USA > Kansas > Kansas : the prelude to the war for the union > Part 9
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At night-fall Brown encamped in a gulched, wooded, ledgy tract about a mile north of Potta- watomie Creek, his point of destination. Towns- ley states, in his confessions, that it was not until the party had reached this lair that Brown fully disclosed to him the mission of the expedition. Up to this time he had enveloped it in vague and general phrases which might mean much or little. Now he threw aside disguise, and announced his purpose to sweep off all pro-slavery men up and down the Pottawatomie. In this work of death Townsley, familiar with the region and its popu- lation, should act as guide. Townsley demurred. This was an unexpected hitch which gave twenty- four hours more of life to five unsuspecting pro- slavery squatters on the Pottawatomie. During the interval of delay, according to Townsley's re- port, Brown's tongue was again loosed, and he talked at large. He said they must fall upon the enemy with such remorseless and destructive sur- prise as would overwhelm them with terror. Bor- der ruffians in the service of slavery were worthy of no more consideration than wolves that prey upon the farmer's sheepfold. Finally, he took refuge in the stronghold of predestination : " I have no choice. It has been decreed by Almighty God, ordained from eternity, that I should make an example of these men." Townsley, whose the- ological education had evidently been neglected, interrupted the discourse at one point : " If God
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is such a powerful man as you say, why does n't he attend to the business himself ? "
Saturday night, May 24th, the blow was struck, the example made. Brown and his men stole out of ambush and executed pro-slavery squat- ters whose names were pricked. A compromise was effected by abridging the death-list. This concession appears to have allayed Townsley's scruples. At the first cabin where the raiders halted and knocked there was no response. "It seemed to be empty," said Townsley, "though I thought I heard somebody cock a rifle inside." Three other cabins were visited, out of which five men were dragged to sudden death in the name of " the Northern army" - James P. Doyle and his sons William and Drury, Allan Wilkinson, and William Sherman. They were all mortally hacked and slashed with cutlasses, except the elder Doyle. Through his forehead, burned and blackened by the proximity of the pistol, there was a bullet-hole.
It was a misfortune that Howard and Sherman, Republican members of the congressional investi- gating committee, should have declined to explore this ghastly affair, which has given rise to so much controversy. That refusal enabled the pro-slav- ery leaders to charge them with fear of facing the record of anti-slavery men in the territory. " It [the Pottawatomie massacre] revealed on the part of their friends such a picture of savage ferocity 10
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that the committee for once blushed and stulti- fied themselves rather than receive the testimony as competent " - the testimony of Wilkinson's widow "lately tendered at Westport." There was, however, an ex parte investigation conducted by Mr. Oliver. When the widows, children, and neighbors of the slaughtered men gave evidence, he said in a speech in the House of Representa- tives - witnesses " whose tears in testifying were streaming down their cheeks," "who gave the greatest assurance that the words spoken came truthfully from the heart, because chastened by the hand of affliction and sorrow "- "my blood ran cold at the recital." Among those who have denounced the raid none have surpassed Andrew Johnson in bitter, unsparing, execrative words.
