Part of a series on
North American slave revolts
Attack and capture of the Crête-à-Pierrot (Combat et prise de la Crête-à-Pierrot, March 1802) in the Haitian Revolution by Auguste Raffet, engraving by Ernest Hébert
Context Atlantic slave trade Maroons Slavery among indigenous peoples Slavery in Canada Cuba Haiti Latin America Bahamas New France New Spain British and French Caribbean British Virgin Islands United States colonial US
Before 1700 1521 Santo Domingo Slave Revolt (Santo Domingo) 1526 San Miguel de Gualdape (Spanish Florida, victorious) 1548–1558, 1579–1582 Bayano Wars (Real Audiencia of Panama, New Spain, suppressed) c. 1570 Gaspar Yanga's Revolt (Veracruz, New Spain, victorious) 1601 Acaxee Rebellion (New Spain, suppressed) 1616 Tepehuán Revolt (New Spain, suppressed) 1680 Pueblo Revolt (Santa Fe de Nuevo México, New Spain, victorious)
18th century 1712 New York Slave Revolt (British Province of New York, suppressed) 1730 First Maroon War (British Jamaica, victorious) 1730 Chesapeake rebellion (British Chesapeake Colonies, suppressed) 1731 Samba rebellion (Louisiana, New France, suppressed) 1733 St. John Slave Revolt (Danish Saint John, suppressed) 1739 Stono Rebellion (British Province of South Carolina, suppressed) 1741 New York Conspiracy (British Province of New York, suppressed) 1760–61 Tacky's Revolt (British Jamaica, suppressed) 1768 Montserrat slave rebellion (British Montserrat, suppressed) 1787 Abaco Slave Revolt (British Bahamas, suppressed) 1791 Mina Conspiracy (Louisiana, New Spain, suppressed) 1795 Pointe Coupée Conspiracy (Louisiana, New Spain, suppressed) 1795 Curaçao Slave Revolt of 1795 (Dutch Curaçao, suppressed) 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution (French Saint-Domingue, victorious)
19th century 1800 Gabriel's Rebellion (Virginia, suppressed) 1803 Igbo Landing (St. Simons Island, Georgia, victorious) 1805 Chatham Manor (Virginia, suppressed) 1811 German Coast Uprising (Territory of Orleans, suppressed) 1811 Aponte conspiracy (Spanish Cuba, suppressed) 1815 George Boxley (Virginia, suppressed) 1816 Bussa's Rebellion (British Barbados, suppressed) 1822 Vesey Plot (South Carolina, suppressed) 1825 Great African Slave Revolt (Cuba, suppressed) 1831 Nat Turner's rebellion (Virginia, suppressed) 1831–32 Baptist War (British Jamaica, suppressed) 1839 Amistad, ship rebellion (off the Cuban coast, victorious) 1841 Creole case, ship rebellion (off the Southern U.S. coast, victorious) 1842 slave revolt in the Cherokee Nation (Indian Territory, suppressed) 1843–44 Ladder Conspiracy (Spanish Cuba, suppressed) 1849 Charleston Workhouse Slave Rebellion (South Carolina, suppressed) 1859 John Brown's raid (Virginia, suppressed)
Notable leaders Carolta Charles Deslondes Denmark Vesey François Mackandal Gabriel Prosser Gaspar Yanga Jean Saint Malo Jean-Jacques Dessalines John Brown Joseph Cinqué Madison Washington Marcos Xiorro Maria Nanny of the Maroons Nat Turner Toussaint Louverture Tula

John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry (also known as John Brown's Raid or The Raid on Harpers Ferry) was an attempt by abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia in 1859. Brown's raid was defeated by a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee.

In 1794 George Washington selected the site of Harper's Ferry for the location of a Federal Arsenal. John H. Hall was contracted to manufacture his rifle in the town.

