2nd of December, 1859 (11:00 AM)

  Charles Town, Virginia

  Two-thousand or so soldiers were gathered around a carriage. Inside it was not an honored guest or a high-ranking official. No, guarded by an army of two-thousand was just one man convicted of treason. He was on his way to the gallows, sitting on his own coffin as was usual for the condemned.

  The man on the coffin had no chance of escape; all of his allies had been driven out of the city. There had not even been a minister available that could dare visit this man lest they draw the ire of the town.

  Yet, despite his upcoming death, this old man seemed calm. His mortal body would soon lie moldering in a grave, that much was inevitable. Yet, he had already finished his divinely ordained mission. He had spent the last month in prison responding to letters, talked to reporters, done everything to advance the cause he had fought for all his life.

  The man was way too old to run away and become a fugitive once more. He had accepted that he’d commit one last great act, that of becoming a martyr.

  The carriage finally came to a stop in front of a wooden scaffold with a noose prepared on top of it. The man was composed and walked calmly, as if he was going out for luncheon and not to death, escorted by the sheriff and his lackeys. He uttered what’d be his last words to the sheriff: “This is a beautiful country.”

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  The man had a clear view of the surroundings now that he was standing atop the platform. Two entire battalions of troops were protecting him, an ordinary old man if not for his acts. They had even put a cannon directed at the scaffolding; it was clear that he had succeeded in his death; he had succeeded in striking fear. If they were so afraid of one old man, what’d they do when others inevitably followed in his footsteps?

  The noose, made out of cotton from South Carolina, was finally tied to the man’s neck along with a hood covering his head.

  The audience was silent; the troops had done their best to make sure no one sympathetic to him was nearby. The circle of men around him was so large that nobody outside the circle would be able to hear him if he had decided to hold one last speech. Yet, the troops could not drive off the man’s greatest collaborator that still listened to him: the Lord himself.

  The man had instructed the sheriff not to make him wait. The noose tightened around his neck following a short drop.

  Suddenly the man’s vision turned fully white, as if divine light had suddenly engulfed him. He felt as if he was floating on top of clouds, not suffocating anymore. The man heard a faint voice that seemed to come from a great distance “Damn it, I asked for Jon Brown, not John Brown!” The voice seemed greatly annoyed. “How do you people mess up so badly! There’s a whole bloody century and a half between the two!”

  The aforementioned John Brown was greatly discombobulated. He had been ready to die, yet, the voice he heard seemed far from divine.

  “Alright, just send both of them. I can’t bother with fixing this mess.”

  The white void around Brown slowly faded, turning to a black void when he finally went unconscious…

  [Oh dear, you are dead!]

  here and .

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  Some extra historical context: This prologue depicts John Brown's execution in Virginia. All the images in the prologue are real, contemporary ones related to his hanging. Yes, it was true that they hung him with cotton made from slave-labor. Yes, there were two-thousand soldiers guarding just one man. And yes, they did have an actual, functioning cannon pointed towards his execution site (there was also a cannon outside the courthouse during his trial). I did my best to make a historically accurate depiction of his last moments in life.

  Cannon standing outside the courthouse, contemporary newspaper illustration from 1859. Cannon vs. Brown, who wins?

  : was an radical American abolitionist that was executed for treason (also being the first person in the US to be executed for treason) after leading a and failing to incite a slave insurrection. Before his famous raid he also made out of abolitionist volunteers to fight against pro-slavery forces there and turn Kansas into a free state (state where slavery was banned).

  American Civil War, ending in slavery being abolished in the US with the . In a very roundabout way, John Brown was succesful in his raid even if it cost him his life. John Brown, waiting for his execution, could guess that his death would ignite a spark, and wrote the following in a letter to his brother:

  I am gaining in health slowly, and am quite cheerful in view of my approaching end, — being fully persuaded that I am worth inconceivably more to hang than any other purpose.