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appalachiablue

(41,047 posts)
Sat Oct 16, 2021, 02:46 AM Oct 2021

Oct 16 1859 Harpers Ferry, John Brown's Body Lies A Mouldering in The Grave, His Soul Is Marching On



- NPS. John Brown left an indelible mark on American history. His so-called raid at Harpers Ferry resulted in both reverence & revulsion. When Brown & his small, integrated army of 21 men invaded Harpers Ferry & took over the federal armory, arsenal, & rifle factory, it was the fulfillment of a pledge to God to increase hostility toward slavery.
It was an attempt to disrupt the security of investing in people as property. It was treason, murder, and insurrection.

John Brown's raid was also a turning point in American history, away from compromise & toward war. Far more than a small fight on the border of Virginia (now West Virginia) & Maryland, John Brown's raid covered many miles & involved more than a thousand people. Today, a complete tour of key sites in this story would span several hundred miles in 4 states & the District of Columbia. The reaction of individuals, local, state, & national govts. played out on horseback, train, & telegraph, from family firesides to the office of the President of the United States...

- More: National Park Service, John Brown, https://www.nps.gov/hafe/learn/historyculture/john-brown.htm
__________
- Daily Kos, Oct. 16, 2021. - Ed.

Howard Zinn, in A people's history of the United States.


Harriet Tubman, 5 feet tall, some of her teeth missing, a veteran of countless secret missions piloting blacks out of slavery, was involved with John Brown & his plans. But sickness prevented her from joining him. Frederick Douglass too had met with Brown. He argued against the plan from the standpoint of its chances of success, but he admired the ailing man of 60, tall, gaunt, white- haired. Douglass was right; the plan would not work. The local militia, joined by a 100 marines under the command of Robert E. Lee, surrounded the insurgents. Although his men were dead or captured, John Brown refused to surrender: he barricaded himself in a small brick building near the gate of the armory. The troops battered down a door; a marine lieutenant moved in & struck Brown with his sword. Wounded, sick, he was interrogated.

- W. E. B. Du Bois, in his book John Brown, writes:

Picture the situation: An old & blood-bespattered man, half-dead from the wounds inflicted but a few hours before; a man lying in the cold and dirt, without sleep for 55 nerve-wrecking hours, without food for nearly as long, with the dead bodies of his 2 sons almost before his eyes, the piled corpses of his 7 slain comrades near & afar, a wife & a bereaved family listening in vain, & a Lost Cause, the dream of a lifetime, lying dead in his heart..
Lying there, interrogated by the governor of Virginia, Brown said: "You had better-all you people at the South-prepare yourselves for a settlement of this question.. You may dispose of me very easily-I am nearly disposed of now, but this question is still to be settled,-this Negro question, I mean; the end of that is not yet."...

Du Bois appraises Brown's action: If his foray was the work of a handful of fanatics, led by a lunatic & repudiated by the slaves to a man, then the proper procedure would have been to ignore the incident, quietly punish the worst offenders & either pardon the misguided leader or send him to an asylum...

- Read More,
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/10/15/2058428/--John-Brown-s-body-lies-a-mouldering-in-the-grave-His-soul-is-marching-on
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- John Brown, *Abolitionist, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)

John Brown (May 9, 1800 – Dec. 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist leader. First reaching national prominence for his radical abolitionism and fighting in Bleeding Kansas, he was eventually captured and executed for a failed incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry preceding the American Civil War.
A man of strong religious convictions, Brown believed he was "an instrument of God", raised up to strike the death blow to American slavery, a "sacred obligation".

Brown was the leading exponent of violence in the American abolitionist movement he believed that violence was necessary to end American slavery, since decades of peaceful efforts had failed. Brown said repeatedly that in working to free the enslaved he was following the Golden Rule, as well as the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which states that "all men are created equal". 

Brown first gained national attention when he led anti-slavery volunteers and his own sons during the Bleeding Kansas crisis of the late 1850s, a state-level civil war over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a slave state or a free state....
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Oct 16 1859 Harpers Ferry, John Brown's Body Lies A Mouldering in The Grave, His Soul Is Marching On (Original Post) appalachiablue Oct 2021 OP
Many years ago I saw a film about John Brown wnylib Oct 2021 #1
Thanks for this excellent post, rich in detail. One quibble, though: Mister Ed Oct 2021 #2
Neither. Igel Oct 2021 #3
#4, fixed it, at least to fit the line appalachiablue Oct 2021 #5
Tx, oops. Late night & some keyboard letters sticking appalachiablue Oct 2021 #4

wnylib

(21,146 posts)
1. Many years ago I saw a film about John Brown
Sat Oct 16, 2021, 06:55 AM
Oct 2021

on late night TV. Ronald Reagan was one of the actors. I don't remember his exact role, but I think he was part of a posse trying to capture Brown. I do remember one of Reagan's lines because it was so true to life for him that he could have written it himself. This is not verbatim since I saw it so long ago, but Reagan's character tells another man on Brown's trail that maybe slavery would end some day, but slaves and abolishionists needed to have more patience and didn't understand that freedom would take time because the slaves weren't prepared for it.

That was a line that I heard repeated many times about MLK from people who opposed the Civil Rights Movement. "They have no patience and want too much all at once."

Mister Ed

(5,895 posts)
2. Thanks for this excellent post, rich in detail. One quibble, though:
Sat Oct 16, 2021, 07:12 AM
Oct 2021

Aren't the same words to the song, "John Brown's body lies a-moulding in the grave", and not "a-smoldering'?

appalachiablue

(41,047 posts)
4. Tx, oops. Late night & some keyboard letters sticking
Sat Oct 16, 2021, 08:12 AM
Oct 2021

In NY, my mother saw the stage show, John Brown's Body based on the Stephen Vincent Benet poem. Tyrone Power, Raymond Massey and Dame Judith Anderson, directed by Charles Laughton, 1952-53.

https://www.tyrone-power.com/johnbrown.html

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