From the Field:
“Sweet is the Memory of the Just”
Images of the Old Hudson Township Burying Ground, Amongst Other Recollections

by H. Scott Wolfe*

       Back…back…in the days of yore, I would customarily devote my vacation time to the active pursuit of John Brown and his men. For more years than I wish to admit, I would load the camper shell on the trusty Chevy pickup and hit the old lonesome highway in search of something excitingly new that was decidedly old. Stirring times, I must say they were.

***** 

Sometimes I would traverse the State of Iowa, following the long-forgotten track of the “Jim Lane Trail,” an overland route to Kansas once utilized by antislavery folk (including John Brown) in order to evade the proslaver’s blockade of the Missouri River. I would cross the prairies they crossed; encounter the streams they encountered; and camp in the villages in which they camped.

Beginning in Springdale, at the lonely spot where the Old Man’s recruits trained for the Harpers Ferry incursion…I would meander all the way to Tabor, in the southwest corner of the state. There I would be compelled to jackknife myself, to view the mud-walled cellar of the home of the Reverend John Todd…the very place where those Sharps rifles that made it to the Ferry were once stored. And, of course, there were many other sights to see on my journey…ranging from weed-clogged Mormon cemeteries, to the covered “Bridges of Madison County,” to elaborate country weddings…the field-tanned participants resplendent in pastel leisure suits.

Once Across the Wide Missouri, I would gorge on pancakes at the “John Brown Family Restaurant” in Nebraska City, Nebraska (Birthplace of Arbor Day!!). Close by was “John Brown’s Cave,” and the cabin of Allen and Barbara Ann Mayhew…the latter being the sister of the Old Man’s Secretary of War, John Henri Kagi. And then into northern Kansas, where I explored the Nemaha country and strolled the banks of Pony Creek, where William Leeman…that tragic victim in the Potomac…tried to make a go of it as a pioneer farmer.

And, finally, Free State Topeka, where I would spend a week at the old Kansas State Historical Society, sifting through the Richard Hinton and John Brown manuscript collections…overworking both their copy machines and their staff members, who sacrificed a considerable amount of shoe leather to my esoteric requests.

*****

"Days of driving. . . ."

And sometimes I would point that trusty Chevy toward the eastern regions…to places such as Charleston, West Virginia. It was there that I would set up housekeeping in a convenient Red Roof Inn on the banks of the Kanawha. Each morning, my lungs filled with the fragrant emissions of a multitude of oil refineries and chemical plants, I would “commute” to the West Virginia Department of Archives and History…to view the “Holy Grail,” the Boyd Stutler Collection.

Day after day…the beard growing to John Brown proportions…my overworked eyeballs bulging like the Old Man’s in the Curry painting…I would peruse more fascinating stuff than H.J. Heinz has pickles. Today, it all seems so quaint and old-fashioned. Days of driving…motel and food bills…damaged lungs…terminal eyestrain. Now one can simply bring up the Stutler Collection website in the comfort of one’s own home…pretzels and spinach avocado dip optional…and achieve the same exciting, illuminating results.

***** 

And yet another regular eastern destination was the steeped-in-John-Brown village of Hudson, Ohio. Despite its gentrification…its “bedroom community” aura…one can still loaf in the village green and imagine oneself back in Old Connecticut. (Believe it or not, the same feeling can be generated in the center of faraway Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa.)

Headquarters here was a Victorian bed and breakfast in the nearby, picturesque community of Peninsula. And my “commute,” less hectic and damaging to the respiratory system than in Charleston, was to the Hudson Library and Historical Society…to view the “secondary” Holy Grail, the Clarence Gee Collection. During that long ago, mist-shrouded era, the proprietors were Tom Vince and the late Jim Caccamo…and, like all archivists I seemed to encounter, these guys were good. I would spend the day scribbling illegible notes…organize them in the evening amidst Queen Anne splendor…and then regurgitate them at breakfast to my kind, unsuspecting hosts.

Hudson Library and Historical Society,
Hudson, Ohio

Peninsula is plopped within the confines of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, a beautifully scenic area between Cleveland and Akron, and those beleaguered hosts (despite the names of a regiment of radical abolitionists still ringing in their ears) introduced me to sundry other historic sights nearby. I was transported to Akron to view the Simon Perkins Mansion…and the adjacent John Brown House. I was allowed to hike the towpath of the old Ohio & Eric Canal. And I was directed to the cemetery in Richfield, where the Old Man’s fever-ravaged children share a common grave. And then there was another graveyard…in Hudson itself…awash in memories of the family of John Brown.

***** 

Our grim correspondent, his hands freshly painted, 

poses betwixt the parents of John Brown, 

Owen and Ruth Mills Brown

(H. S. Wolfe photo)

I paused in Hudson this past April, and found it much the same…though increasingly yuppie-ized and more traffic-clogged than in the olden days. And, as during earlier sojourns, it seemed as if I were magnetically drawn to a spot on the south side of Chapel Street, hard upon the campus of the Western Reserve Academy. This particular parcel of real estate, as announced boldly upon the metal archway at its entrance, is the OLD HUDSON TOWNSHIP BURYING GROUND.

A modern stone, immediately within, reveals it as “the oldest existing cemetery in Hudson and Summit County,” established by David Hudson and Benjamin Whedon in the year 1808. Also engraved upon this marker is the fact that: “Ruth Mills Brown (1772-1808), wife of Owen Brown and mother of abolitionist leader John Brown (1800-1859) was the first burial here.” Yes, within lie the parents of ol’ Osawatomie. Thus the attraction. For here one may pay respects to the Old Man of the Old Man, et.al.

The cemetery is quite attractive in the springtime, with green grass and blooming fruit trees. Yours truly, intent upon such seasonal beauty…and eagerly anticipating yet another visit to the Brown family plot…seized the entrance gate with both paws…only to discover that it had been freshly anointed with a most persistent and malodorous type of black paint. My search for an effective solvent continued that entire day…success only coming with dinner, in the form of a mixture of vodka and sweet vermouth.

A short walk brings you to the stones of the Brown family, standing in a straight row as if for military inspection. From right to left, they include (accompanied by images from my humble camera):

Ruth Mills Brown
(H. S. Wolfe photo)

RUTH MILLS BROWN…Owen Brown’s first wife, her stone is definitely showing its age. The elements have obliterated the inscription, but a transcription of what once appeared is as follows:

Sacred to the Memory of Ruth, Wife of Owen Brown who died Dec. 10, 1808 in the 37th year of her age 

She was a dutiful child, a Sprightly youth, a loving wife, a Tender parent, a kind neighbor, and an Exemplary Christian. 

Owen Brown
(H. S. Wolfe photo)

Sweet is the memory of the Just.

OWEN BROWN…The father of the abolitionist John Brown, his stone retains a clearly legible:

Owen Brown   Died May 8, 1856  Aged 85 Years

SALLY ROOT BROWN…Owen Brown’s second wife, her inscription reads:

Sally   Wife of Owen Brown  Died Aug. 11, 1840  Aged 51 Years

Sally Root Brown
(H. S. Wolfe photo)

WATSON HUGH BROWN…Son of Owen and Sally Root Brown, his inscription remains bold despite the passage of the years:

Watson Brown
(H. S. Wolfe photo)

Beneath this stone lie buried the mortal remains of Watson, 7th son of Owen Brown & 1st son of Owen and Sally Brown, who was born at Hudson on the 22nd day of July 1813, and died on the 29th day of Jan. 1832  AE 18 Years

Additional lines praise him as "a kind hearted, generous, and manly youth, who by his mild and amiable character was endeared to his numerous friends."

and  LUCIEN BROWN…Son of Owen and Sally Root Brown, his stone reading:

Lucien Brown
(H. S. Wolfe photo)

Lucien Brown   Died Dec. 1, 1847   Aged 20 years

Amos Lusk
(H. S. Wolfe photo)

Nearby the Brown plot, and facing them in familial perpetuity, is the stone of AMOS LUSK, father of Dianthe, and first father-in-law of John Brown. A small, simple stone, it reads:

Capt Amos Lusk   1773-1813   War of 1812

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The Brown family plot, Old Hudson Township Burying Ground,
Hudson, Ohio (H. S. Wolfe photo)

Hopefully, all of the John Brown researchers and enthusiasts who might pause to read this posting (assuming that they survive the ordeal), will be able to visit some of the historic sites mentioned in the foregoing. I have always been a strong proponent of WALKING THE GROUND where the dramatic events of the past have transpired. Yes, there may today be a Burger King astride a spot where heroes attempted to liberate a people…but in the mind’s eye, one can still visualize and appreciate such noble deeds.
So whether it be Springdale or Tabor…Nebraska City or Topeka…Charleston or Hudson…and utilizing a favorite word of a certain Dr. DeCaro: Leave the ACADEMY, and HIT THE ROAD!

