Read Online Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War Hardcover – Bargain Price by Tony Horwitz - Free Book Online
Authors: Tony Horwitz
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the day of their calamity is at hand.”
APRIL 1856 BROUGHT SHOOTS of grass and fresh portents of conflict. A territorial judge arrived to hold court at Dutch Henry’s Crossing, a proslavery outpost on Pottawatomie Creek, near Brown’s Station. Rumors flew that arrest warrants would be issued for the Browns, who had flagrantly defied proslavery statutes. But the family wasn’t about to cower before “bogus” Kansas law. Instead, several of the Brown men sat in on the court session and then stepped outside, loudly calling together a newly formed local militia, the Pottawatomie Rifles. They pledged to resist by force any attempt to enforce proslavery laws and presented this determination in writing to the judge. He adjourned the court the next day without arresting any of them.
Whether or not the judge had been intimidated by the Browns’ display, it greatly enhanced their notoriety and deepened the enmity of their proslavery neighbors, a number of whom served as court officers or jurors. The day after the court standoff, Brown wrote a relative: “Matters are a fair way of comeing to a head.”
They would do so in May, a month that opened with a menacing arrival. Four hundred Southerners rode into eastern Kansas, led by anAlabama major, Jefferson Buford, who had recruited “men capable of bearing arms” to colonize the territory and defend it from “the free-soil hordes.” The legion’s banner proclaimed “The Supremacy of the White Race.” On entering Kansas, Buford’s men camped near Dutch Henry’s Crossing, within easy striking distance of the Browns and other free-state settlers who lived in scattered cabins and hamlets between the Osage River and Pottawatomie Creek.
“We are constantly exposed and have almost no protection,” Florella Adair wrote on May 16. The vulnerable free-state enclave, she added, “is known and called an ‘ abolitionist nest .’”
In the event, the proslavery forces struck first at a much bigger nest: the abolitionist bastion of Lawrence. When free-state leaders in the town resisted arrest on charges of treason, a U.S. marshal called on “law-abiding citizens” in Kansas to form a posse “for the proper execution of the law.” His call was promptly answered—by Border Ruffians from Missouri, Buford’s band of Alabamans, and others who relished a chance to invade the free-state Gomorrah at Lawrence.
“Draw your revolvers & bowie knives, & cool them in the heart’s blood of all those damned dogs, that dare defend that damned breathing hole of hell,” David Atchison, a former U.S. senator from Missouri, told cheering Southerners encamped outside Lawrence on May 21, “never to slacken or stop until every spark of free-state, free-speech, free-niggers, or free in any shape is quenched out of Kansas!”
When news of the threat to Lawrence reached Brown’s Station the next day, John junior, who was head of the Pottawatomie Rifles, quickly mobilized his thirty-four men and set off for the besieged town. His father and four of his brothers formed a separate squad; two other militias joined en route. The free-state men marched through the night and part of the next day before learning they were too late. A rider from Lawrence reported that Border Ruffians had taken the town without resistance and were proceeding to loot and burn it. The free-state men marched on, until they heard from a second rider that federal troops had taken control of the ruined town from its southern pillagers.
Brown was enraged. Had no one put up a fight? As the free-state men made camp and deliberated over what to do, Jason Brown overheard hisfather talking to two men about their proslavery neighbors back at Dutch Henry’s Crossing, on Pottawatomie Creek. “Now something must be done,” Brown said. “Something is going to be done now .”
He spoke to others in camp, seeking men for a secret mission under his command. John junior argued against dividing the free-state force and
APRIL 1856 BROUGHT SHOOTS of grass and fresh portents of conflict. A territorial judge arrived to hold court at Dutch Henry’s Crossing, a proslavery outpost on Pottawatomie Creek, near Brown’s Station. Rumors flew that arrest warrants would be issued for the Browns, who had flagrantly defied proslavery statutes. But the family wasn’t about to cower before “bogus” Kansas law. Instead, several of the Brown men sat in on the court session and then stepped outside, loudly calling together a newly formed local militia, the Pottawatomie Rifles. They pledged to resist by force any attempt to enforce proslavery laws and presented this determination in writing to the judge. He adjourned the court the next day without arresting any of them.
Whether or not the judge had been intimidated by the Browns’ display, it greatly enhanced their notoriety and deepened the enmity of their proslavery neighbors, a number of whom served as court officers or jurors. The day after the court standoff, Brown wrote a relative: “Matters are a fair way of comeing to a head.”
They would do so in May, a month that opened with a menacing arrival. Four hundred Southerners rode into eastern Kansas, led by anAlabama major, Jefferson Buford, who had recruited “men capable of bearing arms” to colonize the territory and defend it from “the free-soil hordes.” The legion’s banner proclaimed “The Supremacy of the White Race.” On entering Kansas, Buford’s men camped near Dutch Henry’s Crossing, within easy striking distance of the Browns and other free-state settlers who lived in scattered cabins and hamlets between the Osage River and Pottawatomie Creek.
“We are constantly exposed and have almost no protection,” Florella Adair wrote on May 16. The vulnerable free-state enclave, she added, “is known and called an ‘ abolitionist nest .’”
In the event, the proslavery forces struck first at a much bigger nest: the abolitionist bastion of Lawrence. When free-state leaders in the town resisted arrest on charges of treason, a U.S. marshal called on “law-abiding citizens” in Kansas to form a posse “for the proper execution of the law.” His call was promptly answered—by Border Ruffians from Missouri, Buford’s band of Alabamans, and others who relished a chance to invade the free-state Gomorrah at Lawrence.
“Draw your revolvers & bowie knives, & cool them in the heart’s blood of all those damned dogs, that dare defend that damned breathing hole of hell,” David Atchison, a former U.S. senator from Missouri, told cheering Southerners encamped outside Lawrence on May 21, “never to slacken or stop until every spark of free-state, free-speech, free-niggers, or free in any shape is quenched out of Kansas!”
When news of the threat to Lawrence reached Brown’s Station the next day, John junior, who was head of the Pottawatomie Rifles, quickly mobilized his thirty-four men and set off for the besieged town. His father and four of his brothers formed a separate squad; two other militias joined en route. The free-state men marched through the night and part of the next day before learning they were too late. A rider from Lawrence reported that Border Ruffians had taken the town without resistance and were proceeding to loot and burn it. The free-state men marched on, until they heard from a second rider that federal troops had taken control of the ruined town from its southern pillagers.
Brown was enraged. Had no one put up a fight? As the free-state men made camp and deliberated over what to do, Jason Brown overheard hisfather talking to two men about their proslavery neighbors back at Dutch Henry’s Crossing, on Pottawatomie Creek. “Now something must be done,” Brown said. “Something is going to be done now .”
He spoke to others in camp, seeking men for a secret mission under his command. John junior argued against dividing the free-state force and
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