CHAPTER XXI
The eight men engaged in the remarkable enterprise on the Pottawattomie, led by their indomitable Captain, mounted their stolen horses and boldly rode to the camp of the military company commanded by John Brown, Jr. The father planned to make his stand behind these guns if pursued by formidable foes.
Brown reached the camp of the Rifles near Ottawa Jones' farm at midnight. The fires still burned brightly. To his surprise he found that the news of the murders had traveled faster than the stolen horses.
The camp was demoralized.
John Brown, Jr., had been forced to resign as Captain and H. H. Williams had been elected in his stead.
The reception which the County was giving his inspired deed stunned the leader. He had expected a reign of terror. But the terror had seized his own people. He was compelled to lie and deny his guilt except to his own flesh and blood. Even before his sons he was arraigned with fierce condemnation.
On the outer edge of the panic-stricken camp his sons, Jason and John,
Jr., faced him with trembling and horror in their voices.
Jason had denounced the first hint of the plan when the surveyor's scheme was broached. John, Jr. had refused to move a step on the expedition. The two sons confronted their father with determined questions. He shifted and evaded the issue.
Jason squared himself and demanded:
"Did you kill those men?"
"I did not," was the sharp answer.
The son held his shifting eye by the glare of the camp fire.
"Did you have anything to do with the killing of those men?"
To his own he would not lie longer. It wasn't necessary. His reply was quick and unequivocal.
"I did not do it. But I approved it."
"It was the work of a beast."
"You cannot speak to me like that, sir!" the old man growled.
"And why not?"
"I am your father, sir!"
"That's why I tell you to your face that you have disgraced every child who bears your name—now—and for all time. What right had you to put this curse upon me? The devils in hell would blush to do what you have done!"
The father lifted his hand as if to ward a blow and bored his son through with a steady stare.
"God is my judge—not you, sir!"
John Brown, Jr., sided with his brother in the attack but with less violence. His feebler mind was already trembling on the verge of collapse.
"It cuts me to the quick," the old man finally answered, "that my own people should not understand that I had to make an example of these men—"
Jason finally shrieked into his ears:
"Who gave you the authority of Almighty God to sit in judgment upon your fellow man, condemn him without trial and slay without mercy?"
The father threw up both hands in a gesture of disgust and walked from the scene. He spent the night without sleep, wandering through the woods and fields.
Three days later while Brown and his huntsmen were still hiding in the timber, the people of his own settlement at Osawatomie held a public meeting which was attended by the entire male population. They unanimously adopted resolutions condemning in the bitterest terms the deed.
When the old man heard of these resolutions he ground his teeth in rage. He had thought to sweep the Territory with a Holy War in a Sacred Cause. He expected the men who hated Slavery to applaud his Blood Offering to the God of Freedom. Instead they had hastened to array themselves with his foes.
Something had gone wrong in the execution of his divine vision. His mind was stunned for the moment. But he was wrestling again with God in prayer, while the avengers were riding to demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
When the true history of man is written it will be the record of mind not the story of the physical acts which follow the mental process.
The dangers of society are psychological, not physical. The crucial moments of human history are not found in the hours in which armies charge. They are found in the still small voices that whisper in the silence of the night to a lone watcher by the fireside. They are found in the words of will that follow hours of silent thought behind locked doors or under the stars.
The story of man's progress, his relapses to barbarism, his victories, his failures, his years of savage cruelties, his eras of happiness and sorrow, must be written at last in terms of mental states.
John Brown's mind had conceived and executed the series of murders that shocked even a Western frontier. His mind enacted the tragedy days before the actual happening.
And it was the state of mind created by the deed that upset all his calculations. The reaction was overwhelming. He was correct in his faith that a blood feud once raised, all appeal to reason and common sense, all appeal to law, order, tradition, religion would be vain babble. But he had failed to gauge the moral sense of his own party. They had not yet accepted the theory which he held with such passionate conviction.
Brown's moral code was summed up in one passage from the Bible which he quoted and brooded over daily:
"WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD THERE IS NO REMISSION OF SINS."
