John Brown's raiders
{{Short description|Group of abolitionists who raided a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, US}}
{{Infobox militant organization
| name = John Brown's raiders
| military_leader = John Brown
| dissolved = 1859
| ideology = Abolitionism
Civil rights
| war = John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
}}
On Sunday night, October 16, 1859, the abolitionist John Brown led a band of 22 in a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (since 1863, West Virginia).
Composition of the group
The group of men varied in social class and education.{{cite news
|title=John Brown Raiders
|newspaper=Telegraph–Forum
|location=Bucyrus, Ohio
|date=January 4, 1873
|page=2
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/82726044/death-of-osborne-anderson-comments-on/
|access-date=3 August 2021
|archive-date=3 August 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210803175923/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/82726044/death-of-osborne-anderson-comments-on/
|url-status=live
}}
{{blockquote|It would be hard to find again such a strange party as that which upheld John Brown in his daring expedition. Hopeful because they were brave, and brave with the surety of right on their side, they came together with the wide difference in character and education, and were held together by their love for liberty. Some of them could claim only the refinement of this love while others were fitted for any position of honor that could be given them.|"John Brown Raiders", Telegraph-Forum, January 4, 1873}}
They had come from all over the country and Canada, and were from diverse social classes, from fugitive slaves to the upper middle class. John Brown was 59, Dangerfield Newby was 44, and Owen Brown was 35. All the rest were under 30. Oliver Brown, Barclay Coppoc, and William H. Leeman were under 21.{{cite book
|chapter=The Trial of John Brown for Treason and Insurrection, Charlestown, Virginia, 1859
|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RX00AQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Shields+green%22&pg=PA727
|pages=700–805
|title=American state trials : a collection of the important and interesting criminal trials which have taken place in the United States from the beginning of our government to the present day
|location=St. Louis
|volume=6
|first=John D.
|last=Lawson
|year=1916
|publisher=Thomas Law Books
|access-date=2021-01-29
|archive-date=2021-06-14
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164210/https://www.google.com/books/edition/American_State_Trials/RX00AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Shields+green%22&pg=PA727&printsec=frontcover
|url-status=live
}}{{rp|702}}
Of the members of Brown's party, 17 were white and 5 (23%) were Black.{{cite journal
|title=The Five Brave Negroes with John Brown at Harpers Ferry
|first=Rose Leary
|last=Love
|journal=Negro History Bulletin
|volume=27
|number=7
|date=April 1964
|pages=164–169
|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44177040
|jstor=44177040
|access-date=2021-01-31
|archive-date=2021-08-25
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825103548/https://www.jstor.org/stable/44177040
|url-status=live
}} Of the five black people, two (Leary, Newby) died during the raid, two (Copeland and Green) were tried and executed, and one (Osborne Anderson) escaped. Two (Green and Newby) had been enslaved, with Newby having been granted his freedom and Green a fugitive; three (Osborne Anderson, Copeland, and Leary) were free black people, but Copeland was a fugitive from the charge of participating in the 1858 Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, of which he was a leader.{{cite journal
|volume=91
|number=5
|date=June 1, 2013
|journal=North Carolina Law Review
|title=Execution in Virginia, 1859: The Trials of Green and Copeland
|pages=1785–1815
|author-link=Steven Lubet
|first=Steven
|last=Lubet
|url=https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol91/iss5/9
|access-date=December 21, 2020
|archive-date=December 29, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201229150212/https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol91/iss5/9/
|url-status=live
}}{{rp|1787}}
Three of Brown's sons participated in the raid. Two, Oliver and Watson, were shot on Monday at the engine house; Oliver died after a few hours in agony, but Watson not until early Wednesday morning. Owen Brown escaped and became an officer in the Union Army. Watson's body was recovered in 1882; Oliver's not until 1899. Salmon Brown, though he had been with his father and brothers in Kansas, did not want to participate in the Harpers Ferry raid and remained in North Elba, running the farm.{{cite journal
|title=John Brown and Sons in Kansas Territory
|first=Salmon
|last=Brown
|journal=Indiana Magazine of History
|volume=31
|number=2
|date=June 1935
|pages=142–150
|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27786731
|jstor=27786731
|access-date=2021-01-25
|archive-date=2021-08-25
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825103550/https://www.jstor.org/stable/27786731
|url-status=live
}} John Jr. and Jason also declined to participate.
All but 5, who successfully escaped north, were either killed during the raid, or captured, tried, and executed. Of the 22,
- 10 were killed during the raid or died shortly after of their wounds (Jerry Anderson, Oliver Brown, Watson Brown, Kagi, Leary, Leeman, Newby, Taylor, Adolphus Thompson, William Thompson)
- 7 were tried and executed, 5 who were taken prisoner on the spot (John Brown, Cook, Copeland, Edwin Coppock, Green) plus 2 who escaped but were captured (Hazlitt, Stevens)
- 5 escaped north and were not captured (Osborne Anderson, Owen Brown, Barclay Coppock, Meriam, Tidd).
Raiders
{{side box| text=Symbols
‡ the bodies taken to Winchester Medical College{{efn|‡ The bodies of the 4 so marked were taken to Winchester Medical College for dissection by medical students. Medical schools in the South routinely used bodies of the enslaved for this purpose, citing the availability of such bodies as an incentive to enroll.{{cite book
|title=Educated in Tyranny: Slavery at Thomas Jefferson's University
|editor-first1=Maurie D.
|editor-last1=McInnis
|editor-first2=Louis P.
|editor-last2=Nelson
|year=2019
|isbn=978-0813942865
|chapter=Anatomical Theater
|first=Kirt
|last=von Daacke
|pages=171–198
|publisher=University of Virginia Press}}{{rp|183–184}}}}
† the 10 buried on the John Brown Farm{{efn|† marks the 10 buried in 1899 in a single coffin on the John Brown Farm in North Elba, New York, according to a plaque there.}}
¶ indicates an African American
}}
The men who participated in the raid are made up of two groups, depending whether or not they fought with Brown in Kansas.
As of 2012, there had never been a book on any of Brown's raiders. Three appeared in quick succession: 2012 on John E. Cook, 2015 on John Anthony Copeland,{{cite book
|title=The "Colored Hero" of Harpers Ferry : John Anthony Copeland and the War against Slavery
|first=Steven
|last=Lubet
|location=Cambridge, England
|publisher=Cambridge University Press
|year=2015
|isbn=9781107076020}} and in 2020 on Shields Green, plus a 2018 book on Brown's five Black raiders, Five for Freedom: the African American Soldiers in John Brown's Army.{{cite book
|title=Five for Freedom : the African American Soldiers in John Brown's Army
|first=Eugene L
|last=Meyer
|location=Chicago
|publisher=Lawrence Hill Books
|year=2018
|isbn=9781613735718}}
=Fought with Brown in Kansas=
A group that fought with him in Kansas and gathered at Springdale, Iowa, to prepare and drill for the raid,{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=70–71, 101–104}}
File:Jeremiah Goldsmith Anderson.png
‡ Jeremiah Goldsmith Anderson, 26, born in Indiana, served with Brown in Kansas.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 101, 123}}{{rp|24}} Brown was "attended, generally, in his movements about the city [Boston] and its neighborhood, by a faithful henchman, Jerry Anderson."{{cite journal
|title=John Brown and His Friends
|first=Franklin
|last=Sanborn
|authorlink=Franklin Sanborn
|journal=The Atlantic
|date=July 1872
|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1872/07/john-brown-and-his-friends/308739/}} He was killed by a Marine's bayonet during the final assault on the engine house. He had in his pocket a letter from his brother John J. (or G. or Q.) Anderson, of Chillicothe, Ohio.{{cite news
|title=Incidents of the second battle
|page=1
|date=19 October 1859
|newspaper=Baltimore Sun
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/58069049/full-reports-insurrection-in-harpers/
|access-date=August 26, 2020
|archive-date=August 29, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200829130439/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/58069049/full-reports-insurrection-in-harpers/
|url-status=live
}} His body was taken by Winchester Medical College;{{rp|133}} last resting place unknown.
{{clear}}
† Oliver Brown, 20, John Brown's son, served in Kansas, and he was mortally wounded during the raid{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=101, 123}} Oliver, the youngest of John Brown's three sons to participate in the action. He was described by his mother as the child "most like his father, caring most for learning of all our children."{{cite news
|title=A Visit to John Brown by a Lady
|last=S[pring]
|first=R[ebecca] B[uffum]
|author-link=Rebecca Buffum Spring
|newspaper=New-York Tribune
|date=December 2, 1859
|page=6
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63692913/visit-by-mrs-spring/
|access-date=December 28, 2020
|archive-date=February 13, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210213220041/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63692913/visit-by-mrs-spring/
|url-status=live
}} He was mortally wounded on the 17th inside the engine house, and died beside his father. First buried in one of two unmarked boxes near Harpers Ferry; re-interred in 1899 in a common coffin in North Elba.
{{clear}}
Owen Brown, about 35, John Brown's son, fought in Kansas. He escaped the raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 102}} Owen, one of three of Brown's sons to participate in the raid, was the last surviving raider following the death of Osborn P. Anderson in 1873. He died in 1889
{{clear}}
John Edwin Cook, 29, reformer and former soldier, attended Oberlin College, he initially escaped capture, but was found and hanged{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 102}} 16 December 1859. The book, John Brown's Spy. The Adventurous Life and Tragic Confession of John E. Cook, was written about him and published in 2012.{{cite book
|title=John Brown's Spy. The Adventurous Life and Tragic Confession of John E. Cook
|first=Steven
|last=Lubet
|author-link=Steven Lubet
|location=New Haven, Connecticut
|publisher=Yale University Press
|year=2012
|isbn=9780300180497}} Buried Green-wood Cemetery, Brooklyn New York
{{clear}}
Albert Hazlett, 23, fought in Kansas, escaped following the raid, but was captured and hanged.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=103}} 16 March 1860. Buried John Brown Burial grounds
{{clear}}
† John Henry Kagi, about 24, a teacher from Ohio, became Brown's second in command, before the raid he printed copies of Brown's constitution in a printing shop he established in Hamilton, Ontario, mortally wounded during the raid{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 79, 103, 123}}{{rp|133}} He was shot and killed while attempting to cross the Shenandoah River. One report says mistakenly that his body was taken for dissection.{{rp|133}} First buried in one of two unmarked boxes near Harpers Ferry; re-interred in 1899 in a common coffin in North Elba.
{{clear}}
† William H. Leeman, 20, fought with the free-staters in Kansas for three years, beginning at the age of 17. He died during the raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 103}} Leeman, from Maine,{{rp|24}} youngest of all the raiders,{{cite journal
|title=The John Brown Raid
|page=958
|journal=Century Magazine
|year=1883
|volume=26
|url=https://archive.org/details/century-1883-v-4/page/958/mode/1up}} was shot and killed while trying to escape across the Potomac River. His sister, Mrs. S. H. Brown, published a letter of John Brown of November 28, 1859, which according to her had never been published. From it we learn he was killed not trying to escape, but trying to deliver a message of John Brown to Owen Brown or Cook. He was reburied at the John Brown burial grounds.
