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ments had entered the town, but in consequence of the extreme darkness and the uncertainty of the positions of the contending forces, they could take no part in the fight, not being able to distinguish their foes from their friends. They nevertheless made the best of their time, having broken into the stores and loaded their wagon, which had been brought for the purpose, with ammunition, rifles, guns, provisions and such other articles as they desired, the greater part of which were Buford's stores, previously captured from free-state people. The firing continued on both sides until nearly daylight, when the pro-slavery men retired, leaving their enemies in possession of the town. In this affair a pro-slavery man named Teschmaker was killed, and three or four wounded. One man had his ear shot off. The assailants received no injury whatever. One remarkable feature in all these Kansas battles, is, that although many persons were sometimes engaged, who fought with passions inflamed to the most violent pitch, the loss on either side was almost invariably quite insignificant. Those who suffered death. were generally murdered, not in the heat of battle, but deliberately and in cold blood, when the fights were over.

General Whitfield, in the meantime, had collected a large force, chiefly from Jackson county, Mo., with which, accompanied by General Reid, and other prominent members of his party, professedly to relieve Captain Pate, and attack and capture Brown, he entered the territory and encamped near Palmyra. Whilst this army was assembling, the free-state bands were also concentrating and moving towards the same neighborhood.

These latter, says one of their own writers, "were a harumscarum set, as brave as steel, mostly mere boys, and did not consider it a sin to 'press' a pro-slavery man's horse. At various times they have made more disturbance than all other free-state men together. They were under no particular restraint, and did not recognise any authority-military, civil, or otherwise any further than suited their convenience. While they went around the country skirmishing, and carrying on the war against the pro-slavery men on their own hook, and in their own time and way, they were at the same time quite willing to lend a hand in more systematic and important fighting when there was an opportunity. These boys have been most bitterly maligned, and the free-state men, or conservative free-state men, were not slow to denounce them. Resolutions were passed by the sensitively moral free-state people, or the

sensitively timid, declaring that these daring young guerillas were a nuisance, and that they, the conservative class, did not wish to be held responsible for them. To all this moralizing these young braves turned up their noses, ironically recommending all who were too cowardly to fight to keep right on the record. For their own part, they regarded the war as begun, and would wage it against the pro-slavery men as the pro-slavery men waged it against their free-state friends."

This was the state of affairs near Hickory Point on the morning of the 5th of June. Whitfield was encamped behind Palmyra with near three hundred men. The free-state camps

mustered, or mustering, on that day, were about two hundred strong, and two companies were marching from Topeka with fifty more, who arrived the day after.

The governor, in view of this condition of things, issued a proclamation on the 4th, "commanding all persons belonging to military companies unauthorized by law to disperse, otherwise they would be dispersed by the United States troops.' Col. Sumner, at the head of a large force of dragoons, proceeded towards Hickory Point to enforce the order. He went directly to the camp of Brown, on Ottawa Creek, who consented to disband, but not until he was assured by Sumner that Whitfield's army should be dispersed. Pate and the other prisoners were then set at liberty, and their horses, arms, and other property restored. Captain Pate received a severe rebuke for invading the territory without authority, and especially for being in possession of the United States arms. Col. Sumner next visited the camp of Whitfield, who promised to return with his men to Missouri, and at once moved down the Santa Fe road, and encamped about five miles below Palmyra on the Black Jack.

Early on the following morning, June 6th, this army separated into two divisions, one half of it under General Reid, with Captain Pate, Bell, Jenigen, and other prominent leaders, moving towards Osawattomie, whilst the others, under Whitfield, started for Westport. They had, in their march on the day previous, taken several prisoners, and before they divided, held a court among themselves and tried one of these, a free-state man named Cantral, whom they sentenced to death, carried into a deep ravine near by, and shot.. His body was subsequently found, with three bullet holes in the breast. The executioner in this case is said to have been a man named Forman, of Pate's company, belonging to Westport, Missouri.

On the 7th, Reid, with one hundred and seventy men, marched into Osawattomie, and without resistance, entered each house, robbing it of everything of value. There were but few men in the town, and the women and children were treated with the utmost brutality. Stores and dwellings were alike entered and pillaged. Trunks, boxes, and desks were broken open, and their contents appropriated or destroyed. Even rings were rudely pulled from the ears and fingers of the women, and some of the apparel from their persons. The liquor found was freely drunk, and served to incite the plunderers to increased violence in the prosecution of their mischievous work. Having completely stripped the town, they set fire to several houses, and then beat a rapid retreat, carrying off a number of horses, and loudly urging each other to greater haste, as "the d-d abolitionists were coming!"

There are hundreds of well authenticated accounts of the cruelties practised by this horde of ruffians, some of them too shocking and disgusting to relate, or to be accredited, if told. The tears and shrieks of terrified women, folded in their foul embrace, failed to touch a chord of mercy in their brutal hearts, and the mutilated bodies of murdered men, hanging upon the trees, or left to rot upon the prairies or in the deep ravines, or furnish food for vultures and wild beasts, told frightful stories of brutal ferocity from which the wildest savages might have shrunk with horror.

