Personal Recollections of Pardee ButlerWith Reminiscences by his Daughter (page 3)

Abolitionists. Like whipped dogs they sneaked up to Clarkson and laid down their weapons to him.

The men thus robbed of their arms give the following version of the matter: They say that at Lexington they were taken by surprise; that their arms were not accessible to them, and that there was nothing to do but to yield. But that a pledge was made to them, that if they would give up their arms, they should be allowed to proceed peaceably to Kansas. They furthermore state that at Kansas City Col. Buford came aboard the boat, accompanied by a company of soldiers; that David R. Atchison and Gen. B. F. Stringfellow came on board, and that after the boat had left the landing these gentlemen informed them that they would in no wise be allowed to enter the Territory; that after the boat had stopped at Weston, they should be taken back to Alton; but that if they would not accept this arrangement, “they should be hung, every mother’s son of them.”

At various times the _Squatter Sovereign_ and _Leavenworth Herald_ report similar outrages. The latter paper reports, July 5th, the sending back seventy-five emigrants that had come upon the steamer Sultan. In reference to this occurrence, the _Squatter Sovereign_ makes the following remark:

We do not fully approve of sending these criminals back to the East, to be reshipped to Kansas–if not through Missouri, through Iowa and Nebraska. We think they should meet a traitor’s death; and the world could not censure us if we, in self-protection, have to resort to such ultra measures. We are of the opinion that if the citizens of Leavenworth city, or Weston, would _hang_ one or two boatloads of Abolitionists, it would do more towards establishing peace in Kansas than all the speeches that have been delivered in Congress during the present session. _Let the experiment be tried_.

The Missouri River was thus blockaded against the incoming of emigrants from the free States, and this created intense excitement throughout the North. The result was, that the immigration to Kansas, instead of being diminished, was largely increased; but it changed its direction, and Iowa City became the _entrepôt_ for the incoming tide of free State settlers, which now sought an overland route through Iowa and Nebraska, and began to reach Kansas about the 1st of August.

The leaders of the Pro-slavery party made a pathetic appeal to the people of the South to send a corresponding class of emigrants; but the appeal was feebly responded to. Slave-holders would not come, because their slaves would be insecure; and now slave-holders felt that they had small cause to come to fight a battle that was not theirs.

Gov. Shannon held the scepter of power with a more and more feeble hand. He was going to resign, and he was not going to resign. But whether he did or did not resign, the substance of power had already passed into the hands of his secretary, Mr. Woodson, who was hand and glove with his fellows in this conspiracy to make Kansas a slave State.

Meantime Col. Sumner had been superseded in command at Fort Leavenworth by Persifer F. Smith. Col. Sumner had obeyed orders like the brave soldier that he was, but he had shown too much sympathy for these victims of oppression in the discharge of his shameful duties. [5] He did his appointed work, but he did not do it with an appetite, and he had been succeeded by a man that felt no more pity toward the Free State people than the wolf feels for the lamb out of which he makes his breakfast. The consequences of this state of affairs began soon to appear. The Missouri River had been blockaded. Trains sent to Leavenworth from Lawrence and Topeka were robbed on the public highway of the merchandise and provisions with which they were loaded, and these interior Free State settlements began to feel the sharp pressure of hard necessities, while they a third time saw companies of so-called “Law and Order” militia occupying various points in the Territory which these men proceeded to fortify, and from which they could overawe the inhabitants and make raids on the citizens; and thus the old business of robbery, murder, spoliation and oppression was again begun.

And now this new immigration of a squatter soldiery, who came bearing their muskets in one hand and their implements of husbandry in the other, and were perfectly indifferent whether it should be work or fight, came pouring over the Nebraska line and into Kansas Territory. A feeble attempt was made to stop them, but it amounted to nothing. They were not now on a Missouri River steamboat. Jim Lane came with them. He remained _incognito_ a few days, and then threw off his disguise, and Capt. Joe Cook was Jim Lane. And now the old, hard rule of the law of Moses, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” was again the law of Kansas. It was, “You have robbed us, and we will rob you; you have subsisted yourselves upon us, and we will subsist ourselves on you; you have blockaded the Missouri River, and waylaid our freighting trains, and pillaged them of their freight, with intent to starve out the Free State people, and all that belongs to you and yours shall be free plunder to us.”

The places that had been fortified by this “Law and Order” militia were one by one stormed and the garrisons driven off. Franklin was a second time attacked and its occupants taken prisoners. Col. Titus had fortified his residence in the suburbs of Lecompton, and here he kept a company of men that made raids on the surrounding Free State inhabitants. This fort was taken by assault, and Col. Titus and his men were taken prisoners, while Major Sedjwick, with a company of United States troops, was encamped only two miles away. The citizens of Lecompton were frightened out of their wits, and Gov. Shannon was found under the bank of the Kansas River, badly demoralized, and trying to get across the river on an old scow, and thus escape the danger. He came the next day to Lawrence, accompanied by Maj. Sedjwick, to make peace and negotiate an exchange of prisoners, He announced this as his last official act, and exhorted the people in a speech he made to them, to live in peace with each other, while they shouted in angry retort, “Give us back Barber and the men that have been murdered under your rule.”

But in spite of all these reverses that had come upon the “Law and Order” party, they still had faith that Providence is on the side of the heaviest battalions, and that they would yet succeed in driving out these Free State rebels; and they proceeded to raise, along the Missouri border, a larger army than it would be possible for the Free State people to raise. Did they not have on their side the President and his Cabinet? Was not Congress on their side? Was not Persifer F. Smith, Commandant at Fort Leavenworth, at least indifferent to all their deeds of violence? And more and better, Woodson had succeeded Shannon as acting Governor, and it would be a bad day that should not see the full fruition of their hopes.

But there was one thought to mar their otherwise perfect joy, just as Providence always pours a drop of bitterness into every cup. A Governor unfriendly to their purposes might be appointed, and it became them, therefore, to make hay while the sun was shining. They, therefore, addressed the following pathetic appeal to the people of the South:

We have asked the appointment of a successor who was acquainted with our condition; who, a citizen of our Territory, identified with its interests, familiar with its history, would not be prejudiced or misled by the falsehoods which have been so systematically fabricated against us.

In his stead we have one appointed who is ignorant of our condition, a stranger to our people; who we have too much cause to fear will, if no worse, prove no more efficient to protect us than his predecessors.

With, then, a government which has proved imbecile, has failed to enforce the laws for our protection, with our army of lawless banditti overturning our country–what shall we do?

Though we have full confidence in the integrity and fidelity of Mr. Woodson, now acting as Governor, we know not at what moment his authority will be suspended. We can not await the convenience of the incoming of the newly appointed Governor. We can not hazard a second edition of imbecility or corruption.

We must act at once, and effectively. These traitors, assassins, and robbers must be punished; must now be taught a lesson they will remember.

It is, then, not only the right, but the duty of all good citizens of Missouri and every other State to come to our assistance, and enable us to expel these invaders.

Mr. Woodson, since the resignation of Governor Shannon, has fearlessly met the responsibilities of the trust forced upon him, has proclaimed the existence of the rebellion, and called on the militia of the Territory to assemble for its suppression.

We call on you to come, to furnish us assistance in men, provisions, and munitions, that we may drive out the army of the North, who would subvert our government and expel us from our homes.

CHAPTER XIX.

Gov. Shannon left the Territory a disgraced and ruined man. He had proved himself, both to the Free State party and the Law and Order party, a broken staff that pierces the hand of him that leans on it. Mr. Woodson, who took his place as acting Governor, showed himself hale fellow well met with such spirits as Sheriff Jones and Judge Lecompte; and this faction made piteous appeals to the Great Father at Washington to give them a man after their own heart, and this they found in John Calhoun, Surveyor-General of Kansas and Nebraska, whose official patronage made him a man of considerable influence, and whose freighting outfit, kept for his peculiar business, would have made him eminently useful to this party in the transportation of military stores. But their appeal had been denied them, and instead of Surveyor-General Calhoun, Mr. Geary, of Pennsylvania, had been appointed.

That great party, of which the President was the official head, was convulsed with such internal feuds and contentions, consequent on these very Kansas troubles, as threatened its existence. A Presidential election was pending, and attention must be paid to this fact, rather than to the desperate schemes of this Kansas faction. John W. Geary was, therefore, announced as the appointee of the President. Mr. G. came with high claims to public favor. He had passed through the Mexican war with honor; he had discharged high public trust in California with such fidelity and skill as won for him a distinguished reputation. He was the friend, and almost the neighbor, of the incoming President, James Buchanan, and he enjoyed the confidence of the outgoing President, Franklin Pierce; and was closeted with him and with his Secretary of State, Mr. Marcy, before leaving Washington. That nothing might be wanting to his success, he spent a day at Jefferson City, Mo., with Gov. Sterling Price, and with him arranged to have the blockade removed from the Missouri River.

Mr. Geary met at Glasgow, Mo., the retiring ex-Governor, and Dr. Gihon reports that he was fleeing in terror that his life would be taken by the men for whom he had been such an abject tool.

While these parting ceremonies were being performed a steamboat bound down the river, and directly from Kansas, came along side the Keystone. Ex-Governor Shannon was a passenger, who, upon learning the close proximity of Gov. Geary, sought an immediate interview with him. The ex-Governor was greatly agitated. He had fled in haste and terror from the Territory, and still seemed laboring under an apprehension for his personal safety. His description of Kansas was suggestive of everything that is frightful and horrible. Its condition was deplorable in the extreme. The whole Territory was in a state of insurrection, and a destructive civil war was devastating the country. Murder ran rampant, and the roads were everywhere strewn with the bodies of slaughtered men.

Dr. Gihon afterwards published a small volume of 348 pages, from which the preceding extract has been taken. The work is entitled “Governor Geary’s Administration in Kansas.” This work does not bear the sign manual of Gov. Geary, but as it was written by the Governor’s private secretary, it must be taken as an authentic statement of what these gentlemen saw with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, as touching the condition of things in the Territory. Dr. Gihon gives the following testimony concerning the troubles in and around Leavenworth and their cause:

After the removal of Shannon on the 21st of August, when Secretary Woodson became acting Governor until the arrival of Gov. Geary in September, the belligerents had matters pretty much their own way, and the ruffians improved the time, under pretense of authority from Woodson, to perpetrate with impunity the most shocking barbarities.

During this time Gen. Smith received much censure from the Free State people. Emory, Wilkes, Stringfellow and others were driving these from their homes in Leavenworth, and many of them 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, 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.

