John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry

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. ) was an attempt by the white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown's raid, accompanied by 20 men in his party, 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 in his raid, but Tubman was prevented by illness, and Douglass declined, as he believed Brown's plan would fail.

Brown's preparation
John Brown rented the Kennedy Farmhouse, with a small cabin nearby, 4 mi north of Harpers Ferry in Washington County, Maryland, 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.

The Kennedy Farmhouse served as "barracks, arsenal, supply depot, mess hall, debate club, and home." It was very crowded and life there was tedious. Brown was worried about arousing neighbors' suspicions. Consequently, the raiders had to stay indoors during the daytime, without much to do but study, drill, argue politics, discuss religion, and play cards and checkers. Brown's daughter-in-law Martha served as cook and housekeeper. His daughter Annie served as lookout. Brown wanted women at the farm to prevent suspicions of a large all-male group. The raiders went outside at night to drill and get fresh air. Thunderstorms were welcome since they concealed noise from Brown's neighbors.

Brown did not plan to have a sudden raid and escape to the mountains. Rather, he intended 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 in the slaveholders in Virginia. He believed that on the first night of action, 200-500 black slaves would join his line. He ridiculed the militia and regular army that might oppose him. He planned to 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 would move rapidly southward, sending out armed bands along the way. They would free more slaves, obtain food, horses and hostages, and destroy slaveholders' 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.

Advance knowledge of raid
Brown paid Hugh Forbes $600 to be his drillmaster. Forbes was an English mercenary who served Garibaldi in Italy. Forbes' Manual for the Patriotic Volunteer was found in Brown's papers after the raid. Brown and Forbes argued over strategy and money. Forbes wanted more money so that his family in Europe could join him. Forbes sent threatening letters to Brown's backers in an attempt to get money. Failing in this effort, Forbes traveled to Washington, DC and met with Senators William Seward and Henry Wilson. He denounced Brown to Seward as a "vicious man" who needed to be restrained, but did not disclose any plans for the raid. Forbes partially exposed the plan to Senator Wilson and others. Wilson wrote to Samuel Howe, a Brown backer, advising him to get Brown's backers to retrieve the weapons intended for use in Kansas. Brown's backers told him that the weapons should not be used "for other purposes, as rumor says they may be." In response to warnings, Brown had to return to Kansas to shore up support and discredit Forbes. Some historians believe that this trip cost Brown valuable time and momentum.

Estimates are that at least eighty people knew about Brown's planned raid in advance. Many others had reasons to believe that Brown was contemplating a move against the South. One of those who knew was David J. Gue of Springdale, Iowa. Gue was a Quaker who believed that Brown and his men would be killed. Gue, his brother, and another man decided to warn the government "to protect Brown from the consequences of his own rashness." Gue sent an anonymous letter dated August 20, 1859 to Secretary of War John B Floyd. The letter said that "old John Brown,' late of Kansas," was planning to organize a slave uprising in the South. It said that Brown had a secret agent "in an armory" in Maryland. The letter said that Brown was stockpiling weapons at a secret location in Maryland. Gue warned that Brown planned to leave Maryland and enter Virginia at Harpers Ferry. Gue acknowledged that he was afraid to disclose his identify but asked Floyd not to ignore his warning "on that account." He was hoping that Floyd would send soldiers to Harpers Ferry. He hoped that the extra security would motivate Brown to call off his plans.

Even though President Buchanan offered a $250 reward for Brown, Floyd did not connect the John Brown of Gue's letter to the John Brown of Pottawatomie, Kansas fame. He knew that Maryland did not have an armory (Harpers Ferry is just across the river from Maryland). Floyd figured that the letter writer was a crank and forgot about it. He later said that "a scheme of such wickedness and outrage could not be entertained by any citizen of the United States."

