Tony Horwitz is the author of Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Started the Civil War. Horwitz was born in Washington, D.C., a graduate of Brown University and the Columbia University School of Journalism. Before becoming an author, Horwitz was a journalist, starting in Indiana. He went on to become an incredible bestselling author, his latest work is Midnight Rising. In the novel, he talks about John Brown's early life and explains the raid he led on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Horwitz theorizes how John Brown started the Civil War. The author began by introducing John Brown, the main character of Midnight Rising. John Brown was named after his grandfather, “a Connecticut farmer and Revolutionary War officer who married into fighting the Empire.” This gives readers a form of trust in the author, his sources seem reliable and enhances Horwitz's understanding of the subject he is talking about. One of the sources he uses is a poem by Langston Hughes, a poem that dealt with black Americans and the John Brown Raid. Hughes describes John Brown as a hero when he states, “I took twenty-one companions, white and black, to clear your path to freedom…” (Horwitz, 2011, p.937). These primary sources are used to identify the type of person John Brown is considered to be. There are authors who speak differently about John Brown and this is proven in the following two monographs. The novel "The Fire Among You: A Religious Life of John Brown" by Louis A. DeCaro reveals Brown's roots in Puritan abolitionism and theorizes that Brown's reasoning for the raid was due to his religious preferences. The second novel is Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America by Evan Carton. Here in this monograph the author makes it very clear that John Brown fought for the slaves because he truly cared that everyone had equal rights. Previous historiographies differ as to why John Brown fought for slaves. However, they share a similarity in explaining Brown's beginnings and all three authors favor the John Brown hypothesis.