John Brown and His American Reformers

Hero, martyr, madman, murderer… All these words describe John Brown. An anti-slavery zealot distinguished by his fearlessness, he conceived a plan to seize the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Kansas, free the blacks in the region, and retreat to a stronghold in the mountains. It was brilliant in its audacity, and doomed from the start. Some historians believe his execution set off a chain of events that led to the Civil War.