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).
The group of men varied in social class and education.
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.
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.
Of the members of Brown's party, 17 were white and 5 (23%) were black. 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.
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. 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).
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
This page covers Charlestown — Skirmish (July 1863). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.