Читать книгу American Civil War For Dummies - Keith D. Dickson - Страница 56

Brown selected Harpers Ferry, Virginia — the site of a federal arsenal located at the junction of a key transportation intersection only a few miles from Washington, D.C. — as his target. After he captured the arsenal and its weapons, he planned to use the town as his base of operations to receive the thousands upon thousands of slaves who would escape and join him. He would then arm the slaves as they arrived and create a stronghold. As more slaves arrived, he would expand the area under his control through violent action until he had created a free Black nation. On the night of October 16, Brown and his 18 followers entered Harpers Ferry and had no trouble gaining control of the arsenal and its production facility. Brown was so focused on the first phase of the operation — capturing the arsenal — that he had not thought through exactly how all the slaves in Virginia and the rest of the South would be notified that Brown and his conspirators were waiting at Harpers Ferry to arm them for a race war. Faced with this daunting reality, he did what terrorists usually do: He took hostages, swore he’d never be taken alive, and waited for the inevitable.