From John Brown’s Attacker to John Brown’s Defender: The Life of Lawson Botts

165 years ago today, the trial of John Brown began seven days after he was captured while raiding Harpers Ferry. Brown entered the bayonet-bristled courtroom of the Jefferson County Courthouse in Charlestown, Virginia (modern-day Charles Town, West Virginia) tired from the raid. His face was swollen from the wounds he received at the raid’s conclusion. Brown’s nerves and patience were short.

On the morning of October 25, 1859, Judge Richard Parker accepted Brown and four of his captured Raiders into the courtroom. Parker listed their charges: first-degree murder, treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, and conspiring to start a slave uprising. When allowed to speak, Brown erupted. “Under no circumstances whatever,” he began, “will I be able to have a fair trial. If you seek my blood, you can have it any moment, without this mockery of a trial. I have had no counsel. I have not been able to advise with any one.” To placate Brown, Parker assigned him two men to serve as his counsel: Charlestown’s mayor, Thomas C. Green, and local attorney Lawson Botts. The latter man was an especially interesting choice since Botts led troops against Brown just a week earlier. But Botts’ fairness and “love of truth” propelled him into this prominent role to play in the latest act of the nation’s unfolding drama.

From his birth in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on July 25, 1825, Lawson Botts seemed destined to play a role in John Brown’s trial 34 years later. His grandfather, Benjamin Botts, defended Aaron Burr during his treason trial in 1807. Yet the military called the younger Botts. In 1841, he enrolled in the Virginia Military Institute. He did not complete his studies, however, but instead returned home to care for his ailing and blind father. Back in his father’s Fredericksburg law office, Botts picked up the lawyer trade while settling his father’s personal and professional affairs. Now officially a lawyer, Botts departed Fredericksburg for Clarksburg, (West) Virginia, where he stayed for a year before making his way to Charlestown.

When Botts arrived in the seat of Jefferson County, “he was poor and unknown,” claimed a later testimonial. But the 21-year-old lawyer worked hard to change that. He established a law practice and married Bettie Ranson, a member of a prominent local family. Together, they had four sons.

On October 17, 1859, word reached Charlestown that “whites and Negroes had possession of the Ferry & were killing citizens.” Both militia and civilians gathered in front of the courthouse and marched off to Harpers Ferry. Botts was among them. Once at Harpers Ferry, he led an ad hoc civilian force to seize control of the bridge spanning the Shenandoah River to prevent Brown’s men from using that avenue of escape. Later, with Brown’s men cut off and surrounded, Brown tried to negotiate with the local leaders to let his men go safely across the Potomac River into Maryland, where he would then release his prisoners back into their hands. When Lawson read Brown’s response, he supposedly threw it “contemptuously upon the floor, and placing his foot on it saying: ‘Gentlemen, this is adding insult to injury. I think we ought to storm those fellows without further delay.’” Botts’ desire for action had to wait until United States Marines stormed the armory engine house–John Brown’s Fort, as it came to be called–the next morning, ending the raid and capturing Brown himself. One week later, Brown and Botts were face to face in the Jefferson County Courthouse, and now Botts was asked to defend Brown.

When formal proceedings began in the trial on October 27, Botts, trying to use any trick to defend his client, introduced to the court a telegram from a man supposedly familiar with Brown’s family. He was familiar enough with it to claim that “Insanity is hereditary in that family.” Brown knew Botts had the dispatch, but he did not know his counsel would use it during the trial. Brown scoffed at the public accusation (though he did not fully deny all of the letter privately). It mattered not, for Judge Parker dismissed it anyway. Toward the trial’s end, Brown’s requested counsel arrived, and Botts’ defense of Brown ended.

The furor caused by John Brown’s Raid spawned new militia units across the South. Lawson Botts led one of these new organizations in Charlestown, known as the Botts Grays. When the Civil War began 18 months after Brown’s Raid, Botts proclaimed himself a “decided and uncompromising opponent of secession doctrines.” Nonetheless, he joined the Confederate army as a captain. The Botts Grays mustered in as Company G, 2nd Virginia Infantry.

Botts stood out among the officers of the 2nd Virginia and the Stonewall Brigade. His rank steadily increased from captain to major (June 12, 1861) to lieutenant colonel (September 11, 1861) to colonel of the regiment on June 27, 1862. Despite being “of delicate frame and feeble health,” Botts remained in the field with his men and led them in every battle from First to Second Manassas. In the latter battle, Botts’ men engaged in a particularly deadly, close-quarters firefight at the Brawner farm on the evening of August 28, 1862. While mounted on horseback behind the 2nd Virginia’s line, a Federal bullet “entered his cheek and came out behind his ear.” Though the wound was grievous, Botts lingered for two weeks until he died in the home of a friend in Middleburg, Virginia, on September 11, 1862.

Botts’ remains rest in the Zion Episcopal Church Cemetery in Charles Town, West Virginia. Also buried there is George Turner, one of the civilian casualties of John Brown’s Raid. Botts came to Charlestown “poor and unknown” in 1846. “When he died, few, if any in his county, exerted a more solid influence, or had a larger circle of friends and admirers.”

Selected Bibliography:

Gilot, Jon-Erik M. and Kevin Pawlak. John Brown’s Raid: Harpers Ferry and the Coming of the Civil War, October 16-18, 1859. Savas Beatie, 2023.

Krick, Robert K. Lee’s Colonels. Morningside Bookshop, 1979.

Poland, Jr., Charles P. America’s Good Terrorist: John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid. Casemate Publishers, 2020.

Walker, Charles D. Biographical Sketches of the Graduates and Eleves of the Virginia Military Institute Who Fell during the War Between the States. J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1875.

Wert, Jeffry D. A Brotherhood of Valor: The Common Soldiers of the Stonewall Brigade, C. S. A., and the Iron Brigade, U. S. A. Touchstone, 1999.

Wise, Jennings C. The Military History of the Virginia Military Institute from 1839 to 1865. J. P. Bell Company, Inc., 1915.