American History Tellers - Bleeding Kansas | His Soul Goes Marching On | 4

Episode Date: May 5, 2021

On October 17th, 1859, John Brown was barricaded inside the federal armory at Harpers Ferry with his hostages and his remaining followers. His attempt to lead an antislavery insurrection had failed. A detachment of U.S. Marines led by Colonel Robert E. Lee had the armory surrounded. For the radical abolitionist, it was his last stand.But after he was captured and sentenced to death, Northern abolitionists rallied to Brown’s cause. By the time he ascended the scaffold and prepared to meet the hangman’s rope, Brown had become a martyr and folk hero. His bold, violent actions polarized Americans on both sides of the slavery debate, and hurtled the nation closer to the brink of the Civil War.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's the pre-dawn hours of October 18, 1859, in Harper's Ferry, Virginia. The streets are thronged with rowdy militiamen. You're a first lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, and you recently arrived in town as part of a detachment of 90 Marines. Now you and your fellow soldiers are surrounding the armory engine house, where John Brown and his men have barricaded themselves.

Your commander, Colonel Robert E. Lee, confers nearby with the head of a Virginia militia regiment. Of course, we hope that Brown will surrender peacefully, but I think we all know that's unlikely. I expect we'll have to take the building by force. We need to make a plan of attack. Will your men lead the charge? The militia leader looks taken aback. My men are volunteers with wives and children, for God's sake. Your men are paid to do this sort of thing. Lee throws up his hands in frustration. Fine, just giving you the option. If you ask me, this is a state matter. Lee turns to you and you stand a little straighter. Do you want the honor

of taking out Brown? I would be delighted, sir. Then pick your storming party. You walk straight toward your most experienced men. They look alert and battle-ready, despite it being the dead of night. You can't think of a better use of their training than defending government property from the deranged leader of a would-be slave rebellion. All right, men. Those are double-batten doors, and we can bet that Brown has them heavily fortified. We'll use these. You point to a box of heavy sledgehammers, taken from one of the armory workshops in anticipation of this moment. Your men reach down to gather them up.

Once we're inside, do whatever you need to do to seize Brown and his men, but make sure to only use your bayonets and swords. I don't want to see any guns drawn. Remember, there are hostages in there. The men grip their sabers and nod. Now take up your positions and wait for my command. The men salute you and arrange themselves in a circle around the engine house. You watch as Lieutenant Jeb Stewart knocks forcefully on the door. It opens a crack,

and you hold your breath as Stewart hands over a note from Colonel Lee, his final demand for Brown to surrender. You grip the hilt of your saber tight as tense moments pass. Then Stewart turns around, steps away from the door, and waves his cap high in the air. That's your signal. You call out to your men. Now! Gunshots ring out from the engine house as you and your men rush toward it, swords and sledgehammers in hand. You will stop at nothing before you take back the armory, capture John Brown, and bring an end to this bloody insurrection. I'm Saatchi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the hosts of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of the most infamous

scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Now streaming. Welcome to Buy It Now, where aspiring entrepreneurs get 90 seconds to pitch to an audience of potential customers. If the audience liked the product, they'd pitch them in front of our panel of experts, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Anderson, Tabitha Brown, Tony Hawk. Oh my God.

Buy It Now. Stream free my God. Buy it now. Stream free on Freeview and Prime Video. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. Late in the evening of October 17, 1859, U.S. Marines arrived in Harper's Ferry to storm the small brick building where John Brown was holed up. With him were hostages and his remaining followers. Brown's attempt to incite an anti-slavery uprising with his raid on Harper's Ferry had failed. Now cornered and outnumbered, he faced impossible odds.

But Brown's courage and conviction never wavered. He was about to make a final stand, one that would break the national deadlock over slavery. Before the events at Harper's Ferry, many Americans still believed compromise was possible. Brown's desperate and daring actions shattered that notion and hardened stances on both sides of the national divide. In just 36 hours, Brown ignited a powder keg that would explode into a brutal and bloody civil war, shaping the fate of the Republic and the destinies of millions of enslaved Americans. This is Episode 4, His Soul Goes Marching On.

