James Redpath, The Public Life of Captain John Brown

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[97] as the laws of Kansas; and ordered the Federal troops to aid the Territorial officers in the execution of these infamous enactments. With the opening of navigation on the river came hordes of Southern highwaymen from Georgia, the Carolinas, and Alabama, with the avowed intention of exterminating or banishing the Free State men. Organizing into guerilla companies, they soon scattered desolation throughout the Territory; but first were enrolled as Territorial militia, by Governor Shannon, and armed with United States muskets, the more effectually to enable them to carry out their purpose. An excuse was needed to march against Lawrence, in order to destroy it; for while it stood, they could hardly hope to succeed in their nefarious mission. A pretext was soon afforded. Sham writs were issued for the arrest of its citizens; United States troops entered Lawrence to enforce them. To Federal authority no opposition was made; for the sentiment of devotion to the Union, notwithstanding that to Kansas the Union was a curse, was in almost every breast an uneradicable prejudice. The Sheriff, thus protected and unopposed, in order to incite the people to resist him, encamped with his prisoners in Lawrence over night, and, in coarse and filthy language, abused the Northern citizens and his captives. Tired of the cowardice of the politicians, and exasperated by the outrages daily committed by the Southern marauders, one brave but wayward boy, on hearing the abusive language of the Sheriff, swore that he would bring matters to a crisis forthwith ; and, in the evening, he and two companions, half drunk, and wholly incensed, fired at