Plauseability Check: John Brown's Raid

Japhy

Banned
Is there any way that the 1859 raid on the Harpers Ferry Arsenal could have gone differently? Or was Brown's attempt at mass insurrection doomed to a quick and bloody failure? Just wondering what everyones take is.
 
I would have to go with "doomed to a quick and bloody failure." Brown is never going to have enough followers to succeed, and I think after the earlier "slave rebellions" (which were brutally launched and brutally defeated) that the Federal government will feel obliged to lead the forces putting down the insurrection just to ensure that there is law involved.

One fun line of speculation might be whether a few more "brutal" insurrections causes some of the slaveholding states to develop a more highly trained militia (they seemed to me to be pretty good in OTL as it is) - just in time to have an even bigger qualitative advantage when the ACW breaks out.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Brown's plan would almost certainly never had succeeded in sparking a slave uprising. For one thing, Harper's Ferry is in an area where there were very few slaves, so even if any decided to join him, he still would have had only a small force rather than an army.

Then again, even if the armory had been smack-dab in the middle of South Carolina, I can't this plot unfolding other than how it did IOTL.

But that's not really the point, is it? Like most religious fanatics, John Brown wanted to be remembered as a martyr, and he got his wish. And in so doing, he helped set in motion a chance of events that would eventually destroy slavery.
 
Virtually all slave revolts IOTL had as leaders religious figures. Have Brown in contact with one such leader in a part of the Deep South with a high number of slaves, where slavery is harsher than in most areas. If he assaults a federal arsenal and successfully arms them, you could see a mini Haiti.

The long term success is another matter. Brown would also need someone schooled in guerilla tactics who could lead the rebels to the mountains, or it'd still be over in a matter of a few months at most. The interesting question is if it'd spark a chain reaction. Ideally you'd need a couple other leaders in place to start simultaneous revolts, but of course the more plots, the greater the chance of them being discovered in advance.
 
His plan was doomed after he got trapped in the arsenal. If they'd managed to escape with weapons, he might have a chance.

Emphasis on MIGHT. I would imagine the US military, the state militia, and lots of armed citizens would be chasing after him when he's making his way to his mountain base.

(Did he actually have the base pre-established?)
 
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