The South’s reaction to John Brown’s attack is often characterized as a violent one. “The shock and fear John Brown had instigated fueled widespread panic…[that] fed into paranoia vented in aggressive acts,” as historian David Reynolds explains. Yet not all southerners accepted violent actions. Protecting their communities remained a high priority, but these southerners argued that extralegal means should not be employed. Not only were existing laws more than sufficient, but violent actions impugned southern honor. Someone who “was tarred and feathered” “for sympathsing [sic] with old Brown” may have “richly deserved his punishment,” but the Greensboro Patriot argued that the best solution was “to let the law take its course.” Other editors in North Carolina reached similar conclusions. “The laws are ample to protect the South,” as the Fayetteville Observer explained in November 1859. The Observer later implied that southern honor was at stake: “in some places the prejudice against Northern men has been carried to an extent at once injurious to the interests and disgraceful to the character of the South.” Brown attacked Harpers Ferry 150 years ago, but as historian William Freehling observers, we still have much to learn about the “subtleties of the southern  response.”

“Slavery & Abolition in the US: Select Publications of the 1800s,” a digital collection from Dickinson College and Millersville University, has several important resources on the Harpers Ferry raid. James Redpath, a reporter who strongly supported abolitionists, published The Public Life of Capt. John Brown in April 1860. Redpath, who first met Brown in Kansas, “[became] an avid promoter of the John Brown legend” as historian David Reynolds explains. (He also published Echoes of Harpers Ferry in 1860, which you can find on Google Books). Franklin B. Sanborn was one of the “secret six,” who provided Brown with financial assistance during the 1850s, and he published The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas, and Martyr of Virginia in 1885. Also available is abolitionist Richard J. Hinton’s John Brown and His Men; With Some Account of the Roads Traveled to Reach Harper’s Ferry (1894). Hinton met Brown in Kansas when he became involved in the fight against slavery.

The Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection at Cornell University also has material on Brown’s raid, including Osborne P. Anderson’s account – Voice from Harper’s Ferry (1861). Anderson, who was born to a free black family in Pennsylvania and attended Oberlin College, was the only African American who was not captured during the attack. The site also includes other biographies and several sermons (George Cheever – Nov. 6, 1859; James Clarke – Nov. 6, 1859; John Gregory – Dec. 4, 1859; Nathaniel Colver – Dec. 11, 1859).

You can also learn more about some of these authors on the People tab of the Harpers Ferry major topic in House Divided.

This month the Journal of American History published a special issue on Abraham Lincoln where I contributed an essay which claimed that the future of Lincoln studies lies mainly in digital work –both in new, ambitious research projects and also in innovative forms of web-based presentation.  Okay, so I realize this claim seems more than a little self-serving since I’m a Lincoln scholar who also happens to be focused on various digital projects, but I do sincerely believe that this is the future and will stand by the claim.  The JAH provided a roundtable forum for responses by leading scholars such as Edward Ayers, Catherine Clinton, Michael Holt, Mark Neely, and Douglas Wilson.  The exchange was lively (i.e. some of these guys actually disagreed with me) but it’s still just the beginning.  I hope some of you will not only read the article and the roundtable, but also will check out the accompanying website and then will offer your own comments –positive or negative.   The website features all kinds of cutting-edge research tools, including a hypergraph and timemap, both built by Rafael Alvarado (University of Virginia) as well as a  bibliography of hundreds of full-text recollections about Lincoln and a clickable word cloud of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.  There are also examples of new forms of digital presentation, including an interactive essay format that we developed here at House Divided (courtesy of Russell Toris, Class of 2011) of which I am particularly eager to hear feedback.  The point of all this work is to demonstrate that digital technology offers new ways to think about old topics.  At least that’s what I hope people will come to realize and support.  But I’m willing to listen to skeptics … so please register your opinion.

“True and Candid Compositions: The Lives and Writings of Antebellum Students at the University of North Carolina” is an interesting online exhibit from Documenting the American South at UNC-Chapel Hill.  The site breaks down this period (1795-1869) into six chapters and each one has essays on key topics and relevant primary sources.

One particularly interesting letter from 1856 shows what can happen to southerners who publicly supported the Republican party. UNC professor Benjamin Hedrick told Hinton Rowan Helper (The Impending Crisis of the South) that “all the means of the worst politicians were at once brought to bear against me,” including “efforts…to excite the students to mob me.” Eventually the UNC Board of Trustees forced him out of the university. As the “trustees [were] nearly all politicians,” Hedrick concluded “they were very willing to sacrifice me to the popular clamor.” (House Divided also has an editorial about this event.)  Check out DocSouth’s other digital collections here.

The Civil War Museum of Philadelphia, which remains closed as it plans for moving into a new building, has announced that items from their collection will be on display at several institutions in Pennsylvania. Tentative plans call for the museum to partner with the Gettysburg National Park Visitors Center, the National Constitution Center, and the African American Museum in Philadelphia. In addition, the museum will participate in an exhibit that will visit locations throughout the country as part of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Hopefully the museum will be able to reopen before 2014, but in the meantime this plan seems like the best option. Check out their website for online exhibits and more information.

The Smithsonian recently published “John Brown’s Day of Reckoning,” an interesting article by Fergus Bordewich that discusses Brown’s attack on Harpers Ferry. While the raid took place 150 years ago, Bordewich observes that Brown “remains one of the most emotive touchstones of our racial history.” In addition, both the attack and Brown’s execution in early December 1859 greatly increased sectional tensions and pushed the country closer to war.  “After [Harpers Ferry] the chasm [between the North and the South] appeared unbridgeable,” as Bordewich explains. While Brown did not free any slaves, Bordewich argues that his actions created the political conditions that gave Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to win the 1860 election.

Check out Debating Emancipation Online, a new interactive site developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Students assume “the role of Lincoln’s closest advisers” and use primary sources to “learn how they would advise the President on this controversial issue.” Be sure to download the teacher guide for an overview of this online program, lesson plans, and other supplementary material that would help students prepare for the activity.

Horatio Nelson Taft’s diary (January 1861-May 1865) is available online from the Library of Congress and provides an interesting look at life in Washington D.C. during the Civil War. While Taft worked at the US Patent office, his children played with “Willie” and “Tad” Lincoln. “Our three boys and the Two Lincoln boys have been very busy fireing off Crackers & Pistols,” as Taft recorded on December 25, 1861. Be sure to check out this short essay from the Library of Congress for more information about Taft’s diary.

The University of Washington offers a great collection of Civil War letters that provide interesting accounts on a wide range of topics. The collection contains correspondence from both Union and Confederate soldiers, including a description of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender. “It all seems like a dream,” as M. Adelaide Smith explained to his “dear friends” back in Michigan. Another interesting letter is one General Lee’s wife wrote to Union General Sanford in late May 1861, in which she complained about the conduct of northern troops who occupied her home in northern Virginia. An overview of all the material in this collection is available.

Among the many websites and digital projects bringing the 19th century to the World Wide Web is the Lincoln Archives Digital Project from researcher Karen Needles. This ambitious project began in 2002 with the goal of digitizing all federal records from the Lincoln administration, including every cabinet and every agency. The project is the first of its kind to digitize the holdings of an entire administration and its standards are high. The project uses high resolution scans of original documents from the National Archives and incorporates technology such as “Zoomify” to create a high quality and easily accessible collection.

The project is not limited to just federal documents and includes maps, newspapers, photographs, political cartoons, blogs, lesson plans and even a dictionary and who’s who of the period. The wealth of information is seemingly endless and is always growing, although a subscription is required for full access to the project. For more information, check out the project and the August article about it in Civil War News.