October 16


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; 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. The party carried out its mission and returned via the Allstadt House, where they took more hostages. 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. A free black man was the first casualty of the raid. Hayward Shepherd, an African-American baggage handler on the train, confronted the raiders; they shot and killed him. For some reason, Brown let the train continue, and the conductor alerted the authorities down the line. Brown had been sure that he would win the support of local slaves in joining the rebellion, but a massive uprising did not occur, because word had not been spread about the uprising, so the slaves nearby did not know about it. Although the white townspeople soon began to fight back against the raiders, Brown's men succeeded in capturing the armory that evening.

October 17
Army 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 for the raiders 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. William H. Leeman, one of the raiders, panicked and tried to escape by swimming across the Potomac River, but he was shot and killed. During the intermittent shooting, Brown's other son, Oliver, was also shot; he died after a brief period.

At around 3:00 p.m. a militia company led by Captain E.G. Alburtis arrived by train from Martinsburg, Virginia. Most of the militia members were Baltimore & Ohio Railroad employees. The militia forced the raiders inside the engine house. They broke into the guardroom and freed over two dozen prisoners. Eight militia men were wounded. Alburtis said that he could have ended the raid with help from other citizens.

By 3:30 that afternoon, President James Buchanan ordered a detachment of U.S. Marines (the only government troops in the immediate area) to march on Harpers Ferry under the command of Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry. Lee had been on leave when he was hastily recalled to lead the detachment and had to command it while wearing his civilian clothes.

October 18
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, Colonel Lee sent Lt. J.E.B. Stuart, serving as a volunteer aide-de-camp, under a white 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 walked towards the front of the engine house where he told Brown that his men would be spared if they surrendered. Brown refused and as Stuart walked away, he signaled a "thumbs down" to Lt. Greene and his men standing nearby.

Seconds later, Greene led a platoon of marines to storm the engine house. Two marines armed with sledgehammers tried in vain to break through the door, but were forced to fall back. Greene found a wooden ladder, and he and about 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 someone 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."

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.

October 19
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 in the raid were forced by Brown. "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.

Aftermath
Colonel Lee and Lt. Greene searched the surrounding country for fugitives who had participated in the attack. 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.

Southerners had a mixed attitude towards their slaves. Many southern whites lived in fear of a slave insurrection. Paradoxically, whites claimed that slaves were well treated and content in bondage. After the raid southerners initially lived in fear of slave uprisings and invasion by armed abolitionists. The South's reaction entered a second phase at around the time of Brown's execution. Southerners were relieved that no slaves had volunteered to help Brown. Southerners felt vindicated in their claims that slaves were content. After Northerners had expressed admiration for Brown's motives, with some treating him as a martyr, southern opinion evolved into what James McPherson called "unreasoning fury."

The first Northern reaction among antislavery advocates 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." 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.

John Brown's raiders
Killed
 * John Henry Kagi (Shot and killed while crossing a river. First buried in common grave at Harpers Ferry; reburied 1899 in a common grave near John Brown at North Elba, New York.)
 * Jeremiah G. Anderson (At age 26, was mortally wounded and killed by a Marine's bayonet during the final assault on the engine house. Body claimed by Winchester Medical College as a teaching cadaver; last resting place unknown.)
 * William Thompson (First buried in common grave at Harpers Ferry; reburied 1899 in a common grave near John Brown at North Elba, New York.)
 * Dauphin Thompson (Killed in the storming of the engine house. First buried in common grave at Harpers Ferry; reburied 1899 in a common grave near John Brown at North Elba, New York.)
 * Oliver Brown (At age 21, the youngest of John Brown’s three sons to participate in the action, he was mortally wounded on the 17th inside the engine house and died the next day. He was first buried in common grave at Harpers Ferry; and reburied in 1899 in a common grave near John Brown at North Elba, New York.)
 * Watson Brown (At age 24, was mortally wounded outside the engine house while carrying a white flag to negotiate with the opposing militia; he died two days later. As his body was claimed by Winchester Medical College as a teaching cadaver, Union troops burned the college during an attack during the Civil War. Brown was reburied in 1882 in a grave near his father's in North Elba, New York.)
 * Stewart Taylor. (First buried in common grave at Harpers Ferry; reburied 1899 in a common grave near John Brown at North Elba, New York.)
 * William Leeman (Shot while trying to escape across the Potomac River. First buried in common grave at Harpers Ferry; reburied 1899 in a common grave near John Brown at North Elba, New York.)
 * Lewis Sheridan Leary (A 24-year-old free black, he was mortally wounded while trying to escape across the Shenandoah River. He was stationed in the rifle factory with Kagi. Alleged to be buried at John Brown gravesite at North Elba, New York. Cenotaph memorial in Oberlin, Ohio.)
 * Dangerfield Newby (At about 35, he was born into slavery, with a white father who was not his master. He was given permission to move to Ohio along with his mother and siblings, but when he tried to gain freedom for his wife and children, their master refused. This inspired Newby to join Brown’s raid. He was the first raider killed. (His body was mutilated; for example, his ears were cut off by someone in the crowd as souvenirs.) First he was buried at Harpers Ferry; reburied in 1899 in a common grave near John Brown at North Elba, New York.)

