John Brown: Abolitionist, Fanatic, and The Cause of War
by From Hero or Villain: More Prisoners of Eternity.
John Brown was a religious fanatic. He had failed in everything he had tried, now he devoted himself to the abolition of slavery. He believed he was the instrument of God’s Will. He would fail in that to, but he would hasten the greatest catastrophe in American history.
Following his activities in Kansas, Brown returned east to solicit funds for his new project. He was introduced to some of the most prominent abolitionists of the time including Frederick Douglas, William Lloyd Garrison, and writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and David Thoreau. He slowly garnered the funds for a proposed raid on the Harpers Ferry Armoury in West Virginia. But as knowledge of his proposed plan spread his erstwhile supporters began to desert him. Frederick Douglas actually tried to dissuade blacks from enlisting in his plans. Hoping for a brigade of 4500 men, Brown actually raised only 21 volunteers. Even so the raid would go ahead.
The Raid on Harpers Ferry
On 16 October, 1859, Brown led his small force to the town of Harpers Ferry where he easily seized the armoury. The armoury contained 10,000 muskets with which he intended to arm the slaves he felt sure would flock to him once they heard the news of what had happened. Once all the slaves in Virginia had been freed he would march south at the head of his new army and liberate all the remaining slaves as he went. Ironically, the first victim of Brown’s raid was a free black man, Hayward Shepherd, a baggage handler on the Baltimore to Ohio Train, who was killed when he tried to warn the passengers of what was happening. In the meantime, Brown found himself besieged in the armoury as local farmers and townspeople surrounded it and kept it under a constant hail of fire. Brown’s son Watson was shot whilst under a flag of truce, his other son Oliver, was shot and killed. As he lay dying his father berated him for not doing so like a man. By the morning of the 18 October, with no slaves in sight, Brown was surrounded by a company of Marines led by, Colonel Robert E Lee. Captain J.E.B Stuart then approached the armoury and demanded their surrender, Brown refused. In the fighting that ensued 10 of Brown’s men were killed and 5 managed to escape, including his son, Owen. The rest were captured.
The attack at Harpers Ferry had taken place on Federal property but Virginia Governor, Henry A Wise, was determined that Brown and his followers should be tried in Virginia, believing that trial in a Federal Court would see abolitionist pressure brought to bear. So John Brown was tried in Charles Town, Virginia. His defence was that he had not killed anyone personally so could not be convicted of murder, that he owed no loyalty to the State of Virginia so could not be guilty of treason, and as no slaves had risen in revolt he could hardly be accused of inciting a slave insurrection. None of these arguments, of course, made any difference to the verdict. On 2 November, 1859, he was found guilty on all three charges and sentenced to death.
The Execution
John Brown was hanged in public on 2 December, 1859. In the crowd to witness his final moments were two men who would later make their own mark on history: the noted Shakespearian actor and darling of the ladies, John Wilkes Booth; and the deputy head of the Virginia Military Institute, Thomas J “Stonewall” Jackson. Brown himself made no final statement from the scaffold, instead he handed a note to a female black attendant, it read: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood”. John Brown’s execution divided public opinion then as it still does to this day. Did his actions hasten the Southern Slave States decision to secede from the Union? Did he make the Civil War inevitable? Certainly, to a great many Southerner’s he was seen to be a representative of the newly-formed Republican Party. One of the many so-called Black Republicans who were determined to see Southern society subverted, their culture destroyed, and for the white man to be made a slave in his own country. To some he was a martyr to others a traitor. Frederick Douglas wrote of him, “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”.
Abraham Lincoln, the man who was to abolish slavery in America, was equally unequivocal in his opinion describing Brown as “a delusional fanatic who was justly hanged”.
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