Remembering John Brown's raid

Today marks one of the hinges of American history, one that occurred in what is now West Virginia.

On the evening of Oct. 16, 1859, 160 years ago, abolitionist John Brown and 18 armed followers, black and white, left their hideout at a farm in Maryland to raid the U.S. armory at Harpers Ferry. Three were left behind as a rear guard.

Brown believed the raid would spark a slave rebellion that would eventually spread throughout the South.

He was a textbook case of what 19th Century psychology would call monomania, meaning the extreme preoccupation of a person with one overriding idea.

Think Captain Ahab, in Melville’s “Moby-Dick,” who was obsessed with the desire to avenge himself on the White Whale. Brown’s White Whale was slavery.

Born in 1800 to an anti-slavery family, he crisscrossed the country on various business ventures, all of which failed. He married twice and fathered 20 children, several of whom would be sacrificed for his cause.

His determination to fight slavery to the death crystalized in 1837 with the murder by a mob in Illinois of Elijah Lovejoy, who published an anti-slavery paper.

At a meeting discussing Lovejoy’s murder at a church in Hudson, Ohio, Brown stood up and declared, “Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!”

When the controversy over slavery’s future in the Western territories grew violent, Brown and his allies, including his sons, joined the fight. His methods could be excessive. One night, in May 1856, Brown and his crew raided the homes of five men associated with the local pro-slavery movement and hacked them to death with swords.

This was just one episode in the violence that gave the place the name of “Bleeding Kansas,” with much of the bleeding done by antislavery settlers.

Brown believed that the mountains of what is now our Eastern Panhandle would be the perfect place to strike a fatal blow against slavery.

He said that, “These mountains are the basis of my plan ... God has given the strength of the hills to freedom; they were placed here for emancipation of the negro race; they are full of natural forts, where one man for defense will be equal to one hundred for attack; they are full also of good hiding-places, where large numbers of brave men could be concealed, baffle and elude pursuit for a long time.”

However, when it came time for the actual attack on Harpers Ferry, everything that could have gone wrong for Brown and his party did. Ten of his men died in the raid, along with six others, including Hayward Shepherd, an African-American baggage handler for the railroad. Most of Brown’s party not killed in the raid were captured by soldiers led by future Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. “Jeb” Stuart. They were later hanged.

Included in the raiding party were three free African-Americans: Anthony Copeland, Lewis Leary and Osborn Perry Anderson. Anderson was the only one to survive the ordeal. He would later join the Union Army during the Civil War. Dangerfield Newby was a former slave, while Shields Green had escaped slavery in South Carolina.

Newby’s case was particularly tragic. His wife, Harriet, and children were still enslaved and in danger of being sold south. In a letter that year, she wrote, “I want you to buy me as soon as possible, for if you do not get me some body else will.”

Newby joined Brown’s group after attempts to buy his family’s freedom failed. He was shot. His body was mutilated by locals. His family was sold shortly thereafter.

Green, nicknamed “Emperor,” met Brown in the company of Frederick Douglass. While Douglass declined to join the venture, Green said, “I believe I’ll go with the old man.”

Douglass would later say that Green “was not one to shrink from hardships or dangers. He was a man of few words, and his speech was singularly broken; but his courage and self-respect made him quite a dignified character.”

Green was captured and convicted but didn’t say a word during his trial. On the day of Brown’s hanging, Green sent word to Brown that he didn’t regret his fate and was glad to have fought with him. Green himself was hanged shortly after.

Brown told the court that, if he had done the same things to help the wealthy and powerful, he would have been called a hero. Because he chose to act on behalf of the “despised poor,” he faced death. He said, “if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!”

The most fascinating thing to me about Brown is that he failed at everything but succeeded in his main goal of pushing the controversy over slavery to the point of no return, like the soldier in the Bob Dylan song who “won the war after losing every battle.”

Over the years, Brown has been called a martyr, a madman, a terrorist and more. I think of him as some kind of meteor forged by God or fate or chance, a monkey wrench destined to sabotage the machinery of slavery.

