USA > Kansas > Kansas : the prelude to the war for the union > Part 10
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The Missourians retired sullenly across the bor- der. Their leisurely and circuitous path was marked by the customary excesses, including the dead bodies of two or three free-soilers. For a por- tion, at all events, of Whitfield's expedition the
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line of return dipped southward through the odi- ous village of Osawatomie. So far the victims of Dutch Henry's Crossing had been feebly and im- perfectly avenged. To smite the town with which John Brown was most intimately associated, in default of larger game, would yield a qualified and secondary satisfaction. "The abolition hole " - containing some thirty buildings and a population of two hundred souls - was surprised and pillaged. The raiders expected to fire the town, but as fed- eral troops were near, and free-state rangers might be in close pursuit, nothing worse than plunder- ing happened. A final reckoning with Osawat- omie was deferred. The calamitous consequences of the night raid upon the Pottawatomie had not yet spent their fury.
CHAPTER IX.
PER ASPERA.
THE calamities of free-state men in Kansas were stepping-stones to final success. They moved Northern sentiment profoundly. Speakers fresh from the border addressed great public gatherings and inflamed the excitement by the adventurous, romantic, far-away interest that attached to them, by unmeasured denunciations of the slave power, by sensational narratives of the hardships, rob- beries, and murders that had befallen anti-slavery settlers in the territory. Pulpit, press, and con- vention caught up and reverberated their impas- sioned message. The legislatures of several North- ern States passed resolutions recognizing the serv- ices and sufferings of Kansas pioneers in the cause of liberty. "We have heard," said the legislature of Massachusetts, "the call for aid and sympa- thy which has come up . .. from the settlers of Kansas with the deepest solicitude ; . .. their sufferings have touched our hearts ; and the manly defense of their rights has won our admi- ration."
In the autumn of 1856 two books appeared
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which stimulated and perpetuated public interest : " Kansas, Its Exterior and Interior Life," by Mrs. Sara T. L. Robinson - a brave, graphic, real- istic, clear-eyed narrative of border experiences, exhibiting their social, domestic, every-day phases as well as their turbulent, political constituents, and running through nine editions ; "The Con- quest of Kansas," by W. A. Phillips-a breezy, readable book, not without sense of humor, but marred by inaccuracies and exaggerations.
A fierce agitation flamed and roared like a prai- rie fire from Boston to the Northwest. But the movement did not spend itself in flame and smoke. Societies of semi-military cast, no less willing to furnish guns than groceries, sprang up as if by magic, and overshadowed the earlier, more pacific organizations. A national society, with auxilia- ries in almost every free state except Massachu- setts, which had a flourishing " State Kansas Com- mittee" of its own, got afoot and harvested not less than two hundred thousand dollars for Kansas purposes. The Massachusetts committee secured funds to the amount of eighty thousand dollars in addition to large supplies. Eager, cooperative ac- tivities woke on every side. " I know people," said Emerson in a speech at Cambridge, "who are making haste to reduce their expenses and pay their debts, not with a view to new accumula- tions, but in preparation to save and earn for the benefit of Kansas emigrants."
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" Thou hast great allies ; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, 'And love and Man's unconquerable mind."
The volume of anti-slavery migration toward the territory swelled like mountain streams after heavy showers. A constant movement thither- ward had been in progress through the spring and early summer. Among the companies who ar- rived during that period were the widely-heralded " rifle Christians " from New Haven, Connecticut - seventy-nine resolute men, under the conduct of C. B. Lines, armed with bibles and Sharpe's carbines. "We gratefully accept the bibles," said the leader of the colony, " as the only sure foun- dation on which to erect free institutions. . . . We ... accept the weapons also, and, like our fathers, we go with the bible to indicate the peaceful nature of our mission and the harmless character of our company, and a weapon to teach those who may be disposed to molest us (if any such there be) that while we determine to do that which is right we will not submit tamely to that which is wrong." "We will not forget you," said Henry Ward Beecher, prominent in securing for the colony an outfitting of guns. " Every morning breeze shall catch the blessings of our prayers and roll them westward to your prairie home."
