152 Years Ago Today:

“A Man of a Different Mould”: John Brown, William Mumford,

and Southern Pharisaism

Barnaby Furnas, John Brown

On the second of December, 152 years ago today, John Brown ascended the gallows, patiently waiting upon his Viriginia captors until they were ready to kill him.  By all accounts, he seemed fearless, except for the peculiar care he was said to have taken in his movements once his head and eyes were covered--a natural reaction, as one observant journalist put it, as if he was afraid to fall.  When the rope was cut and the trap door swung out, the Old Man fell several inches when the rope grabbed him back from the force of gravity, leaving him to dangle in the breeze as he choked to death.  His body showed little movement, certainly no struggle except some movement in his pinioned arms—gestures that steadily diminished as barely sixty years of living drained away.  After some time, a doctor listened for the stillness of his breast and he was finally cut down, but not before “Porte Crayon,” the Virginia-born artist of Harper’s made a morbid sketch of the lifeless face under the hood.  When his remains were returned to the jail, some discussion took place about injecting his body with arsenic in order to make certain the work of death.  But such measures were unnecessary.  The Old Man was quite removed from this world.

The Rebel Gambler

Mumford:
"Poor Material
to Exalt"

A decade later, when the Civil War was over and the nation was slowly inching its way back to reordered form of white supremacy sans chattel slavery, Brown was still a significant figure of heroism to many in the North.  One such admirer, a journalist named Homer Sprague, prepared an article in the Connecticut-based publication, The Soldiers’ Record, which memorialized the reminiscences of Union soldiers and other points of history relating to the recent war of Southern rebellion.  Recounting the conquest of New Orleans by General Joseph Butler, Sprague mentioned some aspects of Butler’s notably harsh treatment of rebels (which ultimately led to his removal from New Orleans), including the hanging of William B. Mumford, a gambler with strong rebel sympathies.  After the Union had taken New Orleans and the U.S. flag was displayed over the city’s famous Mint, Mumford had taken it upon himself to tear it down and desecrate it as an act of pro-Confederate valor.  Perhaps he was at once the antithesis of the murdered Elmer Ellsworth, who was shot dead in Virginia in 1861 when he pulled down a Confederate flag.  But in Sprague’s mind, Mumford was also the antithesis of John Brown.

According to Sprague, “the gambler Mumford” was hostile toward Union forces, and following the surrender of New Orleans, he took it upon himself to tear down the U.S. flag, leading to his arrest and confinement in the Custom House.  Union General Butler found himself in a dilemma—to go easy on Mumford would undermine his authority and diminish the Union occupation.  Sprague wrote that it was his own regiment that guarded Mumford, and for this reason was privy to some knowledge of Mumford’s character and attitude prior to his hanging (June 7, 1862).  According to Sprague, the army Chaplain Salter “repeatedly visited him, and with tears offered him the consolation of religion, and begged him to accept a Saviour's mercy.”  Mumford's “singular reply, which Sprague conveyed “in substance” was, "I have no fear of death, because I have lived a blameless life.  Having never done anything wrong, I am prepared for a future world, if there is any future world.  I only hate to leave my friends." 

Brown: "a man of a different mould"

To this, Sprague opined that the kind chaplain would rightly have been “perplexed and amazed” at Mumford’s “stoical indifference, without a prayer on his lips,” for the gambler-turned-rebel “Mumford met death as coolly as did old John Brown on the Virginia scaffold.”

But Brown was a man of different mould; of austere morals, trained to piety, accustomed to spend much of his time in reading his bible or on his knees in prayer.  Mumford was conceded to have no religious convictions, was dissolute, intemperate, and a noted gambler—poor material to exalt into a martyr, even in the cause of slavery, for which he died.1

As Sprague’s point reveals, facing death bravely does not prove one’s cause is noble and true.  History has shown that Brown’s hanging vindicated his vision for a just society and freedom for all humans.  Mumford’s death is largely forgotten; but even when it is recovered from the dusty pages of history, it seems more pitiful than anything else.  A fool in the conduct of his life, a fool in the cause for which he died, and a fool in his own stoic conceit facing the bar of eternity.  

Thomas Jackson and the Pharisaic Spirit of the South

It was a mark of the Pharisaic spirit of the South that its most noble leaders could not recognize the authenticity of John Brown’s Christian faith.  That Pharisaic spirit remains quite vivid in the antagonism that many white Christians still show toward John Brown—the endless harping on his actions in Kansas, his resort to “violence," and all the other self-righteous screeds that typically accompany resentful anti-Brown remarks coming from people I’m supposed to think of as my “Christian brethren.”  Of course, the pro-slavery side had its own saints and sinners, the latter group being represented by the hanged rebel gambler Mumford.  But even among its saints, its supposedly noble Christian leaders, this same blindness was a great affliction.  Consider the remarks of Thomas Jackson, soon to become the Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson, after witnessing Brown’s death on the gallows:

I was much impressed with the thought that before me stood a man in the full vigor of health, who must in a few moments enter eternity. I sent up the petition that he might be saved. Awful was the thought that he might in a few minutes receive the sentence, “Depart, ye wicked, into everlasting fire!” I hope that he was prepared to die, but I am doubtful. He refused to have a minister with him.2

"Grandiose Hubris": Gen. Thomas Jackson
sent money to a "colored" Sunday School while
fighting to keep blacks enslaved

The grandiose hubris of this personal remark is itself a commentary on the kind of religion that had come to typify the evangelical South, including the very pristine orthodoxy of Southern Reformed Presbyterians like Jackson.  The Union soldier-reporter Sprague could at least see the incongruity between the stoic bravery of Mumford and the incendiary and ignoble rebellion for which he was willing to die.  Quite in contrast and notwithstanding his die-hard Calvinist orthodoxy and upstanding piety, Jackson—like so many other agents and protectors of black bondage—could not recognize the death of a martyr, even when that martyr was swinging in the Southern breeze in his very presence.  However evangelically “kind” Jackson was to think he should pray for Brown’s salvation, it seems he missed the point of Brown’s martyrdom altogether.  Brown had not “refused to have a minister with him”; he had refused to have a pro-slavery minister’s words of consolation and companionship.  For Brown to have done otherwise would have fully contradicted all that he had lived and now was willing to die for.  Not only was John Brown as deeply devoted to the same evangelical and Reformed faith of Jackson, but also he was willingly dying for the sake of the oppressed and enslaved, whereas Jackson ultimately died for the cause of the slave master.  That Jackson could believe that Brown was not “prepared to die” was more a commentary on the deplorable nature of pro-slavery evangelicalism—yeah, of U.S. evangelicalism, besotted as it was with racist arrogance.

