BGuthrie Photos: WV -- Harpers Ferry NHP -- Exhibit: John Brown Museum

WV -- Harpers Ferry NHP -- Exhibit: John Brown Museum:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. HARPJB_120408_012.JPG: You can weigh John Brown's body well enough, But how and in what balance weigh John Brown? -- "John Brown's Body" -- Stephen Vincent Benet
2. HARPJB_120408_016.JPG: John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry On the night of October 16, 1859, John Brown and an armed band of 21 men set out for Harpers Ferry from the Kennedy farmhouse in nearby Maryland. Their goal was to seize the United States government Armory and Arsenal and begin freeing slaves. Thirty-six hours after the attack began, Brown and four of his associates were captured. Ten insurgents lay dead, and seven had escaped, although two of them were arrested later. Brown and his men were tried for murder, treason and inciting slave rebellion by a Virginia court within weeks of the raid. On December 2, 1859, Brown was executed in Charles Town, Virginia. His six compatriots were hanged over the next four months. Although Brown's plan to free the slaves had been foiled, his attacks on a federal installation dramatically increased tensions between North and South. Evidence that Brown had financial backing from prestigious Northerners further jeopardized sectional relations. Brown's raid, his execution, and the controversy surrounding these events significantly contributed to the disintegration of the Union and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. Even today, over a century after his death, John Brown remains a controversial figure.
3. HARPJB_120408_022.JPG: Perspectives "I go joyfully on behalf of millions that 'have no rights' that this great and glorious, this Christian Republic 'is bound to respect.' " -- John Brown, November 1859 All Virginia ... should stand forth as one man and say to fanaticism ... whenever you advance a hostile foot upon our soil, we will welcome you with bloody hands and hospitable graves. -- James I. Kemper, Delegate to the Virginia General Assembly, 1859 It was [John Brown's] peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him... -- Henry David Thoreau, October 30, 1859 If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery. -- Frederick Douglass, May 30, 1881
4. HARPJB_120408_025.JPG: The Crisis: Slavery, Violence, The Law Moral Choices, Political Dilemmas: John Brown's actions in Kansas and Harpers Ferry raise serious and uncomfortable questions about slavery, violence, and the law. In 1859, nearly 4 million African-Americans legally were enslaved in the United States. While many believed slavery was morally wrong, law and social practices protected the South's "peculiar institution." During the pre-Civil War years, people opposed to slavery weighed the practicality and morality of violence to overthrow the slave system. Even today, clear and final answers to the issues raised by John Brown's raid are difficult to find, but Harpers Ferry is the appropriate place to ask these troubling questions.
5. HARPJB_120408_034.JPG: John Brown's Fort In 1891, investors dismantled the John Brown Fort and moved it to Chicago for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The Fort languished in Chicago until 1895, when it was returned to Harpers Ferry and rebuilt on the Alexander Murphy farm, two miles from its original location. Murphy had offered five acres for the fort on his land because the railroad had covered the original site with a 14-foot embankment. Recognizing the historical value of the John Brown Fort, Alexander Murphy protected and maintained the building for fifteen years. He allowed the public to visit the Fort at no charge. In 1896, the Colored Womens League gathered at the Fort as a symbolic gesture of the struggle for equal rights. Some of Murphy's most well-known guests were WEB Du Bois and Lewis Douglass, son of John Brown's friend Frederick Douglass. On August 17, 1906, Du Bois, Douglass and 100 other members of the Niagara Movement made a ceremonial pilgrimage to the Fort. Because of its symbolic value to African Americans, Storer College purchased the Fort for $900 -- the same amount that Murphy paid in 1901. Storer rebuilt the Fort at the college campus on Camp Hill in 1910. The Fort was moved for a fourth time in 1968, when it was transported intact to Lower Town Harpers Ferry, within 100 feet of its original location.
6. HARPJB_120408_042.JPG: The United States Armory at Harpers Ferry in 1859. The building on the left, with the wagon in front of it, is the fire engine house where John Brown, his men, and several hostages holes up during the raid. The buildings on the right are part of the small-arms factory. This is a segment of the entrance gate to the United States Armory at Harpers Ferry. When John Brown and his men entered the grounds of the armory, they began an armed insurrection against the government of the United States. This gate was preserved by the Alexander Murphy family for over a century. In the late 1880s, Alexander Murphy purchased the gates and wrought-iron fence surrounding the armory. The Murphy heirs held and preserved the gates over the next century. In 1991, the family presented this original main gate of the United States Armory to the American people for the educational enrichment of this and future generations.
7. HARPJB_120408_058.JPG: In the antebellum years, most southerners considered slavery a vital economic necessity, even though a majority of southerners were not slaveowners. The social and economic hierarchy of the South provided whites the opportunity to own or least reap benefits from the slave system. Slaves were valued both as personal property and for the work they performed. By definition of the law, slaves were a commodity that could be bought, sold, inherited, managed and "hired out" for the owner's profit. Although legally defined as property, slaves were people. Potential and actual economic transactions affected the lives of African-Americans dramatically.
8. HARPJB_120408_061.JPG: American Slavery As It Is: Theodore D. Weld combined evangelical religion and abolitionist fervor in the crusade against slavery. A Christian minister, social reformer, gifted speaker and skilled organizer, Weld wrote American Slavery As It Is in 1839. In his book he quoted newspaper advertisements from the Southern press to make a powerful case against American slavery. Weld's book became popular in the North. Its straightforward and factual presentation of information and material made it one of the most effective pieces of anti-slavery literature ever published.
9. HARPJB_120408_064.JPG: Slaves employed a variety of strategies to oppose their demeaning status. Common forms of resistance included sabotage, arson, stealing, running away, murder, suicide, organized insurrection, work slow downs, accommodation, feigned ignorance, religious commitments, and extended family networks. All resistance entailed risk. When overtly defiant, slaves endangered their personal and family security. By working within the system, slaves risked perpetuating the very conditions which oppressed them.
10. HARPJB_120408_067.JPG: "Virginia Sketchbook of Lewis Miller" In the mid-19th century, prosperous cotton and sugar planters in the Deep South sought additional slave labor. In turn, Virginia planters, who were suffering an economic decline, sold almost 300,000 slaves to the Cotton Belt states between 1830 and 1860 to attain much needed capital. This internal slave trade from the Upper South to the Deep South caused painful disruptions and separations for slave families.
11. HARPJB_120408_070.JPG: Like furniture, livestock and real estate, slaves were bought and sold on the open market. Slave sales occurred in times of financial need, in the disbursement of an estate, and as a profit-making business venture. Slaves had no control over the sale of friends and family members to nearby plantations and towns or to distant states and territories.
12. HARPJB_120408_074.JPG: "Hauling the Whole Week's Picking" William Henry Brown, 1808-1883
13. HARPJB_120408_076.JPG: "American Anti-slavery Almanac for 1840" Slave women of childbearing age were valuable property. On large plantations, slave children were supervised by elderly black women while their mothers worked in the fields. On smaller plantations, women would take their infants into the fields with them. All slave mothers lacked full authority over their offspring.
14. HARPJB_120408_079.JPG: Slaves were valuable in the antebellum South. High prices were paid for skilled craftsmen, healthy young males, and women who could bear children. The elderly, the infirm, the maimed and the rebellious were considered less valuable by their masters.