But he had made a mistake in the spot chosen for rousing the Blood Feud. Men had instantly seen red. They sprang to their arms. They leaped as tigers leap on their prey. But his own people were the prey. He had miscalculated the conditions of frontier life, though he had not yet realized it. His stubborn, restless mind clung to the idea that the stark horror of the crimes which he had committed in the name of Liberty would call at last all men who stood for Freedom.
He held his armed band in camp under the sternest discipline to await this call of the blood.
The Southern avengers who swarmed across the Missouri border into the region of Osawatomie accepted Brown's standards of justice and mercy without question. A few men of education among them were the only restraining influence.
Through these exciting days the old man would show himself at daylight in different places removed from his camp in the woods. While squadrons of avengers were scouring the ravines, the river bottoms and the tangled underbrush, he was lying quietly on his arms. Sometimes his pursuers camped within hearing and got their water from the same spring.
With all his indomitable courage he was unable to rally sufficient men to afford protection to his people. He was a fugitive from justice with a price on his head. Yet, armed and surrounded by a small band of faithful followers, he led a charmed life.
His deed on the Pottawattomie made murder the chief sport of the unhappy Territory. The life of the frontier was reduced to anarchy. Outrages became so common it was impossible to record them. Murder was a daily incident. Many of them passed in secret. Many were not revealed for days and weeks after they had been committed—then, only by the discovery of the moldering remains of the dead. Two men were found hanging on a tree near Westport. They were ill-fated Free State partisans who had fallen by the hand of the avengers. The troops buried them in a grave so shallow that the prairie wolves had half devoured them before they were again found and re-buried.
The Free Soil men organized guerrilla bands for retaliation. John E. Cook, a daring young adventurer, the brother-in-law of Governor Willard of Indiana, early distinguished himself in this work. He put himself at the head of a group of twenty young "Cavalry Scouts" who ranged the country, asking no quarter and giving none.
A squadron of avengers invaded Brown's settlement at Osawatomie, sacked and partly destroyed it, and killed his son, Frederick, whose mind had been in a state of collapse since the night of the murders on the Pottawattomie.
John Brown rallied a group of sympathizers and fought a pitched battle with the invaders but was defeated with bloody losses and compelled to retreat.
He was followed by Deputy United States Marshal, Henry C. Pate. Brown turned and boldly attacked Pate's camp and another battle ensued. The Deputy Marshal, wishing to avoid useless bloodshed, sent out a flag of truce and asked an interview with the guerrilla commander. Brown answered promptly, advanced and sent for Pate.
Pate, trusting the flag of truce, approached the old man.
"I am addressing the Captain in command?" Pate asked.
"You are, sir."
"Then let me announce that I am a Deputy United States Marshal."
"And why are you fighting us?"
"I have no desire for bloodshed, sir. I am acting under the orders of the Marshal of the Territory."
"And what does the Marshal demand?"
"The arrest of the men for whom I have warrants."
Pate had never seen John Brown and had no idea that he was talking to the old man himself.
"I have a proposition to make," he went on.
"I'll have no proposals from you, sir," Brown announced shortly. "I demand your surrender."
"I am an officer of the law. I cannot surrender to armed outlaws."
Brown's metallic voice quivered.
"I demand your immediate and unconditional surrender!"
"I have the right to retire under a flag of truce and consider your proposition with my men—"
Pate started to go and Brown stood in front of him.
"You're not going."
"You will violate a flag of truce?"
Brown signaled his men to advance and surround Pate.
"You're not going, sir," he repeated.
"I claim my rights under a flag of truce accepted by you for this parley. An Indian respects that flag."
Brown pointed to his men who were standing within the sound of their voices.
"Order those men to surrender."
Pate folded his arms and remained silent.
Brown placed his revolver at the Deputy Marshal's breast and shouted.
"Tell your men to lay down their arms!"
Pate refused to speak. There was a moment's deadly silence and the Marshal's posse, to save the life of their Captain, threw down their guns and the whole party were made prisoners.
The United States Cavalry at Fort Leavenworth were ordered to the scene to rescue the Deputy Marshal and his men.