Cordially Yours, 
G. W 



BROWN, M. D., 

ROCKFORD, ILL. 



FALSE CLAIMS 



OF 



KANSAS HISTORIANS 



TRUTRFULLY COMECTED 



BY GEO. W. BEOWN, M. D, 

HONORARY CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE HISTORICAL 
SOCIETY OF KANSAS, 



The evidence Truth carries with it, is superior to all argument; it neither 
wants the support, nor dreads the opposition of the greatest ahilities.— 
Pope. 

It is marvelous how long a rotten or worm-eaten post will stand if it is 
not shaken.— 6'a/•^y/t^ 



ROCKFORD, ILL. 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 
1902. 



THt LlSRp 


RY OF 1 


CONc-sRtSS, 1 


Two Copies 


Received 


JAN 19 


1903 


Copyright 


Entry 


Jk^U.I'^' 


,/fai^ 


CUSS CL^ 


XXc. No 


J-o^^-) 1 


COPY 


«•' J 



COPYRIGHT, BY G. W. BROWN, M. D. 
1902. 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



,<2A 



I. 

Introductory. 
YTYHEKE is no State in the American Union which 
e)J[(© has bestowed such care in collecting its pio- 
neer history, commencing near half a century ago, as 
has Kansas, and yet in no one of them will more er- 
rors be found. Those errors came from the false 
representation of violent 'pilirtisans who sought to 
magnify the doings of their heroes at the expense of 
Truth, and to minimize those of their opponents. 
The prominent actors in the great contest, who went 
forward in advance of all others, to plant the banner 
of freedom on her virgin soil, have been maligned 
and pushed aside, to make place and give prominence 
to those who came from one to three years later, 
whose methods were very questionable, and sometimes 
exceedingly prejudicial. 

The first pioneers learned before they left the East 
that a mutual unwritten compromise had been entered 
into by Congress, at the passage of the Kansas-Ne- 
braska act, by which the former territory was virtu- 
ally surrendered to Slavery, while the latter was to 
be free. The South accepted those terms, claimed 
Kansas was theirs by virtue of such understanding, 
and resolved to employ every possible instrumental- 
ity in their reach to make eiffective that agreement. 

It was to defeat that claim, and to render nugatory 
that private arrangement of aspiring political lead- 
ers, that the first pioneers, in the summer and 
autumn of 1854, at the hazard of their lives, passed 
up the Missouri, the steamboats loaded with slaves 
and their masters from the South, the latter threat- 



4 FALSE CLAIMS 

ening death to all "abolitionists" who should attempt 
to settle in iheir territory. The timorous, frightened 
by the bluster, passed on and located in Western 
Iowa. The writer who took out a party of near three 
hundred with him from Western Pennsylvania, can 
give the names and dates of many who located in 
Taylor county, Iowa, because of the threatened con- 
ditions mentioned. 

From one to two years later came another class of 
pioneers, attracted by the favorable reports the advance 
guard made of the country, and the certainty of its 
becoming a free State. 

Whilst among these later arrivals were many of 
the very best men, who would honor any country 
by their presence, who labored hand in hand with the 
first settlers to make a great free State, such as Kan- 
sas now is; there were others, adventurers, many of 
whom had failed in business, and still others, broken 
down politicians, who hoped to regain among stran- 
gers what they had lost in the East by practicing the 
arts of the demagogue. They had no conception of 
other means than intrigue or violence to thwart the 
purposes of the slaveholder. The correspondents of 
the Eastern press identified themselves on their first 
arrival in the territory with this disturbing element, 
and gave a false coloring thereafter to all future his- 
tory. They voiced the extravagant notions of the 
demagogues, and writing over fictitious names, assail- 
ed with pens dipped in gall all who stood in the way 
of their ambition. The worthiest men came in for 
the largest amount of falsification and libels. 

Many a page now passing for authentic history, 
concocted by vile men for mischievous purposes, 
needs to be corrected. That done and many a politi- 
cal saint of to-day will be relegated to obscurity, or 



CORRECTED. 5 

only remembered with criminals, and their eulogists 
will be known as falsifiers. 

The writer's superior position as editor and pro- 
prietor of the first and most prominent Free State 
newspaper published in the territory, and the only 
one that survived till the close of the contest, gave 
him opportunities of observation possessed by no 
other. He has received numerous Kansas publica- 
tions which were sent to him for criticism and cor- 
rection. Every one of these were somewhat at fault, 
while many purporting to be history were so grossly 
false that he returned them unmarked, with the state- 
ment that to njake them passingly correct they must 
be re-written. 

Even the Collections of the Kansas Historical So- 
ciety, while it has been the desire of its founders to 
preserve only the truthful, yet it is distressingly 
mournful to read the innumerable falsehoods com- 
piled in many of these productions. The authors, in 
most cases, no doubt, designed to be truthful, but 
relying on the reports of others they have grievously 
misled their readers. The present writer has been 
invited to jioint out the discrepancies in some of these 
Collections to appear in a future volume, but life is 
too short to undertake and complete such a Hercu- 
lean task. Falsehoods originating with sensational 
press correspondents have been copied by later writ- 
ers. These sustain each other, and to a new genera- 
tion these misrepresentations appear as real truths, 
whereas their base was little or nothing else than fic- 
tion. The defence of Lawrence by Old John Brown 
and the battle of Osawatomie are of this character. 

Upwards of twenty-two years ago, at the instance 
of the then President of the Kansas Historical Soci- 
ety, we wrote a series of articles for the public press 



6 FAiSE CLAIMS 

entitled, "Reminiscences of Old John Brown." 
Those articles occupied about one column each, ap- 
peared weekly in three leading j)apers, two of which 
were in Kansas, and extended through some six 
months. They attracted general attention, and elic- 
ited a mass of favorable and adverse criticism rarely 
equaled and never excelled. One paper contained 
seventeen columns in one week. Our purpose was to 
prove Old John Brow^n was guilty of the midnight 
assassination of five men on the Pottawatomie. That 
done and the twenty continuous years of denials be- 
ing changed to a justification of the act, we have 
rested until the present. Now as his eulogists in- 
sist on claiming that the result of making Kansas 
free was the work of Old John Brown, and that the 
whole "hinged" on that terrible event on the Potta- 
watomie, the writer, in justice to the memory of those 
who really made Kansas free, has determined to take 
up his pen again and tell what he knows of the 
matter. 

Reader, if we repeat ourself occasionally we beg 
your indulgence, for it is our purpose to make the 
points so clear that he who runs may read and under- 
stand. We are unwilling to admit the claim of F. 
B. Sanborn, that God inspired the foulest murders 
of the 19th century, as that eulogist, professedly 
biologist, maintains. 



IT. 

Not a Reliable Historian* 
■■tTYHAYER contributed much less towards the 
&](s) result [of making Kansas free] than did 
[John] Brown."— Wm. E. Connelley, p. 207 of his 
"John Brown." 



CORRECTED. 7 

Mr; Connelley follows this statement with a quo- 
tation from D. W. Wilder, as published in Vol. 6 of 
the Kansas Historical Collections, giving the nativ- 
ity of the people of the State, as appears in the United 
States Census rei)ort for 1860. It was there shown 
that the population of Kansas then embraced 107,260; 
that 12,669 were of foreign birth, that 94,515 were 
American born; that Ohio contributed to the entire 
population 11,617; Missouri, 11,356; that 10,997 were 
Kansas born; that Indiana contributed 9,945; Illinois, 
9,367; Kentucky, 6,556; Pennsylvania, 6,463; New 
York, 6,331; Iowa, 4,008 ; that from all the other 
States there were but 17,875, of which there were only 
4,208 from all the New England States. 

Mr. Connelley argues from these statistics that the 
Massachusetts movement was a trifling affair; that 
Thayer helped some, but less than John Brown, as 
above quoted. He even makes the statement, to be- 
little Mr. Thayer, that he was inspired to organize the 
Emigrant Aid Company, by the words of Wm. H. 
Seward, on the floor of the Senate on the passage of 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill: 

"Come on, then, gentlemen of the Slave States; since there is 
no escaping your challenge, I accept it in behalf of Freedom. We 
will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas. God 
give the victory to the party which is strongest in numbers as it is 
in the right." 

That speech was made on the night of May 25, 1854, 
immediately preceding the final passage of the bill. 
For three months the writer had been beating up for 
recruits through his Conneautville, Pa., Courier, to 
go with him to Kansas, to re-establish the principles 
of the Missouri Compromise, in case that pending bill 
should become a law. At the time of that speech he 
had over 200 names of good men enrolled to accom- 
pany him to Kansas. 



8 FALSE CLAIMS 

Hon. Eli Thayer, then unknown to the writer, a 
member of the Massachusetts Legislature, as early as 
February of 1854, confident of the repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise; conceived his project of peopling 
the new territory with organized emigration from the 
free North. In furtherance of his purpose he intro- 
duced into the Legislature, and secured the final pas- 
sage, April 26, 1854, one month and four days before 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill became a law, of an act in- 
corporating the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany. True, the New England Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany was not incorporated by the Connecticut Legis- 
lature until a few days later than Seward's speech, 
yet the machinery of organized emigration was all in 
motion, and it was to that movement, and probably to 
the writer's in Pennsylvania, to w^hich Mr. Seward ev- 
idently referred in accepting the gage of battle for the 
freedom of Kansas. 

The change from the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid 
Co. to the New England was only to make more effect- 
ual the object of the original incorporators. The agi- 
tation went right on under Mr. Thayer's direction, 
without any abatement, and other organizations be- 
came in effect auxiliaries, wherever or by whoever call- 
ed into being, and all looked to Mr. Thayer as the 
head of the organized emigration movement. 

That organization of capital and energy gave an 
impetus to emigration Kansasward, which nothing 
else could have done. Individuals who made their 
way alone were strengthened by the assurance that 
multitudes would follow, and would sustain each other 
in the final conflict. 

Our own party, starting from Conneautville with 
300, twenty falling out by the way, was the largest of 
any entering the territory at any one time, but it 



CORRECTED. 9 

scattered in all directions on arriving there, and its 
power as a party was little felt in consequence. As 
the President of that Company we know whereof we 
write, and are frank to admit, but for the New England 
Emigrant Aid Company it would have been impos- 
sible for us or our Pennsylvania Company, to have 
gone forward. When we did advance with over 40 
tons of freight, the writer carried with him full 1,200 
subscriptions to the Herald of Freedom. These 
were the nucleus of the large accessions which fol- 
lowed. 

The paper, when established in Kansas, instead of 
appealing to the passions to induce emigration, ap- 
pealed to the purses. It labored to prove what near 
fifty subsequent years have demonstrated, that the 
climate of Kansas was healthful; its soil was pro- 
ductive; its future sure for freedom; that it con- 
tained within itself all the elements of unexampled 
prosperity, and that no other country in the world 
offered equal inducements to settlers from a free 
State. 

The circulation of the Herald of Freedom was 
confined almost wholly to the Northern States. Save 
an immense patronage from members of Congress, 
scarcely a paper was sent south of Mason and Dixon's 
line, unless in exchange to the press. Wherever 
read it did its work, and a heavy emigration followed 
as a matter of course, to gain the cheap lands of Kan- 
sas, and aid in rolling back the tide of slavery. And 
where did they locate ? In and around the towns plant- 
ed under the auspices and special protection of the N. 
E. Emigrant Aid Company. More: Whenever there 
was trouble in any other part of the territory, Law- 
rence, the great center of that Company, was the city 
of refuge to which the endangered, or persecuted, fled. 



10 FALSE CLAIMS 

All these causes combined made that city of Law- 
rence obnoxious to the slavery propagandists. The 
^^Delenda est Carthago" of Cato, — "Carthage must 
be blotted out," was never uttered with more fervor 
than by the slaveholder in his declaration, "Law- 
rence must be destroyed." And this, not because the 
people made inroads upon Missouri, or in any man- 
ner meddled with her institutions, but here was the 
citadel of freedom — a free press, free speech, and a 
free people. 

The spring and early summer of 1857, witnessed at 
least 10,000 new comers who entered the valley of the 
Upper Neosho, with their center at Emporia. They 
were directed there by the Herald of Freedom. 
Though Emporia was not an Emigrant Aid Company 
town, yet it was the projection of theVriter, who, as 
already stated, could not have reached Kansas, or sus- 
tained himself there, but for the kindness and encour- 
agement of that Company. Wherever this people 
came from, whether from New England, Pennsyl- 
vania, Ohio, Indiana or Illinois, the indirect influence 
of the Emigrant Aid Company, inspired by Mr. 
Thayer,, should have the credit. 

Persons coming to Kansas long after the events 
narrated, and getting their information from bigoted 
partisans, whose ambition seems to have been to fal- 
sify the position of all who did not glorify their 
heroes, have deemed it proper to minimize the ser- 
vices of Eli Thayek, and the instrumentalities he 
called into being to defeat the schemes of the slavery 
propaganda. But he who knows the facts is con- 
scious that even the failures of the Aid Company 
were powerful instrumentalities for good. The 
destruction of their Hotel, the printing offices, and 
Gov. Robinson's home aroused the spirit of freedom 



OORRECTED. 11 

in every Northern heart. Thousands determined to 
go to Kansas, and did so, who never thought of such 
a thing until this exposition of the barbarism of sla- 
very. Even the indictment, arrest, and imprisonment 
of the Free State leaders aided the right. ^The Her- 
ald of Freedom never had more than 2,200 to 2,400 
subscribers prior to the destruction of its office; but 
it somewhat surpassed 8,000 in a few months after its 
revival. 

The Republican party owed its being to the agita- 
tion growing out of this Kansas strife, brought on by 
the organization of emigration under the auspices of 
Eli Thayer. The present generation is ignorant of 
the fact, nevertheless it is true, the Herald of Free- 
dom was the first paper in all the world that named 
John C. Fremont as a candidate for the Presidency. 
That nomination was inspired by a letter Gov. Chas. 
BoBiNSON received from the "Pathfinder," who, writ- 
ing from California, expressed himself warmly in 
favor of free Kansas. Every speech, from every ros- 
trum, advocating the election of Fremont, was a 
speech for universal freedom, culminating in an 
armed soldiery, who made the American flag in truth 
the banner of the Free!" 

The fanatical disunion Abolitionists, with their 
motto of "No ujiion with slaveholders," always de- 
clining to vote, were very limited in numbers, and 
their conquests were nothing. 

The slaveholder knew his most effective enemy. 
He made war on the Emigrant Aid Company, and on 
all who indorsed its action, because he was conscious 
of its power. 

Mr. Connelley conveys the idea that the violence of 
the South was inspired by its hatred of the Emigrant 
Aid Company; that in the absence of that Company 



12 FALSE CLAIMS 

there would have been no violence. In reply we will 
say: The South antagonized everything that made 
for freedom. The greater its influence the more pro- 
found its hate. This is seen in the persons indicted 
for treason. 

It may be just to here state another fact not gener- 
ally known, that the original indictment for high 
treason contained the names of Andrew H. Eeeder, 
Charles Robinson, James H. Lane, George W. 
Brown, George W. Deitzler, George W. Smith, Sam- 
uel N. Wood, Samuel C. Pomeroy. Gains Jenkins 
was arrested with the writer at Kansas City, Mo., 
May 14th, 1856, and carried to Coon Point, located 
some seven miles west of Lawrence. There, on the 
evening of May 19th, 1856, Jenkins was discharged, 
with the information that there was no action pend- 
ing against him. On the evening of May 21st, he, 
with G. W. Deitzler and G. W. Smith, were brought 
in, and were imprisoned with the writer in a building 
erected for a land office at Lecompton. We were 
taken before Judge Lecompte on May 22d, when the 
writer asked to see the indictment. This was shown 
him. The name of Samuel C. Pomeroy had been 
erased, and that of Gains Jenkins was interlined, in a 
different hand from the body of the instrument. 

Gen. Pomeroy had surrendered to the mob on May 
21, 1856, the mountain howitzer at Lawrence, and 
other implements of defence which were secreted 
under the Emigrant Aid Company's building, thus 
gaining favor with the leader of the ruffians; so, to 
show his appreciation of the act, the person holding 
the warrant of arrest evidently erased Pomeroy's 
name, and substituted Jenkins, whose mules these 
ruffians had stolen, and the indictment was forged to 
agree with the forged warrant. Phillips in his "Con- 



CORRECTED. 13 

quest of Kansas," besides mentioning on p. 355, the 
erasure and substitution of Jenkins' name in place of 
Pomeroy's, says: W. Y. Roberts' name was also 
erased, and G. W. Smith's was substituted; but we 
have no knowledge of that fact, if such it was. 

It was they whose influence and acts were most 
prejudicial to pro-slavery aggressions who were sin- 
gled out by them for hate, and they hoped for pun- 
ishment, by death. 

Is it not wonderful that a person reared from early 
youth in free Kansas, and enjoying all the bounties 
of institutions secured to the State by its first pio- 
neers, sees proper to make Eli Thayer, Andrew H. 
Reeder, Charles Robinson, and G. W. Brown sub- 
jects for his severest criticisms, and exalts into 
heroes, yea, almost gods, John Brown and James H. 
Lane, the authors and projectors of disorder and vio- 
lence on the Free State side? Connelley's hate, and 
the hate of the Border Rufiians centered upon the 
same persons; and, strangest of all, he rehearses the 
Ruffian libels, that G. W. Brown was arrested by a 
negro slave; that the organization of the Emigrant 
Aid Company by Thayer was what aroused the Ruf- 
fians into violence; that the convening of the bogus 
Legislature at Pawnee distant from the border by 
Gov. Reeder was for private, speculative purposes in- 
stead of trying to get away from Missouri violence ; 
and Gov. Robinson is presented as a vascillating and 
wholly unreliable person, approving and glorifying 
to-day what he denounces to-morrow. 

Instead of being a historian Connelley is the eulo- 
gist of John Brown and Jim Lane, and a traducer of 
all those who differed from his heroes, they whose 
policy finally prevailed and made Kansas free. The 
Ruffians in their bitterest days never wrote so meanly 



14 FALSE CLAIMS 

of the men Connelley berates as does this pretend- 
ed historian. 

Did it require falsehood, calumny without stint, and 
libels of the most malicious character, to convert a 
midnight assassin, and a projector of wholesale mur- 
ders into a great moral hero ? One would suppose so 
to read Mr. Connelley "s "John Brown." 



III. 

Important Inquiry. 
HAT service did John Brown render to Kan- 
^^Y^ sas that he is so highly extolled? 

Why he came to Kansas a 5^ear and three months 
after Mr. Thayer's pioneer party located Lawrence. 
He was accompanied by his son-in.law, Henry 
Thompson, and a horse with a heavy one horse 
wagon. They had no implements for honest indus- 
try, neither had they ""blooded stock," of which we 
hear so much by Brown's eulogists; but they had 
voltaic repeaters, broadswords, and a few muskets. 
He joined his sons on the Pottawatomie on the 6th of 
October, '55, and wrote his family from Osawatomie 
Oct 13, saying: ^ 

"We found our folks in a most uncomfortable situation, with 
no houses to shelter one of them, no hay, or corn tbdder of any 
account secured, shivering over their little fires, all exposed to the 
dreadful cutting winds morning and evening and stormy days." — 
See Sanborn's "Life and Letters of John Brown," p. 199. 

This is the true story of John Brown's advent into 
Kansas. In Brown's letter to his family in the Adi- 
rondack region of North-Eastorn New York, lie wrote 
on ''Sabbath Eve, Oct. 11," 1855, p. 201, "'Life and 
Letters:" 



CORRECTED. 15 

"I believe Missouri is fast becoming discouraged about making 
Kansas a slave state, and I think the prospect of its becoming 
free is brightening every day." 

On tlie 7tli of December, 1855, Brown entered Law- 
rence, and under the false representation that he had 
served the government at the battk^ of Phittsbiu'g in 
181-1, he was given command of a company of 25 old 
men, to aid in the defence of the city. David Brown, 
the father of this writer, who commanded an artillery 
company at the battle of Plattsbnrg, served as Lieu- 
tenant, an honor the eulogists give to John Brown, 
Jr., to increase the glory of the family. Old John 
Brown was three days in service. Then, when a 
peaceful termination was reached, the old man made 
a futile attempt to produce insubordination. Says A. 
E. Coleman, one of Brown's backers, quoted with ap- 
proval in "Life and Letters," p. 220: 

"As soon as Brown heard what had been done, [in the settle- 
ment of aflairs] he came with his sons into our Council Room the 
maddest man I ever saw. He told Robinson that what had been 
done was all a farce; that in less than six months the Missourians 
would tind out the deception, and things would be worse than 
they were that day." 

This was Coleman's account, who was a rabid, fanat- 
ical devotee of Old John. But the bitter words were 
not uttered in the Council Chamber, as he alleges, 
but out of doors, at the north-east corner of the 
hotel ; and instead of being directed to Gov. Eobin- 
son, were addressed to a promiscuous crowd, he offer- 
ing to lead in an attack upon the enemy at Franklin. 
He was arrested at this point, and his attempt to in- 
cite a revolt was ended. 

Only survivors of those times can comprehend the 
silliness of Brown's proposition, "to go out and draw 
a little blood." There we were, beleaguered by some 
2,000 ruffians from Missouri, supplied with all the 
munitions of war, including whiskey. Back of them 



16 FALSE CLAIMS 

was Missouri, with its abundant resources, the Gover- 
nor of the Territory, the United States military at 
Forts Leavenworth and Kiley, and the administration 
at Washington, with the resources of the nation at 
his command, a power equal to the strongest govern- 
ment in Europe. 

Here in Kansas were a few scattered settlers,, 
poorly housed, roughly clad, short of provisions, 
mostly without arms or ammunition, the Missouri 
closed for the winter, with no railroad or telegraphic 
communication nearer than St. Louis, and requiring 
full three months to reach the States, and gain assist- 
ance therefrom; and yet John Brown, positively 
showing an insane mind by his acts, when all danger 
of violence was passed, desired to precipitate a bloody 
contest. He would endanger the lives of all of us, 
see our homes and entire resources going up in 
smoke, the women and children houseless and food- 
less, exposed to excessive cold, fleeing from their pur- 
suers, with no refuge within 500 miles through the 
barbarian country; whilst their defenders would be 
sleeping in death. And persons who were not on the 
ground, the Hintons, Sanborns, Connelleys, call the 
act "bravery," and write down John Brown a "hero!" 
and "an inspired agent of God." Let them sing 
peeans to his glory, if they will, but we shall never- 
theless tell the truth for the generations that come 
after us. John Brown was anxious to precipitate a 
revolution between the North and the South, and he 
thought this the occasion, hence his anger when he 
saw his ambitious hopes defeated. 



CORRECTED. 17 

Details of Events. 
^TIX months pass. Ou May 21, '56, the new 
/^ troubles cuhninated in the destruction of the 
Emigrant Aid Company's Hotel, Gov. Robinson's 
residence, the offices of the Herald of Freedom and 
the Free State, and the arrest of Charles Robinson, 
G. W. Brown, G. W. Smith, G. W. Deitzler and 
Gains Jenkins, indicted for high treason. John 
Brown, Jr., in command of 120 men, of which Old 
John was a member, marched to the rescue. They 
reached Palmyra, 12 miles south of Lawrence, on 
May 22d. They there learned of the destruction of 
the city, and of the arrests, and met a ''messen- 
ger" who proved to have been the wife of A. O. Car- 
penter, from Lawrence, not from Pottawatomie, who 
reported provisions were short in Lawrence; and in- 
structing them that no defense was made or could 
have been made, without incurring the guilt of treason 
against the federal government; but John Jr. halted 
his company and went in person to reconnoitre. On 
his return to camp the Old man was infuriated. He 
asked for volunteers to engage in a secret mission. 
He ground his broadswords, John Jr. assisting, as 
he stated in a letter over his own signature in the 
Cleveland Leader. [See Vol. II, p. 7, of our John 
Brown Scrap Book of newspaper clippings.] He 
is seen' with his sons en rouie to the butchery by Col. 
Blood, who narrates his interview with the assassins. 
[See Appendix.] 

Arriving in the neighborhood about midnight he 
Cralled out old man Doyle, a carpenter, not a slave- 
holder, and never expected or desired to be one, and 
with his own hand shot Doyle through the forehead. 



18 FALSE CLAIMS 

They fell upon the two boys who were cut to pieces 
with the newly sharpened swords. Then the assas- 
sins went to Wilkinson's, took him from his bed, by 
the side of a sick wife, and murdered him, then they 
murdered Sherman, slashing and cutting each of 
them in a horrible manner. 

That "battle of Black Jack," of which we have 
heard so much , was an attempt to arrest the assas- 
sins of the Pottawatomie murders, and the two at^ 
tacks on Osawatomie were still later attempts to cap- 
ture them. 

During all that summer of 1856, Brown and his 
associates were engaged in acts of violence, stopping 
men on the highway, stealing their horses, and, if his 
own letters and the reports of his associates can be 
trusted, murdering his victims. He burglarized 
stores, and carried off anything his fancy or his 
necessities coveted. In an attack on a store at a point 
just below the junction of the Neosho and Cotton- 
wood, then known as Neosho City, a woman was 
killed, and the store was plundered. Many of these 
facts can be gathered from Brown's own statements, 
published in Sanborn's "Life and Letters." On p. 
236, in a letter dated ''June, 1856," Brown says: 

"We encountered quite a number of pro-slaverj men, and took 
quite a number prisoners. Our prisoners we let go; but rve kept 
%o)uc fotir or five Jiorses. We were immediately after this ae- 
cused of murdering five men at Pottawatomie, and great efforts 
have since been made by the Missourians and their ruffian allies 
to capture us." 

"Inspired of God to execute those men," according 
to Sanborn! Brown lost the opportunity of his life 
in not telling his family and the public of his murder- 
ous act, so highly creditable if he was "inspired of 
God." On the contrary he and all his friends de- 
nied his guilt. Twenty-four years thereafter the 



CORRECTED. 19 

guilt was proved upon liim, and the7i "John Brown 
was only an instrument in the hands of God to do 
his bloody work." What was highly criminal before, 
to be repudiated, became at once a meritorious act, 
and the rescue of Kansas from slavery was made to 
hinge on those murders. The victims, three at least 
of the five, were opposed to negroes, bond or free, 
settling in the territory. They were mechanical 
laborers from the South, and were prejudiced against 
the negro, because his habits were inimical to free 
labor. Doyle and Brown had had some angry words 
on the subject at the spring election, and "threats 
were made on both sides;" so rei3orted George Par- 
tridge, a Free State man from Wisconsin, who was 
present, and communicated the affair to Col. James 
Blood. [See Blood's letter.] 

The terrible character given the victims of Brown's 
midnight raid were afterthoughts — attempts to find a 
pretext for the murders. The story of Brown's party 
being moved to the act because of the account of a 
messenger entering the camp and telling of insults to 
the families of the younger Browns, and the burning 
of their cabins, is without any foundation, and the 
burning of the cabins occurred several days after the 
murders. So the killing of Fred Brown was given 
as an incentive to the murders, though that event did 
not occur until more than three months after the mid- 
night assassinations, and was incidental to an attempt 
to arrest the assassins, of which Fred was one. 

Those murders precipitated the Border Kuffians on 
Kansas. They came in the guise of aids to the Uni- 
ted States marshal, to arrest Brown and his irrespon- 
sible guerillas. They did not limit their outrages to 
"Old Brown" and his sons and son-in-law. They 
made those murders the pretext for every form of vio- 



20 FALSE CLAIMS 

lence, even the killing and scalping of an unarmed 
and inoffensive pioneer just entering the territory. 
They obstructed the tide of emigration, and turned 
back those ascending the Missouri river to enter Kan- 
sas, alleging that Free State men were assassins. 

The affidavit of Joab M. Bernard, on p. 1202, of 
the Congressional Investigating Committee's Report 
on Kansas affairs, published in 1856, with that of 
John Miller, on p. 1201, gives the details of the rob- 
bery of Bernard's store, by a party of freebooters, 
loading a wagon with plunder, and taking away "two 
large horses, three saddles, two bridles, and nearly 
all the provisions, bacon, flour, etc., and all the money 
in the store." This robbery occurred on the 28th of 
May, 1856 ; Brown's original party of 8 had been aug- 
mented to 14 when Bernard's store was plundered. 

On pp, 1204-5 of the Committee's Eeport is the 
affidavit of Geo. T. Williams, telling of other robber- 
ies by "Capt. Brown," and the taking of a Mr. 
Thompson into the brush by Brown, "and he has 
never been heard of since." 

It was the writer's fortune to read a diary kept by 
a boy of 16 who joined Brown's Guerillas in the early 
summer of 1856, and who accompanied the party in 
all their raids during that summer. We are still in 
hopes of securing that diary for preservation in the 
Historical Society of Kansas. It is a precious docu- 
ment, indeed; but the worshipers of the ''old hero" 
will take some method to suppress it. Its ghastly 
accounts of intercepting travelers on the highway, in- 
terrogating them whether Free State or Pro-Slavery. 
If the latter their murder, pillage of effects and hasty 
burial. This account was confirmed to us by two 
other parties, who were knowing to transactions of the 
kind. 



CORRECTED. 21 

On the 11th of February, 1857, G. W. Deitzler and 
the writer left Lawrence to select the town site of 
Emporia, on the Upper Neosho. On Feb. 17, unable 
to cross the Neosho because of high water, we de- 
scended the river, passing its junction with the Cot- 
tonwood, and about midday came to a point known in 
pioneer days as Neosho City. They who have access 
to the Herald of Freedom will find a detailed report 
of our adventures on that trip in the issue of Feb. 28, 
'57, and subsequent issues. We quote the closing par- 
agraph 2d page, 2d column, of date as above: 

"From this point [where Mr. Humphrey's steam saw mill was 
found] we journeyed down the Neosho several miles, and visited 
a point known as Neosho City, located by a Proslavery company, 
and on which is erected a log store building. This, however, was 
vacated last summer [1S56] the goods having been stolen by a 
predatory band of robbers, who took advantage of the times, call- 
ing themselves Free State men, and made incursions into this re- 
gion for plundering purposes. The point is low, and would nec- 
essarily be sickly. Near the location were six graves. Among 
this number was that of a woman who was shot by the same party 
that robbed the store, while attacking and firing into the house 
where she was residing." 

Had we added the information imparted to us on 
that occasion, that Old John Brown led in that mur- 
derous and pillaging foray, instead of his writing: 

•'I believe all sensible Free State men in Kansas consider 
George Washington Brown's Herald of Freedom one of the 
most mischievous and traitorous publications in the whole 
country," 

Very probably we would have been "executed" 
by him or some of his cutthroat followers, and his 
biographer would have declared "he was inspired 
of God" to do the work. 

These murders, robberies and acts of violence con- 
stituted John Brown's services to Kansas in 1856. He 
left the territory on the 16th of September, 1856, 
taking his sons, son-in-law and their families with 
him. He left immediately after the great Border 



22 FALSE CLAIMS 

Euffian raid of Sept. 14, whose contemplated acts of 
yiolence were prevented by Gov. Geary and the Uni- 
ted States troops under the command of Col. P. St. 
George Cook. Brown did not return again to take an 
active part in affairs until the Free state party had 
gained control of the Territorial Legislature; had 
scotched the Lecompton Constitution; had virtually 
settled the slavery question for all time. When he 
did return it was to embroil South-Eastern Kansas in 
violence, and keep that whole country in an uproar, 
until both parties joined in inviting him to leave the 
territory. 



"V, 



Went to Fight, Not to Settle. 
(fl OHN BEO WN never owned one foot of land in 
U Kansas; he never had a home of his own 
there; he never contemplated moving his fam- 
ily there; he never attended any of the Free State 
Conventions; he never favored the party with his 
counsels. He was a parasite, working, not for the 
freedom of Kansas, but to embroil the Union in sec- 
tional strife, hoping thereby to hasten the extinction 
of American slavery. 

On page 167 Eedpath's "Life of Brown," is an in- 
teresting romance represented to have fallen from 
John Brown's lips while bivouaced "a stone for a pil- 
low, the clouds for covering," after a days deadly 
fighting in defense of Lawrence, where in truth, 
scarcely a gun was fired. Kedpath says : 

"He [Brown] then lay down by our side, and told us of the 
trials and the wars he had passed through; that he had settled in 
Kansas with a large family, having with him six full-grown sons; 



COERECTED. 23 

that he had taken a claim in Ljkins county, and was attending 
peacefully to the duties of husbandry, when the hordes of wild 
men came over from Missouri and took possession of all the bal- 
lot-boxes, destroyed his corn, stole his horses, and shot down his 
cattle, and sheep, and hogs, and repeatedly threatened to shoot, 
hang him or burn him, if he did not leave the territory; and as 
many times endeavored to put their threats in force, but were as 
often prevented by his 'eternal vigilance,' which he found to be 
the price of his life and those of his family," 

Need we write, even at this distance in time from 
those occurrences in Kansas history, that, probably, 
there is not a word of truth in all that statement? Old 
John Brown had participated in no wars; he never 
settled in Kansas with his family, hence did not have 
any six sons with him in that family; he never entered 
any claim in Lykins county nor elsewhere; he did 
not attend to the duties of husbandry; was not in the 
territory until more than six months after the Mis- 
souri usurpation of the ballot-boxes. The only 
"horses" he ever owned, save the one he drove into 
the territory, were stolen, and the same of his blooded 
stock, his sheep and hogs, if he had any. We rather 
think they would have hung him had they caught 
him after his murders on the Pottawatomie. His re- 
turn to Kansas in the summer of 1858, as narrated on 
p. 472 of Sanborn's "Life and Letters," was caused 
by an apprehended betrayal of his plans to make a 
descent on Virginia to the administration at Washing- 
ton by his drill-master, Col. Forbes; and he wanted 
to divert attention from that insane purpose, so he 
went to Kansas, and plunged headlong into the strife 
there. The more agitation he could produce, the more 
sure he was that Forbes' statement would be discred- 
ited. It aided in no way to make Kansas free, for 
that end was already attained the year before, while 
he was absent from the territory. 