15. HARPJB_120408_083.JPG: "Hiring out" or renting slaves, both on a short term and a yearly basis, was a common practice. Many southerners who could not afford to own a slave rented slaves for brief periods. Even the United States government, as this document indicates, rented slaves from their masters to work in the Armory at Harpers Ferry.
16. HARPJB_120408_087.JPG: Despite oppression, slaves developed their own distinctive culture. Music, family, a sense of community and religion were vehicles of expression which gave a measure of dignity and meaning to lives circumscribed by bondage.
17. HARPJB_120408_090.JPG: "I Will Come Back" Male slave, who has been sold, says goodbye to his wife and family. Some slaves worked within the system to better their own lives. In some instances they were given opportunities to earn money and purchase their own freedom. This process required many years and the master could withdraw his offer at any time. As the South became more adamant about protecting the institution of slavery during the middle of the nineteenth century, it became more difficult for slaves to purchase their own freedom. Similarly, the lives of free blacks in the South became more precarious as the slavery controversy intensified at mid-century.
18. HARPJB_120408_093.JPG: In July 1839, Cinque, a West African chieftain, led a revolt on board the slave ship, the Amistad. Although Cinque ordered the captain to return the ship and passengers to Africa, the white crew sailed into Long Island, New York, where the Africans were seized, charged with murder and jailed. The incident received widespread attention, and John Quincy Adams, former President of the United States, argued the case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1841, the Court ruled in favor of the Africans, and they returned to their homeland the next year. Some antislavery supporters claimed this judicial decision supported the right to use force to defend personal freedom.
19. HARPJB_120408_096.JPG: "During a failed escape attempt from Kentucky in 1856, Margaret Garner killed her 3-year-old daughter rather than see her grow up as a slave. Mrs. Garner was sold to a slaveholder in Mississippi where she died of typhoid fever in 1858."
20. HARPJB_120408_099.JPG: The most famous instance of violent slave rebellion in the antebellum South occurred in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831. Led by Nat Turner, a group of 70 slaves murdered approximately 60 whites during a 24 hour period. In retaliation, Southern whites killed over 100 African Americans -- some rebels, others innocent victims. When the rebellion faded, Turner fled to the woods, but he was captured and subsequently hanged.
21. HARPJB_120408_103.JPG: In 1800, a slave named Gabriel rallied approximately 1,000 fellow laves in a failed attack on Richmond. Together with 15 associates, Gabriel was hanged on October 7, 1800. At a subsequent trial, one of the insurgents justified his actions in light of the American Revolution: "I have nothing more to offer than what George Washington would have had to offer, had he been taken by the British and put on trial by them. I have adventured my life in endeavoring to obtain the liberty of my countrymen, and am a willing sacrifice to their cause..."
22. HARPJB_120408_105.JPG: $100 Reward Runaway from the residence of Mr. George Vestal, in Charlestown, on Monday night last, a dark complexioned Negro Girl, belonging to the heirs of Richard Baylor, Esq., dec'd, named NANCY, about 16 to 18 years of age, well grown and good looking. She had a variety of common clothing -- speaks fiercely, and rather impudent in manner. If taken and lodged in any jail in Virginia, I will give a $10 reward, $50 if taken in Maryland, and $100 if taken in Pennsylvania or any free state. JOAN YATES Guard of the said heirs Charles Town, Jefferson County, VA., April 7, 1830 Running away was one of the most common and effective statements against the slave system. Thousands of African-Americans successfully escaped slavery in the antebellum period. Many others tried but failed. Runaway slaves evoked sympathy and support from some in the North. Blacks and whites worked together to develop the Underground Railway to bring slaves out of the South.
23. HARPJB_120408_107.JPG: John Brown, Businessman John Brown's business career involved almost 40 years of opportunity and loss spread over 15 businesses in four states. His many professions including tanning leather, surveying, raising livestock, real estate and selling wool. Brown's hard work and ambition resulted in several profitable ventures, but his family always knew poverty more often than wealth. Different combinations of bad luck, poor decisions, illness and a national economic crisis in 1837 forced Brown into a series of lawsuits and, ultimately, bankruptcy. His 1859 will included instructions to pay off lingering debts. During his many attempts at business, nine of Brown's children and his first wife died. In fact, Brown's life was so bad and his spirits so low at one point, that he confided in a friend that he had a "steady, strong, desire; to die." Historians have speculated that John Brown's crusade against slavery may have given the abolitionist a reason to live.
24. HARPJB_120408_117.JPG: These shears belonged to John Brown. They date from the 1840s, a period during which Brown began sheep farming. Like many of his other economic ventures, Brown's wool business ended in failure.
25. HARPJB_120408_126.JPG: Slavery's Storm 1502 -- First African slaves brought to Latin America 1526 -- First known slave revolt in North America -- Africans building a Spanish fort on the Carolina coast escape inland to Native American communities. 1613 -- Tobacco cultivation introduced 1619 -- First African slaves in Virginia 1641 -- Massachusetts Limitation on Slavery 1682 -- Virginia's Slave Code enacted 1688 -- Quakers' Antislavery Resolution 1739 -- Stono Rebellion 1778 -- Continental Army recruits slaves 1780 -- Pennsylvania abolishes slavery
26. HARPJB_120408_129.JPG: 1780 -- Pennsylvania abolishes slavery 1783 -- Massachusetts declares slavery unconstitutional 1787 -- Compromises in the U.S. Constitution 1791 -- Revolution in Haiti 1793 -- Cotton gin increases demand for slaves 1800 -- John Brown born -- Gabriel "Prosser" Revolt 1807 -- Slave importatation prohibited. The twenty-year Constitutional waiting period to end the slave trade to the United States ends and Congress forbids further importation of slaves. 1816 -- American Colonization Society. The Society is active in Harpers Ferry in the 1830s. Few blacks support this effort. 1817 -- Frederick Douglass born. Born into slavery in eastern Maryland, Douglass escapes from slavery in 1838 and becomes a leading antislavery spokesman.
27. HARPJB_120408_133.JPG: 1816 -- American Colonization Society. The Society is active in Harpers Ferry in the 1830s. Few blacks support this effort. 1817 -- Frederick Douglass born. Born into slavery in eastern Maryland, Douglass escapes from slavery in 1838 and becomes a leading antislavery spokesman. 1820 -- Missouri Compromise. Establishes the principle of equal representation for Northern and Southern states in the U.S. Senate. Maine enters the Union as a free state, Missouri as a slave state. Slavery is prohibited north of 36"30' N, the southern boundary of Missouri. 1822 -- Denmark's Vesey Plot. Born in Africa, Vesey had purchased his freedom in 1800 and worked as a carpenter in Charleston, South Carolina. Incensed by the injustice of slavery, Vesey plots a revolt, but his plan is discovered and 47 conspirators, including Vesey, are executed.
28. HARPJB_120408_135.JPG: 1820 -- Missouri Compromise. Establishes the principle of equal representation for Northern and Southern states in the U.S. Senate. Maine enters the Union as a free state, Missouri as a slave state. Slavery is prohibited north of 36"30' N, the southern boundary of Missouri. 1822 -- Denmark's Vesey Plot. Born in Africa, Vesey had purchased his freedom in 1800 and worked as a carpenter in Charleston, South Carolina. Incensed by the injustice of slavery, Vesey plots a revolt, but his plan is discovered and 47 conspirators, including Vesey, are executed. 1827 -- Last slave freed in New York, on the 4th of July 1831 -- Nat Turner Revolt. The South's bloodiest slave insurrection occurs in Southampton County, Virginia, with the death of 60 whites and scores of blacks. As a result, Southern states impose harsher restrictions on blacks. 1831 -- First Publication of The Liberator. In Boston, William Lloyd Garrison states in the first printing of his abolitionist newspaper, "I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- and I will be heard."