"Innocent, unoffending men," he said in the Senate of the United States, " were taken out [of their cabins ], and in the midnight hour, and in the forest, and on the roadside fell victims to the insatiable thirst of John Brown for blood. Then it was . . . that hell entered into his heart - not the iron into his soul. Then it was that he shrank from the dimensions of a human being into those of a reptile. Then it was, if not before, that he changed his character to a demon who had lost all the virtues of a man ! "
In appraising the motives which underlay the slaughter at Dutch Henry's Crossing, we are shut up more or less completely to conjecture. John Brown's statements were sufficiently evasive to
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deceive members of his own family and personal friends, who long denied that he led the foray, or that he was implicated in it otherwise than by shouldering responsibility after the event. Measured upon the scale of the times, the five squatters, upon whom he laid a tiger's paw, were not exceptionally bad men. Doyle and Wilkinson were of Northern extraction, and do not appear to have reached any evil eminence that shot above ordinary altitudes of border partisanship. Wil- liam Sherman may have been more noisy and less respectable, but the evidence fails to show that he had done anything worthy of assassination. That intelligence of alarming pro-slavery outbreaks on the Pottawatomie could not have been brought to camp by Williams, nor by anybody else, is evi- denced by the fact that the rifle companies, organ- ized and equipped for the defense of that particu- lar locality, so far from speeding homeward lin- gered at Palmyra for two days after John Brown's departure - lingered until they were dispersed by Lieutenant Church. Another circumstance is of the same import. May 27th squatters upon Pot- tawatomie Creek, " without distinction of party," held an indignation meeting and denounced the killing as " an outrage of the darkest and foulest nature," perpetrated by " midnight assassins un- known, who have taken five of our citizens at the hour of midnight from their homes and families, and murdered and mangled them in the most aw-
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ful manner." They pledged themselves "to aid and assist in bringing these desperadoes to jus- tice." Members of the rifle companies who saw Townsley drive away from camp on Middle Creek with his farm-wagon full of armed men, escorted by Weiner, and who, doubtless, joined in the part- ing round of cheers, had a hand in this meeting for public and indignant protest. As an index of sentiment in the community, which the massacre purported to shield, it is decisive. If perils had brooded over it which invited and vindicated ex- treme measures of defensive violence, a unanimous repudiating mass-meeting would have been impos- sible. "It will take a great deal to justify night attacks and shooting men after drum-head courts- martial," said Thomas Hughes in a lecture at the Working Men's College, London, on "The Strug- gle for Kansas."
Unquestionably rumors from the Pottawatomie wrought upon Brown, but yet more potent were the disheartening tidings from Lawrence. He thought the cause of freedom had been piloted through bad seamanship of peace-policies into dan- gerous shallows. That was the burden of his talk in the accidental interview with James Blood, where motives of family or local defense appeared faintly, if at all. Habitually verging toward infat- uation on the subject of slavery, belonging to the class of men who talk on great themes - themes which move them like the sound of a trumpet -
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" in a tone perfectly level and without emphasis and without any exhibition of feeling," he was presumably pushed by the exigencies of the crisis into a condition of actual mania. The occasion called, in his overwrought judgment, for an un- forgetable example, at once a protest against pop- ular theories of non-resistance and a bloody lesson to enemies. Should the outrage lead to civil war, should it embroil the country in a conflict of arms, that would only hasten the day of proclaiming liberty to the captive.
" Why move thy feet so slow to what is best ?"
The impersonal, missionary motive - remember- ing those in bonds as bound with them -flames like sunshine on spear-points where everything else is hideous and ghastly. To the long list of violences committed under worthy but misguided inspirations must be added the massacre at Dutch Henry's Crossing. Every great cause has ef- fected complete conquest of impressible and un- balanced disciples, thrown over them spells of victorious fascination, harnessed them to its ser- vice with absolute capitulation of self, blinded them hopelessly to interests and methods other than their own, and reduced to a minimum in their estimate the sanctities and rights of those who ran counter to their fanaticism.
Naturally the killing made a commotion among pro-slavery squatters and territorial officials in the
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vicinity of Dutch Henry's Crossing. "All is ex- citement here," was the burden of letter-writers who sent off appeals to Governor Shannon from Paola, a neighboring town, on the morning of the 26th .; " court cannot go on. . . . Families are leaving for Missouri. ... We can perhaps mus- ter to-day, including the Alabamians, who are now encamped on Bull Creek, about one hun- dred and fifty men." " These murders, it is sup- posed," wrote General W. A. Heiskell, of the ter- ritorial militia, " were committed by abolitionists of Osawatomie and Pottawatomie creeks on their return from Lawrence. How long shall these things continue ? How long shall our citizens, unarmed and defenseless, be exposed to worse than savage cruelty ? . We have here but few men, and they wholly unarmed. We shall gather together for our own defense as many men as we can ; we hope you will send us as many arms as possible ; and if, under the circumstances, you can do so, send as many men as you think may be nec- essary. General Barber is here. He has sent to Fort Scott for aid. We must organize such force as we can, but for God's sake send arms. We hope to be able to identify some of the mur- derers, as Mr. [James] Harris, who was in their hands, was released, and will probably know some of them." Harris happened to be at the house of William Sherman on the night of May 24th, when, as he stated, October 23d, 1857, in his
