John Brown's Raid: Harpers Ferry and the Coming of the Ci...
Gilot, Jon-Erik M. / Pawlak, Kevin R. / Frye, Dennis E. The first shot of the American Civil War was not fired on April 12, 1861, in Charleston, South Carolina, but instead came on October 16, 1859, in Harpers Ferry, Virginia--or so claimed former slave turned abolitionist Frederick Douglass.