29. HARPJB_120408_138.JPG: 1833 -- American Anti-Slavery Society. The first national antislavery organization states its purpose is "to convince all our fellow citizens... that slaveholding is a heinous crime in the sight of God, and that duty, safety, and best interests of all concerned, require its immediate abandonment." 1836 -- Gag Rule Passed. The U.S. House of Representatives refuses to debate antislavery petitions sent to Northern congressmen. 1837 -- Abolitionist Editor Murdered. A mob kills newspaper editor Elijah P. Lovejoy in Alton, Illinois, making him an early abolitionist martyr.
30. HARPJB_120408_145.JPG: 1840 -- The Liberty Party. In 1840 and 1844 this antislavery political party posts candidates for President of the United States. 1845 -- Churches split over slavery. The Methodist and Baptist protestant churches divide into northern and southern organizations because members cannot agree over the legitimacy of slavery. 1848 -- Mexican War. With its victory over Mexico, the United States absorbs hundreds of thousands of acres in the Southwest, raising the question: will the new land be open to slavery? 1850 -- Compromise of 1850. Congress admits California as a free state, places no restriction on slavery in the Utah and New Mexico territories, prohibits slave trading in the District of Columbia, and strengthens the Fugitive Slave Act. 1850 -- "Black Moses" Harriet Tubman. Tubman begins her journeys into the South to lead slaves to freedom in the North.
31. HARPJB_120408_146.JPG: 1851 -- Resistance to Fugitive Slave Act. In an armed resistance in Christiana, Pennsylvania, three "hunted" blacks kill or wound their pursuers. Each is tried for treason and acquitted. 1851 -- Harpers Ferry Ordinance. The town sergeant will "lodge in the jail each and every colored person, whom he may find upon any of the streets, lanes, or alleys, after ten o'clock at night..." 1852 -- Uncle Tom's Cabin published. Reformer Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel depicting slavery's horrors sells more than 300,000 copies in its first year, galvanizing Northern opinion against slavery. 1852 -- Sojourner Trust. Former slave Sojourner Truth delivers her "Ain't I a Woman" Address in Akron, Ohio.
32. HARPJB_120408_148.JPG: 1854 -- Kansas-Nebraska Act. Congress attempts to settle the sectional balance through "popular sovereignty" -- permitting the residents of Kansas and Nebraska to determine their status as slave or free states. This leads to bloody conflict between antislavery and proslavery forces. 1854 -- Republican Party Created. The Whig Party disintegrates, severing the thread that bound white North and South. The Republican Party is established to oppose the further spread of slavery. 1854 -- Travel restrictions from Harpers Ferry. "No colored person, free or slave, will be permitted to pass on the B&O R.R. unless some good and respectable white person vouches for them..." 1856 -- Republicans run for President. John C. Fremont is defeated in the first presidential stand-off between Republicans and Democrats. 1856 -- Negro restrictions in Charles Town. "No more than five negroes shall at any time stand together on a sidewalk ... and negroes shall never stand on a sidewalk to the inconvenience of white persons having to passby..."
33. HARPJB_120408_150.JPG: 1857 -- Dred Scott Decision. The U.S. Supreme Court rules a Negro is not entitled to the rights of Federal citizenship and that the Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional because Congress has no power to prohibit slavery. 1857 -- A Southerner denounces slavery. Hinton R. Helper in his book The Impending Crisis of the South calls for the end of slavery as an economic system. The Republicans use Helper's criticisms as a political weapon. 1859 -- John Brown's Raid at Harpers Ferry.
34. HARPJB_120408_152.JPG: 1860 -- Abraham Lincoln elected. The Republicans capture the White House as the Democrats split over the slavery issue. 1861 -- Civil War erupts.
35. HARPJB_120408_154.JPG: 1863 -- Emancipation Proclamation. President Lincoln frees slaves in the South in areas occupied by Union troops. 1865 -- Thirteenth Amendment Ratified. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude ... shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
36. HARPJB_120408_161.JPG: Intolerance in a "Free" Society While America the nation proudly championed the values established in its Declaration of Independence, America's citizens often failed to practice, promote or protect those values. Slavery was not the only nineteenth century issue that divided America. The questions below posed dilemmas for all gamuts of antebellum American society. Political: Does one part of the population have a right to force its beliefs on another part? Who determines whether new states shall be slave or free? How does a minority section ensure equity with the majority? Shall slavery be allowed to expand into new territories of the United States? Economic: Is industrial wage slavery the same as chattel, or property, slavery? Does the North's aggressive industrialism subjugate the South's agrarian economy? Does American tariff policy make the South an inferior partner in the Union? Is the Civil War caused by economic differences? Social: Do Indians have a right to the land on which they live? Should Mexico be allowed to stand in the way of America's manifest destiny to occupy the continent? Is there a Catholic conspiracy to seize the government and destroy Protestantism? Should only native-born white men be allowed to vote? Moral: Are African slaves human beings, or are they a lesser species? Are blacks and whites equal? Should all blacks be returned to Africa? Does the Bible support or condemn slavery? Can a good Christian be a slave holder? Does history justify slavery? Was life as a slave in the Christian United States better than life as a free pagan in Africa?
37. HARPJB_120408_171.JPG: There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery]. But there is only one proper way and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority. -- George Washington, April 12, 1786 This momentous question [concerning the existence of slavery in the new state of Missouri], like a firebell in the night, awakened me and filled me with terror. I considered it at once to be the knell of the union. -- Thomas Jefferson, April 1820 Slavery is a great foul stain upon the North American Union, and it is a contemplation worth of the most exalted soul whether its total abolition is or is not practicable. -- John Quincy Adams, February 24, 1920 Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the effect of slavery on national wealth and prosperity, if we may trust to experience, there can be no doubt that it has never yet produced an injurious effect on individual on national character. -- Robert Y. Hayne, US Senator from South Carolina, January 21, 1830 I have, Senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. -- John Calhoun, US Senator from South Carolina, March 4, 1850 In this enlightened age there are few, I believe, but what will acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any country. -- Robert E. Lee, December 12, 1856 A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free... It will become all one thing or all the other. -- Abraham Lincoln, June 16, 1858 I do not think that the Negro is any kin of mine at all... I believe that this government of ours was founded, and wisely founded, upon the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their prosperity, to be executed and managed by white men. -- Stephen Douglas, US Senator from Illinois, July 17, 1858
38. HARPJB_120408_173.JPG: Politics, Slavery and John Brown From the birth of the nation in 1776, political leaders struggled to compromise the contradiction of slavery and freedom in the Union. While the Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal," it did not include slaves in this fundamental tenet. Similarly, the Constitution implicitly acknowledged the existence of slavery within the United States, but the Founding Fathers carefully avoided using the word in the document itself. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, most political leaders from both North and South hoped to resolve the slavery issue entirely. When pressed by circumstances or events, they created complicated and tenuous political compromises. Outspoken African-Americans, abolitionists, and pro-slavery Southern conservatives did not allow mainstream political leaders to bury the issue. Beginning in the 1830s, these groups repeatedly challenged the country to confront the questions of slavery. John Brown was among those who demanded a clear-cut resolution to the problem. Like William Lloyd Garrison, a leading abolitionist, he believed the Constitution was "a covenant with death." In 1858, at an antislavery convention in Chatham, Canada, he presented delegates a Provisional Constitution which sought to fulfill the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution by making all people in the United States free and equal citizens.
