John Brown's Raid On Harpers Ferry - Aftermath

Aftermath

Colonel Lee and Lt. Greene searched the surrounding country for fugitives who had participated in the attack. Brown was taken to the court house in nearby Charles Town for trial. He was found guilty of treason against the commonwealth of Virginia and was hanged on December 2. (This execution was witnessed by the actor John Wilkes Booth, who would later assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.) On the day of his execution, Brown wrote his last prophecy, which said,

“I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.”

Four other raiders were executed on December 15 and two more on March 16, 1860.

Southerners had a mixed attitude towards their slaves. Many southern whites lived in fear of a slave insurrection. Paradoxically, whites claimed that slaves were well treated and content in bondage. After the raid southerners initially lived in fear of slave uprisings and invasion by armed abolitionists. The South's reaction entered a second phase at around the time of Brown's execution. Southerners were relieved that no slaves had volunteered to help Brown. Southerners felt vindicated in their claims that slaves were content. After Northerners had expressed admiration for Brown's motives, with some treating him as a martyr, southern opinion evolved into what James McPherson called "unreasoning fury."

The first Northern reaction among antislavery advocates to Brown's Raid was one of baffled reproach. William Lloyd Garrison called the raid "misguided, wild, and apparently insane." But through the trial, Brown transformed into a martyr. Henry David Thoreau, in A Plea for Captain John Brown, said, "I think that for once the Sharp's rifles and the revolvers were employed in a righteous cause. The tools were in the hands of one who could use them," and said of Brown, "He has a spark of divinity in him." Though "Harper's Ferry was insane," wrote the religious weekly the Independent, "the controlling motive of his demonstration was sublime." To the South, he was a murderer who wanted to deprive them of their property. The North "has sanctioned and applauded theft, murder, and treason," said De Bow's Review.