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On a chill foggy autumn evening in 1859, abolitionist John Brown and a rough gang of 21 men with guns and pikes and revolt in their hearts quietly hiked five miles from a farm in Western Maryland to the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Va. Their ambitions were outrageous: surprise the guards at the armory, capture wagonloads of rifles and then flee, distributing the guns among slaves. Brown hoped for nothing less than a full uprising of servant against master.

He had spent four months living on the farm simply trying to fit in. The hike to Harpers Ferry had become routine. A new beard and a shock of Lyle Lovett hair kept

locals from recognizing him as the devil who had massacred slave owners in Kansas three years before. Soon the disguise would be irrelevant. “Men, get on your arms,” he famously declared on the night of October 16, “we will proceed to the Ferry.”

Now, 150 years later, walking in Brown’s footsteps remains an eerily timeless experience. Roads that were dirt are now paved, the bridge Brown used to cross the Potomac River has been replaced, and buildings in Harpers Ferry throw off electric light. But most of the route remains pitch-black after sunset; trees that witnessed that night are still there, and woodstoves continue to scent the air.

Civil War buffs have been making this pilgrimage for better than three decades. In 1979—the 120th anniversary of John Brown’s raid—National Park Service historian Dennis Frye and 20 re-enactors, decked out in period clothing and shouldering period weapons, hiked from the Ken­nedy Farm in Washington County to the Harpers Ferry armory. They read from 1850s newspapers to get into character.

“We tried to transport ourselves back in time,” Frye said. “It was very respectful.”

Perhaps the most memorable part of the trek occurred midway, when an approaching car flashed its high beams and slowed. The lights belonged to a squad car from the Washington County Sheriff’s Department. Staying in character, the soldiers sauntered on—there were no squad cars in 1859. Once past, the deputy turned around and re-approached at the same slow speed, high beams blazing. As he neared, “I expected the red and blue lights to come on,” Frye said.

Instead, the deputy drew even with the procession, took one last gander, and then peeled out at full speed, apparently wanting no part of the apparition.

Unlike those earlier cultish marches, the hike planned for this fall’s 150th anniversary will be publicized and well attended. Organizers expect hundreds of enthusiasts.

The path is mostly downhill to the Potomac and flat after that, as the road hugs the riverbank on its way downstream to the confluence with the Shenandoah River. The relative ease of the hike will not diminish the experience. “It’s still sparsely settled,” Frye said, “and still quite dark”—as dark as when John Brown hitched up his team, shouted words of encouragement and set off on a mission to change the world.

“It’s been debated over the last century and a half when the Civil War began,” Frye said. “The conventional wisdom says Fort Sumter. I disagree with that. John Brown invoked a fear that communities had not experienced before.”

Brown intended to raid the federal armory and use the weapons to establish a series of forts where fleeing slaves could join his army of marauders. At a time when the going rate for an 18-year-old male slave was $1,200, a plantation that lost most of its slaves would be equivalent to a modern farm stripped of all its tractors, harvesters, plows and irrigation equipment. Further, Brown hoped that a slave rebellion in the midst of the harvest season would damage plantations even more.

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