They mentioned their intended victims by name, and John Brown calmly wrote down every word they said in his surveyor’s book.
On May 21 the pro-slavery forces swooped down on Lawrence, burned and sacked it. Its citizens stood by trembling and raised no hand in defense.
The gutted, burning town sent a wave of anger across the country. It struck the Senate with full force. Only an aisle separated men whose eyes blazed with hate. Charles Sumner lifted his huge frame and in a voice that resounded like thunder denounced “a crime without example in the history of the past.” He did not hesitate to name names—calling Stephen Douglas, Senator from Illinois, and Matthew Butler from South Carolina murderers of the men of Lawrence. The next day, while Sumner sat writing at his seat, young Preston Brooks, representative from South Carolina, came up behind the Massachusetts legislator and beat him over the head with a heavy walking stick. Charles Sumner, lying bleeding and unconscious in the aisle, reduced the whole vast struggle to simple terms.
Out West, John Brown hurried to Lawrence. He sat down by the smoldering ashes in tight-lipped anger. He was indignant that there had been no resistance.
“What were they doing?” he raged.
Someone mentioned the word “caution.”
“Caution, caution, sir!” he sneered. “I am eternally tired of hearing the word caution. It is nothing but the word of cowardice.”
Yet there seemed to be nothing to do now; and he was about to leave, when a boy came riding up. The gang at Dutch Henry’s, he said, had told the women in Brown settlement that all free-state folks must get out by Saturday or Sunday, else they would be driven out. Two houses and a store in the nearby German settlement had been burned.
Then John Brown arose.
“I will attend to those fellows.” He spoke quietly. Here was something to do. He called four of his sons—Watson, Frederick, Owen and Oliver—and a neighbor with a wagon and horses offered to carry the band. They began carefully sharpening cutlasses. An uneasy feeling crept over the onlookers. They all knew that John Brown was going to strike a blow for freedom in Kansas, but they did not understand just what that blow would be. As the wagon moved off, a cheer arose from the company left behind.