The Chestnut's Attack

The presidential election of 1860 set the stage for the American Civil war. By 1860, the nation had been divided mostly up to that point regarding questions of states’ rights and slavery in the territories. Southerners were outraged over the plan by abolitionist, John Brown, to start a slave rebellion at Harper Ferry, Virginia. This event garnered headlines all over the nation in newspapers and magazines. On the other hand, the Northern Republic seemed equally anger by the Supreme Court decision in the case of Dred Scott v. Stanford, which declared free soil unconstitutional. The Northern Democrats, however, struggled to persuade the Americans that their policy of popular sovereignty still made since.

Shay’s rebellion was led by a man named Daniel Shay in 1787. This was an historic event that shaped history in its own way. This uprising began in Massachusetts in the year of 1786. Daniel shay was characterized and labeled as a rebel, traitor, and a coward. He was also considered a devoted nationalist and a decent military officer supporting America’s revolution. He dedicated over five years of his life in service of America`s government. He mobilized everyone who disagreed with his government’s actions during the time. Shay was able to lead a militia of over 2000 men. The militia was armed and willing and ready to burn down Boston. According to miller (71), Jefferson heard of the rebellion while in France but felt that it would not last long.

Another event, Bleeding Kansas can mainly be said to have led to the Civil War because it led to the establishment of the Republican Party. Bleeding Kansas was when the U.S. gave Kansas the right for their citizens to vote whether they wanted Kansas to be a free state or a slave state. If Bleeding Kansas never happened, Kansas would have been a free state. What happened is that Missouri’s citizens wanted Kansas to become a slave state. So, they snuck into Kansas and voted slavery for Kansas. Missouri’s citizens then went around Kansas, and killed many people that did not vote slavery. Then In 1857, Dred Scott was a Virginia slave who tried to sue for his freedom in court.  The case rose to the Supreme Court, where it was said if a slave goes up to a free state which is illegal to have slaves, the slave would be free. Then came about The Scott Decision which court rules African Americans were not, nor could ever be, citizens of the United States. Congress cannot prohibit slavery and it was considered the worst Supreme Court decision in history. In 1859, the militant abolitionist John Brown seized the U.S. arsenal at Harper 's Ferry, VA. He commanded anti-slavery forces and planned to end slavery by killing slave owners and freeing their slaves. Twenty-one individuals take part in the raid but John Brown is soon captured and hung. A quote from a newspaper at the time by Alan Farmer, "The Harper 's ferry invasion has advanced the cause of disunion more than any other event

During September 9th of 1862 Confederate forces led by Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson commanded three divisions with the goal of seizing Harpers Ferry. At the time Harpers Ferry was a Union occupied town bordering Maryland and Virginia. For the Union front this was a main arsenal holding area that provided support to other forces. For the Confederates, they saw it as a major supply line allowing logistics to travel down south or north through the use of rail road systems. COL Dixon Miles, the Union commander at Harpers Ferry, received intelligence about the movement of enemy forces towards his location.

In 1859 John Brown finally felt that the time was right for the slaves in this country to rise up against the slave owners. He felt that slavery could only be removed by violence (John Brown, Harpers..., 2012) and was quoted as saying, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood” . On October 16, 1859, John Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry. His goal was to start a slave uprising and grab guns and weapons at the armory. On that night twenty two men, led by John Brown, took control of the arsonal. While they were successful at first, U.S. marines surrounded the fort, killed a few of his men, and took prisoner the rest of the twenty-two (John Brown’s 1859...,

Throughout this time, the North was growing rapidly due to its industrial economy. They had more railroad mileage, industry, income, population, and ultimately more representation in Congress. In addition, the South was subject to high tariff laws that made it very hard for southern farmers to trade internationally. The result was a strong centralized government in the North, and an agrarian culture in the South that was solely dependent on slavery. Any attack against the institution of slavery in the South could potentially disintegrate the states in the South. In 1859, this fear became a reality as John Brown, an extreme abolitionist, led a raid on at Harpers Ferry. Although this uprising was brought down and denounced by Northern Republicans, slave owners believed that all abolitionists and Northerners shared the same radical views as John Brown.

While Douglass and his wife were in Massachusetts in the 1840’s, Douglass became a founding member of the gaining abolitionist movement. When Douglass had the opportunity to meet fellow abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison the two were at an abolitionist meeting. Douglass was rushed in front to tell the crowd about injustices he saw and personally faced while in slavery. Garrison witnessed the power that Douglass had to inspire crowds while also bringing to light the injustices. He saw Douglass as a possible face of the blossoming movement. One of the x factors Douglass had was that he was very well spoken and could talk as if he had been formally educated.

