Meanwhile the "border war" began. During the (almost bloodless) "Wakarusa War" Lawrence was threatened by an armed force from Missouri, but was saved by the intervention of Governor Shannon. Up to this time the initiative and the bulk of outrages lay assuredly heavily on the pro-slavery side; hereafter they became increasingly common and more evenly divided. In May 1856 another Missouri force entered Lawrence without resistance, destroyed its printing offices, wrecked buildings and pillaged generally. This was the day before the assault on Charles Sumner (q.v.) in the Senate of the United States. These two outrages fired Northern passion and determination. In Kansas they were a stimulus to the most radical elements. Immediately after the sack of Lawrence, John Brown and a small band murdered and mutilated five pro-slavery men, on Pottawatomie Creek; a horrible deed, showing a new spirit on the free-state side, and of ghastly consequence--for it contributed powerfully to widen further the licence of highway robbery, pillage and arson, the ruin of homes, the driving off of settlers, marauding expeditions, attacks on towns, outrages in short of every kind, that made the following months a welter of lawlessness and crime, until Governor Geary--by putting himself above all partisanship, repudiating Missouri, and using Federal troops--put an end to them late in 1856. (In the isolated south-eastern counties they continued through 1856-1858, mainly to the advantage of the "jay-hawkers" of free-state Kansas and to the terror of Missouri.)