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deposition before the Strickler Commission, which was appointed by the territorial legislature to audit claims for losses during the troubles, "an armed body of men, in command of the notorious Captain John Brown, . . . by force and arms and with threats and menaces of violence and bodily harm, took and carried away from your petitioner one horse, saddle, bridle, and gun ; . .. your petitioner further showeth that, being repeatedly threatened by said Captain Brown and followers, and living in great fear of my life, I was forced by their menaces and threats to abandon the ter- ritory." Minerva Selby was also at Sherman's on the fatal evening. She testified that she saw Harris there with his horse, but went away be- fore the arrival of Brown's party. " Harris with his family came to my house. He said that he had been robbed at Sherman's the preceding night by Brown's men ; ... that Sherman had been murdered the same night by Brown and his men; ... that ... he was threatened fre- quently, and was obliged to leave his home - the safety of himself and family required it." The Rev. Martin White testified in a similar strain : "I am acquainted with . .. Mr. Harris. Saw him a short time after William Sherman had been murdered. Know that the petitioner was greatly alarmed; seemed to apprehend danger from the murderers of Sherman, as the petitioner was at the premises of Sherman when the act was
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committed. The petitioner expressed his fears of being killed to prevent his divulging the murder. Believe he was in danger of being murdered. The safety of himself and family required him to leave his home." Judge Cato wrote from Paola May 27th : "I shall do everything in my power to have the matter investigated, and there seems to be a disposition on the part of the free-state men in Franklin [county] to aid in having the laws enforced. As soon as proper evidence can be pro- cured, warrants will be issued for the arrest of the parties suspected. . . . These murders were most foully committed in the night-time, by a gang of some twelve or fifteen persons, calling on and dragging from their houses defenseless and unsus- pecting citizens, and murdering, and, after mur- dering, mutilating their bodies in a very shocking manner." Governor Shannon promptly dispatched a military force to the Pottawatomie. "The re- spectability of the parties and the cruelties attend- ing these murders," he wrote President Pierce May 31st, "have produced an extraordinary state of excitement in that portion of the territory which has heretofore remained comparatively quiet."
Extra-judicial agencies for redressing the Pot- tawatomie outrages began to move at once. News- paper extras, with sensational details of the af- fair, set a Leavenworth mob upon Governor Rob- inson. Captain H. C. Pate, Kansas correspondent of " The Missouri Republican," who led " the
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Westport Sharpshooters " - a company recruited largely among the rowdies of Westport, Missouri, to assist in abating nuisances at Lawrence May 21st- was still in the neighborhood of Franklin when the Pottawatomie massacre occurred. On receiving intelligence of it, he hastily broke camp for Osawatomie, to wreak vengeance upon the perpetrators. He scoured the country in no gen- tle fashion, but missed the main object of his mis- sion. Saturday, May 31st, Pate went into camp at Black Jack, three quarters of a mile west of the village, on the edge of the prairie. A line of wagons drawn up in front of the bivouac formed a straggling, intermittent breastwork, while the rear was protected by a wooded, water-rutted ravine.
There was no lack of predatory energy in the border - ruffian camp. A squad of Pate's men looted Palmyra, a settlement of four or five fam- ilies, Saturday evening. They returned with some plunder and two prisoners.
The easy success at Palmyra stimulated further depredations. Sunday, six of the band at Black Jack rode over to Prairie City, - a neighboring hamlet -in search of fun and booty. They antici- pated nothing more serious than a profitable frolic. But some circuit preacher had an appointment at Prairie City for that Lord's Day. To this service came people of the vicinity in considerable num- bers. Apprehensive that the order of service might
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suddenly change from spiritual to carnal, they brought along their guns. In the midst of wor- ship there was an alarm - " The Missourians are coming ! " Never did religious exercises conclude more abruptly. Six horsemen, charging into town with rifles across their saddles, instantly absorbed the attention of the congregation. The troopers, surprised at the number of people in the minia- ture village, halted before they reached the cabin which served for a church. Two raiders, desper- ate characters if the recollection of their captors may be credited - one of them with blackened face and sporting chicken's feathers in his hat - were bagged. The remainder, though exposed to a random musketry, escaped.
