It was emphatically a personal exploit.

On the part of both leader and followers, no occasion was omitted to drive home the lesson that men were willing to imperil their lives for the oppressed with no hope or desire for personal gain.

Brown especially served notice upon the South that the day of final reckoning was at hand.
It is natural that the consequences of an event so spectacular as the capture of Harper's Ferry should be greatly exaggerated.
Brown's contribution to Kansas history has been distorted beyond all recognition.

The Harper's Ferry affair, however, because it came on the eve of the final election before the war, undoubtedly had considerable influence.

It sharpened the issue.