John Brown Vindicated, Mumford Forgotten

John Brown in jail:
"Martyr" is from the Greek
word for "Witness"

It may be a point of indifference to many (if not most) of my readers that John Brown fully leaned on the biblical doctrines of grace.  However, as a Christian and a pastor, it matters a great deal to me that we understand that Brown was no jailhouse preacher, no self-manufactured saint who grasped at religion as the last straw once his other plans had failed.   Rather, to labor over his letters, especially those letters written to his family, one cannot help but to be moved by the deeply-rooted, time-tested confidence that the Old Man had come to place in his God and Savior.  Furthermore, these points of personal evangelical piety and conviction were inseparable from his devotion to the oppressed, his depth of belief concerning the wickedness of slavery, and his own certainty that dying at the hands of people like Jackson and Mumford ultimately would be vindicated by both Providence and history.  And he was right.

As Sprague concluded, John Brown was “a man of a different mould”—the kind of man who rarely comes on the scene of history, but always leaves it heavily marked by his life and death.  Such men are remembered as if they still live.  Their presence in society remains, their appeal to successive generations is vibrant, and their ability to speak to us never wanes.  Meanwhile generals and gamblers like Jackson and Mumford become part of the political trivia of history.    Mumford is forgotten.  “Stonewall” Jackson, who presumed to judge John Brown’s soul, matters little except to a few Civil War enthusiasts and brooding neo-Confederates. 

But John Brown’s soul goes marching on.

 ------------------

            1 Homer B. Sprague, "Thirteenth Regiment, C.V.," The Soldiers' Record (Feb. 27, 1869), p. 270

            2 Letter from Thomas Jonathan Jackson to Mary Anna Jackson, Dec. 2, 1859, quoted in Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (New York, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1891), p. 1.

The Last Night of His Life--

"Your Friend as Ever": Reflections on John Brown's Letter to James Foreman

John Brown wrote many letters and notes from his Virginia jail cell in the days and weeks prior to his execution on December 1, 1859.  I’ve managed to track down many if not most of them, although I will never be certain whether some have eluded me, either having been lost to history or “held captive” in someone’s personal collection.  Although a century-and-a-half has brought more letters to light than were available in 1911, for instance, the locations of some original manuscripts of Brown’s letters remain a mystery.  However, I live in hope that, here and there, one will turn up in some archive or collection, or may yet appear on an auction website--and every so often this is precisely what happens.

[The complete entry is available only in the forthcoming book, John Brown: Emancipator]

(A Review) From the Field:

FREUD, FANATICISM AND FACIAL HAIR:

A SOUTHERN SOJOURNER READS MIDNIGHT RISING

by H. Scott Wolfe *

“Can’t we all just get along?”  Rodney King

I was soon to depart for my annual tour of the sunny South, so I was desperate for a copy of Tony Horwitz’s new book, Midnight Rising. Thus I trotted into a Barnes & Noble on a hope and a prayer for, technically, the book had still not been formally released. Cornering a clerk, and assuming a tragic look of woe sure to enliven her compassionate instincts, I inquired if the volume could somehow be available. Consulting her computer, she cryptically whispered: “It’s not on the shelves yet, but it is in the receiving room.” I was flooded with regret, for I had neglected to bring latex gloves and a surgical mask…but she happily broke the strained silence with “I’ll go check for you!” And moments later, the angelic capitalist returned with a fresh copy…still warm from the oven…and I was a happy man.

Your correspondent begins reading Midnight Rising 

at the Lincoln Trail Monument, near Vincennes, IN 

(photo by Nancy Wolfe)

The book was to join me as a traveling companion, and I eagerly anticipated perusing it. And peruse it I did…in fits and starts…from New Harmony, Indiana…to Vicksburg, Mississippi…to its completion upon an iron bench in New Orleans’ Jackson Square. I treated this new acquaintance with an open mind, as I customarily do whenever a new piece of John Browniana appears before these myopic eyes. I have devoted over half of my scandalous lifetime to the study of the Old Man and his associates. And all of my actions have, I sincerely trust, been based upon the accumulation of FACT…not personal bias…not my incisive intuitions or speculations…not clinical diagnostics…and certainly not what some learned sage wrote in his monumental biography of yesteryear.

The notorious keeper of this blog, the much esteemed Dr. DeCaro, had kindly invited me to provide my impressions after reading the Horwitz effort. He also, in subsequent postings, compared my Southern tour to that of James Redpath, the first of the Old Man’s biographers. I must first respond to the latter, for that comparison is invalid. My settled outlook is not that of Redpath’s Roving Editor, not that of Olmstead’s Cotton Kingdom, but rather, more closely akin to H.L. Mencken’s Sahara of the Bozart.** That said, it is on to his initial request….

Comfortably ensconced upon the banks of the Wabash, I began reading the prologue of Midnight Rising…and was immediately beset with terror. Expecting, at long last, a solid historical narrative of the Old Man’s Harpers Ferry incursion, I instead began to lose some of my joyous vacation demeanor…Some unseemly oaths began to be launched (My apologies to the hotel housekeepers who may have overheard me.)…And, most distressingly, my jalapeno pizza at the Yellow Tavern just did not seem as enjoyable as in years past. The cause of my suffering was the author’s blunt statement of purpose: “The place I wanted to be was inside their heads. What led them to launch a brazen attack on their own government and countrymen?”  And then, of course, the obligatory references to 9/11, where a “long bearded fundamentalist, consumed by hatred of the U.S. government,” launches a “suicidal strike” upon a Federal facility.

I must admit, I found myself quoting the immortal words of General McAuliffe at the Battle of the Bulge: “NUTS!”

What was life REALLY like in that attic?" The Kennedy Farmhouse, 

Washington County, Maryland, pre-raid headquarters 

for John Brown and his men (photo by H. Scott Wolfe)

I would be an exceedingly wealthy man if I had received a dollar for every time I’ve told someone that I longed for an accurate, readable account of John Brown and his men at Harpers Ferry. In an long-ago geological epoch, when I first began the intellectual pursuit of the Old Man, I had collected a number of the earlier attempts: Laurence Green’s The Raid (1953); Allan Keller’s Thunder at Harper’s Ferry (1958); and Truman Nelson’s The Old Man: John Brown at Harper’s Ferry (1973). None of these efforts satisfied me, for they were replete with inaccuracies, fictional accounts and a lack of proper documentation. I longed for a truly evocative, sensory treatment of those stirring events of long ago. At times I feared that it would require a gifted novelist…not an arid historian…to tell the story I so craved. For I wanted to hear those desultory gunshots…the squeal of the express train from Wheeling…the curses of the drunken patrons of the Galt House saloon. I wanted to vicariously experience the dark, damp interior of the armory engine house…its numbing cold, its fear and confusion, the moans of the dying, the metallic smell of blood, the choking smoke of gunpowder. Unrealistic dreams, perhaps.