{{clear}}
Aaron Dwight Stevens, about 28, was a former soldier and fighter in Kansas, who gave the men military training and drills. He was wounded during the raid, after which he was executed. 16 March 1860{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 104}}Buried John Brown Burial grounds
{{clear}}
Charles Plummer Tidd, 25, fought in Kansas. He escaped the raid and later served during the Civil War.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 104}} as a 1st Sgt; died 8 Feb 1862 Buried Unknown grave New Bern National Cemetery North Carolina
{{clear}}
=Recruits=
Men recruited for the raid are,{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=70–71, 101–104}}
File:Osborne Perry Anderson.png]]
¶ Osborne Perry Anderson escaped capture following the raid. He died in 1873. He is both the only Black escapee and the only escapee that had been in the engine house. He is also the only raider to publish a memoir about the raid.{{cite book
|title=A voice from Harper's Ferry : a narrative of events at Harper's Ferry : with incidents prior and subsequent to its capture by Captain Brown and his men
|url=https://archive.org/details/ASPC0005194700/mode/2up
|first=Osborne P.
|last=Anderson
|author-link=Osborne Perry Anderson
|publisher=The author
|year=1861
|location=Boston}} He served as a recruiter for the Union Army, and died in poverty in 1872. He is buried unknown grave National Harmony Cemetery Park Cemetery, Hyattsville Maryland
{{clear}}
‡ Watson Brown, 24, son of John Brown, mortally wounded during the raid{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=123}} Watson was mortally wounded outside the engine house while carrying a white flag to negotiate with the opposing militia. He was not shot by a Marine, as they respected the white flag, but by an infuriated townsman. He survived in agony for another day. His body was taken by Winchester Medical College, skinned, and preserved as an anatomical specimen. When a Union army occupied Winchester in 1862, his body was "rescued" by a Union doctor, who had it shipped to his home in Indiana. It was returned to the family and buried in North Elba in 1882. See Burning of Winchester Medical College.
{{clear}}
¶ John Anthony Copeland Jr. was a free black man who joined John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. He was captured during the raid and was executed{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=99, 102}}16 December 1859. The book, The "Colored Hero" of Harpers Ferry: John Anthony Copeland and the War against Slavery, was published in 2015. There is a cenotaph memorial in Oberlin, Ohio.
{{clear}}
File:Barclat Coppoc or Coppock.jpg]]
Barclay Coppock, 19, escaped capture following the raid. He returned to Iowa in 1860 where he was allowed to escape to Canada due to Governor Samuel Kirkwood delaying Virginia's attempt to extradite him.{{cite web | url=https://teachingiowahistory.org/bibliography/edwin-and-barclay-coppock | title=Edwin and Barclay Coppock | Teaching Iowa History }} Coppock then traveled to Ohio and later fought in the Civil War.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=72}} He was killed on September 4, 1861, in a train crash caused by bushwackers; buried Mount Aurora Cemetery, Leavenworth. Kansas
{{clear}}
File:Edwin coppock.jpgBoth Coppack photos from A topical history of Cedar County, Iowa, Volume 1 (1910) Clarence Ray Aurner, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company]]
Edwin Coppock, 24, he was captured and executed by hanging,{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=72, 102}} December 16, 1859. Buried Hope Cemetery, Salem, Columbiana County Ohio
{{clear}}
¶ Shields Green, about 23, escaped slavery, captured and hanged on 16 December 1859.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=103}} The book about him, entitled The Untold Story of Shields Green, was published in 2020.{{cite book
|title=The untold story of Shields Green : the life and death of a Harper's Ferry raider
|author-link=Louis A DeCaro
|first=Louis A
|last=DeCaro
|publisher=New York University Press
|location=New York
|year=2020
|isbn=9781479802753}}{{efn|The ages of Shields Green varies by source, between 22 and 30.}} There is a cenotaph memorial in Oberlin, Ohio.
{{clear}}
† ¶ Lewis Sheridan Leary, 24,{{rp|24}} was freed by his white father and was harness maker.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=103, 123}} Leary was from Oberlin, Ohio.{{rp|24}} "He said before he died that he enlisted with Capt. Brown for the insurrection at a fair held in Lorraine County, Ohio, and received the money to pay his expenses."{{rp|30}} He was stationed in the rifle factory with Kagi. He was mortally wounded while trying to escape across the Shenandoah River. John Anthony Copeland was his nephew and Langston Hughes was his grandson.{{rp|8}} There is a cenotaph memorial in Oberlin, Ohio.
{{clear}}
File:Francis Jackson Meriam (not Merriam).jpg]]
Francis Jackson Meriam, 22, grandson of Francis Jackson who was a leader of Antislavery Societies. Meriam was an aristocrat. He escaped during the raid. Captain Meriam led an African American infantry group during the Civil War.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=103}} Died 28 November 1865; New York County
{{clear}}
† ¶ Dangerfield Newby, 35{{rp|24}} or 44,{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 94, 104}} was born into slavery, with a white father who was not his owner. He was given permission to move to Ohio along with his mother and siblings, but when he tried to gain freedom for his wife and children, their owner refused to sell them even after Newby had earned and saved the agreed-upon price. This inspired Newby return to Virginia to join Brown's raid.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=71, 94, 104}} Newby was described as a "huge mulatto",{{cite news
|title=Treatment of the dead and the prisoners
|newspaper=The Liberator
|location=Boston, Massachusetts
|date=November 11, 1859
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73678456/letter-from-frederick-douglass/
|access-date=March 19, 2021
|archive-date=April 13, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413201032/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73678456/letter-from-frederick-douglass/
|url-status=live
}} He was the first raider killed. His body was mutilated: his ears and genitals were cut off as souvenirs.{{cite book
|first=Michael
|last=Korda
|title=Clouds of Glory : The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee
|publisher=Harper
|date=2014
|page=xxix
|isbn=978-0062116314}} An excerpt, "When Robert E. Lee Met John Brown and Saved the Union", was [https://www.thedailybeast.com/when-robert-e-lee-met-john-brown-and-saved-the-union published] in The Daily Beast. He carried a letter from his wife in his pocket. There is a cenotaph memorial in Oberlin, Ohio.
{{clear}}
File:Steward Taylor, one of John Brown's raiders.jpg
† Stewart Taylor, 22 or 23, he was a wagonmaker{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=104, 123}} from Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada, who attended the Chatham convention. According to Brown's daughter Annie, "He was more what might be called a crank than any of the party. ...He became strongly imbued with the idea that he would be one of the first killed in the coming encounter, but this fixed belief did not cause the slightest shrinking on his part."{{cite journal
|first=Thomas
|last=Featherstonhaugh
|title=John Brown's Men: The Lives of Those Killed at Harper's Ferry, with a Supplementary Bibliography of John Brown
|journal=Southern History Association
|number=1
|volume=3
|url=https://archive.org/details/publicationsofso03sout/page/n631/mode/2up
|date=October 1899
|pages=281–306}}
{{rp|291}}{{rp|532}} Reburied at the John Brown farm.
{{clear}}
File:Dauphin Adolphus Thompson.jpg
† Dauphin Thompson, 21, married to Ruth Brown, John Brown's daughter, mortally wounded during the raid{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=104, 123}} From North Elba, New York, he was killed in the storming of the engine house. He was brother of William. First buried in one of two unmarked boxes near Harpers Ferry; re-interred in 1899 in a common coffin in North Elba.
{{clear}}
File:William Thompson, brother of Adolphus Thompson.jpg
† William Thompson, 26, mortally wounded during the raid{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=104, 123}} William Thompson, from North Elba, New York, was brother of Adolphus. They were brothers of Henry Thompson, who was married to Ruth, John Brown's eldest daughter.{{rp|7}} First buried in one of two unmarked boxes near Harpers Ferry; re-interred in 1899 in a common coffin in North Elba.
{{clear}}
=Joined the group in Harpers Ferry=
¶ Jim was freed by Brown's men from Lewis Washington. According to Osborne Anderson, Jim fought "like a tiger".{{rp|511}} He was killed while trying to escape,{{cite book
|first=Joseph
|last=Barry
|title=The Strange Story of Harpers Ferry
|year=1903
|location=Martinsburg, West Virginia
|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35459/35459-h/35459-h.htm
|access-date=2021-01-25
|archive-date=2021-01-25
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125124232/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35459/35459-h/35459-h.htm
|url-status=live
}}{{rp|83}} which must have meant attempting to swim the river, and his body was presumably carried away downstream. The disposition of his body is unknown.
¶ Ben (Allstadt), freed by Brown's men from his owner, John Allstadt. His mother Ary, also belonging to Allstadt, came to the jail to nurse him and also died there.
Leading up to the raid
In June, Brown paid his last visit to his family in North Elba before departing for Harpers Ferry. He stayed one night en route in Hagerstown, Maryland, at the Washington House, on West Washington Street. On June 30, 1859, the hotel had at least 25 guests, including I. Smith and Sons, Oliver Smith and Owen Smith, and Jeremiah Anderson, all from New York. From papers found in the Kennedy Farmhouse after the raid, it is known that Brown wrote to Kagi that he would sign into a hotel as I. Smith and Sons.{{cite web| url = http://www.whilbr.org/JohnBrownWashingtonCounty/index.aspx| title = John Brown in Washington County| access-date = July 13, 2010| archive-date = July 28, 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110728175435/http://www.whilbr.org/JohnBrownWashingtonCounty/index.aspx| url-status = dead}}, whilbr.org; accessed August 29, 2015.
Kennedy farmhouse
File:The Kennedy Farmhouse, 1902.jpg, depicting Brown in his favorite spot in the yard, made posthumously in 1902.]]
They were at Kennedy Farmhouse, four to five miles away from Harpers Ferry. Brown's daughter and daughter-in-law, Anne (Annie) and Martha, Oliver's wife, prepared food and kept the house for the men from August and throughout the month of September.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=91–93}} Besides their domestic activities, Anne, who was 15, and Martha, 17, "kept discreet watch over the prattling conspirators in the house and hustled them out of sight on occasion, and who turned aside local suspicion by their sweet and honest ways."{{cite book
|page=108
|title=John Brown
|first=Joseph Edgar
|last=Chamberlin
|series=The Beacon biographies of eminent Americans
|location=London
|publisher=Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.
|year=1899
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044015514342&view=1up&seq=152
|access-date=2021-01-31
|archive-date=2021-08-25
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825103546/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044015514342&view=1up&seq=152
|url-status=live
}} Martha was pregnant.{{efn|Martha was visibly pregnant while at Kennedy farmhouse;{{cite book
|title=The Tie That Bound Us : The Women of John Brown's Family and the Legacy of Radical Abolitionism
|first=Bonnie
|last=Laughlin-Schultz
|isbn=9780801469442
|location=Ithaca, New York
|publisher=Cornell University Press
|year=2013
}}{{rp|63}} she died in February after giving birth prematurely.}} John sent them home to North Elba on September 29{{rp|195 n. 66}} or 30.{{citation
|title=John Brown's raid
|url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/john-browns-raid.htm
|date=December 27, 2017
|publisher=National Park Service
|author=Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
|access-date=December 5, 2020
|archive-date=August 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825103545/https://www.nps.gov/articles/john-browns-raid.htm
|url-status=live
}}
Much later Annie shared her recollections.{{cite news
|title=John Brown's raid. Details As Told By One Of The Survivors. Careful preparations. Plan Was To Set Up A Republic In The Mountains. First meetings were in Canada
|newspaper=The Gazette
|date=July 22, 1903
|page=6
|first=I. H.
