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185916–18 October 1859 · Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry

John Brown's Fort, the small brick armoury engine house in Harpers Ferry's Lower Town
Photo: David Brossard. CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The abolitionist John Brown and 21 followers, five of them Black, seized the federal armoury at Harpers Ferry hoping to arm enslaved people for a rising across the South. Militia and US Marines under Robert E. Lee trapped them in the armoury's engine house. Brown was tried and hanged for treason; Northerners mourned him as a martyr while Southerners saw a threat, hastening the Civil War.

Sites

  1. Site 1: John Brown's FortThe armoury's brick engine house where Brown made his last stand.Map ↗
  2. Site 2: Lower Town, Harpers Ferry National Historical ParkRestored 19th-century streets where the Potomac and Shenandoah meet.Map ↗

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