=A Condition of Lawlessness.= While these things were going on, Kansas was becoming more and more lawless. It would be hard to say which side surpassed the other in misdeeds. A number of free-state leaders, including Dr. Robinson, were held at Lecompton during the summer as prisoners on a charge of treason. The free-state people were irritated by the loss of money, supplies, and mail, through the Missouri blockade. Bands of armed proslavery men guarded the roads out of Topeka and Lawrence, so that these towns were really in a state of siege. These guards lived on supplies taken from the surrounding settlers, and cut off supplies sent to the towns so that food became very scarce, especially at Lawrence, where the chief article of diet for some time was ground oats. Meanwhile, supplies were reaching the proslavery towns, Tecumseh, Lecompton, and Franklin, without hindrance. It was evident to the free-state people that their enemies expected to starve them out of the Territory, and they were stirred to retaliate. The free-state guerrillas again began their work of seizing the supplies of proslavery settlers and merchants. This was kept up until many of the proslavery people were completely impoverished. =The “Army of the North.”= About the first of August a report that Lane was coming with the “Army of the North” spread over the Territory. James H. Lane was one of the free-state men who had been in the northern states, addressing meetings and raising men and money. He was a very eloquent speaker and had influenced many to come to Kansas. The “Army of the North” consisted of several hundred men, women, and children, most of whom had come to make homes for themselves. This army was a combination of several parties that had united to come into Kansas over the new route through Iowa and Nebraska. Lane was with the party, but only a small number were armed or had been gathered by him. =A Proslavery Army Gathers.= The proslavery leaders began to rally their men along the border. The following sentences are taken from one of the calls they published: “Lane’s men have arrived! Civil war is begun! And we call on all who are not prepared to see their friends butchered, to be themselves driven from their homes, to rally to the rescue.” A large number of men soon gathered on the border, anxiously awaiting permission to move into Kansas; but as Governor Shannon had dispersed the Missouri army a few weeks earlier, he now refused to issue orders for the new army to move into the Territory.