Captured
 * John Brown (also wounded) Tried, convicted and executed by hanging December 2, 1859 in nearby Charles Town.
 * Aaron Dwight Stevens (shot and captured October 18. Hanged March 16, 1860 in Charles Town. First buried in New Jersey; reburied 1899 in a common grave near John Brown at North Elba, New York.)
 * Edwin Coppock (At age 24, he shot and killed the mayor of Harpers Ferry, Fontaine Beckham, during the raid. He was later executed at Charles Town on December 16, 1859 and was buried in Salem, Ohio.)
 * John Anthony Copeland, Jr. (A 25-year-old free black, he joined the raiders along with his uncle Lewis Leary. He was captured during the raid and executed on December 16, 1859 in Charles Town. The body was claimed by Winchester Medical College as a teaching cadaver. The last resting place is unknown. Cenotaph memorial in Oberlin, Ohio.)
 * Shields Green (At about age 23, Green was an escaped slave from South Carolina; captured in the engine house on October 18, 1859 and hanged December 16, 1859 in Charles Town. The body was claimed by Winchester Medical College as a teaching cadaver. The last resting place is unknown. Cenotaph memorial in Oberlin, Ohio.)
 * John Edwin Cook (Escaped into Pennsylvania but soon captured. Hanged December 16, 1859 in Charles Town. Body sent to New York.)
 * Albert E. Hazlett (Escaped into Pennsylvania but soon captured. Hanged March 16, 1860. Buried at Eagleswood Mansion in Perth Amboy, New Jersey; reburied 1899 in a common grave near John Brown at North Elba, New York.)
 * A.D. Stevens (Buried at Eagleswood Mansion in Perth Amboy, New Jersey; disinterred 1899) )

Four raiders escaped and were captured about six months later.

Escaped and never captured
 * Barclay Coppock (Died during US Civil War.)
 * Charles Plummer Tidd (Died during US Civil War.)
 * Osborne Perry Anderson (Served as an officer in Union Army, and wrote a memoir about the raid.)
 * Owen Brown
 * Francis Jackson Meriam (Served in the army as a captain in the 3rd South Carolina Colored Infantry.)

Others
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.)
 * Hayward Shepherd (African-American B&O baggage handler; killed.)
 * Thomas Boerly (Townsperson; killed.)
 * George W. Turner (Townsperson; killed.)
 * Fontaine Beckham (Town mayor; killed.)
 * A slave belonging to Col. Washington was killed.
 * A slave belonging to hostage John Allstad was killed.

9 other civilians were wounded.

Marines
 * Luke Quinn (Killed during the storming of the engine house.)
 * Matthew Ruppert (Shot in the face while storming the engine house.)

Liberated Slaves
Mayor Beckham's Will Book called for the liberation of Isaac Gilbert, his wife, and three children upon his death. When Edwin Coppock killed Beckham the five slaves were free.