This time the messenger was sent by Brown himself, and there was a similar ready and willing response to the call, even though we had so lately arrived home. There was the same eager hurrying to and fro to get our force together, the same quick preparations, hasty leave-taking, setting out at dusk, and the like night-march. We made all possible haste to the rescue.
Before midnight, however, when we had covered only half the distance to our friends in distress, a scout met us with unwelcome news, which, to our dismay, ran: "Battle at Osawatomie, John Brown killed, Free State men defeated, and the town burned to ashes." Moreover, our informant thought it probable that the victors were on their way to lay waste our settlement.
The only thing now to be done was to return to our homes, and to make ready, if the need came, to defend them. One prior thing it was decided it would surely be well to do, namely: dispatch two scouts to our friends at the scene of disaster and get accurate information of their fate or fortune.
The choice fell upon the two brothers, the writer and his older brother, and for the reason (comforting to them) that, being the youngest men, with none dependent upon them, their loss, were they killed, would be less to the community than the loss of older men. And besides, one of them was good at "finding the way" and the other had won a reputation for extra courage and trustiness in emergencies. We were assigned, to say the least, a rather delicate and hazardous duty, and probably there were few men in the company that night anxious or willing to undertake it.
Bidding our comrades adieu, we mounted two of our best horses and proceeded on through the night. Being obliged, for safety, to avoid both the "open" and the main road, we could make our way but slowly, and so did not reach the vicinity of Osawatomie till daylight. We kept in hiding during the day, spying around the city of desolation and trying to learn of the presence of foes or if any of our friends were still alive. After nightfall we cautiously approached the log-cabin on the outskirts of the town, where, if anywhere, we knew we should most likely find friends. It was the home of the Adairs, relatives of John Brown.
There we learned from them the story of recent events. Captain Brown had not been killed, as was reported, though he was wounded; but there in that humble cottage, folded in the embrace of death, lay one of his sons, the tall, handsome Frederick Brown, as noble-looking as he was noble of soul, the fourth of that now historic band of six hero-sons, worthy scions of their hero-father.
As the Pro-slavery invaders were marching into Osawatomie, two of their scouts, at some distance from the town, met this son of Brown with a companion named Garrison, and in cold blood, without provocation, shot down the unarmed men. Their whole force of four hundred or more horsemen then trampled over the bodies, leaving them to lie there all day in the hot August sun.
Late that same night, Sunday evening, as we lingered in conversation with the family, the old father, having learned of the death of his son, returned to take a last look at his remains. Here again, surely, was a scene for a painter, in that lowly cabin that night. If a picture of it, as those bright young eyes saw it in all its realistic setting and color, could have been faithfully depicted on the artist's canvas, and thus preserved for us to-day, it could not fail to be of more than common historic interest.
Interior of the Adair Log Cabin.