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John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War
Henry Holt and Company
November 2011
On Sale: October 25, 2011
384 pages
ISBN: 080509153X
EAN: 9780805091533
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction History
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.
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