Best 1859 newspaper with a first report of radical abolitionist JOHN BROWN 's RAID on HARPER'S FERRY (West) VIRGINIA  - inv # 9V-418

This issue also contains a prominent 15" x 10" map of TEXAS and Mexico (as well as New Mexico, Arizona, Southern California, Louisiana, & Alabama) with coverage of the French intervention in Mexico in the 1850's. 

John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was a prominent leader in the American abolitionist movement in the decades preceding the Civil War. First reaching national prominence in the 1850s for his radical abolitionism and fighting in Bleeding Kansas, Brown was captured, tried, and executed by the Commonwealth of Virginia for a raid and incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry in 1859.

n October 1859, Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (which became West Virginia), intending to start a slave liberation movement that would spread south; he had prepared a Provisional Constitution for the revised, slavery-free United States that he hoped to bring about. He seized the armory, but seven people were killed and ten or more were injured. Brown intended to arm slaves with weapons from the armory, but only a few slaves joined his revolt. Those of Brown's men who had not fled were killed or captured by local militia and U.S. Marines, the latter led by Robert E. Lee. 

Brown was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men, and inciting a slave insurrection. Virginia v. John Brown was a criminal trial held in Charles Town, Virginia, in October 1859. The abolitionist John Brown was quickly prosecuted for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, murder, and inciting a slave insurrection, all part of his raid on the United States federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. (Since 1863, both Charles Town and Harpers Ferry are in West Virginia.) He was found guilty of all charges, sentenced to death, and was executed by hanging on December 2. He was the first person executed for treason in the United States. 

The Harpers Ferry raid and Brown's trial, both covered extensively in national newspapers, escalated tensions that in the next year led to the South's long-threatened secession and the American Civil War. Southerners feared that others would soon follow in Brown's footsteps, encouraging and arming slave rebellions. He was a hero and icon in the North. Union soldiers marched to the new song "John Brown's Body" that portrayed him as a heroic martyr. Brown has been variously described as a heroic martyr and visionary, and as a madman and terrorist.

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