
Brown was swiftly tried and executed but not before he sent
shock waves throughout the increasingly polarized country. The bearded, fifty-nine-year-old firebrand
was praised by some in the North and widely reviled in the South. Before he died, he wrote these prophetic
words: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land
can never be purged away but with blood.”
Brown and the Harper’s Ferry raid probably hastened the war that would
begin in April 1861.
As a historian who at once specialized in the Civil War era,
I have been fascinated by the life of John Brown. I’ve visited his one-time home and burial
site at Lake Placid, New York. I’ve been
to Harper’s Ferry countless times, studying the various buildings, including
the engine house, where he was cornered.
And I’ve been to site of his hanging at Charles Town, which is the seat
of Jefferson County.
More than thirty years ago I purchased some strands of rope
which purportedly was part of the noose that hanged Brown. It has what might be considered a statement
of authenticity. I don’t know whether A.
L. Schmit’s assertion here is definitive, but I am riveted by the artifact and
it resides on my library bookshelf in front of a row of books on antebellum
America.
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