James Redpath, The Public Life of Captain John Brown

The writer and three companions were taken prisoners at this period a few miles from Lawrence, by a company of eighteen men, who were presently joined by a still larger number; and not one of them, as their leader confessed, was, or had ever been, a resident of Kansas, or had any social or pecuniary interest in its present or future prosperity.

To Lawrence at once repaired the fighting men from every district of the Territory. Five hundred Free State men were soon gathered there, drilled daily, and prepared to defend the town to a “bloody issue.” The Southern invaders, although three to one, and armed with United States muskets,--although furnished with heavy artillery, and having horsemen in great numbers, were afraid to attack the free men of the North in Lawrence assembled. Governor Shannon, alarmed at the tempest he had raised but could not control. hastened up from the Shawnee Mission to effect a compromise with the leaders of the rebels. He saw hundreds of ruffians around Lawrence armed with guns, which they acknowledged to have stolen from a United States arsenal in Missouri; yet he never complained of them, and none of them have ever been indicted or arrested, although the affidavits attesting the fact of the robbery are in the archives of Government, and the perpetrators of it are well-known persons, men of influence and position in the border districts.