Early in the evening Colonel Robert E. Lee and lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, both of them afterward famous as Confederate generals, arrived by train from Washington with a company of United States marines. Stuart came into the engine-house with a light, under a flag of truce, to parley. He exclaimed, on seeing Brown, "Why, aren't you old Osawatomie Brown of Kansas, whom I once had there as my prisoner?" "Yes," said Brown; "but you did not keep me. "This was the first intimation that the Harper's Ferry people had of Brown's identity. Stuart advised Brown to "trust to the clemency of the government"; but Brown answered, "I prefer to die just here." After two more of his men had been killed, and more parleying had taken place, the marines got a ladder, and, using it as a battering ram, burst in the engine-house door and poured into the room. Lieutenant Israel Green, of the marines, leaped
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