Title: The Harper’s Ferry insurrection–The U.S. Marines storming the engine house–Insurgents firing through holes in the doors / from a sketch made on the spot by our special artist. (Public Domain)

On this day in history, October 16, 1859, abolitionist John Brown guides a small group on an assault against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an endeavor to begin an armed insurrection of enslaved black people and overthrow the practice of slavery.

Born in Connecticut in 1800 and raised in Ohio, Brown derived from a determinedly Calvinist and antislavery family. He had spent much of his life failing at an assortment of businesses – he declared bankruptcy at age 42 and had over 20 lawsuits filed against him. In 1837, his life changed forever when he attended an abolition meeting in Cleveland. Brown became so moved that he publicly proclaimed his commitment to defeating the institution of slavery. As early as 1848, he prepared a plan to provoke an uprising.

In the 1850s, Brown journeyed to Kansas with five of his sons to combat the pro-slavery forces in the battle over that region. On May 21, 1856, pro-slavery men attacked the abolitionist town of Lawrence, and Brown immediately wanted vengeance. On May 25, Brown and his sons assaulted three cabins along Pottawatomie Creek. They slaughtered five men with broad swords and sparked a summer of guerrilla conflict in the distressed territory. One of Brown’s sons was slain in the fight.

By 1857, Brown returned East and began raising funds to move forward his dream of a mass insurrection of enslaved people. He gained the assistance of six leading abolitionists, known as the “Secret Six,” and amassed an assault force. His “army” comprised 22 men, containing five previously enslaved men and three of Brown’s sons. The group acquired a Maryland farm near Harpers Ferry and organized for the raid. The group received military training before the attack from experts within the abolitionist movement.

By early 1859, Brown was conducting assaults to release enslaved people in districts where slavery was still practiced, primarily in the Midwest. At this time, he also became acquainted with Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, abolitionists and activists, and they became significant people in Brown’s life, strengthening much of his beliefs.

With Tubman, whom he affectionately called “General Tubman,” Brown began formulating an attack on slaveholders and a United States military armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, using armed, freed, and subjugated people. He expected the attack would help lay the foundation for a rebellion, but historians have labeled the raid a dry run for the American Civil War.

The operation started on October 16, 1859, with the deliberate apprehension of Colonel Lewis Washington, a distant relative of George Washington, at the former’s home. The Washington family were still enslavers.

A group of John Brown’s men kidnapped Washington, while the remainder of the men, with Brown leading, began a raid on Harpers Ferry to capture both weapons and pro-slavery organizers in the town. Key to the raid’s success was the seizure of the armory – before representatives in Washington, D.C., could be notified and send in assistance.

To that end, John Brown’s men halted a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad train proceeding to the nation’s capital. Nevertheless, Brown yielded and let the train continue – the conductor eventually alerted authorities in Washington about what was occurring at Harpers Ferry.

The first victim of the raid happened during the attempts to stop the train. A baggage handler at the train station was shot and killed when he rejected the commands of Brown’s men. The casualty was a free Black man – one of the people the abolitionist movement was trying to assist.

Brown’s men captured numerous local enslavers, but by the end of the day on October 16, local townspeople started defending themselves. Early on October 17, the local militia was called out, which captured a bridge crossing the Potomac River, sealing off a significant escape route for Brown and his fellow abolitionists.

Even though Brown and his men were able to secure the Harpers Ferry armory in the early morning of October 17, the local militia soon surrounded the facility, and the two sides exchanged gunfire.

Both sides suffered casualties, including four Harpers Ferry citizens, including the town’s mayor, who were killed. A group of men from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad arrived to assist the town’s residents to neutralize Brown’s attack.

Brown was pressed to move his remaining men and their hostages to the armory’s engine house, a smaller building that became known as John Brown’s Fort. They essentially blockaded themselves within it.

The militia attack freed many of Brown’s captives, although eight railroad men died in the melee. With little chance for escape and under heavy fire, Brown sent one of his sons out to surrender. However, the younger Brown was shot and killed.

Late on October 17, 1858, President James Buchanan ordered Brevet Colonel (and future Confederate General) Robert E. Lee and a company of Marines to go to Harpers Ferry.

The following day, Lee endeavored to get Brown to admit defeat, but the latter declined. Directing the Marines under his command to attack, the force assaulted John Brown’s Fort, arresting all abolitionist combatants and freeing their hostages.

Lee and his men arrested Brown and transferred him to the courthouse in Charles Town, where he was jailed until he could be put on trial. Brown was found guilty of treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia in November.

Brown was executed by hanging on December 2, 1859, at age 59. Among those witnessing the killing were Lee and the actor and pro-slavery proponent John Wilkes Booth. (Booth would later murder President Abraham Lincoln over the latter’s choice to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.)

After his death, his wife, Mary Ann, took Brown’s body to the New York State family farm for committal.

Slavery would eventually end in America in 1865, six years after Brown’s death, following the Union’s conquering of the Confederacy in the Civil War. Although Brown’s actions didn’t end slavery, they provoked those opposed to it to take more aggressive action, perhaps feeding the bloody war that ultimately ended slavery in America.

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