John Brown: Hero or terrorist?

   So was he hero or antihero? Why did his raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, launched on Oct. 16, 1859, unravel? And why, after all that, does he remain a folk hero -- with visitors flocking to Harpers Ferry National Historic Park? Here is a rundown.

    John Brown: Born in 1800, he married at 20 and moved about, living in several states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts) and attempting several professions unsuccessfully.
    Brown became interested in the antislavery movement after reading The Liberator, the Boston newspaper of prominent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, according to the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum in Peterboro, New York. In 1837, He  attended a religious service for journalist Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist who had been murdered by slavery proponents in Illinois. Brown "consecrated his life publicly to the destruction of slavery," the website said.  
     He participated in the Underground Railroad -- a network of abolitionists who helped escape slaves travel north to freedom -- and established a group that worked to protect escaped slaves. Brown and his wife also raised an African-American child. Along the way, he met and came to know Frederick Douglass.
     In 1855, Brown went to Kansas, which he hoped would become a free state and where his sons were already living.On May 21, 1856, after pro-slavery men sacked and burned the anti-slavery town of Lawrence, Kansas, Brown and his followers sought vengeance, hacking to death five Southern settlers. [See John Brown, American abolitionist, on Encyclopedia Britannica's website.] 

    Harpers Ferry:  At the time, Harpers Ferry was still part of Virginia (West Virginia became a state in 1863). Brown sought to arm an uprising of slaves, and Harpers Ferry was a logical target. The U.S. Armory and Arsenal was in the town. The Army stored 100,000 rifles and muskets there, according to the Civil War Trust. But Douglass immediately saw problems with the plan. He later wrote:

I at once opposed the measure. It would be an attack upon the federal government and array the whole country against us. All his descriptions of the place convinced me that he was going into a perfect steel trap, and that once in he would never get out alive.

     But the determined Brown took up residence at a farm not far from Harpers Ferry, just across the state line in Maryland.

     The raid, Oct. 16-18, 1859: Brown, along with 21 men, including three of his sons, marched into Harpers Ferry on Oct. 16 and captured several watchmen. They shot and killed a railroad employee, who happened to be a freed African-American. They also captured approximately 60 other people, including Lewis Washington, the great, grand-nephew of George Washington. The website of the West Virginia Archives explains: 

"There were two keys to the success of the raid. First, the men needed to capture the weapons and escape before word reached Washington, D. C. The raiders cut the telegraph lines but allowed a Baltimore and Ohio train to pass through Harpers Ferry after detaining it for five hours. When the train reached Baltimore the next day at noon, the conductor contacted authorities in Washington. Second, Brown expected local slaves to rise up against their owners and join the raid. Not only did this fail to happen, but townspeople began shooting at the raiders."

     On Oct. 17, local militias surrounded the armory taken over by Brown and his men. Brown's men began to panic. One tried to escape by swimming across the river but was shot and killed. Several townsmen, including the mayor, also were shot and killed in the exchange of gunfire.  
    On the morning of Oct. 18, approximately 90 U.S. Marines under the command of Brevet Col. Robert E. Lee stormed the arsenal's fire engine and guard house, where Brown had taken 11 of the hostages. Brown was stabbed but survived and was captured. Half of Brown's men were killed, including two of his sons. A third son managed to escape and fled. The hostages were not injured. One Marine died.
     One week later, Brown, carried into court on a stretcher, was tried for treason against Virginia, inciting a slave rebellion and murder. He was found guilty and sentenced to be publicly hanged Dec. 2.

     The legacy: Brown was undoubtedly a violent man with good intentions: He wanted to free the slaves. On the gallows, he handed one of the guards a note: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." 
     In describing Brown, Frederick Douglass wrote, "His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light; his was as the burning sun. I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him."
     So what was Brown's role in history? One answer can be found in the book April 1865,The Month that Saved America, by Jay Winik (HarperCollins; 2001):

"On its own, it would be ludicrous to claim that John Brown's raid caused the Civil War, just as it would be nonsense to assert that Lincoln's election was anything more than a proximate cause. Such events are catalysts, sparks, symbols that ignite a series of chain reactions on the much longer, more rutted road to war."

     Sources:

• April 1865, The Month that Saved America by Jay Winik (HarperCollins; 2001).
• The Civil War, by Geoffrey Ward, with Ric Burns and Ken Burns (Vintage Books;1990).
• Civil War Trust: John Brown's Raiders.
• Civil War Trust: Purged Away with Blood, John Brown's War.
• Dickinson College: John Brown, Response to Elijah Lovejoy's Murder (Reynolds, 2005).
• Encyclopedia Britannica: John Brown.
• Marine Corps Association and Foundation: Colonel Lee and the Marines at Harpers Ferry.
• The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum: John Brown.
• The National Park Service: Harpers Ferry, John Brown.
• The New Yorker: John Brown’s Body, a new biography restores Brown’s centrality to the Civil War. By Adam Gopnik. April, 2005.
• PBS: People and Events, John Brown.
• Prologue Magazine: John Brown, America's first terrorist? By Paul Finkelman, (2011).
• West Virginia Division of Culture and History: John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid.
• Yale University: The Life, Trial and Execution of John Brown, by Robert M. DeWitt (1859).

    Related:

    What were Lincoln's accomplishments?

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