|last=Betz
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/70859395/anne-brown-and-osborne-p-anderson/
|access-date=February 15, 2021
|archive-date=August 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825103548/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/70859395/anne-brown-and-osborne-p-anderson/
|url-status=live
}} "Ever after, Annie saw her months at the Kennedy farm as the most important of her life."{{rp|67}}
Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
Brown led his forces for Harper Ferry on the night of October 16, 1859.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=105–106}} The objective was to take the armory, the arsenal, the town, and then the rifle factory. Then, they wanted to free all the slaves in Harpers Ferry.{{sfn|Graham|1980|p=106}} After that, they would move south with those newly freed people wanted to join the fight to free other enslaved people.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=108–112}} Brown told his men to take prisoners who disobeyed them and to fight only in self-defense.{{sfn|Graham|1980|pp=106–108}}
Of Brown's party of 22, counting himself, 19 went to Harpers Ferry (Jerry Anderson, Osborne Anderson, John Brown, his sons Oliver and Watson Brown, Cook, Copeland, Edwin Coppock, Green, Hazlett, Kagi, Leary, Leeman, Newby, Stevens, Taylor, brothers Adolphus and William Thompson, Tidd). Three men—Owen Brown, Barclay Coppock, Meriam—remained at the Kennedy Farm in Maryland, "to guard the arms and ammunition stored on the premises, until it should be time to move them."{{rp|344}}
In the short term, the raid was a total failure. Brown and his men quickly captured the armory, which had only one watchman, and took over 60 residents of Harpers Ferry hostage as they arrived for work. Militia summoned from neighboring towns took over both bridges, thus cutting off escape, and by noon Monday forced Brown and his party to take refuge in the fire engine house of the armory, a sturdy building later known as John Brown's Fort. The militia freed most of the hostages, leaving only the handful in the engine house. Brown's party held out until Tuesday morning, when a company of Marines, led by Col. Robert E. Lee, quickly broke down the doors to the engine house and took the surviving raiders captive. The seven survivors, including John Brown himself, were quickly tried for treason, murder, and inciting a slave revolt, and were convicted and executed by hanging, in the Jefferson County seat of Charles Town. John Brown was the first person executed for treason in the history of the United States.
However, the raid and the following trials were extensively covered by the press. "The country had not been so excited about anything in twenty years."{{cite journal
|title=Owen Brown's Escape From Harper's Ferry.
|journal=Atlantic Monthly
|date=March 1874
|pages=342–365
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.25763588&view=2up&seq=352
|first=Ralph
|last=Keeler
|access-date=2020-11-25
|archive-date=2020-11-07
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201107072844/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.25763588&view=2up&seq=352
|url-status=live
|others=
}} [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.78035586&view=2up&seq=111&skin=2021&size=200&q1=Owen%20Brown Corrections by Owen in the July issue, p. 101]{{rp|362}} Historians frequently credit the raid not for starting the Civil War, but for providing the spark that lit the waiting bomb, or as Brown would have put it, causing "the volcano beneath the snow" to erupt. Brown thought that without violence, slavery in the United States would never end. As Frederick Douglass put it in a famous speech, given in Harpers Ferry, at Storer College, in 1881, "If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he...began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic."{{cite book
|title=John Brown. An address by Frederick Douglass, at the fourteenth anniversary of Storer College, Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, May 30, 1881
|last=Douglass
|first=Frederick
|author-link=Frederick Douglass
|date=1881
|page=28
|url=https://archive.org/details/johnbrownaddress00doug/page/28/mode/2up
|via=archive.org
|location=Dover, New Hampshire}}{{cite news
|title=Speech of Rev. J. M. Manning, of the Old South Church
|first=J[acob] M.
|last=Manning
|newspaper=The Liberator
|location=Boston, Massachusetts
|date=November 25, 1859
|page=2
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66136149/speech-of-rev-j-m-manning-on-john/
|access-date=December 27, 2020
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164159/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66136149/speech-of-rev-j-m-manning-on-john/
|url-status=live
}}
The people of Virginia were furious, outraged at this attempt to get their allegedly happy enslaved to revolt. They took out their anger at any opportunity. Watson Brown was shot when he left the engine house carrying a white flag. William Thompson was shot on the bridge and taken to the hotel parlor; armed men came in, dragged him out, and threw him over the bridge into the river, firing as he fell. The owner of the hotel did not want the carpet ruined by shooting him there.{{cite news
|title=John Brown's Men. What Became of Those Who Followed the Old Hero to the Destruction of Slavery at Harpers Ferry—"The Blow Heard Round the World", October 16 to 19, 1859
|first=R[ichard] J.
|last=H[inton]
|author-link=Richard J. Hinton
|newspaper=Sandusky Daily Register
|location=Sandusky, Ohio
|date=November 9, 1882
|via=newspaperarchive.com
|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/sandusky-daily-register-nov-09-1882-p-2/
|access-date=November 17, 2020
|archive-date=April 17, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417102342/https://newspaperarchive.com/sandusky-daily-register-nov-09-1882-p-2/
|url-status=live
|title=The capture and execution of John Brown, a tale of martyrdom
|last=Avey
|first=Elijah
|date=1906
|location=Chicago
|url=https://archive.org/details/captureexecution00avey/page/n5/mode/2up}}{{rp|128}}
Burials
{{see also|Burning of Winchester Medical College}}
The bodies of the slain lay in the streets, on the river banks, or wherever they fell. The body of the first man killed, Dangerfield Newby, lay in the street from 11 am Monday, when he was killed, until Tuesday afternoon, and was partially eaten by hogs;{{cite book
|page=35
|title=The Annals of Harper's Ferry, from the Establishment of the National Armory in 1794 to the Present Time, 1869
|last=Barry
|first=Joseph
|location=Hagerstown, Maryland
|date=1869
|via=archive.org
|url=https://archive.org/details/annalsofharpersf00barr/page/34/mode/2up}} his ears and other body parts were cut off as souvenirs. The bodies of two of the men killed were taken by medical students to Winchester Medical College, for dissection. The remainder, which no local cemetery would accept, were dragged into a "gruesome pile", boxed, and dumped in an unmarked pit on the far side of the Shenandoah.
File:Plaque at John Brown's grave.jpg
Ten were ultimately buried in 1899 in a single coffin on the John Brown Farm in North Elba, New York, according to a plaque there. They include 8 of the 10 killed during the raid itself. Unwelcome in local cemeteries, they were thrown into two "store boxes", and two Black men, for $5.00 each, buried them, without ceremony, clergy, or marker, on the far side of the Shenandoah (in Clarke County). The family knew that Oliver was buried "by the Shenandoah", but no more.{{cite news
|title=Watson Brown's Remains
|newspaper=Indianapolis Journal
|via=newspaperarchive.com
|date=October 18, 1882
|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/indianapolis-journal-oct-18-1882-p-2/
|page=2
|access-date=November 15, 2020
|archive-date=November 16, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201116025051/https://newspaperarchive.com/indianapolis-journal-oct-18-1882-p-2/
|url-status=live
}} Forty years later, one of the men who buried them was still alive, the unmarked pit was located, and the remains, which could not be matched to specific individuals, were exhumed and taken to North Elba—in secret because locals would have prevented it if they had known—and reburied in a single coffin, which was donated by the town of North Elba.{{cite journal
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=96VJAQAAMAAJ
|title=The Final Burial of the Followers of John Brown
|last=Featherstonhaugh
|first=Thomas
|journal=New England Magazine
|date=March 1901
|volume=24 (new series)
|number=1
|pages=128–134
|access-date=2020-11-15
|archive-date=2021-06-03
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210603235913/https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_New_England_Magazine/96VJAQAAMAAJ
|url-status=live
|title=The Second Raid on Harpers Ferry, July 29, 1899: The Other Bodies That Lay A'mouldering in Their Graves
|first=Gordon L.
|last=Iseminger
|pages=129–164
|journal=Pennsylvania History
|volume=71
|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27778599
|jstor=27778599
|number=2
|date=Spring 2004
|access-date=July 12, 2021
|archive-date=July 12, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210712173543/https://www.jstor.org/stable/27778599
|url-status=live
|title=The Forgotten Mass Grave at Harpers Ferry; A Strange Trip for Eight Raiders
|date=November 25, 2013
|first=Ben
|last=Swenson
|url=http://www.abandonedcountry.com/2013/11/25/the-forgotten-grave-at-harpers-ferry/
|publisher=abandonedcountry.com
|access-date=June 22, 2021
|archive-date=June 24, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210624203952/http://www.abandonedcountry.com/2013/11/25/the-forgotten-grave-at-harpers-ferry/
|url-status=live
|title=John Brown Rests Among the Mountains. The Farm at North Elba Where His Body Lies Is Rich In Memory of Days When His Plans Are Maturing [Pt. 2 of 2]
|first=Mary
|last=Lee
|newspaper=New York Times Magazine
|date=October 20, 1929
|pages=7, 23 (139, 147)
|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/10/20/issue.html
|access-date=September 12, 2021
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721121811/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/10/20/issue.html
|url-status=live
}} Rev. Joshua Young, who had presided over Brown's funeral 40 years earlier, performed the last rites. Richard J. Hinton spoke at length.{{cite news
|title=John Brown's body in North Elba grave
|first=Terry James
|last=Gordon
|newspaper=Press-Republican (Plattsburgh, New York)
|date=January 6, 1975
|page=3
|url=https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn88074101/1975-01-06/ed-1/seq-3/
|access-date=2022-02-16
|archive-date=2022-02-16
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220216024831/https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn88074101/1975-01-06/ed-1/seq-3/
|url-status=live
With those 8, in the same coffin and ceremony, were the remains of Hazlitt and Stevens, who had been executed, and whose bodies had been buried at the Eagleswood Military Academy in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. A relative of Stevens had them disinterred so they could be buried with the others.
None of those killed (10) or executed (7) are buried in Harpers Ferry, Charles Town, or anywhere else in Jefferson County. Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise said he did not want those executed to be buried anywhere in Virginia, and none were.
Three bodies—1 white (Jerry Anderson) and 2 black (Copeland, Green)—were used for the dissection component of medical studies. The remains after the dissection were apparently discarded. In 1928, a pit containing bones of those dissected was found underneath the foundation of a building being torn down.{{cite news
|title=Finds Cemetery in Backyard; Bones May Be Those of John Brown's Men
|newspaper=Richmond Times-Dispatch
|location=Richmond, Virginia
|date=April 8, 1928
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/60282664/bones-of-john-browns-men-dissection/
|access-date=November 16, 2020
|archive-date=October 9, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201009075338/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/60282664/bones-of-john-browns-men-dissection/
|url-status=live
}} The medical students and faculty did not know, or care, who they were. Their fourth body, that of Watson Brown, was identified from papers in a pocket as one of Brown's sons, though they did not know which one. It was preserved by a medical school professor and made into an anatomical exhibit, labeled expressing the Virginians' attitude toward abolitionists, and toward John Brown in particular.
Except for those mentioned below as buried by relatives, and the 3 missing bodies that were dissected, the other raiders killed or executed in 1859–1860 are buried at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site, near Lake Placid, New York.
