by Herb Karl
Though Brown and his son had quarreled earlier over the decision to turn back from Lawrence, John Jr. didn’t argue this time. He turned and headed for Jones’s barn.
The men returned to their chores.
Brown walked to a large canvas rucksack that sat next to his blanket. He removed its contents: the short, double-edged broadswords sheathed in scabbards and attached to leather belts. He carefully laid them on the blanket.
For the remainder of the morning the men huddled in groups, spoke guardedly of their fears, questioned their willingness to do anything that might escalate the danger to themselves and their families.
Meanwhile, the grinding wheel turned, sending brilliant yellow sparks cascading from a broadsword’s blade, reminding the men of Brown’s intentions—the precise details still a mystery to most of them.
Later, as the old man moved about the camp, someone came forward to urge caution. He snapped back, “Caution? You want caution? I am eternally tired of the word caution. It is nothing but a word for cowardice.”
As the noon hour approached, it was evident those willing to follow Brown were few in number. The five in his own little company could be counted on. The only other man to step forward was pugnacious Theodore Weiner, a powerfully built Austrian who backed down from no one. He came to Kansas by way of Texas and operated a dry goods store near the Browns’ homesteads. Because he willingly catered to Free State settlers, he was the victim of constant threats from proslavery neighbors. Brown knew he could use Weiner when the Austrian declared, “I will cut the throat of anyone who wants to drive the Free State men from Kansas. It is the way we treat such pigs in Texas.”
Brown still needed a wagon. Two days of marching had left the men fatigued. Another half day lay ahead. The men needed rest. The choices were limited. Only one wagon had been part of the expedition, a lumber wagon drawn by a pair of draft horses, and it belonged to James Townsley, who, reluctantly, was to become the eighth and final member of what Brown would later call his Northern Army.
At two o’clock the men loaded Townsley’s wagon, the mess gear and rations first, then the bedrolls, then the rifles and pistols. Brown hoisted the rucksack containing the broadswords. He executed the task so deliberately it caused one of the spectators to comment, “Looks like he means business.”
Brown’s four unmarried sons and his son-in-law climbed aboard the wagon and seated themselves among the clutter, backs resting against the sideboards. Townsley took his place on the driver’s bench. Weiner had come on horseback; he swung his imposing frame onto his mount.
The old man paused, looking north toward Lawrence. His eyes were fixed on a hazy column of smoke that curled upward, fading into the pale sky.
John Jr. stepped from the group of men assembled near the wagon. He approached Brown from behind, put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Father,” he said, “you must not do anything rash.”
Brown stiffened. He moved to the wagon and pulled himself aboard, taking the seat next to Townsley.
As the wagon rolled past Ottawa Jones’s farm, a cheer went up from those who stayed behind.
At the end of the lane was the Lawrence Road, the well-traveled thoroughfare connecting Lawrence with settlements to the south. Townsley halted his team at the intersection, then turned onto the road leading south. Weiner rode alongside.
The Jones farm had barely disappeared from view when Townsley began to voice his concerns. Earlier in the day, when Brown requested the use of the wagon, he’d been evasive. Now Townsley wanted specifics. What exactly did Brown intend to do?
The old man seemed not to hear. Perhaps it was the clattering of unsecured gear, the creaking of axles as they gave way to uneven terrain. The men in the wagon bed dozed.
At length Brown emerged from his cocoon of silence. What he said caused Townsley to shift his weight, slacken his hold on the reins. He turned to face the old man. “You cannot do this thing.” Townsley was agitated by what he’d heard. “It will bring war to Kansas.”
Brown nodded. “As God is my witness, it most surely will.”
The road was deeply rutted. Shallow outcroppings of limestone caused the wagon to pitch and yaw like a New England fishing dory on a roiling sea. From time to time the men in the wagon bed were jarred into consciousness. Brown, though, was hardly aware of the disturbances. He still agonized over the assault on Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks. The congressman from South Carolina had become a symbol of everything Brown deemed evil among the South’s slaveholding elite. The slaveholders respected neither the laws of God nor the laws of man. And they hated abolitionists. In Brown’s mind Brooks had raised the stakes in the battle for Kansas. Retaliation would take on new meaning.
