List of sources for John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was the largest event of 1859 in the United States, exacerbating the polarization of the country, and was a major factor in the secession of Southern states in 1861 and the subsequent outbreak of the American Civil War. In 1859, Brown was considered the most famous living American. The raid on Harpers Ferry was a complicated affair. It ended with the taking of John Brown's Fort, but before that there were bodies floating down the Potomac, others dead along the Shenandoah . Unidentified corpses thrown in a packing box and dumped in a pit, and bodies taken away for dissection by medical students (see Burning of Winchester Medical College). It would be many years afterwards before even the names of all of the participants were known (see John Brown's raiders).. Many of those present left their varying recollections of the events of those four days (October 16–19, 1859), as they experienced them. These include official reports, statements by the surviving members of Brown's party, statements from the prosecuting attorney Andrew Hunter, jailer John Avis, Marines, guards, hostages, bystanders, and even  children who observed the events without participating in them. Other eyewitnesses (in order of publication). As Brown was, from 1859 until Lincoln's assassination in 1865, the most famous American, and his raid the subject of intense interest, many people's memories of him have been published. According to Brown expert Louis DeCaro, Jr., the newspaper interview—interviewing someone and making a newspaper article of it—begins with the stories on John Brown. The following does not include the many sources that do not deal with the raid, such as general recollections of John Brown, or memories of him in  Canada, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Iowa, or elsewhere, or the story of Watson Brown's body.