John Brown arrived in Harper's Ferry and took up residence under the name, Isaac Smith. Brown began training a small group of men for military action. His group included 16 white men, 3 free blacks, 1 freed slave and 1 fugitive slave. Northern abolitionist groups sent 200 breech loading .52 caliber Sharps carbines ("Beecher's Bibles") and pikes in preparation for the raid. The arsenal contained 100,000 muskets and rifles. The plan was to seize the weapons and arm local slaves whom Brown believed would flock to the cause.

On Sunday night, October 16, 1859, Brown left 3 of his men behind as a rear-guard and led the rest into the town. Brown's men captured several watchmen, townspeople and Colonel Lewis Washington, the great grand nephew of George Washington.

Brown's men needed to capture the weapons and escape before word could be sent to Washington, D.C. The raid was going well for Brown's men. They cut the telegraph wire and seized a Baltimore & Ohio train passing through. An African-American baggage handler on the train named Hayward Shepherd, confronted the raiders and was subsequently shot and killed, ironically a freed slave became the first casualty of the raid. Then for unknown reasons, Brown let the train continue unimpeded. The train reached Washington the next day and the conductor alerted the authorities. One of the keys to success was the support of the local slave population. A massive uprising did not occur, and some histories of the raid have stated that the slaves never rebelled. Testimony given by Harpers Ferry residents during the federal investigation of Brown's raid indicated that no slaves rebelled. However, Osborne Perry Anderson, one of the few raiders to escape Harper's Ferry, contradicted these assertions in his memoir:

"Of the slaves who followed us to the Ferry, some were sent to help remove stores, and the others were drawn up in a circle around the engine-house, at one time, where they were, by Captain Brown's order, furnished by me with pikes, mostly, and acted as a guard to the prisoners to prevent their escape, which they did. As in the war of the American Revolution, the first blood shed was a black man's, Crispus Attuck's, so at Harper's Ferry, the first blood shed by our party, after the arrival of the United States troops, was that of a slave. In the beginning of the encounter, and before the troops had fairly emerged from the bridge, a slave was shot. I saw him fall. Phil, the slave who died in prison, with fear, as it was reported, was wounded at the Ferry, and died from the effects of it...The first report of the number of 'insurrectionists' killed was seventeen, which showed that several slaves were killed; for there were only ten of the men that belonged to the Kennedy Farm who lost their lives at the Ferry, namely: John Henri Kagi, Jerry Anderson, Watson Brown, Oliver Brown, Stewart Taylor, Adolphus Thompson, William Thompson, William Leeman, all eight whites, and Dangerfield Newby and Sherrard Lewis Leary, both colored. The rest reported dead, according to their own showing, were colored. "^[1]

Soon the townspeople began to fight back against the raiders. Nevertheless Brown's men captured the armory that evening.

Armory workers discovered Brown's men early on the morning of October 17. Local militia, farmers and shopkeepers surrounded the armory. When a company of militia captured the bridge across the Potomac River, any route of escape was cut off. During the day four townspeople were killed, including the mayor. Realizing his escape was cut, Brown took 9 of his captives and moved into the smaller engine house, which would come to be known as John Brown's Fort. The raiders barred off the windows and doors and exchanged the occasional volley with the surrounding forces. At one point Brown sent out his son, Watson, and Aaron Dwight Stevens with a white flag, but Watson was mortally wounded and Stevens was shot and captured. The raid was rapidly deteriorating. One of the raiders named William H. Leeman panicked and tried to escape by swimming across the Potomac River. The townspeople, reportedly drunk, made sport of shooting up Leeman's body. During the intermittent shooting Brown's other son, Oliver was shot and died after a brief period.

By 3:30 that afternoon President James Buchanan ordered a detachment of U.S. Marines to march on Harper's Ferry. The choice to command this detachment was Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry, who was on leave from Texas visiting his family in nearby Arlington. Upon his arrival at Harpers Ferry, Lee first decided to close all the local saloons in an attempt to control the townpeople's drunken shooting.

