What’s the story?
“In firing his gun, [John Brown] has merely told us what time of day it is. It is high noon, thank God!” William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist, following John Brown’s execution.Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers loomed the massive complex of Harpers Ferry Armory. The then-largest federal armory manufactured and housed over 100,000 of America’s newest weapons, and on October 16, 1859, white abolitionist John Brown and 21 men seized it with the intent to liberate and arm the slave population of Virginia to create a new, revolutionary state.
Leading up to the raid, John Brown had earned a reputation for fighting with increased militancy against the institution of slavery. While Brown and his men succeeded in infiltrating Harpers Ferry and kidnapping prominent Virginian slaveowners (like George Washington’s great-grandnephew), most were ultimately killed or captured to be tried in federal court.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper deployed two artists to John Brown’s trial in Charles Town, one of whom – likely Albert Berghaus – produced this gestural sketch. As photos had yet to appear in mass print, illustrations proved an effective tool for recordkeeping and greatly appealed to readers. The Rosenbach’s substantial Civil War collections contain several sketches from this trial, the first of its kind to be reported nationally thanks to the telegraph.
Most mainstream papers like Leslie’s simply repeated anti-abolitionist rhetoric, deriding John Brown’s actions as pointless. Yet, nearly eighteen months to the day after his capture (and planned only days after his execution), delegates in Richmond voted to secede from the Union, and Confederates overtook Harpers Ferry. The abolitionist movement – and slave rebellions – grew with previously unseen urgency. Within two years, President Abraham Lincoln would be forced to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. The Union’s victory was in no small part thanks to the arming of free slaves.
While John Brown did not live to see the end of chattel slavery, he knew his cause would be vindicated. His legacy lives on as proof that justice necessitates radical action and a belief in the implausible.
This text was written by Shoshana Bockol, Visitor Experience Coordinator, as part of Rosenbach Museum & Library’s spring 2026 course “The Curator’s Toolkit.”
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theme: Unfinished Revolutionssubjects: Abolitionists; Newspaper court reporting; Courtroom art; Civil War, 1861-1865; John Brown’s Raid, 1859
contributing repository: Rosenbach Museum & Library
submitted by: Shoshana Bockol
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