After the arrest of her husband, Sara Robinson traveled to Illinois, where she met Abraham Lincoln; Joseph Medill, who had recently become editor of the Chicago Tribune; Owen Lovejoy, a leading abolitionist; and others. As she continued on her journey, she met with Salmon P. Chase, the recently elected antislavery governor of Ohio, then on to Boston and New York. Unfortunately, with the passage of time, we do not know the substance of her meetings, but it is safe to say that she was passionate in her support for the free-state movement in Kansas, as well as for the release of her husband and the others from their imprisonment. What we do know for sure is that Charles Robinson would later write that her mission did more for the Kansas free-state cause than he could have accomplished—had he been allowed to leave the territory.131
Since Robinson and the others were actively defying the legally constituted territorial government, the territorial grand jury was acting within its authority to have the men arrested for actively defying the territorial government. But the indictment also declared that the Herald of Freedom and the Kansas Free State newspapers were “inflammatory and seditious [in] character denying the legality of the Territorial authorities, and advising and ‘commanding’ forcible resistance to the same.” Further, the Free State Hotel was built as a “strong hold of resistance to law, … encouraging rebellion and sedition.” Because there was no way to arrest the newspapers or the hotel, the pro-slavery faction read the grand jury declarations as licenses to enter Lawrence and destroy these “nuisances.” The charges gave Sheriff Jones, who had recovered from the assassination attempt, the justification to seek his revenge against the town in which he was shot.132 Just days after the free-state “traitors” were imprisoned, Sheriff Jones, US Army troops furnished by Governor Shannon, and a large contingent of pro-slavery volunteers—some six hundred to eight hundred total—started arriving and camping on the outskirts of Lawrence. For several days, the Border Ruffians harassed and robbed some of the Lawrence residents.
Then, on May 21, 1856, the Missourians invaded Lawrence in what has since been called the Sack of Lawrence. Oscar E. Learnard, a lawyer and recent arrival to Lawrence from Vermont, described what happened in a letter to his friends back home. He wrote that May 21 would be “remembered in years to come, as the scene of the grossest outrage ever perpetrated under the cover of war.” He wrote that the citizens of Lawrence did not offer any “resistance to the US authorities, and thus give the lie to the base slanders of our disloyalty…. Sheriff Jones was in command … and demanded a surrender of all the arms public and private in town. Not waiting for a reply, he ordered all the forces [to march] into town.” He continued: “Four cannons were planted in the principal street and the ‘sack’ commenced. The Free State Hotel and the printing presses having been ‘indicted as nuisances’ by Judge Lecompte were made the first objects of their vengeance.” The Free State Hotel “was first battered with the guns failing an attempt to ‘Blow it up….’ It was then [set on fire]. It cost twenty thousand dollars and was just finished.” The newspaper presses “were thrown into the Kansas river. Every house in town was plundered and the women and children driven off.” He concluded that “we do not dispair [sic] of success, indeed, we are more confident than ever.”133
The Herald of Freedom and the Free State presses were destroyed in the raid. The competition for readers ended because Josiah Miller did not attempt to restart his Free State newspaper. The other antislavery newspaper, the Kansas Tribune, started by the Speer brothers in 1855, had folded in October 1855. So for several months, until November, when George Brown reopened his printing shop, there was no source of news in Lawrence.
The Sacking of Lawrence. Destruction of Free State Hotel. From Sara T. L. Robinson, Kansas: Its Interior and Exterior Life, Including a Full View of Its Settlement, Political History, Social Life, Climate, Soil, Productions, Scenery, Etc. (1856).
