| John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry | |||||||
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| Part of pre-Civil War conflicts | |||||||
Harper's Weekly illustration of U.S. Marines attacking John Brown's "Fort" |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| United States of America | Abolitionist Insurgents | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Robert E. Lee | John Brown | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 88 U.S. Marines Virginia Militia Maryland Militia |
16 white men 3 free blacks 1 freed slave 1 fugitive slave |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 1 killed 1 wounded |
10 killed 7 captured 4 escaped |
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| Civilians: 6 killed 9 wounded |
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| Part of a series of articles on... |
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1712 New York Slave Revolt |
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry (also known as John Brown's raid or The raid on Harpers Ferry; in many books the town is called "Harper's Ferry" with an apostrophe-s.[1]) was an attempt by white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia in 1859. Brown's raid was defeated by a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee. John Brown had originally asked Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, both of whom he had met in his formative years as an abolitionist in Springfield, Massachusetts, to join him when he attacked the armory, but illness prevented Tubman from joining him, and Douglass believed that his plan would fail and thus did not join.[2]
In 1794, George Washington selected Harpers Ferry as the best site for the second of two United States Federal Arsenals. The first site selected – for the Springfield Armory in 1777 – was a hilltop in Springfield, Massachusetts, next to which John Brown lived during his formative years as an abolitionist. In 1825, the soldier John H. Hall was contracted to manufacture his famous rifle, the M1819 rifle, at Harper's Ferry.
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John Brown rented the Kennedy Farmhouse, 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Harpers Ferry in Washington County, Maryland,[3] and took up residence under the name Isaac Smith. Brown came with a small group of men minimally trained for military action. His group included 16 white men, 3 free blacks, 1 freed slave, and 1 fugitive slave. Northern abolitionist groups sent 198 breech-loading .52 caliber Sharps carbines ("Beecher's Bibles") and 950 pikes (obtained from Charles Blair, in late September), in preparation for the raid. The arsenal contained 100,000 muskets and rifles. Brown attempted to attract more black recruits. He tried recruiting Frederick Douglass as a liaison officer to the slaves. Douglass declined, indicating to Brown that he believed the raid was a suicide mission. The plan was "an attack on the federal government" that "would array the whole country against us." You "will never get out alive," he warned.[4]
Brown’s plan was not to conduct a sudden raid and then escape to the mountains. Rather, his plan was to use those rifles and pikes he captured at the arsenal, in addition to those he brought along, to arm rebellious slaves with the aim of striking terror to the slaveholders in Virginia. He believed that on the first night of action two to five hundred black adherents would join his line. He ridiculed the militia and regular army that might oppose him. Then he would send agents to nearby plantations, rallying the slaves. He planned to hold Harpers Ferry for a short time, expecting that as many volunteers, white and black, would join him as would form against him. He then would make a rapid movement southward, sending out armed bands along the way. They would free more slaves, obtain food, horses and hostages, and destroy slaveholding morale. Brown planned to follow the Appalachian Mountains south into Tennessee and even Alabama, the heart of the South, making forays into the plains on either side.[5]
On Sunday night, October 16, 1859, Brown left three of his men behind as a rear-guard: his son, Owen Brown; Barclay Coppoc; and Frank Meriam; and led the rest into the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown detached a party under John Cook Jr. to capture Colonel Lewis Washington, great-grandnephew of George Washington, at his nearby Beall-Air estate, some of his slaves, and two relics of George Washington: a sword allegedly presented to Washington by Frederick the Great and two pistols given by the Marquis de Lafayette, which Brown considered talismans.[6] The party carried out its mission and returned via the Allstadt House, where they took more hostages.[7] Brown's main party captured several watchmen and townspeople in Harpers Ferry.
Brown's men needed to capture the weapons and escape before word could be sent to Washington. The raid was going well for Brown's men. They cut the telegraph wire and seized a Baltimore & Ohio train passing through. An African-American baggage handler on the train named Hayward Shepherd, confronted the raiders; they shot and killed him-- ironically a freed slave became the first casualty of the raid. Then, for unknown reasons, Brown let the train continue unimpeded. The conductor alerted the authorities. One of the keys to success was the support of the local slave population. A massive uprising did not occur, and the slaves never rebelled. The townspeople soon began to fight back against the raiders. Nevertheless, Brown's men captured the armory that evening.
