Three Days in October

Looking back in time you can probably find major historical events within any month.  Nonetheless it seems that October is an important month.  There was the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, the October Revolution, the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Cuban Missile Crisis and the Raid on Harper’s Ferry.  Whether it is the changing of the season, the shortening days, or the coming of winter, October is a historically significant month.  This post will talk about the raid at Harper’s Ferry that began the dark of night on October 16 and ended in the daylight of October 18, 1859. 

John Brown

Led by the famed abolitionist John Brown, he of the tune, by Rev. William Patton, with the famous first line: “Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave” would be the mastermind of the raid, and it would lead to his death for treason against the state of Virginia.  John Brown was a vehement abolitionist who strongly believed that bloodshed would be necessary to rid the nation of its peculiar institution.  To understand John Brown you need to understand Bleeding Kansas, and to understand Bleeding Kansas you need to understand the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and to understand the Kansas-Nebraska Act you need to understand the Missouri Compromise, and for the Missouri Compromise you need to understand the long tensions between free and slave states.

Bleeding Kansas

The Missouri Compromise set forth a latitudinal line such that states north of the line would be free, and those south of the line would allow slavery.  Overtime the south realized the inherent issue with more territory in the continent (north of Mexico) favoring free states.  They did not wish slave states to be outnumbered by free states.  Stephen Douglas (D IL) would derive the idea of self-determination.  The legislation he pushed is known as the Kansas-Nebraska act which would allow self-determination.  Adopted in May 1854, the debate over the act is said by some to be the beginning of the Republican party (founded in Ripon, WI in March of that year).  The act would lead to what we call blood shed in Kansas as both pro-slave and pro-emancipation settlers would move to the territory.  Violence was anticipated given the rifles and supplies that would go with the settlers.  John Brown, with his sons would kill five persons during the early part of Bleeding Kansas.  Brown would move back east to plan his raid on Harper’s Ferry.

Missouri Compromise Line

It was in 1959 that John Brown would undertake the act that would further split the nation.  Due to limited methods of news travel, it is not like the nation was on edge awaiting results of the raid.   He intended to capture the Federal arsenal and believed that slaves of Virginia would rise up against owners and he would have the bounty of the arsenal to supply them with guns and ammunition.  It did not work as planned, in part because there was no communication method to the slaves in bondage.  His plan of 200 to 500 slaves in the first night alone to assist in his operations did not come to fruition.  The task was left to him and his 18 co-insurgents.  Two of Brown’s sons would be killed during the raid. 

A militia group mainly composed of Baltimore and Ohio rail workers first attempted to subdue the uprising, and the task was later left to a company of US Soldiers led by Col Robert E. Lee.  President Buchanan would not order federal troops to the site until the mid-afternoon of October 17, so Lee was not long on the scene.  Lee would attempt to get the militia to attack, but they said no, and the job would fall to him.  Being a good commander Lee passed the effort down the chain of command, and J.E.B. Stuart would lead the effort.  These two men would become more famous due to the war that would begin with Fort Sumter less than two years later.  Brown’s group had raided a B&O train, but let the train move on which led to the report of his act, and the appearance of the militia on the first night.  Yet, there are more interesting circumstances.  Brown would have four of his men kidnap Col. Lewis Washington, great grandnephew of George, and steal two items: the first a sword given to George Washington purportedly by Frederick the Great, and two pistols given to him by Marquis de Lafayette.

Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, depiction in Oct 1959

The attack, however, did not have to occur.  Senators Seward and Wilson became aware of the planned attack by Hugh Forbes who had been hired by Brown to train his attack party.  Fobes' tattling  was not due a patriotic duty, but simply because he was not paid more.  Gridley Howe, a backer of Brown, had been persuaded by Senator Wilson to get Brown and his team to back down.  Brown found out and would take time out of his planning for Harper's Ferry to discredit Forbes.  David Gue, another abolitionist, also knew about the planned attack, and believed, like others including Fredrick Douglass, that it was a foolhardy plan that would only lead to death.  Gue wrote an anonymous letter to Secretary of War John Floyd, but Floyd discounted the letter due to an error as Gue said arsenals in both Maryland and Virginia in the plan of attack.  There was not an arsenal in Maryland, but the Harper's Ferry arsenal was just below the border with Maryland.  However, Gue specifically called out Brown as “old John Brown,’ late of Kansas.”  In a time before terror watch lists, or a man not in tune with what had been going on in the nation, Floyd says he never recognized the name.  Maybe it was purposeful amnesia, as the Buchanan administration was a south-friendly administration.  Seward would become Secretary of State in the Lincoln administration and he himself was almost killed the night Lincoln was shot as part of the overall plan by John Wilkes Booth. 

The final coincidence to mention, is that one man observing the hanging death of John Brown on December 2, 1859 was John Wilkes Booth. These are some of the coincidences of history which add interest to what is often perceived as a mundane topic.  Brown would presage the bloody nature of the Civil War when on the day of his execution he wrote:  "I, John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away; but with Blood.  I had as I now think, vainly flattered myself without very much bloodshed; it might be done.”  Of course, the nature of day meant that Brown's trial would make him a martyr for the north, and hence the songs which arose in his memory.  John Brown’s body may be moldering in the grave, but his actions are not forgotten for those three days in October.