John Brown: Martyr or Madman?

In many respects, you could call John Brown's aborted 1859 raid at Harper's Ferry, an event which helped catapult both North and South toward a bloody Civil War, the 9/11 of its time.

"Nothing like that had ever happened before in America," Pulitzer prize-winning author Tony Horwitz says. "Brown wanted to shock this nation with the sin of slavery and bring on this great war."

Horowitz appeared tonight at the Politics and Prose bookstore to read from and discuss his latest book Midnight Rising: The Story of John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War.

Horwitz says that Brown could be compared to the monomaniacal Captain Ahab in Herman Melville's classic American novel single-focus obsession Moby Dick.

"It's impossible not to be whip-sawed by this guy," Horwitz said. "He was a remarkable man for his era who believed he had a moral imperative to end slavery.  But he was also a terrorist who okayed horrific violence."

"Brown's story is a classic study of (the question) does the end ever justify the means?" he added. 

Tales, Tidbits, and Traveling Tips:
This is not Horwitz's first look at Civil War topics. His most noted work is Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War , which explores the world of hardcore southern Civil War reenactors.