On October 16, 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown led an attempt to start an armed slave revolt by seizing the U.S. Army arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). Brown and twenty-one followers, including whites (three of whom were Brown's sons) and Blacks (three free Blacks, one freedman, and one fugitive slave), planned to seize the armory and use weapons stored there to arm Black slaves in order to spark a general uprising by the slave population.