by Shawn Inmon
The historic town probably wouldn’t be so well remembered if not for John Brown, an abolitionist willing to go to extreme lengths to eliminate slavery.
To me, that presents a conundrum. Slavery was obviously a horrible wrong that needed to be abolished. Is it worth any price to advance such a cause? To a slave living on a plantation, the answer would understandably be yes. But it does raise the question of whether the ends always justify the means.
John Brown’s journey from abolitionist to what we would now call a terrorist began in the territory of Kansas, which was then seeking entry into the Union. There was a big question: would it be a slave state, or a free state? The issue was hotly debated, and the debate eventually turned to violence. Lawrence, Kansas, was burned by pro-slavery forces. In retaliation, John Brown and his followers killed five pro-slavery men in Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas, in May of 1856.
Brown, now a wanted man, avoided capture for this crime for three years, until 1859. That’s when he emerged from hiding and launched what became known as John Brown’s Raid in Harpers Ferry. The choice of that town was no accident—his plan was to capture the armory located there, grab huge numbers of weapons, disburse them to slaves in the area, and encourage them to stage an armed uprising. His hope was that the uprising would spread through all the Southern states and force them to give up slavery.
The first part of his plan worked flawlessly. With a tiny force of only eighteen, he launched a surprise attack on the armory and took it over without a shot being fired. That boggles my mind a bit. With minimal force, he was able to capture one of the largest weapons armories in the United States. For an organization that was mass-producing weapons, they were lightly guarded. Once he held the armory, his plan was to send his small force out into the countryside, capture slave owners and their slaves, then bring them all back to the armory, hold the slave owners hostage, arm the slaves, and encourage insurrection.
The problem was it took too long to accomplish that second part of the plan. It took much longer for his forces to locate and kidnap local landowners than he had anticipated. While most of his force was out doing that, the men who worked at the armory showed up for work the next morning. They were met by armed men, who took them hostage.
As you can imagine, the good townsfolk of Harpers Ferry didn’t take kindly to a stranger coming into town, forcibly taking over the armory and taking locals hostage. A gun battle ensued. Of course, communications weren’t nearly as fast in that time, but eventually President James Buchanan was alerted, and he dispatched a company of Marines, led by Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart, to quash the uprising.
Brown took his hostages and meager remaining forces and barricaded himself in what came to be known as John Brown’s Fort to make a last stand. When the Marines arrived, Brown attempted to negotiate with Lee and Stuart, but they weren’t having it. Brown was told that only his unconditional surrender would be acceptable. Brown further barricaded himself inside the building, but the Marines grabbed whatever was at hand to use as a battering ram and forced their way inside, one at a time.
Let’s think about that scene for a moment. You’ve got an armed group of men holed up inside a building, feeling they’ve got nothing to lose. You are able to create a hole just big enough for one man at a time to get through. Would you want to be that first brave Marine to enter? Once the Marines breached the building the fight lasted only three minutes. After some intense hand-to-hand combat, John Brown’s Raid was over.
John Brown was taken alive.
John Brown’s Fort
That was October 17, 1859. In six weeks he was tried, found guilty of treason, and hanged. The wheels of justice moved a lot faster in the old days.
That’s the story. Looking back on it through the prism of the present day, what does it all mean? John Brown stood on the right side of history in abolishing slavery. But he was also a fanatic willing to do whatever he needed to push his agenda forward. He murdered people, first in Kansas, then in Harpers Ferry. He accomplished a lot, becoming a lightning rod whose drastic action forced people to decide where they stood.
How does all this resonate in our world today, when terrorists use similar methods to advance their goals? I have lots of questions and thoughts, but no answers. I will say that the idea that the end justifies the means is a slippery slope, one that can be used to justify many crimes, but carries little weight with me.
Skipping the rest of our day’s adventures to spend more time in Harpers Ferry was an easy decision. It turned out to be one of the best stops in this whole Lap Around America. It got me thinking, and that’s always a good thing.
As soon as we got on the bus to head back to the visitors center, it started to rain. Precipitation followed us all the way to Somerset, Pennsylvania, where we crashed for the night.
Day Thirty-Six
Google Maps got us lost once again. When we got seriously lost in Utah, ending up clear on the wrong end of the state from where we wanted to be, I think it was mostly operator error. But in Harpers Ferry, it was definitely a problem with the software. Same thing this day.
We left our hotel in Somerset early because we wanted to try to hit two major Pennsylvania landmarks the same day: the Flight 93 National Memorial, and Gettysburg. I entered the main entrance to the memorial on the GPS and relaxed. Less than an hour later, Google announced that we had arrived, and we had—at an abandoned gate that looked like it might have been used as a temporary park entrance years ago.
I got my fold-out map of Pennsylvania out, discovered where we had gone wrong, and backtracked a few miles until we saw signs for the real entrance. Google Maps, you’re working your way onto my naughty list.
