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.