* H. Scott Wolfe is the Historical Librarian of the Galena, Illinois, Public Library District and now a regular correspondent and contributor to this blog. He has devoted many years of grassroots research on John Brown, the Harper's Ferry raiders, and related themes.

A Controversial Review--

Christopher Benfey on The Tribunal

While a shift has taken place since the late 20th century showing greater appreciation of John Brown from a wide range of scholars, there is still no small segment of the academy that remains imbedded in a thought style of contempt toward the Old Man.

Christopher Benfey

We have recently seen this displayed in a review by Christopher Benfey of The Tribunal, the acclaimed Stauffer and Trodd reader recently published.  Benfey is the Mellon Professor of English and the Interim Dean of Faculty at Mount Holyoke College.  By all accounts, he is an accomplished and honored man of letters, with a Ph.D. from Harvard in Comparative Literature, a number of notable fellowships, and membership in The American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  His online vita says that he is also a "prolific journalist," with numerous contributions to major publications as a reviewer and art critic, including the The New York Review of Books, in which he has published his review of The Tribunal.  Benfey is an Emily Dickinson scholar and an award winning author of many books and poems.  He's even got a forthcoming memoir of his family, and from what I've seen, it is interesting and nicely written.  Unfortunately, I cannot commend his treatment of John Brown in his review, "Terrorist or Martyr?" (Mar. 7). 

The Hawthorne Trajectory

David Reynolds

Benfey begins with Nathaniel Hawthorne, who "was appalled by Emerson’s much-quoted remark about Brown’s martyrdom," Benfey writes.  In fact, Hawthorne concluded, "Nobody was ever more justly hanged" than John Brown--whom he considered a "blood-stained fanatic."  It is very clear from the onset that Prof. Benfey has chosen sides with the white conservatism of the 19th century in opening and closing his review according to Hawthorne, which tends to criminalize Brown.   This is in particular contrast to the approach taken by David Reynolds, which is why he so masterfully brought the reading of Emerson and Thoreau to bear in John Brown Abolitionist.  Reynolds is hardly second to Benfey in 19th century literature.  Were he to have begun with Benfey's presupposition, Reynolds might have begun his assessment of Brown with Mark Twain, for instance, who was not an admirer of Brown either.  But Reynolds did not do so, I suppose, because he understands that men like Twain and Hawthorne did not understand John Brown, whatever else their admirable qualities may have been.  Clearly, Hawthorne could not transcend his own racialist provincialism.  In contrast, Emerson and Thoreau manifested a "reading" of Brown that was more reliable and meaningful in light of the moral and ideological crisis of slavery in the 19th century--a reading that Benfey obviously rejects.  Thus, a question about Benfey's understanding of U.S. history must be raised from the onset.  The trajectory of thought established by his choice of Hawthorne actually defines the direction of his thesis, which is quite disappointing--especially at a point when scholarship on the abolitionist has put many of the older, problematic charges aside, or at least demonstrated a greater need for care in making judgments about Brown.

Tony's Terrorist Option

Benfey's problematic perception is unpacked when he, of all things, quotes Tony Horwitz's unfortunate New York Times Op-ed piece of December 2, 2009, sadly entitleld, “The 9/11 of 1859.”  In that review, Tony drew the inappropriate parallel between Brown and the Muslim fanatics behind the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in 2001.  Benfey thus samples Tony's problematic "bearded fundamentalist" comparison, which--as I recall--brought quite a reaction from a number of us.  One may not agree with all of Tony's conclusions, but certainly he did not carry this blatant language into his more seasoned writing in Midnight Rising.  However, the professor grabs a hold of Tony's words to set up the provocative question he intends to use to Brown's detriment--was Brown a terrorist?

Preemptory, not Retaliatory

I should note, in responding to Benfey's evaluation, that I do not always agree with the reading of Brown in The Tribunal.  While Stauffer is an exceptional scholar and has presented some interesting insights in his own work, I would not agree with his view of the Pottawatomie killings as "retaliatory" (which is Benfey's characterization of Stauffer's view).  In my estimation--and I think a solid case can be made for it--the killings at Pottawatomie in May 1856 were preemptory, and inherently defensive with respect to a known plot (in which the "victims" had participated) to turn the Browns and others into the hands of murderous pro-slavery invaders in the area.   Essentially, what Brown and his men did in slaying the Doyles, Wilkinson, and Sherman was what they were planning to do to the Browns.  Pottawatomie evidenced a wartime struggle amidst a total breakdown of territorial law and order, and was a situation where Brown, his family, and allies had no recourse to the rule of law within the United States.  Given my view, I will not defend Stauffer's reading; still, Benfey cannot properly evaluate the Pottawatomie killings except as a "hideous crime," a conclusion that I think is worse than simplistic.  

Some Old, Hackneyed Assumptions

In another part of the review, Benfey writes:

Despite his family history of mental illness and the testimony of his own men regarding his “monomania,” Stauffer and Trodd stave off suggestions that Brown might have been mentally unstable with the bullying assertion that they arise from “the power of racism in America.”

This single sentence is loaded with problematic assumptions.   Without weighing evidence or making qualifications necessary in speaking of mental illness in 19th century terms, the professor simply cites Brown's "family history of mental illness" and "monomania."  Perhaps he is somewhat encouraged by Tony Horwitz, who pushes the issue close enough to the edge in Midnight Rising so that anyone so predisposed could fall headlong into the mistaken notion of Brown's mental instability.  But Benfey is probably also drawing from the old, poisoned well of his academic forebears, who constantly used "insanity" as a cudgel on the head of Brown's historical legacy.  It would be advisable for him to read Robert McGlone's bio-study, John Brown's War Against Slavery (2009), wherein the author makes an exhaustive consideration of the "insanity" angle, showing its lack of substance.

There are other points that illustrate his reliance upon old, hackneyed assumptions, such as the apparent mystery behind Brown's intentions in Virginia ("It remains unclear what precisely Brown hoped to accomplish by the attack") or his supposed failure to communicate with the black community in advance of the raid ("Brown. . .alerted none of the slaves in the region of his intentions").  These are erroneous notions that unfortunately are still conveyed in contemporary writing.  There is sufficient scholarship to show that Brown had contacted some of Virginia blacks in advance, that many more blacks knew about his intentions through networks of black communication, and that he generally intended to render slavery unstable throughout the South. A good dose of Osborne Anderson's testimony in A Voice from Harper's Ferry would have helped Benfey here, but apparently he relies on contemporary writers, particularly those with a decidedly cynical view of Brown's effort.

John Stauffer

"Bullying Assertion?"

At another point, the professor writes: "[Stauffer and Trodd's] admiration occasionally verges on sentimentality, as when they claim that 'Brown is a testament to ordinary individuals’ potential to transform themselves and their world' and stave off suggestions that Brown might have been mentally unstable with the bullying assertion that they arise from 'the power of racism in America.'"  This is a most unfortunate and unworthy statement, not only because Stauffer and Trodd are basically correct, but because Benfey reduces their evaluation to mere "sentimentality"--as if Brown cannot be appreciated upon the grounding facts of history.  This is human contempt disguised as academic critique, but it is certainly snobbish and condescending--like an adult belittling children for appreciating childish things.

