Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War: by Tony Horwitz

Rating: 4.25/5  

In the span of a few years between 1856 and 1859, the abolitionist John Brown led a raid that left five pro-slavery men dead in Pottawattamie, Kansas, staged a takeover of the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia and ultimately found himself dangling at the end of a rope after a hasty trial and conviction. He remains one of this country’s most divisive figures, and it’s fitting that Brown’s actions were almost immediately co-opted by North and South alike, for far different purposes: some Northern anti-slavery activists would cite Brown as a martyr for liberty, while the South would view him as part of a Northern conspiracy aimed at eliminating the region’s “peculiar institution” by violent means if necessary. In one of the Civil War era’s many twists, a young soldier at Harpers Ferry named John Wilkes Booth would come to admire Brown’s willingness to die for a cause.

Best known for his book Confederates in the Attic – one of the finest and most unique Civil War-related works ever published – Tony Horwitz attempts to create a complete picture of both Brown and his motives in Midnight Rising. For the most part he succeeds; wisely choosing to exclude his own voice from the book, the author sets aside any preconceived notions of Brown and instead offers the reader a serviceable overview of his entire life. In this way, the man who became known as Osawatomie Brown after the 1856 Bleeding Kansas massacre or the Captain to his Harpers Ferry recruits is shown in a far more complex light than he’s traditionally been portrayed. The Brown of Midnight Rising is not either a cold-blooded killer or the righteous messenger of God. If anything, Horwitz’s book suggests that previous interpretations of Brown have been overly simplistic.

Horwitz nicely uses Brown’s own writings to create a full portrait of the man and his seemingly endless contradictions: a man who repeatedly failed in business but could somehow bend followers to his will in orchestrating both attacks; a professed religious man for whom the tenants of the Old Testament carried far more weight than those of the New; an often-eloquent writer whose speeches were often uninspiring yet resonated brilliantly on the printed page; a strategist who could coordinate the bold Harpers Ferry assault but neglect to consider where the plan might fail. Unlike earlier writers, Horwitz presents these components of Brown’s personality without prejudice, allowing readers to weigh all the evidence and form their own opinions of John Brown. When Horwitz does interject his own commentary, it’s well-placed, such as when he examines the key mistakes Brown made both before and during the Harpers Ferry attack or when he describes how these events of 1859 further hardened both Northern and Southern resolve as the country inexorably moved towards war.

Midnight Rising at times can feel like a dry recitation of facts, particularly when Horwitz recounts the many months of planning and recruitment that went into Brown’s plan for Harpers Ferry, and in some ways it also lacks the unique “personality” that characterizes Confederates in the Attic. Apart from these very minor drawbacks, the book is as impartial an account of John Brown as there’s ever been. Lionized in the North in both print and in song and demonized in the South, the “true” John Brown has often been overshadowed by inflamed emotions and writers’ biases. Horwitz’s book should go a long way in resetting the debate over who exactly John Brown was.