On this night in 1859 John Brown led his 18 soldiers from their hideout in the Maryland hills to the nearby town of Harpers Ferry, WV (Virginia at the time). He planned to seize the muskets in the Armory there and arm the slaves on the surrounding farms. He expected the slaves would rise spontaneously and join him on his march south in a campaign to end slavery.
John Brown was born in 1800 and grew up in an abolitionist area of Ohio. His father helped slaves escape to Canada. Brown studied for the ministry, ran out of money and returned home to work in his father's tannery. He married and started his own tannery in Pennsylvania. His farm was a major stop on the underground railroad.
As relations between North and South worsened, Brown got more involved with the abolition movement. He met a group of businessmen in Massachusetts who would provide financial support for his militia. Things came to a head in Kansas in the late 1850s. Settlers from the North and the South were moving to Kansas. A vote would determine whether Kansas would be slave or free. Extremists on both sides thought the best way to cancel an opponents vote was to kill the voter. Brown and his sons were involved in several skirmishes before thing settled down.
Brown's experience in "Bleeding Kansas" convinced him that slavery could only be ended by force. In July, 1859 Brown rented a farm in Maryland, four miles from Harpers Ferry. His little army included 13 white men and 5 black men. Three of Brown's sons were in the group. His daughter was a lookout and a daughter-in-law was cook. The group had to stay indoors during the day to avoid arousing suspicion. At night they practiced drilling.
The Armory at Harpers Ferry was one of only two places that manufactured rifles for the Army, the other being in Springfield, Mass. The Armory was only lightly guarded and Brown expected that once word got out that he had taken the Armory, local slaves and whites would join him. Brown would arm these recruits and the group would move south, liberating slaves as they went. They would only fight in self-defense.
Things went well for Brown initially. They captured the Armory and cut the telegraph line to Washington. The first casualty of the night was a baggage handler at the railroad station. When he refused to freeze, he was shot in the back and died soon after. He was a black man. Brown halted an eastbound train at 1:00 am, but let it go at sunrise. He later admitted this was his one big mistake since the train was able to spread the word about the raid at the next station.
Brown's other big mistake was hanging around town waiting for two or three thousand slaves to join him. Eventually the townspeople got themselves organized and pinned the raiders down in the fire station. By 3:00 pm, a militia company arrived and managed to free several of Brown's hostages. Early next morning, a company of marines arrived from Washington. Robert E. Lee, who happened to be home on leave from Texas, was put in charge.
The next morning Brown was offered a chance to surrender, but said he preferred to die on the spot. The militia was offered the opportunity to storm the fire station, but their commander declined, so Lee sent in the marines. The first marine in was killed, probably by Brown. Brown himself was almost killed in the scuffle, but his heavy coat saved him from sword thrusts. Two of Brown's sons were killed, a third escaped into the woods. In all, ten of Brown's men died in the raid along with six civilians and the one marine, Private Luke Quinn, an Irish immigrant.
Brown and his surviving men were taken to Charles Town courthouse for trial. The trial began on October 27, and a week later Brown was sentence to death by hanging for treason. He was hanged on December 2. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was part of the security detail. In the crowd who watched was John Wilkes Booth. Walt Whitman was there too. There were a couple of firsts here. This was the first trial to be reported by the national press. And, Brown was the first person executed for treason in U.S. history.
On the morning of his death, he wrote, "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." A little over a year later, South Carolina seceded from the Union, followed by ten other states, and the purging began.
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