Just before the Border Ruffians began what became known as the Sack of Lawrence, David Atchison, former US senator from Missouri, and the most powerful advocate for Kansas becoming a slave state, gave a rousing, inflammatory speech to the attackers. He opened with, “Gentlemen, Officers & Soldiers! This is the most glorious day of my life! … Men of the South, I greet you as border-ruffian brothers.” At the end, he said he knew his men were up for the task. “Yes, I know you will [destroy Lawrence and its inhabitants] the South has always proved itself ready for honorable fight, & you, who are noble sons of noble sires, I know you will never fail, but will burn, sack & destroy, until every vistage [sic] of these Norther[n] Abolitionists is wiped out.”134
Across the country, as the Border Ruffians were preparing to sack Lawrence, the halls of Congress were lit up in quite a different manner. Senator Charles Sumner from Massachusetts gave a speech that lasted over two days, May 19 and 20, 1856, in which he lambasted the slave states and Senators Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois and Andrew Butler from South Carolina for what he called the “Crime Against Kansas.” “Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin,” he said. “It is the rape of a virgin Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved desire for a new Slave State, … in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the National Government.” Then he lashed out particularly at Senator Butler, “the senator from South Carolina.” He “has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean the harlot, slavery.”135
Senator Douglas, who listened to Sumner’s tirade in the Senate, was reported to have said to a colleague that “this damn fool Sumner is going to get himself shot by some other damn fool.” His prediction was not far from what actually happened. On May 22, two days after the speech, Preston Brooks, a member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina, and Senator Butler’s nephew, entered the Senate chamber and attacked Sumner with a gutta-percha cane with a heavy gold head. Brooks beat him so severely, he broke his cane and knocked Sumner unconscious. The speech and beating further polarized an already divided country. Sumner became a hero in the North for attacking slavery, and Brooks became a hero in the South for attacking Sumner.
Back in Kansas, the free-state population was recovering from the Sack of Lawrence, but as Oscar Learnard wrote to his friends, and his words probably captured the sentiments of many that he was “more confident than ever,” the efforts to make Kansas into a free state would soon become a reality. Although the Emigrant Aid Company settlers took the nonviolent approach—and for the most part, this gained them the respect and sympathy of many, particularly in the North—it came at a very high monetary price. The Emigrant Aid Company had invested over $20,000 to build the Free State Hotel, and although contributions to the company were on the rise, this was a huge loss. The destruction of the newspaper presses and other buildings and houses were tough pills to swallow as well.
One abolitionist who did not share the passive philosophy was John Brown. Brown followed several of his sons and settled in the free-state community of Osawatomie in 1855. Before Brown left for Kansas, he contacted Amos Lawrence, to whom he had sold wool in 1843. He asked Lawrence for a letter of introduction to Charles Robinson, which Lawrence provided, and after writing the letter, Lawrence noted in his private diary that Brown “had the look of a determined man.”136 Although Lawrence did not approve of Brown’s radical methods, he continued to meet and correspond with him over the next several years.
The only speech Brown was known to have made while in Kansas was in a public meeting in Osawatomie, in which he condemned the Free-State Topeka Constitution for not being radical enough. He and his sons went to Lawrence and were ready to fight in the Wakarusa War, but by the time they arrived, negotiations to end the conflict were underway and their services were not needed.137 Since his arrival in Kansas,
Brown had remained mostly in the background. His son, John Jr., participated in the Free-State Party meetings and even sought an office in the free-state legislature. John Jr. also organized a militia band, called the “Pottawatomie Rifles,” which he led to Lawrence.
John Brown Sr. came to Kansas and drew his inspiration on how to attack slavery from the Old Testament—“an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.”138 Brown Sr. was becoming more and more frustrated with the Emigrant Aid Company leaders like Charles Robinson, who tried to avoid violent conflict with the pro-slavery side. The Sack of Lawrence pushed Brown to the boiling point, and when he learned of Senator Sumner’s caning in Washington, DC, according to witnesses, “Brown went crazy—crazy!” He decided to take revenge. For some reason, he had it in his mind that pro-slavery men had killed five abolitionists, so, on the night of May 24, 1856, he led four of his sons and three others on a rampage through the pro-slavery community near Pottawatomie Creek. Brown’s marauders first went to the home of James Doyle. They dragged Doyle and his two oldest sons outside where they murdered them with guns and broad swords. They then continued to the houses of Allen Wilkinson and William Sherman, and brutally murdered them in the same manner. According to later reports, John Brown Sr. did not participate in the killings, but he approved of them and probably watched. All five victims were pro-slavery supporters, but none owned slaves.139
With John Brown’s raid, the cork was now out of the bottle. The efforts of Charles Robinson and others to go to extreme lengths to avoid bloodshed were of no avail. Now blood was on the hands of the abolitionists, and the result was a guerrilla war that lasted for almost a year.