These marauding operations stimulated the lo- cal campaign against Pate. Old John Brown, hearing of his anxiety to meet him, started after the Missourian with twenty-eight men ; ten be- longing to his own company, and the remainder to Captain S. T. Shore's. " We did not meet them on that day " (Sunday), said John Brown in an account of the battle of Black Jack first printed in Sanborn's "Life and Letters." ... " We were out all night, but could find nothing of them until about six o'clock, when we prepared to attack them at once. .. . We got to within about a mile of their camp before being discovered by their scouts, and then moved at a brisk pace; Captain Shore and men forming our left, and my company the right.
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When within about sixty rods of the enemy, Cap- tain Shore's men halted by mistake in a very ex- posed situation and continued the fire, both his men and the enemy being armed with Sharpe's rifles. My company had no long shooters. We (my company) did not fire a gun until we gained the rear of a bank, about fifteen or twenty rods to the right of the enemy, where we commenced and soon compelled them to hide in a ravine."
There was a desultory fire for two or three hours, during which Pate's situation grew more and more critical. Half of his men had skulked away, and the assailants were slowly but surely closing in upon the remainder. Free-state reinforcements might appear at any moment. Pate finally sent out a flag of truce. Brown declined to negotiate with subordinates, and the commander of "the Westport Sharpshooters " appeared forthwith. "I approached," he said, "and made known the fact that I was acting under the order of the United States marshal, and was only in search of persons for whom writs of arrest had been issued." But talk of that sort had no more effect upon Brown than the iris above a cataract on the waters plung- ing below it. He would hear of nothing except unconditional surrender. Trivialities like flags of truce and writs of territorial marshals he uncere- moniously brushed aside. Fifteen minutes were modestly asked to consider the proposition for capitulation. "Brown refused," said Pate in " The
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Missouri Republican," " and I was taken prisoner
under a flag of truce. . . . I had no alternative but to submit or to run and be shot. . . . I went to take Old Brown, and Old Brown took me."
Brown captured twenty-three men - some of them residents of the neighborhood - and commis- sary supplies of considerable amount, all of which were conveyed to his camp on Middle Creek. He narrowly escaped failure in the expedition, as only a single round of ammunition remained when the flag of truce appeared. Just after the fight had closed free-state reinforcements arrived from neigh- boring towns.
The capture of Pate was not the only exploit of Brown's company in the vicinity of Black Jack. At St. Bernard, five miles from camp, a successful pro-slavery trader had a miscellaneous store filled with dry goods, clothing, groceries, drugs, fire- arms, hardware, boots and shoes. A necessitous company of guerrillas could scarcely be expected to neglect so favorable an opportunity to supply their wants at the expense of, a Southerner. Cer- tainly the company encamped on Middle Creek did nothing of the kind. About nightfall June 3d-such is the drift of testimony before the Strickler Commission - " part of a company com- manded by one John Brown," "armed with Sharpe's rifles, pistols, bowie - knives, and other deadly weapons, came upon the premises and
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attacked and rushed into the said store " - a sudden condition of affairs so warlike that the employees " were deterred, threatened, and over- powered by the desperadoes, . . . who demanded a surrender of the goods and chattels, . . . threat- ening immediate death and destruction should the slightest resistance be offered." Finding the prize richer than had been anticipated and their appli- ances of transportation inadequate, the gang re- turned in the morning and resumed operations. They evidently left nothing to be desired in point of thoroughness. A young woman, into whose private apartments the rascals forcibly intruded, and at whom they "presented several guns," though perhaps unfavorably circumstanced for dis- passionate criticism, gave her impressions concern- ing their personal appearance. "They were des- perate and vicious looking men," she said, .. "more like barbarians than civilized beings."
Black Jack was not the only disordering conse- quence swiftly following the 24th of May. The Missouri border rushed to arms. Whitfield, ter- ritorial delegate to Congress, put himself in the lead. Westport, Lexington, and Independence raised companies for the army of invasion, which gathered with celerity, was well equipped, and on the 3d of June reached Bull Creek, twelve miles east of Palmyra. It was planned that a junction should be formed with Pate, and then the consol- idated force would scourge every abolitionist from
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the country. This pretty campaign the disaster at Black Jack somewhat disconcerted.
