Existing comment:
John Brown's Raid, 1859
Accompanied by eighteen whites and five African Americans, abolitionist John Brown seized the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He intended to take rifles stored there, escape into the mountains, and start a slave revolt. Five raiders escaped, ten were killed, and nine -- including Brown -- were captured and executed. Sectionalist tension heightened as southerners feared additional violence. |