Biography
Aaron Dwight Stevens was a Mexican–American War veteran and one of John Brown's most experienced lieutenants. He had previously served a death sentence (commuted) at Fort Leavenworth for striking a superior officer who was abusing a Mexican civilian, and escaped to join Brown in Kansas. Severely wounded during the raid, he was captured, tried separately because his case had been transferred to federal court, and ultimately hanged at Charles Town on March 16, 1860 alongside Albert Hazlett.
On October 16-18, 1859, the abolitionist John Brown led 21 men in an attempted raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), aiming to arm enslaved people and ignite a general uprising against slavery. The raid was suppressed within 36 hours by U.S. Marines under Robert E. Lee. Ten raiders were killed, seven were captured, and five escaped. The captured raiders were tried by the Commonwealth of Virginia for treason against the state, murder, and conspiring with slaves to rebel — all crimes for which they were sentenced to death by hanging at Charles Town. Their executions made them, in the months before the Civil War, the most consequential political prisoners in American history.