Free-state men also were astir. Their military companies, snuffing mischief in the air, concen- trated near Palmyra - detachments of Captain Samuel Walker's "Bloomington Rifles," of Cap- tain Joseph Cracklin's "Lawrence Stubbs," of Captain J. B. Abbott's " Blue Mound Infantry," of Captain Mc Whinney's " Wakarusa Boys," and of Captain S. T. Shore's "Prairie City Company" - amounting altogether to about one hundred and fifteen men. Brown lurked in the woods of Middle Creek, fully occupied with the care of his prisoners. June 5th Kansans and Missourians were facing each other with arms in their hands, and apparently on the eve of collision.
Governor Shannon became alarmed, and roused himself into a vigorous activity. He published a proclamation June 4th commanding all armed and illegal organizations to disperse. Citizens " with- out regard to party names or distinctions " were assured of protection, and invaders warned to re- tire. The proclamation, though a little tardy, had the right ring. Colonel Sumner thought that if it "had been issued six months earlier and rig- idly maintained these difficulties would have been avoided."
Fifty federal dragoons, with Colonel Sumner at their head, hurriedly left Lecompton June 5th to part the belligerents concentrating near Palmyra.
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" Any delay . . will lead to fearful conse- quences," the governor urged. Deputy Marshal Fain, supplied, it was supposed, with a liberal as- sortment of warrants, accompanied the expedition. The colonel found a larger disturbance brewing at Palmyra than his imperfect knowledge had led him to suspect. The tone of his official report in- dicates that in his view the main business of the expedition was "to disperse a band of free-soilers, who were encamped near Prairie City ; this band had had a fight with the pro-slavery party, and had taken twenty-six prisoners." During the day Sumner reached the vicinity of Old John Brown's lair, from which his approach could be distinctly seen across the prairie. Unmistakably he in- tended to visit the camp, and after a hurried con- sultation it was thought prudent to send out a messenger with proposals for an interview. " What's going on down there ?" Sumner asked, pointing toward the free-soil bivouac. " Captain John Brown has Pate and his men prisoners. He sent me to meet you and to inquire where an in- terview can be held." "Tell him he can see me right here." The messenger returned and made his report. " We must see Colonel Sumner apart from his men," suggested Captain Shore. Brown concurred, and the runner, though with some re- luctance, set out again. "Well, what is it now?" the colonel asked with evident impatience. The request of Brown and Shore was stated. "Tell
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them," he growled, "that I make no terms with lawless men - tell them that. Dragoons, form a company - march." The runner flew back to camp at a break-neck pace, and the horsemen fol- lowed on behind. Brown and Shore sallied forth to meet the not very welcome visitors. After some parleying Brown led the dragoons into camp. Colonel Sumner stated that his orders were to re- lease Pate, and to aid the officers in serving writs. Marshal Fain fumbled among his papers, but finally said he could find none for the apprehen- sion of anybody in the camp. It is reported that Sumner afterwards took Brown aside and told him that a warrant for his arrest had been is- sued, but that the marshal had inadvertently mis- laid it.
A good deal of stir and bustle ensued in setting the prisoners at liberty, and in restoring to them as far as possible their effects. The mere hum- drum formality of regaining his freedom - the bare, unadorned act of escaping from Old Brown's lair with a whole skin - did not quite fill out Pate's idea of what belonged to the proprieties of the occasion. One thing was yet lacking - a speech from himself, extenuating any infelicities, and illuminating any obscurities that might vex his recent record. Mounting upon a log he began a speech, upon which, before it had fairly got under way, came sudden extinction -
" As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind in a casement."
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"I don't want to hear a word out of you, sir," thundered Sumner -" not a word, sir. You have no business here. The governor told me so ! "
While breaking up Brown's camp Sumner learned, with evident astonishment, " that two or three hundred of the pro-slavery party from Mis- souri and elsewhere were approaching," to whom he gave attention. "I found them halted," he reports, "at two miles distance (about two hun- dred and fifty strong), and to my great surprise I found Colonel Whitfield, the member of Congress, and General Coffee, of the militia, at their head. . . . I then requested General Coffee to assemble his people, and I read to them the president's dis- patch and the governor's proclamation." Whit- field and Coffee made fair promises, and "moved off," though Sumner did not feel assured they were not bent on mischief-making somewhere. He remained in the disquieted district until the 22d of June, when he considered the work of pacification accomplished. Only a few freeboot- ers kept the field. " These fellows," he reported, " belong to both parties, and are taking advantage of the present political excitement to commit their own rascally acts."
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