USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Torrington > History of Torrington, Connecticut, from its first settlement in 1737, with biographies and genealogies > Part 34
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I He doubtless suffered from epilepsy.
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Late in June, 1855, he was present at an anti-slavery convention in Syracuse, New York, where money was raised to assist him in arming his family in Kansas. He writes to his wife, under date of " Syracuse, June 18, 1855," as follows :
" I reached here on the first day of the convention, and I have reason to bless God that I came ; for I have met with a most warm reception from all, so far as I know ; and, except by a few sincere, honest peace friends, a most hearty approval of my intention of arming my sons and other friends in Kansas. I received to day donations amounting to a little over sixty dollars - twenty ~ from Gerrit Smith, five from an old British officer ; others giving smaller sums with such earnest and affectionate expressions of their good wishes as did me more good than money even. John's two letters were introduced, and read with such effect by Gerrit Smith as to draw tears from numerous eyes in the great collection of people present. The convention has been one of the most interesting meetings I ever attended in my life ; and I made a great addition to the number of warm-hearted and honest friends."
Five months after this letter was written, John Brown was quietly settled at Osawatomie. He had purchased arms with the money given him at Syracuse, rifles and revolvers, and artillery sabres, with which they mustered to defend Lawrence in December, 1855. Brown and four of his sons drove up to the Free State Hotel in Lawrence at that time, " all standing, tall and well armed, in a lumber wagon, about the side of which stood rude pikes, made of bayonets fastened to poles." This was his first appearance in arms among the settlers of Kansas. These men, by no means all heroes, soon dis- covered that their new champion had other views than they. He was no squatter, but even then " his soul went marching on." He had come there to aid his sons and their neighbors against the Missouri marauders ; but that was not his main purpose. He saw that Kansas was the battle ground between slavery and freedom, and he wanted the warfare on the right side to be something more than defensive. He longed to attack slavery on its own ground, and there destroy it. The time, he thought, had come to carry out his darling scheme, and he made many enemies among the timid " free-state men " by striving to do so.
In the disturbances of 1856 he was very prominent, particularly at the fights of Black Jack and Osawatomie, in both of which he won a victory over numbers far superior to his own force. He had en- listed a small band of true men, and with these, from May to Sep- tember, he ranged the Kansas prairies at intervals, executing justice on the oppressors of the people. It was a portion of his band that
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committed the so-called Potawatomie murders in May, 1856, but Captain Brown himself was not then present, although he after- wards fully justified the act. It has often been said that he took part in this deed, but that, he assured me more than once, was not the fact. Although he often told his friends the story of the fight at Black Jack on the 2d of June, 1856, it does not appear that he has left any written account of it. It was one of his most famous en- counters, and did much to make his name feared by his enemies the slave holders.
On the 20th of May 1856, the town of Lawrence had been pillaged and partially destroyed by several hundred Missourians under the command of Sheriff Jones. On the 23d Brown took the field with a small force, and on the night of the 25th some of his party committed the so-called Potawatomie murders, without Brown's knowledge at the time, but with his subsequent approval. This affair exasperated the border ruffians of Missouri, who again made an incursion into that part of Kansas where the Brown family lived, and succeeded in capturing the two eldest sons, John Brown Jr. and Jason. The leader of this raid was one Henry Clay Pate, a Vir- ginian, who put heavy irons on his captives, and after keeping them in camp for a day or two, handed them over to a body of United States dragoons who marched them in chains to the northward, where they were imprisoned at Lecompton, after having endured many hard- ships on the march. They were lodged in prison at Lecompton on the 23d of June, about four weeks after their arrest, and at this time John Brown Jr. was insane from the sufferings he had undergone, while in the hands of the United States troops. He was at first pinioned with a rope, one end of which was held by a mounted dragoon with whom he was obliged to keep pace, as the company marched rapidly under a hot sun. On reaching Tecumseh, the captives were chained two and two, about the ankles, with a common trace chain, padlocked at each end, and tightly clasped around the ankle. In this condition they were marched thirty miles one day. When Captain Brown first visited me at Concord in March 1857, less than a year after this, he brought with him the chain his son had worn in this march, and told the story at a public meeting in the Town Hall there. His own words, describing the arrest, were as follows : " On or about the 30th of May 1856, two of my sons, with several others, were imprisoned without other crime than opposition to bogus legislation ; and most barbarously treated for a time, one (Jason) being held about
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one month, and the other (John) about four months. After this arrest, both of them had their houses burned, and all their goods consumed by the Missourians. In this burning all the eight (I and my six sons and my son-in-law) suffered loss, and one had his oxen stolen in addition. My son John was so affected in his mind by the cruelties he endured while wearing this chain, that he became a maniac."
