Tony Horwitz's Midnight Rising

Tony Horwitz, the author of the Novel “Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War”, was born in Washington D.C. and graduated from Brown University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Horwitz was an award winning national reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where he covered foreign wars and conflicts. He has won countless awards for his books, including “Midnight Rising”, which was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2011 and won the 2012 William Henry Seward Award for Excellence in Civil War Biography. The award winning Novel “Midnight Rising” discusses the importance of John Brown’s Raid that took place during 1859, right before the start of the Civil War. Horwitz claims that this same raid was the biggest factor that caused the Civil War. The main character of the Novel, John Brown, was named after his grandfather: a famer and a Revolutionary War Officer who battled against the British. Brown’s father wrote that “for want of help we lost our Crops and then our Cattle and so became poor” (Horwitz 9). Horwitz states that since Brown’s family was poverty stricken, his father …show more content…
After Brown was caught “Journalists [arrived] in Harpers Ferry” and found “gruesome proof of the violence that had just ended” (Horwitz 191). Horwitz collected this information in order to give credible sources for his book. “The Old Man: John Brown at Harper’s Ferry” by Truman Nelson agrees with Tony Horwitz’ idea that the raid sparked the Civil War and caused the fight to end slavery. Another book “John Brown 's Raid on Harpers Ferry: A Brief History with Documents” by Jonathan Earle disagrees with Horwitz belief that it succeeded to inspire a slave revolt, but did agree that it was a major turning point in the fight to end slavery that ignited the Civil