Why Did John Brown Lead an 1859 Read on a Government Arsenal in Harpers Ferry

Taking The Town: Harpers Ferry, W.Va., sits at the confluence of the Potomac River (right) and Shenandoah River (left). In 1859, John Brown and his raiders gained control of the town and its guns past taking both Shenandoah and Potomac bridges, essentially cutting the town off.

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On the evening of Oct. 16, 1859, abolitionist John Brown led 21 men down the road to Harpers Ferry in what is today Westward Virginia. The plan was to take the town'south federal armory and, ultimately, ignite a nationwide uprising against slavery.

The raid failed, just six years subsequently, Chocolate-brown's dream was realized and slavery became illegal.

In his new book, Midnight Ascent: John Brownish and the Raid That Sparked the Civil State of war, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz tells the story of John Brownish, a homo destined to change history through an uprising that has oftentimes gone unmentioned in Civil War stories.

A Fearless Leader: John Brown was born in Connecticut and raised by a father who was passionately anti-slavery. He was 59 years sometime when he led his raid on Harpers Ferry.

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A Fearless Leader: John Dark-brown was born in Connecticut and raised by a father who was passionately anti-slavery. He was 59 years erstwhile when he led his raid on Harpers Ferry.

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Planning The Raid

At the Kennedy Farmhouse, just outside Harpers Ferry, Horwitz shows NPR's Scott Simon where Brownish and his co-conspirators pretended to exist farmers while they planned their raid.

"The Kennedy farm is where Brown gathers his weapons and guerrilla fighters in the summer earlier the raid," Horwitz says. "This is really the tense, sweaty atomic number 82-up to the action, and he assembles this remarkable ring of 21 men: farmers, factory workers, avoiding slaves, iii of his sons and even his own teenage girl and daughter-in-law who come hither to deed as housekeepers and lookouts."

While many abolitionists were condescending toward blacks, believing them to exist too docile to fight for their freedom, Brown made a point of recruiting avoiding slaves and freed blacks to be part of the raid.

"He felt that it was both necessary and a moral imperative that blacks fight alongside whites for their freedom," Horwitz says. "So of his band of 21 men, v of them are black."

Midnight Rising

John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War

Brown'south regular army consisted of men who were and then moved by their leader'south cause that they were willing to lay down their lives for it. There was just something about Brown that fabricated men desire to follow him. Co-ordinate to Horwitz, one Boston hostess described it every bit a moral magnetism that gave him the power to stir a person's conscience. Transcendentalist Bronson Alcott chosen him "'the manliest man I ever met."

But Brownish was also a striking physical grapheme with an unbending confidence. He hoped his raid would spark a conflagration that would be the terminate of slavery — he didn't merely desire to free the slaves of Harpers Ferry; he wanted to shock the nation.

"Hither you had a U.S. armory, a symbol of American ability, and he wanted to practice something dramatic to really wake the state up," Horwitz says. "I think attacking Harpers Ferry was as much for its shock value as for its logistical value."

The 'Horrible Scene' At John Brown's Fort

On the dark of the raid, Brown and his men seized the baby-sit on the bridge to Harpers Ferry and sneaked across the Potomac River, catching the town by surprise.

Harpers Ferry sits at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, and so past property the span over the Potomac and the bridge over the Shenandoah, the raiders had full command of the town and its 100,000 guns.

Simply that didn't last long.

Thirty-two hours after the raid began, it came to an cease in a small brick engine house that later came to exist known as John Dark-brown'due south Fort. Trapped in the structure with his remaining men, ten hostages and five newly liberated slaves, Brown faced a howling mob outside and a group of U.Due south. Marines led by Robert E. Lee.

Inside the engine house, with one son dead and the other dying, Brown waited for the assault.

John Brown'south Last Stand: After the raid, John Brown'southward Fort — part of the U.S. Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry — became the boondocks's only armory building to survive the Ceremonious War.

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John Brown's Last Stand: Subsequently the raid, John Chocolate-brown's Fort — part of the U.S. Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry — became the town'south simply armory building to survive the Civil War.

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"It's a horrible scene," Horwitz says. "We're in a stable essentially. It's the size of what today would be a two-car garage and you accept 25 or so terrified men in here who tin't even see out considering the windows are so high."

Brown refused to surrender, so instead the Marines bashed their manner in, killing several of the raiders. Brown himself got beaten to the footing, just miraculously survived.

If he had died, Horwitz says, "This story might have been very different. It might accept been a kind of odd, trivial episode. It's really in defeat that Brownish triumphs."

John Brown went on trial the next week, charged with treason, kickoff-caste murder and inciting insurrection. When he was given the chance to address the courtroom, he fabricated no excuses and did non plead for his life. Instead, he told those gathered:

If it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice and mingle my blood farther with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are overlooked by wicked, brutal and unjust enactments — I submit; so allow it be washed!

Brown was hanged on Dec. two, 1859.

A 'Stone In The Shoe' Of U.South. History

According to Horwitz, there's an statement to be made that the Civil War began in 1859 at Harpers Ferry, rather than in 1861 at Fort Sumter or Manassas, considering that's where things actually started going downhill.

Tony Horwitz has written for The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. His books include Confederates in the Attic and Baghdad Without a Map.

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Tony Horwitz has written for The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. His books include Confederates in the Attic and Baghdad Without a Map.

Courtesy of Tony Horwitz

"At the time of Chocolate-brown's raid, the nation is divided but people still think maybe we tin compromise and prevaricate and somehow put off this reckoning over the division in our land and the division over slavery," he says.

Brownish'due south raid crushed that hope.

"Y'all had Northerners and Southerners [at Harpers Ferry] killing each other over slavery," he says. "It really exposes and greatly widens the split up between North and S."

The uprising Brownish tried to set off never flared; merely the state of war he always thought would exist the toll of slavery began simply 16 months later.

Today, Horwitz says, Brown's story continues to raise persistent questions: Did John Brown fire the commencement shots of the Civil State of war? Do ends e'er justify the means? Was he right to employ violence to try to put an end to slavery?

"Brown really touches many of the hot buttons in our history and civilisation: violence, race, religious fundamentalism, the correct of the private to defy their government," Horwitz says.

"He's that stone in the shoe of our history."

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2011/10/22/141564113/the-harpers-ferry-rising-that-hastened-civil-war

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