fused to take advantage of an opportunity to escape, and went back and died like a hero with Brown. This man's willing sacrifice of his life was one of many smaller heroic tragedies which were absorbed in the greater one.
Douglass's plan may have been better than Brown's; but, if he had been a hero, he would have gone when Brown implored him. Douglass's defection was, in a way, a prophecy of the failure of the negro race to support Brown; but Brown himself was of the type of men who would accept an isolated act like Shields Green's heroic devotion as a favorable omen, disregarding the more significant act of the other. John Brown's own sons disapproved the blow at Harper's Ferry. He confessed to his son Owen that he felt profound discouragement at this opposition, and said to his men, "As you are opposed to the plan of attacking here, I will resign: we will choose another leader, and I will faithfully obey." He
