John Brown's Body

Following his raid and capture at Harper’s Ferry, John Brown was on December 2nd 1859 hung.

John Brown was born May 9th 1800 in Torrington Connecticut. His family moved in 1805 to Ohio, where the resolutely anti-slavery family ran a station on the Underground Railroad. Brown returned to Connecticut to study to become a Congregational minister, but soon returned to his family in Ohio. Brown held many jobs, he married twice and fathered twenty children.

In 1849 John Brown took his family and settled in the black community of North Elba New York. With the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, Brown formed the “United States League of Gileadites” an organization created to defy slave-catchers. Brown moved with five sons in 1855 to the Kansas Territory to help anti-slavery oponities try to gain control, and his home was burned and a son killed. After this he moved to Virginia where he set up a refuge for escaped slaves.

Brown lead a group of twenty-one men on October 16th 1859 in an attack on the Federal armory at Harper’s Ferry Virginia. His hope was that slaves would rise up and join him creating an emancipation army. After holding the armory for two days it was stormed by a company soldiers led by Robert E Lee. Brown and six men who held the engine house in Harper’s Ferry fought until two of his sons where killed and Brown had been critically wounded.

Brown was convicted at trial of treason, insurrection and murder. He was executed by hanging on December 2nd 1859. The song “John Brown’s Body” was a popular marching song with Union troops during the Civil War.

Another web site you might be interested in viewing
Slavery, Passion, Intrigue & Murder: The Story of John Brown