39. HARPJB_120408_180.JPG: A Sword from "Bleeding Kansas": This sword is believed to have been carried by one of John Brown's men in a raid against pro-slavery settlers in Pottawatomie, Kansas. In a letter to a Quaker woman, John Brown justified his violent actions with a reference to the New Testament: "You know that Christ once armed Peter. So also in my case I think he put a sword into my hand and there continued it so long as he saw best."
40. HARPJB_120408_181.JPG: Scorning Man's Law: John Brown in Kansas Incidents between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in Kansas became increasingly violent during the mid-1850s. By May 1856, pro-slavery forces had rigged elections, terrorized anti-slavery settlers, burned the city of Lawrence and killed many free-state advocates. John Brown, determined to retaliate, led his militia company, the Liberty Guards, along Pottawatomie Creek in late May. There the armed band killed five pro-slavery settlers, none of whom owned slaves. John Doyle, a survivor of an attack by Brown and his men at Pottawatomie Creek, reported: I found my father and one brother, William, lying dead in the road about two hundred yards from the house. I saw my other brother lying dead on the ground about one hundred and fifty yards from the house... his fingers were cut off, and his arms were cut off; his head was cut open; there was a hole in his breast. William's head was cut open, and a hole was in his jaw, as though it was made by a knife, and a hole was in his side. My father was shot in the forehead and stabbed in the breast.
41. HARPJB_120408_187.JPG: In John Brown's will of December 1, 1859, dated one day before his execution, he states: "I give to my daughter Ruth Thompson my large old Bible, containing the family record." Ruth Thompson was Brown's oldest surviving daughter.
42. HARPJB_120408_198.JPG: Interpreting God's Word: John Brown's Family Bible The Bible directed John Brown's adult life. A stern Calvinist by temperament and outlook, he was not a formal member of any organized church. Still, Brown read the Bible daily, receiving inspiration from both the Old and New Testaments. Brown marked passages which spoke to him in this family Bible. Although slavery often is condoned in the Bible, Brown believed that the Golden Rule -- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you -- implicitly condemned slavery. In Brown's eyes, God supported violence in the service of a just cause.
43. HARPJB_120408_205.JPG: North versus South During the 1840s, the sectional conflict over slavery became increasingly prominent and strident in American political life. In 1850, Senators Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun supported a complicated piece of legislation known as the Compromise of 1850. Their goal was to maintain a balance of power in the US Senate between southern and northern delegations. In this way they hoped to postpone indefinitely any fundamental change in the status of slavery within the United States and to stabilize the turbulent political climate. [Note: Wikipedia disagrees about who created the Compromise of 1850, saying it was Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas. In fact, they say Calhoun bitterly opposed it. Rejects Compromise of 1850: The Compromise of 1850, devised by Clay and Democratic leader Stephen Douglas, was designed to solve the controversy over the status of slavery in the vast new territories acquired from Mexico. Calhoun, back in the Senate but too feeble to speak, wrote a blistering attack on the compromise. A friend read his speech, calling upon the Constitution, which upheld the South's right to hold slaves; warning that the day "the balance between the two sections" was destroyed would be a day not far removed from disunion, anarchy, and civil war. Could the Union be preserved? Yes, easily; the North had only to will it to accomplish it; to agree to a restoration of the lost equilibrium of equal North–South representation in the Senate; and to cease "agitating" the slavery question. Calhoun had precedent and law on his side of the debate. But the North had time and rapid population growth due to industrialization, and the Compromise was passed. Calhoun died in 1850 right after the Compromise was passed. Daniel Webster and Henry Clay both died in 1852. Stephen Douglas lived until June, 1861 and was the only one to live long enough to see the Civil War.] By 1854, when the Kansas Territory was being organized, questions about the spread of slavery reemerged. The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed the people of territory to determine their own destiny on the issue of slavery. A group of moderate northerners formed the Republican Party to oppose the spread of slavery into any of the territories. Although not overtly abolitionist, the new party was distinctly sectional in nature. It made no effort to appeal to southern voters and declined any interest in maintaining a balance of power between North and South. In the 1856 election, the Republicans nominated John C. Fremont for President. Fremont carried 12 northern states but lost to Democrat James Buchanan. The sectional approach to politics was firmly established. This map of the United States with its various charts was created by the Fremont campaign to distinguish and compare North and South.
44. HARPJB_120408_213.JPG: The Raid At 10:30pm on October 16, 1859 [which was a Sunday], John Brown's raid began. Brown and his 21 followers quickly seized the US Armory, Arsenal, Rifle Works, and the bridges over the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, and made prisoners of the unarmed night watchmen. About a dozen slaves were temporarily freed from county farms while their owners were taken as hostages. By 10 o'clock Monday morning, Brown's hostage total had risen to 39, at a cost in lives of one of Brown's men and three local people. However, Brown soon lost control of the situation. His expected support did not come, but hundreds of volunteer militiamen did. The opposing forces cut off all of Brown's escape routes and killed almost half of his men by mid-afternoon. Events took an ugly turn as enraged townspeople used the dead bodies of the Northern invaders for target practice. When Federal troops arrived late that night, only Brown and four of his men were left to fight on. The assault on Brown's fort in the Armory fire engine house the next morning only lasted a matter of minutes. All of the hostages were freed. None of the slaves escaped. Thirty-six hours after it began, John Brown's attack on slavery in the Southern states was over. The controversy was just beginning.
45. HARPJB_120408_221.JPG: The Armory Fence: Which Side are You On? If you were standing this close to this fence on October 17, 1859, you would be in deep trouble. In the blink of an eye, you could be either target or prisoner. Behind this fence, townspeople and militia are shooting at John Brown and his men, and they are shooting back. Bullets whiz through these fence posts in both directions. This fence, which once protected of the United States government, now protects a man who threatens the very existence of that same government.
46. HARPJB_120408_227.JPG: In 1857, two years before the raid on Harpers Ferry, John Brown ordered 1,000 pikes from Charles Blair of Connecticut. In 1859, Brown transported the pikes to his farmhouse hide-out in nearby Maryland. During the raid, Brown intended to use the pikes to arm slaves who joined his insurrection.
47. HARPJB_120408_238.JPG: Annie Brown As a fifteen-year-old, Annie Brown joined her father at the Kennedy farm hideout in the summer of 1859. Her job was to cook, clean and make the household appear "normal" to neighbors and outsiders. Two weeks before the raid, Annie Brown returned home to North Elba, New York. Kennedy Farmhouse Stove: This stove was in the Kennedy farmhouse when Brown and his followerrs stayed there in the summer of 1859 preparing for the raid. The raiders spent approximately 14 weeks in the farmhouse, going out only at night.
48. HARPJB_120408_251.JPG: Guns and Crate Brown chose Harpers Ferry as the initial target of his raid because of the weapons made, assembled and stored at the United States government's Arsenal and Armory. Brown's original plan was to seize the arms and then proceed to the surrounding mountains where he would continue his war against slavery.