On this day, as the great African-American poet Langston Hughes wrote, “Perhaps you will remember John Brown.”

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

A poem for Memorial Day

Walt Whitman, one of America's greatest poets, volunteered as a nurse to soldiers during the Civil War. One of my favorite poems of his is titled The Wound-Dresser. It's about someone who once wanted to charge into battle but eventually devoted himself to helping the wounded and dying and remembering the dead. It's a good reminder of the cost of war to those who do the actual fighting.

Here it is:

1 

An old man bending I come among new faces, 
Years looking backward resuming in answer to children, 
Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me, 
(Arous'd and angry, I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,
But soon my fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd and I resign'd myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;) 
Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances, 
Of unsurpass'd heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;) 
Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth, 
Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us? 
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics, 
Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains? 

2 

O maidens and young men I love and that love me, 
What you ask of my days those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls, 
Soldier alert I arrive after a long march cover'd with sweat and dust, 
In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the 
rush of successful charge, 
Enter the captur'd works--yet lo, like a swift-running river they fade, 
Pass and are gone they fade--I dwell not on soldiers' perils or 
soldiers' joys, 
(Both I remember well--many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content.) 

But in silence, in dreams' projections, 
While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on, 
So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand, 
With hinged knees returning I enter the doors, (while for you up there, 
Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart.) 

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, 
Straight and swift to my wounded I go, 
Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in, 
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground, 
Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital, 
To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return, 
To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss, 
An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail, 
Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill'd again. 

I onward go, I stop, 
With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds, 
I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable, 
One turns to me his appealing eyes--poor boy! I never knew you, 
Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that 
would save you. 

3 

On, on I go, (open doors of time! open hospital doors!) 
The crush'd head I dress, (poor crazed hand tear not the bandage away,) 
The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through and through examine, 
Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life 
struggles hard, 
(Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death! 
In mercy come quickly.) 

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand, 
I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood, 
Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv'd neck and side falling head, 
His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the 
bloody stump, 
And has not yet look'd on it. 

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep, 
But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking, 
And the yellow-blue countenance see. 

I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound, 
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, 
so offensive, 
While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail. 

I am faithful, I do not give out, 
The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen, 
These and more I dress with impassive hand, (yet deep in my breast 
a fire, a burning flame.) 

4 

Thus in silence in dreams' projections, 
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals, 
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand, 
I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young, 
Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad, 
(Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested, 
Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.) 

A birthday to remember

I have long been fascinated by the life and death of John Brown, who was like a monkey wrench thrown by God into the machinery of a sinful slave-holding society. He was a man who lost every battle and major effort of his life yet succeeded after his death in his greatest objective.

I've blogged about Brown here over and over through the years, usually around the time of his raid (October) or his hanging (December).

How's this for historical irony: his trial and execution took part in a part of the state of Virginia that would soon become West Virginia, in large part as a result of a chain of events Brown started.

Thanks to the wonders of Twitter, I realized that he was born on this date 217 years ago.

So once again, here's an excerpt from his last speech, given while on trial for his life:

Had I interfered in the manner which I admit...in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, — either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, — and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.

This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all thing whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me further, to “remember them that are in bonds as bound with them.” I endeavored to act upon that instruction. I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done — as I have always freely admitted I have done — in behalf of his despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, — I submit; so let it be done!

Before the lights go out

A big storm is about to hit Goat Rope Farm, which could mean nothing or days without power and phone. So here's one while the lights are still on, an interview with historian Eric Foner, who has written extensively on the Civil War, slavery and Reconstruction. Incidentally, he'll be coming to WV for a lecture in October.

Memorial Day

I have discovered over the years that my appetite for reading and learning about the Civil War era is pretty much boundless.There's always another angle to explore. I write that shortly after finally finishing Eric Foner's The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.

Appropriate for today is the belated acknowledgment of the Civil War era African-American roots of this holiday. For more, check here and here. Here's to putting more memory into Memorial Day.

Annals of absurdity

This quote from former South Carolina senator Jim DeMint caught my eye:

"...no liberal is going to win a debate that big government freed the slaves."

