Harper’s Ferry Raid
October 16 …
John Brown was a lifelong abolitionist who hoped to start uprisings against slavery in the southern United States and open up a road to freedom through the Allegheny and Appalachian mountains.
Along with almost two dozen others, including three of his own sons, Brown planned and led the Harper’s Ferry Raid on a federal armory and rifle factory in Harper’s Ferry, VA from October 16-18, 1859.
A friend of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, both of whom admired Brown but were unwilling to participate in his raid, Brown was a veteran of “Bloody Kansas” and spent more than a year planning his raid. Within hours, however, the men were surrounded and John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry ended almost as soon as it began.
Brown was ultimately arrested by federal troops led by Lt.Col. Robert E. Lee, tried for treason, and hanged. But what Brown called his “trumpet blast” was a watershed moment in the nation’s debate about human enslavement and hastened the start of the Civil War.
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