Your affectionate husband and father,
John Brown.
This letter foreshadows the turning point in John Brown's career. It discloses the fact that he and his sons intended to engage in an enterprise that was related to danger, against which he sought to quiet his wife's apprehensions. The letter also foreshadows the fact that as a result of what they intended to do, they would probably leave the neighborhood; but as to either the nature of the undertaking which they had in view, or the time at which the venture would be executed, she would not be informed until they left the country. It discloses further the significant fact, that his attitude toward the Free-State cause had undergone a change. That instead of treasuring in his heart a patriotic desire to win freedom for Kansas by peaceable means, he had assumed a hostile attitude. He now desired, not peace, but war.
Three important facts appear at this point in Brown's history: That he had decided to do something of a dangerous character and leave the neighborhood; that he desired a revival of pro-slavery aggressions; and that he had disbanded the "Liberty Guards."
On the 16th of April, 1856, John Brown, Jr., was in command of the "Pottawatomie Rifles."[112] He said: "During the winter of 1856, I raised a company of riflemen, from the Free-State settlers who had their homes in the vicinity of Osawatomie and Pottawatomie Creek."[113] James Townsley, in his "confession," made December 6, 1879, said: "I joined the Pottawatomie Rifle Company at its reorganization in May, 1856, at which time John Brown, Jr., was elected captain."
Why Brown should desire a revival of pro-slavery aggressions, if he intended to leave the neighborhood; and what he intended to do, are important questions in this analysis which his versatile biographers have failed to attempt to explain. Brown could not have desired a provocation from the pro-slavery people because he wanted an opportunity to fight—to march against them at the head of the "Liberty Guards," and "stagger the slave-power by the driving force of his iron will;"—for he intended to leave the neighborhood; he intended to go away from the scene of the prospective aggressions. He was no longer "Captain of the Liberty Guards," but a private citizen; therefore, he must have desired an outbreak of pro-slavery hostility for personal reasons; for reasons relating to operations which he intended to engage in with Henry Thompson as an associate; who wrote, equivocally, to his wife in May, 1856, that "Upon Brown's plans would depend his own, until School is out."
John Brown
The operations that Brown and his four unmarried sons and Henry Thompson engaged in immediately after the letter containing this extract was written, show that the "plans" therein referred to related to the capital tragedy in the history of Kansas Territory. These plans provided for the theft of a large number of horses on Pottawatomie Creek. The horses were duly stolen by Brown and his band. To make the theft possible, and personally safe, they planned to quietly assassinate the owners of the horses. To avoid identification, and to dispose of the horses which they intended to steal, they planned to deliver them to confederates, who would run them out of the neighborhood; and, at the same time, they were to receive from such confederates horses of a more desirable character—fast running horses—which were to be brought from the northern part of the Territory to a designated rendezvous.
It was the original intention to steal four lots of horses and murder seven men. The persons murdered in pursuance of their plans were John Doyle and two of his sons, Hon. Allen Wilkinson, and William Sherman. Those who escaped death were Henry Sherman, a brother of William, and another person whose name has been withheld from publication.[114] The silent weapons used in these murders were some of the short swords, ground to a keen edge, that Brown had brought with him when he came to the Territory. The unfortunate victims, in holding up their arms in vain attempts to shield their heads from impending blows, were struck upon their forearms and hands; these in some instances were almost severed from their bodies. The heads of the murdered men, except in the case of Doyle, were split open and their bodies otherwise mutilated. In the case of Doyle, he was shot in the head; and in addition thereto, a sword was run through his breast. He was the first victim of the tragedies. The shot which struck him was the only shot that was fired in these murders, and the firing of it stands charged to John Brown himself. Of this Mr. Villard says:[115] "Salmon Brown will not positively state that his father fired it but admits that no one else pulled a trigger."