[1] As was usual at the time, Newby's skin color was mentioned: he was "a tall and well built mulatto, aged about thirty years.

[5] Dangerfield's wife, Harriet Vincent Newby, was the property of Jesse Jennings, of Arlington or Warrenton, Virginia.

Letters from his wife were found on his body and revealed some of his motivation for joining John Brown and his raid on Harpers Ferry: he hoped to free them by force, since no other way had worked.

Newby was one of the first shooting, killing a visiting Charles Town resident and friend of Lewis Washington, George Turner;[10] the details are unknown.

One man was shooting six inch spikes from his rifle, one of which struck Newby in the throat, killing him instantly.

"The treatment the lifeless bodies of those wretched men received from some of the infuriated populace was far from creditable to the actors or to human nature in general.

or beat him with them, wished that he had a thousand lives, that all of them might be forfeited in expiation and avengement of the foul deed he had committed.

[7] Newby's body, and those of 7 of the 9 others killed, were thrown in a packing box which went in a pit, without ceremony, clergy, or marker.

Dangerfield's widow Harriet married a man named William Robinson, from Berkeley County, West Virginia, who served in the Union Army in Louisiana.

[15] The following letter was found on Dangerfield Newby's body after the failed Harpers Ferry raid: BRENTVILLE, August 16, 1859Dear Husband.