Captain Frederick Emory, a United States Mail Contractor, rendered himself conspicuous in Leavenworth at the head of a band of ruffians mostly from Western Missouri. They entered houses, stores and dwellings of Free State people, and in the name of “Law and Order” abused and robbed the occupants, and drove them out into the roads, Irrespective of age, sex or condition. Under pretense of searching for arms, they approached the house of William Phillips, the lawyer who had been previously tarred and feathered and carried to Missouri. Phillips, supposing he was to be subjected to a similar outrage, and resolved not to submit to the indignity, stood upon his defense. In repelling the assaults of the mob, he killed two of them, when the others burst into the house, and poured a volley of balls into his body, killing him instantly in the presence of his wife and another lady. His brother, who was also present, had an ana broken with bullets, and was compelled to submit to an amputation. Fifty of the Free State prisoners were then driven on board the Polar Star, bound for St. Louis. On the next day a hundred more were embarked by Emory and his men on the steamboat Emma.

At this time civil war raged in all the populous districts. Womi n and children had fled from the Territory. No man’s life was safe, and every person, when he lay down to rest at night, bolted and barred his doors, and fell asleep grasping firmly his pistol, gun or knife.

Emory’s company were all mounted on “pressed” horses, the owners of some of which were present to point out and claim them; but as there existed no courts or judges from whom the necessary legal process could be obtained, and as Gen. Smith would not listen to their complaints, they had no means by which to recover their property.

Emory and his company held their headquarters at Leavenworth City, whence they sallied into the surrounding country to “press,” _not steal,_ the horses, cattle, wagons and other property of Free State men. It was during these excursions that Major Sackett, of the United States Army, found in the road near Leavenworth City a number of the bodies of men who had been seized, robbed, murdered and mutilated, and left unburied by the wayside.

On the 17th of August, 1856, a shocking affair occurred in the neighborhood of Leavenworth. Two ruffians sat at a table in a low groggery, imbibing potations of bad whisky. One of them, named Fugert, bet his companion six dollars against a pair of boots that he would go out and in less than two hours bring in the scalp of an Abolitionist. He went into the road, and, meeting a Mr. Hoppe, who was in his carriage just returning to Leavenworth from a visit to Lawrence, where he had conveyed his wife, Fugert deliberately shot him; then, taking out his bowie knife, whilst his victim was still alive, he cut and tore off his scalp from his quivering head. Leaving the body of Hoppe lying in the road, he elevated his bloody trophy upon a pole, and paraded it through the streets of Leavenworth. On the same day a teamster, who was approaching Leavenworth, was murdered and scalped by another human monster.

A poor German, when the scalp of Hoppe was brought into Leavenworth, was impudent enough to express his horror of the shocking deed, when he was ordered to run for his life–in attempting which a number of bullets sped after him, and he fell dead in the street.

CHAPTER XX.

In the month of August, 1856, a company of so-called Territorial Militia established themselves at Hickory Point, Jefferson county, about twenty miles north of Lawrence, and proceeded to make raids on the Free State settlements. In one of these raids they pillaged the village of Grasshopper Falls, robbing the stores of their contents. Gen. Lane and Captains Harvey and Bickerton determined to attack and dislodge these marauders. But on the 11th of September Gov. Geary, having arrived at Lecompton, issued a proclamation ordering all armed bands of men, whether known as Territorial Militia or Free State Guerrillas, to disperse and retire to their homes. Gen. Lane determined at once to leave the Territory, and sent a message to that effect to Capt. Harvey, who had arranged to unite his command with that of Gen. Lane in an attack on Hickory Point; but the messenger failed to meet Harvey, who made the attack alone and captured these robbers. But Harvey’s men were in their turn taken prisoners by a company of United States troops and were conveyed to Lecompton and kept during the winter as treason prisoners. But while the Free State forces were thus being scattered, disbanded and taken prisoners, by virtue of Gov. Geary’s proclamation, an army of 3,000 men had been enlisted in Missouri and along the border towns, and were marching to destroy Lawrence and wipe out the Free State settlements. Delilah bound Samson with cords, then said, “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson”; and so these “Law and Order” leaders saw the Free State forces dispersed by the Governor’s proclamation, and then thought to bring on the helpless settlements the whole power of this Missouri invasion. But we will let Mr. Geary’s private secretary tell the story in his own way:

But the most reprehensible character in the drama being enacted was the Secretary of the Territory, then acting Governor. More than three weeks after Gov. Geary had received his commission and Secretary Woodson had every reason to believe that he was on his way to the Territory, that weak-minded, if not criminally defective, officer issued the following proclamation:

WHEREAS, Satisfactory evidence exists that the Territory of Kansas is infested with large bodies of armed men:

Now, therefore, I, Daniel Woodson, Acting Governor of the Territory of Kansas, do issue my proclamation declaring the said Territory to be in a state of open insurrection and rebellion, and I do hereby call upon all law-abiding citizens of the Territory to rally to the support of the country and its laws.

Not satisfied with the proclamation, which of itself was sufficiently mischievous, he wrote private letters to parties in Missouri calling for men, money and munitions of war. This proclamation and these letters called together thousands of men, mostly from Missouri, with passions inflamed to the highest degree, and whose only thought was wholesale slaughter and destruction.

It was the fixed purpose of Secretary Woodson to keep Gov. Geary in ignorance of the extensive preparations that were being made to attack and destroy the Free State settlements. As yet the Governor had not seen Woodson’s proclamation. Governor Geary issued the follow-orders:

ADJT. GEN. H. J. STRICKLER:–You will proceed without a moment’s delay to disarm and disband the present organized militia of the Territory.

Notwithstanding the positive character of these orders they were utterly disregarded. Suspecting that treachery was somewhere at work he forthwith dispatched confidential messengers on the road to Westport to ascertain, if possible, what operations were going forward in that vicinity.

Messengers were constantly arriving from Lawrence bringing intelligence that a large army from Missouri was encamped on the Wakarusa River and was hourly expected to attack the town. As these men were styled Territorial Militia and were called into service by the late acting Governor Woodson, Gov. Geary commanded that officer to take with him Adjutant-General Strickler with an escort of United States troops and disband, in accordance with the proclamation issued, the forces that had so unwisely been assembled. Woodson and Strickler left Lecompton in the afternoon, and reached the Missouri camp early in the evening.

Here Woodson found it impossible to accomplish the object of his mission. No attention or respect was paid to him by those having command of the forces. The army he had gathered refused to acknowledge his authority. He had raised a storm, the elements of which he was powerless to control; neither could the officers be assembled to receive the Governor’s orders from the Adjutant-General. The militia had resolved not to disband, the officers refused to listen to the reading of the proclamation–they were determined upon accomplishing the bloody work they had entered the Territory to perform. Nothing but the destruction of Lawrence and the other Free State towns, the massacre of the Free State residents, and the appropriation of their lands and other property, could satisfy them.

Mr. Adams, who accompanied Secretary Woodson to the Missouri camp, dispatched the following:

LAWRENCE, 12 o’clock Midnight, Sept. 14, 1856. To His EXCELLENCY, GOV. GEARY:

SIR:–_Secretary Woodson thought you had better come to the camp of the militia as soon as you can_. THEODORE ADAMS.

Before this dispatch reached Lecompton the Governor had departed with three hundred United States mounted troops and a battery of light artillery, and arrived in Lawrence early in the morning, where he found matters precisely as described. Skillfully stationing his troops outside the town, in commanding positions, to prevent a collision between the invading forces from Missouri and the citizens, he entered Lawrence alone, and there he beheld a sight which would have aroused the manhood of the most stolid mortal. About three hundred persons Were found in arms, determined to sell their lives at the dearest price to their ruffian enemies. Among these were many women, and children of both sexes, armed with guns and otherwise accoutered for battle. They had been goaded to this by the courage of despair.

Gov. Geary addressed the armed citizens of Lawrence, and when he assured them of his and the law’s protection they offered to deposit their arms at his feet and return to their respective habitations. He bade them go to their homes in confidence, and to carry their arms with them, as the constitution guarantees that right, but to use them only in the last resort to protect their lives and property and the chastity of their females.

Early in the morning of the 15th, having left the troops to protect the town, the Governor proceeded alone to the camp of the invading forces, then within three miles and drawn up in line of battle. Before reaching Franklin, he met the advance guard, and upon inquiring who they were and what were their objects, received for answer that they were the Territorial Militia, and called into service by the Governor of Kansas, and that they were marching to wipe out Lawrence and every Abolitionist in the country.

Mr. Geary informed them that he was now Governor of Kansas, and Commander-in-chief of the Territorial Militia, and ordered the officer in command to countermarch his troops back to the main line, and conduct him to the center, which order, after some hesitation, was reluctantly obeyed.

The red face of the rising sun was just peering over the top of Blue Mound, as the Governor, with his strange escort of three hundred mounted men, with red shirts and odd-shaped hats, descended upon the Wakarusa plain, where in battle array were ranged at least three thousand armed and desperate men. They were not dressed in the usual habiliments of soldiers, but in every imaginable costume that could be obtained in the western region. Most of them were mounted, and manifested an unmistakable disposition to be at their bloody work. In the back-ground stood at least three hundred army tents and as many wagons, while here and there a cannon was planted ready to aid in the anticipated destruction. Among the banners floated black flags, to indicate the design that neither age, sex nor condition would be spared in the slaughter that was to ensue.

In passing along the lines murmurs of discontent and savage threats of assassination fell upon the Governor’s ears, but heedless of these and regardless, in fact, of everything but a desire to avert the terrible calamity that was impending, he fearlessly proceeded to the quarters of their leader.

This threatening army was under the command of John W. Reed, then and now a member of the Missouri Legislature, assisted by ex-Senator Atchison, Gen. B. F. Stringfellow, Gen. L. A. Maclean, Gen. J. W. Whitfield, Gen. George W. Clarke, Gens. William A. Heiskell, Wm. H. Richardson and F. A. Marshal, Col. H. T. Titus, Capt. Frederick Emory and others.

Gov. Geary at once summoned the officers together, and addressed them at length and with great feeling. He depicted in a forcible manner the improper position they occupied and the untold horrors that would result from a consummation of their cruel designs; that if they persisted in their mad career the entire Union would be involved in a civil war, and thousands and tens of thousands of innocent lives be sacrificed. To Atchison he particularly addressed himself, telling him that when he last saw him he was acting as Vice-President of the nation and President of the most dignified body of men in the world, the Senate of the United States, but now with sorrow and pain he saw him leading on to a civil and disastrous war an army of men with uncontrollable passions, and determined upon wholesale slaughter and destruction. He concluded his remarks by directing attention to his proclamation, and ordered the army to be disbanded and dispersed. Some of the more judicious of the officers were not only willing but anxious to obey this order, while others, resolved upon mischief, yielded a reluctant assent.

