Midnight rising : John Brown and the raid that sparked the Civil War /

Midnight rising : John Brown and the raid that sparked the Civil War /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Horwitz, Tony, 1958-
Edition:	1st ed.
Imprint:	New York : Henry Holt and Co., 2011.
Description:	xii, 365 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.
Language:	English
Subject:	Brown, John, -- 1800-1859 Brown, John, -- 1800-1859. John Brown's Raid (Harpers Ferry, West Virginia : 1859) Abolitionists -- United States -- Biography. Abolitionists. Civil war. Harpers Ferry (W. Va.) -- History -- John Brown's Raid, 1859. United States. West Virginia -- Harpers Ferry. Biography. History.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/8532905

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780805091533 080509153X
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	In this book the author tells the tale of the daring insurrection that put America on the path to bloody war. Plotted in secret, launched in the dark, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was a pivotal moment in U.S. history. But few Americans know the true story of the men and women who launched a desperate strike at the slaveholding South. Now, this work portrays Brown's uprising revealing a country on the brink of explosive conflict. Brown, the descendant of New England Puritans, saw slavery as a sin against America's founding principles. Unlike most abolitionists, he was willing to take up arms, and in 1859 he prepared for battle at a hideout in Maryland, joined by his teenage daughter, three of his sons, and a guerrilla band that included former slaves and a spy. On October 17, the raiders seized Harpers Ferry, stunning the nation and prompting a counterattack led by Robert E. Lee. After Brown's capture, his defiant eloquence galvanized the North and appalled the South, which considered Brown a terrorist. The raid also helped elect Abraham Lincoln, who later began to fulfill Brown's dream with the Emancipation Proclamation, a measure he called "a John Brown raid, on a gigantic scale." This book travels antebellum America to deliver both a historical drama and a telling portrait of a nation divided, a time that still resonates in ours.

Table of Contents:

Prologue: October 16, 1859
pt. 1. The road to Harpers Ferry
School of adversity
I consecrate my life
A warlike spirit
First blood
Secret service
This spark of fire
pt. 2. Into Africa
My invisibles
Into the breach
I am nearly disposed of now
pt. 3. They will Brown us all
His despised poor
A full fountain of bedlam
So let it be done
Dissevering the ties that bind us
Epilogue: Immortal raiders.