To no surprise, then, Benfey makes the incredible charge against Stauffer and Trodd, that they are "bullying" readers by arguing that the "insanity" portrayal of Brown is linked to the ideology of white racism.  It seems that Benfey really is in denial.  Anyone who has studied the developments of history following the Civil War and leading into the 20th century would recognize that Brown's profile indeed suffered as a result of the powerful impulse of white racism following the demise of Reconstruction.  The prominent academic and narrative revisions of Brown in white America is clearly a corollary of the recalcitrant nature of white supremacy.   I wonder if Benfey would argue that African Americans, from 1859 until now, are simply being "sentimental" in appreciating Brown's role, or if he thinks blacks are "bullying" whites by insisting that Brown not be viewed as insane?

The Retrospective Appeal to Moderation

Finally, Benfey makes a deplorable argument, based upon the moral compromise of "measured reflections" (a euphemism for white men sidestepping history) put forth by Andrew Delbanco--another writer who would rather praise the conservative attitude of Hawthorne than the abolitionist attitude of Emerson and Thoreau.   In this light, Benfey has the audacity to write in a manner critical of abolitionist extremists who advocated "violent emancipation of all slaves" as representing "a recurring type in American society. . . . since there is always something that strikes a sizable part of the population as worthy of abolition, including alcohol, abortion, fossil fuels, guns, slaughterhouses, and so on."   To Benfey, abolitionists like Brown were just troublesome extremists making unrealistic demands upon society.  "Against such imperious demands," he concludes, "those who call for political process or votes or compromise or gradual solutions will always seem, to the abolitionists, spineless temporizers."

To Benfey, abolitionists like Brown were just troublesome extremists making unrealistic demands upon society.

The professor's argument is as clear as it is disturbing.   He writes as if standing with those in the 19th century who put "moderation" over black life and freedom--as if the nature of chattel slavery in the antebellum era, as well as the state of the political circumstances then reigning, rendered an attack upon slavery as worse than slavery itself.  One is tempted to conclude his rationalization is deeply rooted in racism. 

One must ask what kind of person would write these words in 2013.  For the most part, the old 20th century anti-Brown rhetoric no longer works.  The charge of "insanity" has largely been replaced by "terrorism," although Benfey neither abandons the former nor argues so specifically for the latter.  Instead, he takes a patently "moderate" viewpoint of slavery and the John Brown raid--the kind of view that one might have seen in The New York Herald or the The New York Times following the Harper's Ferry raid in 1859.  Many conservatives at that time claimed to dislike slavery, but argued that compromise and national stability (not to mention economic prosperity) required the preferential treatment of white nationalism--that is, that enslaved Africans were in the hands of white society to do with them what was first and best for white society.  This is the view of "moderation" to which Benfey's argument inevitably must appeal when he uplifts Hawthorne and his kind.

In the 21st century, anti-Brown rhetoric has become somewhat more subtle, usually coming along the lines of counter-factual appeals.  For instance, the argument that the Civil War might have been evaded had the nation been able to find another route to resolve the slavery issue--something made impossible by the likes of Brown and the radical abolitionists.  In the name of all that spilled white people's blood, they reason with regret that anti-slavery extremism encouraged slavery's demise at the barrel of a gun and the tip of a pike.  But this rationale necessitates that black suffering might have been extended in the name of compromise, so that a national blood -letting could be avoided.  This not only subordinates black humanity, but assumes that blacks at that time were wrong in supporting Brown and any form of anti-slavery radicalism.  It is further problematic in suggesting that we--150 years-plus afterward--can see more clearly how to have wiggled out of the problem of slavery, whereas people in that generation were blinded by "fanatical" ideals.  Quite to the contrary, Brown and others knew that there was no compromising with chattel slavery's agenda, and that any further compromise would only extend the oppression of four millions of blacks in the United States.  Were "moderation" and compromise viable alternatives, the leaders of that era would have found them ultimately useful.  In fact, moderation and compromise defined decades of North-South relations, and this only fed the lust of the pro-slavery leadership for more land and more slaves.   As Brown perceived, it was they who were preparing in advance for violent secession, and it was the violence of slavery that ultimately necessitated civil conflict.

Reflection and Response--

"He Who Endures to the End": The Play

Last evening I attended a play at the National Black Theater on 125th Street in Harlem, entitled, "He Who Endures to the End."  The play, written by Bill Harris, was part of The National Black Touring Circuit's 2013 Black History Month Play Festival, and starred Ralph McCain as Frederick Douglass, and my friend, Norman Marshall, as John Brown (Norman portrays JB in his own play, "Trumpet of Freedom," co-written by George Wolf Reily).  I was invited to participate in a post-play panel, along with Larry Lawrence of the John Brown Society (NYC), Herb Boyd, journalist and author of works relating to Brown and Malcolm X, and a Ms. Bailey, an activist and family researcher (whose first name I regretfully failed to obtain), who also happens to be the last descendant of Frederick Douglass in the Bailey family line.  The play was directed by Ajene Washington, and also featured Marcus Naylor as the black leader, Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, and Leopold Lowe as Shields Green, the Douglass associate who ultimately joined Brown at Harper's Ferry.

Ralph McCain portrays
Frederick Douglass

I'm no theater critic, but I can say that I enjoyed the play and thought the actors carried their roles effectively.  Lowe did a fine job as Green, and had the most strenuous role, which involved moving a lot of props while he spoke.  It was more than interesting to see the veteran Marshall as John Brown--that is, as John Brown in a different play.  The John Brown in "He Who Endures to the End" is fair, but the playwright has him spouting Bible verses like a frustrated preacher, and so tends to present a caricature within a caricature.  The other issue is that this Brown has a kind of messianic atonement complex that is not true of the man who lived.  The John Brown who lived nowhere spoke of his death as being for the sins of the nation, etc.  While this may have been applied to him after the fact (it certainly was applied to Lincoln after his assassination), Brown's only stated feeling about his own death was that it would help the anti-slavery cause.  Brown was self-consciously a martyr--that is, a witness.  But he never conveyed himself as anybody's messiah bearing the sins of the world.  

Norman Marshall portrays
John Brown

Biographically, "He Who Endures to the End" has two main flaws relating to the Brown-Douglass relationship.  First, it suggests that Douglass sort of led Brown on with respect to militancy--that Brown was looking to the encouragement of Douglass in pursuit of his militancy, indeed that he was something of Douglass' creation.   The theme of "what is necessary can be invented" did not apply to either man, but the younger Douglass certainly was in no position to make Brown after his ideas.  If anything, Douglass followed Brown--something which the play pointed out in showing that Douglass became more militant in his rhetoric by the 1850s, something that even Douglass in real life attributed to the John Brown factor.

Second, the play fails to show the depth of their friendship and the intimate and mutually admiring relationship that existed between Douglass and Brown.  They were not just political allies, but men whose families interacted, who were guests in each other's homes, and who had a personally comfortable rapport for more than a decade by the time of the Harper's Ferry raid in 1859.  While plays cannot nor should be thorough as histories, something more along these lines might have been added to deepen the drama of their final tensions.

In the end, Douglass walks away from Brown--the latter appearing more like a lovingly pitiable and ill-fated Don Quixotic, who tried and inevitably failed.  So while the play tends to portray Douglass as self-serving and ultimately evasive of Brown's expectations, it seems to justify his abandonment of Brown and allows him the "last word" by complimenting his dead friends who went to Harper's Ferry.  Yet at the same time, the play inherently promotes the notion that Brown was irresponsible and, to some degree, deluded, while Douglass was the realist.

