On the day of Brown's execution, bells were tolled and minute guns fired in many places in the North, and church services and public meetings were held for the purpose of glorifying his deeds and sanctifying the cause he represented, recognizing in him a martyr to the teachings of the abolitionists. Eventually his name became the slogan under which, as a battle hymn, the Northern troops invaded and overran the South.
In reference to Brown's invasion of Virginia, Hon. A. H. Stephens, in his history of the United States, says: "This act greatly inflamed the Southern mind, especially as it was lauded by the official authorities of those Northern States which had refused to comply with their obligations under the Constitution in the matter of the rendition of fugitive slaves."
It is interesting to note the men who appeared upon the scenes of these opening hostilities between the North, and the South, and who subsequently became famous or celebrated characters in the great drama of the civil war. Among those who became Confederate generals were: S. Cooper, R. E. Lee, J. E. B. Stuart, John B. Floyd and Henry A. Wise; and among colonels, C. J. Faulkner and A. R. Boteler. In the committee of the United States Senate, appointed by resolution of December 14, 1859, to inquire into the facts attending this invasion, were Hons. Jefferson Davis and J. M. Mason, and this committee had before it as witnesses, Hons. W. H. Seward, J. R. Giddings, Henry Wilson and Andrew Hunter. John A. Andrews, of Massachusetts, secured funds to pay Brown's counsel.
