John Brown's RaidUnited States. National Park Service
History
John Brown's Raid
United States. National Park Service
Brown, John, 1800-1859; Harpers Ferry (W. Va.) -- History -- John Brown's Raid, 1859
About the time Stevens and Watson Brown were shot, raider William Leeman
attempted to escape. Dashing through the upper end of the armory yard,
he plunged into the frigid Potomac, comparatively shallow at this point,
and made for the Maryland shore. Soon spotted, a shower of bullets hit
the water around him and he was forced to take refuge on an islet in the
river. G. A. Schoppert, a Harpers Ferry resident, waded out to where
Leeman lay marooned, pointed a pistol at his head, and pulled the
trigger. For the rest of the day Leeman’s body was a target for the
undisciplined militia and townspeople.
[Illustration: Oliver Brown, William Thompson, and Dangerfield Newby
were forced to abandon their post at the Maryland end of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge when they were attacked by the
Jefferson Guards. Brown and Thompson reached the armory grounds
safely, but Newby (below) was shot and killed as he came off the
bridge.]
[Illustration: Dangerfield Newby]
When a raider shot and killed George W. Turner about 2 p.m., the crowd
grew ugly. Turner, a West Point graduate, was a prominent and highly
respected area planter. When Fontaine Beckham, the mayor of Harpers
Ferry and agent for the B & O Railroad, was killed, the townspeople
turned into a howling, raging mob.
Beckham, a well-liked man of somewhat high-strung temperament, had been
greatly disturbed by the earlier shooting of Hayward Shepherd, his
friend and faithful helper at the depot. Despite warnings from friends
to keep away, Beckham, unarmed, walked out on the railroad to see what
was going on. He paced up and down the B & O trestle bordering the
armory yard about 30 yards from the enginehouse. Several raiders spotted
him peering around the water tower in front of their stronghold and
thought that he was placing himself in position to fire through the
doors. Edwin Coppoc, posted at the doorway of the enginehouse, leveled
his rifle at the mayor.
“Don’t fire, man, for God’s sake!” screamed one of the hostages.
“They’ll shoot in here and kill us all.”
Coppoc ignored the warning and pulled the trigger. Beckham fell, a
bullet through his heart. Oliver Brown, standing beside Coppoc in the
partly opened doorway, aimed his rifle at another man on the trestle,
but before he could fire he keeled over with “a mortal wound that gave
horrible pain.” Both of Brown’s sons now lay dying at their father’s
feet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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