In contrast, the more accurate portrayals of the play are the secondary figures of the Rev. Garnet and Shields Green, the self-liberated man who chose to join "the Old Man" in hopes of dealing a blow to slavery.  Garnet, who is often unsung in discussions of antebellum abolitionism, was a Presbyterian pastor in New York City.  In 1843, as the play shows from the onset, Garnet delivered a call to black militancy at a national black convention that finally was quashed through the influence of the moderate Frederick Douglass.  Garnet and Brown were on the same page from the beginning, and in a sense it is a shame that Brown could not have looked to Garnet to direct black men to his side in 1859.  But Douglass was the foremost black spokesman, the man who dominated black press and oratory, and the one whom Brown had most strategic reason to pursue.  In the long run, however, Douglass refused to throw his weight behind Brown's effort, a posture that substantially wounded Brown's recruitment efforts.   Likewise, Shields Green was warmly played as a faithful and zealous figure, who decided that taking action in following Brown was better than helping Douglass move ever higher in profile as a black leader who helped the anti-slavery cause by winning converts.

The truth about the Douglass-Brown story is widely unknown, and even the leading Douglass scholars have failed in large part to unpack this episode.  As it came out in the after-play panel, there is a general tendency to accept Douglass' autobiography uncritically, even though it has been shown (that is, I have shown this to some extent in John Brown--The Cost of Freedom) that Douglass knew about the Harper's Ferry raid much longer than he portrayed, and that he consistently refused to assist Brown.  The icing on the cake of Douglass' dissent was his rejecting the urging of a notable interest among blacks in Philadelphia to support Brown.  In retrospect, Douglass conflated a few meetings with Brown during 1859 into one meeting at Chambersburg.  While he was honest enough to portray himself "willing to live for the slave," Douglass probably could not comfortably portray the reality of their waning partnership, nor the extent to which he knew that he had disappointed both Brown and his family and followers.  

The Panel

The panel was a good complement to the play, or so feedback suggests.  The Douglass descendant shared of her experiences, including the incredulous manner in which her school teachers disdained her claim to being related to Frederick Douglass (she is a great-cousin, in effect, but I do not know how many generations removed).  Herb Boyd guided the conversation and notably raised the subject of Osborne Anderson's first-hand account of the raid, A Voice from Harper's Ferry, which he wrote in 1861 with the assistance of Canadian expatriate abolitionist, Mary Ann Shadd Cary.  Larry Lawrence raised key points concerning the need to expose the truth about Abraham Lincoln, pointing the audience to Lerone Bennett's Jr.'s political expose, Forced into Glory, which presents the reality of Lincoln's racism, and how it played out in his failure to lead the cause for justice--and ultimately how he was obligated by forces beyond himself to promote the end of slavery.  Brown is not the forerunner of Lincoln, he is the authentic liberating figure over against Lincoln's obligatory and racialist approach to black liberation.  

Annoying Amiri Baraka

An interesting discussion developed when the eminent poet and author, Amiri Baraka, expressed his "annoyance" at the centrality of the John Brown discussion, which he characterized as itself an expression of the influence of white racism.  I took issue with Baraka's comments, as did Larry Lawrence, who pointed out that--quite to the contrary--Brown is the lever that white society has manipulated so unfairly for over a century in order to keep the reality of slavery and white supremacy from being clearly discussed.  Baraka argued that a number of movies had been made about Brown, while not a single movie has been made about Douglass.  In fact, only three movies have centered upon Brown--Santa Fe Trail in 1940--a piece of latter day Lost Cause propaganda, Seven Angry Men (about a decade later), in which Raymond Massey reprised his role as Brown.  While the latter was more sympathetic, it failed to make an impact equal to Santa Fe Trail.  In the early 1980s, Johnny Cash portrayed Brown in the mini-series, North and South.  While he did so with more sympathy, this was not a film primarily focused upon the John Brown story.   While Douglass has not been portrayed in any major films, he has been portrayed in modest film efforts, and probably has been portrayed more positively in the media overall (he is portrayed in an awkwardly silent vignette, for instance, in Glory).    

As Baraka was insistent on this point, I countered that actually not a single film has been done that serves the story of John Brown fairly.  Not one.  Furthermore, I patently disagreed with his intention to circumvent the Brown story as if it were both immaterial to the struggle for justice, or even unworthy of being the central point of discussion in such a forum.   No human being born in privileged skin can excel what John Brown did for the struggle for black freedom.  To be sure, he did it imperfectly, but he yielded his life after subordinating even the needs of his own family, and did not, in my opinion, deserve to become the brunt of Mr. Baraka's expressed "annoyance."  

John Brown meant to do good, and died doing it.  Douglass meant to do good and did much good--but he also did very well for himself in the final reel. 

Frederick Douglass experienced indignities, violence, and loss that Brown could never approach in comparative human experience.  Yet Douglass also lived a longer life, and did so increasingly by moving along an upward trajectory that Brown never knew: the adoration of thousands if not millions, laudation and fame far exceeding the controversy and disdain he previously faced in the antebellum era; positions of influence and even a measure of prosperity; a long life, lionized and celebrated to the point that he was able to write three autobiographies; and, in the end, the ability to write the history of John Brown in a manner salutary but also self-serving.  John Brown meant to do good, and died doing it.  Douglass meant to do good and did much good--but he also did very well for himself in the final reel.  Douglass was a unique star--born in the darkness of slavery and degradation, he arose above his people as a guiding light, but rose much higher still, higher than most men of his generation, regardless of skin and "race."  His stardom, celebrity, and fame allowed him a palette of pleasure that he shared with only few men of his time.  This is not to begrudge him his stardom, for Douglass was the man needed for that hour and epoch.  Yet Douglass was a star if ever there was one.  The man seems to have been born to his greatness, and perhaps it was this sense of himself that became like a wedge between him and John Brown.   

Man for Man

Man for man--as men only live their lives within their own skins, skeletons, and skulls--Douglass escaped hell and mounted heaven, while Brown never went so high except to dangle by his neck a few feet from the earth.  Brown had spent his white privilege walking hills, valleys, and plains, often losing much and usually gaining little for himself or his children.  Most of his free time (double entendre intended) was spent worrying over slavery, or how to fix crooked conditions, or simply how to serve his God and feed his family.  He was hardly the supreme example of a privileged "white" man.   Douglass left Brown behind and ascended the stairway of contemporary renown and flattering historical memory.  Brown was left to ascend the steps of the gallows, where even today the rope of "mainstream" white opinion seeks to pull him downward, ever downward.  In the long run, then, it does seem a little misshapen--if not perverse--to express one's disgust that Brown, not Douglass, become the focus of a discussion about the Harper's Ferry raid.  After all, it was Brown who risked all and lost all there, while Douglass, by his admission, made no investment in it after so many years of projecting his support.

In his complaint, Amiri Baraka might better have considered statuary, memorials, and other cultural tributes that have been paid to Frederick Douglass.  Certainly, there is more recognition of Douglass in the common view of both the black and the so-called "white" communities today than there is for John Brown.  Every statue of Brown in existence is old and usually situated in a geographically and socially marginal place (one has now become inaccessible, essentially confined on the grounds of a zoo).  This is not the case with Douglass's tributes, including the elegant Frederick Douglass Circle statuary and memorial that stands at the end of my street in Manhattan.  For all of his annoyance, I wonder if Mr. Baraka can point me to the nearest John Brown statue.  Probably not.  (I can find two Frederick Douglass statues within fifty blocks of my apartment.)  Finally, from a purely political standpoint, I would conclude that when and if it comes to the place that John Brown's central role in U.S. history cannot be discussed without annoying certain friends with such gripes, then perhaps there is nothing more to be said in those circles.  

Photo-history--

This photograph was published in Peterson's Magazine for April 1898, showing black residents of the house in Torrington, Conn., where John Brown was born in 1800.  The house was destroyed by fire in 1919.

