John Henry Kagi

John Henry Kagi (March 15, 1835 – October 17, 1859) was an American abolitionist and second in command to John Brown in Brown's failed raid on Harper's Ferry. He bore the title of "Secretary of War" in Brown's "provisional government." At age 24, Kagi was killed during the raid. [ [http://www.wvculture.org/history/jb11.html Re-evaluating John Brown's Raid at Harpers Ferry, by Karen Whitman] accessed April 12, 2007]

Early life

John Henry Kagi was born in Bristolville, Ohio, in 1835, the second child of blacksmith Abraham Neff Kagy (as spelled on his gravestone) and Anna Fansler. John Henry Kagi adopted the Swiss spelling of the family name.

Though largely self-taught, he was the best educated of Brown's raiders.Several of his letters to national newspapers survive, including those to the New York Tribune, the New York Evening Post, and the National Era. He was an able businessman, totally abstained from alcohol, and was agnostic.

In 1854-55 he taught school in Hawkinstown, Shenandoah County, Virginia near his father's birthplace but was compelled to leave due to his antislavery views. A relative, Virginia historian Dr. John W. Wayland, wrote the most complete monograph on Kagi and his activities.

With John Brown

In 1855, Kagi traveled west and stayed at the cabin of his sister Barbara Kagy Mayhew and her husband Allen in Nebraska City. Kagi used the cabin, preserved as the Mayhew Cabin Museum,as part of the Underground Railroad. [ [http://www.mayhewcabin.com/history.html Mayhew Cabin] accessed April 12, 2007] He was admitted to the Nebraska bar, before joining in the fighting in Bleeding Kansas on the abolistionist side with General James H. Lane. Later he enlisted in Aaron Stevens's ("Captain Whipple's") Second Kansas Militia, and met John Brown in Lawrence, Kansas. Stevens and Kagi became two of Brown's closest advisors. Kagi was captured in 1856 by United States troops.

He was imprisoned in Lecompton, Kansas, then at Tecumseh.He was severely injured in a gun fight with a pro-slavery judge named Elmore on January 31, 1857. Elmore was shot in the groin. Later that year he tried to help Brown organize a military school in Tabor, Iowa and had military training in the Quaker community of Pedee, in Cedar County, Iowa.

On May 8, 1858 in a black church in Chatham, Ontario Brown's "Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the people of the United States" was adopted, and Kagi was named Secretary of War. [ [http://www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/eraop/era-of-peace-p40.html Era of Peace] from William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas]

Kagi and Brown moved to a cabin on Little Sugar Creek, near Mound City, Kansas. In November 1858, the cabin was successfully defended by Kagi and others from an armed posse, while Brown was away.

On December 20, 1858 Brown led twelve men, and Kagi led another party of eight men into Missouri to free slaves. Brown's party freed ten slaves, but Kagi's only freed one while killing the slave's owner. [ [http://www.moundcityks.com/history/brown.html John Brownn in Linn County] accessed April 12, 2007] [ [http://www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/eraop/era-of-peace-p40.html Era of Peace] from William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas]

While planning the raid on Harper's Ferry Kagi acted as the business agent of the raiders, buying and storing weapons, in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. At Chambersburg he lived in the Mary Rittner house, which still stands at 225 East King Street, with Brown. Brown (using the name John Smith) and Kagi met with Frederick Douglass and Shields Green at an abandoned quarry outside of Chambersburg to discuss the raid on August 19. [ [http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/pa2.htm Aboard the Underground Railway, John Brown House] accessed 3/25/2007] [ [http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/jbrown/fdlife.html excerpt from The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, (1881, reprint New York: Pathway Press, 1941), pp. 350-354] accessed 3/25/2007] According to Douglass's account, Brown described the planned raid in detail and Douglass advised him against it.

Kagi was killed during the Harper's Ferry raid as he tried to escape across the Shenandoah River from Hall's Rifle Works. [ [http://www.wvculture.org/history/jb11.html Re-evaluating John Brown's Raid at Harpers Ferry, by Karen Whitman] accessed April 12, 2007]

Appearances in modern literature

* "Flashman and the Angel of the Lord" (1996)
* "Cloudsplitter" (1998)

External links

* [http://www.johnbrown.org/provisionalarmy.htm Kagi biography]

References