John Brown the Hero: Personal ReminiscencesWinkley, J. W. (Jonathan Wingate)
History
John Brown the Hero: Personal Reminiscences
Winkley, J. W. (Jonathan Wingate)
Brown, John, 1800-1859
by a Colonel Titus, was captured, near Lecompton. The reason for
these attacks was thus given by John Brown, Jr., then a prisoner at
Lecompton, guarded by Captain Sackett with a force of United States
dragoons (August 16, 1856):
"During the past month the Ruffians have been actively at work, and
have made not less than five intrenched camps, where they have,
in different parts of the Territory, established themselves in
armed bands, well provided with arms, provisions, and ammunition.
From these camps they sally out, steal horses, and rob Free State
settlers (in several cases murdering them), and then slip back into
their camp with their plunder. Last week, a body of our men made
a descent upon Franklin (four miles south of Lawrence) and, after
a skirmishing fight of about three hours, took their barracks and
recovered some sixty guns and a cannon, of which our men had been
robbed some months since, on the road from Westport. Yesterday
our men invested another of their fortified camps, at Washington
Creek.... Towards evening the enemy broke and fled, leaving behind,
to fall into the hands of our men, a lot of provisions and 100
stand of arms.... This morning our men followed Colonel Titus
closely, and fell upon his camp (near Lecompton), killed two of his
men, liberated his prisoners, took him and ten other prisoners, and
with a lot of arms, tents, provisions, etc., returned, having in
the fight had only one of our men seriously wounded.... This series
of victories has caused the greatest fear among the Pro-slavery
men. Great numbers are leaving for Missouri.... I see by the
Missouri papers that they regard John Brown as the most terrible
foe they have to encounter. He stands very high with the Free State
men who will fight, and the great majority of these have made up
their minds that nothing short of war to the death can save us from
extermination."
Immediately following the date of this letter of young John Brown
came the adventures which Dr. Winkley so well describes. They may
have had no other chronicler; and it is well that the testimony of
an eye-witness should at last be given, ending with the striking
incident, just following the Osawatomie fight of August 30, when
young Winkley, in the log-cabin of the missionary Adair, husband of
Brown's half-sister, saw John Brown sternly mourning over the body of
his son Frederick, killed on the morning of the fight, on the high
prairie above Osawatomie. I visited Mr. Adair in this cabin, in 1882,
and talked with him on the events of that year of contention, and
the pictures here printed of his prairie home are true to the fact
as I then saw it. Two weeks after the burial of Frederick Brown, as
mentioned by Dr. Winkley (September 14, 1856), Charles Robinson, who
had commissioned John Brown as captain nine months earlier, wrote to
him by that title from Lawrence, and said in his letter:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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