John Brown devised a plan to incite a slave rebellion in the Appalachian Mountains, arming slaves as they were freed and pushing on to free more men, the army of former slaves growing drastically as it rolled along (Stoddard and Murphy, 15). Slave rebellions had failed miserably in the past, but Brown's idea of properly arming the slaves gave some abolitionists the idea that it could work. On October 16, 1859, John Brown led a group of twenty-two men into Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, to secure weapons from the federal armory stationed in the small town nestled between the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers (Stoddard and Murphy, 15). The weapons stored in the armory would be more than enough to kick off Brown's envisioned revolution. Events did not unfold as the men had hoped, and they were soon surrounded by townspeople and fired upon, with marines (led, ironically, by then Colonel Robert E. Lee) arriving by the following afternoon (Stoddard and Murphy, 15).…