Question

What is significant about the Confederate victory at Harpers Ferry

Answer 1

This raid occurred Oct. 16, 1859. The man in charge of it was an American Army colonel - Robert E. Lee. (this was 2 years before the Civil War) John Brown as an abolitionist who wanted the slaves to revolt against their masters. So breaking into an armory to get guns for the slaves was the reason for the attack at Harper's Ferry. No slaves showed up and after his trail John Brown was hanged. The radical republicans saw him as a martyr. There was no Confederacy at the time of the raid. So the marines that Lee led were American marines. Lee could not have been in the Confederacy because it did not exist yet.