On October 17, 1859, news spread that a small band of determined abolitionists had captured the Federal Armory in Harper's Ferry. All through the night, the streets filled with hundreds of militiamen and townspeople, many of them drunk and disorderly. But all was tense and quiet inside the U.S. Armory engine house. John Brown paced back and forth in the cold, smoke-filled room, surrounded by eleven hostages, enslaved men he had attempted to liberate, and his remaining soldiers. The group had not slept nor eaten in more than a day. Only four of Brown's followers were still able to fight. At their feet lay the corpse of a

twenty-three-year-old Canadian raider. Two of Brown's sons, Watson and Oliver, had been wounded by gunfire, and they writhed on the floor in excruciating pain. Twenty-year-old Oliver was Brown's youngest son. He begged his father to shoot him and spare him from the agony, but Brown refused, telling Oliver, if you must die, die like a man. Brown would not accept defeat, and he expected the same stubborn resolve from his sons. But time was running out. Brown had hoped that enslaved men from nearby plantations would rise up and join him, but they never showed up. All routes out of Harper's Ferry had been sealed off, and at 11 p.m., a train carrying 90 U.S. Marines rolled into town. President James Buchanan had dispatched the troops from Washington, commanded by one of

the Army's rising stars, Virginia native Colonel Robert E. Lee. Lee decided to wait until dawn to send his young aide, First Lieutenant Jeb Stewart, to order Brown to surrender. He expected Brown to refuse, at which point the Marines would storm the engine house. Lee and Stewart decided against using guns, hoping to minimize the potential harm to the hostages. Back in the engine house, Brown and his men were preparing for a fight. They blockaded the heavy oak doors and loaded extra rifles. Brown wore the sword of Frederick the Great he had taken from one of his hostages, Colonel Lewis Washington, President George Washington's great-grandnephew. In the early hours of the morning, Brown called out to his son Oliver, but he was met with silence. Brown quietly declared,

I guess he is dead. He was the second son Brown lost fighting his war on slavery, but he wouldn't be the last. Brown knew he faced overwhelming odds in the coming battle, but he had resigned himself to a fight to the death. If he couldn't lead a war against slavery, he decided he would seek victory as a martyr instead. There would be no surrender. As dawn broke over Harper's Ferry, the raiders saw U.S. Marines lining the yard outside the engine house. They were completely surrounded. Jeb Stuart approached the engine house, holding a white flag aloft. Brown opened the door a few inches, gripping a rifle tightly. Stewart had led troops

in quelling the violence in bleeding Kansas, and he immediately recognized Brown as he handed over a note demanding the raiders' unconditional surrender. Speaking to Stewart, Brown tried to negotiate a trade, the hostages, in exchange for safe passage out of Harper's Ferry. Stewart refused. Stepping away from the door, Stuart waved his hat, a signal for the Marines to attack. Led by Lieutenant Israel Green, a dozen Marines rushed toward the engine house. They used sledgehammers to try to smash down the heavy doors, but they would not budge. Green spotted a heavy ladder and ordered his men to use it as a battering ram. After two blows, the door splintered open,

and Green was the first one through. Sitting among the cowering hostages, Colonel Lewis Washington pointed at Brown, declaring, This is Osawatomie. Green lunged, slashing Brown with his sword. It should have been a fatal blow, but in his rush to Harper's Ferry, Green had forgotten to exchange his dull dress sword for a regulation battlesaber. The blunt sword glanced off Brown's belt buckle. Still, Green pressed on, slashing at Brown's head and then using the sword's hilt to pummel him until he passed out. The rest of the Marines squeezed through the hole in the engine house door. One was shot dead, another wounded in the cheek. But Brown's depleted