CHAPTER XXI.

It is now one-third of a century since Kansas began to be settled. Great as has been the progress of the States of this Union within this period, the progress of Kansas has been exceptionally and peculiarly so. Its chief glory is not in its large agricultural and mineral resources; it is not in its railroads and lines of telegraph; it is not in the rapidly increasing population of educated men and women, but it is in this, that it was not only the first State in the nation, but the first Commonwealth in the world, to solve the problem of the drink evil, the giant curse of Christendom, by incorporating prohibition into its fundamental law.

In union there is strength. Jesus said so. He said, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation.” And so evidently does this principle commend itself to the common sense of men, that we have engraved on our national ensign the motto, “_E Pluribus Unum_” –one out of many.

How did such growth in Kansas come to be? Not in division, but in union. We have thought it would do us good to look squarely in the face that hard, cruel, and bloody period when it seemed the business of the people to cut each other’s throats. But cutting each other’s throats does not create such growth as we have had in Kansas.

Two peoples came together in Kansas, one from the South and one from the North. They were of one original stock, but circumstances had intervened and made them two peoples. For two years this bloody strife had been going on. It is said that in revolutions men live fast. It was two years, if we count the time by the revolutions of the earth around the sun, but if we count by the experience men had gained, it was many years.

Dr. Gihon tells that when Gov. Geary disbanded this Missouri army on the Wakarusa, there grew up a marked antagonism of sentiment among its leaders. He says: “Some of the more judicious of the officers were not only willing but anxious to obey this order, whilst others, resolved upon mischief, yielded a very reluctant assent.” There was really a large majority that accepted the result with hearty good will, but there was also a small and malcontent minority determined on mischief.

Gen. B. F. Stringfellow, because of the vehement zeal with which he had addicted himself to the enterprise of making Kansas a slave State, had won for himself a national notoriety. He had staked life and good fame and everything on the final issue of his work, yet himself and his law partner, Peter T. Abell, went back from the Wakarusa never to lift a finger again in that business. Mr. S. is a high-spirited, hot-blooded, proud-spirited Virginian. His law partner, Col. Abell, had a temper as unbending as Andrew Jackson, and did to the day of his death hold a faith in the institution of slavery as abiding as John C. Calhoun. But he was a wise and a just man, and both himself and Mr. Stringfellow recognized the fact that, with such a population as had come into Kansas, its becoming a free State was only a question of time; and both these men were too sagacious to be found fighting against fate. Mr. S. had always relished a joke, and, when rallied by his friends on his sudden abandonment of this enterprise, he facetiously replied: “Yes, I did try to make Kansas a slave State; but I could not do it without slaves, and the South would not send slaves, and so I had to give it up.” From the time these gentlemen returned from the Wakarusa there was a general softening of the asperities of feeling of the people of Atchison and vicinity, and one year after they were prepared to announce to the Free State people, “You deal fairly with us, and we will deal fairly with you”–and they made their words good by deeds, for they took Free State men into partnership with themselves in the management of the Atchison Town Company.

But by this change Robert S. Kelley found “Othello’s occupation gone,” and the control of the _Squatter Sovereign_ passed into the hands of John A. Martin, now Governor of Kansas, and “Bob Kelley” shook off the dust of his feet and walked away, respected for his bravery and for his outspoken honesty and sincerity, even by those that did not love him.

The writer will tell of his last interview with the South Carolinians in a future chapter of these Recollections.

Peter T. Abell and Gen. B. F. Stringfellow were State’s rights men in their political opinions, and, therefore, according to the light that was in them, owed their allegiance to the State of Kansas; and from that allegiance they never swerved to the breadth of a hair. Still, the people of the South were their brethren, and they gave to them their profoundest sympathy during that bloody struggle that was to decide whether the South should be an independent nation. Let us admit that this did put these gentlemen in a strait betwixt two, like Paul, the Apostle, but they never swerved to the right hand nor to the left.

We have, with some particularity, drawn out the history of the two most distinguished of the Southern leaders, because that, with slight change, it would be the biography of a great number of citizens of Kansas that came from the South. Now, who does not see that here is the basis of hearty co-operation, whether in the church or in the world, of men from the South or from the North? provided always we can take into our hearts the law of love: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.”

In further illustration of this remark we will relate an incident concerning a Disciple, who will come prominently before us in the formation of our first missionary society. Spartan Rhea was from Missouri, and belonged to a family intensely Southern in their convictions. He was commissioned a justice of the peace by the Territorial authorities. A horse had been stolen by the Kickapoo Rangers from Gains Jenkins, of Lawrence. Gov. Geary requested Bro. Rhea to recover the horse, and he did so with some peril to himself, and made a journey to Lawrence to restore the animal to its proper owner. He sought to make it evident that the men of his party wanted justice done.

But Dr. Gihon also tells us that there was at the Wakarusa a small faction of irreconcilables, who, if they could do nothing else, could at least curse.

“Gen. Clarke said he was for pitching into the United States troops rather than abandon the objects of the expedition. Gen. Maclean didn’t see any use of going back until they had whipped the Abolitionists. Sheriff Jones was in favor, now that they had sufficient force, of wiping out Lawrence and all the Free State towns. And these and others cursed Gov. Geary for his interference in their well-laid plans.

“The broad ground assumed by these rabid leaders of the Pro-slavery party in Kansas was, that an equilibrium of the slave power must be maintained at any sacrifice in the American Union, and this could only be effected by increasing the slave States in proportion with the free. Whilst, therefore, the South was willing to give Nebraska to the North, they demanded that Kansas should be ceded to the South. It was of little consequence what number of Northern men located in Kansas–they had no right to come unless with the intention to make it a slave State.”

This malcontent minority did, therefore, become a dangerous and revolutionary faction, entertaining criminal purposes, which they were ready to carry out by desperate methods. They were also in possession of dangerous elements of power. They controlled the Territorial Legislature, and all the Territorial judges were parties in this conspiracy. Dr. Gihon testifies that “every federal officer in the Territory, and every Territorial officer from the supreme judges to the deputy marshals, sheriffs and clerks, were wedded to the slave power, and pledged at all hazards to its extension.”

But daylight had already begun to dawn. Some of the wisest Pro-slavery men in the Territory were beginning to call a halt, and to say: “We will travel no further in this road in which we are being led by these desperate and scheming adventurers.”

CHAPTER XXII.

Gov. Geary had won ripe and rich honors from the people of this nation in the official positions he had heretofore held, and which he had discharged with such eminent ability. The position of the Governor of Kansas, as seen from afar, and under the _glamour_ that surrounded it, was a position of high honor.

Every child has heard the story of old “Blue Beard,” how that, having married a number of wives who had mysteriously disappeared, he courted and married a beautiful young lady, possessing every accomplishment that can give grace and attractiveness to a woman, and had carried her to his castle, where she should have at her disposal an unlimited amount of money and be served by obsequious servants, and stand on a level with all the fine ladies and gentlemen in the land. Old Blue Beard gave to her the keys unlocking all the rooms in his castle, but said to her, “There is one key, unlocking one door, into one room, and into that room you must in nowise enter.” But, overcome by her woman’s curiosity, she did unlock that door and enter that room, and there she beheld the horrid sight of all the murdered wives of the wicked old Blue Beard, hanging and rotting on its walls, and now this was also to be her sad fate.

Kansas was becoming the graveyard of Territorial Governors. Reeder and Shannon had already lost their official heads. Within six months Gov. Geary’s head was also to drop into the basket. Three more governors were to succeed him, each one of whom should in his turn lose his official head. Gov. Geary’s position was indeed very like that of the wife of the wicked Blue Beard, only that she had certainly some advantages over the Governor. She had a great and fine castle, rich and costly dresses, many servants ready to come and go at her beck and call, and the company of great lords and fine ladies; but when Gov. Geary came to his castle, his private Secretary shall tell us what he found:

Lecompton is situated on the south side of the Kansas River, upon as inconvenient and inappropriate a site for a town as any in the Territory. It was chosen simply for speculative purposes. It contained, at the time of Gov. Geary’s arrival, some twenty or more houses, the majority of which were employed as groggeries of the lowest description. It was the residence of the celebrated Sheriff Jones, who is one of the leading members of this town association, and was the resort of horse-thieves and ruffians of the most desperate character. Its drinking saloons were infested by these characters, whose drunkenness, gambling, fighting, and all sorts of crime, were indulged in with impunity.

Here was congregated, and here was the headquarters of, that band of desperate men, who were in a conspiracy to make Kansas a slave State at whatever cost of blood, of fraud, or violence. Here the Territorial Legislature met to enact their bloody code of laws, and here the Territorial Judges held their courts, which were a burlesque on the very name of a civilized and Christian jurisprudence; and here, also, were kept the treason prisoners, while atrocious murderers were not molested, because they were “sound on the goose question.”

We have already told how Harvey’s men, that had attacked and taken prisoners the “Law and Order” robbers that pillaged the defenseless village of Grasshopper Falls, were themselves taken prisoners by the United States troops. These were tried for treason in the Pro-slavery courts, and were condemned to various terms of imprisonment, varying from six months to six years. They were kept in a wretched, old, tumbledown house, without doors or windows, during the bitter cold of a Kansas winter, guarded by “Law and Order” militia, exposed to every insult, wallowing in filth, and eaten up with lice. But there was one circumstance to mitigate their hapless condition–their jailer was a good-hearted, honest Kentuckian, who had humanity enough to pity them, and bravery enough to do what he could to mitigate the hardships of their lot. Their hard-hearted judges had condemned them to wear a ball and chain; but Gov. Geary refused to provide balls and chains for them, and the honest Capt. Hampton refused to fasten these symbols of degradation on the limbs of men he knew to be decent American citizens; and thereat Sheriff Jones became furious. The facts of the case were just these: All the people were, so to speak, fighting. The Governor issued his proclamation. These Hickory Point “Law and Order” militia were simply robber banditti, and Captain Harvey and his company thought they ought to be “cleaned out,” and proceeded to do so, and this act, though intrinsically it was a righteous act, yet technically, laid them open to the law. This happened on the 12th of September, but up to the 14th of September 3,000 “Law and Order” militia, coming into Kansas as outside invaders, refused to be disbanded by the Governor’s proclamation, and both before and after continued the business of murder and robbery. Yet this was nothing, because these were “Law and Order” men. The other was treason, for these were Free State men fighting for their homes and firesides. But Capt. Hampton saw the matter just as it was, and acted accordingly. Dr. Gihon testified of these treason prisoners, “These prisoners were not all rough and desperate adventurers. Some of them were gentlemen of polished education.”

