THE SACK OF LAWRENCE

“Yet we will continue to tar and feather, drown, lynch and hang every white-livered abolitionist who dares to pollute our soil,” said a flamboyant editorial in the Squatter Sovereign, a pro-slavery paper published at Atchison, Kansas, a Border Ruffian stronghold.

The Slaveryites lived up to this promise. The Free State men at this time had not begun to arm, but doggedly and quietly went about organizing their own government at Topeka. Their actions infuriated the Southerners. Now began the long list of crimes that made the soil of Kansas reek with blood.

It would be impossible to give a full record here of all those crimes. The least that happened was the destruction of newspapers that protested against Southern injustice, such as the Parkville, Missouri, Luminary, which was burned down, the machinery thrown in the river, and the editors threatened with a similar fate if they indulged in further free speech.

There were hundreds of abolitionists murdered in Kansas; hundreds of their wives and children were gibed at and threatened and terrified; hundreds of their cabins were burnt down, and thousands of head of cattle stolen.

One of the murders was the killing of Samuel Collins, owner of a saw-mill near Atchison, by Patrick Laughlin, a pro-slavery man. No effort was made to punish him by the authorities. But something was done by them in another case. Charles Dow, a young Free State man from Ohio, was cruelly shot down from behind by Franklin Coleman, a pro-slavery settler from Virginia.

What the authorities did in this case was to arrest Jacob Branson, with whom the dead man had lived. A pro-slavery sheriff charged Branson with having made threats to revenge his friend. Branson was rescued by a group of his friends with rifles, and taken to Lawrence for protection, Lawrence being entirely settled by the Free State men.

The Sheriff called on the Governor, and the Governor called on the militia, and with the aid of Missouri citizens, about twelve hundred armed men marched on Lawrence, to “put down the rebellion.”

The men of Lawrence sent out a call to all Northerners; and John Brown and his men were among those who responded. There were five hundred settlers in Lawrence, and they feverishly fortified the town with embankments; but the whole affair ended by a compromise; there was no fighting; only two men were killed in a light skirmish.

The Southerners left, weak with all the whisky they had drunk on the expedition, according to reliable observers, and angered that they had not been given the chance to burn Lawrence down.

For Lawrence was a sore spot to the pro-slavery men. It was the largest Free State town in Kansas, and the center of all the political activities of that group. It published a newspaper, and its Free State Hotel was the headquarters of the Northerner’s government.

There were other murders, despite the treaty signed at this time. And then in February, as Free State men were holding another of their elections, they were assaulted at Leavenworth, and many of them forced to flee to Lawrence.

One of the leaders of the Free State men, as he was returning from Leavenworth after the election, was captured by a company of Border Ruffian militia. Wounded and defenceless though he was, they literally hacked the unfortunate foe of slavery into pieces with their hatchets and knives. Not an effort was made to punish these murderers, though their names were known by everyone. Some of the slavery journals even praised the deed, and called for more. Said the Kansas Pioneer of Kickapoo:

“Sound the bugle of war over the length and breadth of the land, and leave not an Abolitionist in the Territory to relate their treacherous and contaminating deeds. Strike your piercing rifle balls and your glittering steel to their black and poisonous hearts.”

And in May of that year, after further alarms and disturbances, Sheriff Jones returned with an army of 750 “swearing, whisky-drinking ruffians,” armed with rifles, and even two pieces of artillery. This time the Free State men were unprepared. John Brown was not there, nor any other real leader. The Free State men still believed in peace, and legality. And they saw their Free State Hotel go up in flames, their newspaper plant destroyed, and an orgy of drunken destruction let loose among their homes.

This was the inscription on one of the banners of the invading army. Lawrence was the first city to receive these rights. Thereafter Free State men knew what to expect; they began forming companies of riflemen and guerrilla fighters to protect their communities against Southern rights.