49. HARPJB_120408_256.JPG: US Marine Ninety marines were sent from Washington DC, when President Buchanan received word of the attack on the federal installation at Harpers Ferry. On October 18, only hours after arriving, a marine storming party of 12 smashed through the enginehouse doors, wounding Brown and crushing the raid.
50. HARPJB_120408_270.JPG: Colonel Lewis Washington The great-grandnephew of George Washington, Colonel Lewis Washington was a slaveholder and resident of Jefferson County at the time of the Harpers Ferry insurrection. He lived about five miles from the town and was among the county's aristocratic elite. John Brown ordered Lewis Washington taken hostage and brought to the Armory. Brown's men armed the Colonel's slaves with pikes. A slaveholder's greatest fear -- insurrection -- had occurred. Two very different accounts exist of Washington's captivity. Washington described himself as a brave and stalwart fellow, but Osborne Anderson, an African-American raider said, "The Colonel cried heartily when he found he must submit, and appeared taken aback when, on delivering up the famous sword formerly presented by Frederick to his illustrious kinsman, George Washington, Captain Stevens told me to step forward and take it." Washington was freed by US Marines when they stormed the enginehouse.
51. HARPJB_120408_272.JPG: Dangerfield Newby At age 44, Dangerfield Newby was the oldest of John Brown's raiders. An ex-slave, Newby had a special reason for fighting at Harpers Ferry -- he wanted to free his wife and six children, owned by a Virginia slaveholder. Newby had previously attempted to buy the freedom of his wife and youngest son, but the owner increased the price at the moment of purchase. Newby was the first of Brown's men to die in the raid. Angry townspeople later mutilated his body. This note from his wife was found in his pocket: "I want you to buy me as soon as possible, for if you do not get me somebody else will. Dear Husband, you [know] not the trouble I see; the last two years has been like a trouble dream. It is said Master is in want of money. If so, I know not what time he may sell me, and then all my bright hopes of the future are blasted, for there has been one bright hope to cheer me in all my troubles, that is to be with you..."
52. HARPJB_120408_281.JPG: Enginehouse Doors Portions of these doors are believed to have been on the enginehouse when Brown, his compatriots and their hostages were holed-up there in October 1859. Slave with Pike: Brown intended to supply slaves with pikes until they were trained to use the Harpers Ferry weapons. When slaves did not join Brown's undertaking, slaveholders claimed that African-Americans were "happy" with their lot. Slaves, aware that opposition would result in severe retribution and jeopardize loved-ones, remained silent.
53. HARPJB_120408_294.JPG: No Remorse The threat of slave insurrection angered and frightened white southerners. This fevered emotion led Harpers Ferry townspeople to disfigure the dead bodies of some of the insurgents. Joseph Barry, a resident of the town and an eyewitness to the events of October 1859, observed, "The treatment the lifeless bodies of those wretched men received from some of the infuriated populace was far from creditable to the actors or to human nature in general." After the battle, seven of the dead insurgents were placed in piano crates and buried in an unmarked common grave along the Shenandoah River. In the 1890s, these bodies were exhumed and sent to North Elba, New York, where they were given a more honorable burial near John Browns grave.
54. HARPJB_120408_303.JPG: Edmund Ruffin: Stirring the Sluggish Blood of the South In his diary, Edmund Ruffin, a well known Virginia agriculturalist and staunch secessionist, wrote about John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry: "... it really seems now most probably that the outbreak was planned & instigated by northern abolitionists, & with the expectation of thus starting a general slave insurrection. I earnestly hope that such may be the truth of the case. Such a practical exercise of abolition principles is needed to stir the sluggish blood of the south." Shortly after the raid, Ruffin visited Harpers Ferry and obtained some of the pikes Brown intended to give to slaves. On the pikes, Ruffin placed a label: "Sample of the favors designed for use by our Northern Brethren." Ruffin then sent a labeled pike to each of the fifteen slave state governors.
55. HARPJB_120408_309.JPG: Fighting for his Government Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee, commander of the US Marines sent to Harpers Ferry, reported on the storming of the enginehouse: "Three marines were furnished with sledgehammers to break in the doors, and the men were instructed how to distinguish our citizens from the insurgents; to attack with bayonet, and not to injure the blacks detained in custody unless they resisted. "The men... [used] as a battering ram a heavy ladder, with which they dashed in part of the door and gave admittance to the storming party. The fire of the insurgents up to this time had been harmless. At the threshold one marine fell mortally wounded." The fallen marine was Private Luke Quinn. He was the only member of the military, either US Marine or Virginia Militia, killed during Brown's raid. His last words were "Oh Major, I am gone, for the love of God will you send for the priest." Quinn in buried in nearby St. Peter's Catholic Cemetery.
56. HARPJB_120408_314.JPG: How did slaves and free blacks respond to John Brown's raid? The historical record is silent. Although Brown expected Virginia slaves to join the insurrection, and some apparently did, one can only conjecture about the feelings, motives and actions of most local black residents in October 1859. After the raid was crushed, slaves were aware that any pro-Brown support would result in harsh reprisals.
57. HARPJB_120408_320.JPG: Heyward Shepherd: The First Casualty Little is known about Heyward Shepherd, a free African-American, or how he felt about John Brown's raid. Shepherd was an ex-slave who worked for the Winchester and Potomac Railroad as a baggage master. His wife and children lived in nearby Winchester. Ironically, Shepherd was the first townsperson mortally wounded during the Brown raid. Although accounts differ regarding the circumstances of his death, he probably was shot by an insurgent during the first hours of the raid. Shepherd's innocent death was used by the Southern press to prove local blacks were not prepared to support Brown. Shepherd became a symbol of a submissive servant. Local Virginia militia companies fought for the "honor" to fire a salute over Shepherd's unmarked and now forgotten grave.
58. HARPJB_120408_331.JPG: A Genuine John Brown Pike: The inscription on the pike reads "This is a genuine John Brown Pike" used by the raiders and found after the raid "in the fire engine house their fortress." The pike and the guns in this case are some of the real weapons that Brown and his men used in the raid. The letter is one of the last letters Brown wrote to his wife.
59. HARPJB_120408_344.JPG: This letter, written in 1870, certifies that Virginia governor Henry Wise and future Confederate Secretary of War, George Wythe Randolph, witnessed the removal of this gun from John Brown in 1859.
60. HARPJB_120408_354.JPG: Original stockade frame and entrance doors to the Charles Town jail, where Brown was held in custody by Virginia authorities.
61. HARPJB_120408_364.JPG: Original stockade frame and entrance doors to the Charles Town jail, where Brown was held in custody by Virginia authorities.
62. HARPJB_120408_367.JPG: "I have been whipped as the saying is, but I am sure I can recover all the lost capital occasioned by the disaster by only hanging a few moments by the neck." -- John Brown, Charles Town, Virginia, November 11, 1859 "So perish all such enemies of Virginia! All such enemies of the Union! All such foes of the human race!" -- Colonel J.T.L. Preston, Virginia militiaman, December 2, 1859 "Some 1,000 years ago, Christ was crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer; he is an angel of light." -- Henry David Thoreau, December 2, 1859
63. HARPJB_120408_370.JPG: These pieces of scaffold are believed to be remnants from the gallows on which John Brown was hanged.
