[123] at John Brown, Jr., in which, amongst a variety of household articles, a valuable library was consumed; and also the house of another of he Browns — for the old man had six grown sons; and also searched houses, men, and Free State settlers, and acted in a violent and lawless manner generally. Not being able to find Captain Brown, senior, at Ossawatomie, Pate's company and the troops started back for the Santa Fe road. In the long march that intervened, under a hot sun, the two Browns, now in charge of the Dragoons, and held without even the pretence of bogus law, were driven before the Dragoons, chained like beasts. For twenty-five miles they thus suffered under this outrageous inhumanity. Nor was this all. John Brown, Jr., who had been excited by the wild stories of murder told against his father, by their enemies, and who was of a sensitive mind, was unable to bear up against this and his treatment during the march, and afterwards, while confined in camp, startled his remorseless captors by the wild ravings of a maniac, while he lashed his chains in fury till the dull iron shone like polished steel.1 To rescue his two sons from their captors became the determination of Captain Brown. Like a wolf robbed of its young, he stealthily but resolutely watched for his foes, while he skirted through the thickets of the Marais des Cygnes and Ottawa Creeks. Perhaps it was a lurking dread of Captain Brown's rescuing the prisoners, that made Captain Pate deliver theta to the United States Dragoons. The Dragoons, with their prisoners, encamped on Middle Ottawa Creek, while Pate went on with his men to the Santa Fe road, near Hickory Point. On the evening of Saturday, the 31st of May, he encamped on the head of a small branch or ravine, called Black Jack, from the kind of timber growing there.
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
1 Mrs. Robinson, whose husband was detained at any on a charge of high treason, thus describes the arrival of John Brown, Jr., in their camp:--
On the 23d June, the prisoners received an accession to their numbers in the persons of Captain John Brown, Jr., and H. H. Williams, likewise dignified with the name of traitors. The former was still insane from the ill-treatment received while in charge of the troops. . .. Captain Brown had a rope tied around his arms so tightly, and drawn behind him, that he will for years bear the marks of the ropes where they wore into his flesh. He was then obliged to hold one end of a rope, the other end being carried by one of the Dragoons; and for eight miles, in a burning sun, he was driven before them. compelled to go fast enough to keep from being trampled on by the horses. On being taken to Tecumseh, they were chained two and two, with a common trace chain, and padlock at each end. It was so fixed as to clasp tightly around the ankle. One day they were driven thirty miles, with no food from early morning until night. The journey, in a hot June day, was most torturing to them. Their chains wore upon their ankles until one of them, unable to go farther, was placed upon a horse.This son was detained in camp till the 10th September, although he was never even indicted!
Thayer and Eldridge, 1860.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.