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  • On the night of October 16th 1859 a party of 17 armed men led by the militant abolitionist John Brown crossed the Potomac River over the B&O railroad bridge to seize the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry and its stockpile of 100,000 rifles and muskets. With these weapons, Brown intended to facilitate an armed slave uprising that would begin in Virginia and move South along the Blue Ridge as word of the revolt spread. The raid was initially successful. Brown's men seized the railroad bridge, rounded up the town's watchmen, cut the telegraph wire and seized the arsenal complex (guarded by a single sentry) without incident. It all went downhill from there. <br />
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Brown's entire plan hinged on the assumption that slaves in the surrounding countryside would flock to him after receiving word of the raid. However, no slaves were made aware of the planned attack, and consequently Brown quickly found himself surrounded in the morning not by eager runaway slaves but by angry townspeople and militia. Volleys were exchanged and hostages taken as Brown and his men retreated into the Arsenal's engine house (known today as John Brown's Fort)  barricading themselves inside. <br />
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Meanwhile, An eastbound B&O train stopped by Brown's men earlier that morning was allowed to continue forward, whose conductor quickly wired a telegram reporting the raid to officials in Baltimore. In a matter of hours, Washington was alerted to the attack. President Buchanan dispatched a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee; future commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, to end the siege and capture John Brown. The Marines arrived in Harper's Ferry the next day. Brown refused to surrender himself in exchange for the lives of his remaining men, and the marines stormed the engine house to take Brown prisoner.
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  • Stars shine above a copse of trees as the sun rises beneath a crescent moon on the other side of the horizon. Big Meadows, Shenandoah National Park.
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  • The sun rises over Shenandoah National Park, as seen from Big Meadows along Skyline Drive.
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  • The sun begins to rise over Shenandoah National Park, as seen from Big Meadows along Skyline Drive.
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  • The sun rises over a copse of trees at Big Meadows in Shenandoah National Park.
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  • A crescent moon sets as the sun begins to rise on the horizon  over a copse of trees at Big Meadows in Shenandoah National Park.
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  • The Blue Ridge Mountains are shrouded in fog in the late evening. Shenandoah National Park, as seen from along Skyline Drive.
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  • A crescent moon is seen in the early morning sky at dawn, as seen from Big Meadows along Skyline Drive.
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  • The historic town of Harpers Ferry is illuminated from a full moon above; as seen from the edge of Maryland Heights.<br />
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On the night of October 16th, 1859 a party of 17 armed men led by the militant abolitionist John Brown crossed the Potomac River over the B&O railroad bridge (the piers of which can be seen below at left) to seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry and its stockpile of 100,000 rifles and muskets. With these weapons, Brown intended to facilitate an armed slave uprising that would spread throughout the entire South. <br />
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While his raid failed, the news of John Brown's attempt was an earthquake that reverberated throughout the entire Union and split the fault line between North and South. denounced as a psychotic terrorist by Southerners, Brown was embraced by many Northern abolitionists as a martyr. This outpouring of support for Brown exasperated Southern suspicions of a yankee-abolitionist plot to subjugate the South under Northern control through emancipation; by force if necessary. Southern states, long fearful of slave revolts, revived the militia system to combat all future "John Browns" laying the foundation for what would become the Confederate Army. <br />
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On the morning of his execution, John Brown handed a note to one of his guards that would become prophetic: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood..." 16 months later, Confederate batteries in Charleston would open fire on Fort Sumter, and the bloody purge would begin.
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  • A full moon overhead illuminates the Potomac River and city of Alexandria, VA. As seen from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.
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  • Night over Waterfront Park. Alexandria, VA
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  • At the foot of the George Washington Monument C.1826 at the summit of South Mountain, Maryland. It was here that the Army of the Potomac broke through the rearguard of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia after discovering special order 191, Robert E. Lee's battle plans for the Invasion of the North inside a cigar box near a farm outside of Frederick. The top secret plans described in detail how the already outnumbered confederate army had been divided into 5 corps and spread out. Lee himself quickly learned via confederate spies in Washington that his plans had been discovered, <br />
and immediately cancelled the planned invasion. Lee then ordered his divided army to regroup outside the nearby town of Sharpsburg, where the Confederate army would cross the Potomac River back to the safety Virginia. But Lee wasn't going to abandon everything after coming this far with nothing to show for it. Lee ordered his rebel army to make a stand against the oncoming army of the Potomac on the banks of a nearby creek called Antietam.
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  • At the foot of the George Washington Monument C.1826 at the summit of South Mountain, Maryland. It was here that the Army of the Potomac broke through the rearguard of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia after discovering special order 191, Robert E. Lee's battle plans for the Invasion of the North inside a cigar box near a farm outside of Frederick. The top secret plans described in detail how the already outnumbered army had been divided into 5 corps and spread out. Lee himself quickly learned through spies in Washington that his plans had been discovered, <br />
and immediately cancelled the planned invasion. Lee then ordered his divided army to regroup outside the nearby town of Sharpsburg, where the Confederate army would cross the Potomac River back to the safety Virginia. Unwilling to abandon his army’s first invasion of the North with nothing to show for it, Lee ordered his men to make a stand against the oncoming Army of the Potomac along the banks of Antietam Creek.
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