“Plotted in secret, launched in the dark, John
Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was a pivotal moment in U.S. history.
But few Americans know the true story of the men and women who launched a
desperate strike at the slaveholding South. Now, Midnight Rising portrays
Brown's uprising in vivid color, revealing a country on the brink of explosive
conflict. Brown, the descendant of New England Puritans, saw slavery as a sin
against America's
founding principles. Unlike most abolitionists, he was willing to take up arms,
and in 1859 he prepared for battle at a hideout in Maryland, joined by his teenage daughter,
three of his sons, and a guerrilla band that included former slaves and a
dashing spy. On October 17, the raiders seized Harpers
Ferry, stunning the nation and prompting a counterattack led by
Robert E. Lee. After Brown's capture, his defiant eloquence galvanized the
North and appalled the South, which considered Brown a terrorist. The raid also
helped elect Abraham Lincoln, who later began to fulfill Brown's dream with the
Emancipation Proclamation, a measure he called "a John Brown raid, on a
gigantic scale." Tony Horwitz's riveting book travels antebellum America to
deliver both a taut historical drama and a telling portrait of a nation
divided—a time that still resonates in ours.”