forces were quickly overwhelmed. The Marines killed two raiders, impaling one against a wall with a bayonet and striking the other with a saber. They captured the remaining two. After 36 hours, Brown's raid was over in just three minutes. Of the 22 raiders, 10 were dead or mortally wounded. Five were now prisoners, including Brown himself. Seven raiders had escaped amid the chaos, though two were later hunted down and captured. Ultimately, five found safety in remote parts of the North and Canada, including Brown's son, Owen. A handful of townspeople were also killed during the raid, and not a single enslaved person

was freed. The Marines quickly released the hostages, whom Lieutenant Green described as the sorriest lot of people I ever saw. They carried the dead and wounded out onto the grass in front of the armory. Watson Brown was set down on a bench. He would finally die of his wounds the next morning. John Brown slowly regained consciousness. He was bleeding profusely, but his wounds were not as serious as they first appeared. He was taken to an office in the armory, where he soon faced an onslaught of people who had descended on Harper's Ferry to interrogate him. Brown was beaten and battered, and his raid had ended in defeat.

But he had lived to tell his tale, and now had the opportunity to win a strategic victory. Brown had long understood the value of propaganda. Stripped of his rifle and sword, Brown would now use words as his weapons in the fight against slavery. And they would be more powerful than anything he had wielded in Kansas or Harper's Ferry. Reporters and politicians swarmed Harper's Ferry,

including Virginia Governor Henry Wise, a U.S. Senator for Virginia, and several congressmen. An artist for Harper's Weekly sketched the scene as Brown answered questions for three hours, lying on the floor bleeding, his clothes soiled, and his hair matted. His interrogators were almost all pro-slavery men who were furious about the raid. But in the face of their anger, Brown was as calm and collected

as ever. Brown carefully deflected questions about his collaborators, refusing to give up the abolitionists who had supported him financially. He simply said, no man sent me here. It was my own prompting and that of my Maker, or that of the devil, whichever you choose to ascribe it to. When asked to justify his actions, he cited the Bible's golden rule, declaring, I want you to understand, gentlemen, that I respect the rights of the poorest and weakest of colored people oppressed by the slave system just as much as I do those of the most wealthy and powerful. The cry of distress of the oppressed is my reason, and the only thing that has prompted me to come here.

When a reporter asked if he had anything left to say, Brown gave his interrogators a warning. All you people of the South, prepare yourselves for a settlement of this question. You may dispose of me very easily, but this question is still to be settled. This Negro question, I mean. The end of that is not yet. Almost as soon as Brown was captured, rumors and misinformation swirled.

It was the beginning of his transformation from abolitionist soldier into an object of Southern hatred and a harbinger of slavery's demise. Imagine it's the evening of October 18th, 1859. You're in a tavern in Harper's Ferry, surrounded by townspeople and soldiers. You're a member of a militia from Frederictstown, Maryland, called into Harper's Ferry to fight John Brown and his raiders. Brown was captured this morning,

and Governor Henry Wise is stirring up the emotions of the crowd. Sons of Virginia, I have before you the papers of John Brown discovered today at his Maryland hideout. The ravings of an abolitionist fanatic. I have here what he calls his provisional constitution. Can you believe it? The man rewrote the U.S. Constitution. Now, I interrogated Brown today, and I can tell you he is an avowed agent of prominent party leaders in the North, of Republicans in Congress. You turn to the man beside you in the crowd.

That's simply not true. Why is this embellishing the facts. You shake your head and look around the room, filled mostly with Wise's pro-slavery supporters. You yourself hold no moral position on slavery. But as the owner of a small farm, you hate having to compete with slave plantations on crop prices, and you resent politicians like Wise who use slavery to prop up their own power.

