10/18/2026
Did you know John Wilkes Booth attended John Brown's ex*****on?
Following his participation with anti-slavery forces in “Bleeding Kansas,” abolitionist John Brown set out to end slavery through violence at Harpers Ferry. On October 16, 1859, Brown and twenty-one others entered the town. They seized the federal arsenal and captured prominent citizens. Brown hoped that the local enslaved people would join the raid to begin a slave insurrection throughout the South. However, local militias trapped the raiders within an engine house. On this day in 1859, US Marines under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee stormed the engine house where many of the raiders were killed and John Brown was captured, ending the raid. Brown was sentenced to death and hanged on December 2, 1859.
Some 2,000 militiamen acted as guards during the ex*****on, including John Wilkes Booth. As a supporter of slavery, Booth approved of John Brown’s ex*****on, but Booth also admired how stoically John Brown faced death. Like John Brown, Booth attempted to use violence to change the course of the nation when he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre. However, just like John Brown, Booth's plan failed. Unlike John Brown, Booth's goal of saving the Confederacy was never realized, while Brown's goal of ending slavery was.
Image used courtesy of the Library of Congress.