So then, with such high expectations, I was confronted with the possibility of yet another psychoanalytic leap into “their heads,” or the viewing of Harpers Ferry through the well-worn lens of present day Islamic terrorism. Why is it that when writers seek to describe a historical character, such as John Brown, their accounts immediately degenerate into Freudian monographs? “Yes,” they might pontificate, “this homegrown American terrorist found himself gripping a Sharps rifle for the obvious reason that during early childhood he lost a prized yellow marble beyond recovery.” Or perhaps: “Add to this the fact that he once stole three large brass pins,” they rant, “it is no wonder he became a Kansas outlaw.” In more recent Bin Ladenish years, one would almost believe that the length of an individual’s facial hair is in direct proportion to his proneness to fanaticism.

This is crazy! Instead of telling the fascinating STORY…the incredible STORY…the momentous STORY of John Brown, we gravitate toward psychobabble and petty schoolyard disputes. We immediately line up in factions…black and white…pro and con…praise and damnation…hero and villain…terrorist and freedom fighter…sane and insane. We criticize a Brown history or biography as if it were some kind of tax bill being considered by a “bipartisan” Super Committee…each side firmly entrenched…unwilling to budge from their preconceived notions…all fearful of upsetting their basic constituencies. What we are losing folks, through our own neglect, is one of the most fascinating sagas that history can ever hope to offer…one of the greatest stories in the annals of American history. Indeed, I say,“can’t we all just get along?”

Now before you all assume that I am contemplating yet another sword thrust to the vitals of Midnight Rising, do not be misled. There was plenty more to read. And as I absorbed Horwitz’s basic outline of the life of Brown…and the narrative of the Harpers Ferry raid…I can honestly state that I enjoyed the book very much. His goals listed in the prologue did not ultimately consume the book. He did not attempt to stretch the Old Man and his men on the psychiatric couch of history.

No, the narrative did not meet my self-imposed expectations of evocative writing. I could not vicariously find myself tucked behind a tree in the arsenal yard on October 17, 1859. But I found it a very readable book…a book eminently capable of introducing the Old Man to a general audience devoid of the least knowledge and appreciation for his historic import. And (most pleasing to me) for the very first time, the neglected members of Brown’s Provisional Army of the United States were adequately introduced to the reading public. Horwitz has admirably utilized a wide-ranging and significant sampling of primary sources…quoting from the letters and papers of the men…and has provided most welcome, if brief, biographical sketches of those who marched to the Ferry. There is much more work to be done, but perhaps we have turned the first shovel full of earth.

Your correspondent finishes Midnight Rising in 

Jackson Square, New Orleans, LA  

(photo by Nancy Wolfe)

This is not a scholarly book. This is a popular book. It is written to make money…and a good deal of money is being spent to promote it. The abundance of reviews in major publications and the appearance of the author on such programs as PBS’s Newshour has increased the public exposure of John Brown and Harpers Ferry…which is all to the good. I say, the more the merrier.

Metaphorically, I consider Midnight Rising a sturdy framework…upon which more specialized studies of Brown, his men or the events in which they participated, can be firmly set in place. Once this basic framework is fully laden with the bricks and mortar of honest and unbiased research, it is my sincere hope that the TRUTH of John Brown will, as Mrs. Howe famously declared, keep marching on.

* 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.

** Editor's note: I had to look this one up, folks.  Scott's reference is to a 1917 essay by Henry Louis Mencken in the New York Evening Mail, later reprinted in his book, Prejudices, Second Series (1920). The article proved a blunt and provocative criticism of Southern culture in that era.  But Mencken was from Baltimore, and his criticism was not a Northerner's harangue, but rather was premised on his belief that the South had declined into cultural sterility and provincialism in his era.  See Fred Hobs, "Henry Louis Mencken, 1880-1956," in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris Copyright (c) 1989 by the University of North Carolina Press. 

From the Field:
The Roving 21st Century Editor Writes from Deep in the South

I write you from Tupelo, Mississippi . . . awash with the ghosts of Elvis. I have been without computer access since New Harmony, but have had a most successful sojourn in both Vicksburg, Miss. and New Orleans, La. . . .

     I survived my seventeen mile jaunt at the Vicksburg battlefield. Pretty good for an old guy. While enroute, I found out that there is still work to be done in the "Red States."

     I had halted for lunch at a point known militarily as "Thayer's Approach." I was happily ingesting some biscuits that I had purloined from breakfast, when a group of unreconstructed Confederates pulled up in their enormous SUV. Their "leader" (or at least the fellow with the biggest mouth) promptly began to lecture the others in this way (with the proper Suthin' lilt):

"Don't y'all wish you coulda been up there shootin' Yankees?"

"Y'all bet," they responded in unison.

"Too bad the Confederates didn't win," said the leader. "We sure wouldn't have all these problems we have today. For sure we wouldn't have all these folks on welfare."

"Y'all are right there," said the disciples.

 I had my back turned during this discourse and, having finished eating, I headed down the road. About ten minutes later they drove up beside me, and the leader rolled down his window and said:

"Why y'all wearin' that Yankee hat?" ( I was wearing a Union kepi.)

"Well," I responded, "we are inside the Union lines, aren't we?"

"True enough," said he, "so y'all better change it on the other side."

Having experienced these showoffs yearly (and knowing them to be essentially cowards), I slipped in the knife by saying:

 "You know, you Rebs are good at two things."

 "What's that?" said the blowhard.

 "Making Bar-B-Q and surrendering," I answered.

The redneck turned redder, and sped on into the sunset.

True story. Will send you something on my return.

From the (battle)field,

H. Scott

* 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. 

FYI—

Tony Horwitz’s Midnight Rising: Online Reviews/Interviews 

David S. Reynolds, “An Angry Prophet.”  TheWall Street Journal (Oct. 22, 2011)

Jack Shea, “In Print : Tony Horwitz's "MidnightRising" digs up John Brown.” Martha’sVineyard Times (Oct. 25, 2011)

Marjorie Kehe, “Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raidthat Sparked the Civil War.”  The Christian Science Monitor (Oct. 28,2011)

Jonathan Yardley, “‘Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War,’ by Tony Horwitz.” The Washington Post (Oct. 28, 2011)

Kevin Boyle, “On the Road to Harper’s Ferry,” New York Times Book Review (Oct. 282011)

[AND see my response to this review]

Ken Armstrong, 'Midnight Rising' illuminates John Brown.”  The Seattle Times (Nov. 6, 2011)

“John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War.”  Tony Horwitz interviewed on the Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC Radio, Nov. 7, 2011

Erik Loomis, “BookReview: Tony Horwitz, Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked theCivil War.”  Lawyers, Gun$, and Money (Nov. 8, 2011)

Bearing Witness:

James Baldwin: “Ask John Brown”

PEN American Center is the U.S. branch of the world’s oldest international literary and human rights organization.  It was founded in 1922 (International PEN was founded in 1921).  According to its website, PEN American Center “has remained a writer-centered organization in which members play a leading role,” and today has 3,400 Professional Members—“the most distinguished writers, translators, and editors in the United States.”

