OriginalGumby
16th October 2009, 19:20
http://socialistworker.org/2009/10/16/harpers-ferry-insurrection
On an October day 150 years ago, a small band of men, led by the radical abolitionist John Brown, attacked the federal armory at Harper's Ferry, Va. The group hoped to strike a spectacular blow against a government that upheld the horrific institution of slavery, and to spark a wider uprising against the slave power in the American South.
The attack was defeated--the raiders were besieged and Brown captured by a U.S. Army unit led by future Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. But John Brown's raid wasn't a failure. The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass disagreed with Brown's plan, but wrote of its ultimate impact: "If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery...Before this blow was struck, the prospect for freedom was dim, shadowy and uncertain."
In The Old Man (http://www.haymarketbooks.org/product_info.php?cPath=45&products_id=1619) (that was Brown's nickname), Truman Nelson narrates the events at Harper's Ferry, with both a historian's grasp of the issues that formed the backdrop to the raid, and a novelist's eye for detail and character. Now the book has been republished by Haymarket Books. Here, with permission, we reprint part of a chapter from The Old Man (http://www.haymarketbooks.org/product_info.php?cPath=45&products_id=1619) that describes John Brown's Harper's Ferry raid getting underway.
On an October day 150 years ago, a small band of men, led by the radical abolitionist John Brown, attacked the federal armory at Harper's Ferry, Va. The group hoped to strike a spectacular blow against a government that upheld the horrific institution of slavery, and to spark a wider uprising against the slave power in the American South.
The attack was defeated--the raiders were besieged and Brown captured by a U.S. Army unit led by future Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. But John Brown's raid wasn't a failure. The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass disagreed with Brown's plan, but wrote of its ultimate impact: "If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery...Before this blow was struck, the prospect for freedom was dim, shadowy and uncertain."
In The Old Man (http://www.haymarketbooks.org/product_info.php?cPath=45&products_id=1619) (that was Brown's nickname), Truman Nelson narrates the events at Harper's Ferry, with both a historian's grasp of the issues that formed the backdrop to the raid, and a novelist's eye for detail and character. Now the book has been republished by Haymarket Books. Here, with permission, we reprint part of a chapter from The Old Man (http://www.haymarketbooks.org/product_info.php?cPath=45&products_id=1619) that describes John Brown's Harper's Ferry raid getting underway.