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[153] glorious conflict. The General of the invading army afterwards admitted that if Brown had been provided with Sharpe's rifles, nothing could have prevented his men from making an ignominious retreat. The fearful slaughter was occasioned by the lawless character of the invading force. Alarmed at being fired at, they refused to obey orders, and foolishly huddled around the dead and wounded, instead of standing in their ranks and “closing up.” Into these panic-stricken groups Old Brown poured a deadly fire; and, before the officers of the enemy could restore order in their companies, thirty-two men lay dead, and more than fifty wounded. The brave band of Captain Brown saw the whites of the enemy's eyes, ere the old man gave the order to retreat. The invaders, true to the Southern instinct, murdered a wounded prisoner who fell into their hands, arrested and killed a Mr. Williams, who was “claimed by neither party,” and who took no part in this or any other conflict; and, on the following morning, offered “Charley,” the Hungarian, a chance for his life, if he should escape their fire — a cowardly excuse, as the fearless boy told them, for riddling him with balls. They fired a volley into him, as he faced them defiantly. Erroneously supposing that they had shot Captain Brown, they returned to Missouri, and boasted of their success; but the large number of corpses and wounded men whom they brought from Ossawatomie, and a knowledge of the insignificant force of abolitionists that had opposed them, created a feeling of terror in
Thayer and Eldridge, 1860.
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