Disguised under the name of Shuhel Morgan, and 
supporting himself by plunder, accountable to no 



24 FALSE CLAIMS 

one, he organized a military company, exacting im- 
plicit obedience to his orders. Sec. YII provided: 

"All prisoners who shall properly demean themselves shall be 
treated with kindness and respect, and shall be punished for 
crime onlv after trial and conviction, being allowed a hearing in 
defence/' 

Though at that time the whole machinery of the 
territorial government, including those of the coun- 
ties, was in Free State hands, yet this faction of mal- 
contents, with Brown at its head, assumed to run a 
government of its own, proposing to arrest, try, con. 
vict and punish persons independently of law, agree- 
ably to the caprice of the self-appointed "com- 
mander" John Brown. And for this usurpation of 
authority, and disregard of all law, John Brown is a 
hero according to Connelley, and "entitled to more 
credit than was Eli Thayer for making Kansas free." 

Is not Jim Lane's "Great God!" in point? 

"John Brown's Parallels" have excited great inter- 
est among his admirers. He wrote from Trading 
Post, Kan., January, 1859: 

"Not one vear ago eleven quiet citizens of this neighborhood 
William Robertson, William Colpetzer, Amos Hall, Austin Hall, 
John Campbell, Asa Snyder, Thomas Stilwell, W^illiam Hair- 
grove, Patrick Ross, and B. L. Read, — were gathered up from 
their work and their homes by an armed force under one Hamil- 
ton, and without trial or opportunity to speak in their own de- 
fence were formed into line, and all but one shot, — five killed and 
five wounded. One fell unharmed, pretending to be dead, All 
were left for dead. The only crime charged against them was 
that of being Free State men. Now I inquire what action has 
ever, since the occurrence in May last, been taken by either the 
President of the United States, the Governor of Missouri, the 
Governor of Kansas, or any of their tools, or by any pro-slavery 
or Administration man, to ferret out and punish the perpetrators 
of this crime.^" 

The murder of those five men was a damnable af- 
fair, which admits of no i3alliation. The excuse that 
they were engaged with James Montgomery in har- 
assing pro-slavery settlers, stealing their stock, and 



CORRECTED. 25 

doing all in their power to render the lives, and those 
of the families of the assassins, miserable, was no 
justification for such a barbaric deed. It was a crush- 
ing blow to the pro-slavery party, and those engaged 
in it became outlaws, and doubtless met with the fate 
of lawbreakers, as they deserved. Now let us have a 
real parallel so far as practical to these midday mur- 
ders on the Marias des Cygnes: 

During the hours of midnight, between the 23d and 
24th of May, 1856, one Capt. John Brown, with a 
party of seven associates, entered the valley of the 
Pottawatomie, and passing from house to house took 
five persons from their beds, one from the side of a 
sick wife, and slaughtered them, heedless of their ap- 
peals for mercy. One was shot in the forehead by 
the Captain himself, and stabbed in the breast, an- 
other received a gash in his head and side, and his 
throat was cut. Another's skull was split open in two 
places, and some of his brains were washed out by the 
water into which he was thrown, A large hole was 
cut in his breast, his left hand was cut oflP. Two boys 
were killed. One was found with his head cut open, 
and a hole was made in his jaw, also one in his side. 
The other boy was found the next morning with his 
fingers out off, his arms were cut off, his head was cut 
open and there was a hole in his chest. To add to 
the infamy of the terrible crimes, these men were ma- 
ligned in the most shameful manner, and were 
charged with a multitude of offences of which they 
were not guilty. Only two of them were pro-slavery. 
The other three were "free white state" men — "worse 
than slaveholders," said John Brown. 

Attempts were made to bring the guilty parties to 
justice, but they escaped just retribution for their 
crimes, some of them dying, however, a few years 



26 FALSE CLAIMS 

later on the gallows, in a distant State, for other mur- 
ders, with treason added. 

F. B. Sanborn, the biographer of this Capt. John 
Brown, the leader in this midnight assassination on 
the Pottawatomie, says, p. 247 "Life and Letters:" 

'•The story of John Brown will mean little to those who do not 
believe that God governs the world, and that he makes his will 
known in advance to certain chosen men and women who pertbrm 
it consciously or unconscioush'. Of such prophetic, Heave'n-ap- 
pointed men John Brown was the most conspicuous in our time, 
and his life must be construed in the light of that fact. * * * 
Such a deed must not be judged by the every- day rules of con- 
duct, which distinctly forbid violence and the infliction of death 
for private causes." 

Why not, Mr. Sanborn? Because, he says: 

"Upon the swift and secret vengeance of John Brown in that 
midnight raid hinged the future of Kansas, as we can now see; 
and on that future again hinged the destinies of the whole 
country." 

What supreme balderdash! The destiny of Kan- 
sas, the American Republic, and the liberties of the 
world hinged on midnight assassination! That awful 
crime, so horribly atrocious that humanity shuddered 
while reading it, and a Free State historian of the 
times charged it on the Camanches, the wildest Indian 
tribe of the plains. For twenty-four years it was 
denied by all of Brown's friends. Even so late as 
1880 F. B. Sanborn wrote: 

"John Brown denied to me that he was responsible for those 
murders, though he approved of them, and he [Sanborn] would 
not believe to the contrary unless an eye-witness is produced, 
who knew of his guilt." 

That eye-witness "was produced," in the person of 
James Townsly, an involuntary accomplice in the 
murders. Then the murders became "executions," 
and the assassins were "heroes," and the leader "con- 
scious or unconscious" was a "Heaven-appointed exe- 
cutioner!" 

Glorious old Robin Hood, anarchist and freebooter, 



CORRECTED. 27 

myth or real character; he was a hero and a leveler, 
robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, famous 
in English story. Frank B. Sanborn should be your 
defender. He would convert you into a great moral 
hero, yea, enshrine you with the gods, and rear shafts 
and temples to perpetuate your fame. 

Wm. A. Murrell, best known as the "Great Western 
Land Pirate," who, about 1850, was doing a long term 
service in the Tennessee penitentiary for his many 
crimes, was a God-fearing man of the John Brown 
stripe. In the guise of a preacher, beating up for 
recruits for his divine master, he would visit the 
homes of successful planters, engage in religious 
instruction, invite the family and "servants," however 
numerous, to engage in worship. Then he would read 
a chapter in the Holy Bible, call attention to its beau- 
ties, expounding it in the interest of the slaveholder, 
and enjoining the servants to be obedient to him. 
This would be followed by singing a hymn, closing 
with prayer, always protracting the services to such 
length as seemed necessary for his sub-thieves to get 
away with the planter's horses and cattle, then he 
would join the family in the search, for his own sad- 
dled horse had been gobbled up by the marauders, to 
divert suspicion from himself. He always managed 
to lead in the pursuit; but never returned to report 
the success or failure of his search. Lone horse- 
men met on the highway, were enticed into a dark 
glen, shaded by overhanging trees and clinging vines. 
A bowie knife thrust to the heart of the victim — a 
quiet method to avoid noise, like Brown's newly- 
ground broadswords on the Pottawatomie, then a led 
horse and saddle which he had just ''purchased,'' a 
dash to some agreed upon place for rendezvous, where 
the captured horse is placed in the hands of an ac- 



28 FALSE CLAIMS 

complice, who hastens to a distant market to sell and 
recoup an empty purse.* 

Is not Murrell a worthy subject for Sanborn's eulo- 
gistic pen? Was he not "inspired" to murder and 
plunder the same as was Old John Brown? 

Only Omnipotence can know how many Jesse 
James' and Quantrells took their first lessons in crime, 
or were inspired to its commission, because of the 
acts of Sanborn's hero. 

Booth, shooting Lincoln, was as much inspired of 
God to murder a President, as was Brown to per- 
petrate those midnight assassinations. Guiteau and 
Czolgosz, infamous as were their acts, and richly 
deserving death, as did all who sympathized with or 
apologized for them, were as much inspired of God as 
was John Brown ; more, for they killed their victims 
in the full glare of noonday, or in the bright blaze of 
theatrical light; but John Brown and his associate 
bandits entered that peaceful valley of the Pottawat- 
omie under the covert of night. They crept stealth- 
ily from dwelling to dwelling, took the inmates from 
their beds, and out into the darkness, and there 
slaughtered them one by one! Tlie fiends of Pande- 
monium were abroad on that horrible May night, but 
the eye of justice did not slumber! From that time 
until he swung from the gallows, as we have already 
shown, John Brown was a victim of his own guilt, 
seeing in every honest man an avenger of his crimes, 

*Sanborn in his "Life and Letters," p. 494, tells of John Brown: 
"He publicly sold the horses he had captured [stolen] in Kansas 
in Ohio, Avarning the purchasers of a possible defect in the title." 
Then, in a foot note he says: "A Vermont judge refused to rec- 
ognize a slave as property, until his owner could bring before the 
court a 'bill of sale from the Almighty.' Brown fancied he held 
these horses by such a title." May not every horse thief set up 
the same claim with as much propriety as John Brown.'' Who 
made him a favored thief.? 



CORRECTED. 29 

and denouncing in unmeasured terms those who knew 
of those murders, but from motives of pablic policy, 
in the interest of the Free State cause, did not deem 
it wise to expose him, and would not have done so at 
all, if his devotees had not labored to rob deserving 
men of merited fame, and pile their glories on his 
blood-stained brow. 



Disorder and Violence, 
trtHE GREATEST period of disorder and vio- 
<2)J^t) lence all over the territory followed those mur- 
ders on the Pottawatomie. Only the presence and 
interference of the United States troops prevented 
the general slaughter of the Free State pioneers, and 
the destruction of their homes. Governors Geary, 
Stanton, Walker, Denver, each in turn, co-operated 
with the Free State settlers in establishing order. It 
was the fashion of the Britishers, Wm. A. Phillips, 
James Eedpath, Richard Realf, and Richard J. Hin- 
ton, to falsify and malign every person who labored 
to make Kansas free by other measures than a resort 
to blood. They openly sought a sanguinary issue 
with the South. Their pertinacity in that direction 
almost suggested that they were emissaries of the 
British government, which a few years later did side 
with the slaveholders in the great war of the Rebel- 
lion. And John Brown was the idol of those Letter- 
Writing Foreigners and Disunionists. 

All know who know anything of the pioneer history 
of Kansas, that the pens of these British hirelings, 
every one of them — were joined in a conspiracy to 
crush the Herald of Freedom and its editor, first be- 



30 FALSE CLAIMS 

cause he favored participating in the territorial elec- 
tion of October, 1857, which resulted in wresting the 
Legislature from the pro-slavery usurpers; and, sec- 
ond, for insisting on the election of all officers under 
the Lecompton Constitution, to the end if forced on 
us by Congress we could nevertheless use it to liber- 
ate ourselves from pro-slavery thralldom. 

The damnable lies of those times, telling that the 
Herald of Freedom was laboring to build up a Dem- 
ocratic party in Kansas ; that it had sold out to Gov. 
Walker; that it was subsidized for a little govern- 
ment printing; that it printed two editions of the pa- 
per, one for the North, another for the South, with a 
thousand lesser lies with which their letters to the 
Eastern press abounded; which lies one Wm. E. Con- 
nelley, professedly a historian and an honest man, 
has revived by a multitude of notes in his ''John 
Brown," all of which are fully answered by that 
prince of liars, Kichard J. Hinton, who has done 
more to falsify the history of Kansas than any other 
half dozen writt^rs. That writer, Hinton, edited the 
"Historical Notes" to Realf's Free State Poems, pub- 
lished by Crane & Co., Topeka, Kan., in 1900. We 
quote from pp. 56, 57: 

"The Grasshopper Falls Convention decided for the Free State 
party that the etibrt should be made to seize power tlirough voting 
under the bogus laws, repeal the same when our majority accom- 
plished its work and enact a law for the convening of a Constitu- 
tional Convention. * * 

"At the time of this decision, the radicals, like Realf, Redpath, 
Conway, Wm. A. Phillips, W. B. Parsons, Tappan, myself [Hin- 
ton] and others, felt as if the Free State cause had been dealt a 
deadly blow, But, of truth, it was not so, as we can now 

SEE BY THE LIGHT OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. * * 

"In looking back over the long vista of years and momentous 
events, I can perceive now that the Grasshopper Falls Conven- 
tion's decision tended to prevent a possible Northern revolt, 
while it more certainly and eflectually aided in checkmating the 
Lecompton Conspiracy. * * ' If Congress had forced 
that instrument [the Lecompton Constitution] upon us without 



CORRECTED. 31 

submission to a populai* vote, we should have taken possession of 
all its offices and powers. .* * It is one of the most re- 
niarkiible features of our stirring overture in and to the great 
drama which nationalized freedom, and saved the Ameican 
Union." 

Such were the concessions of Bichard J. Hinton 
two years ago, forty-three years after he and his asso- 
ciate-falsifiers had libeled and calumniated all who 
favored the Voting Policy. But he did not have the 
manliness to retract those libels which were concocted 
to destroy the influence of those who favored that 
voting policy. Instead, he filled that little volume 
with many of those falsehoods and added others, as 
if he was yet engaged in that old-time battle, with lies 
for weapons, and he evidently supplied his tool, Wm. 
E. Connelley, with the surplus, to adorn his "John 
Brown," as if he could advance his hero in the path 
of glory by belieing G. W. Brown, who believed that 
hero a criminal deserving death, instead of being ex- 
alted into an instrument of God to commit murder. 

Socrates was condemned to death, by the old Gre- 
cians, for corrupting the Athenian youth. Historians 
tell us he was convicted on perjured evidence. It re- 
quires no perjured evidence to convict John Brown, 
not only of "corrupting youth," but inciting them to 
crime and to death. Look at the list of brilliant 
young men, John E. Cook, J. H. Kagi, J. E. Merriam, 
and others who he induced to follow him to Harper's 
Ferry and to death, many of them to the gallows. 
These persons, and the sons of John Brown, were all 
withdrawn from Kansas, thus reducing the Free State 
voting population, on which the freedom of the terri- 
tory hinged. Instead of adding to that population, 
to outnumber the pro-slavery vote, as did Eli Thayer, 
he absolutely reduced it, and so far weakened our 
cause, instead of strengthening it. The five men he 




32 FALSE CLAIMS 

murdered on the Pottawatomie, liad they all been 
pro-slavery, which three of them were not, as before 
stated, would have been many times less than those 
he led away to engage in crime and to death. 



Coward Guilt. 
Let coward Guilt, with pallid Fear, 

To sheltering coverts fly, 
And justly dread the vengeful Fate, 

That thunders through the skv. 

'E AKE told that Jugurtha, the Numidian, 
who usurped the throne of Micipsa, and mur- 
dered his two sons, became the victim of his own 
guilt. He felt there was no safety for himself any- 
where. He imagined his best friends sought his life. 
Says the historian : 

"By day as well as by night, the citizen as well as the for- 
eigner, were suspected by him. The blackest terrors sat forever 
brooding on his mind. He never got a wink of sleep except bv 
stealth; and often changed his bed in a manner unbecoming his 
rank. Starting sometimes from his slumbers, he would snatch 
his sword, and utter loud cries; so strongly was he haunted by 
fear, which almost drove him to frenzy." — See Rollin's Historv 
of the Carthagenians, Part II, Book II, near the close. 

Guilt always carries with it a painful sting, as it did 
with Jugurtha. Col. Jim Lane, who, in an angry 
mood, foully murdered Gains Jenkins, never saw a 
moment of real happiness after that terrible event. 
Repeatedly to his friends he expressed great sorrow 
for the act. The writer was told by Mrs. Leavitt, who 
for a time lived at Wyandot, afterwards kept a board- 
ing house in St. Louis, at which Lane stopped, that 
waking or sleeping the ghastly form of Jenkins, cov- 
ered with blood, was ever before him. The old maxim 
says: 



CORRECTED. 33 

"It is the guilty man \vho is always afraid of his shadow." 

So John Brown, by his action after those assassi- 
nations on the Pottawatomie, ever betrayed his gnilt. 
Though, according to Sanborn, he was inspired to 
murder, yet Nemesis ever followed him in his soli- 
tude. Night or day his movements betrayed his fear 
of the avenger. Col. Jas. Blood, one of the most 
truthfid of men, told of meeting Brown and his party 
while en route to commit the assassinations on the 
Pottawatomie. Wm. A. Phillips, in an article in the 
Atlantic Monthly, pp. 738 to 744, of Dec. 1879, tells 
of a night march from Lawrence to Topeka, Jnly 3d, 
1856, and of Brown's declaration that: 

•'We should resist all who attempt to interfere with the assem- 
bling of the Topeka Legislature, and fight if necessary, even the 
United States troops.'" 

He declined to follow the public road, so his small 
command floundered through thickets and trailing 
vines, guided by stars, fording several creeks, and 
making their way as best they could through the 
rough and broken region which the traveled highway 
avoided, coming in sight of Topeka with the dawn. 
He remained, hiding in the brush, sending one of his 
men to reconnoiter. and to report when his services 
were needed to fight the United States troops under 
command of Col. Sumner. He was ever ready for 
treasons, stratagems and spoils. 

Capt. Samuel Walker, [see p. 268, Vol. 6, Kansas 
Historical Collections.] tells of finding Brown sitting 
down, his back to a tree, his rifle across his knees, 
fast asleep. Walker approached, and placed his hand 
on Brown's shoulder. "Quick as lightning,"' says 
Walker, "'he was on his feet, with his rifle at my 
breast. I struck up the muzzle of his gun not a sec- 
ond too soon, as the charge passed over my shoulder, 
burning the cloth of my coat."' 



34 FALSE CLAIMS 

On 13. 240 Sanborn's "Life and Letters," we find a 
statement by Brown himself, that is interesting in 
this connection. It is towards the close of the first 
letter the assassin wrote his family after the mur- 
ders. He had told in the course of that letter that 
his party were accused of the Pottawatomie murders, 
and of attempts to arrest him, then: 

"Since then we have, like David of old, had our dwelling with 
the serpents of the rocks and wild beasts of the wilderness; being 
obliged to hide axvay from our enemies T 

We have no information that Da^dd ever engaged 
in midnight assassination, and in consequence was 
compelled to make his residence with the "serpents of 
the rocks," hence his reference to that worthy seems 
out of place. 

Is such watchfulness characteristic of a "hero" 
who does not recognize in every movement retribu- 
tive justice? Of a truth, "The way of the trans- 
gressor is hard." 

Perhaps Kev. P. P. Fowler drew largely on his im- 
agination when he delineated in the "Jayhawker," 
published in the Herald of Freedom in the winter 
and spring of 1859, filling a page or more of the pa- 
per for some twelve weeks. Aside from fictitious 
names, the incidents therein recorded were generally 
facts as given by witnesses who attended the District 
Court, in session at Lawrence while the lengthy ar- 
ticle was being written. Rev. Fowler was a resident 
for a long time in Linn county. He knew person- 
ally the characters he described; was frequently or- 
dered out by Montgomery and other self-appointed 
agents to defend the settlements from Missouri raids, 
incited by old John Brown and others in stealing 
horses, running off slaves, and raising the Devil gen- 
erally. 

Parson Book, whose pseudonym cannot be mis- 



CORRECTED. 35 

taken, had been invited to visit the family of one of 
the characters, to renew his strength. Eook replied: 

"I must first visit Dead Man's Glen, [a locality on the Marias 
des Cvgnes where occurred the terrible massacre under Capt. 
Hamilton, May 19, 185S,] and renew there upon the bloody altar 
my spiritual strength, and my vows to consecrate myself anew to 
the humane work of the emancipation of all who wear the fetters 
of bondage.'' 

Then the author describes a Kansas sunset, so com- 
mon to that State, and so truthful to nature, no apol- 
ogy is needed for its introduction. Bead: 

''Look at that gorgeous sunset! We cannot describe it. We 
feel it is njagnificent, but we cannot embody and express that mag- 
nificence in words. We say it is grand, beautiful, sublime; but the 
words convey no meaning with such a celestial panorama before 
our eyes. See that cloud yonder, looking like the golden shore of 
some far oil" realm of beauty. Those other clouds rolling upward 
and onward, tinged with tlie variegated hues of the rainbow, roll- 
ing on sublimely, now assuming the shape of pyramids, now float- 
ing islands, now huge and jagged mountains, with their summits 
bathed in eternal light, while capacious, shaded, dark-mouthed 
caverns are yawning at their bases. Between those clouds is the 
sky — rich, gorgeous, magnificent — tinged, as it is, with golden and 
Vermillion hues, burnished and glittering in the sun! It is more. 
It is beautiful, grand, sublime, gorgeous, as if the richest concep- 
tion of Heaven's ideality had been la\i8hed upon it; and thus the 
monarch of the day retires, surrounded by this immortal tracery, 
gathering around him his night-robe studded with imperishable 
brilliants, and rests gracefully, gorgeously upon his couch. 

"We will sit here on the summit of this high blulV, enjoy the 
magnificent prospect, feel the cool, invigorating freshness of the 
air, and watch the fading twilight and the lofty bearing of old 
Night as he arrays himself in his starry vesture, puts on his crown 
of brilliants and sits down on his ebon throne. How calm, how- 
peaceful is the hour!" 

And then, last paragraph, first page of the Herald 
of Freedom, of April 30, 1859, and concluded on dth 
page: 

"That depression there in the surface of the landscape, is Dead 
Man's Glen. See! two horsemen approach the dreadful place, 
one of them points to the spot where the victims fell, turns and 
rides away. The other, an old man, tall, of slender frame, and 
wearing a long, heavy, fiowing beard, dismounts, fastens his horse 
to a bush, advances, and stands upon the very soil that was so 
recently wet with human gore. What sad, strange, wild, dark 
thoughts possess his mind. He gazes intently on the spot where 



36 FALSE CLAIMS 

Stilwell fell, where Campbell -wallowed, writhing and agonizing 
in his blood; where the eyes of Colpetzer, Ross and Robertson 
closed forever vipon the joys and sorrows, the toils and triumphs 
of mortal life. He gazes long and intently. Night is shrouding 
him in its dark drapery, but he heeds it not. He stands as if 
spell-bound, and gazes on that fatal spot. 

"How changed the sky. Dark clouds roll onward and overcast 
the circling horizon. Hideous darkness shuts out and shrouds all 
mortal vision. And still that old man stirs not, but gazes, peers 
in the direction of that dreadlui place. Tremulous, voiceless he 
stands, wrapped in the folds of that blackness. He heeds, he 
sees it not. His eyes are fixed in their gaze; his mind is on the 
dead! And thus the old man stands there, solitary, gazing, pon- 
dering, voiceless, motionless. What wild, dark thoughts possess 
his mind.^ Does he meditate purposes of direful, dreadful re- 
venge.'' Does he pledge himself anew upon the bloody altar 
where the innocent have been immolated, to renewed eifbrts in 
behalf of oppressed and suflering humanity.'' We know not. We 
only know that wrapped in the shroud of that starless, ray less 
blackness he stands, mindless of the world around him, gazing, 
pondering, voiceless, spell-bound, on that fatal spot. 

"Look! A solitary, luminous spark appears before the vision of 
that old man as he stands thus gazing, pondering, silent, uncon- 
scious of the world around him. That luminous spark is directly 
before his eyes, and seems suspended and slightly tremulous in 
the surrounding blackness. What a strange, startling contrast! 
We cannot turn our eyes from that luminous spark, so strangely 
suspended upon this black shroud of night. How strange, how 
unearthly that spark of clear, pure, white light. See! O God, it 
moves, it enlarges; how clear, how pure, how wonderful ! We 
look, we gaze; we cannot turn our eyes from that luminous, that 
unsubstantial spark, suspended in the darkness. 

"The old man gazes upon it — ponders, wonders. How strange 
— it still enlarges, expands, intensifies, glows, and he stands gazing, 
wondering, pondering, speechless. Still it glows, expands. Great 
God! It has assumed a human form — that luminous spark — and 
stands there clear, pure, bright, glowing, spiritual, inelTable. 

"The old man with the flowing beard gazes, ponders, wonders. 
A sudden impulse moves his mind, and with solemn awe he 
speaks: 'Thank God, it has come to strengthen, encourage, 
counsel!' 

"There is a voice in the surroimding blackness. Whence it 
comes is unknown; but it is clear, distinct, soft, sweet as the voice 
of seraphim. 'Ah, you shall have counsel.' And still the old 
man gazes, ponders, wonders, as he stands surrounded by that 
blackness, and that clear, pure, spiritual body of ineflable light, 
with hiunan form and lineaments which stands before him. From 
the hips upward, we behold the body, the arms, the hands, the 
neck, head, face, glowing eyes and bloodless lips. And thus it 
stands, a human form of clear, pure, inelTable, spiritual light. 



CORBECTED. 37 

•'The eyes of the old man droop for a moment toward the 
ground. 

"See! The lips of that clear spiritual essence move. It speaks. 
Hark! 

'•'Rook, look on me!' He raises his eyes in hope. Horror, 
what a change! That pure, glowing, spiritual body is mutilated, 
bloody. Almighty God, how strange, how terrible! His skull is 
cleft. There is a gash in his throat, another in his side, and the 
hot blood spouts, oozes, trickles down, and horribly stains, ob- 
scures that pure, glowing, spiritual form. 

'"Rook, look on me! Do you know me.'" repeats the strange, 
unearthly voice. The horror-stricken old man is speechless, 
voiceless. His eyes seem bursting from their sockets; his hands 
are thrust forward, as if to repel the horrid vision, and his whole 
frame vibrates and quivers with terror. 

"'Rook, you have forgotten Wilkinson, slain one dark, early 
Saturday morning on Pottawatomie creek! You have forgotten 
the sick wife you made a widow, and the children you made 
fatherless!' 

"Mute with horror, the old man gazes, ponders, still upon that 
appalling, fearful vision. 

"Look! by the side of that bloody specter, "only a yard from its 
side; see another luminous spark. It is exactly like the first, 
clear, pure, white, spiritual. It glows, enlarges, expands, undu- 
lates and assumes a human form like the first. Now it trans- 
forms, and appears like the other, and it, too, is stained with 
blood. Hideous to behold! His skull is cleft in two places. 
There is a hole in his breast; his left hand is nearly cut off, and 
hangs dangling by a little piece of skin. Now these bloodv, 
ghastly gaping wounds, essay to speak. 

* 'Rook, look on me ! Do you remember Sherman, murdered 
on a dark Saturday morning on Pottawatomie creek.^' 

"Still that old man stands there gazing, more deeply horror 
stricken, yet mute, moveless. Wonder upon wonder, horror upon 
horror! See! In a line with these ghastly, bloody forms, are 
three luminous sparks, exactly like the first in appearance. They 
seem at first quiescent and suspended mysteriously in the shroud- 
ing blackness. Now they enlarge, expand, undulate, and assume 
human forms like the others. First pure, clear, spiritual, ineffable 
light, yet emitting no ray beyond the outlines of their forms, and 
now they are transformed like the others. The frightful wounds 
gape hideously. The hot blood spouts, trickles down, stains, 
obscures, and hides the approaching morning splendor. 

"See! One is an old man, a carpenter by trade. There is a hole 
in his forehead, a deep, wide gash in his breast. At his right 
hand stands another. He seems young. His head is cleft. There 
is a hole in his jaw, and another in his side. 

"At his right hand stands another form. - He seems to be also 
young, and to bear a resemblance to the specters on his left. His 
head is cleft. There is a hole in his breast. His fingers and arms 



38 FALSE CLAIMS 

are cut off. The gaping, bloody wounds of the aged specter have 
found a tongue: 

•' 'Rook, look on us. Have you forgotten Doyle and his two 
sons, slain, mutilated, on the early morning of Mav 24th, 1856, 
near Pottawatomie creek.-*' 

"And there these strange, hideous specters stand, ranged in a 
line before the old man's vision, while he, crushed by the weight 
of accumulated horror, stands mute, moveless. There is a move- 
ment. The flowing beard vibrates. The old man speaks: 

" 'Yes, I do remember, but my hand was not upon you.' 

" 'But you were the leader of that band of midnight assassins. 
They acted upon your orders. You sanctioned their bloody 
deed ,even if you did not strike the deadly blows. What have you 
to say?' 

*'The old man replies: 'I had seen the troubles in the territorv, 
the murder of Dow, Barber and R. P. Brown. Citi.zens were 
imprisoned unjustly, charged with treason, a thriving town had 
just been sacked, printing offices destroyed, houses burned, while 
squads of guerillas swarmed and plundered everywhere. I was 
maddened, wild, insane with excitement.' 

*"But, Rook, where, and for what purpose, go you now.^ Is it 
philanthropy or revenge, that moves you onward in your precon- 
certed course!*' 

"'It is both; philanthropy toward the oppressed; revenge which 
struck a son of mine from existence, and left him in the highway 
a ghastly, bloody corse.' 

" 'Rook, was not that unjust and bloody deed induced by the 
Pottawatomie massacre, in which that son was engaged, with 
yourself and several of his brothers, when the five forms, now 
here, were taken from their homes and families, and butchered and 
mutilated.^' 

"The old man was silent and moveless. 

" 'Rook, look once more upon us. We counsel you. Ah, you 
shall have counsel. Call not the shedding of blood philanthropy. 
Mistake not the spirit of revenge for the promptings of duty. Ah, 
we counsel you: He who smites shall be smitten. The 

SWORD SHALL NOT DEVOUR FOREVER. Be WARNED ! Be 

wise! Beware! We say no more.'* 

"All is silent. The old man gazes, mute, motionless, while those 
forms stand ranged thus impressively before him. 

"See! There is a change. The gaping, speaking wounds are 
closed. The blood has disappeared. They shine again with 
starry lustre, pure, white, glowing, spiritual, ineffable. 

"Look! There is an undulating motion, gentle, silent. The 
human forms to our senses are dissolved. They are now in shape 
irregular and changing. They contract, grow smaller and smaller, 

*This was written more than six months before Brown's descent on Vir- 
ginia, and was published April 30, 1859, in the Herald of Freedom. Was it 
not prophecy? 



CORRECTED. 39 

soon are merely sparks of clear, starry light. Now they are 
gone. 

"We look around. The clouds have passed away. The stars 
are visible. Now sweet morning uncloses her eyelids, and sends 
a warm, rich glow over the Eastern horizon. 

"The old man lies on the ground, stiffened in the night air, and 
covered with dew. Is he dead.'' We will bend down softly and 
see. He lives, he breathes, he is sleeping. He moans, starts, 
wakes, rises; he yawns, stretches, brushes the dimness from his 
eyes, strokes his long, flowing beard, tinged with gray, speaks: 
*What a dreadful night! What a horrible dream.?' He un- 
fastens his waiting steed, mounts, and moves away; and now is 
lost to sight in the undulating bosom of the broad prairie!" 

Mr. Fowler did not draw on his imagination for a 
description of the wounds inflicted on those victims 
of John Brown's insane anger, somewhere near the 
hour of midnight, between Friday and Saturday, May 
23d and 24:th, 1856. On the contrary he gave the al- 
most exact language of the witnesses who were exam- 
ined by one of the members of the Special Congres- 
sional Committee then in Kansas. [See affidavits of 
Mahala Doyle, John Doyle, James Harris and Louise 
J. Wilkinson, pages 1193 to 1199 of said volume.] 
The facts contained in those official affidavits, though 
strenuously denied by John Brown and his friends, 
are now as well established as any other events in the 
history of Kansas. And F. B. Sanborn, the eulogist 
of John Brown, professedly his biographer, declared 
p. 248 of his book: "On that midnight raid [and of 
slaughter, he should have added] hinged the future 
of Kansas and the destinies of the whole country." 
And Mr. Connelley attempted to give force to that 
claim by militating against the services of Eli 
Thayer in his labors and sacrifices to make Kansas 
free. 

This revelation of those Pottawatomie assassina- 
tions, from the pen of Mr. Fowler, and the murder 
of a woman on the Neosho, of which we gave an ac- 
count many pages back, unquestionably prompted the 



40 FALSE CLAIMS 

remark quoted by Sanborn, and repeated by Connel- 
ley with great glee: "The Herald of Freedom is one 
of the most mischievous and traitorous publications 
of the whole country." It took no stock in John 
Brown after he introduced assassination inta the pol- 
itics of Kansas, and it dropped Jim Lane from its 
list of saints when he proposed the massacre of the 
entire members of the Leoompton Constitutional 
Convention; not because we had any sympathy for 
that proposed Constitutional movement, or for those 
who had usurped the territorial government, but as- 
sassinations were not the weapons we proposed to 
wield to save the Central State to freedom. See a 
full account of that affair in our "Eeminiscences of 
Gov. Walker, with the True Story of the Kescue of 
Kansas from Slavery," Chapter XYI. 

It may as well be said right here that the Herald 
of Freedom, in antagonizing jayhawking, or in other 
words, stealing horses and other valuables, from pro- 
slavery men, and engaging in all sorts of violence, 
incurred the displeasure of all engaged in those rep- 
rehensible acts, and these people took their revenge 
in malignant libels on the editor. No falsehood was 
too base to charge him with. His subscription list 
was gained by a rival publisher which indorsed jay- 
hawking, and, backed by the letter- writing fraternity, 
and borrowing their lies, it discharged weekly its vol- 
ley of fabrications through its columns, until many 
good people really believed the editor was vile, con- 
firming the statement of Lord Mansfield: "Keputa^ 
tions are frequently gained without merit, and lost 
without crime." 



CORRECTED. 41 

Truth Commended. 
KCHBISHOP IRELAND, in an address at 
Minneapolis, Minn., before the National Edu- 
cational Association, on the 8th of July, 1902, 
urged on teachers the importance of Truth, and in- 
sisted that students in all schools of learning be 
taught its importance in forming character. He said 
among a great many other good things: 

"Teach your pupils the love of Truth. Extol to them its 
beauty. See that they consecrate themselves before its shrine. 
Teach them that their lives are noble and only grand when no 
falsehood hovers over them; when truth in its plenary objectivity 
is fully reproduced in their minds, and transfigured in their char- 
acters. Teach them that the Truth must be the adornment of 
their lips in speech, and their pens in writing; that the lie spoken 
or written is more baleful and inglorious than the lie ensconced 
in the mind, for it goes out to darken and pervert the mind of 
others." 