The sunlight may sparkle and shimmer on the surface of the foul and putrid marsh, noxious with offensive and poisonous exhalations–so Dr. Gihon throws a kind of grim and ghastly humor over his narrative of the repulsive and brutal surroundings of himself and Governor Geary during the winter they were imprisoned at Lecompton. The Doctor tells the following story at the expense of a Southern gentleman:

A good anecdote is told by a gentleman from one of the Southern States, in regard to these Free State prisoners, when under the charge of Captain Hampton. Having expressed a desire to see these robbers and murderers, as he styled them, the Governor directed him to the prison.

He immediately started, and looking in vain for anything that resembled a prison, he approached two men who were enjoying themselves with a game of quoits.

“Can you tell me,” he inquired, “where the prison is where these robbers and murderers are confined?”

“That’s it,” said one of the men, pointing to a house near at hand.

“What! that old building, falling to pieces, without either doors or windows?”

“That is the only prison we have here,” replied the man, deliberately pitching his quoit.

“Well,” said the Southern gentleman, “I want to see these prisoners.”

“I am one of them,” said the quoit-player, “and that is another,” pointing to his companion.

“What! you convicted felons? You the terrible murderers about whom I have heard so much?”

“Yes, we are certainly two of them. The others are gone over to the House of Representatives, to hear the members abuse the Governor.”

“But,” says the old gentleman, “they don’t allow convicted murderers to go about in this way, without a guard to watch them?”

“O! yes,” says the man interrogated; “they used to send a guard with us when we went over to the Legislative Halls, to protect us against violence from the members, but they found that too troublesome, so they gave each of us a revolver and bowie-knife, and told us we should hereafter be required to protect ourselves.”

“But why don’t you run away? There is nothing to prevent you.”

“Why, to tell the truth, we have often been persuaded to do that, but then these rascally legislators have been threatening to assassinate the Governor, and we have determined to remain here to watch them and protect him.”

The old gentleman had no desire to see any more of these thieves, murderers and assassins.

There are those who find a Spanish bull fight or a civilized American boxing match very enjoyable events. Such men would have found great enjoyment in one incident that served to enliven the monotony of the winter’s residence of the Governor at Lecompton. There was one Sherrard who came from Virginia. He was of a good family, but strong drink had been his ruin. He had been appointed by the Legislature Sheriff of Douglas county in place of S. T. Jones, who for some reason was to go out of office. The Governor refused to commission this Sherrard because he was a drunkard, a brawler, and a cursing, swearing, gambling ruffian and bully. This made Sherrard furious, and Sheriff Zones and all his crowd of bullies were furious with him. Then Sherrard tried to raise a row by insulting individuals in the personal service of the Governor. This failing, Sherrard spit in the Governor’s face; but Mr. Geary, mindful of the dignity of his office, and that it did not become the Governor of Kansas to get into a brawl with a common blackguard, walked straight on. Afterwards Sherrard, who kept himself crazy drunk, provoked a general affray in a large company of men, in which pistols were fired in every direction; when John A, W. Jones, the young man on Gov. Geary’s staff whom Sherrard had assaulted a few days before, shot him in the forehead.

CHAPTER XXIII.

One circumstance at last brought to a sudden close Gov. Geary’s term of office. When he had disbanded the three thousand “Law and Order” militia that were to attack Lawrence, that part of them known as the Kickapoo Rangers were returning home by way of Lecompton. One of this number went into a field where “a poor, inoffensive, lame young man” named David C. Buffum was plowing, and demanded his horses. Buffum protested against this robbery, but the wretch shot Buffum and took the horses. The unhappy man gave the following account of the matter:

“They asked me for my horses. I told them I was a cripple–a poor lame man–that I had an aged father, a deaf and dumb brother, and two sisters, all depending on me for a living, and my horses were all I had. One of them said I was a Abolitionist, and, taking me by the shoulder, he shot me.”

Gov. Geary was returning to Lecompton, and hearing of what had been done, he called with Judge Cato at Buffum’s house, and by the Governor’s direction Judge Cato took the dying man’s deposition. Gov. Geary was terribly shocked, and said to himself, “I never witnessed a scene that filled me with so much horror.” Mr. Geary sent a detective on the track of the Kickapoo Rangers, and found that the murderer was one Charley Hayes, living in Atchison county. He had the horses still in his possession. The Governor ordered his arrest, and the Grand Jury found a bill against him of murder in the first degree. Meantime the Free State men came to the Governor making a bitter complaint of the persecutions they were suffering. They said, “Our relatives and friends are arrested and confined for weeks and months in a filthy prison, not fit for dogs to live in, and are kept without proper food or clothing, and are not allowed to give bail even for bailable offenses; while murderers of the other party are allowed to go at large and no attention is paid to them.” They said, “The murderers of Dow, Barber, Brown, Phillips, Hoppe and Buffum, have not even been arrested or examined.”

The Governor replied that he had already ordered the arrest of Hayes, and that a grand jury of Pro-slavery men had found a true bill against him, and that Hayes should be tried for his life. But while he was yet speaking a messenger brought word that Judge Lecompte had released Hayes on bail, and that Sheriff Jones had gone on his bail bond, a man notoriously not worth a dollar; and this when the crime of murder in the first degree, for which Hayes had been indicted, was not a bailable offense. The Governor was terribly indignant, and ordered Hayes to be re-arrested. But while he was absent at the land sales at Fort Leavenworth, Judge Lecompte a second time set this wretch at liberty. Mr. Geary was provoked beyond endurance, and wrote to the President that he would not remain in office and allow such a scoundrel to be kept in a position to pervert the ways of justice. President Pierce nominated C. O. Harrison, of Kentucky, to take Lecompte’s place, but for some unexplained cause the appointment was not confirmed in the Senate, and Judge Lecompte retained his place, and in unspeakable disgust Gov. Geary resigned, making his resignation take effect on March 20, 1857. Thus he had spent a winter in the chamber of death of the wicked old Blue Beard, but did not lose his official head till spring.

The writer was acquainted with the family of this Charley Hayes. They were decent sort of people; but when a young boy Charley went on the plains, where he became a brutal ruffian. A good many years ago there was a story current in Atchison county, that when this Hayes was acting as wagon-boss on the plains, in a train owned by Russell, Majors & Waddell, that one of the teamsters having offended him he tied him up to a wheel of one of the train wagons, and, holding a pistol in one hand, he cowhided him with his black-snake whip with the other. And this teamster was a white man.

But there are avenging furies that follow a man, even though the law does not reach him. There is a man now living in Atchison county whose truthfulness has never been questioned, and he stated that he spent a winter in the Missouri River bottoms, sleeping in the same cabin with Charley Hayes, and that it seemed as if the devil had a mortgage on the ruffian’s soul, and tormented him in his sleep with images of the horrors that awaited him in the future world. That it seemed as if he was wrestling in mortal struggle with the men he had maltreated and murdered, and that they were choking him to death. Hayes afterwards died of a consumption presumably brought on by his dissipated habits and by his debaucheries.

Meantime the writer had started for Illinois the preceding summer, had been prostrated for four weeks with a fever, and late in the autumn of 1856 had returned to Kansas, there to remain. The times were becoming quiet, the peaceful counsels of such leaders as Stringfellow and Abell were beginning to take effect, and it evidently would be safe for the writer to go to work on his claim. But he needed a supply of corn, and had to go over into the Missouri River bottoms to buy it. A heavy snow had fallen. I had a heavy, well-trained yoke of oxen, and my faithful riding horse was obedient in every place. Myself and brother-in-law had made a heavy Yankee sled that would hold all the load that was put on it. I borrowed from my neighbor, Caleb May, two additional yoke of oxen, but they only knew how to pull in a big freighting team, and were not leaders. But putting my own heavy oxen behind, my wild steers in the middle, and my horse in the lead, I made out a good freighting team. But I had to pass through Atchison. The business men of the place had already made this overture to me. They had said: “You can come to Atchison during the day time and we will guarantee that you shall not be molested, but we would rather you should not be here in the night. The South Carolinians are here, and there are other desperate characters here, and in the night we do not know what might happen.” And so, on the strength of such an agreement, I had done business in Atchison, and to get my corn across the river had gone over one day and back the next.

I had yet one more load of corn to haul. There had been a thaw, and then the snow had frozen again, making it in many places slippery traveling. The river bank, from the top of the bank down to the ice of the river, was about twenty feet, and very steep; and this by much traveling had become a perfect glare of ice, so that teams could not hold their footing at all. I had gone over for my last load one day, intending to return the next day, but I had found unexpected hindrances, and when I got to the east bank of the river opposite Atchison, it was sometime after dark. I got down as best I could and crossed over on the ice to the Atchison side of the river, and I was now to get up that bank of glare ice. [6] I placed my sled load of corn at the bottom of the bank, and taking my team up in an unfrequented place, I stationed them on the top of the bank directly above my load of corn at the bottom. Before coming over I had cut a long, slender pole in the timbered bottoms, and in view of this contingency had also brought extra chains from home, and by means of the chains and this long pole I hitched my team on the top of the hill to my load of corn at the bottom. The thing worked well, and I had my load well on the top of the bank on the level ground; but here the road turned suddenly to the left close along the river bank, and my horse, too eager to get home, turned too soon, and this brought my sled with a sudden crash against a rock, and down went my load to the bottom of the bank again. A chain had broken, and now my load of corn was left in such a position that I evidently could not get it up again without help. In the hindrances to which I had been subjected it had come to be 9 o’clock. I looked about and saw no light save in a saloon that had been built under the bluff to catch custom, for this was the ferry landing. I do not usually visit saloons, but “necessity knows no law,” and I walked in; and whom should I find but Grafton Thomassen, the man that made the raft on which they sent me down the river, sitting and playing cards with a number of South Carolinians! They were thunderstruck, and I have to confess that I was almost as much taken aback as they were. But I spoke to them and said, “Gentlemen, good evening.” Then I explained, as well as I could, what had befallen me, and that I had come in for assistance. But they were dumb–they never spoke a word. I waited till my position became embarrassing, then said, “Well, gentlemen, you seem to be busy, and I don’t want to interrupt; I will go somewhere else.” I had already opened the door when Grafton Thomassen found his voice and said, “Boys, it is not right to leave Butler without help. Let us go and help him.” “Yes! yes! yes!” they all cried at once, “we will go and help him.” And, springing to their feet, and hastily putting on their overcoats, hats and gloves, they came rushing to the door, saying, “Yes! yes! We will help you. What is it we can do for you?”

