The Secret Six, the Northern men who supported Brown's assault on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, were committed to shielding themselves. After the Civil War, however, their agent, Franklin Sanborn, in advocating for a “true account” of the event in letters reprinted here, identified its main, and some supporting, actors.

In 1915, Dr. George E. Cragin delivered a candid (and heretofore unpublished) lecture to the Oneida Medical Club on male continence, or coitus reservatus , a practice supporting the Oneida Community’s concept of complex marriage, or free love. A portion of a published article to which Cragin alludes, containing an account by one disaffected woman member, is offered in counterpoint.