On the 21st of June, an Indian agent, named Gay, was travelling in the vicinity of Westport, and was stopped by a party of Buford's men, who asked if he was in favor of making Kansas a free-state. He promptly answered in the affirmative, and was instantly shot dead. Such was the only crime for which this soul was hurried into the eternal world.

Whilst these events were transpiring on the south side of the Kansas river, Col. Wilkes, Captain Emory, and other prominent pro-slavery men, were actively employed in persecuting the free-state citizens of Leavenworth. Notices were served on them to quit the city; some were violently seized and imprisoned, and still others carried to the levee, having been deprived of all their property and the greater part of their clothing, placed on board of steamers, and thus compelled to leave the country. At the same time the steamboats coming up the river continued to be boarded at every stopping place, the free-state passengers insulted, their trunks broken open and robbed, and their arms taken from them; after which they were put upon return boats, and forced to go back.

CHAPTER XV.

Removal of Colonel Sumner and appointment of General P. F. Smith.Free-state refugees driven from Fort Leavenworth.-Immigration from the North.-Destruction of pro-slavery forts by free-state bands.-Murder of Major Hoyt.-Defeat of the pro-slavery forces at Franklin.Colonel Titus captured by Captain Walker, and his house burned.-Alarm at Lecompton.-Governor Shannon makes another treaty with the Lawrence people.

COL. SUMNER, in consequence of the strict impartiality with which he discharged his duties, failed to give satisfaction to the pro-slavery party, who having all the official power in Kansas, backed up by still greater power at Washington, had no difficulty in effecting his removal from the territory. He was superseded in July, 1856, by General Persifer F. Smith, whose quarters were at Fort Leavenworth. The general was born in Pennsylvania, but has spent much of his time in Louisiana, and is decidedly a pro-slavery man in feeling and sentiment. His appointment was highly gratifying to those who had so strongly desired to get rid of Sumner. Soon after his arrival, General Smith, whose health had been failing for some time, became quite ill, and until the time that he left Kansas' in February, 1857, was closely confined to his apartments, so that he was not able to take any active part in the affairs of the territory. Hence, after the removal of Shannon on the 21st of August, when Secretary Woodson became acting governor, until the arrival of Governor Geary in September, the belligerents had matters pretty much their own way, and the ruffians improved the time, under pretence of authority from Woodson, to perpetrate with impunity the most shocking barbarities. During this period Gen. Smith received much censure from the free-state people. Emory, Wilkes, Stringfellow, and others, were driving these from their homes at Leavenworth and other places, and many of them hastily fled in terror for protection within the enclosures of the fort; when the general caused hand-bills to be posted over the grounds commanding them to leave before a certain specified time, and gave orders to his subordinates to enforce this command. These unfortunate people, among whom were men of the highest respectability, and even women and children, were compelled,

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some of them without money or suitable clothing, to take to the prairies, exposed at every step to the danger of being murdered by scouting or marauding parties, or at the risk of their lives, effect their escape upon the downward bound boats. Some of these were shot in the attempt upon the river banks, whilst others were seized at Kansas City and other Missouri towns, brought back as prisoners, and disposed of in such a manner as will only be made known at that great day when all human mysteries will be revealed. There is many an unhappy wife and mother in the states looking anxiously, and hoping against hope, for the return of an adventurous husband or son, whose bones are bleaching upon the prairies or mouldering beneath their sod.

In August the troubles had reached their culminating point. The free-state immigrants had opened a new route into the territory through Nebraska and Iowa, and large and well-armed companies came pouring in, many of them of irreproachable character, who came to the relief of the oppressed; and others of desperate fortunes, eager to take part in the disturbances from a spirit of revenge or a love of the excitement; and still others, perhaps, for the sole purpose of plunder. These bands were generally under the direction of Lane, Redpath, Perry, and other prominent free-state leaders.

The pro-slavery marauders south of the Kansas River had established and fortified themselves at the town of Franklin; at a fort thrown up near Osawattomie; at another on Washington Creek, twelve miles from Lawrence; and at Colonel Titus's house, on the border of Lecompton. From these strongholds they would sally forth, "press" horses and cattle, intercept the mails, rob stores and dwellings, plunder travellers, burn houses, and destroy crops.

The fort near Osawattomie, in consequence of outrages committed in the neighborhood, and at the solicitation of the settlers, was attacked by a company of free-state men from Lawrence, on the 5th of August. A party of Georgians who held this position, upon the approach of the enemy, fled without firing a gun, leaving behind a large quantity of plunder. The fort was then taken and demolished.

The defeated party retreated to the fort at Washington Creek, and thence continued their depredations upon the neighboring inhabitants. On the 11th the people of Lawrence sent Major D. S. Hoyt, a peaceable man, who was greatly respected, to this camp to endeavor to make some sort of armica