Sharps Carbine
name: label: Associated Name
content: Brown, John
label: licensee
content: Sharps, C
label: maker
content: Sharps
notes: label: Description
content: Physical Description
label: Description
content: This Sharps carbine, .52 caliber, was confiscated following John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry.
label: Description
content: General History
label: Description
content: As a boy of five, John Brown witnessed a slave his own age being beaten with a fire shovel. He vowed to become a foe of slavery. By the mid-1800s, Brown was fulfilling his vow. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 allowed the two states to decide the issue of slavery by a popular ballot. The fight in Kansas was so intense that the state earned the nickname of “Bleeding Kansas.” As Missouri pro-slavery “Ruffians” flocked to Kansas, New England abolitionists bankrolled “Free-Soilers” to move to the settlement of Lawrence, Kansas. Henry Ward Beecher raised money to purchase Sharps rifles for use by antislavery forces in Kansas. Rifles, said Beecher, are “a greater moral agency than the Bible” in the fight against slavery. The guns were packed in crates labeled "Bibles" so they would not arouse suspicion. Soon the Sharps rifles sent to Kansas were referred to as “Beecher’s Bibles.” In 1856, after abolitionists were attacked in Lawrence, John Brown led a raid on scattered cabins along the Pottawatomie Creek, killing five people. Kansas would not become a state until 1861, after the Confederate states seceded. John Brown had another plan to bring about an end to slavery, a slave uprising. He contracted with Charles Blair, a forge master in Collinsville, Connecticut, to make 950 pikes for a dollar a piece. Brown would issue the pikes to the slaves as they revolted. On October 16, 1859, Brown led his group to Harpers Ferry where he took over the arsenal and waited for the slaves to revolt. The revolt never came. Two days later Robert E. Lee and his troops overran the raiders and captured John Brown. Brown was found guilty of murder, treason, and inciting slave insurrection. On December 2, 1859, he was hanged.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Place Made
content: United States
label: used
content: United States: Virginia
topic: label: Subject
content: Firearms
label: related event
content: Harpers Ferry Raid
label: related event
content: Civil War and Reconstruction
setName: label: See more items in
content: Military and Society: Armed Forces History, Military
label: See more items in
content: Military
label: See more items in
content: ThinkFinity
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: AF.43496
label: catalog number
content: 43496
label: accession number
content: 164794
label: serial number
content: 17353
objectType: label: Object Name
content: carbine
label: Object Name
content: carbine, percussion
label: Other Terms
content: carbine; Firearms; Tape Prime; .52 In; Rifled; 14; 03
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: steel (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 in x 38 in x 3 in; 17.78 cm x 96.52 cm x 7.62 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 38 1/2 in x 2 5/8 in; 97.79 cm x 6.6675 cm