8 The Latest Edition of the Herald of Freedom
IT DID NOT TAKE LONG for the pro-slavery ruffians to seek revenge. Upon hearing of the Pottawatomie Massacre, Captain H. C. Pate, a deputy US Marshal and commander of a territorial militia unit, moved quickly to capture Brown and his followers. He captured two of Brown’s sons, burning John Jr.’s cabin, and was poised to lead a full-scale assault on Brown and his comrades. John Brown Sr., however, learned of the planned attack and instead attacked Pate and his militia near the small community of Black Jack. Although outnumbered, Brown fooled Pate into thinking that he was surrounded; Pate and his men surrendered, and he would later say the he “went to take Brown—and he took me.”
The Battle of Black Jack on June 2, 1856, and other skirmishes around the territory made it clear to Governor Shannon that he had a serious problem on his hands. Still smarting from the Wakarusa War, and probably with little confidence that he could control the situation that very easily could have erupted into a full-scale civil war, he called on the US Army to send forces to potential hot spots in the territory to try to maintain the peace. The army, under Colonel Edwin Sumner, a future Civil War general, would disperse pro- and antislavery militias, but almost as quickly they would just regroup somewhere else and go at it again. By the end of June, Shannon left the territory for official business in St. Louis, leaving the territorial secretary Daniel Woodson in charge. Whereas Shannon tried to balance the tables between pro- and antislavery factions, Woodson was clearly on the pro-slavery side. When he got wind of the Free-State Party calling for a convention in Topeka on July 4, he ordered Colonel Sumner to disperse the gathering. Colonel Sumner was a cousin of Senator Charles Sumner. He had little taste for dispersing the Free-State Party delegates, but he was a good soldier and followed his orders. Violence was avoided, in part, because Charles Robinson, who was still imprisoned for treason, sent messages from Lecompton, entreating the free-state residents to avoid violence and allow Sumner to do his job. Sumner brought six hundred dragoons to Topeka, and the convention disbanded peacefully. The army maintained a semblance of order through July, but the relative peace was temporary.140
With the events and national attention drawn to Kansas, antislavery emigrants from the North, and even a few from the South, started pouring into the territory. Rev. Cordley reported that many college students and graduates “turned their back on the literary life they had chosen, or the professional life to which they were looking, and went to Kansas at the call of freedom…. It was no uncommon thing to find college graduates driving an ox team through the streets of Lawrence, or cutting timber by the river, or living in some lonely shanty or dug-out…. They did not come as adventurers to see how they would like it…. [They] came with honest intent to make Kansas a free state.”
With the flood of new antislavery settlers, Missourians posted militias on all roads through Missouri and met all steamships on their way to Kansas, threatening violence if the emigrants continued on their journeys through the state. Undaunted, antislavery travelers bypassed Missouri and the Missouri River altogether, finding new routes through Iowa and Nebraska.141
To the people of Lawrence, the influx of antislavery immigrants provided a desperately needed boost to morale. Before long, they started rebuilding—after the Sack of Lawrence—determined that they would not allow the Border Ruffians to have their way in the future. The men formed into armed companies, with names such as the “Lawrence Stubbs” and the “Bloomington Guards.” They trained, and they established fortifications in and around the town. The most immediate threats came from three manned pro-slavery fortresses surrounding Lawrence. Franklin, just four miles east; Fort Saunders, twelve miles to the southwest; and Fort Titus near Lecompton to the northwest were Border Ruffian strongholds, well supplied with food and ammunition, with strategically placed loopholes for firing at any attackers. From these forts, the ruffians harassed travelers, raided free-state farms, and posed constant threats to the citizens of Lawrence.