This past August 2, PEN American Center featured an interview with James Baldwin by Frank Schatz in 1973, in honor of Baldwin’s birthday.  The website says: “In his typically candid style, Baldwin talks . . . about the legacy of slavery, a nation in perpetual decline, and the American tendency to ‘destroy history.’”  This feature is less than ten minutes in length, and probably is an excerpt from a larger interview.  However, it is vintage Baldwin on Brown.

James Baldwin was a frank admirer of the Old Man.  Once, during a presidential campaign, a reporter asked him which presidential candidate he was voting for.  Baldwin replied, “John Brown.”  I have never been a reader of his fiction, but I consider his essays about racism and white society profound and prophetic.   As Malcolm X once observed, Baldwin was not permitted to make a speech during the 1963 March on Washington because they were not sure that he would stick to the script.  James Baldwin was unabashed in highlighting the life and meaning of Brown in the most unrestrained tones of admiration.  This remarkable interview portion makes this clear, as Baldwin audibly thinks about the racism of the United States, as it were, through the historical lens of Brown's life and struggle.  Thanks to the PEN American Center for sharing it with us.

Listen to the interview

Visit the PEN American website for this feature

Dear John--

John Brown and Violence: A Response

A thoughtful reader, Professor John Rudy, made the following comment on the other entry for Nov. 3rd on this blog.  He writes:

I think my chief problem with Brown has always sprung from his use of violence, because I've never been convinced that taking another's life, whether perpetrated by a slaveholder on another human being or by Brown and his men at Harpers Ferry and Pottawatomie, can ever be deemed just.  

I have had my students in the class I am teaching on Brown this semester ruminating on that very concept, as well as investigating the divide between Garrisonians and Immediatists, as they try to dissect who Brown was and why he chose to do what he did. I would love to hear your thoughts on when and if it is just and right to end another person's life by force.

Prof. Rudy is kind enough to offer a thoughtful comment and also solicits my thoughts on whether the use of violence is ever "just and right" to use force to kill someone.  Obviously, his remarks require extensive reflection and discussion, but I will attempt to make some response in the hopes it is helpful, even if he does not agree.

First, I'd say that the issue of John Brown and violence is typically a theme raised by people who are not pacifists in principle.  Therefore we need not get bogged down addressing their criticisms, which essentially reflect some degree of political double standard or hypocrisy.  You pose a different question than people who like to attack Brown’s legacy because he used violence while turning a blind eye to the violence of slavery, the violence of their nation against other nations, and the violence of their heroes (often exerted against people of color).  

Second, I would only say that if your students want to know who Brown was and the source of his actions, they must fairly understand not only the political but also the religious themes of Brown’s culture and past.  Simplistic treatments of the “violent Old Testament God” versus the “peaceful New Testament God” is anachronistic gnosticism that has no validity in itself let alone in Brown’s case.   Your students should be willing to consider why a sincere, essentially peaceful, and extremely moral and gentle Christian man like John Brown would fundamentally differ with someone like William Lloyd Garrison.  I hope they will consider reading my “religious life” of Brown which may help to some degree.  They should also explore the long debate in Christian history between pacifists and advocates of “just” force, but also keep in mind that many Christians like Brown were both peacefully oriented but could not subscribe to pacifism in principle as a binding stricture for all circumstances.    

Third, you have asked me what I believe as to the use of force in ending human life.  My view is probably closer to that of John Brown.  My understanding is living a peaceful, nonviolent existence should be normative for a Christian. While Christians like Brown believed that humans are made in the image of God, the sanctity of human life does not take precedent in all situations for them.  Certainly, Brown believed that government was granted the right to capital punishment and to wage war under conditions that did not violate biblical morality.  He also believed that under certain circumstances, individual Christians could employ some degree of force to oppose injustice for the sake of the weak and oppressed.

Obviously, there is not enough space or time to debate these presuppositions.  There is a long tradition of pacifism within Christianity, and it is arguable that the early church (for instance) did not begin to change until the “Christianization” of the Roman empire.  Whether or not that’s true, the preponderant voice of early Christianity was non-violent and extremely so.  But later Christians took a different view, particularly the “Just War” view coming out of Augustine and Aquinas.  The Protestant Reformers, as seen in the case of the magisterial Reformers like Luther, Calvin, and others, were not pacifists like the Anabaptists.  Brown was quite consciously rooted in the Calvinistic-Puritan tradition and probably never was a pacifist, although it seems that in his twenties and early thirties, he was somewhat influenced by a conservative bent that amounted to de facto pacifism.  It was only as the slave power grew in militancy and violence that Brown began to conclude that force might be necessary to win back the nation and liberate the enslaved from its grip.  Indeed, we can see that Brown did not openly espouse the use of force until the Fugitive Slave Law if 1850 effectively forced the entire nation under the domain of slavery.  Certainly by 1859, there was no possibility of any kind of liberation—every legal and practical avenue toward peaceful resolution of the problem of slavery was gone.  While the South was increasingly threatening secession, it was itself promoting the most radically violent and terroristic program in Kansas. 

Finally, I respectfully disagree that the sanctity of human life always trumps every other issue.  I do not understand the teaching of Jesus to advocate complete passivity in the face of wicked violence, although I believe that His followers should go the greatest length before the resort to violence.  The answer is not ideal: it is not always clear what the greatest length may be, or what kind of violence is necessary.  Often the resort to violence can slip into tragedy, and even good people may end up shedding blood unnecessarily in the midst of a legitimate struggle.  It is interesting that Brown’s hero was Oliver Cromwell, whose legacy is forever stained by the bloody slaughter of Irish Roman Catholics at Drogheda and Wexford.  Yet Brown’s case is hardly that of Cromwell.  The five men killed at Pottawatomie in the Kansas territory in 1856 were collaborating with terrorists and the Browns and others had no resort to protection from the law, even as a veritable army of thugs were planning to attack Osawatomie and specifically targeted the abolitionist Browns.  At Harper’s Ferry, Brown gave no order to murder people and those few killed were either shot dead in gun battle or killed by accident and/or apart from Brown’s orders amidst the attack.

Advocating for the necessary use of force and for the necessity of taking human life under certain circumstances is a difficult and often imperfect position to take.  It is easy for pacifists to lampoon those who use violence because, as we acknowledge, often the efforts of even the most conscientious soldiers result in the deaths of non-combatants or slip into unforeseen, terrible outcomes.

