John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry (also known as John Brown's raid or The raid on Harper's Ferry; in many books the town is called "Harper's Ferry") was an effort by white abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. Brown's raid, accompanied by 20 men in his party, was defeated by a platoon of U.S. Marines led by Colonel Robert E. Lee. John Brown had originally asked Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, both of whom he had met in his formative years as an abolitionist in Springfield, Massachusetts, to join him in his raid, but Tubman was prevented by illness, and Douglass declined, as he believed Brown's plan would fail.