The Meteor of War: The Upper Ohio Valley Responds to John Brown's Raid

October 15, 2024
12:00pm - 1:00pm

John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry is considered a cataclysmic event that catapulted the United States toward civil war. Though situated more than 200 miles from Harpers Ferry, Brown’s raid reverberated deeply across the Upper Ohio Valley, where Brown and several of his raiders were personally known, and their cause championed or condemned. Jon-Erik Gilot, author of "John Brown's Raid: Harpers Ferry and the Coming of the Civil War, October 16-18, 1859" (Emerging Civil War Series), will examine local connections to the raid, as well as reactions and fallout on both sides of the Ohio River, from the Wheeling militia companies who were present at Brown’s execution to the arms race along Virginia’s western border.

Featured Book: John Brown's Raid: Harpers Ferry and the Coming of the Civil War, October 16-18, 1859 (Emerging Civil War Series)

About the Book

The first shot of the American Civil War was not fired on April 12, 1861, in Charleston, South Carolina, but instead came on October 16, 1859, in Harpers Ferry, Virginia—or so claimed former slave turned abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

The shot came like a meteor in the dark.

John Brown, the infamous fighter on the Kansas plains and detester of slavery, led a band of nineteen men on a desperate nighttime raid that targeted the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. There, they planned to begin a war to end slavery in the United States.

But after 36 tumultuous hours, John Brown’s Raid failed, and Brown himself became a prisoner of the state of Virginia.

Brown’s subsequent trial further divided north and south on the issue of slavery as Brown justified his violent actions to a national audience forced to choose sides. Ultimately, Southerners cheered Brown’s death at the gallows while Northerners observed it with reverence. The nation’s dividing line had been drawn.

Herman Melville and Walt Whitman extolled Brown as a “meteor” of the war. Roughly one year after Brown and his men attacked slavery in Virginia, the nation split apart, fueled by Brown’s fiery actions.

John Brown’s Raid tells the story of the first shots that led to disunion. Richly filled with maps and images, it includes a driving and walking tour of sites related to Brown’s Raid so visitors today can walk in the footsteps of America’s meteor.

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