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[292] eye witness, “presented a pitiable sight, Brown and Stevens being unable to stand without assistance. Brown had three sword cuts in his body, and one sabre cut over the head. Stevens had three balls in his head and two in his breast, and one in his arm. He was also cut on the forehead with a rifle bullet, which glanced off, leaving a bad wound. Brown seemed weak and haggard, with eyes swollen from the effects of wounds on the head. Stevens seemed less injured than Brown, but looked haggard and depressed.” Never before, in our Christian country, or in any other civilized land, were men, thus suffering and disabled, dragged from their beds of sickness to a Court of Justice, to be tried for a capital offence. Judge Jeffreys, of England, never fully equalled this atrocity; it needed, for its. perpetration, men brutalized by the influence of American slavery. Charles B. Harding, attorney for the County of Jefferson, and Andrew Hunter, counsel for the State, appeared for the prosecution. The Sheriff read the commitment of the prisoners, and the Prosecuting Attorney asked the Court that counsel might be assigned them. The Presiding Magistrate then inquired if the prisoners had counsel. John Brown replied:
Thayer and Eldridge, 1860.
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