I went with them to the river bank, pointed out my sled loaded with corn on the ice, and explained to them it had to be brought up the bank. They asked incredulously, “An’ kin ye haul that thar slide up that slippery bank?”

I said, “Yes, I have done it once,” then I explained how the chain had broken, and how my load of corn had gone down onto the ice again.

They exclaimed, “O! Well now! We have come all the way from South _Carliny_ to see a Yankee trick an’ haint we got it?”

They were eager to help, so as to see the fun. When everything was ready I gave my horse in charge of one of them, saying to him he must in nowise let the horse turn till the load of corn was well up and in the traveled road, then gave the word to start. My team was eager to pull, for they were getting impatient; and in fine style they brought the load up on the level ground, and then immediately were in front of the saloon, and I called a halt. When we got everything fixed I said to them, “Gentlemen, I thank you. You have done me a real kindness. But the night is cold.”–and handing one of them a piece of silver, I said, “Please take that and get something to warm you.”

He took it and with something of hesitation said, “Won’t you come in and drink with us?”

I replied, “Please excuse me. You know me; you know I don’t drink. But all the same I want you to take it.”

He said rather proudly, “We did not work for you for pay. We did it to oblige you.”

But I insisted. I said, “You did me a real kindness, and I want to do you a kindness in return. I want you to take it.” Then they bade me good night and went into the saloon.

The wind had been rising, and the snow was drifting; and it was evident that in many places the road would be obliterated, and I had a long stretch of prairie to travel over on which there was not a human habitation. It was dangerous to undertake it, and I had to stay in Atchison. I found an empty corral, where my teams would be decently sheltered, and went to the only hotel in town. The sleeping room they assigned me was separated from the bar-room only by a thin board partition, and I could hear every word that was said. This hotel was the boarding-place of the South Carolinians, and they soon began to drop in from about town, and word was passed among them that Butler was in the house. Then one fellow, who was decidedly drunk, got turbulent, and protested, with terrible oaths, that such a man should not stay in the house, but that he would go in and drag him out of bed. Then another company came in and demanded: “What’s all this fussing about?” These were my friends, the South Carolinians from under the bluff They heard what this fellow had to say, then said: “This thing has to be dried up.” They then told what had happened down at the river, and concluded: “Butler is a gentleman. He talks like a gentleman; _he treats like a gentleman_; he came into this house like a gentleman, and we will show him that we are gentlemen.” And when the drunken fellow became uproarious they hustled him off to bed.

I was evidently among friends, and slept soundly and without apprehension till morning. I never saw my South Carolina friends again. They returned home at an early day.

They had not made Kansas a slave state, but they had seen a Yankee trick.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Gov. Geary, sick in body and sick at heart, had left the Territory in fear of private assassination, his best friends at Lecompton being the treason prisoners. These, with something of bitterness, remarked that the Governor went away in such haste that he had forgotten to pardon them as he had promised; and thus while he got had out of prison, they still stayed in.

The party in power at Lecompton had said to the President at Washington: “We are sick of Northern Governors. They won’t do to tie to. For pity’s sake give us a man from the South.” And so a Southern Governor was given them in the person of Robert J. Walker. Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, said to the Jews: “My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins.” So this Lecompton _party_ found the little finger of this Southern Governor to be thicker than the loins of Gov. Geary.

Mr. W. stood so high in public position that no man stood higher than himself, save alone the President. He had been a Senator from Mississippi, and had been Secretary of the Treasury in Mr. Pierce’s Cabinet. The complications of this Kansas question had become such as to call for a man of the highest rank and ability. The main object of Mr. Walker’s mission to Kansas was to induce the Free State people to vote at the Territorial elections, which alone were appointed by the government at Washington, and recognized by it. Until he could accomplish this, nothing was done toward the pacification of the Territory. To induce them to do this, he pledged to the Free State men a fair election. But he found that he was speaking to ears that could not hear. He had said in his inaugural address with all apparent fairness:

I can not doubt that the Convention, after having framed a State constitution, will submit it for ratification or rejection by a majority of the actual _bona fide_ resident settlers of Kansas.

With these views well known to the President and Cabinet, and approved by them, I accepted the appointment of Governor of Kansas; my instructions from the President, through the Secretary of State, under date of the 30th of March last, sustain the regular Legislature of the Territory in assembling a convention to form a constitution, and they express the opinion of the President that when such a constitution shall be submitted to the people of the Territory, they must be protected in their right of voting for or against that instrument; and the fair expression of the popular will must not be interrupted by fraud or violence.

This seemed very fair, but what did it amount to? The people knew that the Governor must consent to be a mere cat’s paw and convenience of these conspirators, or else be unceremoniously thrust aside; and that the authorities at Washington would sustain them and not him. This had been the fate of Reeder, of Shannon and of Geary, and this also would be the fate of the present Governor. Dr. Gihon, on behalf of Mr. Geary, had bitterly complained that there was not a single officer in the Territory responsible either to the people or to the Governor; that all were the appointees of the Legislature, and responsible to it alone. The Lecompton Legislature had passed a bill calling a convention to frame a State constitution; and Gov. Geary had vetoed the bill because it made no provision for submitting the constitution, when framed, to a vote of the people; and the Legislature had passed the bill over his veto, and now what power had Gov. Walker in the matter more that Gov. Geary?

An event happened at that time that was a nine days’ wonder, and a nine days’ talk among the people; and yet it does not seem to have been put on record in any extant history of the period. The Governor had sought the privilege of addressing the Free State people on this question of voting, which he made his hobby. It was at a meeting at Big Springs. Gen. Lane was present, as also were a large number of Free State men, and the Governor had pressed on them, as the only road out of their difficulties, the necessity of voting at those Territorial elections, which alone were recognized by the government at Washington.

Gen. Lane arose to reply, and in a speech of terrible energy and power he arraigned the Lecompton party for all their wrongs and outrages; then, when he had reached the climax of his argument, he leaned forward, and, looking at Mr. Walker from beneath his shaggy eyebrows with his deepset, piercing black eyes, and shaking at him his long bony finger, his whole frame quivering with passion, he said in his deep guttural tones, which seemed more like the growl of a savage wild beast than the voice of a human being: “_Gov-er-nor Wal-ker, y-o-u c-a-n-‘t con-t-r-ol your allies!_”

The effect was prodigious; and the Free State men were swept away as with a whirlwind. Even Gov. Walker felt the force of the appeal. But he showed himself a brave man; and came back resolutely to the battle. He said: “_I am your Governor!_ You must admit that I have at least a _legal_ right to control my allies, so far as to give you a fair election; and I pledge you my word and honor that I will do it. Now try me! and see if I do not keep my word!”

The Free State men began to falter and to ask each other, “Is it not best to try the Governor, and see if he will be as good as his word?” And from this time forward there began to appear a division in the Free State ranks; which sometimes grew to be bitter and acrimonious. This division had indeed begun to appear one year before, when on the Fourth of July Col. Sumner had dispersed the Free State Legislature at Topeka. Gov. Robinson was at that time a prisoner, and was, therefore, not present; but he said in his next annual message as Free State Governor:

When your bodies met, pursuant to adjournment, in July last, your assembly was interfered with and broken up by a large force of United States troops in battle array, who drove you hence, in gross violation of those constitutional rights _which it was your duty to have protected_.

Wm. A. Phillips, correspondent of the _New York Tribune,_ and afterwards a member of Congress, was a man terribly in earnest, and he did, on the above-named Fourth of July, in a speech, take the position that we ought to fight for our rights and defy Col. Sumner and his dragoons. The men that demanded that we should fight said: “We can take possession of the houses and fire out of the windows, and thus avoid the onset of Col. Sumner’s cavalry.” But the majority said: “We are loyal to the old flag, and in no case, and under no circumstances will be found fighting against it.” It was this more conservative majority that began to demand that the Free State men should listen to Gov. Walker’s overtures and vote at the coming election.

Gen. Lane had been uncompromising in defying the Territorial laws. He had said: “Gov. Walker has said, ‘Vote next week.’ What for? Have we not made our constitution? And do not the people of freedom like it? Can’t we submit this to the people, and who wants another?” But now he had become at the first reticent, and finally said: “Vote.” This singular man that constantly kept on exhibiting his desperate determination to resist the bogus laws, really kept in his heart the one supreme purpose to make himself the oracle of the prevailing sentiment among the Free State men. When, therefore, Gen. Lane said, “Let us vote,” it was good evidence that this had become the prevailing sentiment among the Free State party.

A convention was held at Grasshopper Falls, August 26, 1857, at which this was the main question, and it was decided in favor of voting at the coming election of Territorial officers. The Hon. Henry Wilson had recently visited Kansas from Massachusetts, and he had earnestly entreated the Free State men to vote. Phillips, Conway and Redpath still protested against it. Gov. Robinson, however, gave his voice in favor of voting.

An election had already been-held June 15th to elect delegates to the Lecompton Constitutional Convention, at which the Free State men had taken no part. Fifteen Free State counties had in this election been disfranchished, no election having been ordered in them.

At the election of Territorial officers, held October 6, 1857, both parties turned out The Free State men cast 7,887 votes for the Territorial Legislature. The Lecompton party was reported to have cast 6,466 votes. But though the Free State men had a numerical majority of votes, yet the districts had been so arranged that the above returns gave a majority in the Legislature to the Lecompton party. Johnson county, bordering on Missouri, had been united in one district with Douglas county, in which Lawrence is situated, and this district had been given eight members. Oxford precinct, in Johnson county, was a place of not over a dozen houses, and polled 124 votes for township officers, yet it reported 1,628 votes for the Lecompton party. When, however, Gov. Walker and Mr. Stanton came to canvass the votes they threw out this Oxford vote. They also set aside 1,200 fraudulent votes in McGee county. The vote at Kickapoo, equally fraudulent, was also set aside. This gave a majority to the Free State party in the Lecompton Territorial Legislature, and thus Gov. Walker redeemed his pledge that the people should have a fair election.

