Note 120 — Chapter VIII

The spirit of the Ironsides is not wholly extinct. In 1856 the question whether Kansas was to be a free or slave state gave rise to a border war. John Brown, a descendant of one of the English pilgrims who sailed to America in the “Mayflower” in 1620, formed a camp of God-fearing Puritans, who were “earnestness incarnate.” Six of them were his own sons. Twenty-eight of these defeated fifty-six pro-slave borderers, and once 2000 Missourians retreated before 250 of his men. John Brown was taken and hanged in 1859, but his story became the marching-song in the great war of abolition (1861–1865).