Pottawatomie Massacre

During the night of May 24 to the morning of May 25, 1856, John Brown and a band of abolitionists (some of them members of the Pottawatomie Rifles) murdered five pro-slavery men north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas. Known and widely publicized as the "Pottawatomie Massacre", it was one of the many bloody episodes in Kansas preceding the American Civil War known collectively as "Bleeding Kansas".

The pro-slavery men killed included Allen Wilkinson, who kept the postoffice; James P. Doyle; and Henry and William Sherman. Brown's original intention had been to capture the men and hold them for trial. But when Doyle attempted to escape, Brown shot him, and Doyle's sons were then killed by Brown's. The group proceeded to Wilkinson's house, where they killed him, and then to the Shermans', where they killed William Sherman with swords.