John Brown, Soldier of Fortune: A Critique

by Hill Peebles Wilson

It seems from this that Brown was somewhere near Topeka, on the 12th, and not at Franklin.

On the 16th the attack was made on Fort Titus. Of this Mr. Villard says:

There was real fighting at Fort Titus, which Captain Samuel Walker, Captain Joel Grover, and a Captain Samuel Shombre attacked, at sunrise August 16, with fifty determined men. Captain Shombre was killed, and nine out of ten men with him wounded, in a rush on the block-house. In a short time eighteen out of the forty remaining attackers were wounded, including Captain Walker. After several hours of fighting, Free-State reinforcements appeared, including Captain Bickerton, with the six pounder, and its slugs of molten type. It was run to within three hundred yards of the fort and fired nine or ten times.... As Titus still showed no white flag, a load of hay was again resorted to with the same success as at Franklin. As the wagon was backed up to the log fort, and before the match was applied, the party surrendered.... Walker captured thirteen horses, four hundred guns, a large number of knives and six pistols, a fair stock of provisions and thirty-four prisoners, six of whom were badly wounded. One dead man was found in the block-house before it was burned.

Again this question comes up: Where was Brown when this fighting was taking place? Was he in this very creditable engagement? Continuing his narrative, Mr. Villard says, on page 232:

The testimony as to whether John Brown was at Saunders and Titus is conflicting. He himself left no statement bearing upon it, and Luke Parsons, James Blood, O. E. Learnard and others, are positive that he was not at either place. The weight of evidence would seem to be on that side.

But John Brown did leave a statement bearing directly upon the question as to whether, or not, he was present at any of these engagements. In the interview which he gave out after his capture at Harper's Ferry, in answer to the question: "Did you know Sherrod in Kansas? I understand you killed him?" Brown replied: "I killed no man except in fair fight. I fought at Black Jack, and at Osawatomie, and if I killed anybody it was at one of these places."[184] Brown, therefore, was not present at any of these battles. He was at Lawrence, however, on August 17th, after the fighting was over. Mr. Villard says on page 233: "That Brown was at Lawrence, when Walker arrived with his prisoners, admits of no doubt. Again his voice was raised for the extreme penalty; again he asked a sacrifice of blood." It appears, therefore, that Brown "terminated" a seven days "life in the bush" on the 17th, and became active in public affairs, for twenty-four hours. Referring to a concurrent incident Colonel Walker says:

At a little way out of Lawrence I met a delegation, sent by the committee of safety, with an order for the immediate delivery of Titus into their hands. Knowing the character of the men, I refused to give him up. Our arrival at Lawrence created intense excitement. The citizens swarmed around us, clamoring for the blood of our prisoner. The committee of safety held a meeting and decided that Titus should be hanged, John Brown, and other distinguished men urging the measure strongly. At four o'clock in the evening I went before the committee, and said that Titus had surrendered to me; that I had promised him his life, and that I would defend it with my own. I then left the room. Babcock followed me out and asked me if I was fully determined. Being assured that I was, he went back, and the committee, by a new vote, decided to postpone the hanging indefinitely. I was sure of the support of some 300 good men, and among them Captain Tucker, Captain Harvey, and Captain Stulz. Getting this determined band into line, I approached the house where Titus was confined and entered. Just as I opened the door I heard pistol shots in Titus's room and rushed in and found a desperado named "Buckskin" firing over the guard's shoulders at the wounded man as he lay on his cot. It took but one blow from my heavy dragoon pistol to send the villain heels-over-head to the bottom of the stairs. Captain Brown and Doctor Avery were outside haranguing the mob to hang Titus despite my objections. They said I had resisted the committee of safety, and was myself, therefore, a public enemy. The crowd was terribly excited, but the sight of my 300 solid bayonets held them in check.

This is a part of the record of these heroic days—days of strenuous effort and of heroic achievement. The Free-State men were engaged in a supreme effort to drive from the Territory the armed pro-slavery bands that had been organized in the South to intimidate and subdue them. They had fought a splendidly aggressive campaign, dislodging their foes from all their positions, burning their forts, and capturing their supplies. There was, as has been said, real fighting, fighting at close quarters, and plenty of it. And now, in view of it, what is to be said about Brown, the hypothetical Kansas hero, the "Fighting Leader of the Free-State Cause?" Lane was in evidence; and Colonel Walker, and Bickerton, and Grover, and the gallant Shombre, were in the thick of it; but what part did Brown perform in these undertakings? What contribution did he make to the winning of these victories? Nothing! Absolutely nothing. He came out of the "brush" after the fighting was over, and endeavored to incite a mob to hang a prisoner who was severely wounded.

This disreputable action is evidence that Brown was not in harmony with the best thought of the occasion; that he mingled with the lawless element—with the "Buckskin" class, that "fired over the guard's shoulders, at the wounded man, as he lay on his cot." Brown was not interested in these important public matters; he was not coöperating with the Free-State men; his motives for returning to the Territory did not relate to Territorial affairs. His plans had to do with something else. They were of a personal character; and his presence at Lawrence on the 17th, was simply an incident of his trip from Nebraska City to Osawatomie, where he arrived, according to Bondi, "about the 20th, well supplied with money," and with a "spick and span four mule team, the wagon loaded with provisions,"[185] to make a coup in horses and cattle. Brown had outfitted this four mule team at or near Topeka, and the presence of it at Osawatomie on the 20th, with its stock of provisions, is the best evidence of what he had been thinking about, and of what he was doing, while the Free-State men were fighting the battles around Lawrence.