USA > Kansas > A standard history of Kansas and Kansans, Volume II > Part 4
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with Sharp's rifles at the distance of 400 yards, their bullets zipping around our heads uncomfortably elose. We dismounted immediately, picketed our horses, formed a long line and charged as fast as we could run in the direction of where the Brown company was concealed in the bush. We ran down hill which probably saved the lives of some of our men as it was discovered after the battle that several of them had bullet holes through their hats above their heads. Just north of where we left our horses was a thicket and just north of the thieket our cannon was stationed. When we had reached a point 100 yards from Capt. Brown's men the eannon was fired. Our opponents then ceased firing and fell back into the woods and we did not see anything more of them though the cannon was fired into the wood the second time. Soon after, when a well dressed man eame out of a thicket seventy-five yards from us and surrendered, he was a pro-slavery man from Missouri and had been run- ning a sawmill near Osawatomie. We protected him and sent him to the rear under guard, where our wounded men were being attended to by the surgeons. The guard soon returned, when a desperado who was with us went back to the field hospital and shot and killed this man without cause or provocation. The man was a prisoner under our protection and many of our men condemned the act in the plainest language. Soon after the battle ceased some of our men went into the town with the eannon and in a short time I heard its reports and saw smoke rising. When they returned they informed me that part of the town had been burned without authority of Gen. Reid. Our commander-in-chief of our army was Major Gen. D. R. Atchison. Col. A. W. Doniphan was present unofficially in eamp, but neither was at Osawatomie.
JAMES HALE, Lieut. of Capt. Larry Boyce's Co.
LEXINGTON, Mo., AUG. 1. 1906.
Judge Hale says that some of the Missourians at Bull Creek marched back to Missouri on the 31st, but most of them remained at the eamp.
On the 31st day of Angust, General Lane determined to drive this force of Ruffians out of Kansas. The Free-State men under him at that time mimbered nearly two hundred, being one hundred and forty- three cavalry and about one hundred and fifty infantry. Colonel O. E. Learnard was in command of the cavalry forees, which consisted of a number of small companies. Lane led his forces from Lawrence to the Santa Fe Trail, over which he advanced toward the Border- Ruffian camp. The cavalry led the march. Colonel Learnard found the Missourians drawn up in line of battle on the west side of Bull Creek on both sides of the Santa Fe Trail. They opened fire on Learnard as soon as he appeared in sight. The firing was wild and seemed to be done at random, which was attributed to the amount of whisky the Ruffians had been permitted to imbibe. Lane soon came up, and there was a battle of about an hour. The Free-State men fired deliberately, killing several Missourians and wounding many. The Missouri officers would ride along the lines and strike their soldiers over the head for not shooting better. They also tried to force them to advance; and their shooting did not improve. As darkness eame on the Free-State men drew off and went back to Black Jack, where they camped. Next morn- ing Lane sent Learnard with his cavalry to define the position of the Ruffians. He found a foree advancing up the Trail, but it immediately
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retreated upon the approach of Learnard. Later it was discovered that this company was only thrown out to cover the retreat of the Mis- sourians. When Learnard got to Bull Creek, he saw the train of the Missourians, about forty wagons, going up the banks through the timber headed for Missouri. Most of the Missourians had retreated to Kansas City during the night. They arrived there the next morning in great disorder. Atchison had not been at Bull Creek for a day or two, but was in Kansas City under the influence of whisky. He was furious when his forces straggled into the town, and swore that if his men would not fight he would not lead them again into Kansas, but he did lead his forces back within a few days.