Armory workers discovered Brown's men early on the morning of October 17. Local militia, farmers and shopkeepers surrounded the armory. When a company of militia captured the bridge across the Potomac River, any route of escape was cut off. During the day four townspeople were killed, including the mayor. Realizing his escape was cut, Brown took 9 of his captives and moved into the smaller engine house, which would come to be known as John Brown's Fort. The raiders barred off the windows and doors and exchanged the occasional volley with the surrounding forces. At one point Brown sent out his son, Watson, and Aaron Dwight Stevens with a white flag, but Watson was mortally wounded and Stevens was shot and captured. The raid was rapidly deteriorating. One of the raiders named William H. Leeman panicked and tried to escape by swimming across the Potomac River. The townspeople, reportedly drunk, made sport of shooting up Leeman's body. During the intermittent shooting Brown's other son, Oliver, was shot and died after a brief period.
By 3:30 that afternoon, President James Buchanan ordered a detachment of U.S. Marines to march on Harpers Ferry under the command of Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry.
Lee first offered the role of attacking the engine house to the local militia units on the spot. Both militia commanders declined, and Lee turned to the Marines. On the morning of October 18, Col. Lee sent Lt. J.E.B. Stuart, serving as a volunteer aide-de-camp, under a flag of truce to negotiate a surrender of John Brown and his followers. Lee instructed Lt. Israel Greene that if Brown refused, he was to lead the marines in storming the engine house. Stuart told Brown that his men would be spared if they surrendered. Brown refused and Stuart signaled to Lt. Greene and his men. Two marines armed with sledgehammers tried in vain to break through the door. Greene found a wooden ladder, and 10 marines used it as a battering ram to knock the front doors in. Greene was the first through the door and with the assistance of Lewis Washington identified and singled out John Brown. Greene later recounted what happened next:
"Quicker than thought I brought my saber down with all my strength upon [Brown's] head. He was moving as the blow fell, and I suppose I did not strike him where I intended, for he received a deep saber cut in the back of the neck. He fell senseless on his side, then rolled over on his back. He had in his hand a short Sharpe's cavalry carbine. I think he had just fired as I reached Colonel Washington, for the Marine who followed me into the aperture made by the ladder received a bullet in the abdomen, from which he died in a few minutes. The shot might have been fired by some one else in the insurgent party, but I think it was from Brown. Instinctively as Brown fell I gave him a saber thrust in the left breast. The sword I carried was a light uniform weapon, and, either not having a point or striking something hard in Brown's accouterments, did not penetrate. The blade bent double."[8]
The action inside the engine house happened very quickly. In three minutes, all of the raiders still alive were taken prisoner and the action was over.
Robert E. Lee made a summary report of the events that took place at Harpers Ferry. According to Lee's notes Lee believed John Brown was insane, "...the plan [raiding the Harpers Ferry Arsenal] was the attempt of a fanatic or madman." Lee also believed that the African Americans used in the raid were forced to by John Brown himself. "The blacks, whom he [John Brown] forced from their homes in this neighborhood, as far as I could learn, gave him no voluntary assistance." Lee attributed John Brown's "temporary success" by creating panic and confusion and by "magnifying" the number of participants involved in the raid.[9]
Colonel Lee and Lt. Greene searched the surrounding country for fugitives who had participated in the attack. John Brown was taken to the court house in nearby Charles Town for trial. He was found guilty of treason against the commonwealth of Virginia and was hanged on December 2. (This execution was witnessed by the actor John Wilkes Booth, who would later assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.) On the day of his execution, Brown wrote his last prophecy, which said,
“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 flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.”
Four other raiders were executed on December 15 and two more on March 16, 1860.
John Brown was the first white man to use violence in an attempt to end slavery. This first use of violence by a white man scared many in the South, leading the Southern state militias to begin training for their defense of further raids and, consequently, to the militarization of the South in preparation for a Northern invasion.
The first Northern antislavery reaction to Brown's Raid was one of baffled reproach. William Lloyd Garrison called the raid "misguided, wild, and apparently insane." But through the trial, Brown transformed into a martyr. Henry David Thoreau, in A Plea for Captain John Brown, said, "I think that for once the Sharp's rifles and the revolvers were employed in a righteous cause. The tools were in the hands of one who could use them," and said of Brown, "He has a spark of divinity in him."[10] Though "Harper's Ferry was insane," wrote the religious weekly the Independent, "the controlling motive of his demonstration was sublime." To the South, he was a murderer who wanted to deprive them of their property. The North "has sanctioned and applauded theft, murder, and treason," said De Bow's Review.[11][12]
Killed
Captured
[13])
Four raiders escaped and were captured about six months later.
Escaped and never captured
Civilians
(Some claim the two slaves voluntarily joined Brown's raiders, others say Brown forced them to fight. Regardless, one was killed trying to escape across the Potomac River, the other was wounded and died in the Charles Town prison.)
9 other civilians were wounded.
Marines