4. Who was Charles Robinson? James H. Lane?
5. What event brought on the Wakarusa War? Why was it so named?
6. Name five persons connected with this war, and tell something of each.
7. What did Lawrence have to do with the trouble?
8. Give the events of the Wakarusa War. How was it ended?
CHAPTER X
THE PERIOD OF VIOLENCE
The Severe Winter of 1855–’56. The Wakarusa War closed in December, 1855. This second winter proved to be an exceedingly severe one, and many of the settlers were not sufficiently protected against the sudden and intense cold. Most of the houses were hastily constructed, one-room log buildings, many of them with dirt floors, and windows and doors of cotton cloth. The storms drifted into these cabins through numberless chinks and cracks in roof and walls. One of the pioneers, writing of that winter, says: “At times, when the winds were bleakest, we went to bed as the only escape from freezing. More than once we awoke in the morning to find six inches of snow in the cabin. To get up, to make one’s toilet under such circumstances, was not a very comfortable performance. Often we had little to eat; the wolf was never far from our door during that hard winter of 1855–’56.”
Preparations for Hostilities. The struggle of the pioneers with the hardships of winter closed hostilities for a while, but it soon became evident that the Missourians were preparing more extensively than ever to invade Kansas, destroy Lawrence, and drive the free-state people from the Territory, or force them to recognize the proslavery Territorial Government. The free-state people began to gather stores and ammunition and to send calls to the northern states for men and money to meet the situation.