This is a partial list of books I used in my research, an abbreviated guide for those who want to do more reading. Citations for other materials appear in the endnotes, where I have also commented on some of the works below.
Achenbach, Joel.
The Grand Idea: George Washington’s Potomac and the Race to the West.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.
Anderson, Osborne P. “A Voice from Harper’s Ferry.” Boston: printed for the author, 1861.
Avery, Elijah.
The Capture and Execution of John Brown.
Chicago: Hyde Park Bindery, 1906.
Banks, Russell.
Cloudsplitter.
New York: Harper Perennial, 1999.
Barry, Joseph.
The Strange Story of Harper’s Ferry.
Martinsburg, W.Va.: Thompson Brothers, 1903.
Blight, David.
Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory.
Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2001.
Carton, Evan.
Patriotic Treason.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
Clinton, Catherine.
Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom.
New York: Little, Brown, 2004.
Dean, Virgil, ed.
Kansas Territorial Reader.
Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society, 2005.
DeCaro, Louis A.
“Fire from the Midst of You”: A Religious Life of John Brown.
New York: New York University Press, 2002.
———.
John Brown: The Cost of Freedom.
New York: International Publishers, 2007.
Dew, Charles.
Apostles of Disunion.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001.
Douglass, Frederick.
Autobiographies.
New York: Library of America, 1994.
Dubois, W.E.B.
John Brown.
Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1909.
Earle, Jonathan.
John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry.
New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2008.
Egerton, Douglas.
Year of Meteors.
New York: Bloomsbury, 2010.
Etcheson, Nicole.
Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era.
Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2004.
Faust, Drew Gilpin.
James Henry Hammond and the Old South.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press, 1982.
Fellman, Michael.
Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Finkelman, Paul, ed.
His Soul Goes Marching On.
Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995.
Finkelman, Paul, and Peggy Russo, eds.
Terrible Swift Sword.
Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005.
Flournoy, H. W., ed.
Calendar of Virginia State Papers: The John Brown Insurrection.
Richmond, Va., 1893.
Foner, Eric.
The Fiery Trial.
New York: Norton, 2010.
Furnas, J. C.
The Road to Harpers Ferry.
New York: William Sloane, 1959.
Gilpin, R. Blakeslee.
John Brown Still Lives! America’s Long Reckoning with Violence, Equality, and Change.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
Goodheart, Adam.
1861: The Civil War Awakening.
New York: Knopf, 2011.
Hinton, Richard.
John Brown and His Men.
New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1894. Michigan Historical Reprint Series, 2005.
Howe, Daniel Walker.
What Hath God Wrought.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Libby, Jean, with Hannah Geffert and Evelyn Taylor.
John Brown Mysteries.
Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial Histories Publishing, 1999.
Malin, James.
John Brown and the Legend of Fifty-six.
Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1942.
Mayer, Henry.
All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.
McCurry, Stephanie.
Confederate Reckoning.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010.
McFarland, Gerald.
A Scattered People.
New York: Pantheon, 1985.
McFeely, William.
Frederick Douglass.
New York: Norton, 1991.
McGinty, Brian.
John Brown’s Trial.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009.
McGlone, Robert.
John Brown’s War Against Slavery.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
McPherson, James.
Battle Cry of Freedom.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Nevins, Allan.
The Ordeal of the Union.
New York: Scribners, 1947–71.
Noffsinger, James.
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia: Contributions Towards a Physical History.
Philadelphia: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1958.
Nudelman, Franny.
John Brown’s Body: Slavery, Violence, and The Culture of War.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Oakes, James.
The Radical and the Republican.
New York: Norton, 2007.
Oates, Stephen.
To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1984.
Phillips, William.
The Conquest of Kansas.
Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Co., 1856.
Potter, David.
The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861.
New York: Harper & Row, 1976.
Pryor, Elizabeth Brown.
Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters.
New York: Viking, 2007.
Quarles, Benjamin.
Allies for Freedom.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
———, ed.
Blacks on John Brown.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972.
Rasmussen, William, and Robert Tilton.
The Portent: John Brown’s Raid in American Memory.
Richmond: Virginia Historical Society, 2009.
Redpath, James.
Echoes of Harper’s Ferry.
New York: Arno Press, 1969.
———.
The Public Life of Captain John Brown.
Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, 1860.
Renehan, Edward, Jr.
The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown.
New York: Crown, 1995.
Report of the Select Committee of the Senate Appointed to Inquire into the Late Invasion and Seizure of the Public Property at Harper’s Ferry. 36th Cong., 1st Sess. (1860). In BSC; referred to in notes as “Mason Report.”
Reynolds, David.
John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights.
New York: Knopf, 2005.
Rhodehamel, John, and Louise Taper.
“Right or Wrong, God Judge Me”: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth.
Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
Robertson, James, Jr.
Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Rossbach, Jeffery.
Ambivalent Conspirators.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
Ruchames, Louis, ed.
A John Brown Reader
. London: Abelard-Schuman, 1959.
Sanborn, Franklin.
The Life and Letters of John Brown
. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1891.
———.
Recollections of Seventy Years.
Boston: Gorham Press, 1909.
Schwarz, Philip.
Migrants Against Slavery: Virginians and the Nation.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001.
Shepard, Odell, ed.
The Journals of Bronson Alcott.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1938.
Simpson, Craig.
A Good Southerner: The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Smith, Merritt Roe.
Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980.
Stauffer, John.
The Black Hearts of Men
. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Stavis, Barrie.
John Brown: The Sword and the Word.
