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Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown
written by Edward J., Jr. Renehan
Studio : University of South Carolina Press
by University of South Carolina Press
Publisher : University of South Carolina Press
Released : 1997-04-01
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9781570031816
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 10 reviews)
List Price : $18.95
Our Price : $13.78
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Product Description |
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"A spellbinding study in revolution from the top down". -- New York Times Book Review |
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An adequate story of moral cowardness |
If you judge a book by its publisher, which is not always a bad thing to do, you will not expect much out of this volume. And you had best begin this book not expecting too much or you'll find yourself disappointed. I give it three stars out of generous feeling tonight.
The author attempts to give us a history of the backers both financially and morally of John Brown and his attempts to overthrow slavery. The men involved were intellectual, wealthy individuals who should have known better, but apparently were overtaken by self aggrandizement. This could be a very exciting and interesting work on this subject is little known and very much ignored, however, it is a rather stuffy and dry examination of this very exciting incident in 19th century American history. The author rightly describes the John Brown as a religious fanatic and murderer, and while he shows me six co-conspirators who lost their nerve after Brown was arrested, the book tends to put these people in the light of bored men who want some game to play at and when that fails they do all they can to distance themselves from their failure. This is substantially true. However, these men were more than what they appear in this rendering. He also would have done well to flesh out their other actions and accomplishments, not to make them heroes, but to give us a better look at their times.
If you are looking for a book to give a general picture of New England abolitionists, you might very well find this book helpful to you. You should not expect any great writing were amazing research discoveries. If you have a fairly substantial knowledge of this era and of these individuals you will get much out of this volume.
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"Six Peters" * |
John Brown remains an elusive figure even today, nearly 150 years and who knows how many books after his execution. But our continuing fascination for the Brown--was he a saint? a madman? a traitor? a hero?--tends to overlook the fact that his activities, both in bleeding Kansas and Harpers Ferry, were financed and supported by many aristocratic and wealthy New England abolitionists. Edward Renehan's genuinely fascinating book offers us the first in-depth look at the leading six of them: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a pastor who became a colonel of black troops in the Civil War; Theodore Parker, minister and philosopher; Franklin Sanborn, educator; Samuel Howe, physician; and Gerrit Smith of New York and George Luther Stearns of Boston, wealthy businessmen.
For me, the overriding impression from Renehan's narrative is that the involvement of the "secret six" with Brown was not unlike a Gilbert & Sullivan comedy. The six raised money for weapons that were frequently low quality; they self-importantly sprinkled letters to one another with codewords: "shepherds" for soldiers; "furniture" for guns, "Hawkins" for Brown; they insisted on not knowing details about Brown's plans to protect themselves, yet got petulant when they felt they were kept out of the loop; when Brown was captured, all but one of them (Higginson) panicked mightily (Higginson, to his never-ending mortification, seems never to have been recognized as a conspirator by the authorities); and by the time Brown was hanged on 2 December 1859, Howe and Stearns had fled the country, Parker was dying of consumption in Italy, Sanborn couldn't make up his mind whether or not he ought to flee, Smith was in an insane asylum, and Higginson was planning a half-cocked (and never pulled off) plan to rescue Brown's still imprisoned companions in the crazy raid on Harpers Ferry.
All this is absurd and even silly. But things take on a much more ominous tone when Renehan paints a portrait of Brown as a religious fanatic who seems indifferent to life in Kansas (the Pottawatomie massacre is just he most famous example); who believed that his raid on Harpers Ferry was approved by God and hence infallible; whose military planning included the bizarre insistence that low ground was more defensible than high; and who apparently felt no compunction about adding deception and common theft to murder in the pursuit of his goal to spark a slave insurrection.
The fascinating subtext of Renehan's book, then, is a question: how is it that well-educated, wealthy, upper-class men could've so fallen under the sway of a man like Brown that they were willing to risk treason to finance his insurrection (notwithstanding that after the revolt failed they lost their nerves)? Part of the answer lies in the secret six's hatred of slavery and their despair over a legal end to it. But part of the reason must also have been Brown's charisma. Mad as he probably was--as even Higginson years later said he was--his magnetism was overpowering.
A valuable addition to our understanding of the pre-civil war in Kansas as well as the debacle at Harpers Ferry. Highly recommended.
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* The title Higginson gave himself and his five fellow backers of Brown who, Higginson believed, all betrayed Brown after his capture by trying to deny their complicity. The reference, of course, is to Peter's denial of Jesus. |
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Rich Radicalism 1850s style |
Where is that very fine line between supporting a cause and breaking the law? This is a history of the six men who provided money to John Brown and may have crossed that line in supporting him. Slavery was the cause of a major division and source of disruption in nineteen centaury American life. The Northern states managed to abolish slavery with minimal problems. At the same time, slavery in the Southern states became immensely profitable and the foundation on which a society rested. Slavery colored every national debate, becoming the sticking point for westward expansion and the source of radicalism in both the North and South. Agreeing with their position and knowing history makes it easier for us to be sympatric toward these men. This masks the fact that their money supported actions that caused a number of deaths.
Who are "The Secret Six" and why would they support someone like John Brown? The answer to that question is the subject of this book. Edward Renehan shows that there is no easy answer to this question, providing a look at six complex men. Individually and collectively, they decided that the United States was evil and their cause placed them above the law. Two placed themselves "in harms way" during resistance to the Fugitive slave law or in Kansas. The balance stayed home and allowed their money to do their fighting. Into their lives came John Brown, failed businessman, possible criminal, zealot and ready to "fight slavery". Six wealthy men wanting to strike a blow for freedom and one zealot with money problems was the almost perfect match.
The book contains a very good portrait of all the main characters. An overbearing possibly abusive husband, a hypochondriac, a number of well meaning people that were committed to revolt and a cold-blooded killer is the cast. They do not make for a likeable or heroic group and the author details their good and bad points. Along the way, we get a nice overview of bleeding Kansas as seen in Boston and as Brown contributed to it. This build up, allows the reader to understand how the Secret Six were able to accept Brown's ideas and assume his plans would work. When Harpers Ferry failed, the Secret Six realized that many might consider them to be as guilty as Brown. This section shows them at their worst as they scrambled to get clear of the mess they had helped create.
The opening chapter is one of the best introductions I have ever read, setting the tone of the book, introducing the cast and providing closure. The writing style is very good and easy to read. The book is informative and complete, providing a look into a world of privileged radicals in the years leading up to the Civil War. This is a balanced history, free of condemnation or adulation leaving judgment up to the reader.
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Meticulous research, splendid narrative prose |
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No one has done more than Renehan to explore and explain the Byzantine tale of abolitionist John Brown and his idealistic but confused (and sometimes absurd) northeastern bankers. This is a splendid story that, by polishing with his customary narrative excellence, Renehan has turned into a real gem. |
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A tangled web revealed |
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THE SECRET SIX does a wonderful job of revealing the tangled web of intrigue that lay behind John Brown's 1859 incursion at Harpers Ferry. This is stunning stuff: six affluent northeasterners, one of them the husband of poetess Julia Ward Howe and another the leading Unitarian minister of his day, financing terrorism in slave states -- and going about it methodically, calmly, and deliberately. What a story. And so well told. |
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