On the other hand, the pacifist is consistently subject to the criticism that they are enslaved to a notion of peace that is not only unrealistic with respect to the human condition, but also disqualifies them from serving any real good for humanity except as Brown put it, “talk, talk, talk.”  Garrison had a lot to say about the evil of slavery, but he had no plan—not even a political plan to end slavery.  His solution was to destroy the constitution and “morally” persuade selfish, wicked men to give up their property, which might as well be the religion of tooth fairies and unicorns.  I personally do not believe that Garrison advocated a consistently biblical view of the use of force; furthermore, people like him generally stand by while weak and oppressed people suffer without hope of relief.  Pacifists never liberate people from evil forces, but rely on "violent" people to do the fighting.  Pacifists are so high-minded and doctrinaire about the supposed inviolable value of every human life that they are willing to stand by and let individuals be slaughtered, raped, enslaved, and oppressed in the name of not harming a single soul!  God forbid that you or I should ever find ourselves in mortal danger with only a pacifist as an ally.  

The reason that Oswald Garrison Villard painted such a negative view of Brown the hero in his 1910 book was because he was not only Garrison’s grandson, but a radical pacifist.  Villard himself was later criticized for having been willing to let the Nazis take over the world in the name of non-resistance.  Brown and his family were quite convinced that such passivity in the face of evil was no virtue, and in the absence of any effort on the part of any anti-slavery figure of the antebellum era, he alone tried to launch a program that would use force without insurrectionary bloodletting for the liberation of enslaved people.

I think it is easy for you to sit back in the comfort of your particular situation and pin down John Brown's historical ears for having used violence.  At least I hope you’re consistent in applying that presupposition to all circumstances, and I hope you would take the same position if the lives of your loved ones and community were under militant and malignant assault.  I wonder whether you would reevaluate your assumption that killing bad people is unjust.  Perhaps you would be true to your conviction, and allow thugs and murderers to do unspeakable evil in your presence when you have the power to resist.  I hope not.  I do not consider that virtue, Christian or otherwise.  I consider such a response sheer folly.

I admit that taking the road to the use of force is terrible and terribly uncertain.  But I believe that time and again in history, good men and women have made a difference by taking up swords and guns in the face of real threats of evil.   I also believe that throughout history, the deaths of bad people or people in the service of evil systems has proven a benefit to humanity.  Of course, had good people only relied on swords and guns, perhaps their actions would also amount to folly.  But people like John Brown did not “live by the sword” as many assume.  Brown himself believed that bearing the sword of steel was something given to him for a season and that it was also a manner of warfare inferior to the “sword of the spirit,” which he ultimately wielded with far more success.  However, had he not used the sword of steel, he could not have unsheathed the sword of the spirit.  Sometimes, whether we like it or not, we find ourselves entangled in conflicts that involve both, and we should worry when men and women neglect either one for the other. 

When I think of John Brown, I think of a man whose extraordinary example was clearly seen and appreciated by Garrison, Quakers, and other pacifists precisely because they knew that his use of force and violence was the not the sum total of who he was or what he did in opposing slavery.  It seems to me that if you are likewise a pacifist, you should explore more deeply why a whole generation of pacifists were ultimately won over by the words and character of such a “violent” man as John Brown.  Were they deluded?  Assuming that they were not deluded, then as a pacifist yourself, it seems to me that you have not yet grasped what they did concerning the Old Man of Harper’s Ferry.  I suspect that most people are entirely clueless as to John Brown the man who lived, and that his admiring pacifist friends probably knew him better than many of us do today.

I'm Not Surprised--
Boyle's New York Times Review of Midnight Rising

As I understand it, the policy of the New York Times Book Review is NOT to ask specialists to review new books addressing the subject matter of their specialization.  Perhaps it is assumed that professional jealousy and doctrinaire prejudice would militate against a fair review, and therefore it is better to have a review written by someone marginal to the subject.  If this is true, then the rationale is flawed, mainly because it sacrifices depth of understanding, even as it potentially blinds the reader from ascertaining whether the book under review is really as good (or bad) as the reviewer says it is.

I raise this point because Tony Horwitz’s Midnight Rising was reviewed in the NYTBR this past week (Oct. 28)--and frankly it’s superficial at its best, and awfully misleading and stupid at worst.  In this case, the reviewer is a Ph.D at Ohio State University named Kevin Boyle who—according to his online university profile—teaches “twentieth century American history, with an emphasis on class, race, and politics.”  This is not to detract from Dr. Boyle, who seems to be "all that and a bag of chips" as far as academia goes.  By all accounts, he is an award-winning, fellowship holding, board-sitting son of a gun and probably knows a lot about his areas of specialization in 20^th century history.  The problem is that Dr. Boyle doesn’t know diddly about John Brown, except for what he’s read in Tony’s book and perhaps what he’s watched on the History Channel or some other corrupted source.

For the most part, Boyle’s review is pedestrian.  Then he ends the review with this fairly stupid piece of affectation:

Horwitz does his best to keep the ghosts at bay, taking care to avoid tying Brown directly to today’s fevered politics. The link is tricky, to be sure. No matter what anyone may argue, no current issue can claim the moral purity of the abolitionist crusade. Still, it’s impossible to read this fine book without thinking about the modern-day Browns, soldiers of a vengeful God, seeking righteousness in a fierce burst of violence, justice in the shedding of blood. Maybe Horwitz decided that he didn’t need to make the comparison explicit. As he knows so well, the past and the present have a way of fusing together on their own. And this time the connection isn’t comforting at all.

Frankly, I’m not surprised.  It was inevitable that some ill-schooled academic (inevitably a white man with all the right credentials) would take Tony’s thesis and run in the wrong direction with it.  Almost anything published about Brown is good enough reason for one of these types to do their little anti-John Brown song-and-dance.    Can we forget the gratuitous, silly tirade of Sean Wilentz in reaction to David Reynolds’ milestone biography?   Dogs just can’t help barking at the moon.

As much as I like Tony Horwitz and respect his work and efforts (no one can say that he didn’t research or produce a well written effort), I still say that his take on Brown is flawed, both regarding Pottawatomie and the Harper’s Ferry raid.  Of course I disagree with his treatment of the facts; but this is largely a presuppositional matter.  It is important to point out that notwithstanding his careful attention to detail in many respects, Tony’s book flies in the face of important evidence and the preponderant views of the dominant writers and researchers on Brown.  While Tony is careful not to step in the same pile he stepped in when he wrote that New York Times Op-Ed piece back in 2009 (by insinuating comparisons between Brown and bearded Muslim terrorists), he leaves enough room for—and perhaps even baits—others to make that same insinuation, as Boyle’s conclusion reveals.