In Response--

What Makes History Interesting: Steven Lubet Responds

In the previous installment of this blog, I was pleased to feature a review ("The John Cook Book," 15 Jan.) of Steven Lubet's new book, John Brown's Spy: The Adventurous Life and Tragic Confession of John E. Cook.  The review is by H. Scott Wolfe, a research librarian from Galena, Ill., and an aficionado on matters of Brown and his raiders, who is also a friend and regular contributor to this blog.  The other day, I was happy to hear from Steven Lubet, who would like to respond to some of the issues raised by Mr. Wolfe, and I'm happy to post the thoughtful response that follows.--LD

H. Scott Wolfe has decidedly mixed feelings about my book, John Brown’s Spy: The Adventurous Life and Tragic Confession of John E. Cook, which he recently reviewed on this blog.  He had kind words (which I appreciate) for the chapters dealing with Cook’s escape from Harper’s Ferry and his subsequent capture and trial, which comprise the latter two thirds of the book.  On the other hand, Wolfe did not care at all for the opening chapters on Cook’s early life, which he considered too speculative.  I would never attempt to change a reviewer’s mind, but Wolfe’s critique – which he presented as a guide to “all future historians and biographers” – actually provides an interesting opportunity to discuss the ways in which historians approach probabilities, inferences, and deductions from the available sources.

Wolfe’s primary complaint about JB’s Spy was my use of what he calls “conditional verbs and adverbs,” which he considers out of bounds.  To Wolfe, there is no place in history for probabilities or likelihoods, and he admonishes writers to stick strictly to “the facts.”  As I will explain below, any product of such Wolfean discipline would be shallow and unenlightening. 

All histories and biographies seek to answer two questions:  What happened? And why?  The second question necessarily involves some degree of speculation.  Historical reasons, motivations, causes, and objectives – on both individual and broader scales – are inevitably ambiguous, indistinct and obscure.  In the absence of a diary – or even if we had one – who can say what first caused Abraham Lincoln to oppose slavery, or Stephen Douglas to tolerate it?  There are many opinions, but there is no definitive answer.  And it is much harder to reconstruct the early life of someone such as John E. Cook, who was obscure until eight weeks before he died at the young age of thirty.  To get at the reasons behind Cook’s actions, therefore, one obviously must look at the era in which he lived and the people and events surrounding him.  That is why so many biographies are subtitled “the life and times.” 

So much for the general case; now let’s consider a specific example.  Wolfe was deeply troubled by my discussion of Cook’s adoption of abolitionism, given my observation that there is “no precise record” of his conversion to the cause.  Lacking such a record, I turned to the political and social forces that were sweeping the nation at the time, including their impact on the neighborhoods in which Cook worked and lived.  Wolfe says this amounted to a “virtual Hurricane Sandy of speculations,” but in fact I drew only measured and supportable conclusions from the available information.

Here is what we know:  Cook was living in Brooklyn in 1854, working as a law clerk.  In addition to his job – for which he showed little aptitude – his main pursuits were writing poetry for young women and practicing with firearms.  According to his employer, Cook had shown no interest in abolition.  Then, in September 1855, Cook departed New York for Kansas, where he joined the Free-State militia.  Those are the facts, but why did he do it?  The question comes naturally, and I admit of course that the answers are unavoidably somewhat speculative – but that is what makes history interesting.

Henry Ward Beecher

 And so, I point out that Henry Ward Beecher was at that very time preaching abolition from the pulpit of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, while recruiting “emigrants” for the anti-slavery crusade in Kansas.  Yes, I do infer that Cook “would have been drawn” to Beecher, but that is not much of a conjecture.  Beecher was, in the words of his biographer, “the most famous man in America,” and almost nobody passed up the opportunity to hear him speak.  People traveled hundreds of miles to hear Beecher, while Cook lived nearby in Brooklyn.  Moreover, Beecher was a Connecticut Congregationalist, as was Cook, so it is no great leap to conclude that Cook sometimes would have attended Beecher’s sermons.  Would any Congregationalist in Brooklyn have stayed away from Plymouth Church? 

But wait, there’s more.  The pastor at a nearby Dutch Reformed church (attended by Cook’s sister and brother-in-law, with whom he was living) blamed Cook’s abolitionism on “radical preachers” who spread “diabolical resentments” over slavery.  Although the pastor did not name any particular radical preacher, the most prominent and outspoken of them all, and the one closest at hand, was Henry Ward Beecher.  And finally, it is undeniable that Beecher inspired thousands of young men, mostly New Englanders like Cook, to join the war in Kansas.  “Beecher’s bibles” – that is, rifles in the hands of Free Staters – were famous for a reason. 

I explained all of that in JB’s Spy, before reaching the very modest conclusion that Cook was influenced by Beecher.   That is something similar to suggesting that Lady Gaga was influenced by Madonna (or Chris Rock by Richard Pryor), even if one cannot verify attendance at a specific concert.  I suppose I could have omitted Beecher from the book, leaving Cook’s motives and influences completely unknown, but that would have been a disservice to readers who – pace Wolfe – are interested in the context of the story.

Wolfe supports his minimalist view by invoking the wisdom of the old television series Dragnet, in which Sgt. Joe Friday always requested “just the facts, Ma’am.”  Perhaps that was a suitable modus operandi for a fictional cop on a twenty-two minute television show, but it is not the way that detectives operate in real life.  In an actual police investigation (a subject of which I have some professional knowledge), the facts are just the starting point.  Witness interviews generate inferences and deductions, which develop into theories, which then lead to narratives.  Any cop who limited an investigation to the so-called facts would quickly be out of a job.

A similar situation confronts historians, making probabilities and inferences both permissible and unavoidable when writing about the past.  As a stylistic matter, of course, it might be that John Brown’s Spy made too frequent use of conditional adverbs.  If so, it was only because I attempted to draw a bright line between established facts and well-supported (and clearly identified) suppositions.  A book that neglected such context would be a list, not a biography.  In any case, I hope that others will read John Brown’s Spy and reach their own conclusions.

Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor of Law, Northwestern University

H. Scott Wolfe Replies [30 Jan.]:

The Father Of The Wolfean Discipline Responds

In Defense Of The “Minimalist” Viewpoint

           

           I appreciate the contribution of Dr. Lubet, in taking the time to respond to my recent review of his book: John Brown’s Spy, and, also, Dr. DeCaro’s posting of our opposing viewpoints. For if there were no differences in opinion, we would not have horse races.

            First, to satisfy my gargantuan ego, I must state that I revel in the honor of being the namesake of the newly coined “Wolfean discipline” of historical research…despite its “shallow and unenlightening” devotion to facts.

            Granted, the early life of John E. Cook lacks a cornucopia of primary source materials. And I would not question the way some historians “approach probabilities, inferences and deductions.” And true, those inferences and deductions can develop into “theories” and “narratives.”

            But there resides the danger…particularly in the case of John Brown historiography. Ever since the gibbet tightened, there has been an eternal deluge of deductions and inferences…which have evolved into narratives that bear no resemblance to FACTS.

            There is really nothing enlightening about speculation. It may stimulate the imagination or open up new realms of possibilities. But it doesn’t tell you what happened. And for this founder of the Wolfean discipline, there is always room for more facts…and very little for additional “probabilities and likelihoods.” It is for our peers in the field to decide which is more useful in documenting the life (and times) of The Old Man.

                                                                                   

H. Scott Wolfe

P. S. Perhaps the most painful aspect of Dr. Lubet’s response, at least to this son of a County Sheriff, was his deprecation of that icon…that role model…of law enforcement, Sergeant Joe Friday. Please don’t tell me he was “fictional,” and that he did not illuminate how “detectives operate in real life.” The next thing the Professor will be telling us is that Dan Mathews of “Highway Patrol” was a faker. And after I have been wearing this fedora for so many years!! 10-4!-H.S.W.

From the Field--

THE JOHN COOK BOOK:

A Thrilling Adventure in the Speculative Use

of the Conditional Verb Tense

by H. Scott Wolfe*

Well, the holidays are over, and Santa’s sleigh has disgorged a number of gifts for yours truly, the epitome of the unworthy. Of course there was the requisite case of “Moose Drool Brown Ale,” brewed in my college town of Missoula, Montana, and necessary for the physical alignment of my brain cells and the proper lubrication of my aging joints. And, in addition, Old Saint Nick provided me with a generous armful of the more recent publications relating to Old John Brown.

