John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry

John Brown was a fervent abolitionist who believed in the freedom of slaves. In 1859 he came up with a plan to seize the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, to free and arm the slaves of the South. Which was a rebellion against slaveholders. On October 16, 1859, Borwn and 18 followers seized the arsenal. But soon later, he was faced with the U.S. Marines, which they had rushed from Washington D.C. to Harpers Ferry. 36 hours later, Brown was captured, he was tried, and sentence to death. He was executed on December 2, 1859, and he wrote a note to one of the jailers, saying that the only way the slavery issue would be solved in America would be through blood shed. Northerns viewed Brown as a "noble cause" and it also helped stregthen abolitionist feeling in the North. Where as the Southerns took the raid as evidence that Northerns were actively planning to murder slaverholders.