It was dusk when Townsley guided his team onto the site Brown chose as a base of operations: a stand of cottonwoods on a bluff between two ravines, about a mile from Pottawatomie Creek. The land along the creek was home to proslavery settlers active in the territorial legislature.
Because he didn’t want to draw attention to his encampment, Brown announced there would be no cooking fire that evening. The men washed down strips of dried beef with water from a nearby spring, then spread their blankets under the overhanging branches of the cottonwoods. Physically and emotionally spent, they were soon asleep.
Not the old man, though. He continued to wrestle with thoughts of the bloody work that lay ahead.
3
Seven Hours Later
May 24, 1856
Kansas Territory
A full moon illuminated the encampment between the two ravines. The men were asleep—except for Brown. It was his habit to rise before the others. Barefoot and carrying his stovepipe boots, he was on his way to a spring that percolated from the bank of one of the ravines. He paused to survey the campsite, taking in the rhythms of the slumbering men, gauging their resolve to do what he’d ask of them.
His eyes rested first on Oliver, just turned seventeen. The old man was barely able to detect his youngest son’s measured breathing. Muscular, well proportioned, in splendid physical condition, Oliver’s stature belied his passion for reading. Brown was unsure of Oliver’s role in the work to be done. Maybe it would be better if he stayed behind.
Brown moved on, lingering beside twenty-five-year-old Frederick, whose thick frame was coiled into a tight knot—steeling himself, perhaps, against the severe headaches that had plagued him since his early teens. The old man was especially attentive to Frederick’s condition, comforting him during the bouts of delirium and depression that accompanied the headaches.
His gaze shifted to Owen. Though he had philosophical differences with his elder son, Brown knew him to be loyal. Owen wouldn’t wilt, regardless of the circumstances that might arise. A childhood accident had left him with a weakened arm, yet he’d overcome his handicap and had even taken a leadership role at the family’s Adirondack homestead during Brown’s frequent absences.
He scanned the rest. Nineteen-year-old Salmon occupied a spot near Henry Thompson, the husband of Brown’s eldest daughter, Ruth. Though Salmon sometimes doubted his father’s methods, he’d do what was required—as would Henry, who came from a family of Adirondack farmers that shared the old man’s convictions. Henry was as committed to the abolition of slavery as the Browns.
There would be no problem with a snoring Theodore Weiner, even though the Austrian drank whiskey, a habit Brown grudgingly tolerated. Weiner was an angry grizzly ready to rip apart its prey, and right now the old man needed men like that. About James Townsley, though, he was uncertain. Townsley had spread his blanket at some distance from the others. If possible, he’d be held in reserve.
Brown reached the camp’s perimeter and struck out for the spring. Water trickled down the limestone bank in silver ribbons, forming shallow pools that glittered in the moonlight. The old man sat down on a rock shelf, dipped his feet into one of the pools. His toes were encrusted with a muddy paste, a mixture of sweat and dirt that had worked its way through the cracks in his boot
s. He closed his eyes and felt the water’s coolness creep up his legs, his spine, finally reaching a part of his brain long deprived of sensual pleasure. It startled him. He didn’t come to this place to enjoy pleasant sensations. He came to collect himself, to bring order to his thoughts about the mission he’d carved out for the seven men waiting for his instructions. And he came for spiritual guidance; for this he prayed as the cool water washed over his feet, dispersing Kansas mud into the darkness.
It wasn’t until the sun’s fiery rim appeared on the horizon, signaling another day of searing heat, that Brown finished his meditation. He’d prayed hard, hoping for some kind of mystical confirmation of the events that were soon to unfold. Instead he was visited by the memory of an incident from his youth—an incident familiar to his family and to most who knew him personally.
