The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown - Softcover

Renehan, Edward J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1570031819 ISBN 13: 9781570031816

Publisher: University of South Carolina Press, 1997

Synopsis

Explains the mysteries of the six prominent abolitionists who supported John Brown, but abandoned him to his fate after the ill-starred raid at Harpers Ferry. Based partly on the letters of the secret six themselves. Contributes, in a larger context, to a further understanding of the Civil War and its causes. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"In vivid prose, The Secret Six unravels the mysteries of the six prominent abolitionists who supported John Brown but abandoned him to his fate after the ill-starred raid at Harpers Ferry. Edward Renehan has made an important contribution to our understanding of the Civil War and its causes."

James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

"With their own words and private correspondence, this remarkable book reveals more secrets of the Secret Six than John Brown ever knew."

C. Vann Woodward, author of The Burden of Southern History and The Strange Career of Jim Crow

"Renehan admirably works himself into the inner circle of these would-be conspirators for good."

Garry Wills, author of Lincoln at Gettysburg and Certain Trumpets

"Ed Renehan's very impressive historical research makes his Secret Six come alive and will enrich any reader's understanding of the era leading up to the Civil War."

James Fallows, author of Looking at the Sun

From the Inside Flap

ns know that John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia -- a raid he believed would ignite a bloody slave revolution -- was one of the events that sparked the Civil War. But very few know the story of how Brown was covertly aided by a circle of prosperous and privileged Northeasterners who supplied him with money and weapons, and, before the raid, even hid him in their homes while authorities sought Brown on a murder charge. These men called themselves the Secret Six.

The Secret Six included Thomas Wentworth Higginson, minister, author, and editor of the Atlantic Monthly; Samuel Howe, world-famous physician; Theodore Parker, the Unitarian minister whose rhetoric helped shape Lincoln's Gettysburg Address; Franklin Sanborn, an educator and close friend of Emerson and Thoreau; and the immensely wealthy Gerrit Smith and George Luther Stearns.

The existence of the Six has been known to scholars, but there has never been a book devoted to them. Now, drawing on archives from Bosto

About this edition

• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1570031819
• ISBN 13: 9781570031816
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 324