Had such teaching been accepted, and carried into 
practice by the press correspondents and their special 
friends during the pioneer days in Kansas, huge vol- 
umes, labeled "History," abounding in falsehoods 
would not have been written. 

It is an anomaly in the history of the world, to see 
the abusive and fulminating falsehoods of an enemy 
reiterated by pretended friends to their prejudice. 
Let us illustrate: 

The pro-slavery propagandists saw in the Emi- 
grant Aid Company, and its methods of peopling the 
desert plains of Kansas with a liberty-loving popula- 
tion from the free North, as their most effectual and 
deadly enemy. They exhausted their entire vocabu- 
lary of bitter invective in denouncing it and its 
methods. In all their meetings along the border the 
Company was denounced in unmeasured terms, and 
it was made the pretext for its invasions of the terri- 



42 FALSE CLAIMS 

tory. They made war on all who came from the 
North, insisting they were emissaries of that Com- 
pany, and this was made the rallying cry in Missouri 
as a stimulus for their many raids. Every crime com- 
mitted by thoughtless or insane persons was only the 
act of this Company. Drunken hordes, led by pro- 
slavery demagogues, of which the Atchisons, the 
Stringfellows, and the Doniphans were types, usurped 
the elective franchise, filled the public offices with 
their tools, and enacted a more barbarous code of laws 
than those of Draco. They even offered a reward of 
$5,000 for the head of the President of that organi- 
zation, the Hon. Eli Thayer. 

And yet, in the year of grace 1900, Wm. E. Connel- 
ley says: 

"Thayer contributed much less to the result than John Brown." 

And on p. 70: 

"The claim that the Emigrant Aid Company either peopled or 
saved Kansas is preposterous and ridiculous." 

Connelley, then, as already shown, quotes Kev. Dr. 
Cordley as authority for his opinion. Dr. Cordley 
came to Kansas in the autumn of 1857. The three 
most important years in the pioneer history had 
passed when he came there. The contest between 
freedom and slavery, so far as Kansas was concerned, 
had nearly ended. The era of blood and violence had 
closed. The Free State party was about to take pos- 
session of the territorial government, with the forms 
of law in its possession. The Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany, founded Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan and 
Osawatomie, with their large settlements on claims to 
back them,which had been the battle grounds be- 
tween the Free State and pro-slavery contestants. 
They had broadened their centers, and added all the 
appliances of an advanced civilization, that Company 
encouraging every honora!)le enterprize with its cap- 



CORRECTED. 43 

ital and confidence. Tliis was the state of affairs 
when Dr. Cordley came to occupy a Congregational 
pulpit, erected by his predecessors, a church he had 
no hand in forming. He knew nothing of the cheer 
imparted to the colonists by the agents of that Com- 
pany, and the pecuniary aid it rendered in giving em- 
ployment to the needy, in the most trying hours of 
destitution anrl distress. The writer well remembers 
the joy all folt and expressed, when the announce- 
ment was made in the Herald of Freedom, soon after 
the revival of the paper, in the autumn of 1856, after 
its long suspension of six months caused by the de- 
struction of its office, and the imprisonment of its 
editor, that the Emigrant Aid Company had deter- 
mined to rebuild its hotel. Confidence was restored 
at once. We were not to be deserted by that power- 
ful Company with its retinue of friends and abund- 
ance of capital. 

In the issue of December 13, 185G, 2d page, 5th and 
part of Gth column, under the head of "Emigrant 
Aid Company," we furnished facts which should 
silence the pens of Bev. Cordley, Wm. E. Connelley, 
and all persons of their ilk, forever. We quote: 

The Emigrant Aid Company. — During the present lull in 
the political tempest, it may not he improper to express an opin- 
ion in regard to the workings of the various organizations for the 
aid of emigrants to Kansas, and more particularly of the New 
England Emigrant Company, the oldest of them all. As one of 
the early pioneers to Kansas, and a deeply interested observer for 
months before arriving here, we feci that we have opportunities 
equal to that of any other person for arriving at a just conclusion 
of the merits of these different movements. 

Of the New England Company, we have always been an ad- 
mirer, because we believe it was based upon correct principles. It 
hired no man to come to Kansas; it furnished no man with pas- 
sage money; nor did it promise to sustain any man on his arrival. 
It merely aided those who voluntarily desired to come here by 
cheapening his passage. Here they invested capital in saw mills, 
and hotels, and formed the nucleus for a settlement of laborers. 
Every man was at liberty to go where he pleased, stop where he 



44 FALSE CLAIMS 

pleased, and pursue whatever avocation he pleased. No restraint 
has been placed upon any one. They have evidently had an eye 
to investing their money in a shape that it wiU eventually pay a 
liberal interest; and yet they have realized nothing from it, thus 
far; on the contrary, to a superficial observer, one would suppose 
only disaster had attended their investments. 

They commenced investing money in Kansas, when individuals 
Avere too cautious to do so. They have given labor to hundreds 
of persons, who, otherwise, must have left the territory. This 
money has permeated the whole country, and every settler here 
has derived advantages from it. They did not gather up the 
money in the country, and carry it out, as business men generally 
do; but they brought it here, and invested it in labor. It has 
gone, not into the pocket of the capitalist, to make him still richer, 
but it has found its way into the pockets of the destitute, in pay- 
ment for labor, to supply them with the comforts essential to their 
existence. 

When others have been doubtful, the Emigrant Aid Company 
has been hopeful. When many were giving up all as lost, the 
Aid Company commenced removing the rubbish, which was all 
that remained of their ,$30,000 investment in the shape of a hotel, 
with the view of building a finer structure than its prototype. 
When general gloom seemed to enshroud the country, they com- 
menced erecting the walls of their new structure, and by so doing, 
have inspired new life and hope throughout the territory. Said 
the people: "If we are not to be abandoned by capital, we can 
struggle on, and triumph; but take the capital away, rob us of our 
means of acquiring support by labor, and we must leave the 
country." 

We are conscious the Emigrant Aid Company has been made 
the target of every pop-gun throughout the country. The pro- 
slavery party saw that it was a powerful engine against them, be- 
cause it organized emigration, and sent it here united, instead of 
single handed. Had isolated individuals come, they could have 
been frightened away; not so however, when they came by hun- 
dreds, each relying, not only on his own right arm, but upon that 
of his neighbors whom he had known in the East, and whose 
cheek was never known to blanch with fear. 

Every instrumentality which villainy could invent has been de- 
vised and employed to bring the New England Emigrant Aid 
Company into disrepute, but it has been growing stronger 
daily in the good opinion of those who are acquainted with 
its workings, and will do so, notwithstanding the calumnies 
of those who are opposed to its principles, and who, from 
interested motives, seek its destruction. Politicians have op- 
posed it, thinking they could observe something underlying its 
movements which was of a suspicious character; but we believe 
the American Union has no stronger advocates, or more ardent 
supporters than are the members of this company. They love 
the Union, and their Kansas investment has a view to its prolon- 



CORRECTED. 45 

gation. Bj establishing justice and insuring tranquility here, 
they hope to further the ends of the national confederacy. 

The South commenced the formation of Kansas Leagues and 
Self-Defensive Associations long before the Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany was thought of. They have been foiled in their movements, 
hence their extreme sensitiveness on account of the successful op- 
erations of the New England Company. 

The Eastern pioneer has come to Kansas to settle down upon 
his claim, and with his family around him, has gone to improving 
the soil and erecting a home. He has laid the foundations of a 
future competence and is unwilling to leave it at the behests of the 
slave power. He came here self-reliant, depending upon his own 
right arm for food and shelter. Whoever looks out upon the 
thousand improved claims of the Northern pioneer, will concede 
that he has based his hopes on a proper foundation. 

The South with their Aid Societies: What have they done.'* 
They have raised almost a million ot capital in the South with the 
view of crushing out freedom here. They have hired the dissipa- 
ted sons of wealthy planters to come here and aid them in their 
work. Money has been distributed with a lavish hand to pay the 
passage of those persons, and to supply them with spirituous 
liquors while on the ground. They have been sustained at great 
expense while engaged in their marauding expeditions against the 
actual settlers. They have made no improvements upon the soil, 
nor taken up claims. Instead of a benefit to the party and the 
cause which sent them here, they have been an unmitigated curse. 
The pro-slavery party in Kansas is infinitely worse off to-day, in 
consequence of this bought-up emigration, than it would have 
been without them. They have lost in position and numbers, be- 
cause nearly every man who came here under the influence alluded 
to, has returned, and is reporting that it is preposterous to attempt 
to make Kansas a slave State. Their violence upon the Free 
State party has brought down a retaliatory movement on the 
actual pro-slavery residents, and they have felt compelled to leave 
the territory, taking their families and slaves with them, and giv- 
ing up the country to the "abolitionists," as they term all North- 
ern men. 

The Southern movement of last winter and spring, iu paying 
the passage of emigrants to Kansas, was followed by a counter 
movement in the North, which, in our opinion, has not materially 
strengthened our cause. Many good men came out in those ex- 
peditions, and have quietly settled down on claims, and will make 
valuable citizens; but there xvere some adventurers who came 
here, like the sons of the South, that they might give ve7it to their 
wild natures. They have cojujnitted excesses, and injured us. 
Like the Southern bravadoes, they have '''■strutted their brief time 
on the stage, and have passed away.'''' 

Mr. Connelley betrayed gross ignorance when he 
said on p. 53, already cited, of his "John Brown:" 

"The Emigrant Aid Company was formed to carry out the pol- 



46 FALSE CLAIMS 

icy announced by Wm. H. Seward, in the debate of the bill in the 
United States Senate." 

Mr. Connelley doubtless borrowed his false state- 
ment from Cordley, but the facts are as already 
stated. Mr. Seward caught the idea he so forcibly 
expressed, from Thayer's already organized Com- 
pany. 

rx. 

Execrate Crime. 

MERE is a quotation from p. 153 of Connelley's 
''John Brown," to which we ask attention: 

"It has been said by those more interested in exalting the 
names of his contemporaries than in preserving the truth of his- 
tory, that John Brown, without provocation, dehberately, and 
with mahce aforethought, went to the peaceful vales of the Potta- 
watomie and there took five peaceful, harmless. Christian men 
from their peaceful homes and their families, and, carrying them 
away, hewed them to pieces with broad claymores and remorse- 
lessly and fiendishly mutilated their bodies after death. If this 
were true, it would indeed be a just cause for condemnation. 
There could be nothing offered in justification, and if I believed 
that history did in any manner substantiate this charge, I would 
drop my pen here, or continue its use to execrate the diabolical 
crimc.^'' 

Whether these victims of Brown's anger were 
Christians, or even heathen, does not alter the case. 
The crime is no less for killing a heretic than the 
killing of one in the faith, and it seems puerile to add 
that feature. No court under heaven would allow 
evidence to show the victim of murder was or was not 
a Christian. The law throws its protecting shield 
alike over the saint and the sinner. Then why is it 
lugged in here? 

And again: No one, so far as we have knowledge, 
has ever contended that these men slaughtered were 
mutilated after death. John Speer, and some writers 
of his ilk, set up men of straw, that mutilation con- 
veyed the idea of injury to the body after death, but 



COEKECTED. 47 

no on one ever claimed it. Mutilate signifies to "cut, 
wound, maim, destroy any material part of an animal 
body, so as to render the creature imperfect." Good 
ethics would teach that it is more harmful to injure a 
living body than a dead one. Even James Hanway 
wrote: "I do not think the bodies were disturbed 
after they were dead,'' as if that was part of the 
offence. 

The writer w^as taught in youth that human life is 
sacred; that no one had the moral right to abridge 
that life. He grew to manhood with that teaching 
clinging to him, and now, through eighty-two years, 
more than fifty-six of them mostly spent in editorial 
writing for the press, he has always antagonized with 
his pen even capital punishment. He has often 
urged that in a country of law, where offenders can 
be made secure from further violence, the poorest use 
that can be made of a man is to kill him. 

Mr. Connelley promises to do just exactly what 
Gov. Eobinson did do. When the Governor learned 
that the men murdered were falsely maligned; that 
no messenger came into Brown's camp telling of vio- 
lence that was perpetrated four days after the assas- 
sinations; that every allegation of Brown's defenders 
was false; that Brown was present and participated in 
the killing; that he ground his broadswords many 
miles distant preparatory to the murders ; and that he 
w^as guided by the same spirit which actuated him at 
Lawrence in December of 1856, when he wanted to 
go out and fight the invaders at Franklin, and was 
only ijrevented from leading a party there by his ar- 
rest, Gov. Kobinson, like an honorable man, de- 
nounced the outrage, just as Mr. Connelley will do if 
he is faithful to his convictions; for the time will 



48 FALSE CLAIMS 

SURELY COME, // caunot be distant, when daylight 

WILL EXPOSE THAT ENTIRE TRANSACTION. 

What other character in all the history of the race 
has been compelled to disguise himself under false 
names when engaged in what his devotees declare 
"humane and heroic acts?" While operating in 
South-East Kansas, he assumed the name of Shubel 
Morgan, [pp. 473-4 San. ''Life and Letters,"] and as 
such was known by Jayhawkers everywhere — a fraud- 
ulent disguise, to conceal his real character as the 
Pottawatomie murderer. In Iowa he was known as- 
N. Hawkins, and so subscribed himself, while he was. 
waiting for and begging money to make a descent on 
the members of the Lecompton Constitutional Con- 
vention, and was getting ready for his Virginia raid. 
He directed his family to address him as N. Haw- 
kins, in a letter from Rochester, N. Y., Jan 30, '58,. 
and so he was addressed by his confidential friends. 
In Virginia he was first Isaac Smith, farmer, stock- 
buyer, miner, to disguise his movements. In his at- 
tack at Harper's Ferry he was first reported as S. C. 
Anderson, then he was Old Brown, afterwards Fight- 
ing Brown of Kansas when telling his captors who he 
was. He was John Brown, the philanthropist, when 
begging money to carry on his murderous raids, and 
when diverting means and arms sent for the relief of 
Kansas, to engage in treason and murder in Virginia. 
He may have shown himself brave under those pseu- 
donyms, but do they betray the man of truth, open 
as the day, always doing right and concealing noth- 
ing? Bather do they not partake of the characteris- 
tics of the Kansas press correspondents, who under 
nom de plumes, wrote false and calumnious articles, 
filling the Eastern press with libels about the real 
actors in the great strife, and magnifying their crim- 



CORRECTED. 49 

inal heroes into mammoth proportions, almost equal 
to the gods? 

And what other hero in all the history of the ages 
inaugurated his career of fame by midnight assassi- 
nation ? Search classic story, or sacred literature, and 
no parallel is found. David, who placed Uriah in the 
front of the fight, so he would be killed and he could 
get his wife was badly smirched by the transaction. 
Infidels are ever citing the incident, though done in 
open day, as proof that he was not inspired of God ; 
while the taking of five persons from their beds at the 
hour of midnight, and butchering them in cold blood, 
with broadswords newly ground many miles distant 
from the scene of the barbarity, specially for the 
slaughter, Mr. Sanborn insists is evidence that God 
inspired the act, and the freedom of Kansas from 
chattel slavery hinged on the event. But let us re- 
member that Frank B. Sanborn, of Concord, Massa- 
chusetts, and Richard J. Hinton, whilom of Kansas, 
and their echos wherever located, were accomplices 
before the fact, in Brown's murders, treason, and in- 
citing to rebellion in Virginia; that the fame of the 
criminal is their fame; that they gloried in the aid 
they rendered their hero, and magnified their own 
greatness by telling of his sacrifices for the freedom 
of the slave. The descent of an organized band of 
freebooters, on the peaceful valley of the Potomac, 
at Harper's Ferry, waging war on an unoffending peo- 
ple, murdering several of its inhabitants, capturing 
others, holding them as hostages for their own secu- 
rity, then burglariously breaking into a government 
arsenal, holding the guard in duress, killing one of 
them, and attempting with twenty-one men to set up 
a provisional government, backed by a few profes- 
sional press correspondents, are classed by Brown's 



50 FALSE CLAIMS 

partisans as "the grandest achievement of any age," 
entitling the commander-in-chief to immortal re- 
nown. The bnll bucking the locomotive was no- 
where, when compared with this glorious achieve- 
ment of John Brown in making an armed warfare on 
an old organized government, sustained by twenty- 
seven millions of free people. 

Bravery! It was the bravery of a maniac. The 
bravery of one bereft of reason. • Capt. Forbes, 
Brown's military instructor at Tabor, Iowa, deserted 
him when he learned of his treasonable intentions. 
John E. Cook, himself, an unreasoning fanatic, re- 
monstrated against the invasion of Virginia, as did 
Eealf and Parsons. They saw the act was suicide, 
and tried to avert the danger. Others of his follow- 
ers attempted to arrest his career of crime. Eed- 
path, whose ''Koving Editor" was published in the 
interest of a revolution against the South, passed 
into obscurity until the danger was over. Kealf , too, 
instead of fulfilling his agreement of going to Eng- 
land to raise funds to carry on Brown's war, fled 
South, and the next we know of him he had married 
there.* Hinton, who, until his recent death, was 

*I find in my Scrap Book an old newspaper clipping, without 
date, reading as follows: 

••R. Realf, one of John Brown's men at Harper's Ferry, now a 
Deputy United States Assessor, in South Carolina, had his wife 
arrested at Augusta, Georgia, last Monday, on a charge of steal- 
ing $2 2 from him; but she was released, as the Georgia authori- 
ties had no jurisdiction. His wife related of the circumstance, 
that a domestic broil had occurred between them, prompted by 
the most reprehensible affiliation of her husband with abandoned 
negro courtezans in Columbia, during his official visit to the cap- 
ital, of which he detailed the repulsive accounts to her. That 
during this disturbance he had thrown her out of doors, and she 
had resolved to throw off the burden of his yoke, and seek em- 
ployment in this city. That she gained access to their residence 
after having been ejected, and took the money aforesaid to defray 



OORRECTED. 51 

posing as one of the- "old hero's" associates, was one 
of the old man's biographers, and finally influenced 
another to take up his pen in the freebooter's de- 
fence, to malign all who did not glorify him, was 
probably in hiding; whilst Sanborn was quiet as the 
grave, to avoid arrest for being an accomplice in 
treason and murder, which, if we can trust his own 
story, he was inciting, and begging money pretend- 
edly for other purposes, then forwarding the same to 
Brown, in aid of the treasonable enterprise in Vir- 
ginia, and for which he deserved death as much as 
did his principal. Even Gerrit Smith, who donated 
funds, probably with no idea how they were to be 
used, went insane because of the act.* 

her expenses." 

So much for the cHpping. The reader may be interested in 
knowing that this "Secretary of State," of Brown's "Provisional 
Government of the United States," who was not hung at Harper's 
Ferry, after the episode with his wife in Georgia, fled to San Fran- 
cisco, and took him another wife, without the formahty of a di- 
vorce. Pursued by the friends of the injured wife, and seeing the 
penitentiary yawning before him, he suicided, Hinton, who 
claimed to be Realf's "Literary Executor," gives the false reason 
for that act, that "there was some defect in the divorce proceed- 
ings." There were no divorce proceedings, and Realf knew it, 
and he cheated the State out of its penalty for bigamy by suicide. 

*Said Geo. Alfred Townsend, very truthfully, quoted in the 
Chicago Times, in i886, under the head of "Old John Brown:" 

"Nearly every one of the same genus [with Brown] who had 
been privy to his plans retreated from the responsibility, and left 
him on the enemy's side, a deadly hostage." 

Sanborn, Hinton and Realf were distinguished examples of this 
"retreat," but they wanted the glory just the same. 



62 FALSE CLAIMS 



An Insane Hero. 

BUT "WA.S John Brown really insane? His acts 
prove it, did we lack all other evidence. Col. 
Blood.^who met the assassin and his associates on 
their way to the Pottawatomie slaughter, declared his 
conversation, appearance and movements all be- 
tokened an insane person. The Colonel went out to 
Kansas with the first New England party, and aided 
in selecting the town site of Lawrence. He was a mem- 
ber of the^ Committee of Public Safety in 1855, was 
elected the^first mayor of Lawrence by the free sufirages 
of the people, and was esteemed a gentleman of un- 
questioned^integrity by everybody, until the "histo- 
rian," Connelley, classed him as "unreliable author- 
ity." Brown, involving South-Eastern Kansas in civil 
war, after the territorial government and all the county 
offices had passed into Free State hands, his object, 
as given by himself, not to aid in making Kansas 
free, for that end was already attained, the bogus 
statutes having been all repealed and burned; but it 
was to divert attention from his grander scheme of a 
war on Virginia. This certainly betokened insanity. 
The secrecy of his movements, and constant vigils. 
at all hours, sleeping or wakiug, wary of danger, are 
traits peculiar to the lunatic, the intellect being 
quickened by irritation of the brain and spinal col- 
umn, and all pointing to a diseased mind as their 
primal cause. 

Insanity was a family trait with the Browns. In a 
letter from Old John, dated June. 1856, addressed to 
his family, and published on pp. 236-7 of Sanborn's 
**Life and Letters of John Brown,"' he says: 

"John [Jr.] tried to hide for several days; but from feelings of 



CORBECTED. 53 

the ungrateful conduct of those who ought to have stood by him 
excessive fatigue, anxiety and constant loss of sleep, he became 

qjLITE INSANE." 

He should have added, ''and the horror that swept 
over him when he learned that his father and broth- 
ers had become midnight assassins." 

He remained insane, with lucid intervals, while a 
prisoner, not under indictment for high treason as he 
and his friends wished it to appear, and as those al- 
lege who wrote in his interest, but as a suspect of the 
murders] of which his father and brothers were 
guilty. 

Among the papers written by Old John Brown, and 
found at his home in Xorth Elba, X. Y., published 
by Sanborn in his "Life and Letters," p. 202, is this 
statement by the father, in regard to his son Fred- 
erick: 

•'And Frederick, though a very stout man. was subject to period- 
ical sickness for many years, attended with insanity. It has 
been stated that he was idiotic; nothing could be more false. He 
had subjected himself to a most dreadful surgical operation but 
a short time before starting for Kansas." 

Self-emasculated I 

But let us ascend the family tree, and see what we 
find there. On the 27th of October, 1859, during the 
trial of John Brown for treason, murder and conspi- 
racy, one of his attorneys, Lawson Botts, read the fol- 
lowing dispatch: 

'•Akron, Ohio, Oct. 26, 1859. 
"To C. J. Faulkner and Lawson Botts: — ^John Brown, 
leader of the insurrection at Harper's Ferry, and several of his 
family, have resided in this county many years. Insanity is 
hereditary in that family. His mother's sister died with it, 
and a daughter of that sister has been two years in a lunatic asy- 
lum. A son and daughter of his mother's brother have also been 
confined in the lunatie asylum, and another son of that brother is 
now insane, and under close restraint. These tacts can be conclu- 
sivelv proven by witnesses residing here, who will doubtless at- 
tend"the trial if desired. ^ A.H.LEWIS.'* 

Wm. C. Allen, telegraphic operator at the Akron 



64 FALSE CLAIMS 

office, added, "A. H. Lewis is a resident of this place, 
and his statements are entitled te implicit credit." 

Brown, in jail, when consulted on the subject, said: 
"On my mother's side there have been repeated in- 
stances of lunacy. Some portions of the statement 
I know to be correct."* [See Thomas Drew's "John 
Brown's Invasion; an Authentic History of the Har- 
per's Ferry Tragedy," pp. 27-8. 

Brown's attorneys knew that the "insanity dodge" 
had been played for all it was worth; that juries had 
long since reached the conclusion that a person who 
knows enough to murder knows enough to hang for 
it; and as John Brown was posing for a martyr's 
crown and for posthumous fame, it was idle to place 
a hero's halo on the brow of a lunatic, so they went 
into court and tried the case on its merits, and Brown 
was hung for it, and sensible i^eople, who were not 
aiders and abettors, said, "He deserved it." 

Said a leading newspaper editorial recently : 

"AH that is necessary to escape punishment for crime is to make 
the offence so brutal and atrocious as to defy rivalry; then sym- 
pathy is aroused for the offender; justice laughs at the enormity 
of the offense, the women gather around hin on his trial, bedeck 
him with flowers; jurors partake of the contagion, and in spite of 
law, evidence, or instruction of courts, a verdict of 'not guilty" is 
rendered, and the prisoner, whose hands are dripping with blood, 
is set free to repeat his crimes." 

In Virginia there was no such maudlin sympathy 
for John Brown. It was limited to the North, and 
gained expression from those who had encouraged 
disregard of Constitutional rights, and disrespect of 
law. The leaders of that sympathy were privy to 
Brown's folly and crimes, and were ad"v4sory to the 
insane project, of which Frank B. Sanborn, then a 



♦Physiologists tell us "Sons are more liable to inherit the dis- 
eases and idiosyncrasies of the mother than the father." 



CORRECTED. ' 55 

young man of some 25, was probably the deepest in 
the mire. 

Keep in mind all the time, good reader, that Frank 
B. Sanborn credits this John Brown, insane as were 
all his acts, with making Kansas free ; that he claims 
the result hinged on the Pottawatomie murders; that 
the sacrifices of those who went to Kansas a year in 
advance of Brown, and lost everything but honor, 
counted as nothing in the scale; that though Eli 
Thayer gave three years of laborious toil to the 
work, traveled more than 60,000 miles at his o^vn 
expense, made more than a thousand speeches in be- 
half of the freedom of Kansas, turned the tide of 
emigration in that direction, sacrificed a fortune in 
the movement, yet, according to Mr. Connelley, this 
insane man, this criminal whose acts were so prejudi- 
cial to the cause that the people of ail parties de- 
nounced them and begged him to leave the territory, 
which he did, taking with him the arms and means 
of defense sent to his care, to stay the hand of 
ruffianism, which arms he transported with money 
sent to aid Kansas, to Virginia to aid in a negro 
revolt in that State, which revolt never materialized 
nor had any existence save in Brown's crazy brain, did 
more for the cause of Free Kansas than Eli Thayer. 

The old man had a very forcible way of expressing 
his bitterness against all who did not approve of his 
actions, hence the people of Lawrence who were un- 
willing to incur the crime of treason, the Herald of 
Freedom and its editor for denouncing his murders 
and jayhawking, otherwise thieving habits, came in 
for a full share of his invective, as did the people of 
Osawatomie for condemning his midnight assassina- 
tions. Redpath, in his ''Life of Capt. Brown,"' p. 
191, tells of an incident in Ohio, described by a gen- 



56 FALSE CLAIMS 

tleman traveling with Brown in the cars during the 
summer of 1857, between Cleveland and Columbus. 
The writer says he sought to gain information from 
Brown as to the advantages of wool-growing in Kan- 
sas. Brown changed the subject to slavery. The 
correspondent expressed some views antagonistic to 
Brown's, when the latter "rose to his feet with 
clinched fist, eyes rolling like an insane man — as he 
most assuredly was — and remarked that the South 
would become free within one year were it not there 
were too many such scoundrels as myself to rivet 
the chains of slavery." 

The insane man cannot brook opposition. Always 
agree with him, good reader, if you don't want your 
head broken. 



XI. 

The Journalist and the Historian. 
^T PKOMINENT Kepublican journalist, formerly 
yfel a well known government official at Washing- 
ton, lately wrote a friend as follows: 

"It is a clear proposition that the policy of avoid- 
ing an open conflict with the United States authori- 
ties during the Buchanan administration, was the 
true one for the Free State people of Kansas to pur- 
sue; and yet it was not the policy of John Brown and 
James H. Lane. John Brown was simply an anti- 
slavery anarchist, and it was because of the feelings 
engendered by the civil war that he became the em- 
bodiment of radical anti-slavery sentiment, and has 
been lauded so much by Sanborn and others. 

"None of the present generation care what San- 
born, Higginson or Hinton have written. No one 
will write a history of Kansas from their standpoint, 
or refer to them as authority." 

The name of the writer, which would carry so much 



COREECTED. 57 

weight with it, is only withheld because we have not 
his consent for its publication. 

Prof. John W. Burgess, Ph.D., LL.D., of Columbia 
University, N. Y., and Dean of the Faculty of Polit- 
ical Science, in "The American History Series," pub- 
lished by the Scribners, in the volume devoted to 
"The Middle Period, from 1817 to 1858," pp. 473-4, 
voices what the future historian will say of John 
Brown. It is becoming the sentiment of educated 
and thinking people everywhere. We commend his 
words to the careful consideration of all who have la- 
bored to make midnight assassination a patriotic act. 
We quote: 

"The thrusting of a bogus Legislature upon Kan- 
sas was a political outrage of the first degree, and it 
would have justified rebellion against the execution 
of the enactments of that body. But it does not ex- 
cuse, or even palliate, the criminal atrocities inaugu- 
rated by John Brown, at Dutch Henry's Crossing [of 
the Pottawatomie,] and the wild reign of murder and 
robbery which followed in their train. All this was 
common crime of the blackest and most villainous 
sort, and the men who engaged in it were cutthroats 
and highwaymen, who took advantage of the confu- 
sion in Kansas to prosecute their nefarious work. 

"It is often said that the civil war began in Kansas, 
and simply spread from there over the country. It 
is true violence began there, and in its degeneration 
into savagery developed those devilish dispositions 
that carried murder and robbery into Virginia, and 
thereby helped mightily to create that intensely hos- 
tile feeling between the North and South which re- 
sulted in Civil War; but we affront good morals and 
common sense when we dignify those atrocities by 
the title of war; and we obliterate moral distinctions 
when we attempt to justify them by the end which 
their authors professed to have in view, the extermi- 
nation of African slavery throughout the country. 



68 FAiSE CLAIMS 

Such deeds are not means to anything except the es- 
tablishment of the reign of hell on earth. And the 
maudlin adoration sometimes accorded their doers is 
evidence of an unbalanced moral sense. It is a 
source of congratulation that the juristic sense of the 
last decades of the nineteenth century refuses to 
place the crank who kills or robs for what he consid- 
ers, or professes to consider, the welfare of society 
under any other class than that of the most danger- 
ous criminals. It remains for the ethical sense of 
the twentieth century to sweep the hero-worship, too 
often accorded such characters, out of the world's lit- 
erature." 



XII. 

A Great Error. 
ANY suppose the War of the Eebellion was en- 
tWdi gaged in to carry out the plan of forcible 
emancipation projected by John Brown. This 
is wholly in disregard of truth. The Eepublican 
party, in its platform of principles following the 
John Brown raids into Missouri, and, later, into Vir- 
ginia, convened in National Convention at Chicago, 
May 16, 1860, less than six months after Brown's ex- 
ecution, climaxed by the nomination of Abraham Lin- 
coln for the Presidency, declared in the 4th section of 
its platform : 

"We denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil 
of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as 
among THE GRAVEST OF CRIMES." 

The afterwards-martyred President Lincoln, less 
than three months after the execution of Old John 
Brown and his associate "gravest of criminals," which 
a class of men through all these subsequent years 
have been laboring to glorify, in his admirable speech 
at the Cooper Institute, New York, February 27 



CORBECTED. 59 

I860) less than three months before his nomination 
for the Presidency, said: 

"John Brown's effort [at insurrection] was pecu- 
liar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an at- 
tempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, 
in which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it 
was so absurd that the slaves, with all their igno- 
rance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That 
affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with many at- 
tempts related in history, at the assassination of 
Kings and Emperors. An enthusiast broods over the 
oppression of a people till he fancies himself com- 
missioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures 
the attempt, which ends in little else than in his own 
execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and 
John Brown's attenapt at Harper's Ferry, were, in 
their philosophy, precisely the same." 

When Mr. Lincoln issued his emancipation procla- 
mation, it was not in furtherance of Brown's libera- 
tion scheme, but because the slaves were "contraband 
of war." The negro was an element of strength to 
the Confederates, by reason of his availability as a 
producer of munitions of war, and a soldier for ac- 
tive service, therefore his emancipation. 

Following so closely on Brown's raid into Vir- 
ginia, and misled by the John Brown song, sung on 
the march and around camp fires, an adaptation of 
one long in use, "The Battle Hymn of the Re- 
public," designed more to annoy and vex the South 
than to declare a principle, or be true in fact, 
the young and thoughtless of that period, and the 
new generation which followed, supposed the war 
was waged solely to crush the institution which 
caused the South to revolt; whereas it was to pre- 
serve the Union intact which the slaveholders and 
John Brown labored to destroy; the one to perpetu- 
ate slavery, the other to crush it. 



60 FALSE CLAIMS 

What purported to be an Associated Press dis- 
patch appeared in some of the newspapers, possibly 
in all, in April, 1893, saying: "An aerolite recently 
fell from heaven, struck an arm of the statue of John 
Brown, at Osawatomie, and broke it from the body." 
We have made diligent inquiry, but can find no mu- 
tilated statue, and, in fact, no statue at all, of the so- 
called "hero." The story was doubtless mythical; 
though Hinton, p. 91 "John Brown and His Men," 
mentions a statue. It seems more i^robable Infinite 
Justice would dejDort itself in such a manner, and 
destroy a work of art made to do honor to a mur- 
derer, yes, a midnight assassin, than to inspire that 
assassin to creep stealthily into the home of peace- 
ful sleepers, and slaughter them as butchers slaughter 
beeves! No appeals for justice, no cries for mercy, 
no moans of a sick wife asking for pity, were listened 
to; but the hot blood spirting from many a wound 
like that of stuck swine soon closed the agony of the 
dying, while the murderers passed on, says Sanborn, 
"inspired of God" to consummate other "executions." 
Jim Lane, thanks for your long, bony finger point- 
ing heavenward, and the exclamation, "GEE AT 
GOD!" It should circle the globe in a continuous 
lament, and sound forever in the ears of those who 
indorse, or even apologize for such damnable deeds! 