It's clear there's a devil's deal between the anti-slavery Republican Party and John Brown. You're beginning to have enough. You call out. That's not true. Wise searches the crowd. When his eyes land on you, his gaze narrows. Excuse me, soldier? I've heard the reports. Brown denied any connection to a Northern conspiracy. He acted on his conscience and his conscience alone. You think he did this alone? Brown is a tool, a paid hireling of the Republicans.

Men like Brown and his Republican allies threaten the well-being of this nation. As the crowd roars its approval, you turn to the fellow soldier beside you once more, lowering your voice and trying to ignore the angry glares directed your way. These Virginians will stop at nothing until they milk this attack for all it's worth. Anything to shore up their own power. You know when you're no longer welcome. So you make your way out of the tavern as Wise continues to feed the crowd lies about an anti-slavery government conspiracy. You can see today's events are already getting twisted wildly out of shape, and you know it can only lead to one thing. More resentment and conflict,

until the nation passes the point of no return. Soon after John Brown was captured, a detachment of Marines swept the Maryland farmhouse that had served as the Raiders' base. They found maps of southern states, noting counties with large black populations, as well as the pikes Brown hoped his army of rebel slaves would wield. They also recovered Brown's provisional constitution and letters

from his abolitionist supporters. Southerners would seize on these documents as evidence of a wider Northern conspiracy, one involving not only radical abolitionists like Brown's financial backers, but leading Republican politicians. The Republican Party had been formed to oppose slavery's expansion in the Western Territories. Its fight against the spread of slavery helped it gain followers in the North, while arising suspicion and anger in the South. Soon, paranoid Southerners would reimagine Brown as an agent of the Republican Party and its rabid anti-slavery agenda. Governor Wise was furious that Brown had so easily thwarted the local Virginia militia. He said he would rather lose his right arm than see the South

humiliated in such a way again. And over the next several weeks, Wise set out to make an example of Brown. He was determined to bring justice for the South and defend slavery from all who sought to destroy it. And he would start by making sure that for his treacherous actions, John Brown was put to death. For more than two centuries, the White House has been the stage for some of the most dramatic scenes in American history. Inspired by the hit podcast American History Tellers, Wondery and William Morrow present the new book, The Hidden History of the White House. Each chapter will bring you inside the fierce power struggles, the world altering decisions, and shocking scandals that have shaped our nation. You'll be there when the

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As Southern officials clamored for revenge, John Brown's backers, especially the group called the Secret Six, were terrified of being arrested for aiding the conspiracy. Three members of the Secret Six fled to Canada. Garrett Smith, Brown's wealthy abolitionist friend from North Elba, New York, experienced such severe anxiety that he suffered a mental breakdown and spent several weeks in an asylum. Soon after the raid ended, Frederick Douglass learned that Virginia law enforcement officers were on their way to Rochester, New York to interview him. Though Douglass had not supported the raid, he was a well-known associate of Brown's and feared for his safety. So on October 19th,

he too fled to Canada before sailing to England. He sent a letter to northern newspapers denying any involvement in Brown's plot, calling it rash and wild. Back in Virginia, officials moved Brown and the four other captured raiders to the county jail in Charlestown, a few miles away from Harper's Ferry. Brown, who had suffered sword wounds in his head and near his kidney, was imprisoned alongside the raider Aaron Stevens, who had endured agonizing pain from several bullets lodged in his body. They were joined by an Ohio Quaker and two black raiders, including Shields Green, the friend of Frederick Douglass who had escaped slavery in South Carolina.

