Hon. William Higgins of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, then fourteen years of age, drove one of the three teams that comprised Reid's means of transportation. Concerning Reid's losses in the battle, he says: "The total was three men wounded. Two of these were conveyed back to Missouri in one of the wagons, while the other wounded man was able to ride his horse. No one was killed."[194] On the Free-State side the battle seems to have been opened by Dr. Updegraff, of Osawatomie, and Holmes. The latter was "saddling up," presumably to join Brown in another day's ride after cattle, when the presence of the enemy was announced, and rode up toward the Adairs until he sighted Reid's troopers, upon whom he fired three times from his Sharp's rifle.[195] From Lawrence, September 7th, Brown wrote to his wife as follows:[196] DEAR WIFE AND CHILDREN EVERY ONE: I have one moment to write to you, to say that I am yet alive, that Jason and family were well yesterday--John and Family, I hear, are well (he being yet a prisoner). On the morning of the 30th of August an attack was made by the Ruffians on Osawatomie, numbering some four hundred, by whose scouts our dear Frederick was shot dead, without warning--he supposed them to be Free-State men, as near as we can learn. One other man, a cousin of Mr. Adair was murdered by them about the same time that Frederick was killed, and one badly wounded at the same time. At this time I was about three miles off, where I had some fourteen or fifteen men over night that I had just enlisted to serve under me as regulars. These I collected as well as I could, with some twelve or fifteen more--and in about three quarters of an hour I attacked them from a wood with thick undergrowth. With this force we threw them into confusion for fifteen or twenty minutes, during which time we killed or wounded from seventy to eighty of the enemy--as they say--and then we escaped as well as we could, with one killed while escaping, two or three wounded and as many more were missing. Four or five Free-State men were butchered during the day in all. Jason fought bravely by my side during the fight, and escaped with me, he being unhurt. I was struck by a partly spent grape canister, or rifle shot, which bruised me some, but did not injure me seriously. "Hitherto the Lord has helped me," notwithstanding my afflictions, etc., etc. JOHN BROWN. On the same day he gave out the following statement for publication:[197] THE FIGHT OF OSAWATOMIE