7. (B. L.) Cochrane (at Pottawatomie). Twice served under me as a volunteer; was in the battle of Palmyra.
8. Dr. Lucius Mills devoted some months to the Free-State cause, collecting and giving information, prescribing for and nursing the sick and wounded at his own cost. Is a worthy Free-State man.
9. John Brown has devoted the service of himself and two minor sons to the Free-State cause for more than a year; suffered by the fire before named and by robbery; has gone at his own cost for that period, except that he and his company together have received forty dollars in cash, two sacks of flour, thirty five pounds of bacon, thirty five do. of sugar, and twenty pounds of rice.
I propose to serve hereafter in the Free-State cause (provided my needful expenses can be met) should they be desired; and to raise a small regular force to serve on the same condition. My own means are so far exhausted that I can no longer continue in the service at present without the means of defraying my expenses are furnished me.
I can give the names of some five or six more volunteers of special merit I would be glad to have particularly noticed in some way. J. Brown
When one considers the life Brown had been leading and the nature of the atrocities which he had committed, this proposal to ask for compensation therefor is a piece of effrontery: a good exhibit of sublime gall. Also, his ultimatum therein is deserving of consideration. In it he demands, as a condition precedent to the rendering of any further service in the Free-State cause, that he have an assurance that he and his sons would be paid for such services. This demand further discloses the fact that the energies which Brown was putting forth were not a devotion to the cause of the men in bondage, but that he sought to work a personal and family graft upon Free-State sentiment of the country.
During February, 1857, Brown had a bill prepared and introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature to appropriate $100,000, as a contingent fund, to relieve the distress of settlers in Kansas. And on the 18th of that month he and Mr. Whitman appeared before the committee, having charge of the bill, to urge its passage.
Brown arrived at Tabor, Iowa, en route to the East, October 10th. On the 23d he was at Chicago, where he was well received by the National Kansas Committee. At this time it was moving a lot of supplies—two hundred Sharp's rifles, a brass cannon, ammunition, clothing, etc.—across Iowa to Kansas, under the direction of Dr. J. P. Root. The committee asked Brown to return and accompany the train to its destination. He, however, advised the management to stop the train, and not attempt to enter Kansas with it; saying that "The immediate introduction of the supplies is not of much consequence compared to the danger of losing them." His remark had reference to the efficient measures which Governor Geary had adopted to put an end to the lawlessness which was prevailing in the Territory at the time he assumed his official duties. Brown went with Root as far as Tabor, Iowa, where the supplies were stored, to await further developments.
Leaving Tabor, he passed through Chicago about the first of December. In Ohio, upon presenting his letters from Governor Robinson to Governor Chase, he received from him an additional letter of commendation, for use in Ohio, and twenty-five dollars in cash. Thus encouraged, he pushed on, stopping at various places on the way, soliciting money, and arriving in Boston about January 1, 1857. There the congratulatory letters which he had in his possession were of inestimable value to him. It was through them that he succeeded in establishing relations with men of ample means and of high character, who, by their generous contributions of money, and by their moral support, enabled him to work out his schemes to their logical conclusions.
In Boston, Brown met Mr. Frank B. Sanborn, a young man but a year and a half out of Harvard, who was then secretary of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. "He was on fire for the anti-slavery cause, and ready to worship any of its militant leaders."[220] Brown, being a militant leader, made a deep impression upon this susceptible young enthusiast, who reported his find to Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "the fighting young Unitarian Parson of Worcester," in a letter, as follows:[221]