It took place during the War of 1812 when, at the age of twelve, he was driving a small herd of cattle from his father’s Ohio farm to General William Hull’s army in Detroit, a journey of more than a hundred miles. On previous drives he’d accompanied his father, but this time he was alone. He stopped overnight at a boardinghouse where he and his father had stayed in the past. During the evening meal, in the presence of guests, the landlord praised him for being able to do a man’s work at such an early age.
It was a moment of great pride for Brown. But then something happened that forever changed him. He watched helplessly as the landlord picked up an iron shovel and used it to beat a thin, shabbily dressed slave boy whose job was to serve the guests. Brown had befriended the boy on earlier visits but sat paralyzed, unable to raise a hand or speak a word in the boy’s defense. He went to bed tortured by a feeling of self-loathing that went unrelieved, even after he vomited his supper. He stayed awake, reflecting on the hopeless condition of the boy and others like him who were taken from their families, sold by their masters, destined to a life with no father or mother to protect them.
The memory persisted—in his dreams or when he was alone or engaged in some mindless task. It was truly the catalyst, he’d later admit, that led him to declare eternal war on slavery.
He lifted his feet from the cool water and pulled on his boots. He reminded himself to write Mary, the wife who had shared his passionate antislavery feelings since they first married—she only sixteen at the time, he thirty-three and a widower of not quite a year. Mary had uncomplainingly assumed her role as head of household so her husband could pursue his cause. At their mountain farm in upstate New York she was attending to baby Ellen and two young daughters. The letters they exchanged continued to bind a relationship marked by Brown’s lengthy absences.
Brown would write Mary, but first there was work to be done. He would wait until evening to announce his plan. In the meantime the men could stand easy and wait for the cover of darkness.
“Father?”
The voice was Oliver’s. In each hand he held a tin pail, having been sent by his brothers to fetch water from the spring. “They are waiting for you, Father.”
Brown returned to camp. Those not standing got up as he approached. He said, “Tonight we carry out the Lord’s will.”
The campsite, he said, needed to remain undetected, so again there would be no cooking fire. Whatever sustenance the men required would come from the dried rations. “This is a time to rest,” the old man said, “to gather your strength and prepare for what lies ahead.”
Throughout the daylight hours the men lounged, speaking in subdued voices—with the exception of Townsley. His agitated voice could be heard above the rest. Brown took him aside.
“Mr. Townsley, you have doubts about our mission.”
“Sir, you are asking us to do what is unlawful.”
“I serve a higher law, Mr. Townsley. The law I follow gives every man and woman the right to live free.”
“If we commit this crime,” Townsley said, “we will become fugitives in our own country.”
Townsley was a housepainter and former cavalry soldier and had fought Indians in Florida. He came to Kansas Territory from Maryland—along with his wife and four children. As a Baltimore tradesman he felt the sting of slave labor, saw it drive away fellow tradesmen. Kansas offered him an opportunity to acquire land and compete fairly for work, and—though he suffered verbal abuse from his proslavery neighbors—he was willing to defend the Free State cause. He objected, however, to the extreme measures the old man had suggested during the ride from Ottawa Jones’s farm.
“I hardly need remind you of the crimes committed by the enemy,” Brown told him. “He has murdered. He has tortured. He has ordered us to submit to a legislature elected by Missourians who run off Free State settlers and stuff ballot boxes with illegal votes.”
Townsley nodded.
“And the enemy doesn’t cease his aggressive acts. Three days ago he looted and burned the free town of Lawrence.”
Like a skilled debater, the old man was girding himself for the kill. “It is not only Kansas that is forced to bow to the slaver power, Mr. Townsley. In the United States Senate, a representative of the slaveholders struck down a senator from Massachusetts. The senator wanted nothing more than a free Kansas, and because of this the slaveholders hated him. And so he was attacked as he sat at his desk . . . defenseless. The cowardly perpetrator skulked away with neither fear nor remorse.”
Townsley sagged under the weight of Brown’s intractable resolve.
“So you see, Mr. Townsley, it is no different in Washington than in Kansas. The slave power wishes to own us all.”
By now Brown’s words had drawn the attention of the others. They gathered around him.
