Waving a white flag of surrender after the failed raid on Harpers Ferry, Aaron Dwight Stevens was riddled with bullets to the face, neck and chest area. The handsome 28-year-old, who lost his baritone voice in the October 1859 crossfire, was hundreds of miles from home.
But he'd long deserted Norwich as a teenager, a rebel with a quick temper and yearning to fight slavery. In “Bleeding Kansas,” Stevens would join forces with famed abolitionist John Brown, of Torrington, training an army of 22 men to free the slaves — and first storm a federal armory in Virginia (now West Virginia).
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