Through the gloom of the night, Sunday, October 16, 1859, a small band of men tramped silently behind a horse-drawn wagon down a winding Maryland road leading to Harpers Ferry, Va. From the shoulder of each man hung loosely a Sharps rifle, hidden by long gray shawls that protected the ghostly figures against the chilling air of approaching winter. A slight drizzle of rain veiled the towering Blue Ridge Mountains with an eerie mist. Not a sound broke the stillness, save the tramping feet and the creaking wagon.

Side by side marched lawyer and farmer, escaped convict and pious Quaker, Spiritualist and ex-slave, joined in common cause by a hatred of slavery. Some had received their baptism of fire in “Bleeding Kansas,” where a bitter 5-year war between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions left death and destruction in its wake and foreshadowed a larger conflict to come. Most were students of guerrilla tactics; all were willing to die to free the slaves.

This strange little force, five Negroes and 14 whites, was the “Provisional Army of the United States,” about to launch a fantastic scheme to rid the country of its “peculiar institution” once and for all, a scheme conjured up by the fierce-eyed, bearded man seated on the wagon—“Commander in Chief” John Brown. He was the planner, the organizer, the driving force, the reason why these men were trudging down this rough Maryland road to an uncertain fate.