The doors were driven in, Brown firing upon the assailants and killing or wounding two; but he and his men were cut down and captured; they were turned over to the Virginia authorities, and Lee, having performed the duty assigned him returned to Washington, and soon afterward to Texas.
He remained there, commanding the department, until the early spring of 1861.

He was then recalled to Washington at the moment when the conflict between the North and the South was about to commence.
VI.
LEE AND SCOTT.
Lee found the country burning as with fever, and the air hot with contending passions.

The animosity, long smouldering between the two sections, was about to burst into the flame of civil war; all men were taking sides; the war of discussion on the floor of Congress was about to yield to the clash of bayonets and the roar of cannon on the battle-field.
Any enumeration of the causes which led to this unhappy state of affairs would be worse than useless in a volume like the present.

Even less desirable would be a discussion of the respective blame to be attached to each of the great opponents in inaugurating the bitter and long-continued struggle.

Such a discussion would lead to nothing, and would probably leave every reader of the same opinion as before.