The Raid at Harpers Ferry
On October 16, 1859, abolitionist John Brown and 21 men, including five free blacks and three of
Brown’s sons, crossed the Potomac River and marched to Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in the rain. They cut
telegraph lines, rounded up hostages, and seized parts of the federal arsenal.
failures. His deeply religious parents
instilled in him a hatred of slavery that
led to an early involvement in abolition.
He served as a member of the
“Underground Railroad” and
lived for two years in a
freedman’s community. By
the age of 50, Brown saw
himself as ordained by God
to avenge the evils of slavery.
In August 1855, he joined five
of his sons in Kansas to fight
against the pro-slavery
faction there. Following
the reports of the “sack”
of Lawrence, Kansas,
Brown sought vengeance.
He led six men, including
four of his sons, to the
homes of pro-slavery
families living near
Pottawatomie Creek and
hacked the men andW
ithin 12 hours of Brown’s raid,
militia and locals trapped him
and his men in the federal
armory’s fire engine house. By
midnight the next day, Colonel
Robert E. Lee arrived with 87
Marines to rescue the
hostages and subdue the
raiders. Brown refused to
surrender and the Marines
rushed the engine house,
battering down the door,
killing or wounding
many of the remaining
raiders, and collecting
the hostages unharmed.Abolitionist roots
Born in Connecticut
in 1800, Brown as a
youth and adult moved
regularly, usually after
one of his many businessolder boys to death with broadswords.
In another incident at Osawatomie, he
and his men killed a large number of
pro-slavery raiders from Missouri. These
exploits gained Brown an infamous
reputation and the nickname “Old
Osawatomie Brown.”Funding the raid
Brown now seized upon the idea of
inciting slave insurrection. He believed
that if slaves rose up in great numbers,
the economy of the South would
collapse. In spite of his actions in Kansas,
he traveled openly in New England,
routinely appearing at abolitionist
meetings and private parties. His exploits
and appearance—simple clothing and an
intensity of expression—attracted those
tired of simply talking about slavery.
One by one, Brown gathered a small
group of radical abolitionists, six in all,
who would support and fund his fightBEFORE
In 1858, the year the ruling Democratic
Party lost control of Congress, many
Republicans made powerful speeches on
how the issue of slavery divided the nation.
HALF SLAVE AND HALF FREE
Most famous of these speeches was Abraham
Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech delivered
in Springfield, Illinois, in May 1858, in which he
declared, “I believe this government cannot
endure, permanently half slave and half free.”
The speech went on to refer to the situation in
Kansas ❮❮ 30–31 and the upholding of the
Dred Scott decision ❮❮ 26–27.
IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT
Even more inflammatory was a speech delivered
by New York Senator William Seward in
October 1858 in Rochester. He argued that an
“irrepressible conflict” existed within the
country. The nation “must and will ... become
either entirely a slave-holding nation or a
free-labor nation.” Democrats condemned the
speech as dangerous agitation and when, a year
later, John Brown led the attack on Harpers
Ferry, Northern Democratic and Southern
newspapers blamed Seward’s theory of
an “irrepressible conflict” for Brown’s actions.
Robert E. Lee
By a curious quirk of fate, the
man who would subsequently
command the armies of the
Confederacy led the Federal troops
that foiled the Harpers Ferry raid.Inside the engine house
This engraving in a contemporary newspaper
imagines the scene inside the engine house just
before the Marines broke down the door. The
hostages taken by Brown are standing on the left.