To be sure, Boyle is not entirely culpable for finding it “impossible” not to read Midnight Rising “without thinking about the modern-day Browns, soldiers of a vengeful God, seeking righteousness in a fierce burst of violence, justice in the shedding of blood.”  This is partly Tony’s fault, given his ambivalent view of the Old Man--seeing him as both someone to appreciate and someone to disdain.  Yet if Boyle’s review ends with references to bursts of violence, shedding of blood, and the inevitable “discomfort,” it’s also because he’s both prejudiced and unstudied in matters pertaining to John Brown—which is only to say that he’s a member of a very large club in the American academy. 

As I said before, I’m not really surprised by any of this.  "The Old Gray Lady" could have asked McGlone, Reynolds, Carton, or me to review the book.   Or they could have asked me if I knew anyone competent to review a book about John Brown, and I could have told them to ask Jean Libby or Scott Wolfe, two people who have spent years in their respective grassroots research on Brown and the Harper’s Ferry raid.  (I should mention that I am patiently awaiting a review from the latter, who is currently touring the South, Redpath style, while he reads Midnight Rising).  Certainly, a qualified reviewer would have been far more sensitive to the considerable points of vulnerability in Tony’s narrative and interpretation.  But knowing nothing about Brown or Kansas or Harper’s Ferry, Boyle merely takes his word for it, and then draws the same old hackneyed conclusion he probably made even before he read the book.

As reviews go, Boyle’s review of Midnight Rising is fairly useless, except to point out that those with the worst prejudices against Brown will not be sufficiently challenged by the book either.

And A Child Shall Lead Them--
The Youngest John Brown Lecturer in the World?

Young Philip makes for a striking "Osawatomie" Brown
   

A very proud mother from the State of Nevada was kind enough to write to me, sharing about her son, Philip, who last year--at the age of nine--became probably the youngest researcher, lecturer, and educational impersonator of John Brown in the world.  The young man, who is now ten-years-old, was doubtlessly inspired by John Hendrix's wonderful illustrated book for young people, John Brown: His Fight for Freedom.  I'm also happy to say that Philip also found some inspiration and assistance from this blog.  His work on Brown was part of his participation in a program called "Young Chautauqua," in which children studied a historical personality and then wrote and performed in their own one-person show about their chosen subject.  Using Hendrix and other sources, he not only prepared his presentation, but also memorized John Brown's address to the court when he was sentenced to death.  According to Philip's mom, he performed his John Brown program in a number of places, including all the classes in his school from kindergarten through 8th grade.  "For the rest of the year," she writes, "kids would come up to him and talk to him about what they had just learned about John Brown."

That's excellent, Philip.  By all accounts, you make an excellent John Brown.  Keep up the research, too.  Another generation of John Brown scholars rising!

An Elephant Story:
John Brown, a Complicated Man?

Writing for the entertainment section of The Washington Post today (10/23), journalist Ron Charles has a happy notice of a book party this past weekend in Northwest Washington held in honor of Tony Horwitz's Midnight Rising.  According to Charles, the party was hosted by Tony's brother, Josh Horwitz, President at Living Planet Books, and was attended by friends and family in celebration of Tony's latest accomplishment.  If I'm not mistaken, Tony's parents were also in attendance, which sounds very sweet.

Tony Horwitz
Ron Charles, The Washington Post

Congratulations, Tony.  On the other hand, Charles also reports the following:

"When pressed to characterize Brown as an American hero or an American terrorist, Horwitz refused. 'He was neither,' he said. 'Or both. He was a complicated man.'”

Of course, I take issue with the notion of Brown being "complicated" or "complex," whether it comes from the mouth of Brown's admirers or critics.  To be blunt, I don't find Brown a complicated man at all.  In fact, studying the course of his life, he seems to have been a very consistent if not predictable person.  Nor was there anything complicated about the choices he made or the values and beliefs that drove him.  I don't buy it, as I said, whether as a description offered in his defense or as a way of fence straddling.

I'm afraid the real complication here is somewhat more of a postmodern dilemma: it's a reader-response thing.   It's not John Brown who is complicated, but Tony's reading of him that gets complicated.  Brown is a hero, but he's a terrorist--oh wait, he's not a textbook terrorist, but he's no hero either.  Hero or terrorist?   Neither?   Both?   Neither or both?

This reminds me of the story about the five blind men who were asked to describe an elephant based upon the particular part of the elephant that they had grabbed--trunk, tusk, ear, leg, and tail.  As the story shows, it's impossible to describe an elephant when the process is so complicated.  Yet it would be a big mistake if we then considered the elephant to be a "complicated" beast.

Biographies are not videos or time machines, allowing readers to see the subject as he was and lived.  Biographies are interpretative narratives that reflect the perspective of the author.  Obviously, none of us can recreate John Brown in text.  Mark Twain was right when he concluded that “biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.” While honest biographical portraits based upon sound research should share a basic resemblance with one another, a lot of room is left for interpretation, and this is where the subject can be rendered "complicated," especially if the author's presuppositions require it.


I respectfully differ with Tony on this point.  If John Brown seems "complicated" to him, I'd suggest the problem is in the historical grid he's using--the presuppositions he holds and the manner in which those presuppositions have shaped his handling of the story.  Of course, we all labor with presuppositions, and absolute objectivity is always beyond us.  But I do not believe therefore, as do radical postmoderns, that all interpretations are equally valid.  Some efforts at objectivity are better than others; some biographies are truer to the subject than others, and the best efforts to explain someone biographically do not tend toward complicating the subject.    

There was an abolitionist named John Brown who was born in Torrington, Connecticut on May 9, 1800, and was hanged in Charlestown, Virginia, on December 2, 1859.  In between those dates, his life was full of detail, drama, color, and texture.  His record is both mundane and fascinating, depending on the subject.  Yet there is a reasonably sound, evidentiary basis for saying that we can know a good deal about him, and can draw some historically valid conclusions about the kind of man that John Brown was.  


The question of whether he was a hero or a terrorist is only as complicated as we want it to be.

Review
David Reynolds on Midnight Rising

Notwithstanding the immense value of Robert McGlone's 2009 biography of Brown, no author and biographer has done more for John Brown's cultural and historical reputation in the broader public than David S. Reynolds, whose 2005 biography, John Brown Abolitionist broke through the wall of 20th century anti-Brown ignorance and bigotry, effectively restoring a great deal of light and reason to the popular understanding of Brown in the 21st century.  Reynolds' book signaled a real change for good, despite the snobbish protestation of writers like Sean Wilentz and others who prefer the conventional view of antebellum U.S. history (where white supremacy and chattel slavery are acceptable landscapes for the more meaningful story of white people and their political history).