Pro-slavery leaders on the border viewed with alarm these unwonted exhibitions of Northern en-
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ergy and anger. Rumors of impending invasions - of populous, grimy, fanatic abolitionist hordes, with hate in their hearts and arms in their hands, hurrying toward the frontier -flew thick and fast. Steps must be taken at once to meet the new and multiplying perils. Unless the great in- flowing current of Northern life could be checked, all hope of Southern supremacy in Kansas must be at once and forever abandoned.
Atchison and his associates attacked the prob- lem before them with no half-way policy. They resolved to police the great national highway of the Missouri River against all traffic inimical to the interests of slavery. Steamers were over- hauled, free-state consignments of merchandise seized, Kansasward travelers unable to give satis- factory accounts of themselves arrested and sent down the river. A. A. Lawrence and Dr. Samuel Cabot, of Boston, shipped for the territory four thousand dollars' worth of Sharpe's rifles, which happened to be in transitu when the embargo began to stiffen. These guns the volunteer river commissioners seized. The Boston gentlemen were naturally anxious to recover the arms, but felt a little awkward and embarrassed in making the ef- fort. "If we were not officers of the Emigrant Aid Company," Lawrence wrote, " (which takes no part in such matters . . . ) we could get them by suit ; but whether we can do it by proxy re- mains to be seen."
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The first considerable party - seventy-five in number - to which the revised code of inter-state traffic was applied came from Chicago. They were recruited at an immense mass-meeting in that city May 31st, which Lane, who was a stump orator of remarkable power, addressed with great effect. The Chicago immigrants met with no special annoyance until they reached Lexington, where they were subjected to a preliminary inves- tigation and lost their Sharpe's rifles. They then proceeded to Leavenworth, where a second exami- nation took place, which resulted in the capture of " about two bushels of revolvers, pistols, and bowie- knives." Finally, they were sent back down the river, put ashore near Alton, Illinois, in a drenching rain-storm, and left to shift for them- selves.
Overland immigrants fared no better when they touched the soil of Missouri, but encountered the same belligerent policy that threw its obstruc- tions across the river. This policy, it should be remarked, commanded general though not univer- sal credit among the valiant friends of law and order. It was too flat and insipid for some of the newspaper editors. "We are of the opinion," said " The Squatter Sovereign," " [that] if the citizens of Leavenworth ... would hang one or two boat-loads of abolitionists it would do more towards establishing peace in Kansas than all the speeches that have been delivered in Congress
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during the present session. Let the experiment be tried ! "
The Missourians did not succeed in their efforts at obstruction. They could no more balk the great Northern movement toward Kansas than they could check the Missouri with the palm of the hand. Perplexity, agitation, experiment, shifting of routes, they compassed, and that was all. Various plans for breaking the embargo on the Missouri River were rife in Eastern anti-slav- ery circles, such as the purchase of an armed ves- sel to cruise upon its forbidden waters; the as- sembling of friendly legislatures with a vague, undefined purpose of state interference ; a protest of state executives against violations of consti- tutional rights of travel prevalent in Missouri, which Mr. Thaddeus Hyatt volunteered to carry to every Northern governor for his signature.
None of these projects ever reached the stage of practical experiment. The crisis was hardly serious enough to call for heroic remedies. Mis- souri did not command all accessible routes to Kansas. It were easy to flank the blockade by opening communications through Iowa and Ne- braska. This measure was successfully accom- plished through the energy of the " Kansas State Central Committee," appointed by the Topeka mass-convention. Toward the close of July the Chicago emigrants, together with fresh companies from Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and
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Wisconsin - reaching an aggregate of three hun- dred and ninety-six persons - were encamped near Nebraska City en route for Kansas. This company had been loudly noised abroad as Lane's Northern army. Governor Shannon, in no little alarm, urged General P. F. Smith, who succeeded Colonel Sumner in command of the department, " to take the field with the whole disposable force in the territory," to keep this ill-reputed horde at bay, which he declined to do on the ground that the governor's information was untrustworthy. July 29th Dr. S. G. Howe and Thaddeus Hyatt, repre- sentatives of the National Kansas Committee, sent out to investigate matters, reached the Nebraska camp. They found many of the immigrants in a forlorn condition - ragged, almost penniless, poorly supplied with even the scanty furniture of a camper's outfit. Leadership had fallen into Lane's hands, and the whole expedition became accredited to him, though he was neither directly nor indirectly concerned in raising more than a fourth part of it. The committee demanded that his connection with it should be completely sev- ered on penalty of withholding further supplies. Considerations which led to this summary step were the fact that papers had been made out for Lane's arrest - a circumstance which might lead to complications ; that in an emergency his dis- cretion and self-command could not be trusted. These considerations, the committee reported,
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" conspired to create a well-grounded apprehen- sion in our minds that by some hasty and ill-timed splurge he would defeat the object of the expedi- tion if suffered to remain even in otherwise de- sirable proximity." Lane took the decision much to heart. "If the people of Kansas don't want me," he said, "I'll cut my throat to-day." But he sullenly yielded, set off toward the territory with Old John Brown, Captain Samuel Walker, and three or four others, outrode his escort, and reached Lawrence alone August 11th, disguised as Captain Jo Cook. He tarried long enough in Topeka to write the free-state prisoners at Le- compton a note, offering to attack the federal sol- diers who guarded them if they could not other- wise escape. The so-called Northern army pursued its way leisurely into the territory and founded along the line of march two towns - Plymouth and Holton. Members of the expedition, who did not tarry for these enterprises. reached Topeka on the 13th of August.