Owen stepped forward. He described an incident that occurred a few days earlier. More than two hundred Southern mercenaries—the main body of the army that went on to sack Lawrence—had camped not far from the Brown settlement. The old man had responded by collecting his surveying equipment and setting out to gather intelligence. He took along Owen, Frederick, Salmon, and Oliver and proceeded to establish a baseline through the middle of the camp. When one of the mercenaries came forward to ask his intentions, the old man said he was surveying land for the local Ottawa tribe. Owen mimicked the trooper’s response: “We don’t aim to trouble them as minds their business. But all them abolitionists, such as the damned Browns, we going to whip, drive out, or kill—any way to get shut of them, by God.”
Salmon spoke next. He told of the grand jury convened by Judge Sterling Cato. Proslavery leaders sent the judge to seek warrants for the arrest of the Browns in order to discourage antislavery resistance. “Cato was going to charge us with violating laws made by the bogus legislature, said it was treason to speak out against slavery.”
“He’s right,” chimed in Henry Thompson. “Cato said anyone who refused to recognize the authority of the bogus legislature was a traitor.”
Owen again: “Had Father not broken up the meeting, we all would have been arrested for treason. And that includes you, Mr. Townsley.”
Weiner, too, had a story. He was harassed regularly by the Sherman brothers—three strapping Germans who bullied Northern immigrants, often stealing livestock from passing wagon trains. The tavern they operated served as a courtroom for the grand jury presided over by Judge Cato. Located at the junction of the Lawrence Road and Pottawatomie Creek, the tavern was a watering hole for proslavery locals and border ruffians. A drunken William Sherman showed up at Weiner’s store on Christmas Day and unleashed a string of epithets, threatening to exterminate abolitionists and anyone else who catered to Free State settlers. Weiner put an end to the dispute by grabbing an ax handle and clubbing his opponent with a ferocity that wasn’t expected from a Free State sympathizer.
While the men talked, Brown remained silent. The lines etched in his face seemed deeper than usual; his razor-thin mouth was turned down solemnly. He didn’t want his words to be taken as justification for an act of revenge. The men meant well, but they were making his motives seem too personal, too limited. His real purpose was to change th
e enemy’s perception of Northern immigrants, to turn around the image of Free State settlers as cowards easily intimidated, to show that Northern men were capable of acts of violence comparable to—maybe even worse than—anything meted out by the border ruffians.
“I have already told Mr. Townsley my aim,” Brown said, his tone signaling that further discussion of the matter was concluded.
What Brown didn’t say was that battling slavery in Kansas was only the beginning of a much larger mission. His sword would remain unsheathed until slavery and the wickedness it bred was completely eradicated—first from Kansas Territory, then from the rest of the nation. If the acts committed by his men in Kansas ignited a war to end slavery, so be it. The time and place didn’t matter. It wasn’t his choice anyway. His God, after all, had commanded this thing be done.
By late afternoon dark clouds drifted in from the north. Brown marveled at the spectacle. It was as though he were looking at the underside of a tumultuous ocean.
With the coming of evening, the full moon bled through the clouds and mist enveloped the camp. Perhaps there would be relief from the heat. The scabbards containing the broadswords were wet with dew as Brown removed them from his rucksack.
The old man’s eyes had taken on a luminous glow familiar to his sons. He called for the men, gathered them in a circle around the broadswords he’d laid on a blanket. He reached for the hand of the man on either side of him, invited the others to do the same.
Then he bowed his head and prayed: “Almighty God, sovereign judge of all humanity, we ask that you give these men the strength and the will to do your bidding. You have said those who rebel against your authority—those who love slavery and seek to profit from its wickedness—shall be devoured by the sword. And so we ask that you place in the hands of each of these men a sword of righteousness so that he may strike down those who have grown proud and haughty and do not fear your might. Let these men standing before you strike a blow of such terror and dread as will cause the slave power to know freedom is alive in Kansas Territory and that there are good men prepared to draw their swords in its defense. Bless these men that they may strike the first blow in a war that will bring an end to slavery. We ask this blessing in your name. Amen.”