Note that while there were 10 men killed during the raid itself, and 10 bodies reburied together at the John Brown Farm, the 10 are not the same. 2 of the first 10 (Watson Brown, Jeremiah Anderson) were taken to the Winchester Medical College for use by medical students. To the 8 remaining were added the bodies of Hazlett and Stevens, part of the raid but tried and originally buried separately. A relative of Stevens had his and Hazlett's bodies disinterred from their graves in New Jersey, so they could be buried with the others.
Captured, tried, convicted, and executed by hanging
File:John Brown ascending the scaffold preparatory to being hanged cph.3c32551.jpg
File:HFRM interpretive plaque.jpg in cemetery in Oberlin, Ohio, commemorating Green, Copeland, and Leary; the remains of the first two are lost, and those of Leary are in a mass grave next to that of John Brown, in North Elba, New York.]]
In the Charles Town jail, by one report, Brown and Hazlett shared a room and a bed, Green and Coppock another, manacled together, and Copeland was in a third room. The rooms in the jail were described as "very large and nicely kept".{{cite news
|title=The Prisoners in Jail
|newspaper=The States and Union
|location=Ashland, Ohio
|date=November 9, 1859
|page=4
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/69412028/the-jail-with-captives-from-hohn/
|access-date=February 5, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164444/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/69412028/the-jail-with-captives-from-john/
|url-status=live
}}
Brown was executed on Friday, December 2, four others on December 16, 1859, the negroes (Copeland, Green) in the morning and the whites (Cook, Coppock) in the afternoon,{{cite news
|title=Execution of the Insurgents
|newspaper=Star and Enterprise
|location=Newville, Pennsylvania
|date=December 22, 1859
|via=newspapers.com
|page=2
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63219630/executin-of-shields-green-and-john/
|access-date=November 15, 2020
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164506/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63219630/execution-of-shields-green-and-john/
|url-status=live
}} and two (Hazlitt, Stevens) on March 16, 1860. Cook and Coppock attempted to escape, but did not get over the jail wall.{{cite news
|title=The John Brown invasion; an authentic history of the Harper's Ferry tragedy, with full details of the capture, trial, and execution of the invaders, and of all the incidents connected therewith. With a lithographic portrait of Capt. John Brown, from a photograph by Whipple
|last=Drew
|first=Thomas
|date=1860
|publisher=James Campbell
|location=Boston
|url=https://archive.org/details/johnbrowninvasio00drew/page/n9/mode/2up}}
To prevent a rescue, spectators at Brown's execution were very limited. (See {{section link|Virginia v. John Brown#Spectators}}.) In contrast, Governor Wise wanted there to be a "tremendous" crowd for the December 16 hangings, and the Sheriff so informed the newspapers. "The execution was witnessed by an immense throng."{{cite news
|title=The Execution of the Messrs. Green and Copeland
|newspaper=New York Herald
|date=December 17, 1859
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/72693365/execution-ot-shields-green-and-john/
|author=Our Special Charlestown Dispatch
|access-date=March 5, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164445/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/72693365/execution-of-shields-green-and-john/
|url-status=live
}} There was a dress parade; among the participants was Lt. Israel Green of the U.S. Marines, the one who led the assault on the engine house.
- Buried by relatives
- John Brown, 59. His widow took his body to North Elba, and buried him there. On the transportation of his corpse, which was not uneventful, see John Brown's body.
- Edwin Coppock 24, shot and killed the mayor of Harpers Ferry, Fontaine Beckham, during the raid. He had been with John Brown in Kansas.{{cite news
|title=(Untitled)
|newspaper=Herald of Freedom
|location=Lawrence, Kansas
|date=November 19, 1859
|page=2
|via=newspaperarchive.com
|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-nov-19-1859-2069652/
|access-date=November 28, 2020
|archive-date=December 8, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201208010154/https://newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-nov-19-1859-2069652/
|url-status=live
}} He was visited in jail by "three Quaker gentlemen from Ohio, with whom he had lived in his boyhood, and an uncle, from the same State."{{cite book
|title=The John Brown invasion; an authentic history of the Harper's Ferry tragedy, with full details of the capture, trial, and execution of the invaders and of all the incidents connected therewith. With a lithographic portrait of Capt. John Brown, from a photograph by Whipple
|first=Thomas
|last=Drew
|year=1860
|location=Boston
|publisher=James Campbell
|url=https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/may852407
|access-date=2021-07-14
|archive-date=2021-07-14
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210714161142/https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/may852407
|url-status=live
}}{{rp|80}} One newspaper report says that his body was sent to his mother in Springdale, Iowa, another that it was sent to a Thomas Winn in Springdale, accompanied by his uncle, "a highly esteemed old Quaker gentleman, who did not sympathize in the least with the misguided and errant young man, and by him [the body was] conveyed to the home of his afflicted mother." A different report says that the Quaker was not a relative, but someone who took him in when he became an orphan.{{cite book
|first=Robert M.
|last=De Witt
|title=The Life, Trial and Execution of Captain John Brown, Known as "Old Brown of Ossawatomie," with a full account of the attempted insurrection at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. Compiled from official and authentic sources. Inducting Cooke's Confession, and all the Incidents of the Execution
|year=1859
|publisher=Robert M. De Witt
|location=New York
|url=https://archive.org/details/lifetrialandexe00cogoog/page/n6/mode/2up}}{{rp|27}}
- John Edwin Cook, sometimes spelled Cooke, 29, born in Haddam, Connecticut, but was from Pennsylvania.{{rp|24}} He had been a teacher.{{cite news
|title=The Late Rebellion
|newspaper=The Daily Exchange
|location=Baltimore, Maryland
|date=October 19, 1859
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57579394/report-from-the-daily-exchanges/
|access-date=December 28, 2020
|archive-date=September 1, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200901022605/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57579394/report-from-the-daily-exchanges/
|url-status=live
}} He was Brown's second in command, by one report,{{cite news
|title=Operation of state and national troops
|newspaper=Anti-Slavery Bugle
|location=Lisbon, Ohio
|date=October 29, 1859
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/69412297/john-browns-assault-on-harpers-ferry/
|access-date=February 5, 2021
|archive-date=February 10, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210210021602/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/69412297/john-browns-assault-on-harpers-ferry/
|url-status=live
}} had been with Brown in Kansas,{{rp|6}} and had lived undercover for over a year in Harpers Ferry.{{rp|2}} He was described as "a man of some intelligence", "a quick-witted, intelligent man",{{cite news
|first=Richard
|last=Parker
|author-link=Richard Parker (congressman)
|title=The Trial of John Brown. Its Secret History Revealed for the First Time by the Judge
|newspaper=St. Louis Globe-Democrat
|location=St. Louis, Missouri
|date=April 8, 1888
|page=26
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73986104/richard-parker-judge-in-the-john-brown/
|access-date=April 1, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164448/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73986104/richard-parker-judge-in-the-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}} from a good family, who had studied law and taught school.{{cite news
|title=The Fugitive Insurgent Cook
|newspaper=New York Times
|date=October 25, 1859
|page=5
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28728940/the-new-york-times/
|access-date=March 4, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164456/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28728940/the-new-york-times/
|url-status=live
|title=John E. Cook as a law-student
|newspaper=New York Times
|date=October 25, 1859
|page=5
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/72612769/info-on-john-cook-harpers-gerry-raider/
|access-date=March 4, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164453/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/72612769/info-on-john-cook-harpers-gerry-raider/
|url-status=live
}} He escaped into Pennsylvania after the raid, but Governor Wise offered a reward of $1,000,{{cite news
|title=By the Governor of Virginia: A Proclamation
|first=Henry A.
|last=Wise
|author-link=Henry A. Wise
|newspaper=Richmond Enquirer
|location=Richmond, Virginia
|date=November 11, 1859
|page=1
|orig-date=October 19, 1859
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/70673969/richmond-enquirer/
|access-date=March 7, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164614/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/70673969/richmond-enquirer/
|url-status=live
}} and he was soon captured.{{cite journal
|title=An episode of John Brown's raid
|first=A. K.
|last=McClure
|journal=Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science
|date=September 1883
|pages=279–287
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/75412596/john-cooks-capture-john-brown/
|access-date=2021-04-09
|archive-date=2021-06-14
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164521/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/75412596/john-cooks-capture-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}} Original publication (less legible) [https://books.google.com/books?id=s59FAQAAMAAJ&dq=Lippincotts+September+1883&pg=PA232-IA1 here] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517025340/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Lippincott_s_Magazine_of_Popular_Literat/s59FAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Lippincotts+September+1883&pg=PA232-IA1&printsec=frontcover |date=2022-05-17 }}. His attorney at the time, Alexander McClure, published lengthy recollections.{{cite journal
|title=An Episode of John Brown's Raid
|first=A. N.
|last=McClure
|authorlink=Alexander McClure
|pages=279–287
|date=Sep 1883
|journal=Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000020207960&view=2up&seq=289&skin=2021
|access-date=2022-05-17
|archive-date=2022-05-17
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517162506/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000020207960&view=2up&seq=289&skin=2021
|url-status=live
}} A band played as he was taken from the jail in Chambersburg to the train that would take him to Charles Town for trial.{{cite news
|title=Two Chances of Escape.—Cook of the John Brown Party Rejected Official Acquiescence at Stealing from Jail
|newspaper=Indianapolis Journal
|date=July 13, 1890
|page=7
|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1890-07-13/ed-1/seq-7/#date1=1889&index=16&rows=20&words=Brown+Owen&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1890&proxtext=%22Owen+brown%22&y=15&x=23
|via=Chronicling America
|access-date=2021-09-26
|archive-date=2021-09-26
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926120601/https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1890-07-13/ed-1/seq-7/#date1=1889&index=16&rows=20&words=Brown+Owen&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1890&proxtext=%22Owen+brown%22&y=15&x=23
|url-status=live
}}
::On October 28 he was visited in jail by his brother-in-law, Governor Ashbel P. Willard of Indiana, who wanted to be sure that this was his wife's brother, as the family had lost contact with him and had assumed he was dead. Accompanying him, at his request, were Indiana Attorney General Joseph E. McDonald and the U.S. District Attorney for Indiana, Daniel W. Voorhees.{{cite news
|title=Cook and Gov. Willard, of Indiana
|newspaper=Chicago Tribune
|date=October 29, 1859
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/75272444/governor-ashbel-willard-of-indiana-goes/
|access-date=April 7, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164751/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/75272444/governor-ashbel-willard-of-indiana-goes/
|url-status=live
}} He was escorted to Cook's cell by Senator Mason, who offered to withdraw to give them privacy, but Willard replied that this was not necessary. He advised Cook that he should confess, "so as to exonerate those who were innocent, and to punish those who were implicated, as the only atonement he could now make." He told Cook that he had nothing to hope for but death.{{cite news
|title=Governor Willard's Visit to Cook.—A Written Confession Expected from the Latter.—Regular Troops at Harper's Ferry.—Military Surveillance.
|orig-date=October 29, 1859
|newspaper=Baltimore Sun
|location=Baltimore, Maryland
|date=October 31, 1859
|page=4
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/75271749/governor-willard-visits-john-brown/
|access-date=April 7, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164751/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/75271749/governor-willard-visits-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}} A different report, 40 years later, says that Voorhees had arranged with Governor Wise for Cook to escape, but that Cook refused. On November 8 Voorhees addressed the court, calling for mercy for "misled" Cook; his address was published widely.{{cite news
|title=Argument of Daniel W. Voorhees, of Terre Haute, Indiana, Delivered at Charlestown, Va., November 8, 1859, upon the trial of John E. Cook, indicted for Treason, Murder, and Inciting Slaves to Rebel at the Harper's Ferry Insurrection (part 1 of 2)
|newspaper=Perry County Democrat
|location=Bloomfield, Pennsylvania
|date=December 1, 1859
|page=1
|first=Daniel W.