64. HARPJB_120408_379.JPG: And the War Came: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land; will never be purged away; but with Blood." -- John Brown, December 2, 1859 "You can weigh John Brown's body well enough, But how and in what balance weigh John Brown?" -- "John Brown's Body," Stephen Vincent Benet
65. HARPJB_120408_384.JPG: War and Freedom One year after Brown's unsuccessful raid, Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the recently formed Republican Party, was elected President of the United States. Lincoln, who considered slavery an "injustice" and an evil, carried all the free states, with the exception of New Jersey. He failed to win a single border or southern state. White southerners viewed Lincoln's election as a threat to their political and social system. On April 12, 1861, Confederate batteries in South Carolina opened fire on Fort Sumter, a federal installation. The Civil War had begun. During the next four years, 359,528 Union troops died, and 258,000 Confederate soldiers lost their lives. In 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Two years later, the Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting slavery in the United States, was ratified. Approximately 4 million African-Americans gained their freedom as a result of the Civil War. Although the struggle for racial equality was still in an early stage, slavery was no longer legal in American society.
66. HARPJB_120408_387.JPG: Harpers Ferry changed hands eight times during the Civil War. On April 18, 1861, one day after Virginia seceded from the Union, US troops burned the arsenal at Harpers Ferry before abandoning the town to rebel Virginia units. In turn, Confederate forces torched the Harpers Ferry armory and the nearby railroad bridge before they evacuated the town no June 15, 1861. Upon secession, Virginians who had been loyal Americans in 1859 when they seized and executed John Brown for treason were now considered traitors to the Union.
67. HARPJB_120408_390.JPG: In June 1862, Congress gave President Lincoln authority to recruit African-Americans into the Union forces. Approximately 180,000 blacks enlisted and served in the United States Army and Navy during the Civil War. In March 1864, approximately four and a half years after John Brown's raid on the armory, the 19th United States Colored Troops marched through Harpers Ferry. Black Americans who had been slaves when Brown attacked the federal installation were now fighting on behalf of the United States government.
68. HARPJB_120408_401.JPG: A Tradition of Protest: John Brown's raid in 1859, although unusual for its attack on a federal installation, is part of a long tradition of protest and dissent in America. The United States was born in protest. In the years before the American Revolution, colonists repeatedly and passionately spoke out against the laws and policies of England. Eventually, they rebelled with violence and war. With the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791, the Constitution of the United States guaranteed Americans the right of free speech, a free press, the right to petition the government, and the right to assemble peacefully. Americans frequently use these fundamental rights. Over the years, citizens of the country have organized demonstrations and rallies to oopose policies and champion causes. Often controversial and sometimes violent, these protests have laid the foundation for political, social and economic change. Today, as in the past, Americans often exercise their First Amendment rights.
69. HARPJB_120408_409.JPG: John Brown: An International Perspective John Brown's strike against slavery and for freedom received attention and praise abroad as well as at home. Serfs, reformers, artists and intellectuals in Europe embraced John Brown as a leader in the struggle for human freedom. Cyprian Norwid, a Polish poet and philosopher, praised John Brown in two poems written in 1859. At the end of World War II, Teodor J. Lopatkiewicz, a United States consul with the State Department, discovered this book or Norwid poems in the ruins of war-torn Warsaw, Poland. The American Council for Polish culture commissioned sculptor Gordon Kray to create this bronze sculpture of John Brown and Cyprian Norwid. The National Park Service received the sculpture and book during a special ceremony on October 20, 1990, in commemoration of the universal aspiration for freedom.
70. HARPJB_120408_412.JPG: John Brown and the Historians John Brown's life and his rain on Harpers Ferry have been the subject of intense historical scrutiny and debate over the years. Not surprisingly, Brown's reputation among historians has fluctuated. Many historians from old Yankee, New England families have presented Brown generally in a heroic light. Some historians viewed Brown as a horse thief, murderer and terrorist. Others have questioned Brown's mental health and his psychological make-up. Even today, Brown is praised, censured, and analyzed by contemporary historians. He continues to be as controversial in death as he was in life.
71. HARPJB_120408_419.JPG: John Brown was no Caesar, no Cromwell, but a plain citizen of a free republic, whom distressing events drove into a fanaticism to execute purposes to which he was incompetent ... Brown was an enthusiast, and not a felon; the essence of his crime was unselfish. -- James Schouler, History of the United States of America Under the Constitution, 1891
72. HARPJB_120408_421.JPG: In 1859, the public recognized in John Brown a fanatic, but one of those fanatics who, by their readiness to sacrifice their lives, are forever advancing the world... The story of John Brown will ever confront the spirit of despotism, when men are struggling to throw off the shackles of social or political or physical slavery. -- Oswald Garrison Villard, John Brown, 1800-1859: A Biography Fifty Years After, 1910
73. HARPJB_120408_423.JPG: The picturesque figure which has been presented to the public as John Brown is an historic myth -- a fiction... A stranger to honor, he violated every confidence that should be held sacred among men; and in his avarice trampled upon every law, moral and statute, human and Divine... John Brown will live in history; but his name will not be found among the names of those who have wrought for humanity and righteousness... -- John Peebles Wilson, John Brown, Soldier of Fortune: A Critique, 1913
74. HARPJB_120408_426.JPG: On all subjects but one -- slavery and the possibility of ending it by a sudden blow which would provoke a broadening wave of slave uprisings as a rock thrown into a pond sends forth widening ripples -- he [John Brown] was sane .... But on this special question of the readiness of slavery to crumble at a blow, his monomania... or his paranoia... rendered him irresponsible. -- Allan Nevins, the Emergence of Lincoln, 1950
75. HARPJB_120408_428.JPG: To dismiss Brown as an "insane" man is to ignore the tremendous sympathy he felt for the suffering of the black man in the United States; it is to disregard the fact that at the time when most Northerners and almost all Southerners were racists who wanted to keep the Negro at the bottom of society, John Brown was able to treat America's "poor despised Africans" as fellow human beings. -- Stephen B. Oates, To Purge This Land With Blood: A Biography of John Brown, 1970
76. HARPJB_120408_447.JPG: Expressions of a Condemned Man Convicted raider Aaron Dwight Stevens liked to fight. He fought in the Mexican War and served in the US Army until his court-martial for brawling. Stevens escaped from jail and soon joined the fight to make Kansas a free state. He then followed John Brown to Harpers Ferry only to be wounded and captured there. Stevens sketched this charcoal drawing as he awaited executed in the Charles Town jail. Stevens also wrote many letters from his cell. He maintained a steady correspondence with Mrs. Rebecca B. Spring of New Jersey, who had visited him and the other convicted raiders in jail. "The bouquet you sent me is very beautiful. I have hung it up south of the window, over the little table I have to write upon. It always has a smile of love and kindness... I have many letters to write to many dear friends which employ a good part of my time, and the rest is taken up in sleeping, exercise and reading. The chain only gives me room to take a half step, so you will see I cannot walk very fast, but I get some exercise that way; which gives me rest from sitting or lying... I am glad that I did not die of my wounds; for I believe that my execution upon the gallows will be a better testimony for truth and liberty. -- ADS"
77. HARPJB_120408_465.JPG: Allies for Freedom: The Prelude Allies for Freedom: The Raid The 21 men we know today as John Brown's raiders all shared a hatred of slavery and a conviction to act. Five of these men were black. Three were born free at a time when one drop of African blood separated them from citizenship. Their freedom was incomplete. Two were born as slaves at a time when four million were held in bondage. They returned to face the institution they had left behind. Having known some measure of freedom, did these five men have nothing to gain, and everything to lose? What compelled them to risk their lives against tremendous odds? Discover the contributions of these five allies to the struggle for freedom.
