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John Brown's Raid

© Craig E. Hutchison

A startling event in mid-October of 1859 brought the prospect of a sectional split between North and South even closer. Just three weeks before the presidential elections, John Brown, an anti-slavery crusader who had been involved in the Kansas controversy, lead a small armed band that captured the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. John Brown hated slavery with a passion, believing that it needed to be eradicated from the country. He also believed that if force was necessary in the fight against slavery, then so be it. Brown reasoned that a bold stroke like the attack and capture of Harper's Ferry would unleash a slave revolt in the South. The arsenal, which contained an abundance of arms and ammunition, was situated in a valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains where the borders of Virginia and Maryland meet. Many whites in the area were known to oppose slavery and Brown counted on them for support as well. On the morning of October 16, 1859, Brown and seventeen men overpowered the watchman, cut the telegraph lines, and seized the arsenal. He then took as hostages several prominent slave-owning citizens in the area which alarmed the entire community. Thousands of slaves never flocked to his actions in revolt and the group found themselves confronted by armed citizens and United States Marines led by Colonel Robert E. Lee. After a short time of armed resistance, most of Brown's men lay dead and he himself was wounded. He was captured, taken to Richmond, put on trial for treason, and sentenced to be hanged.

The raid had failed to do what Brown had hoped. No slave joined him in revolt. However, the southern press characterized the whole affair as an extreme and dangerous slave revolt. Hasty conclusions were drawn that the "Black Republicans" of the North were determined to impose their will on the South even if it took violent means to do so. Rhetoric continued to mount during Brown's trial. Speakers throughout the South portrayed all Yankees as potential enemies. Despite almost universal condemnation of the raid from northern society, including almost all Republican politicians and officials, the attitude in the slave states remained suspicious, defensive, and hostile. At the end of his trial, Brown addressed the court. He saw himself as a martyr to a great cause and on the scaffold he displayed much dignity. His words did nothing to explain his actions to the slave states. But, in the North, many saw him in relation to early Christian martyrs. On the morning of his execution, Brown gave his jailor a paper on which he had written a prophecy. The ominous words were as follows: "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."

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