Harpers Ferry Raid, (October 16â18, 1859), assault by an armed band of abolitionists led by John Brown on the federal armory located at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia). It was a main precipitating incident to the American Civil War.
On the night of Sunday, October 16, 1859, the abolitionist John Brown and his 22 followers seized the US Arsenal at Harper’s W Ferry, Virginia, in a vain attempt to incite an armed slave rebellion in the Southern States. Quickly surrounded by local militia, Brown and his men took hostages and fortified themselves in a nearby brick-built engine house. Shortly after noon the next day John Harris, Colonel-Commandant of the US Marine Corps, based at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC, received an order from Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey to send “all the available Marines at Head Quarters… by this evening’s train of cars to Harper’s Ferry to protect the public property at that place, which is endangered by a riotous outbreak.”
Within a matter of hours Lt Israel Greene and 86 Marines, plus two 12-pounder Dahlgren howitzers, were westbound on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. They disembarked about a mile short of Harper’s Ferry at 10pm that night, and were joined by 150 soldiers under Col Robert E. Lee and Lt J.E.B.Stuart. The Marines were marched across the railroad bridge, and by midnight they had surrounded the engine house. Waiting until dawn the next day, Lee held a council of war with his fellow officers. Since hostages were being held it was impossible to use the howitzers. He decided to send Lt Stuart under a flag of truce at sunrise to try to persuade Brown to surrender; if this failed, Stuart was to raise his arm as a sign, and the Marines would rush the doors. Predictably, Brown refused Lee’s terms, and the successful assault began with 24 Marines led by Lt Greene. John Brown and his collaborators were subdued. Seventeen men died in the fighting. Brown was indicted for treason on October 25. He and his six surviving followers were hanged before the end of the year.
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