Every midnight assassin, and every heartless 
wretch who has dyed his hands in human gore since 
"the stars first sang together," can approach the 
throne of the Eternal, and tell its occupant that he 
was inspired to slay his victim, and expects approba- 
tion therefor, with as much grace as can Frank B. 
Sanborn and his coterie of blatant and blasphemous 
associate eulogists demand applause for their bloody- 
handed hero. The author of "The Life and Letters 



CORRECTED. 61 

of John Brown" must have supposed his readers were 
idiots or lunatics when he attempted to shift the re- 
sponsibility for midnight assassination from his hero 
to the Great God himself. 

Connelley, in a note to his "John Brown," pp. 
144-5, says: "G. W. Brown's Keminiscences of Old 
John Brown, published in 1880, is one of the most 
unfair and malicious in spirit ever written." 

The pamphlet was made up from the columns of 
one of the several Eepublican newspapers in which 
the matter appeared as a serial, requiring some six 
months for its entire publication. Its "malicious- 
ness" consisted in proving John Brown not only ap- 
proved, as he claimed, but absolutely led the parties, 
and fired the first shot, killing the older Doyle. No 
vituperation or abuse was indulged in. Several prom- 
inent Eepublican journals almost censured us for not 
presenting this prince of bandits in his true colors. 
The Boston Journal said, in its review: 

"Dr. Brown does not directly state that Captain John Brown 
led the party [of assassins] but he proves it! 'I will not call 
him a liar,' once said a noted man of another, 'I will prove him 
one!' Dr. Brown effectually takes this course." 

Said the Journal of Khode Island: 

"It is difficult to understand how the writer, who must realize 
so forcibly the truth he presents, could refrain from bitterest in- 
vective against the execrable character he has so faithfully delin- 
eated." 

On p. 17 of that pamphlet, we said: 

"Before the evidence is finally closed. Brown's friends will with- 
draw their attempt to prove an alibi^ and rely u'^on justify in gy 
else set np the plea of insanity.'''' 

When the evidence of guilt was so overwhelming 
that lying availed no longer, then, as we long before 
suggested, Sanborn sprung his new defence on the 
public, and maintained the murderer was commis- 
ioned by God, the Supreme Euler of the universe, to 



62 FALSE CLAIMS 

slaughter those men. We admit we stood aghast at 
such a blasphemous assertion. We supposed the 
Christian world would revolt at the horrible assump- 
tion; instead many of the clergy accepted the state- 
ment as truth, and added another saint to their calen- 
dar. We hope it was not because, as an eye witness, 
a Free State prisoner in their hands, reported: "The 
next morning after the butchery, sitting down to a 
camp breakfast, the old man raised his hands to 
Heaven, to ask a blessing; ihey were stained with the 
dried blood of his victims.'''^ Brown was ever quot- 
ing Paul: ** Without the shedding of blood there is no 
remission," and in that act he was executing the Di- 
vine will, else Sanborn lied. Which? We take it 
Mr. S. belongs to that school of Comeonters, which 
rejected the church and its teachings because, as they 
alleged, it was in "league with death and a covenant 
with hell" in sustaining slavery. The writer hated 
the institution of slavery no less than they, and sacri- 
ficed the best years of his life, a prosperous business, 
and the companionship of devoted friends, to prevent 
its extension; but he never enc(3uraged murder, nor a 
war on the government, nor repudiated his religious 
faith, nor charged God with inspiring assassination, 
because of it. 



XIII. 

A Word Picture for the Painter's Brushy 
N ALL the history of what is termed "civilized 
warfare," a very incongruous expression at best, 
— it is questionable if a parallel can be found to this 
savage butchery. The only approach to it was dur- 

*See Sanborn's "Life and Letters of John Brown," p. 270 n. 



CORRECTED. 63 

ing the War of the Eevolution, when on June 30, 
1778, tories and Indians, under the command of Col. 
John Butler, made an armed descent on Wyoming 
Valley, a fertile region on the Susquehanna, in Lu- 
zerne county, Pennsylvania. The Indians, turned 
loose, fell upon the adult male population, and massa- 
cred every one of them; then they burned the houses, 
leaving the widows and orphans without food or 
shelter. Curses deep and lasting have been heaped 
on the execrable wretches guilty of those diabolical 
and inhuman barbarities during all the subsequent 
years. 

Shall he who led in this midnight slaughter on the 
Pottawatomie; who took unarmed men and boys, in a 
time of peace, slumbering in beds in their own quiet 
homes, out into the darkness of night, then cut, 
slashed and stabbed them with heavy broadswords, 
leaving their mutilated bodies where they had fallen, 
brains oozing from their cleft skulls, and blood pour- 
ing in deathly torrents from many ghastly wounds, 
be immortalized in story and song, credited, because 
of the act, with holding a commission from Heaven 
to perpetrate the savage brutality, and be classed as 
the liberator of a great people laboring to free them- 
selves by peaceful means from the chains of slavery? 

Great God, No! Brown's worshipers have idolized 
him already too long, in a foolish attempt to magnify 
their own importance as his associates, and indorsers 
of his many crimes; but his name and theirs will be 
universally execrated so soon as the real facts sur- 
rounding this murderous raid shall be fully known to 
a thinking world. 

The writer was recently invited, in the interest of a 
young painter now touring Europe to perfect himself 
in his vocation, by visiting and critically examining 



64 FALSE CLAIMS 

the works of the great masters, preserved and exhib- 
ited in the National Galleries of art, to name some 
event or incident in the pioneer history of his natal 
State, worthy of perpetuation by his skill and brush. 
It is probably needless to write,it will not be a pic- 
ture of a body of "cutthroats," — ^setting an example 
for Capt. Hamilton, Jesse Jamos and Wm. (Juantrell, 
to imitate in many respects a little latiT, — covertly 
entering the Pottawatomie Valley at midnight, forc- 
ing their way into the pioneer cabin of a humble car- 
penter, taking him and his two sons, mere boys, out 
into the darkness, shooting the father in the forehead ^ 
and slashing him with swords, then falling on the 
frightened youths, thrusting, cutting, slashing and 
mutilating them in a merciless manner, leaving them 
dead where they had fallen, the warm blood gushing 
from severed arteries and veins, forming great clotted 
pools all around them. The picture, if truthful to 
facts, would be too black, ghastly and devilish to at- 
tract the attention of the lovers of art anywhere, or 
in any age, unless among brutal savages. Dante's In- 
ferno would not ecpial it in barbaric horror. The 
other murders in the immediate vicinity on the same 
night added to the picture could scarcely aggravate 
its loathsomeness. 

While penning these pages a letter from that tour- 
ing artist, dated Madrid, Spain, came to hand. He 
had just finished reading our recent "Keminiscences 
of Gov. AValker," sent him by a friend, with the 
"True Story of the Kescue of Kansas from Slavery," 
so he wrote ; 

"The Voting Policy in those times seems to me eminently 
reasonable. As a painter I mis^ht feel inclined to think the ex- 
treme radicalism, in its various manilcstations, was more pictur- 
esque, yet as a man of common sense, with the wisdom of after 
events, I uphold the soundness of the peaceful method employed 
for making- Kansas free." 



CORRECTED. 65 

So the artistic judgment of the painter would 
agree with us in not selecting this tragic scene on the 
Pottawatomie as a worthy su}>ject for liis pencil. 
Then we suggest for Ijis ccjnsideration the following: 

A grouf) of the minor Latin deities, with Knowl- 
edge, showering intelligent^e on the youth of his na- 
tal States; while tlie genius of Hemgion is teaching 
them to do as they would Ixi done by; and the g(;niu8 
of Truth is instructing th(3m not to bear false wit- 
ness, or record a lie, passing it for history; and the 
genius of Yir'J ue inculcates that ]jure lives are not 
gained by wallowing in blood; while the genius of 
Fame, with a nimbus of glory, in a new role, carries 
aloft an escutcheon, emblazoned in living light, bear- 
ing, Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men! At the 
same time zig-zag flashes of lightning appear in the 
clouds, and through a rift, dropped by the hand of 
Omnipotence, is seen an op(3n scroll, bearing in letters 
of living flame the command: THOU SHALT NOT 
KILL! Far back in the distance may appc^ar in dim 
perspective a group of Bashi-Bazouks, each armed 
with broad navy swords, freshly ground, with muzzle- 
loading muskets, and belts filled with daggers and 
voltaic repeaters, reclining on the grass at their morn- 
ing meal, the hands of the leader ui>lift(id to hf^aven 
covered with dried blood, asking blessings on their 
last night's labor; while indistinctly, still mor(i dis- 
tant in the background, representing starlight only, 
appear the midnight marauders, cutting, slashing, 
stabbing their victims. If not overburdening the 
picture, in one corner may appear a group, consisting 
of Richard J. Hinton and Wm. E. Connelley, fulmi- 
nating lies to tlie glory of the Bashi-Bazouks, with 
Farnk B. Sanborn j^roclaiming: "They are inspired 
by God U) kill, and on that killing hinges the freedom 
of Kansas and the whole country." 



66 FALSE CLAIMS 

What the Browns Said About the Murders. 
E WHO has access to the diflPerent statements of 
the Brown family, as published from time to 
time in the public press, and will read with care their 
accounts of the Pottawatomie assassinations, and 
events leading to them, will detect the frauds of the 
apologists for those crimes. Jason Brown, the sec- 
ond son of Old John, in the Akron Beacon, of Jan 21, 
1880, said, among other things: 

"I cannot dispute any of Mr, Townsley's statements, except 
some unimportant, and I have no doubt unintentional, mistakes 
on his part. All he said of us up to the time they [the assassins] 
left our camp near Ottawa Creek, is true, everj^ word of it, ac- 
cording to the best of my remembrance." — See John Brown Scrap 
Book, Vol. I, p. 119. 

After detailing the movements of John, Jr.'s com- 
pany, and other matters, Jason continues: 

"On our waj' [to Liberty Hill] a man made up to us from the 
South, sajing five pro-slavery men had been killed on the*Potta- 
watomie Creek, and horribly cut and mutilated, and that Old John 
Brown and his party had done it. This was the first news we 
had from my father and his company after they left us near Ot- 
tawa Creek. The thought it might be true, that my father and 
his company could do such a thing was terrible, and nearly de- 
prived me of my reason for the time.* . . I first met 
my father near mj' brother's cabin, (our cabins were emfty^ and 
our families had gone to Osatvaiomie for safety xvhile tve zvere 
at Palmyra.) I then asked him if he had anything to do with 
the killing of the pro-slavery men on the Pottawatomie. I think 
he said, (but cannot be certain that he denied it:) 'I did not do it 
but I approved of it.' I told him that whoever did it, I thought it 
was an uncalled-for, wicked act."t 

*John, Jr., insane, Jason ahnost insane, Frederick insane, how much less 
than insane was the lathery Will some good pathological expert answer? 
Col. James Blood, and many others who knew of Old John's actions, in- 
sisted he was a mono-maniac,— deranged on one subject,— and that is the 
writer's opinion. Stubborn, deaf to reason, his every action until generous 
blood-letting at Harper's Ferry, betrayed evidence of a diseased mind. 

tThree other statements of Jason Brown which appeared in other papers^ 
of which we have newspaper clippings in our John Brown Scrap Books, no 
reference or hint is made of a doubt of the father's guilt. The statement 
here quoted from the Cleveland Leader, was made after the facts were es- 
tablished beyond the possibility of cavil, while Sanborn was concocting his 
"inspired of God" defence for the assassin. 



CORRECTED. 67 

In a reported interview appearing in an Akron pa- 
per, Jason was asked if he condemned tlie act. He 
replied : 

"Yes, I very strongly condemned the act in his [father's] pres- 
ence, as I condemn it now." 

Jason Brown had too much sense to adopt San- 
born's "inspired of God" nonsense. Only an old- 
time Comeouter, who rejected Divine inspiration, 
could invent such a blasphemous apology for crime. 
Even Connelley, with all his falsehoods borrowed 
from Hinton, gave no credit to that marvelous discov- 
ery of his predecessor. He preferred the inexact 
cock-and-bull stories of the little Englishman, a con- 
fessed accessory before the fact to Brown's treason 
and murder in Virginia. 

Now the statement of John Brown, Jr., as given in 
a letter to the Cleveland Leader, of Nov. 10, 1883, in 
reply to Eev. David N. Utter, who had visited the 
widow Doyle, near Chattanooga, Tenn., and published 
at length in the North American Keview a full ac- 
count of that interview. After detailing events in 
the spring of 1856, the collecting of his company, 
and march towards Lawrence ; their arrival at Middle 
Creek, a few miles south of Palmyra, where they 
learned from Capt. Shore "that Lawrence had been 
destroyed; that the leading Free State men were pris- 
oners in the hands of Missourians, that the force 
which had taken Lawrence had divided, and were en- 
gaged in the work of destruction and pillage in other 
parts of the territory, [a statement not true,] and 
that 400 men under Buford were in camp a few miles 
east of us, then John, Jr., continues: 

'■''It ivasnozv and here resolved that they, their aiders and abet- 
tors who sought to kill our suffering people should themselves be 
killed, and in such manner as should be likely to cause a restrain- 
ing fear. Father, at that time a member of my company, pro- 



68 FALSE CLAIMS 

posed to return with several of my men. At first I questioned 
the wisdom of reducing our numbers as we were near a superior 
force, but as he asked for only a few men no opposition was made. 
We aided him in his outfit. I assisted in the sharpenitig oi hx-s, 
navy cutlasses. . . No man of our entire number could fail to 
understand that a retaliatory blow would fall." 

Now here are the plain, unvarnished facts as to the 
motive of the assassinations. Every other statement, 
without regard to who made it, even if John, Jr., 
himself, are afterthoughts and falsifications as an 
apology for the crime. The story of outrages by the 
men slain; of messengers from the rear entering 
camp, telling of those outrages, and asking for help, 
every one of them is false. Had such been the case 
John, Jr., would have told of it in this connection; 
but he was wholly silent. He could not be otherwise 
and be truthful. The murdered men had not been to 
Lawrence; in no way had participated in the out- 
rages there on the Wednesday previous to the assas- 
sinations. If a messenger had come into camp tell- 
ing of outrages to the families of officers of their 
company, the Captain and every member would have 
retraced his steps; and instead of creeping stealthily 
during the darkness of night into the neighborhood, 
they would have made a rush in open day and shot 
down the aggressors. In that case no honest man 
would have complained. It was the act of savages 
stalking for human prey, and, though a lie, Wm. A. 
Phillips did the best he could to charge it upon the 
wild Indians of the plains. His book, "The Con- 
quest of Kansas," was published during the Presiden- 
tial contest for Fremont in 1856, and was largely cir- 
culated as a campaign document. There was no jus- 
tification for the damnable act, and he falsified that 
glory might abound to our party because of that lie. 

Mrs. Kobinson in her "Kansas: Its Interior and 
Exterior Life," published at the same time and cov- 



CORRECTED. 69 

ering the same period as Phillips' book, as she could 
not lie to cover the guilt of a barbarian, remained 
silent. 

The only truthful things told of the victims of 
Brown's anger: Sherman was a large man with prop- 
erty; Wilkinson was postmaster under President 
Pierce, and was a member of the territorial legisla- 
ture; while the Doyles were in favor of excluding the 
negro, bond or free, from Kansas, therefore, in the lan- 
guage of Old John, they ought to be killed "to show 
that some things can be done as well as others," an 
expression he borrowed from Sam Patch, who, about 
1829, made a fatal leap of Genesee Falls, at Eoches- 
ter, N. Y., and demonstrated in his death, as did 
Brown a little later, the truth of his words. 

Mentor, representing the Chicago Herald, writing 
from Cleveland Jan. 12, 1884, who accepted an invita- 
tion from Jason Brown to visit him in Akron, for the 
purpose of writing a defence of the Brown family for 
those murders, gives an account of **a messenger" en- 
tering camp while they were "near Ottawa Creek," 
not from the Pottawatomie, with frightful stories 
of Border Ruffian outrages, but from Lawrence. Af- 
ter telling what the ruffians had done at Lawrence, 
Mentor says: — See p. 23, Vol. 2, John Brown Scrap 
Book: 

"This messenger also brought word that the Free State leaders 
desired the armed forces in the camp to turn back, as they were 
negotiating peace, and amid the ashes of their town were en- 
deavoring to stay the shedding of blood and destruction of prop- 
erty. To the fearless, intense John Brown this policy of concili- 
ation in the face of such fearful injury must have seemed mere 
cowardice. Submission to the pillagers, murderers and incendia- 
ries, peaceful citizens cowing before ruffianly invaders forbidden 
for prudential reasons, to rush to the work of chastisement and 
protection. How the fires of the old man's strong passions must 
have burned on receipt of such dire and humiliating news." 

The reader will remember E. A. Coleman's state- 



70 FALSE CLAIMS 

ment, th^t when peace was negotiated in December 
of 1856, and a bloody issue was avoided, he said: 
"Brown was the maddest man I ever saw," and "he 
denounced Robinson and Lane in vindictive terms." 
We have Brown's own words, in a letter to his fam- 
ily, dated "Near Osawatomie, June 26, 1856," the first 
he wrote after the horrible murders. He said: 

"We were immediately after this [stopping travelers and taking 
their horses] accused of murdering live men at Pottawatomie, and 
great efforts have been made by Missourians and other ruffians to 
capture us."* 

Observe, please. Brown did not say he was falsely 
charged with the killing, but he goes on to tell how 
cruelly John was treated by the people of Osawato- 
mie, who betrayed him into the hands of the bogus 
men. He had said in an earlier part of the letter: 

"Lawrence was destroyed in this way: Their leading men had 
(as I think) decided, in a very cowardly manner, not to resist any 
process having any Government official to serve it, notwithstand- 
ing the process might be wholly a bogus affair!" 

Then Brown goes on to tell of the cowardly, mean 
conduct of the people, and concludes with: 

"It is said that both the Lawrence and Osawatomie men, when 
the ruffians came on them, cither hid or gave up their arms, and 
that the leading men counseled to take such a course." — See "Life 
and Letters of John Brown," pp. 236, 237. 

What had the people of Osawatomie done to incur 
the displeasure of this good man "inspired of God" 
to murder? Turn to p. 132 Andrea's History of Kan- 
sas, and read: 

"At a meeting of the citizens of Pottawatomie Creek [near 
Osawatomie] without distinction of parties, held at the branch 
between Messrs. Potter and Partridges, on the 27th day of May 
1856, (three days after the killing), C. H. Rice was chosen chair- 
man and H. H. Williams secretary. The chairman then stated 
the object of the meeting, and a committee was appointed to take 

♦Sanborn, in a note at this point, says: "In the original something has 
been erased after this, to which this note seems to have been appended: 
''There ore but very few who tcish real facts about these matters to go out.' '" 
The probabihties are, this erasure and note in Brown's letter were made 
before Sanborn discovered the "old hero" was "inspired to murder." 



CORRECTED. 71 

the subject under consideration. The committee consisted of R. 
Golding, R. Gilpatrick, N. C. Dow, S. V. Vanderman, A. Cas- 
tele, and John Blunt. After consultation, the committee reported 
the folio-wing preamble and resolutions, which were unanimously 
adopted, aud a copy of them ordered to be printed: 

'"Whereas, an outrage of the darkest and foulest nature has 
been committed in our midst by some midnight assassins un- 
known, who have taken live of our citizens at the hour of mid- 
night from their homes and families, and murdered and mangled 
them in an awful manner; to prevent a repetition of these deeds, 
we deem it necessary to adopt some measures for our mutual pro- 
tection and to aid and assist in bringing these desperadoes to jus- 
tice. Under these circumstances, we propose to act up to the fol- 
lowing resolutions: 

"• '■Resolved^ That we will from this time lay aside all sectional 
and political feelings and act together as men of reason and com- 
mon sense, determined to oppose all men who are so ultra in their 
views as to denounce men of opposite opinions. 

" ^Resolved, That we will repudiate and discountenance all or- 
ganized bands of men who leave their homes for the avowed pur- 
pose of exciting others to acts of violence, believing it to be the 
duty of all good-disposed citizens to stay at home during these ex- 
citing times and protect, and, if possible, restore the peace and 
harmony of the neighborhood; furthermore, we will discounte- 
nance all armed bodies of men who may come amongst us from 
any other part ot the territory or from the States, unless said par- 
ties shall come under the authority of the United States. 

" ^Resolved, That we pledge ourselves, individually and collect- 
ively, to prevent the occurrence of a similar tragedy, aud to ferret 
out and hand over to the criminal authorities the perpetrators for 
punishment. 

'"H. H. Williams, Secretary, " 'C. H. Price, President, 
*' 'R. Golding, Chairman, " 'R. Gilpatrick, 

■" 'N. C. Dow, '"S. V. Vanderman, 

A. Castele, '"John Blunt, 

" ^Committee.'' " 



Connelley's Attention Solicited. 
T THE instance of Gov. Charles Kobinson, then 
President of the Kansas Historical Society, the 
writer wrote and published in the Eockford 
Gazette, and in two Kansas newspapers, and after- 
wards a very large edition in pamphlet form, his 
Eeminiscences of Old John Brown, making near 



a i 



72 FALSE CLAIMS 

one hundred, double column, octavo pages. During- 
its publication in the papers a vast amount of criti- 
cism, favorable and adverse, was called out by the 
still living actors of those pioneer days. Although 
the evidence was almost conclusive of Brown's guilty 
leadership of that murderous raid, yet Sanborn^ 
Brown's biographer and eulogist, insisted he would 
not believe he was personally connected with that 
massacre, unless an eye witness to the occurrence 
should so assert, for Brown denied being present and 
one of the murdering party, yet he said he approved 
of the killing. 

Parties in Lawrence, Kansas, found an eye witness, 
who was a particeps criminis still living, who would 
tell the truth. John Hutchings, Esq., an attorney at 
Lawrence, undertook the task of securing his state- 
ment. That person was found in James TowNSTiEY, 
then residing within a few miles of the awful trag- 
edy. His statement, made in the presence of several 
neighbors, some over-zealous friends of the assassin, 
was reduced to writing by Attorney Hutchings, Dec. 
6, 1879, was signed by Townsley, and was published 
in the Lawrence Journal immediately after, from 
which we copy: 

"I am a native of Hartford county, state of Maryland, and was 
born August 29, 1815. I enlisted in company I, Capt. Benjamin 
L. Bell, Second United States dragoons, and served five years in 
the war waged against the Seminole and Creek Indians, a part of 
the time under the command of Gen. Taylor, and was discharged 
in August, 1844, at Fort Washita, Indian territory. I am a 
painter by trade, and followed that business in Fallston, in my na- 
tive county, until October 20, 1855, when I emigrated to Kansas 
with my family, and settled in Anderson county, on the Potta- 
watomie creek, about one mile west of Greeley. I joined the Pot- 
tawatomie rifle company at its re-organization in May, 1S56, at 
which time John Brown, Jr., was elected captain. On the 21st of 
the same month information was received that the Georgians 
were marching on Lawrence, threatening its destruction. The 
company was immediately called together, and about 4 o'clock p. 



CORRECTED. 73 

m. we started on a forced march to aid in its defence. About two 
miles south of Middle Creek we were joined by the Osawatomie 
company under Capt. Dayton, and proceeded to Mount Vernon, 
where we waited about two hours, until the moon rose. We then 
marched all night, camping the next morning, the 2 2d, for break- 
fast, near Ottawa Jones'. Before we arrived at this point news 
had been received that Lawrence had been destroyed, and a ques- 
tion was raised whether we should return or go on. During the 
forenoon, however, we proceeded up Ottawa creek to wilhin 
about five miles of Palmyra, and went into camp near the resi- 
dence of Captain Shore. Here we remained undecided over 
night. About noon the next day, the 23d, old John Brown came 
to me and said he had just received information that trouble xvas 
expected on the Pottaivatojnie, and wanted to know if I would 
take my team and take him and his boys back so that they could 
keep zvatch of what was going on. I told him I would do so. The 
party, consisting of old John Brown, Frederick Brown, Owen 
Brown, Watson Brown, Oliver Brown, Henry Thompson [John 
Brown's son-in-law,] and Mr. Winer, were soon ready for the 
trip, and we started, as near as I can remember, about 2 o'clock 
p. m. All of the party, except Mr. Winer, who rode a pony, rode 
with me in my wagon. When within two or three miles of the 
Pottawatomie creek, we turned off the main road to the right, 
drove down to the edge of the timber between two deep ravines, 
and camped about one mile above Dutch Henry's crossing. 

"After my team was fed and the party had taken supper, John 
Brown told me for the first time what he proposed to do. He said 
he wanted me to pilot the company up to the forks of the creek, 
some five or six miles above, into the neighborhood where I lived, 
and show them where all the pro-slavery men resided; that he 
proposed to sweep the ereek as he came down of all the pro-slavery 
men living on it. I positively refused to do it. He insisted upon 
it, but when he found that I would not go he decided to postpone 
the expedition until the following night. I then wanted to take 
my team and go home, but he would not let me do so, and said I 
should remain with them. We remained in camp that night and 
all day the next day. Sometime after dark we were ordered to 
march. 

"We started, the whole company, in a northerly direction, cross- 
ing Mosquito creek above the residence of the Doyles. Soon af- 
ter crossing the creek some one of the party knocked at the door 
of a cabin, but received no reply — I have forgotten whose cabin It 
was, if I knew at the time. The next place we came to was the 
residence of the Doyles. John Brown, three of his sons and son- 
in-law went to the door, leaving Frederick Brown, Winer and 
myself a short distance from the house. About this time a large 
dog attacked us. Frederick Brown struck the dog a blow with 
his short, two-edged sword, after which I dealt him a blow with 
my saber, and heard no more of him. The old man Doyle and 
two sons were called out and marched some distance from the 



74 FALSE CLAIMS 

house toward Dutch Henry's in the road, where a halt was made. 
Old John Brown drew his revolver and shot the old man Doyle 
in the forehead^ and Brown's two youngest sons immediately fell 
upon the younger Doyles with their short two-edged swords. 

"One of the young Doyles was stricken down in an instant, 
but the other attempted to escape, and was pursued a short dis- 
tance by his assailant and cut down. The company then pro- 
ceeded down Mosquito creek to the house of Allen Wilkinson, 
Here the old man Brown, three of his sons, and son-in-law, as at 
the Do vie residence, went to the door and ordered Wilkinson to 
come out, leaving Frederick Brown, Winer and myself standing in 
the road east of the house. Wilkinson was taken and marched 
some dibtance south of his house and slain in the road, with a 
short sword, by one of the younger Browns. After he was killed 
his body was di'agged out to one side and left. 

"We then crossed the Pottawatomie and came to the house of 
Henry Sherman, generally known as Dutch Henry. Here John 
Brown and the party, excepting Frederick Brown, Winer and 
myself, who were left outside a short distance from the door, went 
into the house and brought out one or two persons, talked with 
them some, and then took them in again. They afterward brought 
out William Sherman, Dutch Henry's brother, marched him 
down into the Pottawatomie creek, where he was slain with 
swords by Brown's two youngest sons, and left lying in the 
creek. 

"It was the expressed intention of Brown to execute Dutch 
Henry also, but he was not found at home. He also hoped to find 
George Wilson, Probate Judge of Anderson county, there, and in- 
tended, if he did, to kill him too. Wilson had been notifying 
Free State men to leave the territory. I had received such a no- 
tice from him myself 

"I desire to say here that it is not true that there was any in- 
tentional mutilation of the bodies after they were killed. They 
were slain as quickly as possible and left, and whatever gashes 
they received were inflicted in the process of cutting them down 
with swords. I understand that the killing was done with these 
swords so as to avoid alarming the neighborhood by the discharge 
of firearms. 

"I desire also to say that I did not then approve of the killing 
of those men, but Brown said it 7tiust be done^for the protectiort 
of the Jree State settlers; thai it was better that a score of bad 
men should die than that one man tvho came here to inake Kansas 
a free state should be driven out. 

"Brown wanted me to pilot the party into the neighborhood 
where I lived, and point out all the pro-slavery men in it, whom 
he proposed to put td death. I positively refused to do it, and on 
account of my refusal I remained in camp all of the night upon 
which the first attack was to be made, and the next day. I told 
him I was willing to go with him to Lecompton and attack the 
leaders, or fight the enemy in open field anywhere, but I did not 



CORBECTED. 76 

want to engage in killing these men. That night and the acts 
then perpetrated are vividly fixed in my memory, and I have 
thought of them many times since. 

"I then thought that the transaction was terrible, and have men- 
tioned it to but few pei'sons since. In after time, however, I be- 
came satisfied that it resulted in good to the Fi-ee State cause, and 
was especially beneficial to the Free State settlers on Pottawato- 
mie creek. The pro- slavery men were dreadfully terrified^ and 
large numbers of them soon left the territory. It was afterward 
said that one Free State man could scare a company of them. I 
always understood that Geo. W. Grant came to our camp on Ot- 
tawa ci-eek, near Capt. Shore's, with a message from his father, 
John T. Grant, to John Brown, asking for protection from threat- 
ened assaults of the Shermans and other pro- slavery ruflians. But 
I did not know Geo. W. Grant at the time, and do not remember 
of seeing him. I frequently heard the circumstance mentioned as 
a fact. After the killing of William Sherman, some time after 
midnight, we all went back to camp, about one mile distant, where 
we had left my team and other things. We remained in camp 
until after noon of the following day, and then started to join the 
Pottawatomie company under John Brown, Jr. When we 
reached Ottawa Jones' about midnight, we found them in camp 
at that place. 

"The next morning the company was called together just after 
breakfast, and John Brown, Jr., announced his resignation, and re- 
quested the company to elect another captain in his place. The 
name of H. H. Williams, now of Osawatomie, and my own were 
presented and a vote taken which resulted in the election ot Wil- 
liams. The company then broke camp and started for home. 
After crossing Middle creek at Mount Vernon, John Brown, 
with the rest of the party who accompanied him on the Pottawat- 
omie expedition, fell back from the balance of the company and 
struck oft' to the left of the main Pottawatomie road, in the direc- 
tion of the cabins of John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown. That 
night we staid at the cabin of the former, keeping up a guard all 
night. The next night we went to Jason Brown's, about one mile 
and a half away. Here we remained several days, all the time on 
the watch. While we remained here August Bundj^, and I think 
Benjamin L. Cochran, joined us. After several days, as I^ow 
remember, a young man by the name of Carpenter came to us 
from Prairie City and gave the information that Capt. Pate was 
in the vicinity in search of Brown. That evening we all took 
horses and started for Prairie City, where we arrived next morn- 
ing about daylight and camped in the timber on Ottawa creek, 
near Capt. Shore's. While John Brown was cooking breakfast 
for the company, James Redpath came into our camp and had 
some conversation with Capt. Brown. 

"I saw Redpath again after the battle of Black Jack, near Blue 
Mound, and I desire to saj' in this connection, that I never told 
Redpath at any time that John Brown was not present at the Pot- 



76 FALSE CLAIMS 

tawatomie tragedy. His statement, which was read to me, to the 
effect that "two squatters who aided in the execution," gave him 
such information, is totally false^ so far as I am concerned. As 
Winer and myself were the only settlers in the neighborhood not 
members of Brown's family who were present at the tragedy, I 
can only conclude he referred to us. In the afternoon, after we 
camped in the woods near Capt. Shore's, we moved up to Prairie 
City. We picketed out our horses and laid down not over a hun- 
dred yards from the store. About the middle of the afternoon 
six of Pate's men came riding into town, four of whom we cap- 
tured and held as prisoners. During the afternoon Capt. Shore 
raised a company of about thirty men, and in the evening we 
started in pursuit of Pate. The next morning before daylight we 
obtained information that he was camped at Black Jack point, and 
we moved forward with about twenty-four men to attack him. 
When within a mile of Pate's forces we all dismounted, left seven 
men iu charge of the horses, and, with seventeen men, made the 
attack. In about fifteen minutes we drove them into the ravine. 
The fight continued about three hours when Pate surrendered. 
About the time we got the captured arms loaded into the wagons 
ready to move, Maj. Abbott's company came up and we all 
marched back to Prairie City with the prisoners. Here we re- 
mained until Col. Sumner released them. 

"At this time I left John Brown, and in company with Charley 
Lenhart and many other Lawrence parties, camped in the timber 
near Ottawa Jones'. 

"I make this statement at the urgent request of my friends and 
neighbors, Judge James Hanway and Hon. Johnson Clarke, who 
have been present during all the time occupied in writing it out, 
and in whose hearing it has been several times read before signing. 

"Lane, Kan., Dec. 6, 1879. JAMES TOWNSLEY. 

Fortunately, just as Townsley's statement appeared 
in the Journal, Geo. W. Grant and his brother, H. C. 
Grant, arrived in Lawrence from California, and 
joined in a statement over their own signatures, 
which was published in the Journal of December 11, 
1879. They told of a messenger arriving in camp 
from Lawrence, but knew nothing of any one from 
Pottawatomie oreek, for the simple reason there was 
none. At the time Mr. Hutchings visited Mr. Towns- 
ley, to gain his statement, Mr. Hanway, and other 
personal admirers of John Brown, collected in consid- 
erable numbers, and in consequence of their impor- 
tunate insistence, somewhat influenced Mr. Townsley 



CORRECTED. 77 

in that part of his statement regarding a messenger. 
The Grants in their statement, which will be found 
at length on p. 71 of our "Keminiscences of Old 
John Brown," said: 

"The effect of this massacre on the inhabitants of the creek? 
was to greatly alarm both parties. The pro-slavery settlers al- 
most entirely left at once and the Free State people were con- 
stantly fearful of vengeance. As a matter of fact, there was no 
more killing on either side in that neighborhood. Dutch Henry 
— Henry Sherman, was killed in the spring of 1857, but politics 
had nothing to do with it." 

Mr. Connelley, knowing how important such mes- 
senger was to the fame of his hero, and not able to 
find any one else, in his ''John Brown," note 2, p. 
209, says: "H. H. Williams carried this message," 
and cites Hinton for authority. 