The first to be drawn from the stack was an eagerly anticipated volume written by Steven Lubet, a Professor of Law at Northwestern University. Entitled John Brown’s Spy: The Adventurous Life and Tragic Confession of John E. Cook [Yale University Press, 325 pp.] it seeks to tell “the nearly unknown story of John E. Cook, the person John Brown trusted most with the details of his plans to capture the Harper’s Ferry armory in 1859.” And, oh yes, it also seeks to tell the story of the “full confession that earned a place in history’s tragic pantheon of disgraced turncoats.” In other words: Benedict Arnold, move over….

Now, as I have indicated in prior posts, I have devoted decades to the pursuit of the lives and deaths of the men of John Brown’s “Provisional Army.” These soldiers are much more than historical window dressing…their individual stories provide much insight into the varied motivations central to the antislavery cause. But alas, virtually all are but mere twinkling stars…totally dominated by the intense sunlight of their Commander in Chief, John Brown. Admirably, Lubet himself recognizes that Brown’s men were not merely “spear carriers,” and have “seldom been described …as independent moral actors.”

Biographical accounts of these twenty-one soldiers are rare. There has been a slim volume produced in regard to the life of their Secretary of War, John Henrie Kagi. Tony Horwitz, in his book “Midnight Rising,” briefly introduces the men with some useful annotation as to primary sources. But, all in all, John Brown’s soldiers remain essentially ignored. So when I heard of a new full-scale biography of Captain John Edwin Cook, I jumped at the chance…and Santa delivered.

Daguerreotype of John E. Cook
Kansas State Historical Society Collection

This biography can be divided in two parts…based upon the components of its subtitle: Cook’s “Adventurous Life,” and Cook’s “Tragic Confession.”  But as I began to delve into the book, I soon discovered that it is short on adventure…and long on confession. To be perfectly honest, the story of Cook essentially begins on page 96.

The early pages outline Cook’s upbringing in Haddam, Connecticut…his brief occupation as law clerk and needle salesman…along with a survey of his varied character traits. Lubet touches all of the Cook-stereotypical-bases: the politically connected Yalie;  those long, blonde curls surrounding an “effeminate face;” the consummate lady killer; the crack-shot with pistol and rifle; and, especially, his “Loose Lips Sink Ships” persona.

It is when the story reaches the origins of Cook’s adherence to the antislavery cause…and his eventual removal to Kansas…that Lubet assembles one of the most extensive aggregations of conditional verbs and adverbs ever before seen on this planet. I have never seen the like since I once paged through an unabridged dictionary during high school detention. His book actually states that there is “no precise record” of Cook’s antislavery conversion, but that does not preclude a virtual Hurricane Sandy of speculations.

Cook was “no doubt inspired” by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, a man to whom he “certainly would have been drawn.”  He was “surely also attracted” to the social life of Beecher’s Plymouth Church. “It would not be surprising if” Cook gave shooting demonstrations. The imprisonment  of the Amistad slaves, thirty miles from Haddam, “may have been” Cook’s first exposure to the meaning of slavery. His racial awareness “could only have been” heightened by the Kansas Nebraska Act. Lubet eventually speculates that Cook’s emigration to Kansas occurred because he was “within earshot” of Beecher’s call for men to support the antislavery cause.

Portrait of Cook, Frank Leslie's
Illustrated News, Nov. 18, 1859

The first half of the book is replete with such conditional musings. “He may have planned”….”It may be that he”…”It is quite possible that he”…”He must have been aware of”….”He might very well have been.” The deluge persists with torrents of “likelys,” “evidentlys,” and “probablys” bouncing off my historical umbrella. That act was “entirely possible”…He “could not have” performed in that manner…It “had to be” his intention.

I’m sorry folks, but being elderly enough to remember the television police drama “Dragnet,” I have always been a proponent of Sergeant Joe Friday’s admonition to all future historians and biographers: “Just the facts, ma’am.” No probablys…No evidentlys…No likelys. “Just the facts, ma’am.”

*****  

The book’s Reader’s Digest-version of the Kansas conflict and John Brown’s actions therein is, I regret to report, also quite weak and harvests freely the spoiled fruit from the Tree of John Brown Misinformation. Once more we are regaled with that miraculous message of Sumner’s caning, which reached The Old Man on the plains of eastern Kansas…through the instrumentation of some ancestral “Fed Ex Overnight.”…and thereby sent him off in a “crazy” state to Pottawatomie Creek.  Did Brown really rout “a large contingent of United States cavalry” at the Battle of the Spurs? And was the Old Man to be found roaming the streets of Harper’s Ferry, adorned with “the heavy white beard by which he is now usually characterized?”

And Lubet’s seeming fascination with Cook’s physical appearance and sexual libido often takes charge of the entire story.  Even his initial interview with his Chambersburg lawyer is described as “almost erotic.” His natural attraction to women…spurred by a female-dominated upbringing…is undeniable. Yes, he impregnated a woman during the Springdale winter (He was not the only one. Brown’s men were not celibate priests, but rather, red-blooded American boys.) and underwent a shotgun wedding while residing near Harper’s Ferry. But true history need not be bent to fit the story. The winter lectures at district school houses near Springdale were frequent activities…enjoyed by all of Brown’s trainees…and were not merely vehicles to allow Cook “to court his students’older sisters.” And Cook’s supposed leap through a window at the Kennedy farmhouse, facilitated by the fact that he was “already adept at silently climbing in and out of bedroom windows,” is pure sarcasm, not biography. Perhaps it’s a shot at humor, but the gun jammed.

*****  

Historical marker of Cook's capture, Mont Alto, Pa.

(photo by H. Scott Wolfe, 2006)

Now you may remember that when I formerly produced a review of Horwitz’s Midnight Rising, I began with several questioning remarks…such as I have in the paragraphs above. But then I mellowed, and complimented the work as a whole. Such is the case with Lubet’s “John Brown’s Spy.” The holidays may be over, but their aura of good will and benevolence still surround me. And gossamer strands of altruism still cling to my notably stooped shoulders.

I mentioned above that this book essentially begins on page 96. It is here, with the post-Harper’s Ferry capture of Captain John E. Cook, that the author finally finds firm footing amidst the shifting sands of his subject’s life. And this makes perfect sense…for the story of Cook’s capture, rendition, confession and trial more soundly strike the “sweet spot” on the keyboard of a Professor of Law at Northwestern University.

It is in the final chapters that the story of John Edwin Cook reaches its fascinating climax. The documentation is also richer, with admirable usage of excellent sources ranging from the “Memoirs” of  Alexander McClure, the ill-starred antislavery attorney who took charge of Cook in Chambersburg; to the interviews with Jenny Kennedy Cook,  who was compelled to endure the trauma of being married to the second-most hated man in the State of Virginia.

These chapters of the book are also good history because they are based upon a great story. From the moment that Cook stumbled from the woods into the hands of local bounty hunters…to his Keystone Kop-like opportunity for escape in Chambersburg…to his rendition to the State of Virginia…the book begins to capture the reader and say: “Guess what will happen next?”

Cutaway from sketch of Cook and fellow raider,
Edwin Coppoc, in their Charlestown jail cell
(New York Illustrated News, Dec. 24, 1859)

And then there is the story of Cook’s famous “Confession.” This strange, evolving document was created through the machinations of two fascinating characters…both Northern proslavery Democrats (“doughfaces,” was the derogatory term in use at the time). One was Cook’s own brother-in-law, Ashbel Willard, the Governor of Indiana…and the other was Daniel Voorhees, trial lawyer, honey-tongued orator, and soon destined to become one of the most annoying stones in the shoe of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. These men, with the assistance of prosecutor Andrew Hunter, induced Cook to pen a full confession…the purpose of which was twofold.

First, by coming clean with his own involvement AND identifying prominent moral and financial backers in the North, it was hoped that Cook could receive leniency in his sentencing from Virginia Governor Wise. And second, his legal team sought to have his trial transferred to a Federal court in Staunton, Virginia…where the long arm of the national government would be able to issue subpoenas to question the really big fish to be fried: men such as Fred Douglass, Samuel Gridley Howe, and Gerrit Smith…all implicated in the confession itself.