|last=Voorhees
|author-link=Daniel W. Voorhees
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73759331/daniel-vorhees-on-john-cook-pt-1-of-2/
|access-date=March 18, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164813/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73759331/daniel-voorhees-on-john-cook-pt-1-of-2/
|url-status=live
|title=Argument of Daniel W. Voorhees, of Terre Haute, Indiana, Delivered at Charlestown, Va., November 8, 1859, upon the trial of John E. Cook, indicted for Treason, Murder, and Inciting Slaves to Rebel at the Harper's Ferry Insurrection (part 2 of 2)
|newspaper=Perry County Democrat
|location=Bloomfield, Pennsylvania
|date=December 1, 1859
|page=2
|first=Daniel W.
|last=Voorhees
|author-link=Daniel W. Voorhees
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73759293/daniel-vorhees-on-john-cook-part-2-of-2/
|access-date=March 18, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164816/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73759293/daniel-voorhees-on-john-cook-part-2-of/
|url-status=live
|title=Argument of Hon. Daniel W. Voorhees, of Terre Haute, Indiana, Delivered at Charlestown, Va., November 8, 1859, in defense of John E. Cook, indicted for Treason, Murder, and Inciting Slaves to Rebel at the Harper's Ferry Insurrection
|last=Voorhees
|first=Daniel Wolsey
|author-link=Daniel W. Voorhees
|others=Undated, but presumably 1859
|url=https://archive.org/details/argumentofhondan00voor/mode/2up}} Cook was the only one captured who gave testimony about the other raiders;{{cite book
|title=John Brown's spy : the adventurous life and tragic confession of John E. Cook
|first=Steven
|last=Lubet
|location=New Haven, Connecticut
|publisher=Yale University Press
|year=2013
|isbn=9780300180497}}{{page needed|date=April 2021}} his testimony at his trial was immediately published as a pamphlet, so as to raise money for one of the victims.{{cite book
|title=Confession of John E. Cooke [sic], brother of Gov. A.P. Willard, of Indiana, and one of the participants in the Harper's Ferry invasion : published for the benefit of Samuel C. Young, a non-slaveholder, who is permanently disabled by a wound received in defence of Southern institutions [slavery]
|first=John Edwin
|last=Cook
|author-link=John Edwin Cook
|date=November 11, 1859
|location=Charles Town, Virginia
|publisher=D. Smith Eichelberger, Editor of the Independent Democrat
|url=http://reader.library.cornell.edu/docviewer/digital?id=may926904#page/3/mode/1up
|access-date=December 3, 2020
|archive-date=December 9, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201209093327/http://reader.library.cornell.edu/docviewer/digital?id=may926904#page/3/mode/1up
|url-status=live
|title=John Brown's Invasion. Cook's confession
|newspaper=New-York Tribune
|date=November 26, 1859
|page=7
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68150650/confession-and-pardon-of-cook-john/
|access-date=January 21, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164754/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68150650/confession-and-pardon-of-cook-john/
|url-status=live
}} This motivated the Richmond Enquirer to call him "the most guilty of the Charlestown prisoners. So far from being the dupe of Old Brown, Osawatomie is the victim of John E. Cook."{{cite journal
|title=(Untitled)
|journal=Douglass' Monthly
|date=December 1859
|volume=2
|number=7
|page=192, col. 3
|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_douglass-monthly_1859-12_2_7/page/192/mode/1up}}
::On December 14 he was visited for some hours by Governor Willard, Voorhees, Willard's wife, and another sister.{{cite news
|title=The Executions at Charlestown.—Bold but Unsuccessful Attempt of Cook and Coppie to Escape.—Impressive Religious Services in the Prisoners' Cells.—The Military Preparations.—Immense Concourse of Spectators to Witness the Executions.—Firm Demeanor of the Culprits on the Scaffold.—The Hanging of Green, Copeland, Cook and Coppie, &c., &c., &c.
|date=December 17, 1859
|via=newspapers.com
|newspaper=New York Herald
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/72693587/executions-at-charles-town-cook/
|page=1
|author=Our Charlestown Correspondent
|access-date=April 7, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164755/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/72693587/executions-at-charles-town-cook/
|url-status=live
|title=The Harper's Ferry invasion. Cook, Coppic, Green, and Copeland to be Executed To-day. Preparations for the event.
|newspaper=Detroit Free Press
|location=Detroit, Michigan
|date=December 16, 1859
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62793570/participants-in-john-browns-raid-to-be/
|access-date=November 15, 2020
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164754/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62793570/participants-in-john-browns-raid-to-be/
|url-status=live
|title=(Untitled)
|newspaper=Herald of Freedom
|location=Lawrence, Kansas
|date=December 17, 1859
|orig-date=December 13, 1859
|page=2
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62000607/dec-16-1859-executions-in-charles-town/
|via=newspapers.com
|access-date=November 15, 2020
|archive-date=November 2, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201102083713/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62000607/dec-16-1859-executions-in-charles-town/
|url-status=live
}} Body sent to A. P. Willard, care of Cook's brother-in-law Robert Crowley, Williamsburg, New York.{{cite news
|title=Arrival of Cook's body — His funeral
|newspaper=Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, Maryland)
|date=20 Dec 1859
|page=4
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94504014/the-burial-oh-john-cook-john-brown/
|access-date=8 February 2022
|archive-date=17 May 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517025341/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94504014/the-burial-of-john-cook-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}} First buried in Cypress Hill Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York, he was later reburied in Green-Wood Cemetery, also in Brooklyn.
File:Shields Green, John Copeland, and Albert Hazlett.jpg
- Bodies immediately dug up by students of the Winchester Medical College. "They were allowed to remain in the ground but a few moments, when they were taken up and conveyed to Winchester for dissection."{{cite news
|title=(Untitled)
|newspaper=Cleveland Daily Leader
|location=Cleveland, Ohio
|date=December 22, 1859
|page=2
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63512846/the-body-of-john-copeland/
|access-date=November 18, 2020
|archive-date=November 27, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201127055801/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63512846/the-body-of-john-copeland/
|url-status=live
}} (See Burning of Winchester Medical College.) A letter from Black residents of Philadelphia to Governor Wise, requesting their bodies so as to bury them, had no effect.{{cite news
|title=Request to Gov. Wise to get the bodies of the colored men to be executed to-day
|newspaper=The Liberator
|location=Boston, Massachusetts
|date=December 23, 1859
|page=3
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68143581/the-liberator/
|access-date=January 21, 2021
|archive-date=January 28, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210128101437/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68143581/the-liberator/
|url-status=live
}} In the early 20th century a pit containing loose bones of those dissected at the College was discovered.
- ‡ ¶ John Anthony Copeland, Jr., a 24-year-old free Black, described as a mulatto, joined the raiders along with his uncle Lewis Leary. Of Brown's raiders, only Copeland was at all well known. As a leader of the Oberlin-Wellington fugitive slave rescue, he was notorious in Ohio, and was a fugitive from an indictment for his role in that rescue.{{rp|1793–94}} His parents attempted unsuccessfully to recover his body. On December 29, 3,000 attended a bodyless funeral in Oberlin, Ohio.{{cite book
|title=His Soul Goes Marching On. Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid
|editor-first=Paul
|editor-last=Finkleman
|editor-link=Paul Finkleman
|location=Charlottesville, Virginia
|publisher=University Press of Virginia
|year=1995
|isbn=0813915368
|first=Paul
|last=Finkleman
|author-link=Paul Finkleman
|chapter=Manufacturing Martyrdom. The anti-Slavery Response to John Brown's raid
|pages=41–66, at p. 50}} The last resting place is unknown. Cenotaph memorial in Oberlin.
- ‡ ¶ Shields Green, 22,{{cite news
|title=Ages of the prisoners
|newspaper=The Liberator
|location=Boston, Massachusetts
|date=December 23, 1859
|page=3
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/65731110/ages-of-harpers-ferry-prisoners/
|access-date=December 21, 2020
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164822/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/65731110/ages-of-harpers-ferry-prisoners/
|url-status=live
}} was an escaped Black slave from South Carolina. He was captured in the engine house on October 18, 1859, and hanged December 16, 1859, in Charles Town. The body was claimed by Winchester Medical College as a teaching cadaver. The last resting place is unknown. Cenotaph memorial in Oberlin, Ohio.
- Two raiders were not captured until it was too late to hold their trials during the term of the Jefferson County Circuit Court that ended on November 11, after pronouncing sentence on Coppock, Cook, Copeland, and Green on the 10th.{{cite news
|title=Harper's Ferry Insurrection. Close of the trials.—Sentence of Cook, Coppic, Copeland, and Green
|newspaper=Washington Evening Star
|location=Washington, D.C.
|date=November 12, 1859
|page=2
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71365491/conclusion-of-harpers-ferry-trials-of/
|access-date=February 18, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164822/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71365491/conclusion-of-harpers-ferry-trials-of/
|url-status=live
}} The Legislature of Virginia authorized a special term of the Jefferson County Court to deal with them and other pending business.{{cite news
|title=Trial of conspirators
|newspaper=Baltimore Sun
|location=Baltimore, Maryland
|date=January 14, 1860
|page=2
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71366642/special-term-of-jefferson-county-court/
|access-date=February 18, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164823/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71366642/special-term-of-jefferson-county-court/
|url-status=live
}} The Court reconvened on February 1; in the meantime Hazlett and Stevens were held in the Jefferson County Jail. Found guilty of the same charges, they were executed on March 16, 1860.
- † Albert E. Hazlett escaped into Pennsylvania but was soon captured.{{cite journal
|title=Reminiscences of Captain Cook and Wm. Hazelett [sic]
|first=Hiram E.
|last=Wertz
|url=https://archive.org/details/papersreadbeforev4kitt/page/n83/mode/2up
|pages=38–43
|orig-date=February 25, 1905
|journal=Papers Read Before the Society from March, 1905, to February, 1908
|location=Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
|publisher=Kittochtinny Historical Society
|year=1908}} Executed March 16, 1860.
- † Aaron Dwight Stevens (Lee has Aaron C. Stevens), from Connecticut,{{rp|24}} 29, was the only one of Brown's men who had formal military training.{{rp|7}} He was shot and captured October 18. Executed March 16, 1860.