While General Lane was driving the Bull-Creek camp of Ruffians out of the Territory, Marshal Donalson, with his deputies, Newsem and ('ramer, determined to arrest the leading Free-State men on the old warrants, which he still carried. He placed himself at the head of a band of Territorial militia and scoured Douglas County. Those citizens found at home were arrested. For two days the country west of Law- rence was pillaged. Seven houses were burned, among them those of Judge Wakefield and Captain Samuel Walker. Well-laden with loot, and marching their prisoners before them, they retreated to Lecompton when they heard of the return of General Lane from the battle at Bull Creek. Lane decided to attack Lecompton and liberate the prisoners. He divided his forces, sending one division to march on the north side of the Kansas River. Lane was to march on the south side and occupy the high land above the town. Colonel Harvey moved on the 4th of September with a force of one hundred and fifty men. He arrived at a position opposite the town and camped in the rain, which continued all night. Seeing nothing of Lane on the following morning, he re- turned with his command to Lawrence. Lane had been delayed, and Colonel Harvey found that he had marched and was at Lecompton, having reached there about the time that Harvey had gotten to Lawrence. The appearance of Harvey on the north side of the river had demoralized the Territorial militia, and a good part of that force refused to continue the work of pillaging and burning assigned to them by Governor Wood- son. Another body of the Territorial militia returned home in disgust. General Richardson tendered his resignation as commander of the militia to Governor Woodson on the 5th. All this had resulted from the appearance of Colonel Harvey's troops on the north side of the river. When Lane appeared, at four o'clock P. M., on the heights above the town of Lecompton, there was no force under command of Governor Woodson to defend the town. Woodson made a hasty appeal to Colonel P. St. George Cooke to protect the town from Lane. Lane sent Captain Cline and Charles H. Branscomb with a flag of truce to General Marshall, the only officer left in charge of the Territorial militia, demanding an unconditional surrender of the Free-State prisoners. General Marshall replied that they had been released that morning. and that they would be escorted to Lawrence on the following day by a company of dragoons.
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Ife demanded that the prisoners in the hands of the Free-State men be released.
Just as his messengers were returning from the Border-Ruffian camp, Colonel Cooke arrived at Colonel Lane's headquarters. "Gentlemen," he said, "you have made a great mistake in coming here today. The Terri- torial militia was dispersed this morning. Some of them have left. Some are leaving now, and the rest will leave to go to their homes as soon as they can." Marcus J. Parrott made this reply: "Colonel Cooke, when we sent a man, or two men, or a dozen men, to speak with the Territorial authorities, they are arrested and held like felons. How, then, are we to know what is going on at Lecompton? Why, we have to come here with an army to find out what is going on. How else could we know?" The prisoners which had been recently taken by the Border-Ruffians were permitted to go over to the Free-State men and return to Lawrence the following day. These were only the prisoners who had been taken since the attack on Franklin, and not the treason prisoners.
Lawrence was filled with refugees from Leavenworth. On the 1st of September an election had been held there for Mayor, at which one Murphy was elected. He proceeded to expel every Free-State man from the town. He broke open stores and private houses and expelled the occupants without regard to age or sex. His men attacked the house of William Phillips, who had been tarred and feathered, as before noted. Phillips supposed that he was to be again mobbed and defended himself. killing two of the Ruffians. He was immediately fired on and received a dozen balls in his body, falling dead in the presence of his wife. Fifty citizens of Leavenworth were placed on the steamboat Polar Star and the Captain ordered to remain until given permission to leave. On the next day Captain Emory assembled a force of eight hundred Ruffians and paraded the town. He collected one hundred men, women and children, and drove them aboard the Polar Star. The commander at Fort Leavenworth refused to protect the people, and put up notices for them to leave the fort and grounds. Many of them were compelled to wander on the prairie in danger of being murdered by marauding parties. Some of them attempted to board downward-bound boats and were shot. Of those who escaped some were seized at Kansas City and other Missouri towns, and returned. The Territory was rapidly filling up with bands from Missouri in response to Woodson's proclama- tion. 1
1 In a letter to the St. Louis Democrat, dated May 27, 1857, was this account of the exploit of one Fugit.
"Fugit is the same person who made a bet in this eity [ Leavenworth]. last August, that before night he would have a Yankee scalp. He got a horse, and rode out into the country a few miles, and met a German, a brother-in-law of Rev. E. Nute, named Hoppe. Ile asked if he was from Lawrence. Hoppe replied that he was. Fugit immediately leveled his revolver and fired, the shot taking effeet in the temples, and Hoppe fell a corpse. The assassin dismounted from his horse, ent the scalp from the back of his head, tied it to a pole, and returned to town, exhibiting
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A council of war was held in Lawrence to decide what should be done in this emergency. Marcus J. Parrott, F. G. Adams, H. Miles Moore, and many other refugees in Lawrence, urged that the Free-
it to the people, and boasting of his exploit. The body of the victim was found shortly after, and buried on Pilot Knob, about two miles distant from this city. This same Fugit is one of the party who, when the widow came from Lawrence to look for her husband's corpse, forced her on board of a steamer and sent her down the river."
