The whole Kansas militia was placed under the orders of General Smith, and requisitions were issued for two regiments from Illinois and two from Kentucky.

"The position of the insurgents," wrote the Secretary, "as shown by your letter and its inclosures, is that of open rebellion against the laws and constitutional authorities, with such manifestation of a purpose to spread devastation over the land as no longer justifies further hesitation or indulgence. To you, as to every soldier, whose habitual feeling is to protect the citizens of his own country, and only to use his arms against a public enemy, it cannot be otherwise than deeply painful to be brought into conflict with any portion of his fellow-countrymen. But patriotism and humanity alike require that rebellion should be promptly crushed, and the perpetration of the crimes which now disturb the peace and security of the good people of the territory of Kansas should be effectually checked. You will therefore energetically employ all the means within your reach to restore the supremacy of the law, always endeavoring to carry out your present purpose to prevent the unnecessary effusion of blood." *

The cold-blooded Secretary, who could read a description of the sack of Lawrence unmoved, had probably cast his eye upon the Platte county battle-call in the "Weston Argus Extra," which formed one of the general's inclosures.

"So sudden and unexpected has been the attack of the abolitionists that the law-and-order party was unprepared to effectually resist them. To-day the bogus free-State government, we understand, is to assemble at Topeka. The issue is distinctly made up; either the free-State or pro-slavery party is to have Kansas. Citizens of Platte county! the war is upon you, and at your very doors. Arouse yourselves to speedy vengeance and rub out the bloody traitors."†

It was perhaps well that the pro-slavery

zeal of General Smith was less ardent than that of Secretary Jefferson Davis, or the American civil war might have begun in Lawrence instead of Charleston. Upon a little fuller information and more mature reflection, the general found that he had no need either of the four regiments from Illinois and Kentucky or Border-Ruffian mobs led by skeleton militia generals, neither of which he had asked for. Both the militia generals and the Missourians were too eager even to wait for an official call. "General" Richardson ordered out his whole division on the strength of the "Argus Extra" and neighborhood reports, and the entire border was already in motion when Acting Governor Woodson issued his proclamation § declaring the territory" to be in a state of open insurrection and rebellion." General Smith found it necessary to direct his first orders against

the Border-Ruffian invaders themselves.

* Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, to General Smith, Sept. 3d, 1856. Senate Docs., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. 29.

August 18th, 1856. Senate Docs., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., pp. 76-7.

Richardson to General Smith, August 18th, 1856. Senate Docs., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. 75.

"It has been rumored for several days," he wrote

to his second in command, "that large numbers of persons from the State of Missouri have entered Kansas, at various points, armed, with the intention of attacking the opposite party and driving them from the territory, the latter being also represented to be in considerable force. If it should come to your knowledge that either side is moving upon the other with the view to attack, it will become your duty to observe their movements and prevent such hostile collisions." ||

Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke, upon whom this active field work devolved, because of the general's ill health, concentrated his little command between Lawrence and Lecompton, where he could to some extent exert a salutary check upon the main bodies of both parties, and where he soon had occasion to send a remonstrance to the acting governor that his "militia" was ransacking and burning houses.¶ To the acting governor's mind, such a remonstrance was not a proper way to suppress rebellion. He therefore sent Colonel Cooke a requisition to invest the town of Topeka, disarm the insurrectionists, hold them as prisoners, level their fortifications, and intercept aggressive invaders on "Lane's trail"; * all of which demands the officer prudently and politely declined, replying that he was there to assist in serving judicial process, and not to make war on the town of Topeka.tt

If, as had been alleged, General Smith was at first inclined to regard the pro-slavery side with favor, their arrogance and excesses soon removed his prejudices, and he wrote an unsparing report of the situation to the War Department.

"In explanation of the position of affairs, lately and now, I may remark that there are more than two opposing parties in the territory. The citizens of the territory who formed the majority in the organization of the territorial government, and in the elections for its legislature and inferior officers, form one party. The persons who organized a State government, and of that established by Congress, form another. Á attempted to put it in operation against the authority party, at the head of which is a former Senator from Missouri, and which is composed in a great part of citizens from that State, who have come into this territory armed, under the excitement produced by reports exaggerated in all cases, and in many absolutely false, form the third. There is a fourth, composed of idle men congregated from various parts, who assume they assume to be bad citizens; that is, those who will to arrest, punish, exile, and even kill all those whom not join them or contribute to their maintenance. Every one of these has in its own peculiar way (except some few of the first party) thrown aside all regard to sway is ravaged from one end to the other.. law, and even honesty, and the territory under their

Until the day before yesterday I was deficient in force

August 25th, 1856. Ibid., p. 80.