:Their bodies were sent immediately to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, to the house of Marcus and Rebecca B. Spring, the latter of whom had nursed them in the Charles Town jail.{{cite news
|title=John Brown's Companions
|newspaper=New York Herald
|date=September 17, 1899
|page=3
|via=California Digital Newspaper Collection
|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=LAH18990917.2.98&srpos=81&e=-------en--20--81-byDA-txt-txIN-%22Owen+brown%22-------1
|access-date=August 26, 2021
|archive-date=August 26, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210826145121/https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=LAH18990917.2.98&srpos=81&e=-------en--20--81-byDA-txt-txIN-%22Owen%20brown%22-------1
|url-status=live
}} A funeral was held there. The bodies were buried at the Eagleswood Cemetery, at the nearby Eagleswood Military Academy, an abolitionist school directed at one time by Theodore Weld, next to the graves of James G. Birney and her father Arnold Buffum.{{cite news
|title=Execution and Burial of Stevens and Hazlett
|newspaper=The Liberator
|location=Boston, Massachusetts
|date=March 30, 1860
|page=3
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73534998/execution-of-albert-hazlett-and-aaron/
|access-date=March 15, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164758/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73534998/execution-of-albert-hazlett-and-aaron/
|url-status=live
}} In 1898 they were reinterred with eight others at the John Brown Farm in North Elba, New York.{{cite news
|title=John Brown's Men Disinterred
|newspaper=New York Times
|page=1
|date=August 29, 1899
|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1899/08/29/102499818.html?pageNumber=1
|access-date=November 15, 2020
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164822/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1899/08/29/102499818.html?pageNumber=1
|url-status=live
}}
Escaped north and never captured
Francis Jackson Merriam and Barclay Coppock joined Owen Brown in his prolonged, hazardous escape across Pennsylvania, finally taking refuge in Ashtabula County, Ohio, where John Brown Jr. lived. They were described as voters there.{{cite news
|title=John Brown Jr., Owen Brown, Francis Merriam, and Barclay Coppic, support Lincoln—Their record
|newspaper=The Daily Empire
|location=Dayton, Ohio
|date=1 Sep 1860
|page=2
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25972013/john-and-owen-support-lincoln/
|access-date=6 August 2021
|archive-date=6 August 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210806205527/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25972013/john-and-owen-support-lincoln/
|url-status=live
}}
In November 1859, Governor Wise offered a reward of $500 (~${{Format price|{{Inflation|index=US|value=500|start_year=1859}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US}}) each for the apprehension of the four white escapees.{{cite news
|title=$2,000 reward—By the Governor of Virginia—A Proclamation
|newspaper=Richmond Dispatch
|location=Richmond, Virginia
|date=November 4, 1859
|page=2
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73921183/reward-for-john-brown-collaborators/
|access-date=March 20, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164819/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73921183/reward-for-john-brown-collaborators/
|url-status=live
}}
A Charles Town grand jury in February 1860 indicted them, along with Jeremiah Anderson {{sic}}, for "conspiring with slaves to create insurrection". When new Virginia Governor John Letcher asked Governor William Dennison Jr. of Ohio to extradite them, he declined to issue warrants for their arrest, saying he had not received sufficient justification for doing so.{{cite news
|title=News of the Day
|newspaper=Alexandria Gazette
|date=February 10, 1860
|url=https://virginiachronicle.com/cgi-bin/virginia?a=d&d=AG18600210&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-%22Owen+BrowN%22+ferry-------
|page=2, col. 3
|via=VirginiaChronicle
|access-date=July 1, 2021
|archive-date=July 9, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709182100/https://virginiachronicle.com/cgi-bin/virginia?a=d&d=AG18600210&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-%22Owen+BrowN%22+ferry-------
|url-status=live
|title=Overland Mail
|newspaper=The Weekly Butte Democrat
|location=Oroville, California
|date=April 7, 1860
|page=2, col. 3
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80959100/governor-of-ohio-declines-extradiction/
|access-date=July 7, 2021
|archive-date=July 9, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709185716/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80959100/governor-of-ohio-declines-extradiction/
|url-status=live
|title=Additional Atlantic news
|newspaper=Daily National Democrat
|location=Marysville, California
|date=March 3, 1860
|page=3
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80958057/indictment-of-three-of-john-browns/
|access-date=August 6, 2021
|archive-date=August 6, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210806205529/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80958057/indictment-of-three-of-john-browns/
|url-status=live
}}
- Charles Plummer Tidd, a "lumberman" from Maine,{{rp|24}} had been a farmer in Kansas, where he met Brown.{{rp|345}} He died during the Civil War, 1862. Another reference says he was from Worcester County, Massachusetts.{{citation needed|date=May 2022}} After enlisting in the Union Army, while his regiment was stationed at Roanoke Island, North Carolina, he died of a fever; his remains are buried at New Bern, North Carolina.{{cite news
|title=United in Death
|newspaper=Petaluma Weekly Argus (Petaluma, California)
|date=June 17, 1869
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80922782/charles-plummer-tiddwas-with-john-brown/
|access-date=July 7, 2021
|archive-date=July 9, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709190528/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80922782/charles-plummer-tiddwas-with-john-brown/
|url-status=live
|title=United in Death—A Story of Two Southern Graves
|newspaper=Marysville Daily Appeal (Marysville, California)
|date=6 June 1869
|via=California Digital Newspaper Collection
|page=1
|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MDA18690606.2.2&srpos=27&e=-------en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22Owen+brown%22-------1
|access-date=25 August 2021
|archive-date=25 August 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825103549/https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MDA18690606.2.2&srpos=27&e=-------en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22Owen+brown%22-------1
|url-status=live
}} Owen Brown, upset at the reaction to his comments on Tidd in his interview published in The Atlantic, said in a reply letter: "[M]y impressions of Tidd are that he was a very warm friend, generally of peaceful disposition, true, and devoted to his ideas of rights and moral principle. He was firm and persistent in what he undertook, somewhat inclined to be arbitrary, and with a temper not always under perfect control. As a whole, he stands far above the average of men. I hold for him a warm friendship."{{cite journal
|title=Letter from Mr. Owen Brown
|first=Owen
|last=Brown
|authorlink=Owen Brown (abolitionist, born 1824)
|journal=The Atlantic
|page=101
|date=July 1874
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.78035586&view=2up&seq=111
|access-date=2021-08-12
|archive-date=2021-08-12
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210812201956/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.78035586&view=2up&seq=111
|url-status=live
}}
The following three remained at the Kennedy Farm in Maryland, guarding the weapons.
- Owen Brown, after a very difficult trip, made it to the safety of his brother Jason's house in Ohio. For many years he raised grapes on an island in Lake Erie, "for the Chicago market" (not for wine). He died January 8, 1889, in Pasadena, California. His funeral was an event (with marching band) and his burial site, atop a peak named (because of him) "Brown's Peak", is a local tourist attraction.
- Barclay Coppock, 22 or 23,{{rp|345}} from Iowa like his brother,{{rp|24}} safely reached Canada.{{cite news
|title=Twelve Harper's Ferry Insurgents in Canada
|newspaper=Western Home Journal
|location=Lawrence, Kansas
|date=December 15, 1859
|page=2
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78854921/barclay-coppic-coppock-and-others/
|access-date=June 3, 2021
|archive-date=June 3, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210603113459/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78854921/barclay-coppic-coppock-and-others/
|url-status=live
}} He died in the Union Army in 1861.
- Francis Jackson Meriam, 28 or 30, "of the wealthy Massachusetts Meriams",{{rp|345}} who "had furnished a good deal of money to the cause".{{rp|358}} Two days before the attack on Harpers Ferry, before a lawyer in Chambersburg, accompanied by Kagi, he made his will, leaving most of his estate to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. After the raid, "he reached the railroad in Maryland, passed on to Philadelphia, where he remained overnight at the Merchants' Hotel, registering his true name, and proceeded next morning to Boston." Another source says that he went to Canada before coming to "his physician in Boston.{{rp|191}} He served in the Union army as a captain in the 3rd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Colored). (Colored regiments had white officers.) He died of natural causes{{rp|358}} in 1865. A conflicting report says that he "went to Mexico to join [Benito] Juárez in 1865...and has not since been heard from".
(The plaque at the John Brown Farm says a negro named John Anderson escaped;{{citation
|title=Plaque at John Brown Grave Site, North Elba, 1920
|url=http://www.archives.nysed.gov/education/plaque-john-brown-grave-site-north-elba-1920
|author=New York State Archives
|access-date=2020-11-15
|archive-date=2020-10-26
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201026114659/http://www.archives.nysed.gov/education/plaque-john-brown-grave-site-north-elba-1920
|url-status=live
}} the source for this is apparently biographer Franklin Sanborn,{{cite book
|title=The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas, and Martyr of Virginia
|first1=Franklin B
|last1=Sanborn
|author-link1=Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
|first2=John
|last2=Brown
|author-link2=John Brown (abolitionist)
|year=1885
|location=Boston
|publisher=Roberts Brothers
|url=https://archive.org/details/DKC0110/page/n1/mode/2up}}{{rp|546}} who has nothing else to say about him and omits him from the book index. There was no person of that name among Brown's raiders;{{rp|61}} Brown received in jail a letter from John Q. Anderson, brother of Jeremiah, inquiring about his brother.{{citation
|title=Letter to John Brown
|first=John Q.
|last=Anderson
|date=November 23, 1859
|publisher=Kansas Memory
|url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/90077/text
|access-date=December 10, 2020
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164826/https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/90077/text
|url-status=live
}} Later Sanborn calls John Anderson "rather mythical", someone "whom Hayden enlisted for Brown, but who never got to the Ferry".{{cite book
|volume=1
|title=Recollections of Seventy Years
|year=1909
|url=https://archive.org/details/recollectionsse01sanbgoog/page/n224/mode/2up
|last=Sanborn
|first=F. B.
|author-link=Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
|location=Boston
|publisher=Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press}}{{rp|191}})
Black people who joined Brown's rebellion
Brown said many times that he had expected a large number of enslaved black people of Jefferson County to flee their owners and assist him in the raid and afterwards. This did not happen, a main reason for the raid's failure. However, this was extended, especially by Virginia Governor Wise, to a claim that black people were hostile to Brown and gave him no support at all. Both black and white people denied black participation. Any black person who could claim they were there involuntarily did so, and most did, as otherwise they would have been executed. (Shields Green was not successful at this, since his skin was so dark that Harpers Ferry residents immediately recognized he was not a local.) The whites went along with this. It was a basic belief in the South at the time that their slaves were happy, and they would be happier if abolitionists just left them alone; they were highly motivated to believe that no slaves supported Brown.{{citation
|first=Louis A.
|last=DeCaro Jr.