Judge Cato felt that it was time to come to the rescue of his friends, and issued a writ directed to “Robert J. Walker, Governor of Kansas Territory, and Frederick P. Stanton, secretary of the same,” commanding these gentlemen to issue certificates of election to the men who appeared to be elected according to the original returns. Gov. Walker good-naturedly refused to obey the order of the court, offering to submit to arrest for contempt of court, and tendering the judge _a. posse_ of United States troops to aid in making the arrest. The judge began to see that he had been making a fool of himself, and dropped the subject. These Territorial judges had shown themselves capable of any excess of villainy, and had been a sure refuge in every time of trouble to this Lecompton party; but even the courts had now failed them, and these “border ruffian” judges were only laughed at by this Southern Governor. One year before, these conspirators had assembled an army to drive out the Free State settlers, and to give the Territory into the hands of the South; but Gov. Geary had interfered to thwart their purpose, and, what was worse, a majority of the leaders of that army, men of note along the Missouri border, had declared themselves in sympathy with Mr. Geary. Then they had asked for a Southern Governor, for would not he be true to the South? And now even this man had failed them, and had given the control of the Territorial Legislature into the hands of the Philistines! They were indeed in evil case. It seemed as if heaven and earth had combined against them, and that only hell was on their side. One last chance remained. If this was a desperate chance, it must be remembered they were playing a desperate game–they would make Kansas a slave State in spite of the Governor, in spite of the Territorial Legislature, and in spite of the people of Kansas.

CHAPTER XXV.

The Convention that had been called to frame a State Constitution, and in which election the Free State men had taken no part, had met to do its work in September of 1857, and finished in November; but to the last it refused to make provision to submit the Constitution, when framed, to a vote of the people, for acceptance or rejection. But in place of this thing, had virtually said to them: “You must accept this Constitution whether you like it or not. We will allow you to vote _for_ the Constitution with slavery; or, _for_ the Constitution without slavery; but you must vote in every contingency _for_ the Constitution.”

But admitting the people had voted for the Constitution _without_ slavery, still a trap was set for them in the following proviso, which would still remain an integral part of the Constitution.

“If, upon such examination of such poll-books it shall appear that a majority of the legal votes cast at said election be in favor of the ‘Constitution with no slavery,’ then the article providing for slavery shall be stricken from this Constitution, and slavery shall no longer exist in the State of Kansas; _except that the right of property in slaves now in this Territory shall in no manner be interfered with_.”

Thus, which ever way they should vote, Kansas would still remain a slave State. Of course the Free State men did not walk into the trap, but staid away from the election, which was ordered for December 21, 1857; and the Constitution was adopted by a strictly one-sided vote. And now Gov. Walker began to realize in the bitterness of his heart that “uneasy lies the head of him that wears a crown.” He had staked his manhood, his veracity, his honor, his everything, that this Constitution, when framed, should be submitted to a vote of the people for acceptance or rejection, and now he was to be put to shame in the eyes of the whole world; and Gen. Lane was proved a true prophet when he had said to the Governor with such withering power: “Gov. Walker, you can’t control your allies.” Mr. Walker was able to show a private letter from President Buchanan, assuring him in the most positive terms, that this Constitution, when framed, should be submitted to a vote of the people; but of what avail was such a promise? There was a power behind the throne at Washington stronger than the throne itself; and Gov. W. was able to see what a hollow mockery was that power which he supposed himself to possess.

The Governor made known to the people that he would be absent on business for three or four weeks; and he went away to Washington, never more to return. There was neither pity nor justice for him there; and in unspeakable disgust he resigned; and Mr. Stanton took the oath of office and reigned as Governor _for one month_. Then he also was removed, and Gov. Denver took his place. Thus, five Kansas Governors had each in their turn been officially decapitated. Stanton had been superseded by Denver because he had called a special session of the now Free State Legislature, and it had ordered an immediate election to vote for or against the Lecompton Constitution, and at this election 10,226 votes were polled against it.

It had been intended that under whip and spur Kansas should be admitted by Congress as a slave State before the time should arrive for the regular assembling of the Territorial Legislature, which had now passed into the hands of the Free State men; but by calling a special session of the Legislature, he had enabled that body to order an immediate election, that should give official evidence that an overwhelming majority of the people were opposed to the Lecompton Constitution.

And now Stephen A. Douglas, at Washington, came forward as State Senator from Illinois and made it impossible that Kansas should be admitted as a State unless that document should first be submitted to the people for acceptance or rejection. A bill to this effect was finally passed by Congress. It was called the English bill. It proffered a magnificent bribe if the people would accept the Lecompton Constitution–five million five hundred thousand acres of public land should be given to Kansas; besides other munificent donations. But the English bill also contained a menace as well as a bribe. It threatened that if the people rejected this offer they should be remanded back for an indefinite period, to all the miseries of a Territorial life.

In the face of such a menace, and tempted by such a bribe, the whole voting population of the Territory turned out at the election, which was ordered to be held August 2, 1858. At this election, 1,788 votes were cast for the Constitution, and 9,512 against it. From whence then came this overwhelming majority? The majority of the Free State party was about two to one. “Wilder’s Annals,” the best extant Free State authority, puts it at this. “The Free State or Republican party has carried every election in Kansas since this date (1857), usually by two to one.” But here is a majority of six to one; and we must go outside of the Free State or Republican party to find it. Dr. John H. Stringfellow wrote at this time to the Washington Union against the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution. He says: “To do so will break down the Democratic party at the North, and seriously endanger the interests and peace of Missouri and Kansas, if not of the whole Union.”

Judge Tutt, of St. Joseph, Mo., had said to the South Carolinians: “I was born in Virginia, and have lived forty years in Missouri. I am a slave-holder, and a Pro-slavery man; and I desire Kansas to be made a slave State, _if it can be done by honorable means_. But you will break down the cause you are seeking to build up.” And Judge Tutt voiced the sentiments of a large number of Pro-slavery men and slave-holders in Kansas.

The city of Atchison gave a majority of votes against the Lecompton Constitution; and Atchison county gave a majority of almost three to one against it; and Leavenworth city, which two years before had been the theater of such murders, riots and robberies, gave a majority against the proposition of the English bill of more than ten to one, notwithstanding the huge bribe offered if the people would accept it.

We are writing these “Recollections” for posterity as well as for the present generation. It is only the verdict of posterity that will justly estimate the men and the influences that went to make up the final result of the early Kansas struggle. Up to the present time the writers that have written on this subject have been too near the battle, and themselves too much a party in it, to write with perfect impartiality. Southern and Pro-slavery writers and speakers have not been able to admit that Southern men were the original wrong-doers; while Northern and Free State writers have not been able to rise to the level of such fair dealing, as to admit that when the decisive vote was cast that determined the question of freedom and slavery in Kansas, as absolutely as it had already been determined in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, the Free State people were indebted to the nobility of heart and elevation of mind, displayed by Southern and Pro-slavery men in making the vote so overwhelming as to put the question beyond the possibility of controversy forever; yet this was done in the unprecedented vote of six to one, cast in condemnation of the Lecompton Constitution.

From this time forward the two parties that had been struggling with each other for four years in such fierce antagonism were dead; and in their place have appeared the two political parties that are found throughout the United States; and the lines of difference between the men of the South and the men of the North have been as completely obliterated in thirty years, as they were obliterated in Old England, between Saxon and Norman, after 500 years of savage strife and turmoil.

And now, if the superior races of the world have been formed by the amalgamation of the kindred stocks, may we not believe that Providence has been preparing in this central State a people that shall bear a distinguished part in that mighty battle that is so swiftly coming to the American nation, in which we will be called to fight against a Christian barbarism and a paganized Christianity, for all that is precious in our Christian civilization, and for all that is true and good in our American form of government?

Rome fell under an invasion by foreign barbarians; so an inundation of the barbarians of the world is pouring in on us, and threatens to swallow us up; it is like the flood the dragon poured out of his mouth. Of our duties growing out of this catastrophe we shall write hereafter.

The writer of these “Recollections” is a fallible man, like other fallible man. He has shown at least this, that he is ready to stand by his convictions, living and dying; and he holds this conviction fixed and immutable, that there is a crisis coming on us of overtopping and overwhelming magnitude, and demanding the American people should come together and look each other honestly in the face, that they may take into their hearts this weight and extent of the reasons that call that they should join in united effort for the salvation of the nation and the conversion of the world; and that this does not allow that there shall be anything of flimsy, shallow, or hypocritical concealment of the facts of our history.

The world has had abundant experience of these border feuds. Scotland had her feuds between her Highlands and Lowlands. In Ireland there has been unceasing enmity for 250 years between her Protestant and Catholic populations. The French and English peoples of Canada are never at peace with each other; and now there is a feud that can not be healed between England and Ireland. In some of the mountain regions of the Southern States, where the people yet retain the clannish temper of their Scotch and Irish ancestors, there are neighborhood enmities that go down from father to son, from generation to generation; and that issue in such fist fights, brawls, and mobs, as sometimes to tax the whole energy of the public authorities to suppress them. And now, with such foundation laid for the indefinite perpetuation of similar feuds in Kansas, we do argue that it has manifested on the part of our population no ordinary qualities of heart and soul, that they were so soon able to eliminate from among themselves their turbulent and dangerous elements.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The men that had settled in Kansas were generally poor, and few had any reserved fund from which to draw their support, but were literally dependent for their daily bread on their labor day by day; and to take away the horses of such a man was literally to take the bread out of the mouths of his children. Free State men and Pro-slavery men had each in turn been thus despoiled and compelled to flee the Territory; or if they remained they were paralyzed and unfitted for work.

But the spring and summer of 1857 had brought a new order of things. Gov. Geary had put an end to these disorders, and the presence of S. C. Pomeroy and other Free State men in Atchison was an additional guarantee of peace and security. As a result the Kansas squatters had gone to work with a will. Old things had passed away, and all things had become new. There did indeed remain a chronic state of disorder in Southeastern Kansas; but this was local and exceptional.

But religious and thoughtful men looked far beyond this question of what shall we eat and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed? Intemperate habits were growing fast on the people. Coarse profanity and ribald speech were becoming so common as to be the rule and not the exception. Fathers and mothers began to tremble when they thought what their boys were coming to; and this turned their thoughts to the question of schools and churches. Then all the denominations simultaneously began their work. A church was organized at Leavenworth by our brethren, in which S. A. Marshall and W. S. Yohe were the leading members. Dr. Marshall had formerly been a resident of Pennsylvania, and W. S. Yohe was from the South, a slave-holder, a man of considerable wealth, and of eminent personal excellence.

The church that had been built up in 1855 at Mt. Pleasant had fallen to pieces in the troublous times, and was now reorganized at what has come to be known as “The Old Union School House,” a place that has been hallowed to precious memories, because of the great revival that took place under the labors of D. S. Burnett in the year 1858.

The brethren that lived along the valley of the Stranger Creek and its tributaries, and that had met to worship two years before under the spreading elms that lined its bottoms, now organized themselves into a church at a village called Pardee. This ambitious little town was located on the high prairie; but it shared the fate of many other Kansas towns, equally aspiring and equally ill-fated. When the railroads were built they followed the courses of the streams, and it was left out in the cold; but for a time it was the center of social, political and religious influence in the county outside of Atchison.

