During the early 19th Century, several legislative measures were put in place to prevent the expansion of slavery. Namely, the Missouri Compromise (1820) and the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854). The first law largely was enacted to appease Southern states, while the latter put the slavery question, for newly admitted states, to a vote by the state’s residents – called popular sovereignty. With the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Kansas became a powder keg. Southern states would send residents across the Kansas border, to vote on the slavery question, with bands of roving militants, loyal to both sides of the question, creating complete anarchy across the prairies of Kansas. The resulting guerrilla fighting would become known as Bloody Kansas.
One of the agitators was abolitionist John Brown, who would bring his four sons with him to the state, along with a wagon load of rifles and ammunition, to stir unrest and recruit other abolitionists. After a pro-slavery band sacked the city of Lawrence, Brown would lead his band of militants to Pottawatomie Creek, where they would pull five slavery supporters from their cabins, shoot them and then hack them to pieces.
With the release of the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, in 1859, the stage was set and a fuse was lit. This fuse would cause a massive explosion in October 1859, at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (present day West Virginia).
John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry and the Federal military response
On the morning of October 18, 1859, a small detachment of U.S. Marines ended one of the most dramatic and consequential episodes in the years leading to the American Civil War. Inside the fire-engine house, of the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, abolitionist John Brown and a handful of surviving followers held hostages after their failed attempt to seize the arsenal and ultimately, ignite a slave uprising. Within minutes, Marines, under the overall direction of (brevet) Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, stormed the building, captured the wounded Brown, and extinguished the raid.
Brown, a militant opponent of slavery, whose earlier activities in Kansas had already made him notorious, arrived at Harpers Ferry late on the night of October 16, with a band of roughly twenty-one men – including several of his sons and a small number of free Black supporters. They quickly took control of the armory and rifle works, cut telegraph lines, and seized hostages, among them Colonel Lewis Washington, a great-grandnephew of George Washington. Brown hoped local enslaved people would rally to him and that the raid would spark a broader rebellion across the South. Instead, word spread rapidly. Local militia and armed townspeople surrounded the raiders. By the afternoon of October 17, most of Brown’s force was trapped inside the sturdy brick engine house, soon dubbed “John Brown’s Fort.”
In Washington, authorities moved quickly. Lee, was ordered to take overall command and end the standoff at the arsenal. Accompanying him were approximately ninety Marines from the Washington Navy Yard, led by First Lieutenant Israel Greene, along with Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, as a volunteer aide. The Marines arrived by train on the evening of October 17. Lee delayed the attack until daylight, to reduce the risk to the hostages. At dawn on the 18th, Stuart, under a white flag, approached the engine house and demanded surrender. Brown refused.
Lee then ordered the Marines forward. A storming party of roughly a dozen Marines, armed with bayonets and led by Greene, smashed through the door with a heavy ladder used as a battering ram. The fight was over in less than three minutes. Greene himself struck Brown with his saber, severely wounding him. Two of Brown’s men were killed in the assault; others were bayoneted or captured. One Marine was killed and another wounded. Thirteen hostages emerged unharmed. Of Brown’s original party, ten were killed during the raid, seven were captured (including Brown), and five escaped.
Brown was taken to Charles Town, tried for treason, murder, and inciting slave insurrection, and convicted. On December 2, 1859, he was hanged. In the North, many viewed him as a martyr; in the South, the raid confirmed fears of Northern abolitionist aggression and armed insurrection. The episode deepened the sectional crisis that would erupt into civil war less than two years later. For the Marine Corps, the brief, decisive action at Harpers Ferry became an early demonstration of its role as a ready force for domestic emergencies, carried out with the speed and discipline that would define the service in later conflicts.
The Aftermath of John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry
Before his execution, John Brown handed a note to his jailer, which read, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood.” With the 1860 presidential election just over a year off, Brown’s words would prove quite prescient.
The South was already wary of anti-slavery sentiment festering in the northern states. John Brown’s Raid did nothing but further antagonize the slave states. With the election of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th president, on November 6, 1860, the South began to prepare for war. Before his inauguration, on March 4, 1861, seven Southern states had seceded from the Federal Union: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.
John Brown is widely considered the spark that started the American Civil War, but the kindling had been put in the fire pit with the Missouri Compromise, Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott Decision. Brown was the spark which set fire to that kindling. And it would become a raging forest fire across the states.
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