Chapter 103: Brown’s attack Harper’s Ferry succeeds but then falters.

On Saturday night, October 15, 1859, the raid begins like clockwork. The bridges over the Potomac and Shenandoah are under control; telegraph lines are cut; the U.S Armory and Arsenal are captured; hostages taken; and a group of plantation slaves have been brought to town to receive their instructions.

Then everything collapses when the assembled Blacks refuse to take up the pikes that Brown offers them, showing fear for their lives rather than the expected spirit for revenge. At that point, Brown calls off the attack and decides to make his last stand in Harper’s Ferry.

Two days of savage fighting follow — including the deaths of Oliver and Watson Brown along with the city’s popular Mayor — before Colonel Robert E. Lee arrives with 90 U.S Marines around 11PM on October 17 to retake the city. He does not know that John Brown is among the men hunkered down in the Fire House.