Among the brethren that had been in Kansas from its first settlement, and whom we have not mentioned, were John and Jacob Graves, brothers from Tennessee, who have since grown rich in worldly goods, and richer still in good works. There were also Brethren Landrum and Schell, and many others whom we can not name. In the fall of 1857 came Lewis Brockman, who loved the church more than he loved his own life. He was brother to that Col. Thomas Brockman conspicuous in the Mormon war in Illinois, which resulted in the exodus of the Mormons to Salt Lake, there to build up a kingdom that cherishes a deadly and undying hatred to the United States, its people, and its institutions. Norman Dunshee, now Professor in Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, also came to Kansas from the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute at Hiram, O., in the fall of 1859, and settled at Pardee. Dr. S. G. Moore, of Camp Point, 111., who came in the spring of 1857, was brother-in-law to Peter Garrett; and these two men were of one heart and one soul in their aspirations for a larger liberality on the part of Disciples and a better order of things in our churches; but they had to take up the sad refrain so oft repeated: “We have found the Old Adam too strong for the young Melancthon.” Dr. Moore was a man that, when he knew he was in the right, pushed his enterprises with such a rigorous purpose as sometimes to alienate from himself men who might have been won by a more complaisant temper. His stay in Kansas was limited. The dwelling in which he lived was struck by lightning, and Bro. and Sister Moore were seriously injured. From these injuries Sister Moore has never fully recovered. With broken health she became homesick, and pined to be among her kindred. Moreover, a valuable farm that Dr. Moore had sold at Camp Point fell back into his hands, and he felt constrained to return to Illinois in 1861. With such elements of power the reader will not think it strange that we should go to work with a will to recover the ground we had lost in this social and political turmoil and religious inaction.

The writer did not travel much abroad this summer; he found too much to do at home. We had meetings every Lord’s day, and had frequent additions by letter and by baptism. One day, as my manner was, I gave an invitation to sinners to obey the gospel. There had been no indication, however remote, that any would desire baptism; but my daughter, Rosetta, now thirteen years of age, came forward and demanded to be baptized. Two years before I had brought her, then eleven years of age, with her mother, to Kansas. Some part of this time we had spent in the very presence of death; and Rosetta and her mother would not have thought it strange if a company of men had come into the house at night with murderous intent. I have not told in these “Recollections” how many times I felt it expedient to be away from home; and then Rosetta was her mother’s only companion. Of young company such as girls usually have at her age, she had almost none. We had talked of these daily occurring tragedies until they had lost both their terror and their novelty. These certainly were not fitting surroundings for a little girl, intelligent and thoughtful beyond her years, and of an unduly sensitive and nervous organization. But she was her mother’s only girl, this was our only home, and, coming out of the furnace fires of such a life, we could not think it strange that she should feel the need of a Heavenly Father in whom she could trust, of $ Savior’s arm on which she could lean, and of a home in the church where she could find help and sympathy.

One thought was ever present in my heart, how far could brethren co-operate together who had been on opposite sides? To learn what could be done I made the acquaintance of brethren everywhere. The brilliant and erratic Dr. Cox, of Missouri, had sent an appointment to “Old Union,” and Oliver Steele came with him. I attended his meeting, and Bro. Steele, Cox and myself accepted the hospitality of Bro. Humber. Bro. Cox, being now in the presence of a man reported to be a live Abolitionist, opened a discussion on the question of slavery.

I had been brought up on the Western Reserve, Ohio, and inherited intense anti-slavery convictions. But I had learned from the writings of A. Campbell to judge slave-holders with a charitable judgment. They had inherited the institution of slavery from their fathers, and like the aristocratic institutions of the old world, it had come down to them without any fault of their own. My experiences in Kansas certainly had not made me love slavery any better; still, all this, how bitter soever it might be to me, had revealed so much of real nobility in the hearts of many slave-holders that it had not impaired my feeling of good will to them. If I were to grant that they had been associated sometimes with men of desperate morals, had I not also been associated with Jim Lane, and had I not been compelled to hide myself behind the old maxims, that “Politics, like poverty, makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows?”

And so I argued with Bro. Cox the views I held, stoutly asserting them, when, for a wonder to him, Bro. Steele and Bro. Humber expressed themselves as coinciding with my views much more than with the views of Bro. Cox, who held the ultra Southern, John C. Calhoun theory of slavery. It appeared that these brethren held that if Providence has given to the Caucasian descendants of Japheth, a fairer skin, a higher style of intellectual power, and greater force of will, that the same divine Providence has given to the sons of Ham a darker color to their skin; but that all are alike the children of the love of one common Father; that Jesus died for all, and that he will not suffer with impunity any indignity to be offered even to one of the least of these his brethren. To the inquiry why these brethren did not give that freedom to their colored servants which they asserted was their natural right, they made reply, alleging the unfriendly legislation not only of the slave States, but of the free States; and that had interposed grave difficulties in the way of such a step. The Big Springs Convention had framed the first Free State platform for Kansas, August 15, 1855, and this, with hard-hearted inhumanity, had avowed the purpose to drive out of Kansas the free blacks as well as the slaves. The same principle was also incorporated in the Topeka Free State Constitution.

It will throw additional light on this subject if I mention that, in 1858, one year after this conversation with Bro. Cox, when the Free State men had obtained control of the Territorial Legislature, Bro. Humber went to Lawrence and laid before Judge Crosier, a leading member of the Legislature, from Leavenworth, the following proposition. He said: “I will emancipate my slaves, and will sell them land. I want them to remain where I can look after their welfare. I do not want them to be driven out of Kansas.” Judge Crosier, while greatly sympathizing with Bro. Humber, had to tell him the thing was impossible. It is comforting to know that “The world do move;” that colored people do freely enjoy in Kansas now the rights Bro. Humber in vain sought of a Free State Legislature then on behalf of his slaves.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The reader has already heard of Big Springs as a locality where Free State Conventions were wont to be held. Lawrence and Topeka were twenty-five miles apart, and both were on the south bank of the Kansas River. Big Springs is midway between these towns, and is situated on the high divide, lying between the Kansas River and the Wakarusa.

Here, at Big Springs, were located four brethren, L. R. Campbell, C. M. Mock, A. T. Byler and Jack Reeves. Bro. Campbell was a Disciple from Indiana, of much more than average attainments, and of great force of character. In his immediate neighborhood, and as he had opportunity, he was a preacher, and when a church was organized he naturally became its leader and elder. His early death seemed the greatest calamity that ever befell the church, though he raised a family of boys that in process of time have taken his place, and make his loss seem not irreparable.

C. M. Mock was not a preacher, yet there is many a preacher that might well be proud to make himself as widely and as favorable known as “Charley Mock,” and to be remembered with as much affection. He only remained in Kansas a few years, and then returned to his original home in Rushville, Rush county, Indiana. We may truthfully say, “What was our loss was their gain.”

Bro. Byler was simply a large-hearted and kind-natured farmer from Missouri, who was too full of brotherly love to have anything of sectional prejudice about him. George W. Hutchinson, whom we will hereafter introduce to our readers, used to call him his “Big _Boiler_.” His death after a few years was sad and pathetic; he had been to Lecompton and driving a spirited horse; the horse took fright, and threw him from his buggy and killed him.

Jack Reeves was the son of B. F. Reeves, of Flat Rock, Ind., so long the venerated elder of that church, and a sort of patriarch over all the churches. And the above-named brethren, as well as a number of others, hearing that I was preaching near the Missouri River, sent for me to come and make them a visit. I accordingly did so, and now, for thirty-one years I have not forgotten to visit them, and they have not forgotten me. From this time forward I preached for them as I had opportunity, and thus began to make the acquaintance of brethren south of the Kansas River. The church grew apace. At their organization they had twenty-five members. Two years afterwards they were able to report a membership of seventy-two persons.

The year 1857 passed rapidly away. My time was divided between working on my claim on Stranger Creek, preaching for the churches that had been organized, and making the acquaintance of brethren wherever I was able to find them.

And now the year 1858 was upon us, predestinated to bring with it consequences far-reaching, as touching the future of Kansas. In this year should be settled the question that had filled the Territory with agitation, tumult, and war for four years; and it was in this year that our Kansas missionary work was begun, and in which was organized the first missionary society. The time was the early spring of 1858. The place was “Old Union,” a little, log school-house situated in a ravine opening into Stranger Creek bottoms. The _personnel_ were, first, Numeris Humber, with his tender heart and quenchless love for missionary work. Then there was his sister wife, that with saintly presence and sacred song made us feel that this was the very house of God and gate of heaven. Judge William Young was also present, who had neither song nor sentimentality about him, but in his unpoetic way looked at everything in the light of cold, hard fact. And yet Bro. Young is neither cold nor hard, only on the outside. There also was Spartan Rhea (these brethren were all from Missouri), whose fine sense of honor and upright conduct we have already had occasion to commend while acting as justice of the peace during our former troubles. Joseph Potter was also there, and so, also, was Joseph McBride, a notable preacher of Tennessee, that many years ago was one of the pioneers that planted the Christian cause in Oregon. All told, we had a crowd large enough to fill a little, log school-house. Brethren Yohe and Marshall, of Leavenworth City, also gave us assurances of their hearty help and sympathy. This Dr. S. A. Marshall was a brother-in-law to Isaac Errett, and always deeply interested himself in this work of building up the churches. The church at Pardee was also represented. And this constituted the make-up of our first missionary society. Three churches represented, and enough persons decently to fill a little seven-by-nine log school-house. Let us learn not to despise the day of small things. As for the amount of money pledged–well, it would not have frightened even one of those little ones, that are scared out of their wits at the thought of an over-paid, over-fed, proud, luxurious and domineering priesthood. As for the missionary chosen to go on this forlorn hope–to explore this Africa of spiritual darkness, it was Hobson’s choice; it was this or none. Except myself, there was no man to be thought of that would or could go on this errand, and so there was no contest over the choice of a missionary.

Conspicuous among these early churches were the churches that were formed in Doniphan county. This is the most northeastern county in the State, and is in a great bend of the Missouri River, having the river on three sides of it. It is a body of the best land in Kansas, and no county had at its first settlement as many Disciples. Their first beginning was unfortunate. A man named Winters, calling himself a preacher, came among them and made a great stir. But he brought with him a woman that was not his wife. With a character unblemished this man would have won an honorable fame; but when questioned he equivocated, but was finally compelled to confess the shameful truth, and in their grief and shame the newly-organized church seemed broken up. Jacob I. Scott was a man of spotless life and dauntless purpose, and feeling that it would be an unspeakable humiliation to allow everything to go to wreck because of the frailty of one unfortunate man, and learning that I had taken the field in the counties further south, he besought me to come over and help them. In no counties in this State have there been more churches than in Doniphan county, but in no county in the State have the churches been more evanescent and unstable, and yet it is not because these brethren have apostatized, but it is that the men that have settled in Doniphan county are men that keep on the borders of civilization, and the opening of a great empire for settlement to the west of them tempted them to move onward. Indeed, this has been the case in all the churches in Eastern Kansas. Just as soon as we would gather up a strong church it would straightway melt out of our hands, and its members would be scattered from Montana to Florida, and from the Missouri River to Oregon.

