I don't know if you have already read it, but the report of the "Select Committee of the Senate appointed to inquire into the late invasion and seizure of the public property at Harper's Ferry" is a very interesting document. Sen. James Mason of Virginia was appointed its chairman, and Jefferson Davis was also a member of the committee. The entire 255-page report has been republished in the "Mass Violence in America" series "The Invasion at Harper's Ferry, Robert M. Fogelson and Richard E. Rubenstein, eds. (1969). The connection of John Brown to the New England abolitionists is well presented in another book, "The Secret Six- The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown," Edward Reneham, Jr. (1997). The Secret Six included Gerrett Smith, Thomas W. Higginson, and Samuel Gridly Howe.

John