Deas, A. A. G., to Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke, August 28th, 1856. Ibid., p. 85.

¶ Cooke to Deas, August 31st, 1856. Senate Docs., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. 89.

**Woodson to Cooke, Sept. 1st, 1856. Ibid., p. 90. + Cooke to Woodson, Sept. 2d, 1856. Ibid., p. 91.

to operate against all these at once; and the acting governor of the territory did not seem to me to take a right view of affairs. If Mr. Atchison and his party had had the direction of affairs, they could not have ordered them more to suit his purpose.

All such truth and exposure of the conspiracy, however, was unpalatable at Washington; and Secretary Jefferson Davis, while approving the conduct of Colonel Cooke and expressing confidence in the general, nevertheless curtly indorsed upon his report:

"The only distinction of parties which in a military point of view it is necessary to note is that which distinguishes those who respect and maintain the laws and organized government from those who combine for revolutionary resistance to the constitutional authorities and laws of the land. The armed combination of the latter class come within the denunciation of the President's proclamation and are proper subjects upon which to employ the military force." +

Such was the state of affairs when the third governor of Kansas, newly appointed by President Pierce, arrived in the territory. The Kansas pro-slavery cabal had upon the dismissal of Shannon fondly hoped that one of their own clique, either Secretary Woodson or Surveyor General John Calhoun, would be made executive, and had set on foot active efforts in that direction. In principle and purpose they enjoyed the abundant sympathy of the Pierce administration; but as the presidential election of 1856 was at hand, the success of the Democratic party could not at the moment be endangered by so open and defiant an act of partisanship. It was still essential to placate the wounded antislavery sensibilities of Pennsylvania and other Northern States, and to this end John W. Geary of the Keystone State was nominated by the President and unanimously confirmed by the Senate. He was a man of character and decision, had gone to the Mexican War as a volunteer captain, and had been made a colonel and intrusted with an important command for merit. Afterwards he had served as postmaster, as alcalde, and as mayor of the city of San Francisco in the turbulent gold excitements of 1848-9, and was again made a funding commissioner by the California legislature. Both by nature and experience, therefore, he seemed well fitted to subdue the civil commotions of Kansas.

But the pro-slavery leaders of the territory were very far from relishing or desiring qualifications of this character. In one of their appeals calling upon the Missourians for "assistance in men, provisions, and munitions, that we may drive out the Army of the North,'"

Smith to Cooper, Sept. 10th, 1856. Senate Docs., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. 80.

Sec. War, endorsement, Sept. 23d, on letter of Gen. Smith to A. G., Sept. 10th, 1856. Senate Docs., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. 83.

they had given the President and the public a piece of their mind about this appointment.

"We have asked the appointment of a successor," said they, "who was acquainted with our condition," integrity requisite faithfully to discharge his duty rewith "the capacity to appreciate and the boldness and gardless of the possible effect it might have upon the election of some petty politician in a distant State. In his stead we have one appointed who is ignorant of our condition, a stranger to our people; who, we have too much cause to fear, will, if no worse, prove no more efficient to protect us than his predecessors. . . We cannot await the convenience in coming of our newly appointed governor. We cannot hazard a second edi tion of imbecility or corruption!" §

Animated by such a spirit, they now bent all their energies upon concentrating a sufficient force in Kansas to crush the free-State men before the new governor could interfere. Acting Governor Woodson had by proclamation declared the territory in a state of "open insurrection and rebellion," || and the officers of the skeleton militia were hurriedly enrolling the Missourians, giving them arms, and planting them in convenient camps for a final and decisive campaign.

It was on September 9th, 1856, that Governor Geary and his party landed at Leavenworth. Even on his approach he had already been compelled to note and verify the evidences of civil war. He had met, fleeing from the territory, Governor Shannon, who drew for him a direful picture of the official inheritance to which he had come. ¶ While this interview took place, during the landing of the boat at Glasgow, a company of sixty Missouri Border Ruffians was embarking, with wagons, arms, and cannon, and with the open declaration that they were bound for Kansas to hunt and kill "abolitionists."** Similar belligerent preparations were in progress at all the river towns they touched. At Kansas City the vigilance committee of the blockade boarded and searched the boat for concealed "abolitionists." Finally arrived at Leavenworth, the governor saw a repetition of the same scenes,- parades and military control in the streets, fugitives within the inclosure of the fort, and hundreds of minor evidences of lawlessness and a reign of terror.