Since the publication of Reynolds' book, some scholars have raised questions about Brown while suggesting their general appreciation for his noble stance in history.  In one case, it has been suggested that too much has been made of Brown's exceptional stance toward black people, and that his attitude and efforts for black freedom were far more typical among his white abolitionist contemporaries.  This attempt to "right size" Brown is unconvincing, especially in light of the Reynolds thesis, as well as my own previous profile of Brown in "Fire from the Midst of You."   To be sure, there were some notable white egalitarians among the abolitionists, and in some respects these heroic figures formed notable alliances with black abolitionists, a point illustrated in John Stauffer's seriously flawed but appreciable Black Hearts of Men.   However, as Reynolds shows, the sum of Brown's contributions was greater than the parts of the most notable anti-slavery figures in the antebellum era.  Hopefully I will revisit this more extensively at some point, but this is neither the time nor the place for addressing the problematic notion that Brown was hardly singular as a moral steward of abolitionism.

Yet the more positive and holistic view of Brown has been even more pointedly challenged, notably by Tony Horwitz in his new book, Midnight Rising.  Tony writes on the side of history where Brown's contributions and heroism may be appreciated, but not without considerable challenge and revision.  Clearly, Tony is not comfortable with the John Brown portrayed by Reynolds, Carton, me and others being accepted as the emerging 21st century image of the Old Man.  According to his own words, Tony argues for a more "nuanced" view of Brown in his new book.

Midnight Rising: Tony Horwitz
is not comfortable with the emerging
21st century portrait of John Brown

It is interesting, then, that David Reynolds has published a response to Midnight Rising in today's Wall Street Journal (Oct. 22), excerpts of which I publish below.  (The title, "An Angry Prophet," is undoubtedly the work of an editor, obviously intending to grab readers' attention.)  Due to copyright concerns, I have provided a substantial excerpt for the reader, who can use the provided link to read the review in its entirety on the WSJ website.

In his prologue to Midnight Rising, Tony Horwitz laments that, in his son's ninth-grade textbook, John Brown—the militant abolitionist whose attack on Harpers Ferry, Va., in 1859 helped to trigger the Civil War—is only a "speed bump for students racing ahead to Fort Sumter and the Gettysburg Address." When I was in high school, in the mid-1960s, my senior-year history book devoted only a dismissive paragraph to Brown. Back then, he wasn't so much a speed bump as road kill—a stinking skunk on history's highway. Brown was widely viewed as a homicidal maniac with a delusional plan for ending slavery.
In recent decades, Brown's reputation has improved, as historians have learned to value his dedication to eradicating slavery, his progressive attitudes on race and his perception that violence alone could uproot the South's peculiar institution. Mr. Horwitz says that, with Midnight Rising, he wants to enhance Brown's role in history by providing fresh information about him and his followers. He does indeed add some details to the record, but along the way he revives a few old, negative images of Brown that have been challenged in recent books, including Evan Carton's Patriotic Treason and Lou DeCaro's "Fire From the Midst of You." . . .

Brown thus plotted an invasion of the South that involved freeing some slaves and then retreating to the mountains, then moving southward and freeing more slaves and retreating again, and so on. He hoped thereby to destabilize the slave system and create panic among slaveholders. . . . 

. . .When it came to his plan to invade the South, Brown mustered support in the North and then stayed for months on a Maryland farm, training recruits. On the rainy evening of Oct. 16, 1859, he and 21 followers began their foray on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry. Brown seized the arsenal, liberated slaves in the region and took hostage a number of slaveholders, but he stalled too long in the town. After a bloody battle, he and several followers were captured by federal troops. Brown was tried before a Virginia court and hanged on Dec. 2, 1859. Six of his men followed him to the scaffold. 

Why did Brown linger in Harpers Ferry instead of fleeing to the mountains? Mr. Horwitz suggests that he had come to see himself as a new Samson, ready to sacrifice himself as long as the temple of slavery collapsed around him. 

Brown's immediate posthumous reputation was inevitably divided. In the South, he was seen as a satanic agitator who represented the North's aggressive designs. In the North, his insurrection plan seemed quixotic and futile, at first. But prominent Northerners like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau called Brown a peerless martyr who had died in a noble effort to free the slaves. Emerson predicted that Brown would make the gallows "as glorious as the Cross." The North's veneration of Brown swelled until he became a legend among Union troops, who famously sang as they marched: "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, / But his soul goes marching on." 

The idea of Brown as an inspiring freedom fighter has never died out. But during the long period of legalized segregation known as Jim Crow, his reputation plummeted. Biographers depicted him as murderous, fanatical, insane. This image was conveyed by revisionist historians and by movies like "Santa Fe Trail" (1940), in which Raymond Massey plays Brown as a wild-eyed zealot. 

It was left to modern historians to rescue Brown from ignominy. The civil-rights movement fostered a growing appreciation of Brown's forward-thinking views on race. A more positive view informed Stephen Oates's 1970 biography, To Purge This Land With Blood, which showed signs of sympathy while still questioning Brown's methods and sanity. 

Mr. Horwitz worries that, "through the lens of 9/11," we may now see John Brown as a "long-bearded fundamentalist" and Harpers Ferry as an "al-Qaeda prequel." He is right to worry about such reductionism, though 9/11, ironically, does help us to see that Brown's invasion plan was not utterly absurd. The past decade has shown what can happen when a determined splinter group wages war from hideouts—how disruptive it can be to the status quo. Had Brown made it to the mountains before he was captured at Harpers Ferry, he too might have had a powerful effect on events—a positive one (unlike al Qaeda), since he aimed to free four million slaves. 

Reynolds: "Emerson and 
Thoreau were 
closer to the truth."

Mr. Horwitz urges us to view Brown from within his own era. Here, too, there are reasons to see his plan as more plausible than crazy. In places like Jamaica and Haiti, black populations had driven out European colonizers by striking from mountain redoubts. Brown's plan changed over time, which leads Mr. Horwitz to see both vacillation and ineptitude. But Brown's tactical idea remained steady: He wanted to disrupt slavery from the mountains, whose topography he knew well from his days as a surveyor. 

To emphasize what he calls the "manifest implausibility" of Brown's scheme, Mr. Horwitz presents him as a maladroit leader with a fragmented following. Brown had "poor judgment of personnel," Horwitz tell us—as though there was ample opportunity in the 1850s to sort through a field of candidates ready to join a dangerous mission in the South. Mr. Horwitz notes that Brown's Northern supporters and his own soldiers often quarreled with him about battle plans—as though anyone in that decade could envisage a sure military strategy against the South. (Lincoln, for one, said in 1858 that war was not even an option against slavery.) 

In Midnight Rising, Mr. Horwitz corrects a fact here and there, adds some human anecdotes and local history, and records such details as the degree to which the various hanged bodies quivered after the noose had done its work. But much of his book is a gloss of what is already known. 

As for the figure at the center of the story, Mr. Horwitz sees him too often as the grim Old Man of long-ago histories: bold, arrogant, sly, fanatical, murderous, muddle-headed and possibly insane. One has to think that, with their more admiring view, Emerson and Thoreau were closer to the truth.

