After the enemy rallied we kept up our fire, until, by the leaving of one and another, we had but six or seven left. We then retired across the river. We had one man killed—a Mr. Powers, from Captain Cline's company—in the fight. One of my men, a Mr. Partridge, was shot in crossing the river. Two or three of the party who took part in the fight are yet missing, and may be lost or taken prisoners. Two were wounded—namely. Dr. Updegraff and Mr. Collis. I cannot speak in too high terms of them, and of many others I have not now time to mention.
One of my best men, together with myself, was struck by a partially spent ball from the enemy, in the commencement of the fight, but we were only bruised. The loss I refer to is one of my missing men. The loss of the enemy, as we learn by the different statements of our own as well as their people, was some thirty one or two killed, and from forty to fifty wounded. After burning the town to ashes and killing a Mr. Williams, they had taken, whom neither party claimed, they took a hasty leave, carrying their dead and wounded with them. They did not attempt to cross the river, nor to search for us, and have not since returned to look over their work.
I give this in great haste, in the midst of constant interruption. My second son was with me in the fight, and escaped unharmed. This I mention for the benefit of his friends. Old Preacher White, I hear, boasts of having killed my son. Of course he is a lion.
John Brown.
Lawrence, Kansas, Sept. 7, 1856.
In a third statement[198] Brown says: "In the battle of Osawatomie, Capt. (or Dr.) Updegraff—and two others whose names I have lost, were severely (one of them shockingly) wounded before the fight began, August 30, 1856."
The arrival of Reid's forces at Osawatomie, was a complete surprise. Brown knew nothing of their coming until after the battle was on. Mr. Villard states[199] that John Brown and his party, with the exception of Holmes, who spent the night in town, crossed the Marias des Cygnes to their camp on the Crane claim (about two miles from the town), taking their cattle with them. Captain Cline and about fifteen men remained in the town. Two of Brown's men, Bondi and Benjamin, were on guard (over the cattle) on the morning of the 30th, until the firing began. Brown was preparing breakfast at the cattle camp, where a messenger is said to have arrived with the news that Frederick Brown had been killed; whereupon Brown is said to have "seized his arms" and "cried, 'Men come on!' and with Luke F. Parsons hurried down the hill to the crossing nearest the town." But the men, it seems, finished their breakfast before responding to this request and still had time to overtake their leader. Mr. Villard says that "After finishing their coffee, most of them overtook their leader before he reached the town"; and that Parsons, upon following Brown into the timber where the fighting was going on, "met Captain Cline and his company of fifteen well-mounted men retiring through the town, abandoning their cattle and their other plunder. One of his (Cline's) men, Theodore Parker Powers, was killed in the few minutes they were at the front."
From the data at hand it appears that the battle was opened by Holmes, who fired upon Reid's advance immediately upon the latter's arrival; that Dr. Updegraff, and other citizens of Osawatomie, turned out, and with Captain Cline defended the town for "an hour or more" during which time Powers, of Cline's company, was killed and Dr. Updegraff and two others were severely wounded. These were all the casualties that befell the Free-State men in the actual fighting; and Brown states that they occurred "before the fight began": by which he meant, before he arrived upon the scene, which was at the time Parsons met Cline retiring in disorder from the field. None of Brown's men was hit while fighting. One of them, Geo. W. Partridge, was killed in the retreat while crossing the river. It seems therefore, that Brown arrived late in the engagement and that he, very wisely, attempted nothing "more than to annoy, from the timber near the town, into which we were all retreated."
Comment or criticism, favorable or unfavorable, as to what John Brown did or did not do in this fight is equally unimportant. Brown's men were not a military company organized for the defense of Osawatomie. They were a gang of "rustlers," as cattle thieves are sometimes called. Such organizations are not under obligations to fight anybody; and they do not fight, except as their personal interests or advantage may seem to require at the time. In this case the prospects for defeating Reid's command of two hundred and fifty men, getting his horses, and saving their own plunder, were so unfavorable, that Brown and his men were justified in getting away from the trouble as best they could; and that is what they did, leaving the town to be pillaged and burned by Reid's army. That "they stood not upon the order of their going" is evident from the fact that Brown lost his hat while making good his escape from the trouble. Of this incident Sarah Brown says:
On the day that my brother Frederick was killed near Osawatomie, my father lost his hat in fighting.[200]