John Brown (Du Bois)/Bibliography

by W. E. B. Du Bois

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

For the general reader the following works are indispensable:

Sanborn, Franklin Benjamin. The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas, and Martyr of Virginia. 1885. (The most complete collection of John Brown letters.)

Hinton, Richard Josiah. John Brown and His Men, with some account of the roads they traveled to reach Harper's Ferry. 1894. (Valuable for its treatment of Kansas and its lives of Brown's companions.)

Redpath, James. Public Life of Captain John Brown, with autobiography of his childhood and youth. (The best contemporary account.)

Connelley, William Elsey. John Brown. 1900. (Valuable for Kansas life of Brown.)

To the above may be added the shorter estimate by H. E. von Holst, 1899, and some may like Chamberlain's pert essay (Beacon Biographies, 1889).

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Students must add to these the following books and articles which contain many of the original sources of our knowledge:

Anderson, Osborne P. A Voice from Harper's Ferry. A narrative of events at Harper's Ferry; with incidents prior and subsequent to its capture by John Brown and his men. 1861. (The best account of the raid by a participant.)

Manuscript Diary of John Brown in the Boston Public Library. (2 volumes.) 1838–1844, 1855–1859.

Garrison, Wendell Phillips. The Preludes of Harper's Ferry. In the Andover Review, December, 1890, and January, 1891.

Josephus, Jr. (Joseph Barry). The Brown Raid. In his annals of Harper's Ferry, 1872. (Excellent local account.)

United States Congressional Reports. Report of the select committee of the Senate appointed to inquire into John Brown's invasion and the seizure of the public property at Harper's Ferry. Thirty-sixth Congress, first session. Senate Reports of Committees.

Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society, together with addresses, etc., Volumes I–IX. (Contains many personal narratives.)

Calendar of Virginia State papers, Volume XI, pp. 269–349. (A large amount of the Brown data copied from the papers found in his carpetbag at Harper's Ferry.)

Virginia Senate Journal and Documents for the session of 1859–60: Report of the joint committee of the Senate and House of Delegates, appointed to consider the Harper's Ferry affair by Alexander H. Stuart, the chairman of the committee.

Virginia, Journal of House of Delegates of Virginia, 1859–60, containing messages of the governor, the trial and publication of John Brown's papers.

Featherstonhaugh, Thomas. Bibliography of John Brown, Part I. Publications of the Southern History Association, Volume I, pp. 196–202.

—————John Brown's Men; the lives of those killed at Harper's Ferry, with a supplementary bibliography of John Brown. In Southern History Association publications. Volume 3, pp. 281–306. (The best bibliography.)

Douglass, Frederick. John Brown, an address at the fourteenth anniversary of Storer College, 1881.

—————Life and Times of. 1892.

Redpath, James. Echoes of Harper's Ferry. 1860.

Hunter, Andrew. John Brown's Raid. In Southern History Association publications. Volume I, pp. 165–195. 1897. (The story of the prosecuting attorney.)

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. A Visit to John Brown's Household in 1859. (In " Contemporaries," 1899.)

Wright, Harry A. John Brown in Springfield. New England Magazine, pp. 272–281.

Webb, Richard D., Editor. The Life and Letters of Captain John Brown, who was executed at Charlestown, Va., December 2, 1859, for an armed attack upon American slavery; with notices of some of his confederates. 1861.

Boteler, Alexander L. Recollections of the John Brown Raid. Century. July, 1883. Comment by F. B. Sanborn.

Daingerfield, John E. P. John Brown at Harper's Ferry. Century. June, 1885, pp. 265–267. (The story of an engine-house prisoner.)

Voorhees, Daniel W. Argument delivered at Charleston, Va., November 8, 1859, upon the trial of John E. Cook. Richmond, Va., 1861.

Hamilton, James Cleland. John Brown in Canada. Illustrated. Republished from Canadian Magazine, December, 1894.

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The purely controversial literature raging around John Brown is endless. Those interested might read:

Utter, David N. John Brown of Osawatomie. North American Review, November, 1883.

Nicolay, John G. and Hay, John. Abraham Lincoln, a history. 1890. (Volume two contains history of John Brown and Harper's Ferry Raid.)

Robinson, Charles. The Kansas Conflict. 1892.

Brown, George Washington, M. D. False claims of Kansas historians truthfully corrected. Principally a refutation of the claim that the rescue of Kansas from slavery was due to John Brown. Rockford, Ill. The author. 1902.

—————Reminiscences of Old John Brown. Thrilling instances of border life in Kansas. With appendix by Eli Thayer. Rockford, Ill. 1880. Printed by Eli Smith.

Wright, Marcus Joseph. Trial of John Brown. Its impartiality and decorum vindicated. Southern History Society Papers, Vol. XVI, pp. 357–363.

Spring, L. W. Kansas. 1885.

Williams, G. W. History of Negro Race in America. 1883. Two volumes. (For John Brown, see volume two, pp. 213–227.)

Thayer, Eli. The Kansas Crusade. 1889.

Hugo, Victor. John Brown. 1861.

Wise, Barton H. The Life of Henry S. Wise. 1899.