John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an effort by abolitionist John Brown, from October 16 to 18, 1859, to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It has been called the dress rehearsal for, or tragic prelude to, the American Civil War.
Harper's Weekly illustration of U.S. Marines attacking John Brown's "Fort"
Artist Jacob Lawrence's conception of Brown trying to persuade abolitionist Frederick Douglass to join him in the raid on Harpers Ferry. Douglass refused, as he believed Brown would fail.
John Brown in 1859
1862 photograph of the Harpers Ferry arsenal; the "engine house", later called "John Brown's Fort", is on the left.
American Civil War
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The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which had been formed by states that had seceded from the Union.
Frederick Douglass, a former slave, was a leading abolitionist
Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, author of the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854
Sen. John J. Crittenden, of the 1860 Crittenden Compromise
Ambrotype of two unidentified young boys, one in blue Union cap, one in gray Confederate cap (Liljenquist collection, Library of Congress)