Shortly after his capture, John Brown wrote a letter to his wife:

"October 31, 1859

My dear Wife and Children, every one,

I suppose you have learned before this by the newspapers that two weeks ago today we were fighting for our lives at Harper's Ferry; that during the fight Watson was mortally wounded, Oliver killed, William Thompson killed, and Dauphin slightly wounded; that on the following day I was taken prisoner, immediately after which I received several sabre cuts on my head and bayonet stabs in my body. . .

Under all these terrible calamities, I feel quite cheerful in the assurance that God reigns and will overrule all for his glory and the best possible good. I feel no consciousness of guilt in the matter, nor even mortification on account of my imprisonment and irons; and I feel perfectly sure that very soon no member of my family will feel any possible disposition to "blush on my account."

Already dear friends at a distance, with kindest sympathy, are cheering me with the assurance that posterity, at least, will do me justice. . .

I am in charge of a jailer like the one who took charge of Paul and Silas; and you may rest assured that both kind hearts and kind faces are more or less about rile, while thousands are thirsting for my blood. "These light afflictions, which are but for a moment, shall work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' I hope to be able to write you again. Copy this, Ruth, and send it to your sorrow stricken brothers to comfort them. Write me a few words in regard to the welfare of all. God Almighty bless you all, and make you 'joyful in the midst of all your tribulations!'

Write to John Brown, Charleston, Jefferson County, Va., care of Captain John Avis. "

Source: Franklin Sanborn (ed.) The Life and Letters of John Brown (1891).