This brass collapsible telescope with lens cover and mahogany-colored wood sections was used by John Brown in Kansas and western Virginia in the 1850s. The telescope was most likely used in preparation for Brown’s attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry on October 19, 1859. Lieutenant Edwin G. Lee found the telescope in Brown’s hut on Maryland Heights, near Harpers Ferry. Lee used the telescope during the Civil War while serving as a general in the Confederate army.
Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 30001