Other overland parties followed. Late in Sep- tember James Redpath, with one hundred and thirty men, appeared on the northern boundary. A martial, non-agricultural reputation preceded this company. Colonel J. E. Johnston with four companies of dragoons marched toward the Ne- braska line to insure it a fitting reception, but after applying suitable tests he pronounced the travelers to be " real immigrants."
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The Redpath scare had no sooner abated than another still more violent succeeded. Reports reached Lecompton that six or seven hundred men, with three pieces of artillery, were on the point of crossing the Nebraska line. Colonel P. St. George Cooke hurried forward reinforcements, increasing the number of federal troops along the frontier to five hundred strong. One heavy dis- appointment befell the colonel during the north- ward expedition. "I just missed the arrest of the notorious Osawatomie outlaw, Brown," he re- ported October 7th. "The night before, having ascertained that after dark he had stopped for the night at a house six miles from the camp, I sent a party, who found at twelve o'clock he had gone." Colonel Cooke was more successful in catching the latest overland immigrants, who were brought to a halt near the Nebraska line on the morning of October 10th. The excess of men in the company excited suspicion. as the two hun- dred and twenty-three persons reported by the officer of the day included only "five women of marriageable age." " I do not see many spin- ning-wheels sticking out of the wagons." said Colonel Cooke as he walked about them. Indeed. they contained "no visible furniture, agricultural implements, or mechanical tools," but abounded in " all the requisite articles for camping and cam- paigning purposes." Marshal Preston. in spite of much protesting, searched the wagons and un-
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earthed a remarkable assortment of farming im- plements - Hall's muskets, Sharpe's carbines, re- volvers, sabres, bayonets, fixed ammunition, kegs of powder, and dragoon saddles. "It was raining on the day of arrest," reported Marshal Preston, "which subjected us all to a drenching. It was to be regretted, but could not be prevented." The grumbling expedition was escorted to Topeka, where the conductors of it, S. W. Eldridge, S. C. Pomeroy, and others, laid their grievances be- fore the governor, resented the meddlesome inter- ference of " one Preston, deputy United States marshal," and disavowed with much posturing of injured innocence every warlike purpose. These flower-soft, unmilitary gentlemen forgot to inform the governor, to whom the intelligence would have been of interest, that the bulk of their formidable military munitions had been obtained from the Iowa state arsenal; that the authorities allowed Robert Morrow to help himself to whatever it contained on the not very onerous condition that he would manage the operation discreetly ; that Morrow seized at night three wagonloads of guns and ammunition. and added them to the resources of immigrants who were lustily protesting, " Our mission to this territory is entirely peaceful." They escaped with no severer penalties than a lecture on the rules and maxims of behavior ap- propriate for new-come Kansans.