Because of this, he made the decision to recruit a regiment of slaves from Rhode Island. “The state’s legislature used lofty language to endorse the idea: ‘History affords us frequent precedents of the wisest, the freest, the bravest nations having liberated their slaves and enlisted them as soldiers to fight in defense of their country’” (11). On the other side of the war, Great Britain was attempting to weaken America by taking away their slaves. In 1775, they decided to offer freedom to all of those who were fleeing their masters. This offer is what sparked the largest rebellion of slaves

In 1859 he led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (in modern-day West Virginia). During the raid, he seized the armory; seven people were killed, and ten or more were injured. He intended to arm slaves with weapons from the arsenal, but the attack failed. Within 36 hours, Brown's men had fled or been killed or captured by local farmers, militiamen, and U.S. Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Brown's subsequent capture by federal forces, his trial for treason by the state of Virginia, and his execution by hanging in Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia) were an important part of the origins of the American Civil War, which followed sixteen months later. When Brown was hanged after his attempt to start a slave rebellion in 1859, church bells rang, minute guns were fired, large memorial meetings took place throughout the North, and famous writers such as Emerson and Thoreau joined many Northerners in praising Brown. Historians agree John Brown played a major role in starting the Civil War. His role and actions prior to the Civil War as an abolitionist, and the tactics he chose, still make him a controversial figure today. He is sometimes memorialized as a heroic martyr and a visionary and sometimes vilified as a madman and a terrorist. Some writers, such as Bruce Olds, describe him as a

John Brown’s beliefs about slavery and activities to destroy it hardly represented the mainstream of northern society in the years leading up to the Civil War. This rather unique man, however, has become central to an understanding and in some cases misunderstandings about the origins of the Civil War. The importance of Brown’s mission against slavery was colossal to accelerating the civil war between the North and the South. His raid on Harpers Ferry in1859 divided the United States like nothing else before, and could have been the main event leading to the Civil War.

The Northern abolitionists also rallied behind the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, and the raid on Harper’s Ferry. The Dred Scott v. Sandford decision in 1857, quickly became a topic of controversy amongst abolitionists after the Supreme Court ruling stated that Dred Scott would remain a slave after being taken to free states by John Emerson, the man who owned Scott. A year later, John Brown, a radical abolitionist, led a group of men and took control of a federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. While the government convicted and hung Brown, the sacrifice made, evolved into a point behind which many abolitionists rallied as Brown became known as “the first white man to die for slavery”. The Dred Scott decision and the Harper’s Ferry raid

On October 16th, 1859, John Brown led a group of twenty-one men in an attack on the Harpers Ferry Arsenal. His idea was to go from town to town arming black slaves hoping to spark a rebellion. The uprising was

You've heard of John Brown, yes? He led a raid on Harper's Ferry, W.Va., in 1859, just two years before the start of the Civil War. He sought to capture a federal armory and launched a war to free the slaves. He was captured and hanged for it. Before dying for his cause, he became a martyr on its

During the 1850s, Douglas was in the fore front in abolishing slavery, which was threatening, to tear the country apart. In the beginning, Douglas felt that John Brown’s anti- slavery ideas and plans were suicidal and he refused to engage in a raid on Harper Ferry. Brown’s activities saw him captured and hanged, an act which

One well know rebellion is the Tacky’s revolt. In May 1760, a slave overseer by the name of Tacky led a group of African slaves in a revolt to take over plantations while killing the slave owners. Tacky and the slaves marched to a shop in Fort Haldane where they killed the shopkeeper and stole barrels of gunpowder and firearms. That night hundreds of other slaves joined Tacky and his followers. There was a large celebration for their success in gaining the weapons the need. A group of Obeahman (witch doctor) formed a circle around the camp, throwing powder at the men claiming that it would protect them from injury and death and proclaiming that a Obeahman cannot be killed. The slave’s confidence was now very high. The British troops along with Maroons who were bounded by the treaty to stop the rebellion soon showed up. When the troop hear of the Obeahman’s claimed immortality they captured, killed and hung his head on a stick for all to see. The rebels saw this and most of the slaves lost their previous confidence and returned to their plantations while Tacky and a few men ran into the woods. They were chased by the Maroons, Tacky was shot and then his head was cut off for proof of the defeat. The rest of his men were found in a cave near Tacky Falls, they committed suicide instead of returning to