Like so many of us, I watched the drama of Flight 93 unfold in real time. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, I had been on my way to a real estate seminar an hour from home. I had gotten ready to go in a quiet house, with no television or radio turned on. In my car, I tuned to a Seattle sports radio show. The first thing I heard the host say was, “If you’re listening to us, why? Please tune in to a news channel for information about what is happening.”
I switched to KIRO News Radio 710 just after the second tower had been hit. I turned the car around and went right back home. I knew everything had changed, and there would certainly be no real estate seminar that day.
When I heard the Pentagon had also been hit and that Flight 93 had crashed in a Pennsylvania field, my first thought was, “How many aircraft are in the air above the United States at this minute? How many potential weapons could impact other areas of the country?”
Later I was thankful there were only the four planes hijacked. Still, it is an event that echoes in the world’s consciousness, more than a decade and a half later.
Before we reached the memorial, we pulled over to the side of the road and looked back at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the tiny town Flight 93 had barely missed before crashing into the empty field. It was easy to picture the shock and chaos of that morning. A quiet hamlet, its peace suddenly and unexpectedly shattered by a huge aircraft flying low over their roofs.
The story of Flight 93 is tragic, of course, but also heroic. Flight 93 was supposed to have taken off at the same time as the other hijacked flights but had been delayed and took off approximately 40 minutes later. That gave the passengers time to learn what had happened to the other flights and formulate a plan.
Putting myself in their place, I can only imagine the pain of discovering the inevitable fate of this plane. They decided to put fear aside and do whatever was necessary to give themselves, and whatever target the hijackers had selected, a chance. No one knows for sure what target the terrorists had chosen, but it has been speculated they were aiming at either the White House or the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
The passengers rushed the hijackers. The plane crashed in the middle of an empty field, killing everyone on board but preventing what would surely have been many more casualties.
With that background, the Flight 93 Nat
ional Memorial can’t be anything but somber, and it is. I found it also tasteful, thoughtful, and extremely well done. Having hit a lot of national parks over the past five weeks, I was impressed with the work done everywhere by the National Park Service. I have yet to see a bad example. They do a wonderful job of straddling the line between protecting our history and making it accessible.
Inside the visitors center is a gift shop. We didn’t linger there. It’s hard for me to imagine many people wanting an orange Flight 93 sweatshirt, but they’re for sale, so someone must.
Half a dozen long walls are filled with screens and memorabilia establishing a timeline for the events of 9/11, including television broadcasts of the day, mementos of the flight, pictures of the passengers and crew, and so on. From an observation deck, you can trace the flight of the plane to its landing spot, marked by a boulder.
Dawn and I walked down to the field itself. It is pastoral and, aside from the other people walking along it, perfectly quiet. It is a truly random place for a plane to fall from the sky.
Dawn turned to me and said, “Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why did they do this? What did they hope to accomplish?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m not at all sure about what they were hoping to accomplish. Strike back at the undefeatable enemy? Make a statement? I don’t know. The sad thing is, I think I know what they actually did accomplish.”
“What do you think?”
“I think they made us afraid. It feels like our whole country has changed since 9/11. We were the policeman of the world, often to our detriment. Ever since the towers fell, it feels like we are afraid. I hate to see us making decisions as a nation out of fear of the unknown, or the worst-case scenario.”
“Hmmm.” This is Dawn’s catch-all phrase. It means, I’m not sure you’re right, but I’ll think about it for a while. I knew we would continue this conversation later.
We walked back up the hill and to our car. It was the middle of the week, but the memorial was busy. There were half a dozen school buses, huge tour groups, and stragglers like us. As sad and somber as the memorial is, it was gratifying to see so many people coming to pay their respects. Even the kids, not always noted for their broad perspectives, were quiet and respectful. It’s the least we can do for those who chose to do the right thing.
When we left the Flight 93 memorial, we had a choice: I-70, or Highway 30. The interstate would have been faster, but by now I’m sure you know what we chose. We’d driven a lot of country roads on this trip, but I think my favorite was Highway 30 between Somerset and Gettysburg. Parts were so twisty that I said a little prayer of thanks that I never get carsick. It was an incredible way to spend a few hours.
Pennsylvania doesn’t look like anything we’re used to—not the houses, the small towns, the foliage, none of it. Seeing the old houses all decorated for fall, with the leaves beginning to change colors, put us in a happy place.
Which, I admit, was a good thing just then. Even after the Flight 93 site, Gettysburg is about as somber as a place can get. It’s actually a lovely small town, as I’m sure it was prior to the Civil War battle of 1863, but let’s face it, it’s best known as the place where an awful lot of Americans died fighting one another.
You may have noticed that we drove all the way through the South without reflecting on the Civil War. Truth is, I am not a big Civil War buff. I watched the Ken Burns documentary about it when it was on PBS, but that’s about the extent of it. The previous day, we had driven right by the Battle of Antietam site without even stopping.
But Gettysburg is different. It wasn’t just the bloodiest battle of the war but became a national touchstone for a nation torn apart. At least, it is to me. On my Facebook page, people are saying our nation has never been as divided as it is right now. When I read that, I think people have short memories. We might have deep factions of conservatives and liberals in our nation, but 30,000 people aren’t dying on a battlefield like they did in Gettysburg.
