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Harper’s Ferry

Under construction, please check back.  I have a lot of pictures and info to post from my trip there this summer.  Also compiling documents from my ancestors who were there.

From: http://www.nps.gov/archive/hafe/people.htm

John Brown
On October 16, 17, and 18, 1859, John Brown and his "Provisional Army of the United States" took possession of the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Brown had come to arm an uprising of slaves. Instead, the raid drew militia companies and federal troops from Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. On the morning of October 18, a storming party of 12 Marines broke down the door of the Armory's fire enginehouse, taking Brown and the remaining raiders captive. [View photos of John Brown's Fort]

Brown, charged for "conspiring with slaves to commit treason and murder," was tried, convicted, and hanged in Charles Town on December 2, 1859. Before the sentence was carried out, however, Brown issued a prophetic warning:

I wish to say furthermore, that you had better – all you people at the South – prepare yourselves for a settlement of that question that must come up for settlement sooner than you are prepared for it. The sooner you are prepared the better. You may dispose of me very easily; I am nearly disposed of now; but this question is still to be settled – this negro question I mean – the end of that is not yet.

Even as John Brown's Raid was unfolding, Harpers Ferry residents George and Mary Mauzy described the events of the raid in a series of emotional letters to their daughter and son-in-law, James and Eugenia Burton. [Read excerpts from the Mauzy letters]

John Brown's Raid remains part of the legacy of our nation's struggle with slavery.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpers_Ferry,_West_Virginia

John Brown's raid

On October 16, 1859, the radical abolitionist John Brown led a group of 22 men in a raid on the Arsenal. Five of the men were black: three free blacks, one a freed slave, and one a fugitive slave. During this time assisting fugitive slaves was illegal under the Dred Scott decision. Brown attacked and captured several buildings; he hoped to use the captured weapons to initiate a slave uprising throughout the South. The first shot mortally wounded Heyward Shepherd,^{[citation needed]} a night baggage porter for the B&O railroad that ran through Harpers Ferry near the armory. The noise from that shot roused Dr. John Starry from his sleep shortly after 1:00 AM. He walked from his nearby home to investigate the shooting and was confronted by Brown's men. Starry stated that he was a doctor but could do nothing more for Shepherd, and Brown's men allowed him to leave. Instead of going home Starry went to the livery and mounted a horse.

Preserved John Brown Fort, 2007

Riding to neighboring towns and villages, Starry loudly proclaimed that Harpers Ferry had been taken by abolitionists. When he reached nearby Charles Town, they rang the church bells and aroused the citizens from their sleep. Starry then coordinated a counterattack for the militia. John Brown's men were quickly pinned down by local citizens and militia, and forced to take refuge in the engine house adjacent to the armory. John Starry became a hero for sounding the alarm of the raid.

Scrambling for a response to the uprising before it became an outright rebellion, the Secretary of War found himself asking for the assistance of the Navy Department for a unit of United States Marines, the nearest troops. ^[3] Lieutenant Israel Greene was ordered to take a troop of eighty-six Marines to the town. In need of an officer to lead the expedition, U.S. Army Colonel Robert E. Lee was found on leave nearby and was assigned commander along with Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart as his Aide-de-camp. The whole contingent arrived via train on October 18, and after failure of negotiation, they stormed the fire house and captured most of the raiders, killing a few and suffering a single casualty themselves. Brown was tried for treason against the State of Virginia, convicted, and hanged in nearby Charles Town. Starry's testimony was integral to Brown's conviction. Following the prosecution (by Andrew Hunter), "John Brown captured the attention of the nation like no other abolitionist or slave owner before or since." The Marines returned to their barracks and Colonel Lee returned to finish his leave. The raid was a catalyst for the American Civil War.