On October 16, 1859, John Brown and his band of eighteen raiders
descended on Harpers Ferry. In an ill-fated attempt to incite a slave
insurrection, they seized the federal arsenal, took hostages, and
retreated to a fire engine house where they barricaded themselves
until a contingent of US Marines battered their way in on October 18.
The raiders were
routed, and several were captured. Soon after, they were tried,
convicted, and hanged. Among Brown’s fighters were five African
American men—John Copeland, Shields Green, Dangerfield Newby, Lewis
Leary, and Osborne Perry Anderson—whose lives and deaths have long
been overshadowed by their martyred leader and who, even today, are
little remembered. Only Anderson survived, later publishing the lone
insider account of the event that, most historians agree, was a
catalyst to the catastrophic American Civil War that followed.
Five for Freedom
is the story of these five brave men, the circumstances in which they
were born and raised, how they came together at this fateful time and
place, and the legacies they left behind. It is an American story
that continues to resonate.