John Brown, with allies including five black men, led an armed abolitionist raid on the Harpers Ferry arsenal in Virginia. Two days later the US Army, led by Colonel Robert E. Lee, stormed Harpers Ferry and captured Brown.
Joseph Hooker (1814–1879) was a Union general and commander of the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War. Hooker was appointed a brigadier general after the First Battle of Bull Run and took part in the major eastern campaigns of 1862. After the Union defeat at Fredericksburg, Lincoln appointed Hooker commander of the Army of the Potomac to replace General Ambrose Burnside. Hooker successfully reorganized the army, but he was an ineffectual commander. He was badly defeated by Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of...
William T. Sherman (1820–1891) was an important strategist and Union general during the American Civil War. Sherman graduated from West Point in 1840. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not see military action in the Mexican-American War. In 1859 he served as the superintendent of the Louisiana Military Seminary. Sherman left Louisiana when the state seceded from the Union in 1861 and was commissioned as a colonel in the Army. After initial faltering, Sherman rose through the ranks as he served under Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman led...
This online exhibition of letters and audio, created by the Gilder Lehrman Institute and the Legacy Project, features correspondence from over 200 years of American conflicts, ranging from the Revolution to the war in Iraq. This exhibition uses the words of famous generals and lesser-known troops, as well as parents, sweethearts, and children, to explore such themes as leaving home, life in the military, the pride and worries of those left behind, and ultimate sacrifice.
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On October 16, 1859, John Brown and a band of followers, black and white, attacked the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The raid was part of a larger plan to destroy the slave system by freeing and arming slaves. The raiders were captured and John Brown was executed on December 2, 1859. The unique documents discussed here examine John Brown’s beliefs and actions in the context of growing national divisions over slavery in the 1850s.
