John Brown’s War Against Slavery by Robert E. McGlone (review)

For any scholar of the sectional conflict of the 1850s, John Brown is a trying and perplexing individual. Thanks to larger-than-life tales, family lore, and the ideologically driven critiques of his political enemies, scholars still struggle to make sense of this man who attempted a daring (but ultimately unsuccessful) attack on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. Was John Brown a hotheaded, murderous fanatic, and were his actions at Pottawatomie rooted in his family’s supposed history of mental illness? What were his intentions at Harper’s Ferry, and why did the raid fail so miserably? These are only a few of the questions that McGlone addresses in his pathbreaking work, John Brown’s War Against Slavery.

This excellent treatment provides convincing evidence that Brown’s motivations were varied and complex. For McGlone, Brown was an ordinary man with an extraordinary mission. Unlike biographers such as Stephen Oates, who focused on Brown’s Calvinist upbringing and strict adherence to Christian doctrine, McGlone emphasizes the secular concerns and everyday experiences that shaped Brown into the abolitionist warrior that he became. He argues that “his war against slavery was rooted in a lifetime of social experience and an embrace of republican ideals as much as in religious conviction” (7). Likewise, while other biographers emphasize what they perceive as moments of instability and reckless behavior, McGlone instead offers evidence of a man who, “contrary to his image then and now, . . . did not often act impulsively or in uncontrolled rage. John Brown was a thoughtful, often even circumspect doctrinaire” (9). Perhaps the most interesting and significant chapter is chapter 8, “God’s Reaper,” where McGlone examines the evidence of mental illness in the Brown genealogy. By his estimation, Brown suffered from no psychosis, nor from manic-depressive disorders or senility. Later chapters (particularly chapters 12 and 13) provide additional discussion of Brown’s behavior after he realized the raid would ultimately fail. These sections are particularly convincing interpretations.

Thanks to intense archival research and interdisciplinary techniques (particularly those of psychology), McGlone effectively deconstructs this enigmatic individual who played such a key role in the coming of the Civil War. Unlike other biographies that adopt a narrative approach, he eschews a chronological retelling of key moments in Brown’s life in favor of a thematic, argument-driven analysis that unpacks the key debates of the last 150 years. While he may go too far in discounting later oral histories, the author acknowledges the hazards of relying too heavily on faulty memories; as a result he focuses instead on sources contemporary to the events of Brown’s life, including personal correspondence. Although this thematic treatment may be off-putting to those uninitiated into the world of Brown scholarship, for academic audiences it provides a fresh perspective.

Today the images of Brown as a madman and murderer may live on, but this wonderfully accessible, thoroughly researched biography will do much to bring Brown’s true nature out of the shadows.