One thing we hadn’t realized before was how huge the whole Gettysburg battlefield area is. It’s not confined to a single field, or connected fields, or a hill, or a forest. It’s spread all over the entire town and surrounding countryside. When we first pulled up to the visitors center, we had no idea what to expect. It was already mid-afternoon, and so we were short on time. It would have made sense to get a hotel room and tackle Gettysburg the next day, but there was a problem. Every hotel, motel, and bed-and-breakfast was booked up solid. That meant we would have to drive down the road to sleep, and I hate to start our days by backtracking, so today was it for Gettysburg.
The visitors center is immense. And popular. The crowds gathered at the Flight 93 National Memorial were nothing compared with what we saw here. It was a Tuesday afternoon in late September, and it was packed. In fact, when we picked up a few things in the gift shop, I had to stand in line so long to buy them that Dawn had time to find two more things before I got to the cashier.
There’s an array of things you can do at the memorial, including an excellent movie and presentation, a car tour, etc. Gettysburg National Military Park isn’t cheap, though. It’s free to get in, but if you want to go on the car tour, it’s $65. The movie is $12, which is reasonable, but I sure didn’t feel like driving thousands of miles to Gettysburg, then sitting in a theater to see it.
So, we chose to do the guided driving tour with an audio CD. If you have the time, I recommend it. They say you can see the whole thing in 90 minutes, which I guess you could do if you didn’t ever slow down to look at anything. We wanted to drink things in, though. Dawn and I took about three and a half hours to do the 26-mile, 16-stop drive all over Gettysburg, listening to the audio cues.
As I say, I’m not a huge Civil War guy, but listening to the excellent narration brought the three days of the battle to life for us. It’s enough to make me want to go home and watch the whole Ken Burns documentary again. During the tour, you get to park and overlook all the key locations: Round Top, Devil’s Den, Culp’s Hill, the Peach Orchard, and Cemetery Ridge, where Pickett made his charge.
If you, like me, aren’t exactly a Civil War scholar, the short version of the whole conflict is that the Confederate forces, led by Robert E. Lee, were tired of playing defense and sought to take the fight to the north. They clashed with the Union forces, led by General George Meade, at various sites around Gettysburg over July 1 to July 3, 1863.
Both sides made strategic errors that I didn’t begin to understand until I could see the battlefields spread out in front of me and understood where each army was positioned. In the end, it was Lee’s decision to order his undermanned forces in a movement that became known as Pickett’s Charge, which was bold, ballsy, and ultimately the turning point in the battle. His forces were rebuffed by the strong position of the Union forces and torn apart, and the whole Confederate force ended up retreating to Virginia.
The site of Pickett’s Charge
It was a devastating loss for the rebels, but it certainly didn’t end the war. That stretched on for almost two more years. From a historical standpoint, it was the bloodiest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. That’s according to the park service CD, by the way. I don’t pretend to know these types of things.
One thing you will quickly learn is that Gettysburg is the land of a million statues and memorials. Every which way you turn, you will find statues memorializing the forces that fought from various states. If you like military statues, Gettysburg will be a little slice of heaven for you.
When we got to the end of our audio tour, the sun was below the horizon, the sky was burnt orange, and we were looking out on the area where Major General George Pickett led his charge. We felt the enormity of the history and the sacrifices made by brave men and women on both sides of the battle.
This was one of the most emotional days of our trip. Flight 93 and Gettysburg, broken by a lovely three-hour drive through pristine villages and farms. We were aslee
p less than an hour after we reached our motel in Hanover, Pennsylvania.
Day Thirty-Seven
The first thing I did every morning on this trip was a little search of the town we’d stayed in overnight. It was cool when we got lucky and found something nearby we wanted to see. My search in Hanover revealed that the Gettysburg Electric Map, which offered a visual orientation to the battle at the Gettysburg visitors center for years until it was deemed too old-fashioned and mothballed, was still on display here. Scott Roland, a local man, bought it at a government auction in 2012 for $14,000. That’s either a lot of money for a piece of outdated equipment, or a steal of a deal on a historic artifact, depending on your viewpoint.
It took Roland four years of working on the display and rewiring it to get it up to speed. If he was willing to spend four years of his nights and weekends on the project, I thought the least we could do was swing by and look at it while we were in town.
We found the building where the Electric Map was displayed, walked into the lobby and found a locked door and a dark room beyond. There had been no mention of odd hours on the website I’d been reading, and there were no hours at all listed on the door. I marched up a set of stairs to the left of the door to see if I could get more information.
Turns out there was a retro video arcade upstairs where patrons paid by the hour to play classic arcade games—something I would have been interested in if we weren’t driving around the country. The gentleman who ran the arcade said, “Trying to see the Gettysburg map?”
“Yes. Do you know what time they open?”
“I’m not sure they’re going to be open today. I’ve got the guy’s phone number, so I’ll give him a call.”