Mr. Connelley should know by this time that the 
character of his witness, Hinton, for truth and integ- 
rity is impeached. No statement made by him can 
be trusted. He wrote the Boston Traveler, Decem- 
ber, 1859, that John. Brown told him he was 25 miles 
distant, and had no hand in killing those men on the 
Pottawatomie, though he approved of it, and he 
clinched the matter by saying that John Brown could 
not lie. When the matter was proved beyond the 
possibility of cavil, like Sanborn, Hinton concluded 
he did not understand the old man correctly. That 
is what some people call hedging. 

H. H. Williams was a fellow prisoner with the 
writer during the summer, and into the autumn of 
1856, as was John Brown, Jr., held partly as suspects 
for these Pottawatomie murders. Each, with John 
Jr.'s wife, mingled freely with the prisoners, and only 
mentioned those murders to condemn them. Williams 
was the Lieutenant of John's company, and was 
elected Captain when John resigned, crazed by the 



78 FALSE CLAIMS 

news of those "inspired" murders. Mr. Connelley, 
we crave your attention : 

Augustus Wattles was in the service of the writer 
during most of the summer of 1857. His time was 
mostly spent in collecting material and writing a His- 
tory of Kansas, which was published as a serial in the 
columns of the Herald of Freedom, and has been 
drawn upon very largely, of course without credit, by 
nearly every person who has attempted to write of 
those pioneer days. We will say, in passing, we paid 
SlOO a month for Mr. Wattles' labors, as our account 
books, still preserved, will show. When in town Mr. 
Wattles had a table in the chamber of our old resi- 
dence, in which was a chest where he stored his man- 
uscripts. That chest by accident came into the pos- 
session of Capt. W. O. Hubbell. While our "Kemi- 
niscences of Old John Brown" was running through 
the Kansas press, in 1880, the Lawrence Journal pub- 
lished in its editorial columns the following: 
Mr. Connelley, have we your attention? * 
The article is preserved in our John Brown Scrap 
Book, Vol. 1, p. 77, just as printed, which we copy 
verbatim : 

''On Wednesday, the 2ist of May, I received a message from 
Lawrence to the effect that a large company of 'Border Ruffians' 
were congregating near that place for the purpose of destroying 
the town. I immediately mounted a horse and rode ten miles up 
the creek, and aroused the 'Pottawatomies,' and by six o'clock in 
the evening thirty-four men, armed and equipped, met at the ren- 
dezvous at the junction of the Osawatomie road with the Califor- 
nia road. The 'Marion Rilles' and 'Pomeroy Guards' from Osa- 
watomie were to meet us here by agreement, but instead of a com- 
pany of men only two came, and reported that another messenger 
from Lawrence had arrived, who contradicted the former report, 
and the Osawatomie companies would await further orders; the 
'Pottawatomies,' however, agreed to push on to Lawrence and as- 
certain for themselves the facts of the case. 

"Accordingly, we moved on to Middle Creek, and camped for 
eupper and rested till midnight, when we struck our tents and 
moved on, crossing Middle Creek and the Marias des Cygnes with 



COKRECTED. 79 

difficulty, on account of the high water. When about halfway 
between the Marias des Cygnes and Ottawa creeks we met a mes- 
senger from the vicinity of Lawrence who reported that the 'Bor- 
der Ruffians' had taken the town and razed it to the ground. This 
startling news was received in silence by the company; then the 
word 'onward' was passed along the line and vengeance was writ- 
ten in the lineaments of every countenance. 

"We pushed on and arrived at Ottawa creek at break of day. 
Here we halted a few minutes to break our fast and bait our 
horses. In the meantime a messenger was dispatched to Osa- 
watomie to arouse the settlers. After resting a few minutes we 
pushed on to Prairie City, where we learned that there was no 
organized Free State force in Lawrence and that the 'Border Ruf- 
fians' were in possession of Blanton's Bridge and assembled in 
force at Lecompton. We concluded to encamp at Prairie City, 
-where we were joined by Company C, of Kansas Volunteers, un- 
der command of Capt Shores. 

"On the 23d we were joined by the Pomeroy Guards, Capt. 
Dayton. Here we heard that Gov. Robinson was on his way 
from Westport to Lecompton, a prisoner, guarded by a company 
of 'Border Ruffians.' We immediately struck our tents, and 
moved to Palmyra, where we were joined by the 'Marion Rifles,* 
Capt. Updegraff, which increased our force to about 130 fighting 
men. 

"On the 24th Capt. Brown, of the 'Pottawatomie Rifles,' with 
scouting party, went into Lawrence. Upon his return he reported 
that the P'ree State Hotel and Governor Robinson's house had 
been burned and the two printing presses destroyed, and the town 
sacked according to 'law and order' by a posse of South Caroli- 
nians, Georgians, and 'Border Ruffians,' headed by United States 
Marshal Donaldson and Sheriff Jones. Upon the receipt of this 
news we broke up our camp and returned home, each company 
dispersing its members with the understanding to be ready to 
come together at any time when their services should be required. 

"On our way home from Palmyra we received intelligence of a 
disturbance in Pottawatomie, in which five pro- slavery men were 
killed. Upon our return we found the settlement in a terrible 
state of excitement; a number of families had left for the States, 
and those that remained called a meeting without distinction of 
party, and passed resolutions pledging to protect each other from 
mobs or invading foes of either party. How well these pledges 
were kept by the pro-slavery party I will endeavor to show: 

"On Wednesday, the 2Sth, I heard that a company of 100 men 
on horseback were coming into the settlement. I started immedi- 
ately in company with two prominent pro-slavery settlers, to meet 
them. We found them to be a company of pro-slavery men 
from Sugar Creek, Bull Creek, and Stanton, headed by a Capt. 
Arbuckle and Gen. Coffee, from near Westport. Their avowed 
purpose in coming was to arrest the men that killed the five 
men heretofore spoken of. I was immediately arrested for a wit- 



80 FALSE CLAIMS 

ness, they said, without any remonstrance or interference on the 
part of my pro-slavery friends. On the contrary, they accom- 
panied the mob and assisted to arrest every (twenty) Free State 
man that they could find in the neighborhood and take their arms. 
We were then marched about twenty miles in the heat of the day 
to Paola, the pro-slavery headquarters of that part of the territory, 
where we arrived on the evening of the 29th of May, and ex- 
posed in review, subject to the taunts and insults of two compa- 
nies of 'Border Ruffians,' — one from Harrisonville and one from 
Westport — which were drawn up to receive us. We were then 
placed in the hands of Deputy United Stales Marshal Hayes, who 
placed us in a room and guarded us with four armed men day and 
night. It may be proper for me to state here that up to this time 
and for all the time while in custody not one of those arrested had 
warrants or writs of any kind served upon them. We found at 
Paola Capt. Brown and Jason, his brother, who were arrested a 
day or two before, near Osawatomie, and their houses burned. 
Capt. Brown was insane, on account of the anxiety and trouble of 
the past two weeks. 

•'On the 31st Capt. Brown was delivered into the hands of Capt. 
Wood, of the United States Cavalry, who pinioned his arms be- 
hind his back and tied a rope to him, one end of which was given 
to a soldier on horseback, and he was obliged to keep ahead of the 
horses, in a march of eight miles under a broiling sun. The cords 
which bound his arms were so tight that he will probably carry 
the scars to the grave. 

"On the first of June eight of the remaining prisoners, Jason 
Brown, Wm. Partridge, Simon B. Morse, Wm. Rilboun, Pain 
Maness, and myself were taken to Osawatomie and put under 
the charge of the United States troops under the command of 
Capt. Wood. The rest of the prisoners were discharged, one of 
them losing a valuable horse, which he was riding when taken 
prisoner. Capt. Wood, after receiving us in his charge, tied our 
hands behind us with a strong cord for one day and night. He 
then procured chains and fastened us tMo and two by the chains, 
being locked around our ancles. Capt. Brown. Jr., by this time 
was a raving maniac. We passed the first night in a tent on the 
damp ground without any bed-clothes, and, in fact, while in 
charge of Capt. Wood would have had to have done so all the 
time had not our friends supplied us with blankets." 

That letter was written by H. H. Williams, and was 
procured for publication in our then current History, 
with other matter pertaining to the outrage on Law- 
rence May 21, 1856. 

Does Mr. Connelley see any good place for H. H. 
Williams to have been a messenger following in his 
own rear? As we said on p. 68: "There was no mes- 



COKRECTED. 81 

eenger." The whole story of one, whether told by 
Winer, Bondi, Hinton, Sanborn, Connelley, or any 
one else, and of outrages by the men slaughtered, 
was a fabrication, devised as an apology for those hor- 
rible murders. Events transpiring after the murders, 
more than three months later in one case than the 
murders, were given as the causes for those "execiu 
tions," as John Speer and his copyists put it. John 
Speer "trained" with the Jayhawkers, of which John 
Brown and Jim Lane were distinguished leaders, and 
he was extremely generous in employing his peculiar 
tactics in defending his heroes. 

When Mr. Townsley's letter was published San- 
born was so distressed at the revelations he left 
his New England home, and journeyed all the way to 
Kansas to devise some way to destroy the logic of 
facts which converted a great moral hero into a mur- 
derer. Though the eye-witness he called for was 
produced, he was still a "doubting Thomas." He 
would not be satisfied that John Brown lied to him 
unless Townsley's statements were confirmed by one 
of the sons. He promised John Hutching* that he 
would call on John Brown, Jr., and get his statement, 
and write the result. To his credit be it said, San- 
born kept his word and wrote : 

"Put-in-Bay, Ohio, August 29, 1882. 
"John Hutchings, Esq.: — I have talked with the Browns 
about Townsley's statement. In the main it is true. 

F. B. Sanborn. 

From that time to this, instead of denying that 
Brown was a murderer, he was inspired of God to do 
the killing and it became an "execution." 

"Execution," in law, is "the carrying into efi'ect a 
sentence or judgment of a legally constituted Court.'* 
And an "executioner" is "one who inflicts capital 



82 FALSE CLAIMS 

punishment in pursuance of a legal warrant issuing 
from such Court." 

John Speer invented the term execution for this 
case, because "murder" expressed the enormity of the 
offence. We prefer the designation of "midnight 
assassin," first applied May 27, 1856, by a public 
meeting of all parties held near Osawatomie, only a 
short distance from the massacres, which denounced 
in unmeasured terms this damnable outrage on hu- 
manity. See p 71. - 

We envy not the head or heart of a man, even if he 
aspires to the position of Chancellor in a State Uni- 
versity, who can thus debase language to glorify a 
hero.* 

Conspicuous Inexactness- 
l^EDPATH, in his "Life of Capt. John Brown," 
jSa p 27, quoted a letter of Brown to Henry L. 
^ Stearns, in which he gave a biographical sketch 

of himself, from which we extract the following, pre- 
serving his italics, spelling and short & with his 
facts: 

"I must not neglect to tell you of a very had & 
foolish habbit to which John [Brown] was somewhat 
addicted. I mean telling lies: generally to screen 
himself from blame; or from punishment." 

Further down the page he says, if he had been 
properly treated "he would not have been so often 

*D. W. Wilder, in his Annals of Kansas, 2d edition, p. 213 un- 
der date of Feb. 22, '59, says: 

"John Brown declares his plan for a campaign in Virginia to 
FRANK B. SANBORN, Gerrit Smith, and Edwin Martin, in a 
room in Mr. Smith's house, in Peterboro', N. Y. Mr. Sanborn 
thenceforth takes the lead in securing the money to enable Capt. 
Brown to strike the death blow to slavery on slave soil." 



CORRECTED. 83 

guilty of this fault; nor have been obliged to strug- 
gle so long in after life with so mean a habit." 

The curious reader who has supposed John Brown 
was a good scholar, from reading his published let- 
ters, should turn to this one given by Redpath, com- 
mencing on p. 25, and see a probably fair specimen 
of his style, after the partial corrections of the printer 
in spelling. Redpath apologized for the "hero," in a 
note on p. 27, by quoting from Thoreau: "He did 
not go to Harvard. He was not fed on the pap there 
furnished. As he phrased it, *I know no more 
grammar than one of your calves.' " 

But it is not John Brown's literary acquirements 
we are dealing with. It is his character for veracity 
we are now considering; and we start out with his 
own statement, given over his own signature, to a boy, 
in which he admits he had "a very bad & foolish 
babbit of ielling lies'^ and that he "struggled long in 
after life with so mean a habit." 

We undertake to say, John Brown went on the gal- 
lows with this same "mean habbit," (preserving his 
spelling,) on him. As we have already shown, 
Brown's biographer, F. B. Sanborn, said: "That he 
[Brown] was actually present at the killing he always 
denied to me, and I shall believe him until some eye- 
witness proves the contrary." 

Richard J. Hinton, everywhere conspicuous for his 
inexactness, wrote the Boston Traveler, appearing in 
that sheet Dec. 3, 1859: 

"Capt. John Brown was not at the scene, nor a par- 
ticipant in the righteous act by which five ruffians 
were sent to their account. In closing let me say 
that John Brown told me he was not a participator in 
the Pottawatomie homicide. John Brown was inca- 
pable of uttering a falsehood." 



84 FALSE CLAIMS 

In January of 1883, Hinton wrote the Chicago 
Inter-Ocean, and reiterated that statement. 

J. E. Brown, a brother of Old John, wrote the 
Cleveland Plaindealer, November 22, 1859: 

"My brother, at the time William Doyle and others 
were killed, was not present, did not consent to the 
act, nor had any knowledge of it, and was eighteen 
miles distant at the time of the occurrence. I have 
this account of this affair from my brother and his 
two sons; also from a- sister and brother-in-law, now 
living in Kansas, who had personal knowledge of this 
transaction. " 

To a question by Mr. Vallandigham, soon after his 
arrest at Harper's Ferry, Brown said: "I killed no 
man (in Kansas) except in fair fight. I fought at 
Black Jack Point and Osawatomie, and if I killed any- 
body it was at one of those places." 

Morrow B. Lowry, then of Erie, Pa., visited Old 
John in prison at Charlestown, on the eve of his exe- 
cution. Replying to an allusion of Lowry' s^ Brown 
said: "I never shed the blood of a fellow man ex- 
cept in self defence, or in promotion of a righteous 
cause." 

To sons, to brothers, to sister, to inquiring friends, 
to the Massachusetts Legislature, to everybody who 
approached him on the subject, save a trifling varia- 
tion and equivocation to Mr. Lowry, his denial of re- 
sponsibility for those murders was pointed and posi- 
tive. It could not have been stronger, else all these 
men we have cited, and several others still at our ser- 
vice, among whom are his own sons, misrepresented. 
Either John Brown, else these friends, falsified. 
With that autobiography of the midnight assassin 
before us, and the "habbit" of his youth, and his 
long struggle in after life to get away from it, we do 
not hesitate to believe he was guilty of "conspicuous 



CORRECTED. 85 

inexactness" in his denials, with the same motive that 
-characterized him in his earlier years, "to screen him- 
self from blame" and from "punishment." 



A Gloomy Record- 
YTTHE act of beatification and canonization in the 
<^\}S) Catholic church, has some protective agencies 
that could be adopted in the secular world with profit 
when enshrining heroes. First, the Pope declares his 
views of the candidate, who must have been dead fifty 
years. Then a commission is appointed to inquire as 
to the candidate's merits. An ecclesiastic is appointed 
with the title of advocaius diaboli, to contend against 
the claims advanced, and he is expected to be most 
thorough in his effort to defeat the honors sought to 
loQ conferred on the dead aspirant for fame. 

The facts related in this booklet, we apprehend, 
would defeat the beatification, and the final canoniza- 
tion of Old John Brown without any controversy. It 
may be well, however, to direct the attention of the 
Devil's advocate to other matters ante-dating the Old 
Man's intrusion into Kansas, where he went, "not to 
settle but because of the difficulties," as he stated. 

The old man is presented to us by his eulogists as 
always anti-slavery. Were we to take their account 
of him he was one of the most prominent abolition- 
ists of all the years ; but where the evidence that this 
statement is truthful? 

Until John Brown appeared in the "ultra abolition" 
convention at Syracuse, N. Y., in 1855, begging an 
outfit in money and arms to enable him to join his 
sons in Kansas, who ever heard of him, either as an 



86 FALSE CLAIMS 

anti-slavery man, or anything else other than a fail- 
ure in business? 

The first we know of him he was running a small 
tannery in Kichmond, Crawford Co., Penn'a. Whether 
sold out at SherilBTs sale, or otherwise, we have not 
information ; but Morrow B. Lowry was the purchaser. 
When he took possession of his property he found all 
the hides in the tanning vats, represented to be more 
than a thousand dollars in value, had surreptitiously 
disappeared. He told the writer in January of I860, 
that his principal motive in visiting John Brown, in 
jail at Charlestown, Ya., was to learn what became of 
those hides. He hoped, with death staring him in the 
face, to get at the truth; but Brown was close-lipped 
to the last. 

If business habits betray the character of a man 
it must be admitted there was something wrong in 
Brown's "git up." He took advantage of the bank-^ 
rupt laws in 1842, and at one fell swoop wiped^out his 
indebtedness; but he was soon in financial trouble 
again. 

Notwithstanding his "inspired of the Lord" to 
murder, Sanborn seems to be occasionally truthful, 
whether he intends it or otherwise. He says on p. 
57: 

"He [Brown] would seem to have been a 'visionary man in 
business affairs, and of a restless, speculating disposition, not con- 
tent with the plodding details of ordinary trade.' As to his wodI 
speculation, Colonel Simon Perkins, of Akron, when questioned 
by me in 1S78 about Brown's wool-growing and wool-dealing, re- 
plied, ' The less you say about them the better.'' . . In the wool 
business at Springfield I furnished the capital; Brown managed 
according to his own impulses; he would not listen to anybody,, 
but did what he took into his head. He was solicitous to go into- 
the business of selling wool, and I allowed him to do it; but he 
had little judgment, always followed his own will, and lost much 
money.' " 

In regard to the Virginia invasion. Col. Perkins. 



CORKECTED. 87 

said : "I consider him and the men who helped him in 
that the biggest set of fools in the world." Sanborn 
could not have accepted that as a compliment to 
himself. 

Brown, in a letter to his son John, Jr., of date Jan. 
11, 1844, seemed very much elated at his good fortune 
in forming a business connection with Col. Perkins. 
He wrote, see p. 60, "Life and Letters of John 
Brown:" 

"This, I think, will be considered no mean alliance for our fam- 
ily, and I most earnestly hope they will have wisdom given to 
make the most of it. It is certainly indorsing the poor bankrupt 
and his family, three of ivhom iverc but recently in Akron jail, 
in a manner quite unexpected^ 

A letter to this writer from A. D. Swan, Esq., of 
Kent, O., of date Jan. 8, 1887, among other facts, 
gives the sequel, probably, to Perkins & Brown's 
wool-growing business. It is characteristic of the 
*'hero." We quote: 

"Col. Perkins and Brown owned a valuable shepherd dog in 
partnership, which was used in caring for the sheep. When they 
divided their sheep Perkins offered BroAvn $50.00 for the dog, but 
Brown thought he wanted the dog himself, though the intelligent 
creature preferred to stay with the Perkins family, and persisted 
in running there. This vexed Old Brown very much, and he 
threatened the dog's life, if he did not stay at home. Perkins of- 
. fered $50, and finally .$100 for the dog to save his life. But Brown 
was importunate. He was seen soon after taking long strides, gun 
in hand, towards Perkins' place. Soon the report of a gun and 
the fate of the dog was sealed. 

"Had Wendell Phillips known the true character of Old John 
I don't think he would have placed his name above Washington's, 
Franklin's, and other names of renown, 

"Brown lived for years in this section, and once in this place. 
He was always regarded as a vicious, hot-headed, self-willed per- 
son, a crazy old galoot, and his Kansas record, as that of Virginia, 
proved him a murderer." 

N. Eggleston, Esq., writing us from Aurora, Portage 
county, Ohio, Dec. 10, 1883, said: 

"It was the step-mother of Old John Brown he attempted to 
blow up, instead of mother-in-law, as I accidentally wrote in a 
hasty letter published in the North American Review, Brown 



88 FALSE CLAIMS 

placed powder under an out-building which the woman was visit- 
ing, and lighted a slow match as she entered. H-e is sure Judge 
Humphrey was one of his informants of the affair. He says the 
statement was confirmed by Jeremiah Root, the oldest brother of 
the elder Mrs. Brown." 

Mr. Eggleston, in his letter, says: 

"John Brown was not one of the original abolitionists. He 
came into the support of the measure much later than is repre- 
sented, and is not entitled to rank with men of prominence who 
devoted themselves to the cause of freedom.* I had something to 
do with the early debates in regard to slavery, and I knew John 
Brown well, but he was not known in those times as an abolition- 
ist. I cannot say just when he became identified with them, but 
it was not in the beginning. It would have been a damage to the 
cause to have associated his name with it." 

A letter dated Ingersol, Canada West, April 16, 
1858, directed to his "Dear Wife and Children, Every 
One," takes us behind the curtain, and tells of itself, 
over John Brown's own signature, something of his 
business character. Mr. Sanborn has our thanks for 
publishing it p. 452 Life and Letters. The hero writes: 

"Since I wrote you I have thought it possible, though «ot prob- 
able, that some persons might be disposed to hunt for any prop- 
erty I may be supposed to possess, on account of liabilities I in- 
curred while concerned with Mr. Perkins. Such claims I ought 
not to pay if I had ever so much given me for my services in Kan- 
sas, as most of you well know T gave up all I had to Mr. Perkins 
while with him. I think if Henry and Ruth have not yet made 
out a deed, as we talked of, they»had better not do it at present, 
but merely sign a receipt I now send, which can be held by Wat- 
son; and I also think that when the contract of Gerrit Smith with 
Franklin and Samuel Thompson is found, he had better lay it by 
carefully with the receipt, and that all the family had better de- 
cline saying anything about their land matters. . . It can do 
no harm to decline saying much about such things; you can very 
properly say the land belongs to the family. If a deed has been 
made by Henry and Ruth, it need not be recorded yet." 

*In confirmation of this statement see bottom of p. 421, San- 
born's "Life and Letters," wherein it is stated: 

"Brown's plan before 1851 was to occupy land at the South as 
a slaveholder, using trusty men as his nommal slaves, and through 
them indoctrinating the real slaves with the hope of freedom." 

That is the kind of Abolitionist was John Brown. He would 
have been a Legree in the South. 



CORRECTED. 89 

This letter shows the desperate condition John 
Brown was in when he went to Kansas, and that "bad 
habbit" of concealing the truth. He had taken ad- 
vantage of the bankrupt laws in 1842, and wiped out 
his debts. He was a bankrupt when he engaged with 
Perkins in the wool-growing business in 1844. He 
failed in that, but Perkins joined with him in another 
wild scheme of wool speculation; but Brown's head- 
strong methods made that a failure. The old man 
tried colonizing negroes in the Adirondacks of New 
York; but failed in that. Then, urged by his sons in 
Kansas, he came there *'not to settle, but because of 
the difficulties," and would have ruined the Free State 
cause had he been allowed to follow up his murdering 
policy. 

Fortune and Fame in Decay. 

fT WAS but a few weeks ago we read a doleful la- 
ment that the John Brown home, in North Elba, 
Essex county, New York, purchased by Brown's 
friends, and donated to the State for a park, was in a 
very neglected condition; that the rude old house 
was fast going to decay; that, built on blocks, the 
foundation had rotted away, allowing the floors and 
part of the roof to sag, while the upturned and dis- 
placed shingle refused to turn the rain. 

Money, more money, is wanted to repair the corrod- 
ing waste of time; and still more will be needed to 
employ successors to Sanborn and Connelley to write 
peans in their hero's praise. 

An Associated press dispatch is now, as we write^ 
going the rounds of the papers, in words following: 



90 FALSE CLAIMS 

"New York, Aug. 26, 1902. — In order to save the birthplace 
of John Brown from destruction bj vandals it has been offered, 
rent free, to a responsible caretaker." 

What a tale of departed glory ! 

Anarchists are they who set the laws at defiance. 
They have killed at will, and every one of them, even 
the slayers of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley, had 
admirers and sympathizers. John Brown had more 
of them than any of the others, because the people, 
basing their information on his anarchistic eulogists, 
supposed he contributed largely towards making Kan- 
sas free. They took it for granted those men slaugh- 
tered on the Pottawatomie were as vile as they were 
represented, and deserved killing; whereas their 
crimes consisted in the fact that two of them were 
pro-slavery, and the other three, as we have already 
stated, favored the exclusion of the colored man, bond 
or free, from the State, "an offence," said Brown, 
"greater than being a slaveholder." 

Even the anarchists hung in Chicago for throwing 
bombs, killing and wounding policemen, had their in- 
dorsers. We find on p. 121, Yol. 2, of our Old John 
Brown Scrap Book, an Associate Press dispatch in 
words following: 

"Toledo, O., Nov. 7, 1887. — The Lake Shore passenger train 
which passed through Toledo to-night west bound, had on board 
eight baskets of grapes, each holding ten pounds. They were 
billed to August Spies, Michael Schwab, Oscar Neebe, Samuel 
Fielden, A. R. Parsons, George Engel, Adolph Fischer and Louis 
Lingg, 'In care of the Sheriff of Cook county, at Chicago.' Each 
basket bore the following inscription: 'Anti-monopolist and op- 
ponent of slavery in every form. From the vineyard of John 
Brown, Jr., Put-in-Bay Island, Lake Erie, Ohio.'" 

Why not sympathise with anarchists? Brown's 
whole family were of that breed, and are everywhere 
idolized by those assassins and disturbers of public 
tranquility. Is it worse to kill a President, because 



CORRECTED. 9i 

he is not liked, than to go into a neighborhood at 
midnight and butcher its male population? Life is 
as dear to the peasant as to the prince ; to the humble 
mechanic who toils in his workshop, or the laborer 
who tills the soil, as to a President superintending 
the affairs of a great nation; while the family thus 
bereaved of its head and support, is rendered many- 
times more wretched. 

People from the Orient visiting the slaughter- 
houses of Chicago during the Columbian Exposition, 
were justly horrified on account of the butchery of 
the dumb animals in those shambles. What would 
they have said had they known of this butchery on 
the Pottawatomie, and that the assassin was glorified 
on account of it by Christians, and that many Chris- 
tian clergymen were in the habit of mentioning John 
Brown as a model for young men to imitate? And 
still more, what would they have said had they been 
told of the blasphemous claim that the leader was 
♦'inspired of God?" 



XIX. 

They Knew John Brown. 
C7AMUEL N. WOOD was one of the first pio- 
/fej neers to Kansas from the free North. He came 
from the State of Ohio, was of Quaker parentage, 
and a Free Soiler in politics. He selected a claim a 
few miles out from where Lawrence was afterwards 
located, and was one of the most active and trusted 
of the Free State settlers. In the first number, 3d 
page, of the Herald of Freedom, printed September 
20, 1854, on our steam-power press, before taking it 
down to ship to Kansas, will be found a long letter 



92 FALSE CLAIMS 

from Mr. Wood's pen, which we clipped from the 
National Era, a Free Soil organ then published at 
Washington. The letter had a very extensive read- 
ing in the North, and aided largely in making its 
readers conscious of the great value of Kansas as an. 
agricultural region. 

S. N. Wood attended all our Free State Conven- 
tions, serving on important Committees, frequently 
their chairman, and was everywhere trusted. He was 
indicted by the pro-slavery Grand Jury, with Gov. 
Kobinson, Gov. Reeder, G. W. Brown, G. W. Deitz- 
ler, Judge Smith with others, for high treason, but, 
fortunately was not arrested, for he went East on a 
lecturing tour. 

S. N. Wood opposed the policy of thievery and 
blood, inaugurated by Old John Brown, and after- 
wards adopted by Jim Lane. He cordially supported 
the Voting Policy which finally made Kansas free. 
He was Colonel of the 8th Eegiment K. M. ; served 
several terms in the State Legislature; w^as associated 
for a time with another in the publication of the Kan- 
sas Tribune, and, subsequently, was the publisher 
of other Republican papers. 

The writer first met Col. Wood at Kansas City, 
Mo. , in the forepart of November, 1854, when on his 
way to the territory. Wood had come down from 
Lawrence to Westport, to get the mail; there being at 
that time no postroute or postoffice in Kansas, unless 
at the military posts. His face was covered witk 
dried blood, and one eye was badly swollen. He had 
encountered a Border Ruffian while getting his mail, 
and the marks of impact were prominent. Wood's 
offence: he was from that Yankee town, Lawrence, 

hence a *'G d Abolitionist," and the penalty. 

We always suspicioned the Colonel's Quaker notions 



CORRECTED. 93 

of non-resistance took their departure with that 
brutal blow, for from that time forward he seemed to 
possess good fighting qualities. 

In 1884 Colonel Wood, responding to an inquirer, 
gave his opinion of Old John Brown. His letter was 
published in one of the Lawrence papers, most of 
which is copied, as follows : 

"I now give it as my deliberate judgment that John Brown 
never did any good in Kansas, that we would have been better oft' 
if he had never come to the State. His object was war, not peace. 
It was his constant aim to produce a colHsion between the Free 
State men and the Government, which would have wiped us out 
in Kansas as effectually as he and his little band were wiped out 
in Virginia. The truth is, Brown never had the confidence of the 
Free State men of Kansas, and no sensible man dared follow his 
lead. . . . 

"By this wanton massacre on the Pottawatomie the Free State 
men of Kansas suffered terribly. 

"There cannot be any question to a man who knew Brown 
as well as I did that he was crazy, or, rather, had that religious de- 
lusion that he was another Gideon, or rather a chosen instrument 
in the hands of God to accomplish a great work. *He died as the 
fool dieth,' and for one I was willing to let his 'soul go marching 
on.' But to have him thrust down this generation as ever being 
any benefit to Kansas is an insult to the men who made Kansas 
free. Yours truly, S. N. WOOD." 

This letter expressed the views of nearly ail the 
early pioneer settlers, those who located with their 
families in the territory in advance of the "heroes," 
they whose friends insist were the "saviors of 
Kansas." 

We take great pleasure in also quoting a letter from 
Samuel 0. Smith, Esq., who came to Kansas in the 
fall of 1854, and was identified with its material inter- 
ests until after our admission into the Union a Free 
State. He was known as a radical; was Secretary of 
the Topeka Constitutional Convention ; served in vari- 
ous public capacities, and was a man everywhere re- 



94 FALSE CLAIMS 

spected and trusted. He wrote, under date of April 
18, 1880, while our Reminiscences of Old John Brown 
were running through the Kansas press: 

*'I believe Kansas was saved to freedom through the influence 
of those who so conducted themselves within it as to merit the ap- 
proval and support of the friends of freedom throughout the 
North. ... It seems to me that all the Free State party 
could do, in the early struggle, from 1854 to 1857, was, if possible, 
to 'hold the fort,' and wait for the triumph of the Republican 
party to secure their own complete victory. This in fact was 
what they did do. 

"Brown, Lane, and Montgomery would have plunged us into all 
sorts of excesses, put our friends in the East on the defensive, ral- 
lied the Democratic party under the banner of the 'Constitution 
and the Union,' as against civil war and incendiary abolitionists, 
and Kansas would have been lost by the folly and insanity of its 
leaders in doing those acts which the sentiment of the North 
could in no wise sustain." 

Learning that Mr. Smith had just returned to Kan- 
sas from the State of Maine, where he has-been so- 
journing for the last few years, we asked his present 
opinion of the Pottawatomie massacre. He wrote 
mildly, but firmly, in response, as follows : 

"Lawrence, Kansas, Oct. 22, 1902: 
"Dr. G. W. Brown — My Dear Sir: — I was in Leavenworth 
when the report came of the murders of the pro-slavery men on 
the Pottawatomie, by the Free State men. Phillips, in his 'Con- 
quest,' speaks of the effect of the news on both parties, and he was 
then present in that city. Gov. Robinson was there held as a 
prisoner and in his 'Conflict' has related the peril to which he was 
then subjected. My own recollection, and the published records 
of that time, confirm the statements made by Phillips and Robin- 
son as to the evil eftect of that report on the Free State cause and 
on Free State men along the Border. Phillips says the news as 
published seemed designed to inflame the pro-slavery men. That 
it did so, the records of every border county and every road lead- 
ing into the territory give testimony. 

"For myself, I did not then believe, and could not believe, that 
John Brown or any other Free State man could do such a deed as 
was described. I believed him devout, stern and courageous — 



CORRECTED. 95 

one- of Cromwell's men enlisted in Freedom's cause. I did not 
then write anything about it, for I could not understand it. I 
wish he had never put on our cause such a burden of crime and 
on his character so cruel a stain. Very Truly Yours, 

"S. C. SMITH." 

As we write a letter has come to hand from E. W. 
Robinson, Esq., of Paola, Kansas. He asked for a 
copy of our Old John Brown, published in 1880, for 
their Public Library. He says his own copy has 
done large service, and is nearly worn out from much 
reading. The copies of that eye-opener are nearly as 
scarce as hen's teeth, yet we take pleasure in comply- 
ing with his request; for we spent four years of our 
Kansas life in that beautiful city, only a few miles 
distant from the scene of John Brown's slaughter, 
Mr. Robinson, a very earnest Republican, wrote, and 
we believe published, a History of Miami county, for- 
merly Lykins, of which Paola is the county seat. 
He gave an account o that slaughter, and had the 
bravery at that early day to desigjiate it as "murder." 
He wrote: 

"Paola, Kan., Sept. 14, 1902. 

"My Old Friend:— Public opinion is undergoing a marked 
change in regard to the real character of Old John Brown, and 
such writings as yours will hereafter be sought and eagerly read. 
You remember the account of Capt. Brown and the Osawatomie 
people relative to the fight when Gen. Reid, with his Missourians, 
raided that town.? The fact is, Old John Brown, as commander 
of the Free State forces, made no stand, but scattered and fired 
back as they ran. No Missourians were killed, and but three 
were wounded; one in the jaw, one in the wrist, and one in the 
shoulder. How do I know? In 1887, having already got state- 
ments from many on the Free State side, I spent three weeks do- 
ing nothing else but looking up this matter. 

