In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act dictated that where Kansas stood on slavery would be established by popular vote upon its admission to the Union. Violent slavers poured into the territory and formed militias to assault any abolitionist settlers. When the New York based radical John Brown heard about what prominent journalist Horace Greeley termed "Bleeding Kansas", he and his entire family packed up and relocated to help fight for liberty. Brown assembled his own makeshift band of gunslingers (and broadswordsmen) and led an abolitionist resistance to the warriors fighting for slavery. Tho some of his practices are still considered controversial, his valor cannot be understated.

After returning to New York (by way of Boston to meet a healing Charles Sumner), Brown devised a plan to raid a Federal arsenal and use the weapons to arm a slave revolt in Harper's Ferry, Virginia. The plan was very unpopular. White abolitionists objected to use of violence to achieve liberation (Brown himself disliked violence, but saw the raid as a less bloody event than something like a Civil War). Black abolitionists objected on grounds that it was impractical, unsure if slaves would be courageous enough to take as great a risk as an insurrection.

In 1859 Brown's raid did not end happily for anyone. He was only able to assemble nineteen men for the raid (Harriet Tubman wanted to join but couldn't reach Virginia due to illness), mostly from his own family. Those who weren't lost in the gunfight with Robert E Lee or didn't escape were executed. The guns never even reached the slaves.

But Brown's courage was rewarded. Frederick Douglass, a close friend of his, said in a lecture "His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine... John Brown could fight for the slave. I could live for the slave. John Brown could die for the slave." William Lloyd Garrison, who had opposed Brown's raid, made Brown into a martyr after his execution, calling for that day to be a day of mourning in the north. In 1861, the Massachusetts 12th Regiment in the Civil War began to sing a marching song that grew to be one of the most popular in the war. Although there must have been dozens of variations on the lyrics, I perform here, in honor of Confederate Heritage Month, the one collected by William W Patton.