But all such legal and political wrangling went for naught. Yet the trial of John Cook is to me the most fascinating of all the others held in the Court House in Charlestown. It certainly was the most dramatic of any held for the Harper’s Ferry conspirators…John Brown included. The Old Man wanted to die. John Cook wanted to live. Martyrdom to the cause held no charms for him. But the result was the same…he was convicted and sentenced to hang…and all hopes for a commuted or lessened sentence were futile.

 Cook was a despised man, particularly in Jefferson County, where his trial was held. He was “one of the deepest dyed villains that ever planted foot upon the soil of our State…whose hospitality he has basely violated…” He was the spy…the sneak…the recreant.  He had ingratiated himself with the local populace…married one of their daughters…broken bread at their tables…and even plinked tin cans with the great-grand nephew of George Washington himself. So the chances of John Edwin Cook receiving a reduced sentence in the State of Virginia were about equal to the chances of General William Tecumseh Sherman being later popularly elected as Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia.

*****

So what is Cook’s legacy? He certainly appears to be one of the least likable of the members of Brown’s Provisional Army. His sincere commitment to the antislavery cause is often questionable. His early lawyer, Alexander McClure, called Cook “a sincere fanatic, with mingled humanity and atrocity strangely unbalancing each other…” Lubet himself considers him more of a “thrill seeker” than a “do-gooder.” Perhaps the most apt description was anonymously given in the Jefferson County Register of Deaths, following Cook’s execution on December 16, 1859.  It simply lists his occupation as “adventurer.”

* H. Scott Wolfe is the Historical Librarian of the Galena, Illinois, Public Library District and now a regular correspondent and contributor to this blog. He has devoted many years of grassroots research on John Brown, the Harper's Ferry raiders, and related themes.  

Postscript: A Room with a View

Not having read John Brown's Spy, I am particularly grateful for Herr Wolfe's contribution.  However, I did happen to note one interesting oversight on the part of author Lubet that is worth noting here, if only because failing to do so might rob the narrative of a most poignant moment.  Lubet rejects the description provided by James Redpath (in his biography of Brown)which states that Cook had an unobstructed view of Brown's hanging from the window of his jail cell.  According to the Redpath book, Cook "watched his old Captain until the trap fell and his body swung into mid air, when he turned away and gave vent to his feelings."  Lubet disdains this "poignant vignette," saying that it never happened, and pointing out that Cook even wrote a letter about the hanging and never mentioned that he watched it, "--which in any case would have been impossible from his cell." (See Lubet, p. 254 and note 10, citing Redpath, Life of Captain John Brown, p. 404).

Actually, it is more likely that Professor Lubet is wrong in this case, and that the "poignant vignette" is worthy to preserve as part of the narrative.

To be sure, it is interesting that Cook did not mention that he had seen Brown's hanging, but the fact that he made no mention of it in one instance of writing does not itself disprove that he had seen it from a distance.  More to the point, Lubet fails to observe that Redpath's remarks on page 404 were not his own words, but actually are enclosed in quotation marks.   Unfortunately, Redpath did not provide a citation for the quotation, although in this case it was from the New York Tribune--evidently a very reliable source, since the Tribune had an undercover journalist in Charlestown with good access to the jail.  This journalist reported many details that otherwise would have been denied to anti-slavery northern newspapers.  Interestingly, though, Redpath omitted some parts of the report, including some key descriptions that provide explanation of Cook being able to see the gallows from his jail cell window.   In fact, the report says that the place of  Brown's execution was not more than a half mile from the jail; it also says that “from the windows of his cell in the second story . . . Cook had an unobstructed view of the whole proceedings.  He watched his old Captain until the trap fell and his body swung into mid-air, when he turned away and gave vent to his feelings.” (“John Brown’s Invasion.  Further Interesting Incidents of the Execution,” New York Tribune, 6 Dec. 1859, p. 6.)   The jail in Charlestown in Brown's day was a two-story house with rooms made over as jail cells.  Cook and the other raiders, with the exception of Brown and Stevens, were incarcerated on the second floor of the jail.  To err is human, and historians are humans.   However, as we have seen somewhat recently, when it comes to the theme of John Brown, some scholars may confuse cynicism with objectivity, while others may dismiss the studied but sympathetic scholar as a mere panegyrist. Lubet seems to be a conscientious scholar, and armed with Herr Wolfe's review, I look forward to finally reading this fine book.--LD

Watching "The Abolitionists"--
Brown and Calvinism Caricatured--Again

The segment on John Brown is nicely dramatized, but it's the same old stuff about how business failure clouded his sense of God's leading, etc.  Then to top it off, the clip with R. Blakeslee Gilpin babbling about John Brown and Calvinism.  Speaking in the historical present tense, Gilpin says:

"Brown is drifting just further and further into a very deep and dark relationship with God.  He's always trying to discern what God wants for him.  That's really what Calvinism is all about, you're eternally in sin, you're just constantly trying to get out of it like a drowning man."

I'm sorry folks.  I don't want to be mean.  I'm sure R. Blakeslee Gilpin is a fine fellow and a bright one at that.  But I've read and reviewed his recent book, John Brown Still Lives! which is a cultural study of Brown, featuring a number of very interesting chapters.  However, the very worst part of the book are the opening biographical chapters--really some of the worst writing on Brown that I've seen in my years as a student of the man.

Now this.

First, the story line of how Brown's business life took a nose dive and devastated him is just worn out gossip.  Brown faced two phases of business disappointment.  The first phase from the economic upheavals of the late 1830s and into the early 1840s resulted in personal bankruptcy.  Brown made something of a comeback by the mid-to-late 1840s when he distinguished himself as an expert of fine sheep and wool and aligned himself with Akron magnate, Simon Perkins, Jr.  These disappointments did not ultimately discourage him or his faith.

The second disappointment was the failure of the Perkins and Brown wool commission operation in 1849.  Yet even though this venture failed, Brown and Perkins continued their partnership, as the former did quite well in cultivating the Perkins flocks and farms.  Their collaboration lasted until 1854, and although Brown hardly moved on as a rich man, he was not ruined and there is not the slightest evidence that this had any negative impact on his spiritual life.

So the storyline in "The Abolitionist", as it regards John Brown so far, has misrepresented the man.  I dread to think what's next.

As far as Gilpin is concerned, Brown never drifted into any dark relationship with God.  There is nothing in his letters, family testimony, or any other evidence that suggests the scenario that Gilpin has contrived.  This is yet another case when a historian substitutes imagination for facts.  As a student of John Brown's life and letters, I am more than annoyed that this kind of poorly studied, sophomoric improvisation get presented by a "talking head" simply because he moves in elite academic circles.

Second, this description by Gilpin of what Calvinism "is all about" is just atrocious.  Any Calvinist past or present would be outraged by the kind of ignorance and bias revealed in this statement.  As one who embraces Calvinism, I would have to say that Gilpin knows nothing about the theology or the experience of evangelical Calvinism.

I dread to think what "The Abolitionists" is going to do with Brown in Kansas and beyond.

Here we go again.

Bio-logy--

John Brown Studies Past, Present, and Future

It almost goes without saying that in the century and a half since his death, the abolitionist John Brown has been the subject of a good many books and articles.  To be sure, the Brown bibliography—including everything in print from the best studies and biographies to the very worst screeds and fiction—cannot rival the number of books written about Abraham Lincoln.  Yet even the professional gatekeepers of “American history” cannot deny that the controversial abolitionist has enjoyed a popular come back in the 21st century that has now become prominent in the academy as well.  For more than a decade now, there has been a steady stream of books about Brown, including four biographies, a number of valuable cultural studies, essay collections and readers, as well as novels and illustrated books for young people.  While a number of these works are problematic to say the least, nevertheless they bear witness to the upsurge of interest in Brown.

