of Harper's Ferry as they appeared upon the streets in the early morn, to the extent of about forty.

He placed Col. Washington and Mr. Allstadt, two of the most prominent citizens, in the engine house room which he had selected to make his point of defense. By this time it was day- light, and the news spread rapid and the citizens of the surrounding country began to flock in, armed as best they could to resist this high handed invasion of their homes. By 1A.M.of the17th, The Jefferson Guards of Charlestown, Va. arrived.

They were soon followed by other companies, two from Shepardstown and one from Martinsburg. all under the command of Col. R. A. Baylor .

These troops soon forced the invaders within the armory enclosure and had them surrounded. Brown then withdrew his forces to his principal point of defense and carried ten of the most prominent citizens that he had captured with him.

He called them his hostages, in order to insure the safety of his band.

From the opening that they made in the building they fired on all the whites who came in sight.

This state of affairs continued during the 17th; but after sun- set Capt. B. B. Washington from Winchester arrived and three companies from Frederick City, Maryland, under Col. Shriver , and later came companies from Baltimore under Gen. C. C. Edgerton, and a detachment of U. S. Marines under Lieut. Green and Major Russell, accompanied by Lieut. Col. R. E. Lee of the 2nd U. S. Cavalry, with his Aide, Lieut. J. E. B. Stewart of the 1st U. S. Cavalry.

Col. Lee happened to be at his home at Arlington, Va., when he was ordered to proceed to Harper's Ferry, and take charge of the situation, recapture the U. S. Armory and Arsenal and restore order. This he proceeded to do by crossing the Marines over the Potomac during the night and disposed them on the Armory ground, and then invested the whole situation with the Volunteer troops. He waited for daylight instead of making a midnight attack on Brown's stronghold, to keep from sacrificing the lives of the ten citizens that Brown had forced to remain in there with himself and his band.

By daylight of the 18th, everything was ready for the attack on Brown's stronghold.

Col. Lee under flag of truce sent Lieut. J. E. B. Stewart to John Brown, with a written demand to surrender himself, his associates and the prisoners he had taken, and restore the pillaged property; if he would do this, he and his associates would be kept in safety to await the order of the president of the United States; but if he was compelled to take them by force, he could not answer for their safety.