Sorry, Jim, but I don't think we can chalk that advance up to the market, since markets in states like yours sold human beings. As for how all that ended, I seem to recall something the unfortunate Confederate general George Pickett said in another context: "The Union Army had something to do with it." Which was a public institution. Kind of a big one.

COAL MINERS AND CODE. I'm not sure how much Michael Bloomberg knows about coal or coal miners, but he might have been right about the whole coding thing.

SUFFERING AND SUCH. I'm not always on the same page as David Brooks, but he gets a pass with this one.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Channeling Shelby

The droop.

I think I'm going to be out of control for the next few weeks. I just started listening to an unabridged recording of Shelby Foote's epic Civil War trilogy. If only it was read by the man himself, I'd be in paradise.

People who have known me for a while know that I have worshiped and have been known to attempt to channel Shelby ever since I saw Ken Burns' series on the Civil War. At any moment, I can go off on vast tangents of attempting to impersonate Shelby by relating the adventures of the fictitious Mississippi 7th during that historic conflict. Sometimes, this experience seems to be involuntary.

In my version, the men of the 7th commenced their involvement in the war with a heroic if ill advised cavalry charge on Fort Sumter, which lay more than a mile across the water of Charleston Harbor from Confederate batteries that fired on it. It was a moment of unparalleled gallantry, as Shelby might say. It goes downhill from there, but I'll try to stop now. While I can.

At times, I've even picked up various volumes by Shelby in public places and read aloud sentences chosen at random. He has the most amazing turn of a phrase, which can only be improved by hearing it in the voice of the author. One such gem that appears in the first volume refers to "the phallic droop of the Florida peninsula."

How come I can never come up with a phrase like that?

SUPPLY SIDE SNAKE OIL refuted here, for the millionth time.

SHARED SACRIFICE? Don't count on it.

MORE ON THAT here. Looks like a cave in is in progress.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Slouching towards Ragnarok

Recent political events have made me think of Naomi Klein's 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. In it, she argues that economic elites and their political allies have a pattern of taking advantage of natural or human-made disasters to push through an extreme agenda that would never fly in normal times.

We're seeing that unroll right before our eyes as extremists in Congress are taking advantage of deficit hysteria to push through a radical budget bill developed by Congressman Paul Ryan. Short version: it would gut Medicaid, dismantle Medicare and dramatically spending on programs that benefit ordinary Americans--while extending tax cuts for the wealthy.

Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in a webinar yesterday (I'm paraphrasing but it was pretty close to this) that when you look at the details, the Ryan plan is more about redistributing wealth upwards than reducing the deficit.

If this goes through, it would basically be closing time for the middle class.

However, there is something you can do. The Coalition on Human Needs is urging people to call their representatives toll free at:

1-888-245-0215

and deliver a message something like this:

I am a constituent and I strongly urge you to vote NO on the House Budget Committee's Budget Resolution. It would slash Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, education... in fact, all the investments that help Americans to be economically secure. It denies vital help for low-income and middle class people while giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts to millionaires and big corporations. Please reject these extreme proposals - they would weaken federal protections in a recession and stall economic growth for us all.

The House is likely to vote on the measure this week so now is the time.

OBAMA'S PLAN. Here are reactions to the president's deficit reduction proposals from Dean Baker with the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

WEST VIRGINIA AND THE CIVIL WAR. Here's an item about our progressive past from the Washington Post.

ON THE OTHER HAND, here's an item from the New York Times about our not-so-progressive present.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

So do all who live to see such times

I mentioned a while back that a "friend" who shall remain nameless, except to say that his first name is Jeff and the initial of his last name is A. and that he is an ordained Methodist minister, pulled a fast one on me. Knowing that I was a recovering Tolkien addict, he loaned me two books about the writer.

I'm sure he knew full well that once I imbibed a little, I'd have to drink the whole thing. Here I am, over 1400 pages later, not counting the books he loaned me. Thanks, pal!