Up until that time, Dr. John Doy probably captured the sentiments of many when he wrote that “we were quiet, peaceful, and industrious citizens, and wished to remain so, but we would not consent to bring up our children on a land cursed by the toil of slaves.” With the sacking of Lawrence and constant threats to him and his family, Doy wrote that “we could endure the present state of things no longer. We swore to treat the invaders as noxious vermin; we would drive them out or die.”
He became a member of the “Lawrence Stubbs,” and on August 12, 1856, he and the other members of the “Stubbs” went to Franklin to attack “a party of these marauding ruffians.” They found the ruffians holed up in the well-fortified log structure. They attacked, but lost one man and several others were wounded. They then pushed a load of hay against the log building and set it on fire, driving the ruffians out. The “Lawrence Stubbs” recovered many of the arms, including a cannon that was taken from them during the sacking of Lawrence.142 The cannon was the pride and joy of Captain Thomas Bickerton, a mechanic from Maine, who had joined an Emigrant Aid party when going to Lawrence in March 1855. As a commander of one of the Lawrence militia companies, he was more upset than anyone that the ruffians had confiscated the cannon several months earlier. He had arranged for purchasing the piece and had gone to great lengths to sneak it into Lawrence. Bickerton took the responsibility of securing and transporting the artillery piece back to Lawrence. He found only five cannon balls in the Franklin fort, so when he returned to town, he cleverly enlisted the town’s citizens to scour the Kansas River mud and the burned newspaper offices to gather up the lead type scattered from the raid months earlier, and molded the pieces of type into cannon balls. On August 15, 1856, the Lawrence armed companies moved on Fort Saunders—another Ruffian stronghold. Fearing that the Lawrence men would set the fort on fire and knowing that they now possessed a cannon, the ruffians fled without a fight.143
The third fortress, Fort Titus, was commanded by, and named for, Colonel Henry Titus, who was a scoundrel of monumental proportions. Fort Titus was the most formidable of the three forts, near Lecompton, the territorial capital. The presence of the pro-slavery territorial government and a company of US soldiers stationed nearby provided a degree of protection for the occupants of Fort Titus. Titus and his “desperados” would ravage the countryside; then, if they were chased by any
free-state pursuers, they would rush back to the safety of their fortress. Rev. Cordley later wrote that “when pro-slavery men committed depredations, the authorities at Lecompton could never get any ‘official’ information in time to interfere. But whenever free-state men were moved to retaliate, the information came quickly and was always ‘official.’ Then a squad of troops would be ordered to go to the scene of disturbance and ‘preserve order.’” Although the military was an arm of the “legal” pro-slavery government, and commanders followed the orders given by its governor, Titus was a particularly nasty brute, generally despised by the military. He and many of his men participated in the Sack of Lawrence, and he bragged that if he ever returned to Lawrence, he would kill every abolitionist there. Titus had a special hatred for Samuel Walker, a free-state man who lived close to Fort Titus. He printed a large handbill offering $500 for Samuel Walker’s head, “on or off his shoulders.”
It seemed only fitting that Walker, the commander of the “Bloomington Guards,” led the attack against Fort Titus on August 16, 1856. Titus thought he could rely on the US Army to come to his rescue, but Major John Sedgwick, who would later be one of the finest generals in the Union Army during the Civil War, was the officer commanding the contingent near Lecompton. He was disgusted with Titus and his bluster, and was equally unhappy that he was frequently ordered to side with pro-slavery militias. Several days before the attack, he quietly told Captain Walker that if “they wanted to gobble up old Titus and would do it quickly, he did not think he should be able to get over in time to hinder him.”144
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