Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War

A New York Times Notable Book for 2011

A Library Journal Top Ten Best Books of 2011

A Boston Globe Best Nonfiction Book of 2011

Bestselling author Tony Horwitz tells the electrifying tale of the daring insurrection that put America on the path to bloody war

Plotted in secret, launched in the dark, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was a pivotal moment in U.S. history. But few Americans know the true story of the men and women who launched a desperate strike at the slaveholding South. Now, Midnight Rising portrays Brown's uprising in vivid color, revealing a country on the brink of explosive conflict.

Brown, the descendant of New England Puritans, saw slavery as a sin against America's founding principles. Unlike most abolitionists, he was willing to take up arms, and in 1859 he prepared for battle at a hideout in Maryland, joined by his teenage daughter, three of his sons, and a guerrilla band that included former slaves and a dashing spy. On October 17, the raiders seized Harpers Ferry, stunning the nation and prompting a counterattack led by Robert E. Lee. After Brown's capture, his defiant eloquence galvanized the North and appalled the South, which considered Brown a terrorist. The raid also helped elect Abraham Lincoln, who later began to fulfill Brown's dream with the Emancipation Proclamation, a measure he called a John Brown raid, on a gigantic scale.

Tony Horwitz's riveting book travels antebellum America to deliver both a taut historical drama and a telling portrait of a nation divided--a time that still resonates in ours.

Chronicles the 1859 raid by radical abolitionist John Brown, his children and a guerilla band on Harpers Ferry, revealing how his acts, deemed terrorism by the South, prompted a counterattack by Robert E. Lee and galvanized Northern supporters during Lincoln's election campaign. 125,000 first printing.

Tony Horwitz is the bestselling author of Midnight Rising, A Voyage Long and Strange, Blue Latitudes, Confederates in the Attic, and Baghdad Without a Map. He is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has worked for The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. He lives in Martha's Vineyard with his wife, Geraldine Brooks, and their two sons.

Prologue: October 16, 1859 — pt. 1. The road to Harpers Ferry — School of adversity — I consecrate my life — A warlike spirit — First blood — Secret service — This spark of fire — pt. 2. Into Africa — My invisibles — Into the breach — I am nearly disposed of now — pt. 3. They will Brown us all — His despised poor — A full fountain of bedlam — So let it be done — Dissevering the ties that bind us — Epilogue: Immortal raiders.