Louis A. DeCaro - The Untold Story of Shields Green

Also by Louis A. DeCaro, Jr.

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Freedoms Dawn: The Last Days of John Brown in Virginia

John Brown Speaks: Letters and Statements from Charlestown(Editor)

A Shepherd in Harlem: The Life and Times of Ezra N. Williams

Louis A. DeCaro, Jr.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: DeCaro, Louis A., 1957 author.

Title: The untold story of Shields Green : the life and death of a Harper's Ferry raider / Louis A. DeCaro, Jr.

Description: New York : New York University Press, [2020] |bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020016525 (print) | LCCN 2020016526 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479802753 (cloth) | ISBN 9781479802807 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479802791 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Green, Shields, 1836?1859. | Harpers Ferry (W. Va.)HistoryJohn Browns Raid, 1859. | African American abolitionistsBiography. | Free African AmericansBiography. | Fugitive slavesUnited StatesBiography. | African AmericansSouth CarolinaCharlestonBiography. | Charleston (S.C.)Biography.

Classification: LCC E451 .D445 2020po (print) | LCC E451 (ebook) |

DDC 326/.8092 [ B ] dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016525

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016526

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Also available as an ebook

For my beloved wife, Michele,

in the year of our twentieth wedding anniversary

There has been a systematic attempt to underrate the bravery of the colored men who fought with Brown at Harpers Ferry.... Northern men, always easily impressed when a statement reflects upon black men, saw only old John Brown and seventeen white men.

Weekly Anglo-African, 1860

Figure 3.1. John Brown

Figure 3.2. Kennedy farm in Maryland

Figure 3.3. Teenage Anne Brown

Figure 4.1. Osborne P. Anderson

Figure 6.1. DeWitt Hitchcocks sketch of Shields Green in the Charlestown jail with Copeland and Hazlett

Figure 6.2. Alfred Berghauss sketch of Shields Green under arrest at Harpers Ferry with Coppic

Figure 6.3. William S. L. Jewetts sketch of Shields Green in the Charlestown jail with Copeland and Hazlett

Figure 6.4.