When they began to comprehend in some meas-
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ure the extent and intensity of anti-slavery senti- ment moving among the Northern States ; when they saw great tides of hostile immigration pour- ing around their ineffectual barriers into Kansas - a spectacle tending to cloud the hopes of the most confident and optimistic - pro-slavery leaders be- gan to question the wisdom of that insolent and contemptuous confidence which had thus far ruled their councils. They revised their tactics so far as even to catch a lesson from their enemies, and attempted, though with the awkwardness of nov- ices and of pupils to some other manner born, the effective guise of martyrs. Atchison, B. F. String- fellow, Buford, and others published an address, June 21st, setting forth pathetically and volumi- nously the calamities that were upon them : -
" Kansas they [the abolitionists ] justly regard as the mere outpost in the war now being waged between the antagonistic civilizations of the North and South, and, winning this great outpost and standpoint, they rightly think their march will be open to an easy con- quest of the whole field. Hence the extraordinary means the abolition party has adopted to flood Kansas with the most fanatical and lawless portion of North- ern society, and hence the large sums of money expended to surround . . . Missourians with obnoxious and dangerous neighbors. On the other hand, the pro- slavery element of the law and order party in Kansas, looking to the Bible finds slavery ordained of God. Slavery is the African's normal and proper state.
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. .. We believe it a trust and guardianship given as of God for the good of both races. . .. This is .. a great social and political question of races, . . . a question whether we shall sink to the level of the freed African and take him to the embrace of social and political equality and fraternity ; for such is the natural end of abolition progress. . . . That man or state is deceived that fondly trusts these fanatics may stop at Kansas. . . . The most convincing proof . .. of this was recently given before the congressional in- vestigating committee. Judge Matthew Walker . testified ... that before the abolitionists selected Law- rence as their centre of operations their leader, Gov- ernor Robinson, attempted to get a foothold for them in the Wyandotte reserve. . .. Robinson, finding it neces- sary to communicate their plans and objects, divulged to Walker (whom he then supposed to be a sympathizer) that the abolitionists were determined on winning Kan- sas at any cost ; that then, having Missouri surrounded on three sides, they would begin their assaults on her, and as fast as one state gave way attack another, until the whole South was abolitionized. . .. We are confi- dent that ... the abolition party was truly represented by Robinson, who has always been their chief man and acknowledged leader in Kansas. . . . It was proved be- fore the investigating committee that the abolition party had traveling agents in the territory whose duty it was to gather up, exaggerate, and report for publication ru- mors to the prejudice of the law and order party. . .. In the present imperiled state of your civilization, if we do not maintain this outpost we cannot long main- tain the citadel. Then rally to the rescue."
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The " Appeal " was printed in " De Bow's Re- view " for August, 1856, and is much soberer, less confident in tone, than an article which appeared two months earlier in the same magazine under the title " Kansas a Slave State."
" Slaves will now yield a greater profit in Kansas," said the writer, " either to hire out or cultivate the soil, than any other place. ... Those who have brought their slaves here are reaping a rich reward, . . . and feel as secure in their property here as in Kentucky or Missouri. ... Why it is that more of our friends in the old states have not brought their slaves with them we are at a loss to divine, unless the falsehoods and threats of the abolitionists have frightened them. . . . Should Kansas be made a slave state ? We say that location, climate, soil, productions, value of slave labor the good of the master and slave - all conspire and cry aloud that it should be. . .. The squatters, too, have already said three successive times, at the polls, that Kansas should be a slave state. But if all this is not enough, then we say, without fear of successful contra- diction, that Kansas must be a slave state or the Union will be dissolved. .. . If Kansas is not made a slave state, it requires no sage to foretell that . . . there will never be another slave state. . . Can Kansas be made a slave state ? Thus far the pro-slavery party has tri- umphed in Kansas in spite of the abolitionists and their Emigrant Aid Societies. . .. We have peaceably whipped them at the polls and forced them to beg for quarter in the field, and proven to the world that truth and justice are on our side. . . The stake is surely
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worth a struggle ; and if not won by the South, God alone can foresee the evils that are to follow. . . . Will the South come to the rescue and make Kansas a slave state ? We are sure she will. We know her people, and when once aroused . . . they will fly to the rescue of their friends in Kansas, where all the combined forces of abolitionism will quail and skulk back to the dark sinks and hiding-places from which they came by the assistance of the aid societies. Such creatures can- not stand before the forces of honest freemen. ... Kan- sas should, can, and will be a slave state."