A week after their arrest, Governor Wise had the raiders arraigned on three charges—murder, conspiracy to incite a slave rebellion, and treason against the state of Virginia. Advisors cautioned Wise against a state trial, arguing that it would only inflame tensions. Brown's raid, after all, had been an attack on a federal armory, not state property. But Wise was insistent. He was determined to make a statement about states' rights and his state's power to defend slavery. The governor also wanted personal revenge against Brown. The raid on Harper's Ferry had embarrassed him, and he wanted to ensure that

justice was swift and lethal. The trial began on October 26, just eight days after Brown's capture. Despite the gravity of the charges, the atmosphere inside the courthouse was circus-like. Five hundred cigar-puffing and tobacco-chewing spectators crowded the courtroom. As they watched the proceedings, they loudly cracked peanuts and chestnuts and tossed the shells onto the floor, where they crunched beneath the lawyers' feet as they questioned witnesses. The judge presided over the courtroom with his chair tilted back and his feet up on the table. The hard-drinking prosecuting attorney repeatedly

dozed off. Brown was still suffering from his lacerations and had to be helped into the courthouse. He laid on a cot for most of the trial. When proceedings began, Brown's court-appointed lawyer tried to have him plead insanity to soften his sentence. Seventeen of Brown's friends and family members signed affidavits attesting to his insanity, but Brown refused to agree to this defense. He was furious as he rose up from his cot and called the plea a miserable artifice. Brown considered his actions a completely rational response to the horrors of slavery and insisted he was in his right mind. In response, the judge ruled out any insanity plea. Over the next three

and a half days, nearly two dozen witnesses were paraded through the courtroom. Brown's lawyer tried to prove that his motives were noble, that he had treated the hostages well, and that the charge of treason against the state of Virginia made no sense. The prosecuting attorney insisted that all that mattered was that Brown had kidnapped men, stolen and armed their slaves, and that his actions had led to the deaths of innocent people. On October 31st, the jury deliberated for 45 minutes before returning a verdict, guilty on all three counts. For days, the rowdy spectators had thrown out curses and jibes,

but the verdict left them in stunned silence. Brown himself said nothing. It was the fate he expected. Three days later, the court reconvened for Brown's sentencing. The judge permitted Brown to address the court. He rose and delivered an eloquent five-minute speech in which he tied his actions to American ideals of liberty and equality and the Bible's teaching on morality. He declared, Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded, I say let it be done. Newspapers across America would publish his remarks,

and Northerners praised him for his bravery and composure. When Brown finished speaking, the judge announced his sentence, death by hanging. The other captured prisoners were also soon tried, also found guilty, and given the same sentence. Brown's execution was set for December 2nd, and over the next month he awaited hanging in the Charlestown jail. Still, his supporters refused to give up,

launching desperate plans to intervene and save him from the gallows. Imagine it's the middle of the night in November 1859 in Charlestown, Virginia. A sheriff's deputy dragged you through the front doors of the town's small jailhouse. You can't arrest me. What's the charge? I've already told you, drunken disorderly conduct. Now come on, we've got a nice cell where you can sleep it off. You stifle a smile.

You're pretending to be drunk, so you can get locked up in the very same jail with John Brown. One of his financial backers has recruited you to break him out. As the deputy unlocks the cell, you make a mental note of the rickety windows and the large chimney. Obvious vulnerabilities. Finally, you cast your eyes on John Brown. Sitting quietly in the corner of his cell, his arms folded across his chest. Hey, ain't that John Brown? The deputy shakes his head as he stuffs you into the cell.

Never you mind who he is. As the deputy leaves, you take a good look at Brown. You met him once before in Bleeding, Kansas, where you masterminded the jailbreak of another fellow abolitionist. He looks much older than you remember, but he hasn't lost the steely glint in his eyes. Captain Brown, I'm going to break you out. Brown just looks at you serenely. It's not what you expect from a man who's about to be sent to the gallows.

I neither want nor need to be rescued. Of course you need to be rescued. Now that I've got the layout of the jail, we'll put a plan in motion, get you to Canada. It won't be hard. But Brown just shakes his head. I'm too old to live a life on the run. I'm ready to die for my cause. But Brown just shakes his head. Brown smiles.

He goes against every instinct you have to do nothing, to just stand by and let Brown be executed. But the resignation in his face unnerves you. It dawns on you that maybe he's right. That by dying, John Brown can strike one last heavy blow against slavery. John Brown refused to go along with rescue attempts. He told one of his abolitionist friends, Let them hang me. I am worth inconceivably more to hang than for any other purpose. In the meantime, Brown resolved to do as much as possible to publicize his views on slavery.