Isn't that special--
Bad Hair Day Rising?

Bloomberg Businessweek is featuring excerpts from Tony Horwitz's new book, Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War, and today's excerpt begins:

"In 1859, John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, propelled a divided nation toward Civil War. Brown’s wild hair and desperate scheme to free and arm slaves helped foster his enduring image as a crazed fanatic, a zealot on the far fringe of American society.  

But for most of his 59 years, the abolitionist was a clean--shaven entrepreneur--a mercantilist everyman in the rapidly expanding economy of the 19th century."

"Wild Hair" Evokes This Notion of JB, as
seen in this easily googled image

Overall, the excerpt is pretty good.  From what I've seen, for the most part I don't take issue with what Tony has written about Brown's early life.  But this introductory line is the stuff of magazine articles.  It is pure bait, and it shows how skillful word professionals like Tony Horwitz can craft a line that grabs readers' attention.

As far as Brown's mane goes, his hair definitely had body, and both his hair and beard grew quickly.  But unless Tony knows otherwise, I don't think there is any contemporary description of Brown having "wild hair"--unless, of course, one considers his blood-matted hair following the failure of the raid as "wild."  Recall that at least two marines (not one, as the conventional account goes) tried to kill Brown in the Harper's Ferry engine house, an assault that included being bludgeoned on the head with the hilt of a costume sword.  Journalist accounts following the raid note the white-washed brick inside the engine house smeared with blood and strands of the Old Man's hair.  Perhaps too, his hair got a little "wild" during his incarceration in Virginia.  The degree to which he was allowed to look after his own personal hygiene in jail is not clear; Brown was meticulous in his self-grooming by all accounts.  So if he had "wild hair," it was no fault of his own.

But I don't think this is what Tony had in mind.  What he is referring to is an image, a notion, really, that exists largely in the minds of "white America"--"wild hair" being a metaphor for someone who was frenzied, irresponsible, and possibly crazy.  "Wild hair" is Tony's way of pressing the button, hitting the buzzer, of popular culture.  It signals something that he knows they'll understand.  It's a word that functions like the bell that makes Pavlov's dog begin to drool.

Just googling and once again it's "Wild Hair" 

Of course, Tony proceeds to point out that for most of his life, he was anything but a crazy man.  Yet he seems to be signaling that at some point, John Brown went off the road of the rational and became a "wild-haired" kind of guy--the kind of guy who concocts "desperate schemes."

I don't want to make so much of this that the reader won't appreciate whatever is good in Tony's offering.  But I do want to point out the power of signal words and phrases in the way the Old Man is described--how by plugging into longstanding popular images and notions that were themselves manufactured by longstanding prejudice, a skillful writer can pre-justify questionable conclusions that may be drawn later, regardless of their historical viability.  Whatever else Midnight Rising says about John Brown, remember that it begins with John Brown as the man with "wild hair" and "desperate schemes."

Will it be another bad hair day for the Old Man?

In Remembrance--
That Sunday Night, 152 Years Ago

One hundred and fifty-two years ago this evening, John Brown and his men were readying themselves for their fateful march to Harpers Ferry.  Like today, October 16th fell on a Sunday in the year 1859, and so this evening there is that much more resonance in historical memory as we consider the "John Brown raid."  Based on a trusty perpetual calendar, October 16 has fallen on a Sunday sixteen different years since 1859--1870, 1881, 1887, 1898, 1910, 1921, 1927, 1938, 1949, 1955, 1966, 1977, 1983, 1994, 2005, and of course 2011.  The next time the Harper's Ferry raid anniversary will fall on a Sunday will be the year 2022.

Although the presentation of Brown in the U.S. has shifted considerably from the 20th century's predominant tone of malicious prejudice, a good deal of misinformation and stupidity still abounds in the popular mind about Brown and his efforts in Kansas and Virginia.  It is likely that this will continue to some degree because of recalcitrant racism and pro-Southern sentimentality that taints national life to this day.  However, Brown has always had his critics among pacifists and idealists who somehow think that they know better than did those living in 1859 about the possibility of resolving slavery's injustice without the use of "violence."   For our part, we see the Harper's Ferry raid as the great moment of our nation's history--when an "army" of young, devoted, and justice-minded men, white and black, endeavored to launch a freedom movement.  Contrary to what is now being published abroad, the failure of the raid in no wise disqualifies the plan or the motivation behind it in historical terms.  It was a glorious effort, a reasonable strategy, and a sane and noble effort to overthrow slavery throughout the South without instigating widespread insurrection.  That Sunday night, 152 years ago was the mark of a special presence in our nation's history, but one that has been overlooked, disdained, and misinterpreted by a society that is largely mis-  or uneducated about the realities of racist chattel slavery in this country.

Harpers Ferry Two Years After the Raid
(Harpers Weekly, 4 May 1861)

I have not had the opportunity to read the published version of Tony Horwitz's new book, although I have previously offered a response to the pre-publication manuscript.  In that penultimate version, I took issue with a number of things, especially Tony's tendency to disdain Brown's efforts and rationale, concluding that he essentially threw the raid in order to attain his goal of becoming a martyr.  I think this is highly problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which it is unfair to the fullest extent of the record, and essentially means that John Brown himself was either lying or deluded in his retrospective remarks about the raid.  And frankly, I believe Brown more than I do Horwitz.  While I doubt that the final version of his book will differ considerably from the pre-publication draft, I should not comment further until I've given the published book a fair reading--and right now, if my readers haven't already noticed it, since my teaching responsibilities resumed, it's been hard enough for me to keep up with this blog let alone catch up with the pile of "to read" material on my desk.  I have seen one review of Tony's book that was pleasantly neutral, if not favorable, toward Brown despite my serious reservations about Tony's conclusions.   Nevertheless, Tony's book doubtless will add some vigor and rigor to forthcoming discussions and debates, although I suspect it will find its biggest impact in the wider reading market that has not heretofore paid attention to the John Brown theme, but will do so because of their interest in Tony's noteworthy efforts in popularizing forgotten history.  His book will prove considerably less weighty in John Brown circles, although it should not be dismissed either, since he has worked hard in his research and written an interesting book in many respects.  Still, it is already manifest that Tony's portrayal of Brown is not going to satisfy many of us, particularly those of us who comprise what Larry Lawrence calls "the John Brown community."

But this is the stuff of what we do.  Indeed, it is all that we can do, 152 years later--reflecting, analyzing, speculating, writing, debating, talking, and dreaming of one of the most moving, exciting, and powerful stories in the history of the United States and the larger story of the struggle for justice.
So, dear readers, "get on your arms; we will proceed to the Ferry"--if only in memory and imagination.

Keep marching on, Old Man.  Like that Sunday in 1859, today may have been the Lord's Day, but tonight is yours once more.