These papers and others which were issued sent a spasm of excitement through the South, but received no such response of partisan immi- gration as streamed into Kansas from the North.
With the sack of Lawrence, the dispersion of the Topeka legislature, and the flight or capture of prominent free-state leaders, the territory plunged into chaos. So far from befriending anti-slavery interests, the Pottawatomie massacre at once fo- mented and embittered the struggle. A period of lawlessness and marauding now set in that left stains on both parties as inevitably as the snail slimes its track. Which faction surpassed the other in misdeeds it would be hard to say. Free-state men seized the opportunity to rid the territory of obnoxious persons. The experiences of Rev. Mar- tin White, for instance, were far from griefless. His troubles dated back to a public meeting at Osawatonie April 16th, 1856, which passed resolu-
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tions against the payment of taxes levied by the territorial legislature.
In the course of the discussion he crossed swords with Old John Brown. White was a furious, unmeasured partisan, and made himself so un- popular that on the night of August 13th free- state men assailed his cabin. "I was frequently menaced and threatened with certain and imme- diate destruction," he testified before the Strickler Commission October 23d, 1857, " and was once attacked in my dwelling by a body of armed men, who were repulsed and driven away after a contest of half an hour " -retiring with a booty of seven horses. " A body of armed men com- manded by [J. C.] Holmes came to my premises," said one of White's sons. . " They took what they wanted, and inquired how many men were at my father's, saying that when they got old Martin White and killed him they would have all the pro-slavery men in the neighborhood." Such was the temper exhibited by " the outlaws and follow- ers of Lane and Brown " that on the 14th of Au- gust the Rev. Martin White fled precipitately to Missouri. " In consequence of their manifest de- termination to take my life," he said, "I was forced to beat a hasty retreat from the territory."
The pro-slavery party had one great advantage: the most practicable avenues of communication and traffic were in their possession. They in- fested the country adjacent to Lawrence and To-
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peka, so that these towns might be loosely consid- ered in a state of siege. No doubt scarcity of provisions in some degree stimulated the maraud- ing habit, but it had little need of artificial culti- vation.
Topeka felt the pressure of the blockade much less than Lawrence, yet it was the centre of a pros- perous series of maraudings upon the surrounding country. So great was the enterprise and success in what one of the victims called " the roguing business " that few pro-slavery men of the neigh- borhood escaped spoliation. Free-state depreda- tors, in larger or smaller gangs, scoured the re- gion, filling the air with profanity, intimidating pro-slavery settlers, shooting at those who were not sufficiently docile, and plundering right and left. A curious observer has chronicled the con- tents of a single foray-wagon : green corn in the ear, surmounted by a cooking-stove, a crib-cradle, a dining-table, clothing, bedding, and a great va- riety of miscellaneous articles. Tecumseh in par- ticular, a town just east of Topeka, was visited by " robberies, plunderings, and pilferings." A wit- ness, who testified before the Strickler Commis- sion, happened to be in Topeka at the height of the freebooting season, and " saw a company of men and teams leave town and go in the direc- tion of Tecumseh " for the indefinite purpose of obtaining provisions. Just after the raiding of that village, again in Topeka, " I saw quite a large
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amount of goods, of various kinds, being divided out among the crowd present. . . . I was invited among others to come up and take part, and finally did select a broom and meal sieve, thinking that should I ever find the proper owners . . I would pay them." This conscientious mortal actually carried out his purpose, and paid the Te- cumsel shop-keeper - an event without parallel in the territorial annals.
The pro-slavery beleaguerment of Lawrence assumed a more serious aspect. In the vicinity several block-houses, well situated as points of rendezvous for operations against the town, had been fortified and garrisoned. There was one of these semi-forts at Franklin ; another on Wash- ington Creek, called Fort Saunders ; another near Lecompton, known as Fort Titus. These "nests of land-pirates " succeeded in cutting off supplies to such an extent that food became scarce at Lawrence. " The boys lived for days on ground oats," said Captain J. B. Abbott, of the Blue Mound Infantry - " on oatmeal unbolted and un- sifted. It was like eating hay." S. W. Eldridge gave the result of special inquiries in the matter of food-supplies before the second Board of Com- missioners, appointed by the territorial legislature in 1859 to reopen the matter of claims for losses in the border troubles.
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