Governor Geary went at once to the fort, where he spent the day in consultation with General Smith. That same evening he wrote to Secretary of State Marcy a report of the day's impressions which was anything but reassuring-Leavenworth in the hands of armed men committing outrages under the

shadow of authority; theft and murder in the streets and on the highways; farms plundered and deserted; agitation, excitement, and utter insecurity everywhere, and the number of troops insufficient to compel peace and order. All this was not the worst, however. Deep in the background stood the sinister apparition of the Atchison cabal.

"I find," wrote he, "that I have not simply to contend against bands of armed ruffians and brigands whose sole aim and end is assassination and robbery - infatuated adherents and advocates of conflicting political sentiments and local institutions—and evil-disposed persons actuated by a desire to obtain elevated positions; but worst of all, against the influence of men who have been placed in authority and have employed all the destructive agents around them to promote their own personal interests at the sacrifice of every just, honorable, and lawful consideration. Such is the condition of Kansas faintly pictured. In making the foregoing statements I have endeavored to give the truth and nothing but the truth. I deem it important that you should be apprised of the actual state of the case; and whatever may be the effect of such revelations, they will be given from time to time without extenuation."*

Discouraging as he found his new task of administration, Governor Geary grappled with it in a spirit of justice and decision. The day following his interview with General Smith found him at Lecompton, the nominal capital of the territory, where the other territorial officials, Woodson, Calhoun, Donaldson, Sheriff Jones, Lecompte, Cato, and others, constituted the ever-vigilant working force of the Atchison cabal, precisely as had been so truthfully represented to him by General Smith, and as he had so graphically described in his yesterday's letter to Marcy. Paying little heed to their profusely offered advice, he adhered to his determination to judge for himself, and at once issued an inaugural address, declaring that in his official action he would do justice at all hazards, that he desired to know no party and no section, and imploring the people to bury their past strifes, and devote themselves to peace, industry, and the material develop ment of the territory. As an evidence of his earnestness he simultaneously issued two proclamations, one disbanding the volunteer or Missouri militia lately called into service by Acting Governor Woodson, and the other commanding the immediate enrollment of the true citizen militia of Kansas Territory, this step being taken by the advice of General Smith. §

Kansas with paper proclamations alone. His sudden arrival at this particular juncture was evidently an unexpected contretemps. While he was preaching and printing his sage admonitions about peace and prosperity at Lecompton, and laboring to change the implements of civil war into plowshares and pruning-hooks, the Missouri raid against Lawrence, officially called into the field by Woodson's proclamation, was about to deal out destruction to that town. A thousand Border Ruffians (at least two eye-witnesses say twenty-five hundred), led by their recognized Missouri chiefs, were at that moment camped within striking distance of the hated "New Boston." Their published address, which declared that "these traitors, assassins, and robbers must now be punished, must now be taught a lesson they will remember," that "Lane's army and its allies must be expelled from the territory," left no doubt of their errand.

This news reached the governor about midnight of his second day in Lecompton. One of the brigadiers of the skeleton militia was apparently in command, and not yet having caught the cue of the governor's intentions, reported the force for orders, "in the field, ready for duty, and impatient to act."|| At about the same hour he received a message from the agent he had sent to Lawrence to distribute copies of his inaugural, that the people of that town were arming and preparing to receive and repel this contemplated attack of the Missourians. The governor was dumfounded at the information. His promises and policy, upon which the ink was not yet dry, were already in jeopardy. Instead of bringing peace his advent was about to open war.

In this contingency the governor took his measures with true military promptness. He immediately dispatched to the Missouri camp Secretary Woodson with copies of his inaugural, and the adjutant-general of the territory with orders to disband and muster out of service the Missouri volunteers, ¶ while he himself, at the head of three hundred dragoons and a light battery, moved rapidly to Lawrence, a distance of twelve miles. Entering that town at sunrise, he found a few hundred men hastily organized for defense in the improvised intrenchments and barricades about the place, ready enough to sell their lives, but vastly more willing to intrust their protection to the governor's authority and the Federal

Geary to Marcy, Sept. 12th, 1856. Ibid., p. 95. General Heiskell to Geary, Sept. 11th and 12th, 1856. Gihon, pp. 136-7.

Geary to Marcy, Sept. 16th, 1856. Senate Docs., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. II., p. 107.

troops. They listened to his speech and readily promised to obey his requirements.

