It was a cold autumn night in the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia (part of modern-day West Virginia). The streets were quiet, only the flowing of the Potomac and Shenandoah River and crickets chirping could be heard. No one in the town knew at the moment, but war was about to be waged on them, not by a formal, organized military, but a band of freed black men and white abolitionists led by a man, who, in the following decades, would be seen as a heroic martyr fighting for a noble cause by those in the North, and a madman terrorist by those in the South.
Background
John Brown was born on May 9th, 1800 in Connecticut. From a young age, he was exposed to the abolitionist cause as his father, Owen Brown, was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, a network of secret routes leading to the northern U.S. where slaves in bondage could be free. John Brown was also deeply religious and believed slavery was a sin against God, and by the 1830s, he believed it was his mission to bring the “death blow” to slavery. Despite many financial and personal struggles, he stayed committed to his goal of abolition. Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote after meeting Brown that, “though a white gentleman, was in sympathy a black man and as deeply interested in our cause as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery.”
With the escalation and unwillingness of the South to stop expanding slavery, and the likeliness of peacefully abolishing slavery becoming less likely, Brown determined that violence was the only way to achieve immediate abolition. When five of Brown’s sons moved to Kansas, a territory that allowed popular sovereignty (the people to decide) whether the territory would be free or a slave state, they, and other pro-abolitionists ended up finding themselves under threat by those who supported slavery. John Brown responded by going to Kansas with a stash of weapons and taking part in what’s now known as Bleeding Kansas, with brutal reprisals between pro and anti-slavery settlers. Brown himself lead one of these reprisals known as the Pottawatomie massacre in which five pro-slavery settlers were shot and stabbed. The massacre is seen as his most controversial act and his motives are muddled with revisionist history.
In 1859, John Brown was ready to act upon a grand plan to bring his “death blow” upon slavery: capture the key town of Harpers Ferry and its arsenal then spread word to slaves in the South of the raid in hopes they’d initiate a large slave revolt. Though they did not have nearly enough recruits as he was hoping, only 21, he decided they could not wait any longer. Despite warning from Frederick Douglass that his plan was suicidal, Brown proceeded with it anyways.
The Death Blow
Brown and his 21 men departed from a barn in Maryland with a wagon of weapons to make the four mile trip to Harpers Ferry, arriving around midnight. They secured the bridges, cut telegraph lines to prevent news reaching D.C., and captured the armory. They also took a night watchman hostage, as well as Lewis Washington (great-grandnephew of George Washington). By midnight, the arsenal at Harpers Ferry was under “Captain” Brown and his men. All seemed to be going to plan. But, unfortunately for Brown and his 21 raiders, this is where his ambitious plan began to fall apart.
First, two of the raiders failed to capture a watchman on the railroad bridge, who initially believed the raiders to be train robbers. Then, a free African American railroad porter was fatally shot by the same two raiders when he went onto the bridge to look for the watchman, which then drew the attention of a physician who lived near the bridge. In yet another careless act, they let the physician go, who ended up spreading news of the raid. Finally, John Brown made his own mistake, when he let a passenger train carry on past Harpers Ferry, allowing for the news to be carried down the line.
By the morning of the 17th, townspeople became aware of what was going on and joined up with militias from other towns on besieging the raiders, forcing the raiders to take shelter in the Arsenal’s fire engine house. One by one, Brown’s raiders were killed or wounded. Brown realized that the slave uprising wasn’t going to accumulate and that his chances of escape were dashed. Attempts to negotiate failed and by midnight of the 18th, 88 U.S. Marines arrived under Lt. Col Robert E. Lee and Lt. Israel Greene. At dawn, Lee sent Lt. J.E.B. Stuart up under a white flag of truce to offer Brown the option to surrender and be spared, but Brown refused. So the U.S. Marines, using sledgehammers and a ladder, knocked down the doors and in three minutes, Brown and the remaining raiders were captured.
Aftermath
By the end of the raid, 10 of John Brown’s 21 raiders were dead, seven (including Brown) were captured and later executed, and five escaped capture. Of the hundreds who fought against the raid, six townspeople and one Marine were dead, while a total of 18 were wounded. All those who were taken hostage were rescued. Brown was taken to Charlestown, Virginia to go on trial. The trial for John Brown was not held under federal court, but, under the Virginian Governor’s demands, the Virginia state court (despite the fact the Harpers Ferry Arsenal was federal property). The trial was swift, and the obvious bias of pro-slavery Virginia tainted the legitimacy of the trial.
After only 45 minutes of deliberating, the jury found Brown guilty on all charges and on November 2nd, sentenced Brown to death by hanging. A month later, in Charlestown, Virginia, John Brown was led to a scaffold near the town’s courthouse, and hanged. The crowd of military men watching the execution had some ironic spectators, such as Thomas Jackson (later given the nickname “Stonewall”), Robert E. Lee, and John Wilkes Booth. The former two would lead armies against U.S. forces under the Confederate flag, killing hundreds of thousands, but won’t ever receive any punishment for their actions. Before leaving the courthouse, Brown gave his jailer a paper. On it read Brown’s final statements:
“I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away; but with blood. I had as I now think: vainly flatter myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.”
While Brown’s raid failed, his ideology horrified Southern plantation owners; they imagined the North was filled with radical abolitionists that wanted to see a violent end to slavery. This was just about the second to last straw for the South. The final straw came when the 1860 Presidential Election came around. Moderate abolitionists and Republican Abraham Lincoln won the election and in response, Southern states began to enact secession, going on to form the Confederate States of America.
As civil war dawned upon the Union, people’s views on Brown quickly turned in favor of him, and he became a martyr in the North. So much so that a song was written called John Brown’s Body, which would be adapted into many other versions. The best known version is the Battle Hymn of the Republic, describing, in a very John Brown style, divine retribution, purging sin, and Union soldiers being made Christ-like in their sacrifice. Though Brown now lay in a grave, Brown’s soul marched on with millions of Union soldiers into a deadly and devastating war that would redefine the United States of America.
John Brown is still a controversial historic figure for his violent actions and driving the North and South even farther apart. His raid, subsequent trial, and previous actions in Kansas are listed as some of the many events leading to the American Civil War. But whether you endorse him or despise him, it cannot be denied that his cause for action is one we in the 21st century have to appreciate.
Note – I also encourage you to do your own research and draw up your own conclusions, as this article still doesn’t do total justice to this topic. But hopefully you’ve at least learned something new from this article that was supposed to be only four paragraphs. Ah well, history is the story of us and all stories deserve to be told.
