A New York Times Notable Book of the YearA Boston Globe Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
Plotted in secret, launched in the dark, few Americans know the true story of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, of the men and women who launched a desperate strike at the slaveholding South. In recounting Brown's uprising, Midnight Rising reveals a country on the brink of explosive conflict.
Brown, the descendant of New England Puritans, saw slavery as a sin against America's founding principles. Unlike most abolitionists, he was willing to take up arms, and in 1859 he prepared for battle at a hideout in Maryland, joined by his teenage daughter, three of his sons, and a guerrilla band that included former slaves and a dashing spy. On October 17, the raiders seized Harpers Ferry, stunning the nation and prompting a counterattack led by Robert E. Lee. After Brown's capture, his defiant eloquence galvanized the North and appalled the South, which considered Brown a terrorist. The raid also helped elect Abraham Lincoln, who later began to fulfill Brown's dream with the Emancipation Proclamation, a measure he called "a John Brown raid, on a gigantic scale."
Tony Horwitz's riveting book travels antebellum America to deliver both a taut historical drama and a telling portrait of a nation divided—a time that still resonates today.
Tony Horwitz is the bestselling author of Midnight Rising, A Voyage Long and Strange, Blue Latitudes, Confederates in the Attic, and Baghdad Without a Map. He is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has worked for The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. He lives in Martha's Vineyard with his wife, Geraldine Brooks, and their two sons.
Prologue
October 16, 1859
"Men, get on your arms," the Captain said. "We will proceed to the Ferry."
It was eight at night, an autumn Sunday, silent and dark in the Maryland hills. A horse-drawn wagon pulled up to the log house and the men loaded it with pikes, tools, torches, and gunpowder. The Captain put on the battered cap he'd worn in Bleeding Kansas. Then he climbed on the wagon and the men marched behind, down a dirt lane, past a snake-rail fence, onto the road to Harpers Ferry.
Tony Horwitz discusses Midnight Rising on NPR's Weekend Edition.
Tony Horwitz on writing Midnight Rising
Tony Horwitz discusses Midnight Rising on AARP Radio.
Tony Horwitz discusses Midnight Rising and John Brown on The Leonard Lopate Show
Tony Horwitz discusses Midnight Rising on NPR's The Takeaway
Bestselling author Tony Horwitz tells the electrifying tale of the daring insurrection that put America on the path to bloody war.
Tony Horwitz Reads From Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War.
Tony Horwitz discusses Midnight Rising on PBS Newshour
Tony Horwitz discusses Midnight Rising and John Brown with The Wall Street Journal.
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