Abolitionist John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in present-day West Virginia was an unsuccessful siege that occurred over the course of two days in October of 1859. Brown and his 12 accomplices (two of whom were his sons) attempted to capture a federal armory and disseminate weapons to enslaved men and to freedom fighters called Free Soilers in the Kansas Territory. The rebellion culminated in the deaths of many raiders as well as the arrest of Brown at the hands of militias called border ruffians and the US Marines, under the command of Robert E. Lee. This defeat made national headlines and signaled the end of the Bleeding Kansas period of history, a microcosm of the national tensions that would escalate into civil war just two years later.

The raid on Harpers Ferry strained the stability of the Union, forcing the federal government into a more complacent position on the question of slavery. Brown’s extrajudicial violence was touted far and wide by Southern Democrats as an example of Northern immorality and coercion, but it was also gravely feared. Many abolitionists felt themselves torn between genteel political inaction on one hand and bloodshed on the other.