After John Brown's capture, American people demanded answers. In the paymaster’s office, bruised and sleep-deprived, Brown’s mind remained sharp. When U.S. Senator James Mason asked who sent him, Brown replied, “I came to free the slaves, and only that.”

Mason pressed him to justify his actions, and Brown responded, “I think you are guilty of a great wrong against God and humanity.” This exchange, between pro-slavery and anti-slavery ideologies, was witnessed by future Civil War figures like Robert E. Lee and J. E. B. Stuart.

Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham, a pro-Southern Democrat, asked if Brown expected a slave uprising. Brown denied it, explaining he intended to free slaves gradually. When Vallandigham asked who sent him, Brown answered, “No man sent me here. It was my own prompting and that of my Maker.”

The three-hour interview, recorded by reporters, turned Brown into a media sensation. The New York Herald described him as calm, with Virginia Governor Henry Wise calling him “the gamest man I ever saw.”

At the end, Brown warned, “You may dispose of me very easily . . . but this question is still to be settled—this [slavery] question I mean—the end of that is not yet.”

John Brown had just prophesized the Civil War.