John Brown & The Nation's Soul

The old United States Armory Firehouse
now called John Brown's Fort
When visiting Harpers Ferry West Virginia, you notice with little effort the portrayal of competing images of the abolitionist John Brown. In 1859, John Brown led a band of men into Harper’s Ferry with the design to take weapons from the United States Armory and distribute them to the slaves he felt would flock to his side. With his newly formed army, he would then sweep through Virginia and free the slaves. His plans almost immediately went awry and, after mortally wounding a free black man, he tried to shelter in the armory’s firehouse. Colonel Robert E. Lee and a detachment of US Marines captured Brown who would eventually hang for his crimes.
The Heyward Shepherd Monument
At the corner of Shenandoah and Potomac Street in downtown Harpers Ferry stands a tall boulder placed near the original location of the armory’s firehouse, now commonly called John Brown’s Fort. Far from presenting John Brown as a hero, it mentions his name only in identifying the men who shot and killed the man now memorialized. The inscription reads:

   ON THE NIGHT OF OCTOBER 16, 1859,
HEYWARD SHEPHERD, AND INDUSTRIOUS
AND RESPECTED COLORED FREEMAN
WAS MORTALLY WOUNDED BY JOHN
BROWN’S RAIDERS. IN PURSUANCE
OF HIS DUTIES AS AN EMPLOYEE OF
THE BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD
COMPANY, HE BECAME THE FIRST
VICTIM OF THIS ATTEMPTED
INSURRECTION.
   THIS BOULDER IS ERECTED BY
THE UNITED DAUGHTERS OF THE
CONFEDERACY AND THE SONS OF
CONFEDERATE VETERANS AS A
MEMORIAL TO HEYWARD SHEPHERD,
EXEMPLIFYING THE CHARACTER AND
FAITHFULNESS OF THOUSANDS OF
NEGROES WHO, UNDER MANY
TEMPTATIONS THROUGHOUT
SUBSEQUENT YEARS OF WAR, SO
CONDUCTED THEMSELVES THAT
NO STAIN WAS LEFT UPON A RECORD
WHICH IS THE PECULIAR HERITAGE
OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, AND AN
EVERLASTING TRIBUTE TO THE BEST
OF BOTH RACES.

Tablet on the side of John Brown's Fort
The reflection is of the monument across the street
marking the Fort's original location.
Just across the street, on one side of John Brown’s Fort, another marker tells the story with a different twist. It’s inscription reads:

THAT THIS NATION MIGHT HAVE
A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
THAT SLAVERY SHOULD BE REMOVED
FOREVER FROM AMERICAN SOIL.
JOHN BROWN
AND HIS 21 MEN GAVE THEIR
LIVES.
TO COMMEMORATE THEIR
HEROISM, THIS TABLET IS
PLACED ON THIS BUILDING
WHICH HAS SINCE BEEN
KNOWN AS
JOHN BROWN’S FORT
BY THE
ALUMNI OF STORER COLLEGE
1918
These markers, placed by the descendants of those who saw our country torn apart, remind us of the sanguinary struggle for the nature of our Nation's soul.

Sincerely,

Randy

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