The point where Fugit killed Hoppe is three miles southwest of Leavenworth and about one mile from the present city limits. The murder was committed on the 19th of August, 1856. There was a cross- ing of Three-mile Creek at that point, and Jacob Swaggler kept an inn there, and sold groceries and liquor. The house of Swaggler was about a quarter of a mile above the crossing. Mr. Hoppe had landed at Leaven- worth and hired a horse and buggy in which to go to Lawrence to visit his brother-in-law, Rev. E. Nute. He was returning the horse and buggy at the time he met Fugit. Fugit was a grandson of Major Todd, of Platte County, Missouri. He had an uncle, Marion Todd, living about seven miles southwest of Leavenworth, near what is now the town of Boling. Fugit had made the bet in a Leavenworth saloon mentioned in the above-named letter. He started out toward the home of his unele. He met Hoppe on the west side of Three-mile Creek. What was said is not known, but Fugit shot him. The horse ran across the creek, when Hoppe's body fell out of the buggy, his feet entangled in the line, which stopped the horse. Fugit followed him back, and when he came up with the dead body, scalped it. Two children, Jimmie Rhodes, six or seven years old, and his sister, were gathering plums there in a thicket and saw the murder. Fugit returned to town with the scalp and exhibited it and collected his wager. He then went to his uncle's where he also exhibited the scalp. His aunt was horrified and told him he had better leave the country. He went to Texas. In about a year he came back to Leavenworth and was tried before Judge Lecompte. Mrs. Todd was spirited away and not permitted to appear against him. The court ruled that the evidence of the children could not be admitted, as they were too young. This made it impossible to convict him of the murder. Fugit then went back to Platte County, but his crime was too brutal for even the Missourians of that day. They would have little to do with him, and he dropped out of sight.
Barnabas Gable moved to Platte County, Missouri, from Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1839. He settled on a claim in Platte County, near Camden Point. He moved into Leavenworth County in 1854, settling on a elaim three miles southwest of Leavenworth. He was a Free-State man. He had been to Leavenworth with a load of hay, and was returning home on the day of the murder. Fugit passed him, and he heard the shot which was fired by Fugit. When he came near the crossing he found the dead and scalped body of Mr. Hoppe.
A Mr. Lightburn of Platte County, Missouri, was a wagon-master for government trains at Fort Leavenworth. He had ridden ahead of his train, which was going out the same road taken by Fugit, and stopped in a thicket to get some plums. Gable had passed him at the thicket. Lightburn soon came up to where Gable had found the dead body. He and Gable carried the body to the cabin of a Mr. Wallace, who was a Kentuckian, and a red-hot Free-State man. Wallace lived half a mile back toward Leavenworth. On the following day an inquest was held over the body of Mr. Hoppe. IIe was buried on Pilot Knob, but his grave was never marked.
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State men march to Leavenworth. It was decided in the eouneil to cross the Kansas River from Lawrence with the Free-State forees and march on Leavenworth City. Before the council adjourned, Old John Brown rode into Lawrence. He was heralded as a deliverer and met with shouts. The majority of the Free-State men immediately elected him their com- mander and proposed to march at once on Leavenworth. Brown de- elined, saying that he could not supersede Colonel Harvey.
The next week Colonel Ilarvey, with Captain Hull of Jefferson County, and Captain Wright of Leavenworth County, began offensive operations north of the Kansas River. At Slough Creek, near the present town of Oskaloosa, on the 11th of September, they attacked a Border-Ruffian force and captured it. This was two days after the
OF
KANBAT, FREE- STATE WAR
'S. J. READER.