|chapter=John Brown, Philadelphia, and a Decoy Coffin
|date=December 6, 2020
|title=John Brown Today
|chapter-url=https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/John-Brown-Today-p1383567/?topicId=159242109
|via=Tune In
|access-date=May 4, 2021
|archive-date=May 4, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210504202901/https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/John-Brown-Today-p1383567/?topicId=159242109
|url-status=live
}}
{{blockquote|Of the various contradictory reports made by slaveholders and their satellites about the time of the Harper's Ferry conflict, none were more untruthful than those relating to the slaves. There was seemingly a studied attempt to enforce the belief that the slaves were cowardly, and that they were really more in favor of Virginia masters and slavery, than of their freedom. As a party who had an intimate knowledge of the conduct of the colored men engaged, I am prepared to make an emphatic denial of the gross imputation against them.{{rp|59}}}}
Another raider who escaped, C. P. Tidd, said much the same.{{cite book
|title=Allies for Freedom. Black people and John Brown
|first=Benjamin
|last=Quarles
|author-link=Benjamin Arthur Quarles
|location=New York
|year=1974
|lccn=73-90372
|publisher=Oxford University Press}}{{rp|105}} Captain Dangerfield reported seeing "negroes armed with pikes" when he arrived at the Armory.{{rp|557}} According to a local newspaper, "the slaves for miles around Harper's Ferry, though well kept and kindly treated, were well informed as to John Brown's movement, and prepared to take part in the insurrection." Brown's mistake was that, afraid of betrayal by Cook or Forbes, he "suddenly changed the time to two weeks earlier". He failed to notify the slaves of the change.{{cite news
|title=Invisible green
|newspaper=Dawson's Fort Wayne Weekly Times
|location=Fort Wayne, Indiana
|date=31 Dec 1859
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/102509107/slaves-and-john-browns-revolt/
|access-date=25 May 2022
|archive-date=25 May 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220525120844/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/102509107/slaves-and-john-browns-revolt/
|url-status=live
}}
A correspondent from the Cincinnati Commercial, in Charles Town for the execution, reported: "As to the negroes round about Harper's Ferry and Charlestown there can be no doubt but they were deeply interested in the events that have recently taken place, and that many of them looked upon the outbreak, as the lifting of the dark cloud of slavery from their race. ...It is believed that many of the negroes did know something extraordinary was about to happen in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry, and a well informed and candid gentleman told me that he had no doubt Brown believed his plans were found out, or about to be found out, and struck the blow two weeks at least, and perhaps six weeks earlier than he intended. This gentleman is convinced that if the plans had been perfected, Brown would actually have had a negro for every one of his spears, and would have made his way through the mountains of Maryland into Pennsvlvania."{{cite news
|title=John Brown around Charlestown
|newspaper=Chicago Tribune
|date=9 Dec 1859
|page=2
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/105339959/attitude-to-john-brown-around-charles/
|access-date=10 July 2022
|archive-date=10 July 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220710180046/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/105339959/attitude-to-john-brown-around-charles/
|url-status=live
}}
So Robert E. Lee's statement, in his "Report", that local black people gave Brown no voluntary assistance at all,{{cite book
|chapter-url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/4242480
|journal=Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
|number=1
|first=Robert E.
|last=Lee
|author-link=Robert E. Lee
|pages=17–32, at pp. 18–25
|chapter=Col. Robert E. Lee's Report. Headquarters Harper's Ferry. October 19, 1859
|title=The John Brown Letters. Found in the Virginia State Library in 1901 (continued)
|volume=10
|date=July 1902
|jstor=4242480
|access-date=November 25, 2020
|archive-date=December 29, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201229150202/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4242480
|url-status=live
}}{{rp|22}} is not correct, though it appeared again in the Senate Special Committee report{{cite book
|title=Report on the Harper's Ferry Invasion
|author=United States Congress. Senate. Select Committee on the Harper's Ferry Invasion
|date=June 15, 1860
|editor-first=John Murray
|editor-last=Mason
|editor-link=James Murray Mason
|page=7
|url=https://archive.org/details/reportselectcommi00unit/page/n1
}} Same text is more legible [http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/masonreport.html here] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160710135118/http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/masonreport.html |date=2016-07-10 }}. Note that each section has separate pagination and in many Southern reports on the raid. Andrew Hunter, Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise's attorney and the prosecutor in Charles Town, informed Wise confidentially that: "We believed and knew, as we thought then and still think, that he [Brown] could not seduce our slaves. It may be here remarked that, so far as I knew or learned from any quarter, not a single one of the slaves in the county of Jefferson or in Maryland, adjacent, ever did join him in his raid, except by coercion, and then they escaped as soon as they could and went back to their homes."{{cite news
|title=John Brown's Raid. Interesting Reminiscences Written by the Lawyer Who Prosecuted Him.—Incidents of His Trial—His Conviction, Sentence and Execution.—His Purposes as He Declared Them.—The Effect of the Raid on Southern Sentiment
|first=Andrew
|last=Hunter
|author-link=Andrew Hunter (lawyer)
|newspaper=St. Joseph Gazette-Herald
|location=St. Joseph, Missouri
|date=September 18, 1887
|page=9
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/69762648/more-legible-version-of-most-of-andrew/
|access-date=February 9, 2021
|archive-date=February 15, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215060537/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/69762648/more-legible-version-of-most-of-andrew/
|url-status=live
}} Judge Parker concurred.{{cite news
|title=Harper's Ferry Insurrection. Close of the trials.—Sentence of Cook, Coppic, Copeland, and Green
|newspaper=Washington Evening Star
|date=November 12, 1859
|page=2
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71365491/conclusion-of-harpers-ferry-trials-of/
|access-date=February 18, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164822/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71365491/conclusion-of-harpers-ferry-trials-of/
|url-status=live
}} Wise turned this statement into a claim he made repeatedly in speeches: "not a slave around was found faithless".{{rp|222}} These "faithful slaves" who allegedly refused to help Brown at Harpers Ferry became a key element in the "Lost Cause" myth of happy Antebellum Southern life. The United Daughters of the Confederacy had later a "Faithful Slave Committee" trying to honor them with a monument in Harpers Ferry (see Hayward Shepherd Monument).
However, we know positively, said a newspaper story, that some 25 enslaved black people, out of 200 acquainted to some degree with Brown's project, helped the raiders; they all claimed to have been impressed (forced).{{cite news
|title=John Brown's Descendants. How the Family of the Famous Harper's Ferry Hero Are Scattered
|newspaper=Sandusky Daily Register
|location=Sandusky, Ohio
|date=Feb 9, 1889
|via=newspaperarchive.org
|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/sandusky-daily-register-feb-09-1889-p-2/
|access-date=May 17, 2022
|archive-date=May 17, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517025339/https://newspaperarchive.com/sandusky-daily-register-feb-09-1889-p-2/
|url-status=live
|title=Harper's Ferry. The Fate of the Participants in the Famous Raid—John Brown's Family
|newspaper=Bloomington Telephone
|location=Bloomington, Indiana
|date=8 March 1889
|page=3
|url=https://newspapers.library.in.gov/?a=d&d=TBT18890308.1.3
|access-date=10 September 2021
|archive-date=10 September 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210910095318/https://newspapers.library.in.gov/?a=d&d=TBT18890308.1.3
|url-status=live
}} Another source says that "there has {{sic}} not been more than 20 negroes under arms."{{cite book
|title=Correspondence relating to the Insurrection at Harper's Ferry, 17th October, 1859
|date=1860
|author=Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
|publisher=Senate of Maryland
|location=Annapolis
|page=20
|url=https://archive.org/details/correspinsurrecti1860mult/page/n1/mode/2up}} The True Bill of Indictment gives the names of 11 slaves whom the conspirators had allegedly incited to revolt, 4 of Lewis Washington (Jim, Sam, Mason, and Catesby), and 7 of John Allstadt (Henry, Levi, Ben, Herry, Phil, George, and Bill), plus "other slaves to the jurors unknown".{{cite news
|title=The Bill of Indictment found against the prisoners
|newspaper=New York Daily Herald
|date=October 30, 1859
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68149880/bill-of-indictment-against-john-brown/
|access-date=February 1, 2021
|archive-date=January 29, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210129085633/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68149880/bill-of-indictment-against-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}} Of those, we have clear documentation of two that were with Brown voluntarily. One was Jim, "a young coachman hired by Lewis Washington from an owner in Winchester";{{cite book
|last=Horwitz
|year=2011
|first=Tony
|title=Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War
|isbn=978-0805091533
|publisher=Henry Holt and Company}}{{rp|296–297}} he drowned attempting to flee by crossing the river. "There is no doubt that Washington's negro coachman, Jim, who was chased into the river and drowned, had joined the rebels with a good will. A pistol was found on him, and he had his pockets filled with ball cartridges, when he was fished out of the river."{{cite news
|title=News, Rumors, and Gossip from Harpers Ferry
|newspaper=New York Daily Herald
|date=November 1, 1859
|page=3
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66156316/news-from-harpers-ferry-pt-1-pt-2-is/
|access-date=December 27, 2020
|archive-date=July 21, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721090837/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66156316/news-from-harpers-ferry-pt-1-pt-2-is/
|url-status=live
}} More legible [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66157102/the-louisville-daily-courier/ here] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825103547/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66157102/the-louisville-daily-courier/ |date=2021-08-25 }}
Ben, who was owned by John Allstadt, was captured and almost lynched. He died in the Charles Town jail of "pneumonia and fright", along with his mother Ary, also owned by Allstadt, who had come to nurse him.{{rp|397–398}} Both owners filed claims with the government of Virginia for compensation for the loss of their "property" in the raid; it is not known if their claims were successful.{{rp|326–327}}
These are not the only black people that fled their owners and participated in the raid. According to Frederick Douglass, "fifty slaves were collected and emancipation was proclaimed in Virginia and Maryland".{{cite news
|title=John Brown. Fred Douglass' Account of the Anti Slavery Chief. An Oft Told Story Repeated by a Great Actor in the Struggle for Freedom.—A Life of Ease Exchanged for One of Toil and Suffering.—The Times Demanded the Man and He Came at the Call
|newspaper=Brooklyn Daily Eagle
|location=Brooklyn, New York
|date=May 18, 1886
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/27002132/brooklyn-daily-eagle/
|access-date=February 17, 2021
|archive-date=August 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825103548/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/27002132/brooklyn-daily-eagle/
|url-status=live
}}
{{blockquote|[O]ne instance in which the slaves made a public appearance with arms in their hands is related. A negro who had been sharply used by one of the town people, when he found that he had a pike in his hand, used his brief authority to arrest the citizen and have him taken to the armory.{{cite news
|title=The prisoners
|newspaper=The Franklin Repository
|location=Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
|date=October 26, 1859
|page=7
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/69611707/the-people-taken-prisoner-at-the-fire/
|access-date=February 11, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164803/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/69611707/the-people-taken-prisoner-at-the-fire/
|url-status=live
}}}}
The first report on "insurrectionists" killed gave the number of 17, but only 10 were Brown's men, and the other 7 must have been liberated slaves helping him. One was "an old slaveman of the neighborhood, who distinguished himself by reckless courage." He shot armorer Boerly after the latter shot Newby. "He was probably killed soon after."{{cite book
|title=John Brown and his men; with some account of the roads they traveled to reach Harper's Ferry
|author-link=Richard J. Hinton
|last=Hinton
|first=Richard J
|chapter=John Brown's Men—Who They Were," and "Men who Fought and Fell, or escaped
|location=New York
|publisher=Funk & Wagnalls
|year=1894
|pages=449–582
|edition=Revised
|url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/ack4822.0001.001/3?page=root;size=100;view=image;q1=Brown%2C+John%2C+--+1800-1859
|access-date=2020-12-09
|archive-date=2021-06-14
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164203/https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/ack4822.0001.001/3?page=root&size=100&view=image&q1=Brown%2C+John%2C+--+1800-1859
|url-status=live
}}{{rp|511}} "In the engine house there were "a few negroes that had been liberated and armed by Brown".{{cite book
|title=Captain John Brown of Harper's Ferry; a preliminary incident to the great civil war of America
|first=John
|last=Newton
|location=New York
|publisher=A. Wessels
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044015513955&view=2up&seq=215
|date=1902
|access-date=2021-01-31
|archive-date=2021-06-14
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164805/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044015513955&view=2up&seq=215
|url-status=live
}}{{rp|153}} Except for Ben and Jim, their names are unknown. "The number of colored men slain by the reckless fire of the belligerants is given as seventeen."{{cite news
|title=Random Recollctions of half a century. The first battles of the Civil War.—The Conflicts at Christiana, Pa., in 1851 and at Harper's Ferry in 1859 Were the Skirmishes of the Four Years' Struggle between the North and the South
|newspaper=The Times-Democrat
|location=New Orleans, Louisiana
|date=July 21, 1901
|page=29
|last=McClure
|first=A[lexander] K.
