October 24: Midnight Rising by Tony Horwitz

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Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War, by Tony Horwitz, will evoke a familiar image among Kansans: the resolute, larger than life abolitionist donning the walls of the State Capitol in Topeka. Brown, in his mid-50s, waged a bloody, renegade war to end slavery that started in the Border Wars in the Kansas territory and ended when Brown was captured and sentenced after his famous raid on Harpers Ferry.

Relying on his self-proclaimed “archive of the feet,” Tony Horwitz walked Brown’s path to Harpers Ferry at the same time—late evening—and on the same date—October 16—as Brown and his men did when they raided Harpers Ferry. Horwitz then relied on written archives such as diaries, letters, coded messages, court documents and newspaper accounts to write about a sharply divided country and the fiery incidents leading up to the Civil War. Noting that most historians struggle with the incidents in Kansas, Horwitz was determined to get it right, so that the story would be interesting to laypeople and academics alike.

With eerie contemporary parallels, Midnight Rising is a gripping narrative, confirming that history repeats itself while pondering the question of whether ways justify means.



Tony Horwitz official website (Link)

Tony Horwitz at the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum on November 10 (Link)