Hearing of the capture of his two eldest sons, though not then aware of what indignities they had endured, John Brown with his men started in pursuit of the Virginian Captain Pate, who, after giving up his prisoners to the dragoons, had encamped, with fifty men, on a small stream called the Black Jack creek, near Hickory Point, within the present town of Palmyra. This place is in the southeast corner of Douglas county (of which Lawrence is the chief town), and is about halfway between Lawrence, which the pro-slavery men sacked on the 20th of May, 1856, and Osawatomie, which they sacked on the 7th of June following. Pate had been encamped there a day or two, among the " black-jack" oak trees which give a name to the stream, when Captain Brown came up with him, on Monday the 2d of June, 1856. Brown's company consisted of twenty-seven men besides himself, and the names of twenty-six of these have been carefully preserved .* He divided them into two parties, and commenced the attack with the one party, while the other moved round to get a better position. Pate was posted in a strong position, on the slope of a ravine, and with a slight defence of wagons in front of him. By the division of his forces, however, Captain Brown got him between two fires, and without much exposing his own men, harassed the enemy with rifle shots, wounded several, and drove a part of them down into the ravine. Brown began the attack with spirit, directing his men to lie down in the grass so that only their heads and shoulders were exposed to the enemy's fire, and to shoot deliberately, taking good aim, and not throwing away their fire. In this way the fight was kept up for two or three hours, during which about half of Pate's
" They were Samuel T. Shore, Silas More, David Hendricks, Hiram McAllister, - Parmely, Silvester Harris, O. A. Carpenter, Augustus Shore, - Townsley (of Pota- watomie), William B. Hayden, John Mc Whinney, Montgomery Shore, Elkana Timmons, T. Weiner, August Bondy, Hugh Mc Whinney, Charles Kaiser, Elizur Hill, William David, B. L. Cochran, Henry Thompson, Elias Basinger, Owen Brown, Frederick Brown, Salmon Brown, Oliver Brown. The twenty-seventh man's name was forgotten by Captain Brown, who gave me this list.
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force had run away or been disabled, while two-thirds of Captain Brown's company were in good fighting condition. Just at the time Captain Brown's son Frederick, a wild, odd youth, who was after- wards killed at Osawatomie, left the horses he was guarding in the rear, and came upon the top of the hill overlooking the ravine, be- tween the two parties of his father's men, brandishing a huge sword and shouting, "Come on! come on! the sword of the Lord and Gideon ! I have cut off all communication, come on !" Dismayed at the supposed reinforcement, the pro-slavery men now ran away faster than ever and Captain Pate thought it necessary to send a flag of truce. This he did by hoisting a white handkerchief and sending a lieutenant to inquire what all this firing meant. Captain Brown met the lieutenant and said, " Are you the captain of this company ?" " No." "Then stay with me and send your companion to call the captain out ; I will talk with him and not with you." Thus sum- moned, Captain Pate himself appeared, saying that he was an officer acting under orders of the United States marshal of Kansas, and he supposed they did not intend to fight against the United States. He was going on in this way when Brown interrupted him, saying - " Captain, I understand exactly what you are, and do not want to hear any more about it. Have you any proposition to make to me ?" " Well, no -that is" -
" Very well; I have one to make to you ; you must surrender unconditionally." There was no resisting this demand, for Brown, taking his pistol in hand, returned with Pate to the camp leading four men with him to receive the surrender of the twenty-two men still left under Pate's command. They did surrender at once, though only eight of Brown's men were in sight at the time, and the twenty- three gave themselves up without conditions to Brown and his eight.1 Twenty-one of these prisoners were unwounded, and might have kept up the fight. They surrendered themselves, their twenty-three horses, guns, ammunition, wagons, etc., and were. marched off as prisoners by Brown, who encamped with them on Middle Ottawa creek near Prairie City, and about two miles from the present town called Baldwin City. Here he fortified himself, and received some
" The names of " the eight who held out to receive the surrender of Capt. Pate and twenty-two men," as given to me in April, 1857, by John Brown, were these ; Charles Kaiser, Elizur Hill, Wm. David, Hugh McWhinney (seventeen years old), B. L. Cochran, Owen Brown, Salmon Brown, Oliver Brown (seventeen years old). Four of the nine were Browns therefore, and three of these were afterwards at Harper's Ferry.
