by H. W. Brands
John Brown pondered the request. “The old man, who seemed to be in command, looked at me and then around at the children”—the Wilkinsons had an eight-year-old and a five-year-old—“and replied, ‘You have neighbors,’ ” Louisa recounted.
“So I have, but they are not here, and I cannot go for them,” she answered.
“It matters not,” said John Brown, who repeated his order that Wilkinson dress.
“My husband wanted to put on his boots and get ready, so as to be protected from the damp and night air, but they wouldn’t let him,” Louisa recalled. “They then took my husband away.”
A minute or two later, Louisa thought she heard her husband’s voice. But she couldn’t be sure. She went to the door. Not a sound came from outside.
“Next morning Mr. Wilkinson was found about one hundred and fifty yards from the house, in some dead brush,” Louisa said. “A lady who saw my husband’s body said that there was a gash in his head and in his side; others said that he was cut in the throat twice.”
Louisa added, still trying to understand what had happened, “My husband was a quiet man, and was not engaged in arresting or disturbing anybody. He took no active part in the pro-slavery cause, so as to aggravate the abolitionists; but he was a pro-slavery man.”
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THE KILLERS HAD one more call to make. Around two o’clock on the morning of May 25, James Harris and his wife heard a noise at their door, Harris later told investigators. “We were aroused by a company of men who said they belonged to the Northern army, and who were each armed with a sabre and two revolvers, two of whom I recognized, namely, a Mr. Brown, whose given name I do not remember, commonly known by the appellation of ‘old man Brown,’ and his son, Owen Brown.”
John Brown and the others forced open the door. “They came in the house and approached the bed side where we were lying, and ordered us, together with three other men who were in the same house with me, to surrender; the Northern army was upon us, and it would be no use for us to resist.” The three men were William Sherman, John Whiteman and a stranger whom Harris didn’t know. “They had bought a cow from Henry Sherman and intended to go home the next morning,” Harris said.
Brown and the others approached the bed where Harris and his wife remained. “Some had drawn sabres in their hands, and some revolvers. They then took into their possession two rifles and a Bowie knife, which I had there in the room—there was but one room in my house—and afterwards ransacked the whole establishment in search of ammunition.”
Brown’s party seized the man Harris didn’t know and took him outside, apparently for questioning. He wasn’t the one they were looking for. “He came back. They then took me out, and asked me if there were any more men about the place. I told them there were not. They searched the place but found none others but we four. They asked me where Henry Sherman was.”
Harris said he was out looking for lost cattle.
“They asked if I had ever taken any hand in aiding pro-slavery men in coming to the Territory of Kansas, or had ever taken any hand in the last troubles at Lawrence, and asked me whether I had ever done the Free State party any harm or ever intended to do that party any harm; they asked me what made me live at such a place.”
Harris replied that he hadn’t done anyone harm. As to why he was in Kansas: “I then answered that I could get higher wages there than anywhere else.” Whites in Missouri often complained about the low wages that resulted from competition with slaves. Harris hoped to do better in Kansas.
“Old Mr. Brown and his son then went into the house with me. The other three men, Mr. William Sherman, Mr. Whiteman, and the stranger were in the house all this time. After old man Brown and his son went into the house with me, old man Brown asked Mr. Sherman to go out with him, and Mr. Sherman then went out with old Mr. Brown, and another man came into the house in Brown’s place.”
Harris and the others in the house heard nothing for fifteen minutes. Then came a shot. The two men standing guard on the Harrises and the others left quickly.
“That morning about ten o’clock I found William Sherman dead in the creek near my house,” James Harris said. “I was looking for Mr. Sherman, as he had not come back; I thought he had been murdered. I took Mr. William Sherman out of the creek and examined him. Mr. Whiteman was with me. Sherman’s skull was split open in two places and some of his brains was washed out by the water. A large hole was cut in his breast, and his left hand was cut off except a little piece of skin on one side.”
