 He attended the hanging of abolitionist leader John Brown on December 2, 1859, who was executed for leading a raid on the Federal armory at Harpers Ferry in present-day West Virginia.Booth had been rehearsing at the Richmond Theatre when he abruptly decided to join the Richmond Grays, a volunteer militia of 1,500 men traveling to Charles Town for Brown's hanging, to guard against an attempt by abolitionists to rescue Brown from the gallows by force.When Brown was hanged without incident, Booth stood in uniform near the scaffold and afterwards expressed great satisfaction with Brown's fate, although he admired the condemned man's bravery in facing death stoically.