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reinforcements - among them, John E. Cook, who was afterwards one of his lieutenants at Harper's Ferry.
The victory of Brown at Black Jack roused the pro-slavery men in Missouri and in Kansas to fury, while it stimulated the freemen of Kansas to new efforts. Both parties mustered in large force near Palmyra, and on the 5th of June a battle seemed imminent. But Col. Sumner, who afterwards, as General Sumner, distinguished himself in the civil war, came down with a force of United States cavalry and put a stop to hostilities. He also sent for Captain Brown, as soon as he heard where he was, desiring an interview. Brown left his entrenched camp on the Ottawa, and came into the camp of Col. Sumner, who requested him to give up Captain Pate and the other prisoners. Brown demurred, unless they were to be tried for highway robbery, of which, he said, they had been guilty. Col. Sumner told him they had not been properly arrested, and must be discharged, but he did not allow the United States marshal, who was present, to arrest Captain Brown, and he required the armed men on both sides to disperse. He also reprimanded Pate for having as- sumed, without proper authority, to range through the country and make arrests ; but he allowed him and his men to receive back their arms, which were the property of the United States, and were im- properly in their possession. Brown and his men returned home, such of them as had homes to go to, and for a few weeks after June 7, there were no serious disturbances. But it was impossible for Brown and his sons to devote themselves quietly to farming as they were requested to do. Their houses had been burnt, their farms pillaged, and two of them held as prisoners. John Brown Jr., was not dis- charged from arrest until about the middle of September. In telling the story of this summer of 1856, to the Massachusetts legislature, on the 18th of February, 1857, when it was proposed to make a state appropriation in aid of the Massachusetts men settled in Kansas, John Brown said :
"I with my six sons and a son-in-law, was called out, and traveled, most of the way on foot, to try and save Lawrence ( May 20 and 21), and much of the way in the night. From that date, neither I nor my sons, nor my son-in- law, could do any work about our homes, but lost our whole time until we left in October ; except one of my sons, who had a few weeks to devote to the care of his own and his brother's family, who were then without a home."
* Brown added, with that prosaic love of details which he had ; " I believe it safe to say that five hundred free state men lost each one hundred and twenty days, which, at $1.50 per day, would be, to say nothing of attendant losses, $90,000." This would make the services of the eight Browns worth just $1,440 during that period. They were really worth millions.
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From about the 20th of May, hundreds of men, like ourselves, lost their whole time, and entirely failed of securing any crop whatever."
They secured the harvest of freedom in Kansas, however, and that was worth more than any other crop, that season. And to no man so much as to John Brown was this result due. He was present wherever danger threatened and, whenever he was permitted to do so, he warded off the danger, or punished the perpetrators of crime. He was near Topeka on the 3d and 4th of July 1856, when the free state legislature was dispersed by federal dragoons, and was ready then, if others had consented, to resist the arbitrary action of the federal government. In August, he joined the forces of Gen. James A. Lane in northern Kansas, having first carried his wounded son-in- law, Henry Thompson, into Iowa to be taken care of. Returning from Iowa about the 10th of August, with Gen. Lane, he proceeded with him to Lawrence and to Franklin, where there was some skir- mishing, and, from the middle of August to the last of September he was in the field with his company, fighting the Missourian invaders of Kansas. By this time his name had become a terror to them, and wherever they were attacked, they believed he was in command. In an appeal to the citizens of Lafayette county, Missouri, urging them to take horses and guns and march into Kansas, David R. Atchison, formerly United States senator from Missouri, wrote as follows, under date of August 17, 1856 :
" On the 6th of August, the notorious Brown, with a party of three hundred abolitionists, made an attack upon a colony of Georgians I murdering about two hundred and twenty-five souls, one hundred and seventy-five of whom were women, children and slaves. Their houses were burnt to the ground, all their property stolen, horses, cattle, clothing, money, provisions, all taken away from them, and their plows burned to ashes.
