Terrorist or Hero?

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Saturday, November 21, 2009

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History looking back with Ned Jilton

Published Sunday, October 25 2009 - (0) Comments

VERSION ONE: Nineteen terrorist make their way through the darkness on a rainy night. Their objective is to seize a government arsenal. Their leader is a religious zealot who a couple of years earlier murdered five political rivals by hacking their bodies apart with a sword.

The raid starts with the terrorist capturing bridges and railroad near the arsenal and cutting communications, killing an innocent civilian in the process. Then they move to take hostages, including the relative of an ex-president, and capture the arsenal. Fortunately a squad of Marines arrives and put an end to the attack killing several of the terrorist. The leader is tried and executed for his crimes.

VERSION TWO: Nineteen freedom fighters brave the darkness on a rainy night. Their objective is to acquire needed weapons for their cause from a government arsenal. Their leader is a Christian man who religious beliefs have led him to fight to free those in bondage.

The freedom fighters cross the bridge into town, leaving two there as guards, and make their way toward the arsenal. In the confusion of the darkness an innocent civilian is accidentally shot and a few people are inconvenienced for a while as hostages. The local citizens rise up and kill some of the freedom fighters, taking potshots at their bodies floating in the near-by river, before a squad of Marines arrives to restore order. The leader is tried and quickly hanged for his crime.

The same story told two different ways. But no matter which way you tell it, 150 years ago this month John Brown raided the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry in an effort to arm slaves and start and uprising.

While the raid failed, killing a free black when it started and being ended 36 hours after it started by a detachment of Marines under the command of the Colonel Robert E. Lee, it is seen by many as the spark that ignited the Civil War. Many in the North compared Brown to George Washington and even Jesus while people in the South saw it another way.

Virginia House of Delegates member James L. Kemper said after the raid "All Virginia stand forth as one man and say to fanaticism, whenever you advance a hostile foot upon our soil, we will welcome you with bloody hands and hospitable graves."

Kemper would be seriously wounded on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg as a brigadier general leading a brigade during Pickett's charge.

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