Chapter 51: John Brown’s 1859 Raid on Harpers Ferry Ends Hope of Saving the Union

In October 1859 abolitionist John Brown launches his invasion into Virginia, the intent being to organize a local army of slaves to murder their plantation owners and then flee into the hills for safety.

The assault is long-planned, with funding from a “Secret Six” cabal of easterners including Gerrit Smith, and the involvement of Frederick Douglass. It begins without a hitch with Brown and 22 others crossing the Harper’s Ferry Bridge and capturing the Federal Arsenal in town. But it then backfires when nearby slaves refuse to arm themselves with Brown’s 6-foot long pikes, fearing reprisals from their owners.

With the alarm out to the Virginia militia, Brown decides to make his final stand at a fire house where he gathers seven of his remaining troopers and eleven hostages. He holds out there until a final assault led by Robert E. Lee breeches the door. Brown is wounded and four others, including two of his sons, are killed.

A speedy trial is held in Richmond and the 59 year old Brown is hanged along with seven other members of his band. All told, seventeen of the original twenty-two are killed, among them four Black men. Two townspeople also die along with one Private in the state militia.

At first Brown’s raid is condemned in both the South and North. That lasts until the New England Transcendentalists take up Brown’s side. Ralph Waldo Emerson utters the famous line “he will make the gallows as glorious as the cross,” and the vision of “John Brown’s body lies a mouldering in his grave” is set, along with his martyrdom in a just cause.

In the South the reality of a White man leading a Black army to slaughter plantation owners is its deepest nightmare come true – and calls for secession ring out. From Brown’s raid forward there will truly be no way to turn back the clock on Disunion.