August 12th, at night, three hundred abolitionists, under this same Brown, attacked the town of Franklin, robbed, plundered and burnt, took all the arms in town, broke open and destroyed the post office, captured the old cannon "Sacramento" which our gallant Missourians captured in Mexico, and are now turning its mouth against our friends
August 15th, Brown with four hundred abolitionists, mostly Lane's men, mounted and armed, attacked Treadwell's settlement in Douglas county, num- bering about thirty men. They planted the old cannon 'Sacramento' towards the colony and surrounded them."
1 At Battersville, eight miles south east of Osawatomie, on an Indian reservation. John Brown was at this time in Nebraska. " Preacher Stewart" really commanded the Free State men.
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No doubt Brown had his share in some of these attacks, which drove some troublesome pro-slavery marauders out of Kansas, but which led also to a formidable invasion from Missouri, under Atchison and Gen. John W. Reid. The former was routed by Gen. Lane on the 3Ist of August, and returned to Missouri ; the latter also re- turned, after a bloody fight with John Brown at Osawatomie, which Reid captured and burned, but which he could not hold on account of the loss inflicted on him by Brown. It was in this fight that Brown received the name of " Osawatomie," by which he was known for some years afterwards. One of his questioners at Harper's Ferry, after his capture in 1859, said, " Are you Osawatomie Brown ?" "I tried to do my duty there," replied the old hero. He not only did his duty in the fight, but soon afterwards wrote an account of it, which is so exact that it deserves to be quoted here.
THE FIGHT OF OSAWATOMIE.
Early in the morning of the 30th of August, the enemy's scouts approached to within one mile and a half of the western boundary of the town of Osa- watomie. At this place my son Frederick (who was not attached to my force) had lodged, with some four other young men from Lawrence, and a young man named Garrison, from Middle Creek.
The scouts, led by a pro-slavery preacher named White, shot my son dead in the road, whilst he - as I have since ascertained - supposed them to be friendly. At the same time they butchered Mr. Garrison, and badly mangled one of the young men from Lawrence, who came with my son, leaving him for dead.
This was not far from sunrise. I had stopped during the night about two and one-half miles from them, and nearly one mile from Osawatomie. I had no organized force, but only some twelve or fifteen new recruits, who were ordered to leave their preparations for breakfast, and follow me into the town as soon as this news was brought to me.
As I had no means of learning correctly the force of the enemy, I placed twelve of the recruits in a log-house, hoping we might be able to defend the town. I then gathered some fifteen more men together, whom we armed with guns ; and we started in the direction of the enemy. After going a few rods, we could see them approaching the town in line of battle, about one-half a mile off, upon a hill west of the village. I then gave up all idea of doing more than to annoy, from the timber near the town, into which we were all retreated, and which was filled with a thick growth of underbrush, but had no time to recall the twelve men in the log-house, and so lost their assistance in the fight.
At the point above named I met with Captain Cline, a very active young man, who had with him some twelve or fifteen mounted men, and persuaded him to go with us into the timber, on the southern shore of the Osage, or Maraisdes-Cygnes, a little to the northwest from the village. Here the men, numbering not more than thirty in all, were directed to scatter and secrete
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themselves as well as they could, and await the approach of the enemy. This was done in full view of them ( who must have seen the whole movement), and had to be done in the utmost haste. I believe Captain Cline and some of his men were not even dismounted in the fight, but cannot assert positively. When the left wing of the enemy had approached to within common rifle shot, we commenced firing ; and very soon threw the northern branch of the enemy's line into disorder. This continued some fifteen, or twenty minutes, which gave us an uncommon opportunity to annoy them. Captain Cline and his men soon got out of ammunition, and retired across the river.
After the enemy rallied, we kept up our fire ; until, by the leaving of one and another, we had but six or seven left. We then retired across the river.
We had one man killed - a Mr. Powers, from Captain Cline's company - in the fight. One of my men, a Mr. Partridge, was shot in crossing the river. Two or three of the party, who took part in the fight, are yet missing, and may be lost or taken prisoners. Two were wounded, viz: Dr. Updegraff and a Mr. Collis.
I cannot speak in too high terms of them, and of many others I have not now time to mention.