N. TOPERA KAVT.
JAMES II. LANE AT THE BATTLE OF HICKORY POINT [ From Copy by Willard of Painting by S. J. Reader in Library of Kansas State Historical Society]
arrival of Governor Geary. As soon as Geary arrived he had a con- sultation with Lane and requested him to leave the Territory until he (Geary) could see what might be done in restoring order. Lane notified Colonel Harvey that it might be well to return to Lawrence, which he did, arriving there on the 12th of September. General Lane, in accord- anee with his agreement with Governor Geary, left Lawrence. On the 11th he was at Ozawkie in command of some thirty men. There he was informed that the Border-Ruffians had burned the town of Grasshopper Falls and were still ravaging the country. The settlers urged him to do something in their behalf. He sent to Topeka for help. In response to this eall Captain Whipple, as Aaron D. Stevens was then known. joined him on the morning of the 13th, with about fifty men. Lane immediately marched to Hickory Point, where the enemy was found so strongly fortified that it was impossible to make a successful attack' without eannon. He dispatched a messenger to Lawrence asking further
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reinforcements and Biekerton's eannon. The messenger came in just as Colonel Harvey returned from Slough Creek. With such men as were still able to march, Colonel Harvey started across the country to Hiekory Point and arrived there on the forenoon of Sunday, Sep- tember 14th. General Lane did not wait the arrival of Colonel Harvey, who, upon his arrival at Hickory Point, opened fire on the Border- Ruffians. The battle lasted several hours and the Pro-Slavery force surrendered. The losses were, Border-Ruffians, one killed, four wounded ; Free-State, five wounded. The Ruffians were released on parole and the Free-State men started on their return to Lawrence.
That Lane left the Territory at the request of Governor Geary there is little doubt. F. B. Sanborn, the friend of Kansas for more than half a century, has often so told this author.
Lane eould trust Kansas in the hands of Governor Geary, as he believed. The campaign of August and the early part of September had been a brilliant one. Lane had kept Kansas in the eyes of the Nation. He had done an immense service to the young Republican party. Kan- sas very nearly swept Fremont into the Presidency. And it was due to the efforts of Lane in Kansas, largely, that the party made so formid- able an antagonist for the old entrenched Pro-Slavery Democracy.
If Governor Geary would take up the campaign against the Mis- souri invaders and complete the work so well begun, Lane could well permit him to do so. He left the Territory, and Geary proceeded to deal with the Border-Ruffians through the military arm of his power.
This agreement with Geary also included John Brown, who did leave the Territory a little later and spent the winter laboring with Legislatures and the people to raise money to continue his fight against slavery.
That the Missourians recognized the efficiency of Lane's campaign is shown by the appeal which they issued :
From the People of Kansas Territory to the People of the Union.
We have received from Kansas City a printed paper intended as an appeal to the People of the United States in relation to Kansas affairs. It is quite long, and takes a general view of events as they have trans- pired in relation to that Territory since the passage of the bill of its organization. It is not necessary for us to transfer this portion of the Appeal to our columns, and we content ourselves with giving the last half of it.
To all this we submitted, under the promise that the laws should be enforced, our lives and property protected.
What has been the result? The House of Representatives proceeds with its efforts to disorganize our government-to set aside all our laws- to bring anarchy upon us.
The army falsely represented as our protection, is required to be dis- handed, unless we are deprived of the protection of the law !!
Mass meetings are held in every non-slave-holding State to con- tribute aid to the rebels and assassins in our midst. National Conven tions assembled to devise means for raising an army to destroy us. Lane -a traitor-a fugitive from justice, is permitted openly to traverse one
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ness shall reign in our country. If we are vanquished, you too will be victims.
Let not our appeal be in vain.
D. R. ATCHISON. B. F. TREADWELL. Jos. C. ANDERSON. R. G. COOK. T. H. ROSSER. WM. H. TEBBS.
WM. J. PRESTON.
S. F. JONES.
A. A. PRESTON.
J. H. STRINGFELLOW. P. T. ABELL.
AUGUST 26, 1856.
We, citizens of Missouri, urge our fellow citizens and the citizens of other States to respond to the above call of the citizens of Kansas.