In the month after his sentencing, he wrote hundreds of letters, many of which were published in major newspapers. His words helped shape the public narrative about the motives for his raid, burnishing his image as a Christ-like martyr among Northerners while enraging white Southerners. On December 1st, Mary Brown arrived in Charlestown to join her husband for his last meal. They had not seen one another in months. They hugged in silence for several minutes before Mary finally said, My dear husband, it is a hard fate. The pair talked for four hours, discussing Brown's will and plans for the burial of his body and the bodies of their sons Watson

and Oliver, who were killed in the raid. As night fell, the couple finally parted, and Brown broke down and sobbed. Brown was 59 years old and had endured failure and loss in his life. But he had no regrets. In his final years, he had finally taken direct aim at his avowed enemy, slavery. And to him, his actions were right in the eyes of God. The next morning, Brown was placed in an open furniture wagon. He sat on his own walnut coffin. As the wagon rolled out of the Charlestown jail, Brown handed a note to a guard.

It carried a prophetic warning. I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. Rumors spread of potential last-minute rescue attempts, so some 1,500 soldiers stood guard at Brown's execution. Citizens were banned from viewing the hanging, but among the military witnesses were future Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Another witness, wearing a borrowed militia uniform, was a young actor and rabid supporter of slavery in the South named John Wilkes Booth. Before gaining infamy as the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, he wrote about seeing Brown, describing, I looked at the traitor and terrorizer with unlimited, undeniable contempt. A hush fell over the crowd as Brown stoically marched up the steps to the gallows.

A guard positioned him over a trap door, then placed a sack over his head and a noose around his neck. Brown told the man, Do not keep me needlessly waiting. Those would be his final words. A sheriff swung a hatchet and cut the rope that held the trapdoor, and Brown dropped through. The crowd looked on as Brown's body swung back and forth.

A Virginia colonel broke the silence, crying out, So perish all such enemies of Virginia, all such enemies of the Union, all such enemies of the human race. All his life, John Brown had waged a grueling holy war on slavery. Though he was dead, his final stand would captivate a generation of Americans, fanning the flames of national division and turning years of fevered conflict over slavery into a bloody civil war. Now streaming. Welcome to Buy It Now,

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Follow Business Movers wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. The day of John Brown's execution, church bells tolled in cities and towns throughout the North. Flags were lowered and guns were fired in his honor. Black churches reverberated with huge outpourings of grief. For slavery's staunchest critics, Brown was a righteous prophet who had laid down his life to fight the nation's greatest sin. It had been nearly three years since intellectuals Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were mesmerized by Brown's speech in the Concord Town Hall.

Emerson and Thoreau exercised enormous influence over Northern culture, and they helped establish Brown's image as a hero and saint in the minds of many Northerners. Emerson compared Brown's hanging to the crucifixion of Christ. Thoreau delivered a speech in Concord declaring, He is not old Brown any longer. He is an angel of light. No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature. Still, most white Northerners were horrified by Brown's violent exploits. Even those who believed his intentions were good condemned him as a fanatic and a madman.

Republican politicians were terrified that Brown's actions would tarnish their political fortunes. Though they opposed the spread of slavery, Republicans were willing to leave it alone in the South for the sake of preserving the bonds of the Union. In their minds, Brown's raid threatened to break those bonds. Republican politicians disavowed any connection to the raid, and the party denounced Brown in their national platform. In February 1860, Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech that would help him win the Republican nomination for president. Addressing New York's Cooper Union, Lincoln refuted Southern claims that Republicans had orchestrated the Harper's Ferry raid. He cried, You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it. And what is your proof? Harper's Ferry? John Brown? John Brown was no Republican, and you have failed to implicate