Since the Missourians had officially reported themselves to him as subject to his orders, the governor supposed that his injunctions, conveyed to them in writing and print, and borne by the Secretary and the adjutant-general of the territory, would suffice to send them back at once to their own borders, and he returned to Lecompton to take up his thorny duties of administration. But though forewarned by ex-Governor Shannon and by General Smith, the governor did not yet realize the temper and purpose of either the cabal conspirators or the Border-Ruffian rank and file. He had just dispatched a military force in another direction to intercept and disarm a raid about to be made by a detachment of Lane's men, when news came to him that the Missourians were still moving upon Lawrence in increased force, that his officers had not yet delivered their orders, and that skirmishing had begun between the outposts.

Menaced thus with dishonor on one side and contempt on the other, he gathered all his available Federal troops, and hurrying forward posted them between Lawrence and the invaders. Then he went to the Missouri camp, where the true condition of affairs began to dawn upon him. All the Border-Ruffian chiefs were there, headed by Atchison in person, who was evidently the controlling force, though a member of the legislature of the State of Missouri, named Reid, exercised nominal command. He found his orders unheeded and on every hand mutterings of impatience and threats of defiance. These invading aliens had not the least disposition

Colonel Cooke to Porter, A. A. G., Sept. 13th, 1856. Senate Docs., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. 113. + Wilder, p. 108; Gihon, p. 152. #Colonel Cooke to Porter, Sept. 16th, 1856. Senate Docs., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. 121.

HOUSE OCCUPIED BY GOVERNOR GEARY.

JOHN W. GEARY (1866).

(FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY DRAPER & HUSTED.)

to receive commands as Kansas militia; they invoked that name only as a cloak to shield them from the legal penalties due their real character as organized banditti.

The governor called the chiefs together and made them an earnest harangue. He explained to them his conciliatory policy, read his instructions from Washington, affirmed his determination to keep peace, and appealed personally to Atchison to aid him in enforcing law and preserving order. That wily chief, seeing that refusal would put him in the attitude of a law-breaker, feigned a ready compliance, and he and Reid, his factotum commander, made eloquent speeches "calculated to produce submission to the legal demands made upon

them." Some of the lesser captains, however, were mutinous, and treated the governor to choice bits of BorderRuffian rhetoric. Law and violence vibrated in uncertain balance, when Colonel Cooke, commanding the Federal troops, took the floor and cut the knot of discussion in a summary way. "I felt called upon to say some words myself," he writes naïvely, "appealing to these militia officers as an old resident of Kansas and friend to the Missourians to submit to the patriotic demand that they should retire,

VOL. XXXIV.—14*.

assuring them of my perfect confidence in the inflexible justice of the governor, and that it would become my painful duty to sustain him at the cannon's mouth."* This argument was decisive. The valiant border chiefs felt willing enough to lead their awkward squads against the slight barricades of Lawrence, but quailed at the unlooked-for prospect of encountering the carbines and sabers of half a regiment of regular dragoons and the grapeshot of a well-drilled light battery. They accepted the inevitable; and swallowing their rage and still nursing their revenge, they consented perforce to retire and be "honorably" mustered out. But for this narrow contingency Lawrence would have been sacked by

of a "muster out," rather than the fine, imprisonment, or halter which the full execution of their design would render them liable to, another detachment of Federal dragoons was enforcing the bogus laws upon a company of free-State men who had just had a skirmish with another detachment of this same invading army of Border Ruffians, at a place called Hickory Point. The encounter itself had all the usual characteristics of the dozens of similar affairs which occurred during this prolonged period of border warfare-a neighborhood feud; neighborhood violence; the appearance of organized bands for retaliation; the taking of forage, animals, and property; the fortifying of two or three log-houses by a pro-slavery

the direct agency of the territorial cabal a second time.

Nothing could more forcibly demonstrate the unequal character of the contest between the slave-State and the free-State men in Kansas, even in these manoeuvres and conflicts of civil war, than the companion exploit to this third Lawrence raid. The day before Governor Geary, seconded by the "cannon" argument of Colonel Cooke, was convincing the reluctant Missourians that it was better to accept, as a reward for their unfinished expedition, the pay, rations, and honorable discharge *Cooke to Porter, Sept. 16th, 1856. Senate Docs., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. 122.

company then on its way to join in the Lawrence attack, and finally the appearance of a more numerous free-State party to dislodge them. The besieging column, some three hundred and fifty in number, had brought up a brass four-pounder, lately captured from the pro-slavery men, and with this and their rifles kept up a long-range fire for about six hours, when the garrison of Border Ruffians capitulated on condition of being allowed "honorably" to evacuate their stronghold and retire. The casualties were one man killed and several wounded.t

+ Examination, Senate Docs., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. II., pp. 156-169.