"Nearly all the pro-slavery forces were from Jackson and Clay 
counties. Mo. I found between twenty and thirty men who were 
in the raid. I took their names and statements. Afterwards, 
through the influence of Col. Case, of Kansas City, I had an in- 
terview with Gen. Reid, who gave me the history of his trip, with 



96 FALSE CLAIMS 

all the incidents he could remember from the time of leaviug Mis- 
souri until his return. They all agreed there was nothing which 
approached a battle, and but three persons were wounded. 

"At the dedication of the John Brown Monument, Dr. Upde- 
graiT, in his speech, put the number of Missourians killed at from 
30 to 50, and the wounded from 75 to 100. Others, however, have 
been a little more moderate in their claims. The facts are as I 
state them. 

"I agree with you as to Old John's true character. 

"Yours Truly, E. W. ROBINSON." 

In a letter of Sept. 24, 1902, Mr. Kobinson, in con- 
senting to the publication of the above extract from 
his former letter, wrote at length, with many addi- 
tional facts showing the falsity of the claim that 
there was a battle, or even a skirmish fought at Osa- 
watomie, unless fugitives fleeing to the brush; and 
firing in their retreat can be dignified with the title of 
"skirmishers." Thus the glory heaped upon John 
Brown for successfully fighting and defeating Gen. 
Reid and his 400 from Missouri, entitling him to be 
designated as "Osawatomie Brown," a name originally, 
and justly applied to Orville C. Brown, who was the 
projector of that town, thus vanishes into thin air. Is 
that the way great heroes are made ? If so, Heaven 
save us from their multiplication. 

Capt. J. M. Anthony, a brother of Col. D. R An- 
thony, of Leavenworth, and of the well-known Susan 
B. Anthony, in the course of a long letter published in 
the Leavenworth Times, of Jan. 10, 1884, told rather 
a damaging story on the ''hero of Osawatomie." He 
wrote of what he knew, and no one will discredit his 
integrity. After telling of the Missouri raid under 
Gen* Reid, and of all the free state men under 
command of Captains Updegraff, Brown and Cline 
retiring to the timber — the "brush" says Brown in 
his report to his family, — from whence a few shots 



CORRECTED. 97 

were fired, then : When pressed by the enemy there 
was no orderly retreat, but a general "skedaddle" was 
made for the brush, every man for himself, John 
Brown disappearing with the rest. After caring for 
Dr. Updegraff, who was wounded, and coming out of 
the timber, finding the enemy gone, Capt, Anthony 
tells the residue in his own words : 

"I went back to the Crane House, and began to think about 
getting something to eat, as we had gone out without breakfast, 
and had had nothing to eat all day. I went down to the barn- 
yard to milk the cow, and while doing that saw John Brown ad- 
vancing up the ravine. When he got to within about twenty feet 
of me, or just across the fence, he stopped and said 'Hello, is that 
you.?' I replied that it was undoubtedly, and we talked for sev- 
eral minutes, he asking all about the result of the day's engage- 
ment. He seemed to be entirely ignorant of the facts, and like 
Dr. Updegraff, and indeed everybody else, thought the whole 
community had been killed." 

The story of a speni bullet striking Brown, doing 
no injury save a slight bruise, gives an idea of his 
distance from danger, though, according to his own 
account of the affair to his family, p. 317, "Life and 
Letters:" 

"The men [Brown's] not more than thirty in all, were directed 
to scatter and secrete themselves as well as they could, and await 
the approach of the enemy. All left but six or seven. The loss 
of the enemy was some 31 or 32 killed, and from 40 to 50 
wounded." 

In another letter from the Captain to his family, 
dated Lawrence, Sept. 7, "Life and Letters," p. 319, 
he repeats this story; and this the authority for the 
terrible falsification, which made Brown a great hero 
at Osawatomie. 

This invasion of Kansas from Missouri, August 30, 
1856, like that of June preceding, and like the "Battle 
of Black Jack," all such wonderful affairs when told 
by the John Brown eulogists, were attempts to arrest 



98 FALSE CLAIMS 

the midnight assassins for their Pottawatomie mur- 
ders, and from which it is probable Kansas would 
have been exempt but for them. With these facts in 
mind, then how much did the freedom of Kansas 
"hinge" on those events? 



XX. 

Private Tribunals of Justice Not Defensible* 
\ I /HE PLAN of John Brown in setting up his own 
^\}^ private judgment for the redress of public 
grievances, making him in fact a self-constituted tri- 
bunal of justice, serving at the same time as advo- 
cate, prosecutor, witness, jury and executioner, has 
never been recognized as good policy, save among 
law-breakers. It would soon depopulate a State, for 
every other man has as good a right to engage in the 
killing business as had the midnight assassin. 

What home is secure, and what life is safe where 
such an order of things prevail? Between 1770 and 
1800, a period of thirty years, 7,000 murders were 
perpetrated in Corsica by Vendetta. The practice of 
private vengeance, and holding the next of kin respon- 
sible for wrongs, real or imagined, prevails in Sicily, 
Sardinia and Calabria. The wreckage of homes and 
life in all countries where private assassins bear rule 
is truly frightful. 

A person lies down at night with his family around 
him, to rest from the weariness of the day. Midnight 
comes. A banditti forcibly intrudes upon the home. 
They break down doors, enter, and take the head — 
the bread-winner — out into the cold and the darkness, 
and cut him to pieces with noiseless broadswords, 
choosing this method of destruction to the revolver, 



CORRECTED. 99 

for the latter might disturb a neighbor who is also 
marked for destruction. 

The writer spent eleven years on the Kansas bor- 
der, and bent all the energies of his nature, aided by 
the press, to prevent the extension of slavery over 
that territory. And when established by forms of 
law, acquired by forcible usurpation of the elective 
franchise by invaders from Missouri, he then labored 
to defeat and overthrow the acts of that usurped Leg- 
islature. He saw the invasion of the territory by the 
myrmidons of the slave power, and stood many a night 
on guard, gun in hand, to protect the people and their 
homes against the insidious acts of our enemies. He 
was well acquainted with all the circumstances attend- 
ing the foul murder of Dow, of Barber, of E. P. 
Brown, of Wm. Phillips, of Hoyt, of Copps, and of 
others. He saw from his prairie prison the smoke 
rising from the burning homes of Samuel Walker, 
Judge Wakefield, Erastus Heath, and many other 
Free State settlers, fired by the tools of the slave 
power. He had full knowledge of the awful massacre 
on the Marias des Cygnes, one of the victims being 
an old Pennsylvania friend; as also of the horrible 
slaughter of 180 citizens at Lawrence, some of whom 
were his own kin, and a majority personal friends. 
He saw hundreds of homes and business houses and 
a flourishing city in ashes, and sustained a personal 
loss of many thousands of dollars in the destruction 
of property by the hands of brutal savages. Besides 
this he suffered four months' inprisonment at their 
hands; yet he has no recollection, in a single case, of 
a home being invaded at night by them, or the occu- 
pants being taken out in the darkness, and murdered 
in cold blood. This acme of vengeance devolved on 
Old John Brown, and his associate assassins. 
LoFC. 



100 FALSE CLAIMS 

The tree falls and kills a person reclining at its 
base, or a bolt of lightning descends from the clouds 
and paralyzes his heart; a cyclone sweeps over a coun- 
try leaving ruin and desolation in its path. Any of 
the forces of Nature destroying life, and we say: "It 
was an act of God;" but it remained for the Concord 
philosopher, one Frank B. Sanborn, who, it seems, 
aided Old John Brown in diverting moneys and mu- 
nitions of war, raised for the relief and defense of 
suffering and "bleeding Kansas," for use in a personal 
war on Virginia, to discover that midnight assassina- 
tion was an act of God specially inspired by Him to 
make a territory free. 

A distinguished politician was reported to have vis- 
ited an insane asylum during his perigrinations "up 
and down to and fro in the earth." One of the in- 
mates, noted for his wise sayings, to whom the visitor 
was introduced as a new patient mentally unbalanced,* 
looked over the new comer from head to heels, then 
sagely remarked: "Why, gentlemen, this man is not 

insane! He is a d d fool; that is what ails himy 

We would love to hear this fellow's opinion of F. B. 
Sanborn. 

XXI. 

War on the South-East Border. 
LL KNOW who know anything about the his- 
tory of Kansas, that when the territorial gov- 
ernment passed into Free State hands, the 
bogus statutes were repealed, and the Lecompton 
Constitution, regardless of its fate in Congress, was 
powerless for harm, the offices under it being wholly 
in Free State hands, and even the leaders of the pro- 
slavery party in the interest of peace were protesting 



CORRECTED. 101 

against further agitation, conceding '*tTie slavery ques- 
tion was settled against the South by immigration," 
see Wilder's Annals, under the head of Jan. 7, 1858; 
yet John Brown, fearful that his drill master Forbes, 
who opposed a treasonable invasion of Virginia, 
would expose him at Washington, made a dash for 
Kansas, and commenced a war upon Missouri. His 
movement was not in the interest of the freedom of 
Kansas, for that was secure, but to carry out his orig- 
inal plan of inciting a war against the South, which 
he hoped would end in a Northern Eebellion. 

"The plan of a servile negro insurrection on the border of Mis- 
souri, was told us by John Brown, Jr., while a prisoner near Le- 
compton, in the summer of 1856; that it was designed to be par- 
ticipated in bv Free State men, and extend until the whole Union 
should become involved, and a dissolution follow, while American 
slavery was to be wiped out in blood. When so informed we de- 
termined Kansas should not be involved, and made the battle 
ground, and resolved to stem the tide, whatever the cost to ourself 
personally. When the Herald of Freedom was revived in No- 
vember of that year, we showed what our position would be in a 
contest of that character. 

"The whole controversy on our south-eastern border, during 
the summer of 185S, was in furtherance of this announced pur- 
pose of warring on Missouri, running off her slaves, stealing 
horses, etc. The evidence is positive that Capt. Brown came 
from the East in the early summer of that year, indorsed by prom- 
inent Northern disunionists, to head such a revolutionary move- 
ment. He left the territory, at the urgent request of Gov. Rob- 
inson, and other prominent Free State men, who assured him he 
was damaging the cause of free Kansas by his war policy." 

Such, substantially, were our words published in 
the Herald of Freedom in 1859, words we would re- 
peat to-day, did the same condition of facts exist. 

Even Col. James Montgomery, who heartily coop- 
erated with Brown for a time, when he learned of 
Brown's purpose to make raids into Missouri, on steal- 
ing expeditions, then retreat into Kansas, dispose of 



102 FALSE CLAIMS 

his plunder, and renew his attack, thereby keeping 
up a perpetual feud between the people of the two lo- 
calities, honest men on each side of the line suffering 
in person and property in consequence, withdrew his 
support and confidence in John Brown. 

Not a blow struck in all the summer and autumn of 
1858, which kept the counties of Lykins, Linn and 
Bourbon in a constant turmoil, aided free Kansas in 
the least, but it led to the organization of the "Bush- 
whackers" in Missouri, culminating in numerous 
crimes, climaxed by the burning of Lawrence, and the 
slaughter of near 200 of its best population a few 
years later. 

Brown himself did not claim he came to Kansas in 
1858 to aid in making it free, and it would have been 
wholly false had he done so ; for, as before stated, the 
Free State party had complete control in every 
county. The public offices were in their hands. They 
had command of the law-making and executing 
power throughout the territory; had repealed the bo- 
gus statutes and enacted laws of their own which met 
the approbation of the entire population. Save local 
difficulties growing out of conflicting land claims and 
some old scores occasioned by past political differen- 
ces, all was peace, when John Brown, io divert atieyi- 
tion from his contemplated Virginia raid, came 
among us again and renewed the border troubles. 

For months civil war was rife. At last all parties 
met and agreed to frown upon the agitators. Jas. 
Montgomery was faithful to his pledges; but John 
Brown was still ambitious to "draw a little blood." This 
was done in one of his forays, when Crew was killed, 
and his slaves, horses and stock were run off, the fam- 
ily were impoverished, and the fourteen negroes were 
transported to the inhospitable climate of Canada, to 



CORBECTED. 103 

struggle with cold and poverty, but slight gainers by 
their changed condition. 

"We find in our Old John Brown Scrap Book, Vol. 
1, pp. 54 to 58, a long letter from Col. C. H. Kay, 
dated Mantua, Ohio, Feb. 7, 1883, which is specially 
interesting in connection with John Brown in South- 
Eastem Kansas. It was addressed and published in 
the National Tribune, Feb. 7, '83. Col Kay removed 
from Portage county, Ohio, to a point about ten miles 
north of Fort Scott, Kan., where he located a town, 
which he named Lebanon. He put up a steam saw 
mill, and set out to build a quiet home. It seems he 
kept a daily diary of events, and was a very earnest 
Free State man, of the Western Keserve stripe. He 
quotes from his diary as follows: 

"Dec. 20, 1858. — Last night John Brown went over into Mis- 
souri, near the line, on the Osage, and kidnapped six slaves, and is 
now running them North by the "underground railroad." A large 
party of Missourians are in hot pursuit, while a great many are 
gathering just over the line and near Barnesville, with loud threats 
that if the slaves are not returned they will burn every Free State 
man's house on the Osage. Great excitement among the settlers. 
Some are fleeing North, while others are coming into Lebanon." 

Then Col, Kay goes on to relate: 

"Something had to be done, and that quickly. Couriers were 
sent out in all directions to call the Osage rifle company together. 
Messengers were sent down the river to Barnesville, to watch the 
enemy, while others went North to the Pottawatomie to inter- 
cept John Brown and ask him to return and fight his own 
battles." 

Then the Colonel enters into details of preparing 
for war; but we shall not follow him further. John 
Brown had raised hell, and was fleeing with his glory 
and associates, while the wretched inhabitants were 
doing the best they could to allay the excitement, and 
stay the hand of violence he had incited, to new fields 
of strife and murder. 



104 FALSE CLAIMS 

It was the writer's frequent pleasure, all unknown 
to the populace, to aid the flying bondsman in his 
northern flight, both in Pennsylvania and in Kansas; 
yet never by word or act did he hazard the life of a 
slave by advising him to leave his master. But he 
bent all his energies and resources to aid in crushing 
an institution which he believed a curse to both mas- 
ter and slave, and no one rejoiced more that he when 
the end came through the emancipation proclamation 
of President Lincoln, which made all free. 



xxri. 

Begging Money Under False Pretenses. 

HAT OTHEK man than John Brown could go 
on for years begging money, ostensibly to aid 
the cause^of freedom in Kansas, then spend that 
money in running over the country, transporting 
young men to Canada, paying their expenses out of 
the falsely accumulated treasure, and organizing a 
provisional government for the United States, getting 
himself elected Commander-in-Chief by his hire- 
lings; buying munitions of war, and transporting 
them, with arms sent to Kansas to protect the people 
from rufiian violence, to Virginia, and there engaging 
in treason and the murder of a peaceful people en- 
gaged in the honest duties of life? 

On p. 379 "Life and Letters"' we find two of 
Brown's appeals for money. In one he says: 

"I am trying to raise from twenty to twenty-five thousand dol- 
lars in the Free States to enable me to continue my efforts in the 
cause of freedom. ... I think the little beggar children in 
the streets are sufficiently interested to warrant their contrib- 
uting." 




COREECTED. 105 

All over the country money was thus raised, and the 
donors were kept ignorant of the uses to which it was 
to be appropriated, supposing it was to be used to aid 
in making Kansas free. We have no means of know- 
ing the extent of moneys thus given by the benevo- 
lent and diverted to other uses, for the old man never 
made a report of receipts or expenditures. He was 
supposed to be a person of integrity until he and his 
war policy were crushed, then sympathy for the cause, 
and ignorant of his real character, his lack of ster- 
ling honor was forgotten. 

Mr. Sanborn conveys the idea that the philanthro- 
pist, Gerrit Smith, gave his wealth to aid in plun- 
dering Virginia; but there is no evidence to that ef- 
fect so far as we know. Certain it is, Smith's mind 
was mentally wrecked when he learned of the fraud- 
ulent use made of his generous contributions for free 
Kansas. Amos A. Lawrence, too, when he learned 
how he had been deceived, denounced Brown, as did 
Hon. Eli Thayer, Gov. Robinson, and many others of 
his indorsers. But G. W. Brown was made the special 
target of abuse by these cormorants feasting on char- 
acter, because he chanced to have information of John 
Brown's criminal conduct in advance of others. In 
courts of law obtaining money under false pretenses 
is made a felony, and is pimishable for a term of 
years in the penitentiary; but we suppose Sanborn 
could find, if he would set out, evidence that this 
* 'midnight assassin" was inspired of God to de- 
ceive in money-getting; for such an offence is trivial 
in contrast with his taking human life, in which act 
he obeyed the divine will, if Sanborn can be 
trusted. 



106 FALSE CLAIMS 

XXIIT. 

Incompatible Characteristics. 

fT IS an anomaly in the history of the world to 
make a hero and a philanthropist out of a crimi- 
inal whose atrocious barbarities were so blood-curd- 
ling sensitive natures shrink from reading an account 
of them ; but this was done to glorify oAe who almost 
alone attempted to revolutionize the country by acts 
of violence, substituting his private will as superior 
to that of more than thirty millions of people, as ex- 
pressed in constitutional and statute law; also em- 
bodied in common law, the wisdom of the ages. It is 
an attempt to build character on midnight assassi- 
nation. 

Still more: What other reputation than that of 
Old John Brown has been built on falsehood, and ca- 
luminating those who told the truth in regard to his 
doings, and exposed his wickedness? To make his 
name glorious it has been necessary to blacken the 
character of nearly every one who took his life in his 
hand, and went to Kansas, bordered as it was in 1854 
by the demons of the slave power, a year in advance 
of Brown, and risked fortune and fame to lay the 
foundations of a free State? 

Gov. Chabj.es Kobinson, misled by the denials of 
John Brown, and the false character given by his in- 
dorsers to the victims of the assassin's anger, though 
honored and exalted to the highest places of public 
trust by those who knew of his patriotism, and his 
great moral, social and intellectual worth, yet, when 
he learned the true character of this fictitious hero, 
and repudiated him and his sanguinary acts, he was 
made the target for malicious and bitter invective 
by the pens of Hinton, Sanborn and Connelley. 



CORRECTED. 107 

And Hon. Eli Thayer, who labored so hard and 
sacrificed so much to turn the tide of free emigration 
towards Kansas, is besmirched by these guardians of 
a tarnished reputation, whose exemplar was justly- 
condemned and hung for murder and treason, punish- 
ments well deserved several years before he met his 
doom. 

Again: G. W. Brown, who sacrificed a large, well- 
established and prosperous publishing and book busi- 
ness in Pennsylvania; took out to Kansas with him 
the largest party in one body that settled in the terri- 
tory, persons collected by his own unaided and indi- 
vidual efforts ; erected the first frame building on the 
town site of Lawrence; printed and published the 
first free State newspaper there; took the first two 
steam-power printing presses to Kansas; established 
the first Book Bindery and Blank Book manufactory ; 
projected, located and gave name to one of its most 
prosperous towns — Emporia; against whom not one 
word of slander was ever whispered until he voiced the 
YoTiNG Policy, to rescue the territory from the curse 
of slavery, and yet he has been maligned and libeled 
in the interest of John Brown and his Murdering 
Policy, as has no one else. For proinng John Brown 
a midnight assassin he was charged with lying, of 
which these caluminators of real worth were alone 
guilty. We venture in the Appendix to this booklet 
to publish one of those falsehoods and a reply thereto 
with facts. These lies were repeated with a multitude 
of other falsehoods, not only in the text, but in nu- 
merous notes to "John Brown," ostensibly written by 
Wm. E. Connelley, a new and later edition of fiction 
writers, of which Eichard J. Hinton was a type.* 

*One of these terrible c^^i'wsr.?, perhaps \ve should write crimes, 
of which this G. W. Brown was guilty, quoted by Sanborn in his 



108 FALSE CLAIMS 

This quotation from Holmes, in the note, is follow- 
ed by another which Connelley quotes from John 
Brown himself , who, before cited, it seems, wrote: 

"I believe all honest, sensible Free State men in Kansas con- 
sider George Washington Brown's Herald of Freedom one of the 
most mischievous, traitorous publications in the whole country," 

Why ? Because G. W. Brown opposed the murder- 
ing and thieving policy of making Kansas free, and 
favored getting possession of the territorial govern- 
ment wrested from us by fraud, by using the quiet 
and peaceful ballot. That policy did not contemplate 
plunging the whole nation in a sea of blood, by the 
North engaging in a fratricidal war against the South, 
hence his paper was a "mischievous and traitorous 
publication." 

On the same page of the long note by Connelley, 
the reader is told that G. W. Brown, "To get notori- 
ety and high comjDany with the state prisoners, sub- 
mitted to arrest by a negro slave." 

The writer forgot to tell that story was a pro-sla- 
very lie; and that this G. W. Brown was the very 
first of the treason prisoners taken to Lecompton, 
where the others soon joined him. Were it not they 
who were seeking good company? 

Some other equally truthful writer, quoted by Con- 
nelley, says: "G. W. Brown, terrified for his life, be- 
came a traitor bought by Administration gold, he con- 
tinues one." 

"Life and Letters of John Brown," p. 395, and cited with great 
satisfaction by Wm. E, Connelley, in his "John Brown," p. 243, is 
told of in a letter from one James H. Holmes, a notorious Jay- 
hawker f sometimes written horse thief,) in a letter to John Brown, 
In 1857. He says: 

"Gov. Walker eomes to town frequently, and stops at the Her- 
ald of Freedom office, in secret conclave with G. W. Brown. 
When you come here (if you should) you can judge for yourself." 



CORRECTED. 109 

There was one charge against this G. W. Brown, 
by a Sumner paper, which Connelley, or his assistant, 
Hinton, in compiling lies, shamefully overlooked, for 
which we can hardly forgive him. That paper said, 
in substance: 

•'This G. W. Brown who is advocating the Voting PoHcy, and 
supporting Gov. Walker who promises the Free State party a 
fair election and honest count, is notoriously intemperate and can 
be found any day in the gutter wallowing in his filth." 

To satisfy Mr. Connelley that this statement was true, like the 
rest, we take pleasure in telling him that G. W. Brown, at the 
age of eight years, at his mother's knee, signed a familv temper- 
ance pledge, and to this date, now just entered his S3d year, the 
spirit of that pledge has never been broken. 

Wm. Smith, Esq., Attorney-at-Law, Janesville, 
Wis., having read a copy of our late "Reminiscences 
of Gov. Eobert J. Walker, with the True Story of the 
Kescue of Kansas from Slavery," ordered a copy sent 
his friend, Geo. E. Peck, Esq., Attorney for the Chi- 
cago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Eailway, at Chicago, 
and received in reply the following, which he kindly 
mailed to the writer: 

"Office Gen. Counsel, C. M. l^- St. Paul Railway Co., 

"Chicago, Aug. 15, 1902. 

"My Dear Friend: — I am greatly obliged to you for ordering 
me a copy of Dr. Brown's book on Gov. Walker. Glancing 
over its pages this morning I notice many familiar names. Dr. 
Brown was a distinguished figure in the early days in Kansas, 
and did magnificent service to the Free State cause. The Bor- 
der Ruffians mobbed and imprisoned him, and destroyed his print 
ing ofl^ce every little while, when they had no other mischief in 
hand. I have several friends in Kansas, Avho were compositors on 
the Herald of Freedom, and from them I have heard many inter- 
esting stories of those troublous times. Ex. Gov. Robinson was, 
for many years, a warm friend of mine, and was a man of great 
ability, and highly respected by all. Thanking you again, believe 
me, as always, Sincerely Yours, Geo. R. Peck. 

Hundreds of letters from all parts of the country 



110 FALSE CLAIMS 

during the last few months, all breathing the same 
kindly spirit, while many readers of Sanborn, Connel- 
ley and Hinton have written : 

"They and the publishers of those old-time libels, only injure 
themselves by their malicious assaults. While the Herald of 
Freedom remains on iile in the rooms of the Historical Societj^, 
at Topeka, all can see that it was faithful to the cause that planted 
it in Kansas." 

But let these traducers of real merit, of the Hin- 
ton & Company stripe, continue their malicious as- 
saults, and rear their granite shafts mountain high, 
if they will, covered all over with lying inscriptions 
to the glory of their vile heroes; let them thrust their 
statues into every conceivable place, and, if possible, 
emblazon their names in letters of burnished gold 
along the sky. The greater their elevation the more 
crushing their fall; for Eternal Justice has so ordered 
that though ages pass, yet the Truth shall finally 
prevail, and the heroes whose fame rested on false- 
hoodf like the decaying rock, shall crumble and £all, 
and the waters of oblivion shall roll over and engulf 
them forever. 

Score One for Truth. 
^^TrfUE ACTIVE hostility of Robinson and G. W. Brown 

e) I (9 to John Brown began in 1858." 

The above is a note on page 417 of Sanborn's "Life 
and Letters of John Brown." We thank the author 
for making record of that fact, and compliment him 
for his truthfulness in that regard. 

Both Gov. Eobinson and the writer were prisoners, 
under pro- slavery authority, when the murders on 
the Pottaw^atomie were perpetrated, and they remained 
such during all that summer and into the autumn of 



CORRECTED. Ill 

1856, when John Brown was operating with his guer- 
illas, stealing, plundering and murdering pro-slavery 
settlers and travelers. We were not in a good condi- 
tion to be well posted in transpiring events, being in 
the custody of United States troops, and most of our 
information reached us through our guard, or from 
the officers when visiting their quarters. 

John Brown, his sons, their families and belong- 
ings set out for the East some five days after our dis- 
charge from imprisonment. 

The Herald of Freedom, destroyed by Border Ruf- 
fians three days before the massacre on the Pottawat- 
omie, was not revived until the 1st of November, a 
month and a half after these disturbing elements had 
set out on their overland trip north, through Iowa 
East, hence there was no occasion to tell of Brown's 
misdoings, besides, as the Border Ruffians held the 
whole Free State party responsible for his acts, silence 
at the time was golden, but it ceased to be such when, 
on that account, Brown's friends credited everything 
done for the freedom of Kansas hinged on the brutal 
murders on the Pottawatomie. 

In 1857 Brown was collecting money and military 
armament at -Tabor, Iowa, with headquarters there, 
and was plotting with Jim Lane to precipitate them- 
selves on the Lecompton Constitutional Convention, 
murder each member, and *'wipe out" the officers of 
the territorial government, if they interfered in the 
matter. For a very good account of this i^lotting and 
management, the reader will consult Sanborn's "Life 
and Letters," where he will read of Lane's artful ef- 
forts to get the arms in Brown's keeping at Tabor into 
the territory, in time to crush the Lecompton Consti- 
tutional Convention, and of Brown's determination 
that he would not move without money. The reader 



112 FALSE CLAIMS 

should also consult Chap. XVI of the writer's Kem- 
iniscences of Gov. Walker in this connection, so as 
to be posted on the points made in those letters. 

When John Brown returned to Kansas, in the early 
summer of 1858, and commenced his agitation in 
South-Eastern Kansas, and had the whole region in 
an ui^roar, and Missourians were pouring over into 
those counties, retaliating on Free State settlers for 
Brown's outrages, everything im^Deriled by his action; 
then Gov. Kobinson and G. W. Brown, with every 
other honest and conscientious settler, opposed to Jay- 
hawking, otherwise stealing from our opponents, an- 
tagonized him, and openly, and they incurred the dis- 
pleasure of Brown and every Free State thief in the 
territory. 

These Jayhawkers were mostly enlisted from those 
who were transported overland through Iowa and Ne- 
braska into Kansas, in the summer and autumn of 
1856. They very generally indorsed John Brown and 
Jim Lane as their leaders, and made heroes of them 
when dead, one dying on the gallows, and the other 
by his own hand. These men had no means of sup- 
port. Like John Brown, with weaiDons in their hands, 
they came to Kansas to fight. They had nothing to 
lose, but everything to gain by their predatory hab- 
its, and they worked their new profession for all it 
was worth. 

As Gov. Eobinson was in a responsible position, 
the acknowledged head of the Free State settlers, and 
G. W. Brown, with his Herald of Freedom, was doing 
all in his power to restore order, these persons came 
in for their full share 'of malicious abuse. 

But we were not the only ones who condemned 
John Brown's actions. The Free State people of 
South-Eastern Kansas, who he embroiled in trouble, 



CORRECTED IIB 

denounced him, as did, latterly, his whilom friend 
Col. Montgomery, as before stated. 

On page 487 of "Life and Letters of John Brown," 
we find this statement, which all will admit, has a bad 
look for the basely gilded hero, who so long made his 
headquarters in Iowa, drilling and prej^aring for war. 
We quote: 

"At Tabor Brown had formerly been received with great hospi- 
taHty and treated in the friendliest manner; but the very people 
who had formerly contributed to his wants so liberally now felt 
called upon to assemble and resolve that Brown's conduct in cross- 
ing into a slave State and forcing negroes away was inconsistent 
Avith the teachings of the Bible and Christianity. . . Though 
good Republican voters they were alarmed and declared such fu- 
gitives contraband." 

This action of the citizens of Tabor occurred on 
Feb. 7, 1859, and was formulated in words following: 

^^Resolved, That while we sympathize with the oppressed, and 
will do all we conscientiously can to help them in their efforts for 
freedom, nevertheless, ti'e have no sympathy with those who go 
to slave States to entice away slaves and take property or life 
when necessary to attain that end." 

John Brown was present at this meeting of citi- 
zens, addressed by a strong anti-slavery man; but as 
the tide had set against the fictitious hero, he arose 
and left his former indorsers in silence. So says San- 
bom in his "Life and Letters,-' p. 488. 

Sanborn gives on p. 490 a quotation from a letter 
by Gov. Kobinson, published in the Topeka Common- 
wealth, to the same point in regard to Brown's forays 
into Missouri. The Governor says: 

"Brown and his heroes went over the line into Missouri, killed 
an old and peaceful citizen and robbed him of all the personal ef- 
fects he could drive or carry awa3^ Such proceedings caused the 
Free State men to organize and drive him from the territory. He 
went to Harper's Ferry where he displayed his wonderful general- 
ship in virtually committing suicide." 



114 FALSE CLAIMS 

Col. O. E. Learnard, publisher of the Lawrence 
Journal, who came to Lawrence in 1856, and presided 
over the Convention at Osawatomie in 1859, that or- 
ganized the Republican party of Kansas, in an article 
in a Kansas magazine, "The Agora," in 1892, wrote: 

"Concerning the character and services of John Brown it is 
probable the views expressed by Governor Robinson reflect the 
settled sentiment, for the most part at least, of those personally 
familiar with the facts. John Brown — Pottawatomie Brown as 
General Butler has it, and not Osawatomie Brown as the Atchi- 
son Globe has it — never was in any proper sense a resident of Kan- 
sas. His immediate family was never here, and he never evinced 
any purpose of bringing them here. Previous to his coming to 
Kansas he had established his home among tJie Adirondack hills 
in New York, having utterly failed in every business undertaking 
of his life, a misanthrope — broken in fortune and involved in liti- 
gation in half a dozen States. While here he never co-operated 
with the best elements of the Free State party, and was never 
trusted by them. The one black spot in the Free State annals of 
Kansas is the work of his hands." 

A letter addressed to the writer, of date Chelsea, 
Mass., Dec. 1, 1883, from Rev. Ephraim Nute, who 
located in Lawrence early in the spring of 1855, and 
was closely identified with the Free State movement 
until the admission of Kansas into the Union, will be 
read with interest. He says: 

"The horrors that followed the sacking of Lawrence in May 
of 1856, are sickening to contemplate. But the truth should be 
told, and the sooner the better. Old John Brown was drunk 
with rage when we were outraged, crushed and threatened with 
further violence; but what a barbarous method he employed in 
retaliation. Yes, he was a murderer, a horrible midnight assassin. 
He struck as a maniac, driven mad by the acts of the pro-slavery 
ruffians. I can understand how he did it, and yet I am amazed 
and horrified to think of it. The condemnation of his murderous 
doings will grow deeper and stronger with each successive gen- 
eration." 

Instead of malignant and malicious libels, to de- 
fame and belittle the real heroes in the Kansas strife. 



• CORRECTED. 115 

they who really rescued the territory from slavery, we 
commend to the consideration of Frank B. Sanborn, 
Wm. E. Connelley, and their associate traducers, the 
following: 

"There is no better test of purity and goodness than reluctance 
to think evil of another, with absolute incapacity to believe evil 
reports of good men, except on the most positive evidence. Alas, 
that this lovely charity is so aare! Every man who peddles li- 
bels thereby advertises his own unworthiness." 



Gov. Robinson Misrepresented, 

■■ r^HARLES ROBINSON was the Free State Governor of 
|Aj Kansas at the time these men were killed by John Brown 
on the Pottawatomie. Having the interests of the Free State men 
of Kansas in his charge, and it being his business to know the 
conditions everywhere prevailing, he bestowed upon John Brown 
the highest praise and most flattering panegyrics. — Connelley 's 
''John Brown," p. 226. 

A person familiar with the pioneer history of Kan- 
sas, if a "weeping philosopher," will find cause for an 
abundance of tears when reading the above quota- 
tion from the Kansas historian. Connelley should 
have waited until the last actor in the Kansas drama 
was dead, if he expected his statements to pass unchal- 
lenged. 

1st. While it is true Charles Eobinson was elected 
Governor under the Topeka Constitution, yet that in- 
strument, and the officers under it were waiting in 
abeyance the action of Congress, and had no legal 
authority whatever until indorsed by that body. As 
Congress never gave that Constitution any vitalizing 
force. Gov. Robinson had no more ability to restrain 
or punish crime under it than the humblest citizen. 