a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. While Northerners expressed a range of views on Brown, most white Southerners saw him as a villain and a traitor. Southerners lived in fear of slave rebellions, and Brown was their worst nightmare. A white man who was willing to die to end slavery, and even worse, a man who had armed Black people in pursuit of that goal. By 1860, the South had nearly four million people in bondage. Slavery was the bedrock of the region's material prosperity, and Southerners would unite to protect it at all costs. In the wake of their raid, John Brown became a symbol of everything that Southerners feared about the North. They started to imagine all Northerners as John Brown sympathizers,

who were conspiring to incite slave insurrections and bring their society to ruin. And they began to lose trust that the federal government would protect their right to own other human beings. Throughout the 1850s, a faction of radically pro-slavery Southern Democrats known as Fire Eaters had openly called for secession. John Brown's raid helped turn these fringe cries for secession into a full-fledged movement. A leading Virginia Fire Eater purchased several of Brown's pikes and sent them to Southern governors to display in their statehouses, hoping they would serve as a powerful symbol of Northern aggression against slavery. In this paranoid atmosphere, the South cracked down on dissent. Armed vigilantes attacked people suspecting of

holding anti-slavery views. Several Northern newspapers were banned throughout the region, and Southerners issued blacklists of businesses run by critics of slavery. holding anti-slavery views. Several northern newspapers were banned throughout the region, and Southerners issued blacklists of businesses run by critics of slavery. But Black Southerners, free and enslaved, bore the brunt of white retribution. In the years after Harper's Ferry, newspapers reported countless stories of white Southerners torturing and killing Black people, many more than before Brown's raid. As a tide of fear and suspicion engulfed the country, moderate voices were drowned out. Americans sensed that any hope of compromise was slipping away, and that the nation was moving inexorably toward a violent conflict. Imagine it's October 1860, and you're in a church in Boston, Massachusetts.

You're the leader of a local all-black militia. For years, you've helped protect fugitive slaves from bounty hunters. Today, your group has gathered in honor of the one-year anniversary of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. Standing at a podium, you take a deep breath before you conclude your address. We must all follow the example of John Brown. This is a man who truly lived up to the Declaration of Independence, who loved Nat Turner as well as George Washington, who gave up his life to liberate all black people.

You smile as you look across the room, hopeful that you're closer to your immediate goal, inspiring new recruits. It's now obvious that the issue of slavery can only be settled by force of arms. This is a fight we all must be a part of. Who will join us in this fight? You step down from the podium and walk into the aisle where a young man approaches you. You reach out to shake his hand. I haven't seen you before. Are you here to join our militia?

The man looks at you hesitantly. Well, I'm not sure. I want to give others a chance at freedom, but it seems like you're asking for trouble. What we're doing is exercising our Second Amendment right to organize a well-regulated militia. Our right to keep and bear arms. Yeah, but white folks have a very different view of that. Well, rights are rights. And we have them too. The man just shakes his head. You think after John Brown, they'll want us carrying weapons and forming militias?

What about what happened to the Philadelphia militia? You know what he's referring to. Right after John Brown's capture, authorities in Philadelphia decided to take away the guns they had only just issued to members of their all-black militia. They declared that only white people had the constitutional right to wield firearms. What happened in Philadelphia was unfortunate. But we must not give up so easily. Our white brethren may be opposed to black militias now, but the time will come when they

will need our service. The younger man looks at you skeptically. How can you be so sure? Because the cause of freedom is what this country was built on, And the war that's coming will be the greatest trial our nation has ever faced. We'll all need to stand up and fight. As you speak, you're glad to see the young man stand up a little straighter. Maybe your words have just won another recruit to your cause after all. You're certain that the only thing that will free your black brothers and sisters in bondage will be bloodshed. You know the South is spoiling for a fight. And once that fight begins, you're determined to do your part

to make sure the North is ready. John Brown's raid galvanized all Black militias in the North, which began forming in the 1850s to protect fugitive slaves and to brace for a conflict over slavery they were certain was coming. Rumblings of war grew louder in the years after Harper's Ferry, as long-simmering tensions between the North and South began to boil over and hopes for compromise slipped away. By the fall of 1860, Americans sensed that the nation was on the verge of an unprecedented crisis.