A. W. DONIPHAN. OLIVER ANDERSON. HENRY L. ROUTT. A. G. BOONE. JESSE MORIN. JNO. W. REID. B. F. STRINGFELLOW.
1194961 CHAPTER XXXIII
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
The principal difference between the two great political parties prior to 1850 was one of interpretation of the Federal Constitution. The Democratic party had contended for a strict construction, counting the constitution a compact between sovereign States, insisting that the government formed under it was limited to those functions explicitly authorized by its terms. The Whigs believed that by the adoption of the constitution the States were merged into a nation with the right to do any and all things necessary for its growth and maintenance whether directly specified in that instrument or not. They were known as loose constructionists, and were favorable to protective tariffs, internal improve- ments, and national bank currency, and they came finally to insist that the Federal Government could and should control slavery in the Ter- ritories. They were the successors of the Federalists, from whom they inherited their principles and tendencies, which had been formulated chiefly by Alexander Hamilton.
Neither of these parties was sectional, and up to 1850 the Whigs did not constitute an anti-slavery party, nor the Democrats a Pro- Slavery party. In 1848, for President the Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor, of Louisiana, a slave-holder, and did not adopt a platform. The Democrats nominated Lewis Cass, of Michigan, on a strict con- struction platform. The Whigs were successful, but in 1850, Henry Clay, their leader, proposed a compromise of the conflicting claims growing out of slavery and related questions. The principles of this compromise were enacted into laws, that having the greatest influence on the future of the country being the Fugitive Slave Law, which was much more stringent than any former statute on the subject. Fugi- tive slaves were to be by Federal officials restored, wherever found, to their owners without trial by jury, and all citizens were expected to aid in such restoration. The people of the North objected to being set to slave hunting for Southern masters, and some States enacted what was known as personal liberty laws, designed to protect free negroes and fugitive slaves; and the Underground Railroad, over which fugitive slaves were assisted to reach Canada, became a well-organized and ef- ficient institution.
The Fugitive Slave Law killed the Whig party. Its dissolution furnished the material for numerous small groups, none of them of enough importance to be called a national party. The Northern Whigs
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called themselves Anti-Nebraska Men, as they opposed the first attempts to organize a Nebraska Territory west of Missouri and Iowa. The Barn- burners became the Free-Soil Democrats. All shades of political opin- ion were represented by groups, down to Hunkers and Know-Nothings. As the slavery conflict developed there came a gradual realignment of parties, most of these minority groups going over to the Anti- Nebraska Men, who, in 1855, had called themselves the Republican party, and in 1856 a National Republican party was organized. The new party was in fact successor to the Federalist and Whig parties, and it inherited their loose construction principles, the policies of protective tariff, internal improvements, national bank curreney, and it added the burning issue of opposition to the extension of slavery.
In 1856 the National Convention of the Republican party was held at Philadelphia, on the 17th of June. Most political elements in the United States opposed to the Democratic party were represented in the Convention. The National issue at that time was Kansas. The Repub- lican party championed the Kansas cause, and free Kansas was its plat- form. The nature of the contest in Kansas Territory was such that it appealed to all anti-slavery people without regard to. their former political affiliations. The issue thus made appealed to the people gen- erally in the Free States. John C. Fremont was nominated as the eandi- date of the party for President. So vital were the principles declared by the Republican party that it came near eleeting its candidate for President in its first national campaign. The Free-State men of Kan- sas who took part in this campaign exerted a wonderful influence. In this matter James H. Lane did more than any other Kansan.
The wonderful showing made at the polls by the Republican party in 1856, made it certain that the party thus formed of the anti-slavery elements of the country, would become a permanent political party in America. That it may be known to just what extent Kansas entered into the platform of this party in 1856, it is believed necessary to here set out that platform complete :
This Convention of Delegates, assembled in pursuance of a call ad- dressed to the people of the United States, without regard to past political differenees or divisions, who are opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, to the poliey of the present Administration, to the extension of Slavery into Free Territory; in favor of admitting Kansas as a Free State, or restoring the action of the Federal Govern- ment to the principles of Washington and Jefferson, and who propose to unite in presenting candidates for the offices of President and Vice- President, do resolve as follows:
Resolved, That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution is essential to the preservation of our republican institutions, and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the States, and the Union of the States, shall be preserved.
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