The life, trial and execution of Captain John Brown: known as "old Brown of Ossawatomie," with a full account of the attempted insurrrection at Harper's Ferry

              

 

 

 

 

 

         Lion of a Wyandot Indian of the name of Long, and the notorious Coleman, who 

         had murdered Dow. These two men, being well mounted, made their escape. 

          Upon another occasion, a body of some 220 men were raised and equipped in 

         Jackson County, Missouri, and started into Kansas under the command of General 

         Whitfield, to attack and capture “ Old Brown,” as every one called him. Brown, 

         who was always vigilant and wary, and was possessed of secret means of intelli- 

         gence, had made fnlL preparation to meet the Missourians, and was encamped with 

         160 men at a chosen point near the Santa Fe road, which he knew his enemies 

         would pass. He had fifty men with Sharpe’s rifle’s which would kill at half a miles 

         and which could be loaded at the breech and fired with great rapidity, whom b.e 

         had concealed in a ravine, lying on the ground, and commanding the prairie for a 

         mile before them. The residue of the party he had concealed in the timber, ready, 

         at the proper moment, for an attack on the flank of those who might reach the 

         ravine alive. Colonel Sumner, with a squad of dragoons, came down from Fort 

         Leavenworth and prevented the fight, disbanding both parties, after which the 

         Colonel was heard to remark, that his interposition was a fortunate event for the 

         Missourians, as the arrangements and preparations made by Brown would have 

         insured their destruction. 

          It will be recollected that in 1856, when Geary came into the Territory, Atchi- 

         son and Reid were there with an invading army, variously estimated at from 2,000 

         to 2,100 mcn, bent on the destruction of several towns and the extermination of 

         the Free State men, and that Geary, with great difficulty, negotiated and persuaded 

         them to retire, and that his success was a matter of rejoicing over all the North 

         as there was a Free State force assembled of not over 500 to resist them, who 

         were but poorly prepared for the fray. Not so John Brown, who was greatly 

         vexed at the result, and who insisted that his friends had lost a happy chance of 

         putting an end to the war, and covering themselves and their cause with glory. 

         The odds of five to one he counted as nothing. "What are five to one,” said he, 

         “when onr men would be fighting for their wives, their children, their homes, and 

         their liberties, against a party, one-half of whom were mercenary vagabonds who 

         enlisted for a mere frolic, lured on by the whisky and the bacon, and a large portion 

         of the others had gone under the compulsion of public opinion and proscription, 

         and because they feared being denounced as abolitionists if they refnsed ?“ His 

         taste in this matter was very near being gratified. A vanguard of 300 men rode 

         up from Franklin and made a bravado demonstration on Lawrence, in order, as 

         they supposed, to alarm the Free State men, and ascertain how far they could go. 

         Brown eagerly hurried out with 100 men to give them fight on the open prairie, 

         but the enemy retired, and declined the coutest, to Brown’s great disappointment 

         and disgust. 

          His conduct at the sack of Ossawatomie is well known. John Reid, a prominent 

         lawyer of Jackson County, and a member of the Missouri Legislature, marched 

         upon that town with 300 men and two pieces of artillery. The inhabitants were 

         taken by surprise, and Brown had barely time to get into the timber, which lines 

         the Osage River, with thirty men, and a limited supply of ammunition, when the