The ghost of John Brown loomed large over the election of that year, as the slavery debate reached a breaking point. Republicans had tried to distance themselves from John Brown, but still their presumed frontrunner was deemed too controversial, so instead they chose a more moderate contender, a former congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln would campaign on a platform of preserving the Union and keeping slavery out of Western territories, but leaving it intact in the South. The Democratic Party had dominated politics throughout the 1850s, but the frenzy over John Brown's raid helped drive a wedge through their ranks. Northern moderates and Southern extremists clashed over the future

of slavery, and the conflict came to a head at the party nominating convention in April. The Democrats split along regional lines, producing two nominees for the president and paving the way for Lincoln's victory. On election day that November, Lincoln won the presidency with just 40% of the popular vote. Lincoln's victory was a tipping point. A growing number of Southerners believed that slavery was in peril, and the only way to protect it was to sever their ties to the Union. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first of 11 states to secede. By February of the next year, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had followed. The Confederacy was formally established,

and the North and South hurtled down a path to civil war. Within months, Union troops marched into battle to the tune of a song called John Brown's Body, which later morphed into the battle hymn of the Republic, the iconic anthem of the Union cause. The soldiers sang, John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on. Northern soldiers, white and black, marched south to preserve the Union. But eventually the war turned into something few imagined. President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation,

issued on January 1, 1863, explicitly made it not only a war to preserve the Union, but a war to abolish slavery. In 1864, Lincoln called the conflict a John Brown raid on a gigantic scale. Twenty years after the war began, and sixteen years after it ended in Northern victory, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at Harper's Ferry. There he declared, If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery, and he made this a free republic. Brown's raid had failed, but his crusade marched on. His daring attack on Harper's Ferry triggered a chain of events that led to the bloodiest war in American history, and at long last, the liberation

of nearly four million enslaved people. Long after the war, John Brown's legacy would endure, forcing Americans to reckon with the depths of racial disparity, the use of violence to right moral wrongs, and how far a nation should go to live up to its promise of liberty and justice for all. From Wondery, this is Episode 4 of Bleeding Kansas from American History Tellers. On the next episode, I speak with historian David S. Reynolds, author of the book John Brown Abolitionist, the man who killed slavery, sparked the Civil War, and ceded civil rights. We'll talk about Brown's impact on the politics of his time and how his legacy has shaped American conversations around racial justice to this day. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free

right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Audio editing by Molly Bach. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Music by Lindsey Graham. Voice acting by Ace Anderson. This episode is written by Ellie Stanton. Edited by Dorian Marina. Our senior producer is Andy Herman. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman and Marsha Louis.

Created by Hernán López for Wondery. I'm Tristan Redman, and as a journalist, I've never believed in ghosts. But when I discovered that my wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door to where I grew up, I started wondering about the inexplicable things that happened in my childhood bedroom. When I tried to find out more, I discovered that someone who slept in my room after me, someone I'd never met, was visited by the ghost of a faceless woman. So I started digging into the murder in my wife's family, and I unearthed family secrets nobody could have imagined.

Ghost Story won Best Documentary Podcast at the 2024 Ambies and is a Best True Crime nominee at the British Podcast Awards 2024. Ghost Story is now the first ever Apple Podcast series essential. Each month, Apple Podcast editors spotlight one series that has captivated listeners with masterful storytelling, creative excellence, and a unique creative voice and vision. To recognize Ghost Story being chosen as the first series Essential, Wondery has made it ad-free for a limited time only on Apple Podcasts. If you haven't listened yet, head over to Apple Podcasts to hear for yourself.