78. HARPJB_120408_467.JPG: Lewis Sheridan Leary 1835-1859 "brave to desperation" Descended from a Revolutionary War soldier, Lewis Sheridan Leary was born a free man in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1835. At the age of 22, he moved to Oberlin, Ohio, where he worked as a harness maker and saddler. In the strong abolitionist community of Oberlin, Leary joined a debating society and confirmed his belief that "Men must suffer to a good cause." At a sparsely attended public lecture in Cleveland, Ohio, the young man heard John Brown advocate a similar position. Inspired by the old abolitionist's words and committed to the antislavery cause, Leary joined Brown's "Provisional Army of the United States." In the fall of 1859 he left his wife and six-month old daughter in Ohio under the pretense that he had to travel to find work. Leary met John Brown again on October 12, 1859. [Note that the picture caption doesn't match his actual middle name.]
79. HARPJB_120408_470.JPG: John Anthony Copeland, Jr. 1834-1859 "there was a dignity about him" John Copeland's family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, from North Carolina when he was eight years old. As a child he worked in his father's carpentry business, but he received enough schooling to attend Oberlin College in 1854 at the age of 20. He joined the town's anti-slavery society, listening with emotional intensity each time a fugitive slave addressed the group. Copeland participated in the controversial "Oberlin Rescue" of a runaway slaw and served time in prison for his part. Copeland's uncle, Lewis Leary, recruited him to join John Brown in Virginia. "I have a hardy man, who is willing and in every way competent," wrote Leary of his nephew to Brown. "His address is John Copeland, Jr., Oberlin, Ohio." Copeland traveled quietly from Ohio to Virginia with money donated by friends in Oberlin. He arrived at John Brown's rented farmhouse on October 12, 1859.
80. HARPJB_120408_473.JPG: Osborne Perry Anderson 1830-1872 "willing to give my life to the cause" Osborne Perry Anderson was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania on July 28, 1830. Educated in the public schools, he sometimes went hungry in order to purchase his books. At the age of 20, Anderson moved to Chatham, Ontario, and worked as a printer for the Provincia Freeman. Eight years later he met John Brown at a secret meeting called the Chatham Convention. Anderson voted with all of the convention delegates to approve Brown's revolutionary new government for a free black state in the southern Appalachian Mountains. A year later Anderson was the only Chatham Community member to join Brown's army. He declined Brown's offer of a captain's commission, declaring the rank "better suited to those more experienced." Osborne Anderson left Canada on September 15, 1859, and joined John Brown's forces twelve years later, "ready for war." [I was curious that he survived the raid so I checked Wikipedia which disagreed about the date he died.] Osborne Perry Anderson From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Osborne Perry Anderson (1830–1871) was an African-American abolitionist and the only surviving African-American member of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and later a soldier in the Union army of the American Civil War. Early life In 1830 Anderson was born a free African-American in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He completed basic schooling and later attended Oberlin College in Ohio, after which he moved to Chatham, Ontario, CANADA in 1850 and opened shop as a printer. This skill served him later as an abolitionist. John Brown and the raid on Harper's Ferry In the spring of 1858 Anderson met John Brown and learned of the ill-fated revolution that he was planning. Because of his writing skills Anderson was appointed as the recording secretary at several of the meetings and was eventually promoted to a member of Brown's provisional congress. During the raid, Col. Lewis Washington, great grand-nephew of George Washington, who had been taken hostage by the raiders, surrendered Frederick the Great's sword and pistols presented by General Lafayette, to Anderson. John Brown later used these to command his men at Harpers Ferry. During the infamous raid on Harper's Ferry Anderson was stationed with Albert Hazlett, and once it became apparent to them that the raid was a failure they both retreated to Pennsylvania. Hazlett was later captured and put to death.
81. HARPJB_120408_476.JPG: John Brown and twenty-one men, five black and sixteen white, seized the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry on October 16, 1859. In theory, this group, known as the "Provisional Army of the United States," planned to strike deep into slave-holding country. But thirty-six hours after it began, John Brown's raid was over. Two of the black raiders were killed, two were captured and one escaped.
82. HARPJB_120408_480.JPG: A group of raiders including Shields Green, Lewis Leary and Osborne Anderson took slave owners hostage. They captured Colonel Lewis Washington and forced him to surrender the sword of his great grand uncle, George. Slaveholder John Allstadt and son were also taken from their home.
83. HARPJB_120408_483.JPG: Osborne Anderson attended a secret meeting with John Brown and 44 others at Chatham, Ontario, in 1858. Known as the Chatham Convention, the group met in this small schoolhouse to ratify a "Provisional Constitution" for a United States free of slavery. Anderson became a member of the new revolutionary government's congress.
84. HARPJB_120408_486.JPG: Shields Green and Frederick Douglass met John Brown at an isolated quarry in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in August 1859. At this secret meeting, Brown revealed his plan to capture the federal armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Douglass classed it "a perfect steel trap." Green simply said, "I b'lieve I'll go wid de ole man."
85. HARPJB_120408_489.JPG: Throughout the summer and fall of 1859, John Brown's followed traveled quietly to the rented Kennedy farm in Maryland, five miles from Harpers Ferry. To avoid discovery, the men hid in the attic each day studying military tactics and writing letters home. "The colored men were never allowed to be see by daylight outside of the dining room," wrote Brown's daughter Annie.
86. HARPJB_120408_492.JPG: Lewis Leary, John Copeland and Dangerfield Newby all lived for some time in the abolitionist community of Oberlin, Ohio. Copeland attended Oberlin College and, with Leary, participated in the local anti-slavery society.
87. HARPJB_120408_495.JPG: Dangerfield Newby abandoned his position on the Maryland side of the Potomac River bridge when local militia attacked. The first of Brown's men to die, he was shot and killed before he could reach his comrades in the armory. Someone took Harriet Newby's letters from her husband's pocket before enraged townspeople mutilated his body and dumped the corpse in nearby Hog Alley.
88. HARPJB_120408_509.JPG: John Copeland and Lewis Leary held the US Rifle Works on Halls Island for 16 hours before attempting escape. "The whole fire of at least fifty men was then turned upon poor Leary and myself," John Copeland later wrote. "(Leary) was shot through the body but did not die until ten hours afterwards." Copeland was captured and barely escaped lynching by an angry mob.
89. HARPJB_120408_513.JPG: While guarding the arsenal buildings, Osborne Anderson saw the trap closing on John Brown at the armory fire engine house. "With feelings of intense sadness, that we could be of no further avail to our commander," Anderson took advantage of the mayhem and confusion to escape across the river and flee north.
90. HARPJB_120408_516.JPG: Shields Green, along with John Brown and five other raiders, were barricaded in the armory fire engine house when United States Marines stormed the building. "The old hero and his men were hacked and wounded with indecent rage," wrote Osborne Anderson. "Of the four prisoners taken at the engine house, (there was) Shields Green, the most (relentless) of all our party in his hatred against the stealers of men."
