Frank --
Actually he was a devout, life-long Christian, but the God he worshipped seems to have been much more like the one revered by the Muslim world. We seem to pay Brown and his followers little attention, but they had more to do with the coming of the war than Anderson and his ill-fated garrison at Fort Sumter. Stated a different way, Harper's Ferry almost made Fort Sumter inevitable, in the same way that the invasion of Iraq was a result of the attacks on 9-11.
Let me suggest a little light reading --
http://www.popula.com/st/no_610/2698608.htm