Some twenty-five miles to the northwest of my place of residence, in what is now Jackson county, on the waters of the Cedar Creek, was a settlement mainly from Platte county, Mo. The best known of these was Bro. John Gardiner, whose heart now for thirty years has held one single thought, the interest and prosperity of the Christian Church. He has sacrificed much, has labored much, and has done a great deal of preaching without fee or reward. Bro. J. W. Williams, from Southeastern Ohio, a man of saintly character and indefatigable purpose, was also of this settlement. There also we organized a church.

The places for holding meetings were of the most primitive kind. A log school-house was a luxury; the squatter cabins were too small; but we had to use them during the winter. The groves of timber along the streams were always waiting; but, we only could use them in fair and pleasant weather, and for six months in the year. As for hearers, we were never lacking an audience, we were never lacking for a crowd that were ready to listen with honest good-will to the message which we brought them.

It was an eventful summer. More rain fell than in any season I have known. The streams were always full, the bottoms were often flooded, and crossing was sometimes dangerous; but I had a good horse and was not afraid.

In religious matters everything was broken up, and men were drifting. But this good came of it, that they were ready to listen to this strange and new thing that was brought to their ears, in which so much was made of the Lord’s authority, of apostolic teaching and apostolic example, and so little of traditions, theories, and time-honored observances, of which the Bible knows nothing, but which have been sanctified by universal acceptance.

As for myself, there had been romances enough about my life to make the people wish to see me, and I was proud to know that the boys could remember my sermons and repeat them. The men with whom I was immediately associated in this work, and who had sent me on this errand, were of inestimable advantage to me. They were well and favorably known as men of unblemished reputation in Eastern Kansas and Western Missouri. “Old Duke Young,” as the father of Judge William Young had been affectionately called in Western Missouri, had been an eminently popular frontier and pioneer preacher, and Judge Young had inherited an honorable distinction as being the son of such a father; and when it was known that I was acting with the concurrence and under the approval of such men, the arrangement was generally accepted as satisfactory.

And now I had my heart’s best desire. I was in the field as an evangelist; the harvest was abundant and the grain was already ripe and waiting for the sickle. But above all, and beyond all these, was peace in the land. We all had had a lover’s quarrel, but we had made it up and were the better friends. Everywhere they had their joke with me, as to my method of navigating the Missouri River, and to the attire I sometimes put on; but I had come out the upper dog in the fight, and could afford to stand their bantering. There is a warmth, freshness, and enthusiasm in the friendships formed under such conditions that can never be transferred to associations of older and more orderly communities. As a result of this summer’s work, here were seven churches full of zeal and rapidly growing, and occupying a field that had been almost absolutely fallow, for outside of the towns there was no religious movement except our own.

But at one point we were put at a very great disadvantage. Older and better established denominations were able to plant missionaries in such cities as Atchison, Topeka and Lawrence, while we were not; and yet in each of these cities there were from the first a small number of brethren, who might have served as the nucleus of a church. Speaking in general terms, monthly preaching never built up a church in any city, and the reader will see that in the very nature of things I could not set myself down to the care of a single congregation.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The same causes that have made me a preacher, have also made me an abundant contributor to our periodical literature. As I wish to present a living picture of these early days, I will, from time to time, furnish extracts from the contributions I have made to our religious journals:

[Written for the Christian Luminary.]

OCENA P. O., Atchison Co.,
Kansas Ter., May, 1858.

Having myself had a very full experience of the advantages and disadvantages, the trials, pleasures and perils of a pioneer life, I propose to write a series of essays on the matter of emigrating to the West.

While a grave necessity demands that many shall emigrate to the West, it is not to be denied that it is an enterprise fraught with many dangers to the moral and spiritual well-being of the emigrant. We have here men from the four quarters of the civilized world, and have thus congregated together all the vices found in Europe and America. The semi-barbarism of the Irish Catholicism of Tipperary and Clare is now fairly inaugurated in Leavenworth city. All the horses of the livery stables are hired to attend an Irish funeral, and as the mourners take a “_wee bit of a dhrap_” before starting, they are lucky if they get the corpse well under ground without a fight. By this time, having become over-joyful, they raise a shout, and with a whoop and hurrah they start for home, and the man that has the fastest horse gets into the city first. The unlucky traveler, whose horse gets mixed up with theirs in this stampede, and who thus involuntarily becomes one of the company at an Irish wake, has need to be a good rider.

German infidelity has been nurtured in Germany by a thousand years of priestly domination and oppression, and is now translated into our Kansas towns by Germans, who have no Lord’s day in their week. Corresponding with our Lord’s day, they have a holiday–a day to hunt, to fish, to do up odd jobs, to congregate together and listen to fine music, dance, sing, feast, drink lager beer, and have a good time generally. Under the best _regimen_ it is hard for men to keep their hearts from evil; but here, it is a fearful thing for young men, released from all the restraints of their native land, to find the house of revelry and dancing so near the house of God, and the gates of hell, alluring by all the fascinating and seductive attractions of harmonious sounds, so near the gate of heaven.

I am appalled at the amount of drinking and gambling that has existed in Kansas, especially in the Missouri River towns, for the last three years, Under the shade of every green tree, on the streets, in every shop, store, grocery and hotel, it has seemed as if the chief business of the people was to gamble and drink.

There are other causes full of evil, and fearfully potent to work apostasy and ruin in the West. Men come here, not to plead the cause of a suffering and dying Saviour; not to give to the people a more pure and self-denying morality, and a higher civilization; but to get rich. They have had a dream, and are come to realize that dream. They have dreamed of one thousand acres of land, bought at one dollar and a quarter per acre, that by the magic growth of some Western town becomes worth fifty thousand dollars. They have dreamed of money invested in mythical towns, which towns are to rival in their growth Toledo, Chicago or St. Louis. The dream is to do nothing and get rich. Land sharks, speculators, usurers and politicians who aspire to a notoriety they will never win–a station they will never occupy–swarm over the West thicker than frogs in Egypt, and more intrusive than were these squatting, crawling, jumping pests, when evoked from the river’s slime by the rod of Moses.

Some men are too old when they come to the West. They are like a vine whose tendrils are rudely torn from a branch around which they have wound themselves, and are so hardened by time that they can not entwine themselves around another support. Such men forever worship, looking to the East. They form no new friendships; engage in no new enterprises; they care for nobody, and nobody cares for them. They live and die alone.

But there are more sad and gentle notes of sorrow that fall upon our ears. The children mourn for the peach tree and the apple tree, with their luscious fruit. The mother-wife asks who will watch the little grave, or tend the rose tree growing at its head, or who will train the woodbine, or care for the pinks and violets? Then sadly she sings of home–“Home, sweet home!” The father, too, remembers his pasture for his pigs, his calves, and sheep, and cows. He remembers that on one poor forty acres of land he had a house, a barn, an orchard, woodland, maple trees for making maple sugar, a meadow, room for corn, wheat, oats and potatoes, besides pasture for one horse, two oxen, three cows, together with a number of sheep and pigs, Then there was the three months’ school in winter, and four months in summer. There was the Sunday-school and the church, where serious and honest men uttered manly and religious counsel to sincere hearts, which nurtured good and holy purposes. All this he has bartered away for the privilege of being rich–of having more land than he knows what to do with; more corn than he can tend, and pigs till they are a pest to him.

Having glanced at some of the evils attendant on Western life, I must hasten to indicate what class of men should come to the West. The poor of our cities, whose poverty becomes the more haggard by being placed in immediate proximity to measureless profusion, luxury and extravagance–respectable people, whose whole life is a lifelong struggle to keep up appearances, and in whom the securing of affluence is like putting on a corpse the frippery and finery of the ball-room; young men with brave hearts and willing hands–these are the classes that may come, and should come, to the West. And if Adam, realizing that the world is all before him, where to choose, looks to the West to find his Eden, I would respectfully suggest that he has an infirmity in his left side, and that his best security against the perils of a pioneer life is to take to himself the rib that is wanting.

The tenant, living on the farm of another man, should come to the West. He can not plant a tree and call it his own. God gave the whole world to Adam and his sons, and the true dignity of every son of Adam requires that he should be able to stand in the midst of his own Eden and say: “This, under God, is mine.”

There is yet another class of men that may always go to the West, or to any other place. Whether young, or old, or middle-aged–whether rich or poor–they may go, and the blessings of God go with them. These are the men whose hearts are full of faith, and hope, and love–who sympathize with all, and who, consequently, will find friends among all–who are willing to be missionaries of the cross, and to be pillars in the churches they have helped to nurture into life.

Kansas is full of men who were once members of our churches, but who are stranded on the rocks of apostasy, on whom the storms of life will beat yet a little while, and then they will sink down into ever-lasting ruin. Strong drink, the love of money, or, perhaps, the inadequacy of their former teaching, is the occasion of their fall. Others, scattered over this great wilderness of sin, remain faithful amidst abounding wickedness, and stretch out their hands and utter the Macedonian cry, “Come over and help us.”

The apostolic age was pre-eminently an age of missionary effort. What will the world say of us, and of our confident, and, as some would say, arrogant, pretense to have restored primitive and apostolic Christianity, when our Israel in so large a part of the great West is such a moral wreck–such a spectacle of scattered, abandoned, and, too often, ruined church members, unknown, untaught and uncared for.

The peerless glory of our Lord Jesus Christ–his measureless, boundless and quenchless love–this is the great center of attraction around which the affections of the Christian do continually gather. The Lord is the center of the moral universe, and all its light is but the emanation of his glory. He dwells in the human heart, and fills it with his love; he dwells in the family, and becomes its ornament as when he dwelt in the house of Lazarus; he dwells in the church, and makes it a fold in which he nurtures his lambs.

Christians wandering over the earth like sheep having no shepherd, isolated from their brethren, dwelling alone–however frequent this spectacle now–is not often witnessed in the New Testament. There they congregated in churches. But this experiment of isolation is most perilous to the individual, and a prodigal expenditure of the wealth of the church, which has souls for her hire. It is true that a few persons become centers of attraction to