One of my best men, together with myself, was struck with a partially spent ball from the enemy, in the commencement of the fight, but we were only bruised. The loss I refer to is one of my missing men. The loss of the enemy, as we learn by the different statements of our own, as well as their people, was some thirty-one or two killed, and from forty to fifty wounded. After burning the town to ashes, and killing a Mr. Williams they had taken, whom neither party claimed, they took a hasty leave, carrying their dead and wounded with them. They did not attempt to cross the river, nor to search for us, and have not since returned to look over their work.
I give this in great haste, in the midst of constant interruptions. My second son was with me in the fight, and escaped unharmed. This I mention for the benefit of his friends.
Old preacher White, I hear, boasts of having killed my son. Of course he is a lion.
LAWRENCE, KANSAS, September 7, 1856.
JOHN BROWN.
In his address before the legislature in the State House at Boston, Feb. 18, 1857, Brown added some particulars concerning his son's death. He said : " I have not yet told all I saw in Kansas. I once saw three mangled bodies, two of which were dead, and one alive, but with twenty bullet and buckshot holes in him, after the two murdered men had lain on the ground, to be worked at by flies, for some eighteen hours. One of these young men was my own son." He was not found by his father until the evening of that day, after the retreat of the Missouri men. His death was a murder and his mur- derer was Martin White a preacher, who was then serving as a soldier in what he called "the law and order militia," that is, the Missouri
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forces, which, upon entering Kansas, were made a part of the pro- slavery territorial militia, by order of Secretary Woodson, himself a Missouri man, who was for a few days acting governor of Kansas. On the 12th of September, the new governor, Geary of Pennsylvania, ordered this invading militia to disband and disperse, but they did not obey, until they again had a taste of John Brown's quality as a com- mander. Martin White was afterwards a member of the pro-slavery legislature, and during the session at Lecompton he boasted of the killing of Frederick Brown. On his way home from the session he was himseif waylaid and shot, according to Mr. Redpath. This was in the winter after the fight at Osawatomie. The number of the pro-slavery men in arms at Osawatomie on the 30th of August was about four hundred, while John Brown had just forty-one men in his company. On the 21st anniversary of this fight, in 1877, a monument to Brown and his men was consecrated at Osawatomie, and the principal speech on the occasion was made by Hon. John J. Ingalls, a senator of the United States, from the state of Kansas.
On the 7th of September, 1855, as the above letter shows, John Brown was at Lawrence. He went from there to Topeka, soon after, and was on his return from there to the neighborhood of Osa- watomie, when another Missouri army invaded Kansas and came up to destroy Lawrence. On Sunday the 14th of September, at a time when many of the armed men of Lawrence were absent on an expe- dition to Hickory Point (where they captured a fort on this same Sunday), the people of the town were alarmed by the news "that 2800 Missourians were marching down upon Lawrence with drums beating and with eagles upon their banners." The actual number, as reported by Gov. Geary, who visited their camp at Franklin, on Monday the 15th was 2700, and their leaders were Gen. John W. Reid, David R. Atchison, B. F. Stringfellow, etc.,- the same who had led the invasion three weeks before. The whole number of fighting men in Lawrence that Sunday did not exceed 200, and many of them were unarmed. But Brown was there and soon made himself known. He was asked to take command of the defences of the town and though he declined, he did in fact command. Between four and five o'clock in the afternoon he assembled the people in the main street, and, mounted on a dry -goods box in the midst of them, he made this speech, which is reported by one who heard him :
* From Lykins county.
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Gentlemen : It is said there are two thousand five hundred Missourians down at Franklin,' and that they will be here in two hours. You can see for your- selves the smoke they are making by setting fire to the houses in that town. Now is probably the last opportunity you will have of seeing a fight, so that you had better do your best. If they should come up and attack us, don't yell and make a great noise, but remain perfectly silent and still. Wait till they get within twenty-five yards of you ; get a good object ; be sure you see the hind- sight of your gun ; then fire. A great deal of powder and lead and very pre- cious time, is wasted by shooting too high. You had better aim at their legs, than at their heads. In either case, be sure of the hind-sights of your guns. It is from the neglect of this that I myself have so many times escaped ; for, if all the bullets that have ever been aimed at me had hit, I should have been as full of holes as a riddle."
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