2d. Gov. Robinson was arrested by a Missouri mob 



116 FALSE CLAIMS • 

at Loxington, May 10th, 1856, while on his way as 
messenger of the Congressional Investigating Com- 
mittee, bearing the testimony, so far taken, to Wash- 
ington. He was not at liberty again until September 
10th, when he was released from imprisonment by 
judicial action. 

3d. Had Gov. Kobinson been clothed with regal 
power, a prisoner as he was when those murders were 
committed, he could not have prevented that cowardly 
midnight assassination, neither could he have brought 
the guilty wretches to justice. 

Even if Gov. Robinson, James Hanway and a thou- 
sand equally good men should say midnight assassi- 
nation was justifiable without arrest, trial and convic- 
tion by a properly constituted and legal court, modern 
intelligence would condemn their judgment. It was 
an unauthorized and indefensible murder, disguise it 
as much as possible, even calling it an "execution," 
a falsehood on its face, does not change the character 
of the crime. 

Had the Doyles, Wilkinson and Sherman attacked 
John Brown and his associate guerillas in their 
homes, or while pursuing their legitimate duties on 
the highway, and were unable to ward off the attack, 
the killing would have been justifiable in defense of 
their own lives. Mere threats, however, in drunken 
anger, do not justify homicide. 

Like cowardly poltroons, the assassins in these 
murders, under the cover of darkness, while the vic- 
tims were peacefully sleeping in their own beds, all 
unconscious of danger, dragged them out into the 
darkness and slaughtered them as they would swine. 

Gov. Robinson, over his own signature, told in his 
own words why he chanced to write and speak com- 
plimentary of the assassin. Let us hear him. In a 



CORRECTED. 117 

letter to, and published in the Boston Transcript, 
June 12, 1884, the Governor said: 

"Until the testimony of Mr. Townslej appeared, many Free 
State men apologized for the massacre on the ground that the 
men killed were worthy of death for their crimes. With these 
apologies I sympathized, supposing what Redpath and others said 
was true. This was the testimony on which the case chiefly 
rested till Townsley's was given. Had Redpath's statements 
proved true as to the character and conduct of the men killed, I 
should have continued to apologize for the men who committed 
the deed, although it never could be justified. But I have now 
become satisfied that Redpath^s account is all fiction, except the 
statement that the men were killed. I BELIEVE THESE 
MEN HAD COMMITTED NO CRIME, AND HAD 
THREATENED TO COMMIT NONE. Townsley's state- 
ment that Brown wanted him to go up the creek five or six miles 
and point out the cabins of all the pro-slavery men that they 
might make a clean sweep as they came down, shows conclu- 
sively that he was ready to kill any pro-slavery man, guilty or not 
guilty, and hence shows that his purpose was to inaugurate war, 
and not to make a free State. 

"I entertain no malice towards this hero, have apologized for 
him probably a thousand times, and never lifted a finger to op- 
pose any honors to his memory by the State or nation. While I 
believed the men butchered were bad men, belligerents, as described 
by Redpath and others, I excused the killing as best I could, and 
contemplated writing out a statement to be filed with our Histori- 
cal Society, setting forth the outrages committed by these and sim- 
ilar men. But before I had time to write this statement I became 
satisfied from new and conclusive evidence that these men were 
innocent of all crime or threatened crime, and that their taking off 
was not intended for the protection of Free State men from their 
outrages and such as theirs, but was intended by Brown as an act 
of offensive war. When I became satisfied on these points, I 
abandoned the work and ceased apologies for Brown. 

"When this massacre occurred I had been absent from the terri- 
tory and a prisoner some two weeks, and knew nothins^ whatever 
of the situation in the Pottawatomie region. I was told that the 
pro-slavery men there had inaugurated a war of extermination of 
the Free State settlers, and that this massacre had put a stop to it. 
This was uncontradicted, and I had every reason to suppose there 
was some foundation in fact for such statements." 



118 FAL8E CLAIMS 

Of F. B. Sanborn, Gov. Kobinson said in that 
letter from which we have just quoted: 

"The quotation from Mr. Adams by Sanborn in his letter 
showed conclusively that when I wrote to Mr. Adams I had not 
been undeceived. He reports me as thinking 'the act (at Potta- 
watomie) did in fact have the effect to check the career of whole- 
sale murder which the pro-slavery men had entered upon, intend- 
ing to kill or drive from Kansas every out-spoken Free State man 
in the territory.' 

"In the Hanway letter I say, *! will improve my first leisure to 
put on paper my views of the situation at the time.' What were 
my views of the situation? Adams's letter says that I thought a 
'career of wholesale murder had been entered upon, intending to 
kill or drive from Kansas every out-spoken man in the territory.^ 

"Had that view proved correct, my apologies for Brown would 
have continued, but unfortunately it has no foundation in fact» 
and the conclusion is inevitable that John Brown by that act in- 
tended to 'involve the sections in war' and not to protect Free State 
men. 

"My view now is, after investigation, that not a man had been 
killed south of Douglas county up to that date; that the men 
killed by Brown had committed no crime, and threatened to com- 
mit none; and that Brown was ready to kill any pro-slavery man 
he could find simply because he was pro-slavery. It is unneces- 
sary to say that this change of view of the situation has com- 
pletely changed my view of Brown and the Pottawatomie 'affair.' 

"Until after the date of the Hanway letter I had made no inves- 
tigation into the matter, and apologized for the massacre as best 
I could. But as soon as an honest and impartial investigation 
was made the case was wholly changed. Instead of these men 
being criminals they had not even threatened to commit a crime, 
and as there was no war of extermination contemplated by them, 
no such war had been stopped by their massacre. These are the 
facts, as I have no doubt, and facts brought out by non-partisan 
and disinterested investigators, and I am obliged, if honest, to 
accept them, whatever may have been my previous opinion. The 
speech he refers to as made at Osawatomie was made at Paola the 
evening after the meeting at Osawatomie, and was simply an 
apology based upon a state of facts which I supposed existed, but 
which now I am satisfied did not exist. I made such apologies 
all through the Fremont campaign in answer to Democratic crit- 
icism, and made them honestly, as honestly as I now retract 



CORRECTED. 119 

them. The letter of the 14th of September, 1856, if genuine, was 
called out by Brown's action in defending Osawatomie, as Sanborn 
has already stated, and could have had no reference to the Potta- 
watomie massacre, as up to that time everybody denied Brown's 
connection with it. By the way, if Sanborn thinks it a disgrace to 
admit a mistake on discovery of new facts, what does he think of 
himself? Until long after Brown's death, Sanborn and all Brown's 
family and partisans denied that he was connected with or respon- 
ssble for the Pottawatomie massacre. . . . 

"If history furnishes a parallel to the cold-blooded, unblushing, 
persistent, and unscrupulous lying of John Brown, his family, and 
friends, I have not discovered it, yet it is of such men some people 
make heroes." 

Then Gov. Kobinson shows Sanborn was guilty of 
great inexactness in misrepresenting Col. Walker, and 
concludes : 

"If a person who can make a hero of a man who went to the 
gallows with • a lie upon his lips, and glorify a family who per- 
sisted in lying for nearly thirty years, and who can himself man- 
ufacture lies to order out of whole cloth on occasion — if such a 
man is shocked at a person who changes his views only when a 
new discovery of facts warrants the change, he must be peculiarly 
sensitive. It is to be hoped that but few such characters are to be 
found outside of the Concord School of Philosophy." 

Gov. Kobinson, in a letter published in The Com- 
monwealth, Topeka, December 12, 1883, p. 41, Vol II, 
of our John Brown Scrap Book, told a great truth 
when he wrote: 

'^The halo of glory has already disap- 
peared from the Itroiv of John Broivn, and 
twenty-five years will not elapse before 
Kansans will pride themselves upon the 
faet that he was never a citizen of the terri- 
tory or State. There are hut two acts of 
Broivn that will survive this generation 
and pass into history—the Pottaivatomie 
Massacre and Harper's Ferry raid—hoth 
indefensible. As he is distinguished for 



120 FALSE CLAIMS 

nothing else he ivill he judged hy these so 
soon as his contemporaries are under 
ground, and will he condemned hy the pop- 
ular verdict. History is relentless and mer- 
ciless, and ivill overlook no errors or mis- 
takes, much less hlunders and crimes/' 

Continuing from the same letter, Gov. Eobinson 
said: 

"Sanborn is a verj poor historian of Brown, being an accom- 
plice of his in betraying an important trust, by diverting funds 
contributed for the lawful defense of Kansas to the inauguration 
of servile insurrection and war, which the contributors would 
most vehemently condemn. The Senate Harper's Ferry Com- 
mittee indissolubly united John Brown and F. B. Sanborn in that 
act, and any history he might attempt must necessarily partake of 
the nature of a personal vindication. As nothing was accom- 
plished but the death of some twenty men at Harper's Ferry, 
something to Brown's credit must be made out of the Pottawat- 
omie massacre, if possible. Hence Sanborn's eflbrt to make the 
freedom of Kansas hinge upon this act, and his flippant use of ep- 
ithets against all who think other instrumentalities than Brown 
and his massacre saved Kansas. The military companies which 
bore themselves so bravely, discreetly and loyally to the Free 
State party, which were, in fact, of that party, being voters as 
well as fighters, and politicians as well as soldiers, are classed as 
dastards by Sanborn, as compared with Brown. But it won't 
avail. When the contemporaries are out of the way, leaving a 
clear field to the historian, the heroes will have disappeared and 
the old Free State party and its military organizations will comie 
to the surface and receive their just meed of praise, and no San- 
born will be found to cry dastard of those who saved Kansas to 
freedom, and by so doing, started the wave of emancipation which 
eventually swept over the land. Brown came to Kansas, accord- 
ing to Redpath, not to settle and not to make a free State, but to 
get a shot at the South and abolish slavery. He failed in his mis- 
sion and went to Virginia, and failed again most miserably. The 
Free State men came to Kansas to settle and make a free State, 
and they succeeded, not only in making Kansas free, but, indi- 
rectly, the nation. Now Sanborn wants to falsify history by de- 
faming the victors and glorifying the failure." 



GORBECTED. 121 

!'A man should never blush in confessing his errors, for he 
proves by his avowal that he is wiser to-day than yesterday." 

So wrote an eminent Frencli scliolar a hundred and 
fifty years ago; but Mr. Connelley arraigns Gov. Kob- 
inson very bitterly for changing his opinion of John 
Brown, and of his services to Kansas. When Mr. 
Connelley shall know more of his hero, the midnight 
assassin, we hope, instead of i^ersisting in his folly 
he will demonstrate that he is wiser to-day than when 
he wrote his "John Brown." 

AVe cannot believe it possible Mr. Connelley wrote 
the paragraph that heads this section. It betrays too 
gross ignorance of the facts of history to fit so intel- 
ligent a pen. It is of the same character with the 
multitude of notes running all through his "John 
Brown," which only the malevolence of Richard J. 
Hinton, with no regard for truth, could have written. 

Mr. Sanborn, as an accomplice of Old John Brown 
before the fact, in his Virginia raid, murder and 
treason, and not executed with his principal, has con- 
cocted the best defence of the assassin his pen was 
capable by charging it on God. We controvert the 
allegation, however, and demur to its sufficiency.* 

*The newspapers tell as we write of a Michigan preacher, one 
Thomas Ridge, who professed to believe the Lord had instructed 
him to collect a bill due from a neighbor, with a revolver. He 
made a murderous assault with the deadly instrument, and was 
convicted in the Circuit Court of the offense and received the 
usual penalty. His alleged commission from Divine power wasn't 
worth a cent in a court of human justice. Would Sanborn's "In- 
spired of God" avail anything in the way of defence for Old John 
Brown in such a Court? If so every other assassin can success- 
fully justify himself with a similar plea. 



122 FALSE CLAIMS 

Never Glorify Crime. 
N OUR "Reminiscences of Old John Brown," 
published in 1880, which had a very large read- 
ing, we said, p. 65: 

'•Heroes are the idols of the age in which they live. Statues 
are erected to their memory when dead. Costly monuments 
adorn their resting places, and lying epitaphs perpetuate the pop- 
ular applause. Another generation follows. Cool reflection takes 
the place of the frenzied hour. Histories are ransacked; the 
truth is learned; the hero of yesterday is forgotten to-day; and, 
like Marat, in French history, his bones are removed trom their 
resting place by the side of kings; his portraits are torn down and 
trampled upon; his mausoleum is demolished, and fragments of 
his magnificent monument are all that remain of him whom a 
'grateful nation' so highly honored as to vote a pension for life to 
his concubine." 

A poet advised his readers to "be a hero in the 
strife." A Kansas journalist, with that expression 
for a text, facetiously remarks: "It is evident that 
poet has not observed what happens to heroes when 
they pass the climax of popularity, and the reaction 
sets in." The writer must have had the waning glory 
of Old John Brown in mind when he thus wrote. 

Lord Mansfield, then Chief Justice of the King's 
Bench, England, in 1772, decided "As soon as a slave 
sets his foot on the soil of the British islands he be- 
comes free; the air is so pure he cannot breathe it." 
In the British Parliament, in 1770, while a member of 
that body, Mansfield expressed himself very emphat- 
ically in regard to those who are misled by the brazen 
shouts of the populace, quite ignorant of the influ- 
ences which lead them on. Said he: 

"I pity those who mistake the shouts of a mob for the trumpet 
of Fame. Experience teaches that many who have been saluted 
with the huzzas of a crowd one day. have received their execra- 
tions the next. Many, who, by the popularity of their times, have 



CORKECTED. 123 

been held as spotless patriots have nevertheless appeared on the 
historian's page, when Truth has triumphed over delusion, as the 
assassins of liberty." 

Mrs, Dr. Buckner, formerly from New England, 
then principal of a Ladies' Seminary in Texas, and 
the author of a book of poems, lately deceased in 
Florida, wrote us twenty years ago, in ordering a copy 
of our Old John Brown: 

"I have never read anything but fugitive sketches of John 
Brown. My idea of him is, he did and dared for the sake of free- 
dom. In this respect he seems heroic to me. I love to worship, 
if I do have to idolize my gods." 

After receiving and reading the book she wrote : 

"I have taken 'Old John Brown' down from the pleasant alcove, 
around whose borders I had allowed green running vines to creep 
and twine in all their wild luxuriance of freedom; above whose 
arch I had placed the shining star of Liberfy. I have now 
thrown ai-ound his weird, unique form a mantle of sack-cloth, 
sprinkled it with ashes, and shall entomb him with my dead 
idols." 

We know it is popular, and the idea is fossilized in 
the maxim: "Speak no evil of the dead;" but must 
the great criminals whose associates labor to glorify 
their wickedness, be exempt from reprobation, be- 
cause they have suffered death at the hands of law, 
or, by their own hand? 

A new generation is with us who have no knowl- 
edge of the criminal acts of Old John Brown. Be- 
fore going to Kansas, and later to Virginia, his history 
was very obscure. We hold it is the duty of the few 
yet living, who were contemporary with him, and in 
full possession of the facts pertaining to his guilt, to 
tell what they know of his bloody deeds, as a warning 
to those who shall follow us. Unless we desire to 
immortalize wrong we must not honor it, or those who 
are guilty of criminal acts. Honied words, when ex- 
posing guilt have no place in our vocabulary. 



124 FALSE CLAIMS 

Palsied be tlie arm, and paralyzed the heart when we 
cease to denounce crime, whether perpetrated in high 
or in low places; whether the authors are professed re- 
formers, or engage in acts of violence from a love of 
blood. A Torquemada who slaughters to advance the 
interests of his church is no less guilty, and should 
be as severely condemned as he who kills for revenge, 
or with the hope of advancing his material interests. 

"He who glorifies crime, or connives at its conceal- 
ment, is guilty of moral perjury, and deserves not 
only the censure but hatred of every lover of justice." 
So wrote another. 

Jim Younger, the notorious "Bushwhacker," mur- 
derer, highwayman, and thief, the associate of the 
guerilla chieftain Quantrell, in "his raid on Lawrence, 
the hero of a multitude of crimes, from some of which 
this writer severely suffered pecuniarily, who suicided 
while this booklet was in press, had friends who 
trusted and loved him, and would have sacrificed 
much in his interest. They believed him a martyr to 
principle, a persecuted man, and as such, will proba- 
bly erect a monument to his memory. He was the 
antithesis of John Brown. Each thought he was do- 
ing God's service; and both slaughtered under the im- 
pression that they had His approbation. The less 
crime is glorified the better for the morals of coming 
generations. 

Said an old soldier of the War of the Kebellion, 
who is covered all over with scars, caused by wounds 
from the bullets of the enemy: 

*'I dislike very much to hear those who enlisted in the govern- 
ment service, near the close of the war, who never received a 
wound, or participated in a battle, telling of their great importance 
in putting down the rebellion. Those who endured the fatigue 
and hazard of life on the march and in the field, frequently short 



CORRECTED. 125 

of commissary stores, who know what civil strife is, are generally 
reticent, while the unworthy demand all the glory." 

This is exactly the case with the writer. He went 
to Kansas among the first, not for fame or the emolu- 
ments of office, but to aid in making it a free State. 
He greatly dislikes to see all the honors for the noble 
achievement, won by others, awarded those who were 
absolute obstructionists to the grand outcome; and of 
such we insist again and again, was John Brown, and 
so asserted, times without number, nearly all the prin- 
cipal contestants in the pioneer war with slavery. 



Points Omitted in Place. 

BEFOEE closing these pages it is proper to state* 
since we are writing for a new generation un- 
acquainted with the facts, that the claim of Eedpath, 
Hinton, Sanborn and Connelley, that John Brown 
was the powerful factor which defended Lawrence at 
the Missouri raid of September 15, 1856, has no foun- 
dation in fact. Eedpath was not there, neither was 
Sanborn, nor Connelley. Neither was Eichard Eealf, 
who told in verse how the "prairies breathed" on that 
occasion. Hinton arrived on the northern boundary 
of Kansas, according to his own narration, on the 
7th of August, 1856. On August 81, '56, Hinton 
reached Lawrence. This was but fifteen days before 
the raid. It seems from his story, he must have been 
a stranger to every person in Lawrence. 

Hinton assisted Eedpath in writing the Life of 
John Brown. The presumption is that Hinton gave 
rein to his active and unscrupulous imagination, and 
wrote up that wondrous account of his fictitious -hero 
defending Lawrence against an army of 2,700, and 



126 FALSE CLAIMS 

produced a slaughter only approached at Osawatomie, 
where a multitude were wounded, or slain, by this un- 
conquerable hero, though, in fact, the killed were all 
on his side, the enemy only suffering from three slight 
wounds. 

The writer stated the facts in regard to that defence 
of Lawrence, on pp. 33 to 36, of his "Reminiscences 
of Old John Brown," and showed that Brown was not 
in command; that he did not appear to be armed; 
that he made no speech, nor exercised any authority 
on the occasion. The discussion which followed our 
relation of the facts elicited statements from Col. 
Samuel Walker, Maj. Abbott, who ivas in command, 
Capt. Cracklin in command of the Stubbs, who re- 
sisted the advance guard the evening before, all of 
whose statements agreed in every essential particular, 
and were confirmed by Gov. Robinson himself, who 
was there in person, yet they were all ignored by 
Connelley and Sanborn, and Hinton's wholly false 
account, from a fictitious standpoint, is given the 
preference. Eealf's poetical romance was doubtless 
inspired by Hinton. In the ''Twentieth Century 
Classic," for August, 1900, p. 35, Hinton tells of nar- 
rating to a party of which Realf was one, on Mt. 
Oread, the incidents of that terrible fight, which 
Realf rendered into verse, and he says: "I know 
that no misrepresentation was made," and that, be it 
remembered, from the romancer so late as 1900, with 
all the truthful accounts we have mentioned before 
him. 

It does not matter to what subject we turn in rela- 
tion to Old John Brown — if we can trace the account 
of it for the first to Hinton's prolific pen, investiga- 
tion will prove it to be wholly imaginative. We 
had censured Redpath for his published falsehoods. 



COKRECTED. 127 

and supposed him their parent; but when we find 
Hinton was Kedpath's assistant in the preparation of 
the "Life of Brown," and as Redpath never defended 
his falsehoods, but Hinton did, and as Redpath and 
Hinton fell out and ceased to be friends after the ex- 
posure of Redpath's falsehoods, we suspicion it was 
because of them. It seems, too, that Wm. A. Phil- 
lips and P. B. Plumb both ceased to be friends of 
Hinton. See Vol. V, p, 379 "Kansas Historical Col- 
lections," and p. 20 "Memorial Addresses on Senator 
Plumb." 

With these facts as keys we can understand who 
wrote the original of "The Battle of the Spurs," so 
graphically described by Connelley, p. 829 of his 
"John Brown," an enlargement of Tarn O'Shanter's 
adventures, as told by Burns. 

We are glad to note that Connelley gave no credit 
to the alleged kissing adventure of Old John on his 
way from the jail to the gallows. That was denied 
by the sheriff and the jailer. The original of that 
scene was borrowed from Macauley, in relation to 
Charles I, of England. 

"We accuse the king of having given up his people 
to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed 
and hard-hearted of prelates ; and the defence is : He 
took his little son on his knee and kissed himy 

So to glorify John Brown, and show what a tender 
heart he had, notwithstanding his terrible murders, 
his romancers made him kiss a negro child when 
going from the jail to the hangman's cart, at a time 
when every citizen was excluded and only armed 
soldiers, additional to the civil officers, were present. 

To add to the ludicrousness of the scene, a colored 
man appeared in Topeka a few years ago, and claimed 
he was the identical and original baby John Brown 
kissed. 



128 FALSE CLAIMS 

Mr. Connelley: You lost another of your opportuni- 
ties in not detailing that incident. 

But to follow all the misrepresentations and exag- 
gerations of Mr. Connelley in detail would swell this 
booklet into mammoth proportions. In a letter to us 
of date June 11, 1902, over his own signature, Mr. 
Connelley wrote: 

"I regret more than I oan tell that anything in the 
book ["John Brown"] causes you pain. More than 
once have I regretted that I ever attempted to write 
on the subject of Kansas history. The different par- 
ties and factions were always intensely hostile to one 
another, and personal differences uniformly resulted 
in such intense bitterness that the task is beset with 
many difficulties. I am learning, too, that it is well- 
nigh impossible to get at the exact facts." 

He who reads Connelly's ''John Brown" will see 
at a glance it was the purpose of the author to defame 
G. W. Brown; that Gov. Kobinson, Eli Thayer, James 
Blood and many others, came in for abuse, because 
they sustained the statements of this G. W. Brown in 
regard to those Pottawatomie assassinations. He 
promised in that letter to make corrections in a future 
edition. 

To correct all the falsehoods in the edition of "John 
Brown" before us would require the re- writing of its 
every page, a task that will never be done — the people 
will never demand it. And if he accepts Hinton as 
truthful, it will be impossible to make a work which 
will harmonize with the accurate statements of those 
who tell nothing but facts. 

In that same letter Mr. Connelley acknowledges 
the receipt of our "Reminiscences of Gov. Robert J. 
Walker, with the True Story of the Rescue of Kansas 
from Slavery." He says of it: 

**I regard this work as a very valuable contribution 



CX)EEECTED. 129 

to. our history. The people of this State certainly 
owe you a debt of gratitude for writing it. It pre- 
serves much that is vital to our history, which would 
have been lost but for your efforts." 

Thanks to Mr. Connelley for his concessions. He 
should recall the fact that even Hinton, with all his 
malice, virtually conceded we were right in our sup- 
port of the Voting Policy, which made Kansas free. 
And he does not deny any longer that John Brown 
led the bandits in their Pottawatomie murders. He 
may adopt John SpeerandF. B. Sanborn's silly claim 
that they were "executions," but all we claimed in our 
"Old John Brown," and for which there was no end of 
vituperation, is now admitted by both of these men 
as absolutely truthful. 

We hold no animosity to Mr. Connelley. Friends 
who know him, say he means to be honest and truth- 
ful. The facts are, he has been shamefully misled by 
Hinton, who he supposed was veracious, whereas no 
person has done so much to falsify history as he. We 
have no question the time will come when Mr. C. will 
be conscious of this as we are; and, if faithful to his 
convictions, he will execrate Old John Brown and his 
introduction of midnight slaughter into the politics 
of Kansas as earnestly as we do. 

XXV^III. 

Fanaticism Run Mad. 
■HEN the Missouri compromise was passed and the 
State came into the Union, there came into man- 
hood a man whose name, not perhaps in power of in- 
tellect, must, in character and in earnestness of purpose, be regarded 
as the opposite of Calhoun. It is that of a man whose single act 
shivered the walls of slavery, so that the citadel parted from 
rampart to foundation, and the marching hosts of the North went 
through. It was John Brown, born In Torrington, Conn., but 




130 FALSE CLAIMS 

hero of Kansas and Harper's Ferry. I take John Brown to rep- 
resent as faithfully the real Northern idea as John Caldwell Cal- 
houn did that of the slaveocracj and its expansionists." 

It is positively incomprehensible how a man with 
even common intelligence, still in possession of his 
sober senses, could iterate such supreme nonsense as 
is above quoted from p. 181, Yol. 6, of the "Kansas 
Historical Collections," it being an extract from an 
address by Eichard J. Hinton, before the Kansas His- 
torical Society, January 16, 1900. 

John Brown the opposite of John C. Calhoun, 
*'whose single act shivered the walls of slavery! " 

The six years' laborious contest in Kansas, partici- 
pated in by thousands of zealous defenders of free- 
dom, and the four years' struggle against the slavery 
propaganda, wherein millions participated, and the 
whole country was literally "rolled in blood," counted 
as nothing. It was John Brown who "shivered the 
walls of slavery ! " 

The great men of the nation, Wm. H. Seward, Sal- 
mon P. Chase, John P. Hale, Joshua K. Giddings, 
and the thousands of other great and good men who 
laid the foundation, in Congress and out of it, of anti- 
slavery hostility to the encroachments of the slave- 
power, counted as nothing with Mr. Hinton compared 
to the superior services of Old John Brov/n! It is a 
re-habiliment, in other language, of Sanborn's "in- 
spired of God" claim. 

Is it possible such silly mouth ings are to pass into 
history as truthful? And yet they are characteristic 
of the false claims of the entire list of the John 
Brown eulogists. 

Sanborn's claim that the freedom of Kansas 
"hinged" on the Pottawatomie murders, and Hinton's 
that John Brown was the anti-slavery counterpart of 



COBRECTED. 131 

John C. Calhoun, are only paralleled by Connelley's 
claim that he was the "Savior of Kansas." 

Hinton, Sanborn and Connelley seem to have at- 
tempted to rival each other in their endeavor to glo- 
rify John Brown, and berate others. Even Washing- 
ton and Franklin have been placed in an inferior po- 
sition to Brown by some of the hero worshipers. 
When reading the eulogies bestowed by these men on 
their hero we can only recall the wonderful doings 
credited by the ancients to Buddha, to Crishna, and 
the sun-gods, who lifted mountains for umbrellas, and 
did a thousand other things quite as impossible. 

It will not do to trust the eulogists of either gods 
or men. They overdo their task; and exiDose their 
folly by their excess of laudation. 

John C. Ccilhoun though a Southern extremist, and, 
because of his commanding ability, was dangerous to 
the American Republic; yet he was a man of great 
learning, varied attainments, and unusual force of 
character. He served seven years as Secretary of 
War under the two terms of President Monroe; was 
Yice President during John Quincy Adams' adminis- 
tration, and again during the first term of President 
Jackson's. Then he was elected to the United States 
Senate, which office he filled for twelve years, the peer 
of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Thomas H. Benton, 
and the ablest minds in that body. 

Calhoun's nullification scheme, which clothed 
STATES with power to withdraw from the Union at 
will, and John Brown's setting up a privcde govern- 
ment of his own to defeat not only the laws of Con- 
gress and the enactments of State Legislatures, but 
repudiating the Constitution itself, are the two ex- 
tremes of anarchistic folly, both ending in the destruc- 
tion of the originators and those who indorsed their 



132 FAIiSE CLAIMS 

folly. In Brown's case it was a family, with a few 
outside backers, against a powerful nation. The only 
real contrast between these men is that of greatness 
on the one hand, and insignificance as to results on 
the other. 

While concluding these chapters a meeting was 
held of anarchists in Chicago, in honor of their fel- 
lows whose lives were ended there on the gallows in 
1887, for the murder of policemen. Hinton's eulo- 
gies of John Brown found a parallel in the crazy dec- 
larations of these anarchist speakers. 

One George Brown, of Philadelphia, stirred his 
hearers to the fullest extent, when he referred to the 
assassination of President McKinley, by Leon Gzol- 
gosz. Said he: 

"Government, be it of whatever form it may, is an 
injustice. It is maintained by organized violence." 

Then, says the report, he launched into a tirade 
against the authorities Avho had seized upon the lead- 
ers of the Haymarket meeting, that fateful night in 
May, 1886, recounting the death struggle that he had 
witnessed in person from a neighboring dooi^way. 
He talked of the ideals of anarchy, and came at 
length to the deed of Leon Czolgosz: 

"The sympathies and the support of the righteous 
are with the moral heroes, with the man who pos- 
sesses moral courage. What more glorious spectacle 
can there ever be than that of that young man, calm 
and self-possessed in the throng, his right hand thrust 
beneath the folds of his coat. The tyrant comes, the 
hand is withdrawn, and the tyrant has passed away." 

This reference to the Buffalo tragedy i)assed unno- 
ticed for a full half minute, and then a wave of wild 
applause broke out all over the hall. 

John Brown and his accomplices were the avanf- 
coureurs of these anarchists. 




OOEREOTED. 133 

Hecapitulatlon. 

ITH the story of CoL James Blood, quoted at 
length in the Appendix, before us, and all 
the preceding facts given in this little book in our 
possession, then we have a complete account of the 
great crime of the 19th century, which accomplices 
attempted, and for twenty-four years succeeded, in 
concealing from the world, so far as the real actors 
were concerned, else misrepresented to glorify their 
chief. 

We find the assassin, in a fit of crazy anger, calling 
for volunteers to engage in the terrible crime; 

We find him grinding his short broadswords pre- 
paratory to the horrible slaughter; 

We find him, his sons, and other accomplices, en 
route for the homes of his victims, begging to have his 
movements concealed, and exhibiting evidences of his 
contemplated guilt; 

We find him and his associate assassins at their 
destination, engaged in the awful massacre, a pistol- 
shot from the chief in the forehead of a victim; then 
blows, cutting, slashing, stabbing with claymores 
other victims, the hot blood spouting from ghastly 
wounds; then dead, horribly mutilated, and great 
pools of clotted blood forming at their side; 

Concealment, denying for twenty-four years any 
personal connection with the affair, is additional evi- 
dence of the criminal character of the offence. 

When the proof of guilt was conclusively estab- 



134 FALSE CLAIMS 

lished by the revelations of an accessory, then the 
persons slaughtered were maliciously maligned, and 
another series of. falsehoods were concocted, and re- 
peated with such energy, as to be believed for a time. 
The indorsers of these crimes, with an attempt at 
justification, basely charged Gov. Kobinson with be- 
ing privy to them, in fact directory; and even went 
so far as to shamefully represent he wished the prin- 
cipal assassin to engage in other crimes of like 
magnitude ! 

Huge volumes have been written and published in 
late years glorifying those crimes; and, so far as the 
authors had ability, canonizing their chieftain as a 
saint, worthy of imitation by the youth of the world. 

Clergymen from their pulpits, have honored this 
hero of bloody violence, of carnage and of death, as 
a faithful disciple of the Master, who inculcated love 
of fellow man, and "do as you would be done by." 

Even politicians have exalted this man of gore into 
a greater than Washington or Franklin; and poets 
have sung in his praise; while monuments have been 
erected to his memory; and a great State has dedica- 
ted a Park to perpetuate the fame of a MtJR- 
DERER, hung on the gallows for only a fraction of 
his crimes. 

With this brief recapitulation of facts is it sur- 
prising this writer has been maligned and libeled 
in the interest of crime and falsehood? May he not 
congratulate himself, and be thankful he has escaped 
the vengeance of these traducers of real merit, and 
bolsterers of guilt, with his life, and has survived 



CORRECTED. 135 

to tell another gsneration the Truth in regard to this 
bloody drama in the pioneer history of Kansas? 

Finally, we appeal to William E. Connelley, if 
prompted to be truthful, as his friends allege, to keep 
his word, and denounce the crime and execrate the 
assassin, as he promised in the extract we made from 
his "John Brown," quoted on page 46 of this booklet. 



Conclusion. 

"Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 
Footprints in the sands of time." 

MUT THESE footprints should not bear the 
traces of crime and human gore, neither 
should the hands drip with blood. Vic- 
tims writhing in agony, slaughtered by malice 
and revenge, do not betoken a sublime life. The 
glad shouts of the free, in whose trail are throb- 
bing hearts racked by grief, agonizing moans because 
of loved ones slain, and orphans' wail for parents 
dead, in peaceful homes, guilty of no crime but hold- 
ing adverse views to their slayer, will not gladden the 
hearts of the truly brave, the loyal and the good. 
And he who attempts to glorify midnight assassina- 
nation, and hold up the author as a great moral hero, 
whose acts the young should emulate and Christians 
adore, should be defeated in his ambition, aud taught 
that such action does not comport with the character 
of the Master. The robber, the burglar, the high- 
wayman, the freebooter, the pirate, the assassin, can- 
not acquire fame and ennoble his life by after deeds 



136 FALSE CLAIMS 

of charity, or acts of philanthropy. There is blood 
on the hand still, and all the waters of the ocean can- 
not wash it away. 