London: A. S. Barnes, 1970.
Swanson, James.
Manhunt
. New York: Harper Perennial, 2007.
Trodd, Zoe, and John Stauffer, eds.
Meteor of War: The John Brown Story.
Maplecrest, N.Y.: Brandywine, 2004.
Varon, Elizabeth.
Disunion! The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789–1859.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008.
Villard, Oswald Garrison.
John Brown, 1800–1859: A Biography Fifty Years After
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910.
Wineapple, Brenda.
White Heat.
New York: Knopf, 2008.
Wood, Gordon.
Empire of Liberty.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Midnight Rising
is a departure from my previous books, which weaved between past and present. This one stays firmly rooted in the nineteenth century. As a result, I owe a special debt to historians and librarians who eased my passage from ink-stained journalist to pencil-smudged archival rat.
Thanks first to David Blight, the director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. Three years ago he urged me to pursue this project, despite my lack of expertise, and introduced me to Blake Gilpin, a young historian who has inspired me throughout. Blake is about to publish his first book,
John Brown Still Lives!
, a pioneering study of the memory and myth-making of Brown from the 1850s to the present.
Through David and Blake, I entered the wider world of “Browniacs,” a dedicated community of academics, independent scholars, and others who share a passion for the abolitionist’s story. Louis DeCaro, the author of
“Fire from the Midst of You,”
has been very generous in sharing his sources and insights, as he also does at
http://abolitionist-john-brown.blogspot.com/
. Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz has been another invaluable resource, particularly on Annie Brown Adams, my favorite figure in the Harpers Ferry drama. Bonnie’s upcoming book on the Brown women and abolitionism will greatly expand the male-centered universe of Brown scholarship.
The story of the black raiders at Harpers Ferry also remains to be fully told, and Philip Schwarz’s work is a model in this regard. Through painstaking research over many years, he has pieced together the extraordinary life of Dangerfield Newby, who hoped to free his wife and children from slavery. Like Bonnie, Phil has been extraordinarily generous, calmly booting up his computer database to answer my every query.
Jonathan Earle and Karl Gridley were kind enough to guide me through the Kansas mud to Pottawatomie Creek, Black Jack, and Osawatomie. Jonathan also shared his vast knowledge of antebellum politics, the subject of his upcoming book,
The Election of Abraham Lincoln and the Revolution of 1860.
Among the other scholars I consulted, I’d like to thank Richard Blackett, Evan Carton, William Cooper, Caleb McDaniel, Franny Nudelman, John Stauffer, and Brenda Wineapple for their wisdom and companionship. Thanks also to Jean Libby, for a disc of hard-to-find
Baltimore Clipper
stories and for keeping me abreast of all things Brown at
http://www.alliesforfreedom.org/
.
In this era of budget cutting, librarians labor under severe constraints. So I’m especially grateful to those who shared their scarce time and resources to show me the ropes. Gwen Mayer at the Hudson Library and Historical Society in Ohio gave me unfettered access to the library’s vault—as well as the key to its photocopy machine and a very warm welcome to the Western Reserve. Mary Beth McIntire and Craig Moore made things easy for me at the State Library of Virginia, as did William Obrochta and Frances Pollard at the Virginia Historical Society. I’d also like to thank Andrea Jackson and Kayin Shabazz at the Robert Woodruff Library in Atlanta; Kimberly Reynolds at the Boston Public Library; Virgil Dean and the reference librarians at the Kansas State Historical Society; Alyson Barrett-Ryan at the Gilder Lehrman Collection; and the accommodating staff of the Rare Book & Manuscripts Library at Columbia University.
Along with librarians, the unsung heroes of Brown research are the hardworking employees of the National Park Service. There is no better place to learn about Brown and engage with history than at the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia. Park ranger David Fox combines an encyclopedic knowledge of Harpers Ferry with contagious enthusiasm for its story. I’ve visited David many times, and he’s responded
to my countless questions and theories with unfailing thoughtfulness and good humor. The park’s chief historian, Dennis Frye, led me on a night march from the Kennedy farm that was a highlight of my research, and his provocative insights on the Civil War will appear in his upcoming book,
Antietam Addressed.
Thanks also to Michelle Hammer for help in navigating the park’s archives, and to Susan Collins at the nearby Jefferson County Museum in Charles Town, for access to the museum’s underutilized trove of Brown-related documents.
As always, I owe a debt beyond measure to my editor at Macmillan, John Sterling, and to my literary agent, Kristine Dahl. I’ve collaborated with John and Kris for over a decade, and they’re simply the best: upbeat, rigorous, and tremendous fun, even when I’m not. John, with his lean frame, piercing eyes, and monomaniacal devotion to his task, would make an excellent movie Brown, if Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones are unavailable. Thanks also to Jolanta Benal, the world’s finest copy editor, and to Emi Ikkanda for much-needed help tracking down illustrations.
Finally, once again, I’m grateful to friends and family for their counsel, jokes, and tolerance during the years it took me to write this book. Thanks to Dr. Earle Silber for his reflections on Brown’s mental state: to Christina Bevilacqua for her unparalleled knowledge of Melville; to Ron Nemirow and Erin Shay for Scrabble and Scotch; to my parents, Elinor and Norman Horwitz, for reading this book when it was barely readable; to my sons, Nathaniel and Bizu, for memorizing Brown’s courtroom speech and reminding me the world does not revolve around him; and most of all, to my wife, Geraldine, who led me to this subject in the first place, endured its execution, and remains the love of my life.