John Brown s Raid On Harper s Ferry - 1355 Words

John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry Annie Page Mrs. Stone JBU History- 5th 4 May 2015 John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry Countries have gone to war against themselves many times because of internal conflicts amongst the citizens or government. Civil wars do not erupt out of nothingness, but rather controversial issues manifest into something that becomes impossible to resolve in a domestic manner. The great divide between the northern and southern states turned into the controversy between the free and not free states. One either lived in the populated cities up north, most likely working in the manufacturing industry, or lived in the rural plantations of the south, dominated by an agricultural economy. Each side of†¦show more content†¦John Brown felt particularly strongly that this organized insurrection was one of the only options to overthrow slavery once and for all. He had originally hoped that slaves would ban together to join him and his small army, he even included Fredrick Douglas and Harriet Tubman in his plotting, however no slaves joined for fear of failure. The raid party stay ed at Kennedy Farmhouse located four miles away from Harpers Ferry in preparation for the attack. With many weapons in hand the attackers situated themselves indoors in order to keep suspicions to a minimum. Approximately five men were killed and hostages were taken. Seeing as the raiders were obviously outnumbered they were caught by Robert E. Lee, leader of the U.S. Marines, and convicted of treason against the commonwealth of Virginia. John brown was hung on December 2, 1859, and the others involved were executed on December 16, 1859. The western states covered the incident with little bias, relaying only the facts and not focusing on the moral or personal aspect of the situation. San Francisco Bulletin writes that the people of the west were â€Å"anxious to know something more than they have hitherto known concerning the antecedents†. The goal of the articles was to give and accurate depiction of the incident. The newspaper did not address John Brown personally as an abuser of justice or as a courageous leader, but instead just listed the events as they happened