13
JASON BROWN HAD not accompanied his father and brothers on the killing mission to Pottawatomie Creek. He and John Brown Jr. were riding with a body of free-state militia. But the next morning they got wind of the slaughter. “A man rode up to us from the south, saying that five pro-slavery men had been killed on the Pottawatomie creek and horribly cut and mutilated, and that old John Brown and his party had done it,” Jason recalled. He remembered being stunned by the report. “The thought that it might be true, that my father and his company could do such a thing was terrible, and nearly deprived me of my reason for the time.”
He pulled himself together sufficiently to confront his father when John Brown’s party returned to their camp. “I then asked him if he had anything to do with the killing of the pro-slavery men on the Pottawatomie.”
John Brown looked his son in the eye. “I did not do it, but I approved of it,” he said.
Jason objected that whoever did it, it was a wicked act and uncalled for.
“God is my judge, and the people of Kansas will yet justify my course,” John Brown declared.
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WHATEVER GOD THOUGHT of the murders, Kansas took a while to come around. The bloodletting shocked both sides in the quarrel. An officer of the U.S. cavalry, stationed at Fort Leavenworth and responsible for keeping the peace in Kansas, summarized much of the response. “No one can defend the action of the marshal’s posse at Lawrence, in burning the hotel, destroying the printing-press, and other outrages; but no life was lost, no one was threatened or felt himself in danger,” the major said. The reprisal was outrageously excessive. “Five men were taken out of their beds, their throats cut, their ears cut off, their persons gashed more horribly than our savages have ever done.” He hoped the respectable class of free-state settlers would repudiate the Pottawatomie killings. “I cannot think that they countenance such acts.”
The respectable class of settlers did indeed denounce the murders. “An outrage of the darkest and foulest nature has been committed in our midst by some midnight assassins unknown, who have taken five of our citizens at the hour of midnight from their homes and families, and murdered and mangled them in the most awful manner,” said a resolution approved by a body of settlers gathered in the wake of the killings. To prevent a recurrence of the ghastly deed, the group resolved, “We will from this time lay aside all sectional and political feelings and act together as men of reason and common sense.” They swore to oppose the virulent denunciations of one side against the other that had contributed to the violence. They would repudiate the armed militias, and they would work “to ferret out and hand over to the criminal authorities the perpetrators for punishment.”
Henceforth John Brown was a wanted man. The others of his killing crew were wanted, too, but “Old Man Brown” was widely conceived to be the mastermind of murders and the most dangerous of the antislavery guerrillas in Kansas.
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TWO OF HIS SONS felt the weight of the father’s infamy first. Pro-slavery forces at once began searching for the Browns; they soon laid hands on John and Jason. Although John and Jason had not gone with their father that night, they were seized and treated harshly. “Brother Jason and I occupied a room which contained a bed and a small lampstand or table,” John recalled of their detention. “Two others also occupied the r
oom as guards. The early part of the night of this day had been spent by our guards at card playing at the little table. Jason, without removing his clothes, had lain down on the front side of the bed, and was in deep sleep. Occupying in like manner the side of the bed next the wall, at about midnight, as near as I can judge, I was awakened by the sudden opening of the outside door and the rushing in of a number of men with drawn bowie knives. Seizing the candle and saying, ‘Which are they?’ they crowded about our bed with uplifted knives. Believing that our time had come, and wishing to save Jason, still asleep, from prolonged suffering, I opened the bosom of his shirt and pointing to the region of his heart, said, ‘Strike here.’ ”
Just then dogs started barking outside. The intruders, inferring the approach of someone, lost their desire to slay the Brown boys and scattered. John explained, “At Pottawatomie father had become to slave-holders and their allies in Kansas an omnipresent dread. Filled with forebodings of evil by day, he was the specter of their imaginings at night. Owing to that fear our lives were saved.”
