Combat
Harper's Ferry / John Brown's Raid
The first major use of Marines against a domestic insurrection, and one of the sparks that helped bring on the Civil War.
When the abolitionist John Brown and a band of followers seized the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry in October 1859, hoping to ignite a slave uprising, and then forted up in the engine house with hostages, the government rushed in a detachment of about ninety Marines from the Washington barracks under First Lieutenant Israel Greene, with Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee in overall command. At dawn on 18 October, after Brown refused the surrender terms carried in by J.E.B. Stuart, the Marines stormed the engine house, using a ladder as a battering ram to break in. Greene led the way and overpowered Brown himself. The three-minute assault cost the Marines one killed, Private Luke Quinn, shot in the body, and one wounded, Private Matthew Ruppert, shot in the face but recovered.
Record no. 365