I have often said that The Lord of the Rings struck me as a work of social realism (once you take out the victory). This time around, I made notes on passages that struck me as relevant to working for social justice. Here's the first. Early in the Fellowship of the Ring, the wizard Gandalf lays some heavy news on the hobbit Frodo about the dark times coming and hard work ahead.

Gandalf says, "Always after a defeat and respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again."

Roger that! That kind of sums up the US since 1980.

Frodo speaks my mind, saying "I wish it need not have happened in my time."

Ditto! I don't know how many times I felt that way.

Gandalf replies, "So do I...and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

Yep. But that doesn't make it any easier.

Where's the escapism?

LOSING OUR WAY. Here's Bob Herbert's last column for the NY Times about the dark times we are living through.

AN EXAMPLE OF WHICH is the fact that congressional Republicans are gunning for Social Security and Medicare.

IT'S GETTING TO BE THAT TIME. As we approach the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, here's a Washington Post item on myths about the causes of southern secession. Short version: slavery might have had something to do with it.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Anniversaries

El Cabrero was fated to be a Civil War geek by a combination of geography and genetics. My beloved home state of West Virginia was born out of it and parts of that state were passed back and forth like a football during the conflict.

Fault lines from the conflict ran through my family, my mother being a staunch Unionist who had no use for the Lost Cause, quite unlike those on my father's side of the family. According to family tradition, I had relatives on both sides, the most prominent being a minor Confederate hero who made it into the pages of a history of Tazewell County, Virginia.

I'll take the North for the politics and the South for the personalities.

As the 150th anniversary of the war approaches, we're going to be hearing a lot about anniversaries of various events. One is coming up this week, Nov. 6 being the anniversary of the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln. That may give a sense of perspective about the coming election on Tuesday. Yeah, this cycle may be divisive but compared to the one 150 years ago, it's pretty tame.

ON THAT NOTE, here's an op-ed on the subject by the author of the fun book Confederates in the Attic.

MORALIZING about the economy could prolong the slump.

SANITY ON THE MALL. Here's a look at this weekend's Washington rally for sanity and/or fear.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN on love.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Weekend poetry fix: The Wound-Dresser

Walt Whitman, courtesy of wikipedia.

An ongoing theme at Goat Rope lately has been the costs of war on those who fight it. This is one of my favorite of Whitman's Civil War poems. I've taken the liberty of italicizing my favorite part.

1

An old man bending I come among new faces,
Years looking backward resuming in answer to children,
Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me,
(Arous'd and angry, I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,
But soon my fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd and I resign'd myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;)
Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances,
Of unsurpass'd heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;)
Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth,
Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us?
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?

2

O maidens and young men I love and that love me,
What you ask of my days those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls,
Soldier alert I arrive after a long march cover'd with sweat and dust,
In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the
rush of successful charge,
Enter the captur'd works--yet lo, like a swift-running river they fade,
Pass and are gone they fade--I dwell not on soldiers' perils or
soldiers' joys,
(Both I remember well--many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content.)

But in silence, in dreams' projections,
While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on,
So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand,
With hinged knees returning I enter the doors, (while for you up there,
Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart.)

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,
Straight and swift to my wounded I go,
Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground,
Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital,
To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return,
To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss,
An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail,
Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill'd again.

I onward go, I stop,
With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds,
I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable,
One turns to me his appealing eyes--poor boy! I never knew you,
Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that
would save you.

3

On, on I go, (open doors of time! open hospital doors!)
The crush'd head I dress, (poor crazed hand tear not the bandage away,)
The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through and through examine,
Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life
struggles hard,
(Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!
In mercy come quickly.)

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,
I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood,
Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv'd neck and side falling head,
His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the
bloody stump,
And has not yet look'd on it.

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep,
But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking,
And the yellow-blue countenance see.

I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound,
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening,
so offensive,
While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail.

I am faithful, I do not give out,
The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,
These and more I dress with impassive hand, (yet deep in my breast
a fire, a burning flame.)

4

Thus in silence in dreams' projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals,
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young,
Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad,
(Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested,
Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.)

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED