Yes, I know John Brown’s body has a mould ring in the grave. Yes, I know the raid on Harper’s Ferry occurred a year and a half before the first shots were fired in the Civil War. Yes, I even know that Robert E. Lee commanded the troops that took John Brown prisoner and that John Wilkes Booth attended his execution. But what I didn’t know could fill a book and this is it: a compelling account of one of the most important moments in U.S. history.

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