But their trials hadn’t ended. “The next day we were placed in the custody of Captain Walker, of United States Cavalry, a Southerner who himself tied my arms back in such a manner as to produce the most intense suffering,” John said. “Giving the other end of the rope to a sergeant, I was placed a little in advance of the column headed by Captain Walker, and to avoid being trampled by the horses which had been ordered to trot, I was driven at this pace in the hot sun to Osawatomie, a distance of about nine miles. The rope had been tied so tightly as to stop circulation. Instead of loosening the rope when we arrived at camp, a mile south of town, no change was made in it through that day, all of the following night, nor until about noon the next day. By that time my arms and hands had swollen to nearly double size, and turned black as if mortified.”
The Brown brothers were eventually taken to Leavenworth and held as something between violators of the territorial laws and prisoners of war. The confusion about their status reflected a broader confusion about what was happening in Kansas. Had the affairs of Kansas been left to actual Kansas settlers, the murders on Pottawatomie Creek might have been handled as the crimes they were. But had the affairs of Kansas been left to the Kansans, John Brown wouldn’t have been there, and neither would the other outsiders for whom Kansas was chiefly a piece in a larger contest. The South considered the killings cause for war, if not evidence of war itself. “WAR! WAR!” screamed a Missouri paper. “Eight Pro-Slavery Men Murdered by the Abolitionists…LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR!” Another Missouri paper demanded, “For every Southern man thus butchered, a decade”—ten—“of these poltroons should bite the dust.” DeBow’s Review, a New Orleans monthly then being published in Washington so its editor could moonlight in the Pierce administration, reprinted an assertion by some pro-slavery Kansans calling themselves the Law and Order party, asserting that “a state of civil war and insurrection exists among us.” The review’s editor urged Southern solidarity in the face of the outrages in Kansas. “The cause is one to which, without loss of a single day, every Southern man should contribute,” he declared. “Those familiar with the state of affairs in Kansas know that it can only be abolitionized by the supineness of the people of this section, whose all is at stake in these contests.”
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JOHN BROWN DIDN’T at once see the papers calling for war, yet he girded for battle just the same. A week after the Pottawatomie killings, Brown learned that a band of Missourians had commenced his pursuit. He went to meet them, spoiling for a fight. “We started about 4 o’clock Sunday afternoon, going over the prairie without regard to any road, and continued the search until near midnight, which was very dark,” Owen Brown recalled. “Then Father ordered a halt, and the horses to be picketed (we were all mounted).” They slept for two hours, and moved on. “Between daybreak and sunrise we noticed a man on horseback about a mile east of us. When we were within a half-mile of him he fired his gun and fled.” John Brown took this as evidence the enemy was near.
Brown’s party numbered fewer than a dozen; an accompanying free-state party, led by Samuel Shore, was perhaps twice as large. “On reaching the Black Jack oaks, Father ordered us to dismount and tie our horses to the trees,” Owen continued. From there they advanced afoot. “On reaching the high ground where their guard had stood we could plainly see the Missourians’ camp, a half-mile distant, with their tents and covered wagons drawn up in front, and a number of horses and mules picketed on the higher ground beyond. This camp (under command of Capt. H. C. Pate, as we found later) was on a point of land lying between two ravines, at this time dry.” Henry Pate had been a leader at the sack of Lawrence; more recently he was the captor of Jason and John Brown Jr.
“Father ordered us to form a skirmish line, and Pate’s men commenced firing at us,” Owen Brown said. “When within rifle range Capt. Shore ordered his men to halt, and, though in a very exposed position, they bravely began in earnest to return the fire. Father directed us to reserve our fire, and to follow him in a diagonal direction into the larger ravine. Pate’s men gave us the full benefit of their shooting, their bullets cutting the grass around us in a lively way. Though I do not think I was much scared, I noticed I felt very light on my feet, as if marching fast would be no effort.”
