Chapter 24: Harper’s Ferry

All hope for sectional reconciliation ends when abolitionist John Brown fulfills his 1837 church pledge: “Here before God, in the presence of these witnesses, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.”

Brown’s October 16-18, 1859 raid is the South’s worst nightmare: a northern white abolitionist leading an army of enslaved Blacks in attacking their plantations and slaughtering their families. After initial success by his 22 man party, Brown gives up his plan when the first local recruits refuse to pick up the offered weapons. The invasion is then put down by the Virginia Militia under Robert E. Lee and Brown is tried and hanged. His final words foretell the future:

I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never
be purged away, but with Blood. I had…vainly flattered myself that without very
much bloodshed it might be done.

Fire-eater Edmund Ruffin reacts by cheering the raid:

Finally proof arrived out of the blue…Such a practical exercise of abolitionist
principles is needed to stir the sluggish blood of the South.