Lee first offered the role of attacking the engine house to the local militia units on the spot. Both militia commanders declined and Lee turned to the Marines. On the morning of October 18, Col. Lee sent Lt. J.E.B. Stuart, serving as a volunteer aide-de-camp, under a flag of truce to negotiate a surrender of John Brown and his followers. Lee instructed Lt. Israel Greene that if Brown refused, he was to lead the marines in storming the engine house. Stuart told Brown that his men would be spared if they surrendered. Brown refused and Stuart signaled to Lt. Greene and his men. Two marines armed with sledge hammers tried in vain to break through the door. Greene found a wooden ladder and 10 marines used it as a battering ram to knock the front doors in. Greene was the first through the door and with the assistance of Lewis Washington identified and singled out John Brown. Greene later recounted what happened next:

"Quicker than thought I brought my saber down with all my strength upon [Brown's] head. He was moving as the blow fell, and I suppose I did not strike him where I intended, for he received a deep saber cut in the back of the neck. He fell senseless on his side, then rolled over on his back. He had in his hand a short Sharpe's cavalry carbine. I think he had just fired as I reached Colonel Washington, for the marine who followed me into the aperture made by the ladder received a bullet in the abdomen, from which he died in a few minutes. The shot might have been fired by some one else in the insurgent party, but I think it was from Brown. Instinctively as Brown fell I gave him a saber thrust in the left breast. The sword I carried was a light uniform weapon, and, either not having a point or striking something hard in Brown's accouterments, did not penetrate. The blade bent double."^[2]

The action inside the engine house happened very quickly. In three minutes, all of the raiders still alive were taken prisoner and the action was over.

Colonel Lee and Lt. Greene searched the surrounding country for fugitives who had participated in the attack. John Brown was taken to the court house in nearby Charles Town for trial. He was found guilty of treason against the commonwealth of Virginia and was hanged on December 2. Four other raiders were executed on December 15 and two more on March 16, 1860. Colonel Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart and Israel Greene all became officers in the Confederate States Army during the following Civil War.

Killed

• John Henry Kagi (shot and killed while crossing a river.)
• Jeremiah G. Anderson (killed in the storming of the engine house)
• William Thompson
• Dauphin Thompson (killed in the storming of the engine house)
• Oliver Brown (killed inside the engine house)
• Watson Brown (killed under a flag of truce outside the engine house)
• Stewart Taylor
• William Leeman (shot trying to escape across the Potomac)
• Lewis Sheridan Leary (free African-American. Mortally wounded while crossing a river.)
• Dangerfield Newby (free African-American. Killed and body mutilated.)

Captured

• John Brown (abolitionist) (also wounded)
  
• Aaron Dwight Stevens (shot and captured October 18)
  
• Edwin Coppoc (captured October 18)
  
• John Anthony Copeland, Jr. (free African-Americans captured October 18)
  
• Shields Green (free African-Americans captured October 18)
  
• John E. Cook (escaped into Pennsylvania but soon captured)
  
• Albert Hazlett (escaped into Pennsylvania but soon captured)
  

Four raiders escaped and were captured about six months later.

Escaped and never captured

• Barclay Coppock (died during US Civil War)
  
• Charles Plummer Tidd (died during US Civil War)
  
• Osborne Perry Anderson (served as an officer in Union Army, penned memoir about the raid)
  
• Owen Brown
• Francis Jackson Meriam (served in the army as a captain in the Third South Carolina Colored Infantry.)
  

Civilians

• Hayward Shepherd African-American B&O baggage handler; killed
  
• Thomas Boerly townperson; killed
  
• George W. Turner townsperson; killed
  
• Fontaine Beckham town mayor; killed
  
• A slave belonging to Col. Washington was killed
  
• A slave belonging to hostage John Allstad was killed
  

(Some claim the two slaves voluntarily joined Brown's raiders, others say Brown forced them to fight. Regardless one was killed trying to escape across the Potomac River, the other was wounded and died in the Charles Town prison)

9 others were wounded

Marines

• Luke Quinn (killed during the storming of the engine house)
• Matthew Ruppert (shot in the face while storming the engine house)

• John Brown
  
• John Brown's Fort
  
• Harper's Ferry
  
• Robert E. Lee
  

• John Brown and the Harper's Ferry Raid
• The Raid on Harper's Ferry
• Marines Answer the Call