Brown maneuvered his men across a low spot toward Pate’s position. “Father placed us at short range, behind a natural bank in the bend of the ravine, so that their wagons afforded them no protection from our fire. During the time we were taking this position Capt. Shore kept up a constant firing, and by the time our men were located, he ordered his men to lie down and shoot from that position. At much shorter range we shot at any of Pate’s men we could see, and into their tents.” The fire from the free-staters drove the slavery men back into another ravine.
Sam Shore’s fighters came up closer. “Carpenter, one of his men, had a Sharp’s carbine, and rather recklessly exposing himself, in spite of warning, was soon badly wounded,” Owen Brown said. “Henry Thompson, my brother-in-law, was so anxious to get a shot at them that he went higher up on the bank, and continued to shoot from there whenever he could see a man. I cautioned Henry, as I had Carpenter, that he was making too good a mark of himself, and that he ought to come back more below the bank. A few minutes later, while he was on his knees loading his gun, a musket ball hit him below the shoulder and passed under the shoulder blade. Falling, he rolled down the bank and lay there several minutes, the blood flowing freely. He then got up and saying, ‘Boys, I’m going to do those fellows all the good I can while I live,’ he resumed his firing from his former position. This he kept up until his whole left side was red with blood, when he fainted and fell again. One or two of Capt. Shore’s men then took him away.”
Both sides managed to find cover. The shooting continued sporadically for more than two hours. The sun rose higher and began to punish the combatants. “The heat by this time was intense, and we suffered much for want of water,” Owen Brown said. “Some of Capt. Shore’s men now left us, saying they were out of ammunition, and others went around to a high point of ground where they were not much exposed.”
John Brown sought to keep his own fighters from retreating too. “Hold your ground, boys,” he said, even as he gave the order to shoot the enemy’s horses and mules, to prevent the Missourians’ escape. Shore meanwhile confirmed that his men were out of ammunition. He asked Owen Brown if he thought they might retire from the field. “Perhaps it is best,” Owen replied.
John Brown didn’t like this answer. When he discovered that one of his own men had followed the example of Shore’s fighters, he gave another order: “The first man that attempts to leave we will shoot.” All stayed.
The outflanked Missourians had things worse. Several of Pate’s men abandoned the field. Frederick Brown, who had been ordered by his father to remain with the horses, couldn’t bear to miss the fight; now he galloped arou
nd the Missourians’ camp, waving a sword and yelling, “Father, we have got them surrounded, and have cut off their communications.” The Missourians fired at Frederick, but none of their bullets hit him.
The Missourians recognized that their position was untenable. A white handkerchief went up from their lines, attached to a ramrod. Not all the free-staters saw it, and some kept firing. The Missourians’ commander, Pate, reiterated the message, seizing the white flag and stepping forward. “We are government officers sent out in pursuit of criminals,” he declared. “You are fighting against the United States.”
Owen Brown was the first to answer. “You are just the kind of government officers we want to fight—the kind that burned Lawrence, yes, and robbed and killed free-state men,” he said.
John Brown hadn’t seen the flag, but he noticed that the firing had ceased. Pate repeated to him what he had said to Owen. Brown replied, “If this is all you have to say, I have something to say to you. I demand of you an unconditional surrender.”
Pate refused, whereupon Brown leveled his weapon at Pate, in plain sight of the other Missourians. Brown shouted at them what he had said to Pate.
One of the Missourians, Pate’s second-in-command, replied, “We don’t surrender unless our captain gives the order.” The Missourians cocked their weapons and aimed at Brown.
Brown said to his men, “Put a dozen balls through the first man of them that shoots.” Brown placed the muzzle of his Colt revolver almost against Pate’s heart. “Give the order!” he demanded of Pate.
Pate hesitated but a moment. He gave the order.
The Battle of Black Jack was indecisive. Pate afterward claimed, not unreasonably, that Brown had violated the truce flag. And although Brown intended an exchange of Pate’s surrendered fighters for free-state prisoners, including John and Jason, the arrival of a federal force compelled him to release the prisoners captured that day. His sons continued to languish.