|author-link=Alexander McClure
|others=Included in a 1902 book of McClure, Colonel Alexander K. McClure's Recollections of Half a Century
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71185864/a-mcclures-recollections-of-the/
|access-date=February 16, 2021
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164315/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71185864/a-mcclures-recollections-of-the/
|url-status=live
}} There were twelve or thirteen bodies immediately buried, but only the names of eight are known.{{cite news
|title=The Execution of Old John Brown. Full particulars of the prison and gallows scene. Old Brown's Will. He writes his own epitaph. In the Last interview with his wife and fellow-prisoners, &c. &c.
|newspaper=Chicago Tribune |location=Chicago, Illinois
|date=December 5, 1859
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/64103879/hanging-of-john-brown/
|access-date=November 27, 2020
|archive-date=December 9, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201209093237/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/64103879/hanging-of-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}} There were other slaves killed whose bodies were carried away by the river.{{rp|60}} According to Louis DeCaro, at the peak there were 20 to 30 local slaves involved, who quickly and quietly went back to their masters' when it became clear the raid was failing.{{cite book |last=DeCaro |first=Louis |date=2002 |title="Fire from the Midst of You": A Religious Life of John Brown |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7_Qnpl2_NSgC |location=New York |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0814719220 |access-date=August 1, 2020 |archive-date=June 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164824/https://books.google.com/books?id=7_Qnpl2_NSgC |url-status=live }}{{rp|264}}{{cite news
|title=Letter to the Editor
|first=Rev. Louis A.
|last=De Caro Jr.
|newspaper=Washington Times
|date=August 15, 2006
|url=https://go.gale.com/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T004&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=150&searchType=BasicSearchForm¤tPosition=4&docId=GALE%7CA149510542&docType=Brief+article&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=ZNEW-FullText-Exclude-FT&prodId=STND&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA149510542&searchId=R5&userGroupName=wikipedia&inPS=true
|via=Gale
|access-date=June 25, 2021
|archive-date=August 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825103550/https://galeapps.gale.com/apps/auth?userGroupName=wikipedia&origURL=https%3A%2F%2Fgo.gale.com%2Fps%2Fretrieve.do%3FtabID%3DT004%26resultListType%3DRESULT_LIST%26searchResultsType%3DSingleTab%26hitCount%3D150%26searchType%3DBasicSearchForm%26currentPosition%3D4%26docId%3DGALE%257CA149510542%26docType%3DBrief%2Barticle%26sort%3DRelevance%26contentSegment%3DZNEW-FullText-Exclude-FT%26prodId%3DSTND%26pageNum%3D1%26contentSet%3DGALE%257CA149510542%26searchId%3DR5%26userGroupName%3Dwikipedia%26inPS%3Dtrue&prodId=STND
|url-status=live
}}
According to the 1860 census, there were 589 escaped slaves in Jefferson County. "No adjacent Counties reported any [or] very, very few such escapes in the same census." There is a long list of fires set in Jefferson County during the final months of 1859, including those at the farms of men who had been on the jury that convicted Brown.{{cite web
|title=A Dozen Set Fires a Sign of Slave Resistance?
|first=Jim
|last=Surkamp
|date=June 16, 2011
|publisher=Civilwarscholars.con
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160111174203/http://civilwarscholars.com/2011/06/a-dozen-set-fires-a-sign-of-slave-resistance/
|url=http://civilwarscholars.com/2011/06/a-dozen-set-fires-a-sign-of-slave-resistance/
|archive-date=January 11, 2016
|url-status=dead}}
In Harpers Ferry, a Black Voices Museum, at 17 High Street, was operating in 2020.{{cite web
|title=Black Voices Museum
|publisher=Facebook
|access-date=December 27, 2020
|url=https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Voices-Museum/274334906069931?hc_ref=ART5va3b4owQTYdvMr4KxHi9GV2PaN7uUnevFkABnimk4iqJp2adt0O0fAmSOm75A5Q&ref=nf_target&fref=tag
|archive-date=June 14, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164458/https://www.facebook.com/login/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpages%2FBlack-Voices-Museum%2F274334906069931%3Fhc_ref%3DART5va3b4owQTYdvMr4KxHi9GV2PaN7uUnevFkABnimk4iqJp2adt0O0fAmSOm75A5Q%26ref%3Dnf_target%26fref%3Dtag
|url-status=live
}}
Gallery
Tomb of eight killed in Harpers Ferry.jpg|Spot where crates with bodies of Oliver Brown and seven others were buried.
Reburial at John Brown's farm, 1899.jpg|Rev. Joshua Young says the benediction over reburial of John Brown's collaborators.
Notes
{{Notelist}}
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
{{Main|List of sources for John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry}}
=Biographies of the raiders=
- John E. Cook. {{cite book
|title=John Brown's Spy. The Adventurous Life and Tragic Confession of John E. Cook
|first=Steven
|last=Lubet
|author-link=Steven Lubet
|location=New Haven, Connecticut
|publisher=Yale University Press
|year=2012
|isbn=9780300180497}}
- John Anthony Copeland. {{cite book
|title=The "Colored Hero" of Harpers Ferry : John Anthony Copeland and the War against Slavery
|first=Steven
|last=Lubet
|location=Cambridge, England
|publisher=Cambridge University Press
|year=2015
|isbn=9781107076020}}
- Shields Green. {{cite book
|title=The Untold Story of Shields Green : the life and death of a Harper's Ferry raider
|author-link=Louis A DeCaro
|first=Louis A
|last=DeCaro
|publisher=New York University Press
|location=New York
|year=2020
|isbn=9781479802753}}
- African American soldiers in John Brown's Army. {{cite book
|title=Five for Freedom : the African American Soldiers in John Brown's Army
|first=Eugene L
|last=Meyer
|location=Chicago
|publisher=Lawrence Hill Books
|year=2018
|isbn=9781613735718}}
=Other books=
- {{cite news
|title=Reminiscences of John Brown's Men
|newspaper=Leavenworth Times
|location=Leavenworth, Kansas
|date=January 9, 1869
|page=2
|author=Anonymous observer
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73597013/reminiscences-of-john-browns-men/
|access-date=March 16, 2021
|archive-date=May 11, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210511165518/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73597013/reminiscences-of-john-browns-men/
|url-status=live
}} A brief, anonymous, and inaccurate article of 1869.
- {{cite web
|title=The Conspirators [sic] Biographies
|author=ASR
|date=March 21, 1995
|url=http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/jbrown/men.html
|access-date=December 10, 2020
|archive-date=June 7, 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180607040850/http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/jbrown/men.html
|url-status=live
}}
- {{cite journal
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.78035586&view=2up&seq=111&skin=2021&q1=Owen%20Brown
|journal=The Atlantic
|date=July 1874
|first=Owen
|last=Brown
|authorlink=Owen Brown (abolitionist, born 1824)
|title=Letter from Owen Brown
|page=101
|access-date=2021-08-13
|archive-date=2021-08-13
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210813111142/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.78035586&view=2up&seq=111&skin=2021&q1=Owen%20Brown
|url-status=live
}} Owen Brown comments on raiders Charles Plummer Tidd, John E. Cook, Barclay Coppoc, and Francis Jackson Merriam.
- {{cite book
|chapter=John Brown in Ohio. An Interview with Charles S. S. Griffings
|title=Abraham Lincoln and Reformers
|first=Louis
|last=Filler
|volume=58
|number=2
|year=1949
|pages=213–218
|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/abrahamlincolnrelrjblinc/page/n62/mode/1up}}
- {{citation
|title=John Brown's Raiders at Harpers Ferry
|publisher=National Park Service
|author=Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
|access-date=December 5, 2020
|date=December 28, 2017
|url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/john-browns-raiders.htm
|archive-date=February 4, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210204224545/https://www.nps.gov/articles/john-browns-raiders.htm
|url-status=live
}}
- {{cite news
|title=John Brown's Men. An Old Associate of Theirs in the Anti-Slavery Movement Relates Some New Facts About Them
|editor=Caliban
|last=Griffing
|first=Charles S. S.
|newspaper=The Cincinnati Enquirer
|location=Cincinnati, Ohio
|date=18 Jun 1879
|page=5
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/105900234/john-browns-men/}} Reprinted in the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, 1949.
- {{cite news
|title=A friend of old Osawatomie
|last=Hinton
|first=Richard J.
|author-link=Richard J. Hinton
|newspaper=Nebraska State Journal
|location=Lincoln, Nebraska
|date=April 30, 1889
|page=2
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68381826/richard-j-hinton-friend-of-john-brown/
|access-date=January 24, 2021
|archive-date=February 1, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210201021826/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68381826/richard-j-hinton-friend-of-john-brown/
|url-status=live
}} Richard J. Hinton, who became a newspaper reporter and editor, and later a geologist, was an "intimate friend" of John Brown in Kansas.
- {{cite journal
|title=John Brown and his men, before and after the raid on Harper's Ferry, October 16th, 17th, 18th, 1859.
|last=Hinton
|first=Richard J.
|journal=Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly
|author-link=Richard J. Hinton
|volume=2
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.32000000492225&view=1up&seq=709&q1=Brown
|number=6
|date=June 1889
|pages=691–703
|access-date=2021-01-24
|archive-date=2021-06-14
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210614164203/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.32000000492225&view=1up&seq=709&q1=Brown
|url-status=live
}}
- {{cite book
|chapter=The toll from the raid on Harpers Ferry
|first=Tony
|last=Horwitz
|author-link=Tony Horwitz
|title=Midnight rising : John Brown and the raid that sparked the Civil War
|date=2011
|publisher=Henry Holt and Co.
|isbn=9780805091533
|pages=290–291
|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/midnightrisingjo0000horw_e1q1/page/290/mode/2up}}
- {{cite news
|title=John Brown's Comrades. A Man Who Knows Tells Who They Were and What They Did. The Men Who Followed Brown in Harper's Ferry and Whose Bodies Were Laid by His at North Elba
|newspaper=Indianapolis Journal
|first=Richard J.
|last=Hinton
|date=October 1, 1899
|page=19
|others=(Reprinted from the New York Tribune of September 18, 1899)
|via=newspaperarchive.com
|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/celebrity-clipping-oct-01-1899-3038691/
|access-date=February 18, 2022
|archive-date=February 18, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220218111309/https://newspaperarchive.com/celebrity-clipping-oct-01-1899-3038691/
|url-status=live
}}
- {{cite book
|chapter=John Brown's Men-at-arms
|pages=678–687
|title=John Brown, 1800-1859; a biography fifty years after
|last=Villard
|first=Oswald Garrison
|year=1910
|publisher=Houghton Mifflin
|author-link=Oswald Garrison Villard
|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/johnbrownabiogr02villgoog/page/n766/mode/2up
|location=Boston
}}
Sources
- {{Cite book |last=Graham |first=Lorenz B. |url=http://archive.org/details/johnbrowncryforf0000grah |title=John Brown, A Cry for Freedom |publisher=Thomas Y. Crowell |location=New York|date=1980 |isbn=978-0-690-04023-4}}
{{John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry}}