Among the men sent to the borders of Missouri by the "Emigrant Aid Companies" of New England were some of the most desperate adventurers; and the Missourians who had pretended to be alarmed at the coming of "Zion's Camp," and feigned to regard it as an armed invasion {LXX} of the state, saw their state repeatedly invaded--especially Jackson county--by the bands of Union "jayhawkers" organized from among these desperate eastern and northern men, who ruthlessly laid waste their homes and farms. The Missourians had falsely charged the Saints with abolition madness, with tampering with their slaves, with inviting free negroes into the state to corrupt their blacks, whose very presence would render their institution of slave labor insecure; but they lived to see their system of slave labor abolished by the setting free of some one hundred and fifteen thousand slaves, valued at $40,000,000, eight thousand of whom were "martialed and disciplined for war" in the Federal armies, and many of them marched to war against their former masters. Governor Dunklin and his advisors in the government of Missouri claimed that there was no warrant of authority under the laws and constitution of the state for calling out a permanent military force to protect the Saints in the peaceful possession of their homes until the civil authority proved itself competent to keep the peace and protect the citizens in the enjoyment of their guaranteed rights; but the people in the western part of Missouri saw the time come when they themselves prayed for the same protection; and Governor Stewart, unlike Governor Dunklin, approved the appointment of a battalion of volunteers consisting of three companies of rangers and one of artillery, all of which were placed under command of Lieutenant-Colonel John L. Bowen, to do the very thing the Saints had prayed might be done in their case. [68] But even this provision for their protection did not avail; for their old jayhawking enemies soon reappeared under new conditions--which will be stated in the next paragraph--under which they renewed their incursions of rapine and murder.