91. HARPJB_120408_523.JPG: Shields Green 1836-1859 "a braver man never lived" Shields Green escaped slavery in South Carolina in 1856. He left behind a young son as he fled north to find freedom. Moving back and forth between Rochester, New York, and Canada, Green worked as a waiter and a servant. While in Rochester he met Frederick Douglass, a former slave and leading black abolitionist. At Douglass' home in January 1858, Green met John Brown. At Brown's request the trio gathered again the following year in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where the old man revealed his intention to seize the federal armory and arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Douglass counseled against the attack on federal property and refused to join. Twenty-three year old Shields Green, rumored to be the son of an African prince sold into slavery, parted with Douglass and followed John Brown.
92. HARPJB_120408_526.JPG: Dangerfield Newby 1815-1859 "devoted to family" Dangerfield Newby's owner-father freed his son after moving from Fauquier County, Virginia to Ohio. Years later, working as a blacksmith, Newby saved $1,000 to purchase his wife and the youngest of his six children from a Virginia slaveholder. In a series of letters to her husband in 1859, Harriet Newby had written about the children and of her "one bright hope... to be with you." She had pleaded with him to buy her as soon as possible, "for if you do not get me somebody else will." Dangerfield Newby's efforts to free his loved ones failed when the owner of his family increased the price. Newby soon joined the abolitionist John Brown. The oldest of Brown's met at the age of 44, friends described Newby as a "quiet man, quick tempered and devoted to family." Dangerfield Newby arrived at Brown's Maryland hideout in late August 1859, his wife's letters in hand.
93. HARPJB_120408_529.JPG: Immediately after the raid, Dangerfield Newby, Lewis Leary, and five other raiders were buried in an unmarked grave along the Shenandoah River. Forty years later, under cover of darkness, a small group of sympathizers exhumed the bodies for reburial beside John Brown in North Elba, New York.
94. HARPJB_120408_532.JPG: Shields Green and John Copeland faced trial at the Charles Town courthouse in November 1859. Both were found guilty of murder and inciting slaves to rebel. The court dismissed the charge of treason on the grounds that black men, denied citizenship by the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, were incapable of treason.
95. HARPJB_120408_535.JPG: Unlike John Brown, Shields Green and John Copeland had little to say publicly while imprisoned in Charles Town, Virginia. However, Copeland wrote eloquent letters to his family and friends concerning the raid and his fate.
96. HARPJB_120408_544.JPG: On December 12, 1859, Shields Green and John Copeland sat on their own coffins as they rode to the gallows. Just before Green was readied for execution and his arms were tied, he extended a hand toward his comrade as in a final goodbye. The trap door opened and the former slave died five minutes later. Copeland, however, struggled for twelve minutes as his body writhed in violent contortions.
97. HARPJB_120408_547.JPG: Less than an hour after Shields Green and John Copeland were buried, Winchester Medical College students dug up the two corpses for dissection and study. Copeland's family enlisted a member of the Ohio Senate to bargain for the release of their son's body, but failed. Union troops burned the Winchester Medical College to the ground three years later.
98. HARPJB_120408_550.JPG: Osborne Anderson, the only black raider to survive, returned to Canada and penned "A Voice From Harpers Ferry" in 1860. "John Brown.. dug the mine and laid the train which will eventually dissolve the union between Freedom and Slavery," he wrote. Anderson survived a stint in the Union Army in 1864, but died of consumption in Washington, DC eight years later. Any hope of finding his unmarked grave ended when the Harmony Cemetery was moved. [Harmony Cemetery is the mostly black cemetery that was originally located near what is now the New York Avenue Metro station. When that area was redeveloped in the 1950s, the cemetery was moved to Largo Maryland. 37,000 remains were disinterred and moved but many records had been lost.]
99. HARPJB_120408_555.JPG: The inscription reads in part, "These colored citizens of Oberlin... gave their lives for the slave." As a tribute to their former neighbors, the people of Oberlin, Ohio, erected a monument to Lewis Leary, John Copeland and Shields Green.
100. HARPJB_120408_558.JPG: On August 30, 1899, a special ceremony honored the reburial of Dangerfield Newby, Lewis Leary and eight other raiders at John Brown's home in North Elba, New York. Lewis Leary's widow sent the following message, "I rejoice that (they) are not forgotten. I remember them with pride and their brave struggle for the liberty of an oppressed race."
101. HARPJB_120408_564.JPG: John Brown Photo Chronology Fourteen photo portraits made by John Brown and his supporters for the purpose of recruitment and promotion are gathered from the archives repositories by Jean Libby, an independent scholar and retired community college history instructor in California. There are nineteen high-resolution and finely printed enlarged panels in the exhibit which show historical photographic perspectives of the original sittings. Give of the original daguerreotypes are extant at archives and museums. Just as John Brown was drawn to the latest technology in weapons for a small vanguard army, he was a participant in the photographic processes for effective and deliberate distribution of his image to recruit and to reward supporters. The John Brown Photo Chronology exhibition is prepared with cooperation from the Boston Athenaeum, Chicago History Museum, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History at the New York Historical Society, Kansas State Historical Society, Library of Congress, Massachusetts Historical Society, National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City [Missouri], Summit County [Ohio] Historical Society, West Virginia State Archives, Western Maryland Room of the Washington County Free Library, and The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.
102. HARPJB_120408_604.JPG: "Running to Freedom: Fighting for Freedom" At the outbreak of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln said his goal was to preserve the Union and not to abolish slavery. But four million enslaved African Americans knew otherwise. For them, the war was their path to emancipation. When Federal armies moved into the South, thousands of slaves fled to Union camps seeking freedom. At first, no consistent federal policy regarding fugitive slaves existed, allowing individual commanders to make their own decision. Some officers put runaways to work for the army as cooks, laborers, and spies; other simply turned them away or returned them to their masters. Finally, on August 6, 1861, the United States Congress declared fugitive slaves to be "contraband of war," officially preventing freedom seeking refugees from being returned to bondage. Less than two years later, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, not only changing the purpose of the war, but opening the door for blacks to join the Union Army. African American men rushed to enlist despite facing segregation and discrimination. By the time the war ended in 1865, almost 200,000 black men had served in the United States Army and Navy. Roughly 90,000 were "contraband of war." Perhaps more than anyone else, these men understood the value of freedom.
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2012 photos: Equipment this year: My mainstays were the Fuji S100fs, Nikon D7000, and the new Fuji X-S1. I also used an underwater Fuji XP50 and a Nikon D600. The first three cameras all broke this year and had to be repaired. Trips this year: three Civil War Trust conferences (Shepherdstown, WV, Richmond, VA, and Williamsburg, VA), a week-long family reunion cruise of the Caribbean, another week-long family reunion in the Wisconsin Dells (with lots of in-transit time in Ohio and Indiana), and my 7th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including side trips to Zion, Bryce, the Grand Canyon, etc). Ego strokes: I had a picture of Miss DC, Ashley Boalch, published in the Washington Post. I had a photograph of the George Segal San Francisco Holocaust memorial used as the cover of Quebec Francais (issue 165). Not being able to read French, I'm not entirely sure what the article is about but, hey! And I guess what could be considered to be a positive thing, my site is now established enough that spammers have noticed it and I had to block 17,000 file description postings for Viagra and whatever else.. Number of photos taken this year: just below 410,000.
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