What Caused the Civil War? | John Brown's Raid

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry helped cause the Civil War. His is a magnetic persona that's hard to take your eyes away from. But who were the people who inspired him? Who funded him? Who joined him on the raid? It turns out there's a lot more to the story as Don learns with today's guest Dr Kellie Carter Jackson author of We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance" and co-host of the "This Day" podcast.

Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Transcript

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0:45.3	When it was all over, the raid had failed, the troops had come, and John Brown's body lay moldering in his grave. John Anthony Copeland, Jr. wrote a parting letter to his brother.
0:50.3	Copeland was a freeborn African American, who had been one of Brown's raiders.
0:55.8	The gallows now waited for him.
0:58.6	Without regret, these are his fearless words.
1:02.9	It was a sense of the wrongs which we have suffered that prompted the noble but unfortunate Captain Brown and his associates,
1:10.5	and how, dear brother, could I die in a more noble cause?
1:15.0	Days later, Copeland joined John Brown in death.
1:18.9	Yet even as he did, the impact of his deed and his words
1:22.6	reverberated with fury across the land,
1:26.0	further dividing an already divided nation and driving it irrevocably towards war.
1:42.7	Good day, American History Hit listeners.
1:45.0	Don Wildman here with new episodes twice weekly, Mondays and Thursdays.
1:49.6	Hope you'll circle back.
1:50.7	History leading to the outbreak of civil war in the United States is crammed with pivotal events,
1:56.5	often overshadowed by the war itself.
	...

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