In the adapted language of another: 

True fame is not the birthright of the hero. The 
blaze of glory that has so long encircled his head, 
and dazzled the world with its brilliancy, is beginning 
to grow dim. The laurels that decorate his brow 
have been gathered from a soil enriched with human 
gore, and watered by the tears of bereavement. The 
fancied eminence on which he stands has been gained 
by slaughter. His way to it led over the dead and 
mutilated bodies of his fellow citizens, whose warm 
hearts had ceased to throb; and the music that fol- 
lowed his tread was the widow's moan and the or- 
phan's wail. True fame breathes not in the deep- 
heaving sigh of despairing love, nor draws its immor- 
tality from groans, and tears, and sighs, in desolated 
homes. It has a higher origin, a nobler birth, a more 
elevated aim. 

True Fame consists in the lofty aspiratiions after 
intellectual and moral truth. When these are gained 
and cherished, so deep will be the convictions of duty, 
sustained by sterling honor, that no popularity, no 
bribes of wealth and splendor, no fear of frowns, nor 
even the hazard of life exposed to wasting tortures, 
shall deter the possessor from expressing and main- 
taining such Truth. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX TO FMSE CL/IMS, 



X^etter from Col. Slood. 

r^fOL. JAMES BLOOD has been referred to, on 
y^) pages 17, 19, 33, and, more fully, on page 52 of 
this booklet. The few survivors of those pioneer 
days need no indorsement from any one of Col. 
Blood's great moral, social and political worth. It 
remained for Wm. E. Connelley, pp. 211, 212, of his 
"John Brown," to attempt to besmirch the Colonel, 
and throw doubt on his statements. The only truth- 
ful persons in all Kansas, as would appear by Connel- 
ley, were those who for t:wenty-four years insisted 
John Brown was in no way responsible for the Pot- 
tawatomie murders, other than he approved of them ; 
then, when the evidence of his guilt was overwhelm- 
ing, discovered he was "inspired of God" to murder. 
The Colonel's narration will be read with great in- 
terest: 

Lawrence, Kan., Nov. 29, 1879. 
G. W. Brown, M. D. :— Yours of the 19th inst., was 
duly received, but I have hesitated to comply with 
your request to write for publication a statement 
of what I know about the "Pottawatomie massacre," 
in 1856. I was not "an eye witness," but have con- 
cluded to make a statement of incidents that came 
within my observation, as I recollect them. 



140 APPENDIX TO 

In the spring of 1856, I went East on business, 
leaving my family in Lawrence. I was in New Hamp- 
shire, when I learned the Border Buffians were gath- 
ering, under ruffianly federal officers, to destroy Law- 
rence. I immediately started for home, arriving at 
Kansas City, I think, on the 21st of May, 1856. I 
could find no way of getting to Lawrence, direct, but 
hired a close hack to take me, with two or three 
friends (one of them was F. F. Bliss, now residing at 
Oskaloosa) to Osawatomie. We instructed the driver 
to say to any one who might halt us, that he was tak- 
ing some men to Pleasant Hill, Missouri. We drove 
south through Westport, and the parties halting us 
appeared to be satisfied with the reply of the driver. 
We stayed that night at a farm house in Missouri a 
short distance south of Westport. The next day, the 
22nd, we took dinner with Baptiste Peoria, where 
Paola now stands, end arrived at Osawatomie in the 
afternoon. From there we sent the hack back to Kan- 
sas City. 

The next morning I bought a horse of O. C. Brown 
who will be remembered by the old settlers as the 
original Osawatomie Brown. After having the horse 
shod, I started in the afternoon of the 23rd of May, 
from Osawatomie for Lawrence, by way of Ottawa 
Jones' and Palmyra. 

I was informed while at Osawatomie that the active 
pro- slavery men of that part of the territory had 
gone to Lecompton to join the Border Kuffians in 
their attack upon Lawrence, and that most of the 
Free State men had gone, under the lead of Capt. 
John Brown, Jr., to aid in the defence of Lawrecne. 

It was nearly sun-down that afternoon when, be- 
tween Pottawatomie Creek and Middle Creek, and but 
a few miles from the Doyle settlement, I saw a party 



FALSE CLAIMS 141 

of men coming from the west and going toward Pot- 
tawatomie Creek. As we approached each other I 
<30uld see the gl-eam of the sun's rays reflected from 
the moving gun-barrels of the party in a wagon. 
When within perhaps 100 yards they stopped, and a 
man rose up in the wagon and cried, halt! I immedi- 
ately recognized old John Brown, and stated who I 
was, calling him by name. I was then allowed to ap- 
proach the party. There were in the wagon John 
Brown, and, to the best of my recollection, four of his 
sons, his son-in-law, and a man driving the team, 
whom I did not know, making seven in the wagon. 
There was also a man on horseback, I think his name 
was Winer, 

The party all appeared to be fully armed with rifles, 
revolvers, knives or swords* I think some of them 
at least had a peculiar instrument, something like a 
Scotch claymore, or a short, very heavy broadsword. 
John Brown had presented me with one of the same 
kind, while at Lawrence, during the Wakarusa war, 
in the fall of 1855. 

I talked with the old man for some time. I believe 
he was tha only one of the party who spoke. He 
said they had left Capt. John Brown, Jr., with the 
Pottawatomie campany, in camp near Palmyra. He 
informed me that Lawrence had been sacked and 
burned, and that a number of leading Free State men 
had been taken prisoners. He seemed very indig- 
nant that there had been no resistance; that Law- 
rence was not defended; and denounced the members 
of the committee and leading Free State men as cow- 
ards, or worse. His manner icas tcild and frenzied^ 
and the whole party watched with excited eagerness 
every word and motion of the old man. Finally, as I 
left them, he requested me not to mention the fact 



142 APPENDIX TO 

that I had met them, as they were on a secret expedi- 
iion and did not want any one to know they were in 
that neighborhood. 

I came on. and when I arrived at Middle Creek it 
was dark — so dark that immediately after crossing the 
creek I lost the road, and after riding some time re- 
turned to the crossing, where I found the road and 
arrived at Jones* late in the night. 

The next morning, the 24th, I again started for 
Lawrence. When I arrived at Palmyra, I found the 
Pottawatomie company, with one or two other compa- 
nies of Free State men, and there learned that Capt. 
John Brown. Jr., had gone to Lawrence to learn the 
condition of things there. 

I rode on toward Lawrence, and met Capt. Brown, 
Jr., south of "Wakarusa. From him I obtained the 
first reliable information as to what had taken place 
at Lawrence. He appeared to be in good spirits and 
perfectly rational. 

When a day or two later we heard of the massacre 
of the Doyles, Wilkinson and Sherman, on the Potta- 
watomie, on the night of the 28rd. I could have no 
doubt as to who committed the deed. I could not re- 
sist the conviction that it was done with tho8€ Scotch 
claymores. I remembered the wild, frenzied look and 
appearance of old John Brown and his party, when I 
met them near the Pottawatomie settlement, on that 
evening, and only a few hours before those men were 
killed. 

I believe the Free State men here regarded this 
horrible tragedy with more sincere and sorrowful re- 
gret than any other incident of our struggle. It was 
regarded as terribly damaging to the Free State party 
and cause. Xo sufficient justification or defence 
could be made. 



FALSE CLAIMS. 143 

I sincerely believed it was the work of insane men. 
Their halting at that distance a solitary traveler, who 
was apparently unarmed, and upon the open prairie 
where they could see for miles around, seemed to me 
evidence of insanity. Certainly that number of so 
well-armed men could not fear an assault and capture, 
or that they were in any immediate danger. I noticed 
that while we were in conversation the boys watched 
every look and gesture of the old man — keeping their 
guns in their hands ready for instant action. 

A short time after the Pottawatomie massacre I had 
a conversation with George Partridge, an old acquaint- 
ance and friend of mine from Wisconsin, who was 
then a settler on the Pottawatomie. He was a strong 
anti-slavery man, and was killed later that summer in 
the fight at Osawatomie. 

Mr. Partridge informed me that he was a member 
of Capt. John Brown, Jr.'s company, and was with 
them on their expedition to Palmyra, in May. He 
said that old John Brown became frenzied at the con- 
dition of affairs in the territory, and the refusal or 
failure of Free State men to fight; that the old man 
left the company on the 23rd with six or seven others, 
and against the remonstrance of his son, Capt. John 
Brown, Jr. ; that when on the afternoon and evening 
of the 24th of May, while in camp at Ottawa Jones', 
news was received of the massacre, Capt. Brown, Jr., 
became insane, and was taken home the next day a 
maniac. 

Mr, Partridge also stated that the only provocation 
the Doyles had given, so far as he knew, was: At 
the sprimj election, a short time before, Doyle ex- 
pressed his dislike for negroes and abolitionists, and 
that Brown expressed his dislike of pro-slarery men. 



144 APPENDIX TO 

He said denunciations and threats ivere made on both 
sides.* 

In the foregoing I have stated the incidents as I 
recollect them. Mr. Partridge had no donbt the kill- 
ing was done by old John Brown and his party, and 
sincerely regretted the affair. 

I believe when we heard of the Pottawatomie mas- 
sacre Col. Samuel Walker was sent down there by the 
committee, of which Gen. Babcock was chairman, to 
learn all the facts in relation to the matter. Perhaps 
Colonel Walker or Gen. Babcock could furnish some 
information on the subject. JAMES BLOOD. 

In a letter dated March 23, 1884, published in the 
Herald-Tribune, of Lawrence, Col. Blood, replying 
to misrepresentations and falsifications by Ingalls, 
Capt. Anthony and J. F. Legate, denied there was 
any disturbance on the Pottawatomie, as these men 
and others alleged, which prompted the murders. The 
facts recited in the above letter are repeated, with 
some additions, in this second letter. From these 
additions we make the following extracts: 

"I left Osawatomie on the afternoon of May 23, 
^56, for Lawrence. All was very quiet there. The 
only excitement seemed to be about what was taking 
place at Lawrence. I rode up through the Pottawat- 
omie settlement that afternoon. All appeared very 
peaceful and quiet. I saw a few men at work in the 
fields and the women and children at work or play 
about the cabins I passed. I saw no one on the road 
until I left Pottawatomie Creek." 

*Of all the fifteen or over different motives given for this terri- 
ble massacre, including that by Capt. Brown himself, to Gov. 
Crawford, this by Mr. Partridge, to Col. Blood, seems the most 
plausible. 



FALSE CLAIMS. 145 

Col. Blood then tells of meeting Old John and 
his banditti, and says : 

"Then I informed Brown that I was just from Osa- 
watomie," and was on my way to Lawrence. He made 
no inquiries about the condition of affairs at Osawat- 
omie, or in the settlement through which I had just 
passed; did not inquire if I had heard of any trouble." 

The Colonel then tells of coming in contact with 
John Brown, Jr.'s company: 

''I stopped and talked with them some time. No 
inquiries were made about any trouble on the Potta- 
watomie. On my way from Palmyra to Lawrence I 
met John, Jr., returning from Lawrence. I told him 
I was just up from Osawatomie. He appeared in 
good health and spirits; made no inquiry about any 
trouble on the Pottawatomie. I was informed a few 
days after by a member of his company that on ar- 
riving at Palmyra he took his company back to their 
camp on Ottawa Creek, near Prairie City, where they 
remained until the afternoon of the next day, the 
25th, when a rumor reached the camp of the massa- 
cre the night before on the Pottawatomie ; that they 
started on their return home that afternoon, camping 
for the night on Ottawa Creek, near Jones', and that 
late that evening John Brown and party came into 
camp; that after an interview with his father John 
Jr. was so much disturbed they had to watch with 
him that night, and took him home the next day, out 
of his mind, insa^ie; that he remained in that condi- 
tion until he was arrested by the U. S. troops several 
days after. 

"The • grounds hitherto taken by the defenders of 
John Brown, in justification of the Pottawatomie mas- 
sacre proving untenable, I would suggest for the de- 



146 APPENDIX TO 

fense another theory, monomania. I believe fhis to 
he the true and only defence that ca7i he made. On 
the arrival of the Pottawatomie company at Prairie 
City on the 22nd of May, they received a rumor, or 
report, that Lawrence had been sacked and destroyed, 
and that no defense was made by the Free State men. 
This report from Laivrence had such an effect vpon 
the mind of John Brown as to produce monomania^ 
and the massacre ivas the work of a monomaniac. It 
seems incredible that a well-armed company of seven- 
ty-five or a hundred men, believing their homes and 
their families were in immediate, imminent danger, 
in fact were then being maltreated, should have re- 
mained for at least three days, contentedly and inact- 
ively in camp, within less than a day's march of their 
homes, and only start for home immediately after 
hearing of the massacre that took place on the night 
before. I should like to inquire why, if such a mes- 
sage as they represent was received in the camp, from 
their wives and families on the 22d of May, the whole 
company did not immediately return? There were no 
bands of pro-slavery men in the vicinity of their 
camp; their services were not then needed in Law-- 
rence. There appears to have been nothing to 
prevent their return home. At the time the massacre 
ivas universally regretted and condemned. John 
Brown and his friends denied his participation. No 
one pretended to justify the act at that time. Why 
was not some defense or justification offered then? 

"In writing the above I have tried to divest myself 
of prejudice or sentiment, and to know only the 
truth. JAMES BLOOD." 

For a fuller comprehension of Brown's criminal 
action in South-Eastern Kansas, and his repudiation 
by Col. Montgomery, with his leaving the territory 



FALSE CLAIMS. 147 

agreeably to the earnest solicitation of leading Free 
State men, of whom Gov. Robinson was one, the 
country having become "too hot for him," as the 
American Cyclopedia put it, we quote a portion of a 
letter written by Hon. Geo. A. Crawford, to Hon. 
Eli Thayer, dated Fort Scott, Aug. 4, 1879, and pub- 
lished at length on pp. 67, 68 of our "Reminiscences 
of Old John Brown:" 

"As to the raid into Missouri — it was made on the 
20th Dec. 1858, four days after the raid into Fort 
Scott. It was led by Capt. Brown in person. Capt. 
Montgomery refused to go along — protested, as I 
have understood, against it, — but came to the aid of 
the Kansas settlers when retaliatory raids were after- 
wards expected. The Captain's company marched 
down the Little Osage River, in the north part of this 
county, and about 12 miles from here, and proceeded 
into Vernon county. Mo., a distance of three or four 
miles. 

"The Missouri Democrat, of December 30th, 1858, 
gave the Missouri statement of the losses. I pre- 
sume it is correct. Files of other papers of the pe- 
riod would show. It states that they "murdered" Da- 
vid Crews (or Cruise,) "iiidnapped a negro woman," 
took wagon, horses, &c., and robbed Mr. Martin and 
family of a fine mule ; took from the estate of James 
Lawrence, in possission of his son-in-law, Henry 
Hicklin, five negroes, 2 horses, 1 yoke of cattle, an ox- 
wagon, a double barrel shot gun, saddle and clothing; 
from Isaac B. La Rue, five negroes, six horses, 1 yoke 
of oxen, clothing — and prisoners whom they released. 

"Cruise was a good citizen — a plain, unoffending 
farmer. It was reported he had no weapons on his 
person. The killing of him was an unjustifiable out- 



148 APPENDIX TO 

rage, and it subjected our settlements to great danger 
from retaliatory measures, 

"I protested to the" Captain against this violence. 
We were settlers, he was not. He could strike a blow 
and leave. The retaliatory blow would fall on us. Be- 
ing a Free State man, I myself was held personally 
responsible by pro-slavery ruffians in Fort Scott, for 
the acts of Capt. Brown. 

''One of these ruffians, Brockett, when they gave 
me notice to leave the town said: 'When a snake 
bites me I don't go hunting for that particular snake. 
I kill the first snake I come to.' 

"I called Capt. Brown's attention to the facts that 
we were at peace with Missouri; that our Legislature 
was then in the hands of Free State men, to make 
the laws; that even in our disturbed counties of Bour- 
bon and Linn we were in a majority, and had elected 
the officers both to make and execute the laws; that 
without peace we could have no immigration ; that no 
Southern immigration was coming; that agitation, 
such as his, was only keeping our Northern friends 
away, &c. 

"The old man rejolied that it was no pleasure to him 
• — an old man — to be living in the saddle, away from 
home and family, and exposing his life; and if the 
Free State men of Kansas felt they no longer needed 
him he would be glad to go. 

"He seemed very erratic — at war with all our accus- 
tomed ideas on the slavery question — but very ear- 
nest. 

"I think the conversation made an impression on 
him, for he soon after went to his self-sacrifice at 
Harper's Ferry. Yours, GEO. A. CKAWFOED." 



FALSE CLAIMS. 149 

STATEMENT FROM MB. LAWRENCE. 

John Brown Deceived Everybody. 
MOS A. LAWRENCE, familiarly known fifty 
years ago as the "Merchant Prince of Boston," 
' was one of the staunchest friends of free 
Kansas. He was one of the Directors of the Emi- 
grant Aid Company, and probably contributed more 
pecuniary assistance than any other single individ- 
ual to advance the material interests of the Territory 
in its pioneer days. The city of Lawrence derived its 
name from him, and his large contribution to the 
State University caused its location at tliat point. 

At the May, 1884, Meeting of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society, of which Mr. Lawrence was a dis- 
tinguished member, he placed himself on record in 
regard to Old John Brown. After j)resenting to the 
Society likenesses of John Brown, Gov. Robinson, 
and files of sundry Kansas newspapers, among which 
was the Herald of Freedom, and giving a brief out- 
line of the Emigrant Aid Company, its officers and 
agents, highly complimenting the services of the lat- 
ter, he then inquired: 

"What shall we say of John Brown? His course 
was the opposite of Gov. Robinson. He was always 
armed; he was always disloyal to the United States 
Government, and to all government, except what he 
called the 'higher law.' He was always ready to shed 
blood, and he always did shed it without remorse; for 
without blood, as he often said, 'there is no remission.' 
Thit he was sincere there can be no doubt; for he 
made his numerous sons his companions, and endeav- 
ored to imbue them with his own ideas; at least four 
of them were killed with arms in their hands." 

Mr. Lawrence recited the bloody deeds of the as- 



150 APPENDIX TO 

sassin and his cutthroat gang on the night between 
the 23d and 24th of May, 1856, and continued : 

"It fell to me to give John Brown his first letter to 
Kansas, introducing him to Gov. Eobinson, and au- 
thorizing him to employ Brown, and draw on me for 
compensation, if he could make him useful in the work 
of the Emigrant Aid Company. But very soon Gov. 
Hobinson wrote that he could not employ him, as he 
was unreliable, and 'would as soon shoot a United 
States officer as a Border Euffian.' 

"John Brown had no enemies in New England, but 
many friends and admirers. He was constantly re- 
ceiving money from them. They little knew what use 
he was making of it, FOE HE DECEIVED EYEEY- 
BODY. If he had succeeded in his design at Har- 
per's Ferry of exciting a servile insurrection, the 
country would have stood aghast with horror; his 
would have been anything but a martyr's crown." 

Mr. Lawrence had just cause to say "John Brown 
deceived everybody." He had favorably introduced 
Brown to Kansas; he had volunteered to compensate 
him for his services to the cause in which Mr. L. had 
entered with zeal; he gave freely notwithstanding 
Gov. Eobinson had assured him he was not trustwor- 
thy; how much he gave, or how often, we have no in- 
formation. To a subscription of $1,000 to purchase 
"a small farm in Essex county,N. Y.," for the assassin, 
as a reward for his services in Kansas, Mr. Lawrence 
is credited by Sanborn, p. 112 "Life and Letters," 
with having given $310. Both Dr. Howe and George 
L. Stearns testified before the Senate Committee that 
they were ignorant of Brown's Virginia raid. They 
had given largely, as did Hon. Eli Thayer, under the 
representation he was still laboring in the interest of 
of Free Kansas. 



FALSE CLAIMS. 151 

At the June, 1884, Meeting of the MassachusettB 
Historical Society, the distinguished Hon. Robert C. 
WiNTHROP presided. On taking the chair he made 
mention of some very interesting experiences which 
prevented his attendance at the May session, and 
then, which we condense: 

"I was sincerely sorry to have missed hearing the 
communication of Mr. Lawrence, in regard to John 
Brown. I trust it will be printed in full among the 
Proceedings. There are but few things more import- 
ant to the ultimate truth of history than the seasona- 
ble correction of popular errors by those who have 
personal and positive knowledge that they are errors. 
. . I think we all agree that misrepresentations and 
mistakes in the accounts of that period, should be ex- 
posed and corrected by those who discover them, be- 
fore it is too late." 

Mr. Winthrop then tells of the "marvelous rapid- 
ity" which had characterized the appearance of a cer- 
tain class of literature, then: 

"But so many errors find their way into this class 
of productions, by carelessness, prejudice or malice, 
that they can by no means be accepted as history. 
There is a good story of Mr. Jefferson, who was very 
systematic in cataloguing and classifying his library. 
On receiving a copy of Wirt's 'Life of Patrick Henry,' 
he said he had been greatly perplexed in deciding 
where to place the volume, but finally arranged it un- 
der the head of Fiction.^'' 

It would be a pleasure to know under what head 
Mr. Jefferson would have classed the eulogies on John 
Brown, such as Eedpath's "Life of Brown," Sanborn's 
several productions he wished received as Biogra- 
phies, also the works of Hinton, and, lastly, Connel- 
ley's "John Brown." 



152 APPENDIX TO 



A FIRST CLASS COCK AND BULL STOEY, 

OR, THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF A LIE. 
A Specimen Libel, and Rejoinder, Referred to on f age 107. 

N A NOTE on page 145 of Connelley's "John 



i 



Brown,'" published by the Crane Company, oc- 
curs the following statement: 

'•He [G.W. Brown] would issue one weekly edition 
of his paper for home reading; this was very mild, 
and often supposed to be as much in favor of the ruf- 
fians as of the Free State settlers. Then he would 
rewrite the editorial page of the paper, and make his 
editorials conform to the most patriotic spirit of the 
free North. This edition he would mail to New Eng- 
land, where he was seeking j^atronage under the guise 
of aiding the Free State cause. Among the number 
who have told me this I will only mention E. P. Har- 
ris, Esq., long a compositor on the paper, and now 
one of the foremost printers and proof readers in 
America; also Mr. Frank A. Root, of Topeka, who was 
a compositor for Brown. Mr. Root was with the 
Overland Stage line in the interest of the government 
for many years, and is one of the most respected citi- 
zens of the State.'' 

Now is not that a first class story? Complete files 
of the Herald of Freedom are preserved in the His- 
torical Society Rooms at Topeka, so if this narration 
is a true one it can doubtless be verified by an exam- 
ination of the columns of the paper. 

To make it an object for Wm. E. Connelley, the 
veracious historian, to make a search, in a letter to 
him, I offered to give him 81,000 if he would find a 
single line I ever wrote in favor of slavery; and 



FALSE CLAIMS. 153 

SljOOO for a single copy of the Herald of Freedom 
different from its regular issue, save when the press 
was stopped and an item of important news occurring 
after we had gone to press was added. That propo- 
sition is still open. If the $1,000 is not large enough 
to tempt the erudite historian to undertake the search, 
then we will double it. And we beg leave to assure 
him we are pecuniarily responsible for the amount 
named, as he can learn by addressing the Eockford 
National Bank. 

Is it not a little strange that those Southerners 
were such consummate fools they did not look to the 
title of the paper. Herald of Freedom, and see they 
were grossly deceived if they mistook it for a pro- 
slavery organ? Would editorials, or even the entire 
pages of the paper, written in the interest of slavery 
overcome that defect? I should suppose not. 

But here is a question of veracity Mr. Connelly 
must settle, if he wishes to retain his reputation for 
a truthful man: Frank A. Boot, Esq., founder of the 
North Topeka Mail, and a gentleman of unquestioned 
veracity, writing me from Station A, Topeka, Kan., 
June 19, 1902, says: "Your letter came duly to hand, 
but on account of sickness in the family has been 
pigeon-holed a few days. As soon as I could get out 
I went straight to Crane's to see Mr. Connelley. He 
was out and I went there a second time, but did not 
see him. On Tuesday afternoon I met him with his 
wife on the street. I told him I had received a let- 
ter from yon, and that you felt hurt in regard to some 
of the things x^ublished in the ''John Brown" book; 
particularly about a "Southern Edition." I want to 
say to you that I have never seen inside the cover of 
that book. I was astounded to learn what you wrote 
and said I was quoted, with Harris as giving the 



154 APPENDIX TO 

[same] information. I NEYEK GAVE SUCH IN- 
EOKMATION TO A LIVING SOUL. I had heard 
it mentioned a few times that such an edition had 
been printed, but I never knew anything of the kind 
in the few weeks I was in your employ on composi- 
tion in the Herald of Freedom office. I gave Mr. 
Connelley to understand that he never received any 
such information from me, for I never knew of it. He 
said he got the information from some one, but he 
did not know of whom." 

A letter from Mr. Connelley, of date June 17, 1902, 
tells of a visit from Mrs. Hubbell, who was a member 
of my family much of the time from the autumn of 
1856, to probably the close of 1859. Mr. C. says in 
that letter: 

"Mrs. Hubbell said it was reported that you pub- 
lished two editions of the Herald of Freedom, but she 
was sure you never did it." 

But there was a modicum of truth in Mr. Connel- 
ley' s statement. It is said a perjured witness always 
strives to weave a little truth into his tale of false- 
hood, to give an air of probability to his statements. 
There was a Southern edition of the Herald of Free- 
dom issued, but not by G. W. Brown, for he was a 
prisoner with the other treason prisoners at the time, 
guarded by United States troops. Mrs. Eobinson, in 
the first edition of her "Kansas; its Interior and Ex- 
terior Life," published in the autumn of 1856, tells 
of the incident: 

The Southern ruffians, to the number of twenty or 
more, had their headquarters some two miles out of 
Lecompton in a log building known as Fort Titus. 
These men were making depredations on the Free 
State settlers, and committing all sorts of violence. 
The outrages became intolerable. 



FALSE CLAIMS. 155 

About sunrise on the morning of August 16th, 
1856, an attack was made on that fort by, probably, 
400 Free State men. They had captured a cannon, 
the Sacramento, from the pro-slavery party at Frank- 
lin a night or two before. Lacking cannon balls Maj. 
Bickerton took possession of the type which Mr. 
Whitcomb and boys in his service had raked from 
the river, the wreck of the Herald of Freedom office, 
and distributed in cases for future use. These were 
cast into 12 pound balls, and discharged with telling 
effect upon the walls of the fort until a surrender was 
effected. Nineteen prisoners were captured, removed 
to Lawrence, and were confined in the Herald of 
Freedom Building and held until a "treaty of peace" 
was concluded with Gov. Shannon. See pp. 325-6 
of Mrs. II. 's book. She says: "Some of the type 
of the Herald of Freedom office had been taken from 
the Kaw, and melted into slugs." 

Maj. Bickerton said: "The regular issue of the 
Herald of Freedom could not penetrate Southern 
brains, so we issued a Southern edition, revised and 
improved, which found brains where it was previously 
supposed none existed." 

And this the origin of a "Southern edition of the 
Herald of Freedom," which Mr. Connelley, or his in- 
formants, after the manner of the fellow vomiting 
something "as black as a crow," passing through 
the hands of several liars became, "he vomited up 
several black crows." So the editor of the Herald of 
Freedom, after working off a Southern edition, as 
the veracious "historian" says "would re-write the 
editorial page of the paper, and make his editorials 
conform to the most patriotic spirit of the free 
North." 

It was the active imagination of Richard J. Hin- 



156 APPENDIX TO 

ton, or J. H. Shimmons, possibly tlie genius of the 
two combined, which invented this story, as a multi- 
tude of others to which Mr. Connelley gave currency, 
equally false and malicious. 

Shall we trace the evolution of this story a little 
further ? It is interesting, and betraj^s the genius of 
those who assisted in the transformation. 

In the spring of 1857 a rival paper was established 
in Lawrence. Of course it was without subscribers, 
whilst the Herald of Freedom was issuing an edition 
of over 8,000 copies weekly. The condition was des- 
perate, and it required desperate efforts to overcome 
this condition. It first gained the subscription list 
of the Herald of Freedom. Mr. Hinton had been 
employed in re-arranging my list of subscribers by 
States, and a portion of the old books disappeared. 

Weeks went by, and letters came from the East 
complaining that grave charges were made against 
the loyalty of the editor, but months passed before I 
learned the import of those charges. Then the rival 
paper was sent me from the East, wherein it was rep- 
resented the Herald of Freedom was issuing a North- 
ern and a Southern edition, one radically anti-sla- 
very, the other violently pro-slavery. This was follow- 
ed with a genuine editorial, claimed to have appeared 
in its Northern edition. And this was followed by 
an article I had copied from the Leavenworth Herald, 
a bitter pro-slavery paper, on ''The Spirit of the Pro- 
Slavery Press." "This," said the rival, "is from the 
Herald's Southern edition." And credulous stran- 
gers probably believed the falsehood; and a gullible 
"historian" has done ail in his power to perpetuate 
the lie. 

Perhaps it is well I am not a believer in capital pun- 
ishment, otherwise there might be a tragic ending to 



FALSE CLAIMS. 157 

this Cock and Bull story. A court of law may have 
occasion to decide whether historians and publishers 
can revive and peddle such malicious libels with im- 
punity. 

When these libels were first set on foot by the con- 
spirators we had no Courts or system of laws to which 
we could appeal for redress of wrongs. Even mur- 
ders the most fiendish were passed without prosecu- 
tion, so determined were we to avoid the recognition 
of the usurped government; but now conditions have 
changed. It is to be regretted that the original con- 
spirators, of which Richard J. Hinton was the leader, 
have passed beyond the jurisdiction of earthly Courts, 
but Mr. Connelley and his late publishers are yet 
here, and have revived the offence with mailing their 
vile falsehoods within the past few months. . 



158 APPENDIX TO 

The History of a Lie, 

DEDICATED TO SANBORN & CONNELLEY. 

First somebody told it, 

Then the room wouldn't hold it, 

For the busy tongues rolled it, 

And got it outside. 
When the crowd came across it 
They never once lost it, 
But tossed it, and tossed it, 

Till it grew long and wide. 

This lie brought forth others — 
Dark sisters and brothers — 
And fathers and mothers — 

A terrible crew; 
And as headlong they hurried, 
The people they flurried, 
And bothered and worried, 

As lies always do. 

At last, evil-bodied. 
It fretted and goaded 
Till at last it exploded. 
In sin and in shame; 
While through smoke and through fire 
The pieces flew higher. 
Till they hit the sad liar 
And killed his good name. 

— Borroived. 



FALSE CLAIMS. 159 

CONTENTS: 

Chap. Page. 

I. Introductory, 3 

II. Not a Keliable Historian, . . 6 

III. Important Inquiry, . . . .14 

IV. Details of Events, . . ' . 17 
Y. Went to Fight, Not to Settle, . . 22 

YI. Disorders and Violence, . . 29 

YII. Coward Guilt, 32 

YIII. Truth Commended, ... 41 

IX. Execrate Crime, . . . , 46 

X. An Insane Hero, .... 52 

XI, The Journalist and the Historian, . 56 
XII. A Great Error, .... 58 

XIII. A Word Picture for the Painter's Brush, 62 
XIY. What the Browns Said About the Mur- 
ders, ...... 66 

XY. Connclley's Attention Solicited, . 71 
XYI. Conspicuous Inexactness, . . 82 
XYII. A Gloomy Eecord, ... 85 
XYIII. Fortune and Fame in Decay, . . 89 
XIX. They Knew John Brown, . . 91 
XX. Private Tribunals of Justiee Not Defen- 
sible, 98 

XXI. War on the South-East Border, . 100 

XXII. Begging Money Under False Pretenses,104 

XXIII. Incompatible Characteristics, . 106 

XXIY. Score One for Truth, . . .110 

XX Y. Gov. Robinson Misrepresented, . 115 

XXYI. Never Glorify Crime, . . .122 

XXYII. Points Omitted in Place, . . 125 

XXYIII. Fanaticism Run Mad, . . .129 

XXIX. Recapitulation, .... 133 

XXX. Conclusion, : . . . . 135 



160 APPENDIX. 

APPENDIX. 

Letter from Col. Blood, .... 139 

Stateraent of Mr. Lawrence, .... 149 

A First Class Cock and Bull Story, . . 152 

The History of a Lie, . . . 158 



I 



A COMPANION VOLUME. 

EMINISCENCES OF GOY. K. J. WALKER, 
With the True Story of the Rescue of Kansas 
from Slavery, by Geo. W. Brown, M. D., 
Printed and Published by the Author, 1902, is a com- 
panion volume to ' 'False Claims Corrected." It is 
a 12 mo., nicely and strongly bound in cloth, gilt 
back. The book will be mailed to any address on 
receipt of $1. 

After showing how Kansas was overrun by Pro- 
Slavery hordes from Missouri, the ballot-boxes were 
usurped, and a bogus Legislature, its members for- 
eign to its soil, was imposed on the people; then 
a thrilling account of the long struggle of Free State 
settlers to regain the rights wrested from them by 
violence, the glorious victory in gaining control of 
the law-making power; the repeal of tne bogus stat- 
utes; the defeat of the Lecompton Constitution; and 
the final triumph of Freedom. 

The book has already had a very large reading 
among the survivors of the great contest between 
Freedom and Slavery. To date there has not been 
one word of adverse criticism from any quarter. On 
the contrary press and people have written and spo- 
ken of it in the most commendatory terms 

They who hnow the facts concede, the triumph 
of Freedom in Kansas was the inciting cause of the 
Confederate Rebellion. California, Oregon, and 
Minnesota were admitted into the Union in rapid 
succession as Free States, then came Kansas with 
its strong Anti- Slavery sentiment. This was quickly 
followed by the election of Mr. Lincoln. Whatever 
throws new light on these subjects is worthy of 
careful consideration. 



Wrote M. W. Ohunn, Esq., Luverne, Min.: I have 
just read your "Keminiscences of Gov. Walker" 
you kindly sent to our Public Library. I found 
the story intensely interesting, so much so I was 
compelled to read the book through without stopping. 
It has all the thrill and excitement of our best his- 
torical novels, with this advantage, it is all true. 
I know the book will be eagerly read by the patrons 
of our Library. 

This is but one of hundreds of letters all breath- 
ing the same spirit.