Anderson met John Brown at the Chatham Convention in 1858 and joined his plan to fight slavery, becoming a secretary and part of his provisional congress. During the raid, he helped take Col. Lewis Washington hostage and received George Washington’s historic sword. When the raid began to fail, Anderson escaped through Pennsylvania and eventually into Canada. In 1861, he wrote A Voice From Harpers Ferry, detailing his first-hand account of the raid. He died in 1872.