            Whatever the biographer may conclude about Russell Banks’ fictive interpretation of the Old Man in Cloudsplitter (1998), there is no doubt that this successful novel both signaled and enabled a sea change in popular thought about Brown.  Indeed, Cloudsplitter probably did for John Brown what Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X” movie did for the popularization of the Muslim activist in the late 20th century.  Of course, in both cases (and I can attest to this first hand as a student of both leaders), the undercurrents of interest in Malcolm and Brown were already quite vital, and it is not always easy to determine when novels and movies have inspired trends or when they are simply manifestations of what is already at work in society.  Neither can we be certain that for all the popular appeal created by biographical novels and films they do not also undermine real historical understanding in the long run, since they typically revivify their stories as much as they skew them in the name of art.  Then, perhaps they also tend to both stimulate and satiate the popular appetite for history at the same time.   Regardless, Cloudsplitter was a boon to the rising popular interest in Brown that had ripened by the time of the sesquicentennial of the Harper’s Ferry raid in 2009.  Certainly the kind of popular sympathy for Brown did not exist when a former generation commemorated the centennial of the Harper’s Ferry raid in 1959.
       

Boyd B. Stutler
(1889-1970)

Yet as important as novels and movies may be in popular culture, the academy has its own ways of thinking. Certainly by the mid-20th century, the prominent attitude toward Brown among leading historians was negative. Historians like Allan Nevins, C. Van Woodward, and David M. Potter really knew little about Brown, although this did not stop them from banishing him to the margins of history as little more than a mentally unstable troublemaker.  Meanwhile, the two most knowledgeable scholars in the John Brown field, Boyd B. Stutler and Clarence S. Gee, were a magazine editor and a clergyman, respectively.  Stutler, a very conservative man in political and social concerns, took academic prejudice against Brown in stride, but privately lamented the misrepresentations of Nevins and other renowned academics of the day, somewhat facetiously referring to them as the “scientific historians.”  Still, it is quite telling that Stutler advised and assisted both Oswald G. Villard in correcting and revising his supposedly definitive 1910 biography, and Stephen B. Oates in preparing his supposedly definitive 1970 biography.  While the Villard and Oates biographies remain important works for the historian, in a sense they also frame the relatively thin and worthless academic contributions to John Brown studies during the 20th century.

Thomas Vince

       
Even after the appearance of Oates’ landmark biography, To Purge This Land With Blood, the wealth of research in John Brown studies largely remained in the hands of grassroots and local scholars throughout the rest of the century.  This is evident in the case of two young associates of Stutler and Gee, Thomas Vince and Edwin Cotter.  Vince, an archivist and community historian in Hudson, Ohio, and Edwin Cotter (d. 2001), for many years the supervisor of the John Brown Farm in Lake Placid, New York, did more ongoing, on-the-ground research than contemporary academics.  Both Vince and Cotter were not only knowledgeable generalists in the study, but also became specialists in specific areas of Brown’s life by amassing knowledge of community history and documentation that far outstripped the work of professional historians.  Other local historians have likewise done significant research on Brown even to the present time, and these researchers, many of them librarians or people affiliated with local historical societies, represent vital streams of research almost completely removed from the academy.  (I dare not fail to mention that I have periodically featured articles by Scott Wolfe, an independent scholar and research librarian in Galena, Illinois, as well as articles by Grady Atwater, the superintendent of the John Brown cabin in Osawatomie, Kansas.)

Jean Libby

Historically speaking, another notable figure is Jean Libby, a photographer and college teacher from Palo Alto, California, who has worked mainly in the milieu of local historians in her study of the Harper’s Ferry raid.  In the 1970s, Libby actually did field research in Jefferson County, (by then) West Virginia, including the oral traditions of whites and blacks reflecting the direct impact of Brown in 1859.  In so doing, she overturned the popular notion of the non-involvement of enslaved people in the Harper’s Ferry raid, revived and contextualized Osborne Anderson’s vital black witness, A Voice from Harper’s Ferry (1861), and buttressed her arguments with actual research.  Libby has subsequently studied original documents and daguerreotypes of Brown in a manner far beyond what any pure bread academic has done.  Her contributions are unparalleled, and the academy heretofore has offered nothing even close to this kind of in depth, ongoing research.

        
Given the conventional hostility and lack of adequate scholarship in the academy regarding John Brown, one must appreciate the impact made when David S. Reynolds, a professor of English and American Studies at the City University of New York, published his breakthrough biography, John Brown Abolitionist, in 2005.  While Reynolds was not the first scholar to publish a full biography of Brown in the 21st century, his work received immense and immediate attention, and deservedly so.  While John Brown Abolitionist was not without some problems, its strengths are considerably more important.  Portraying the abolitionist as “the man who killed slavery, sparked the Civil War, and seeded Civil Rights,” Reynolds turned the tables on the conventional 20th century academic portrayal of John Brown, rendering him a flawed hero, but far more a hero—a man in advance of his times, a racial egalitarian in an age of flagrant white supremacy, whose life and death can no longer be filed away under conventionally dismissive categories.

To be sure, Reynolds cannot be credited for single-handedly bringing about a John Brown revolution among scholars.  A great deal of thinking and writing was already underway for years prior to the publication of John Brown Abolitionist.  Historian Robert McGlone had been working in John Brown studies for decades, and his important biography, John Brown's War Against Slavery—which finally appeared in late 2009—was undertaken in part as a response to Stephen Oates’ acclaimed 1970 biography.  Other scholars had undertaken the John Brown theme following Oates, and perhaps the leading spirit in this regard was Paul Finkelman, a professor of law and history who has edited two collections of scholarly writing on Brown, the first and most notable being His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid (1995).  Finkelman also spearheaded a notable scholarly conference on John Brown at the Mount Alto campus of Penn State University in July 1996, "John Brown: The Man, the Legend, the Legacy"—perhaps the first sign that academia was awakening to the fact that the Old Man could not be so easily dismissed.

The Mont Alto Conference,
1996

While the Mount Alto conference had its inevitable share of screeds and “terrorist” papers, it pointed toward the immediate future of John Brown scholarship.  A number of its attendees published books on John Brown in the first few years of the 21st century, thus proving that interest in Brown had already come to a head by the time of the Reynolds biography.  Yet it was John Brown Abolitionist that proved to be muscular enough as a work of scholarship to break through academic barriers of prejudice and misinformation, and lyrical enough to become the banner text of a new era.  In a sense, every new biography and study of John Brown in the 21st century will be considered against the backdrop of Reynolds’ text and interpretation, and no narrative of the abolitionist will escape the long shadow of John Brown Abolitionist, just as most writing on Brown in the 20th century could not help but reflect the importance of Oswald Garrison Villard’s 1910 biography.

Nevertheless, none of this suggests that the John Brown study has been exhausted.  We are far from the point, as we are in the case of Abraham Lincoln, where one may justifiably sigh aloud at the appearance of yet another new book.  While the Lincoln narrative has been exhaustively parsed like a Greek verb in a seminary classroom, Brown’s narrative begs more work in almost every facet of the story, from his less exciting early life and business efforts to his militant anti-slavery efforts in Kansas and Virginia.  Works like Brian McGinty’s John Brown’s Trial (2009) and Steven Lubet’s John Brown’s Spy (2012) have demonstrated what can be accomplished by working in heretofore unexplored areas of the story.  Indeed, notwithstanding McGlone’s belated but formidable John Brown’s War Against Slavery, the McGinty book on the historic trial of the abolitionist may prove to be the single most important contribution to a sadly neglected but central category of John Brown biography.  I have hardly been exhaustive in this article--there have been other quite notable works published in recent years that have likewise contributed to the forward movement of John Brown scholarship, a noteworthy contribution being Evan Carton's very popular biography, Patriotic Treason.  I may not agree with significant aspects of his book, Midnight Rising, but Tony Horwitz should also be saluted as for demonstrating the vitality and influence of the Old Man's story in our own time.  This is a good time for John Brown studies, and we are looking forward to what 2013 may bring.

To all my readers, I wish a most happy and studious new year!

Abe on John, Fred on Abe

"Old John Brown has been executed for treason against a state.  We cannot object, even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong.  That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed and treason.  It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right."  Abraham Lincoln, December 2, 1859

"It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model.  In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.  He was preeminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men."  Frederick Douglass, April 14, 1876