eight o'clock
Side by side they would sweep the South with fire and sword . On arrival at his headquarters on the hill he learned that a revival of religion was going on in the town below and he fixed Sunday , the seventeenth of October , as the day of the Deed . Harper 's Ferry would not only be asleep that night -- every foe would be lulled in songs of praise to God . At eight o'clock on Sunday night , the sixteenth of October , 1859 , John Brown drove his one-horse wagon to the door of the rude log house in which he had hidden with his disciples for four months . It was a damp , chill evening of mid fall . Heavy rain clouds obscured the stars and not a traveler ventured along the wind-swept roads . From the attic were loaded into the wagon crowbars , sledge hammers , iron pikes and oil-soaked faggots .