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Apart from an encounter of opposing forces near Osawatomie in which he and his band were engaged, Brown took no share in the open fighting between the organized companies of opposing forces, and his part in the irregular guerrilla warfare of the period is uncertain. Towards the close of the war one of his sons was shot by a preacher who alleged that he had been robbed by the Browns.

The commander of the forces of Law spoke in friendly tones. "You are John Brown of Osawatomie, Kansas?" "Yes!" "You are in command of the invaders who have killed four citizens of Harper's Ferry and seized the United States Arsenal?" "I am in command." "Would you mind telling me why you have invaded Virginia?" "To free your slaves." "How many men were under your command when you entered?"

Had we not lived on this Kansas border in all those plastic years when the mind takes deepest impressions? The ruffianism of Leavenworth and Lawrence and Osawatomie had been repeated in the unprotected surroundings of Springvale.

William Winter thought poorly of Whitman, Aldrich thought poorly of him, and what lasting thing has either of them done in poetry? The memorable things of Aldrich are in prose. Stedman showed more appreciation of him, and Stedman wrote two or three things that will keep. His "Osawatomie Brown ... he shoved his ramrod down" is sure of immortality.

Failing to break down the door with sledge-hammers, they seized a heavy ladder and at the second stroke made an opening near the ground large enough to admit a man. Green instantly entered, rushed to the back part of the room, and climbed upon an engine to command a better view. Colonel Lewis Washington, the most distinguished of the prisoners, pointed to Brown, saying, "This is Osawatomie."

Having completed their strange errand, they packed their instruments and rode toward Osawatomie. With the opening of the Territory of Kansas the first Regiment of United States Cavalry, commanded by Colonel E.V. Sumner, had been transferred to Fort Leavenworth. The life of the barracks was young Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart.

He put himself at the head of a group of twenty young "Cavalry Scouts" who ranged the country, asking no quarter and giving none. A squadron of avengers invaded Brown's settlement at Osawatomie, sacked and partly destroyed it, and killed his son, Frederick, whose mind had been in a state of collapse since the night of the murders on the Pottawattomie.

Governor Robinson and his associates still relied upon public opinion and they accepted the wanton attack upon Lawrence as the best assurance that they would yet win their cause by legal means. A change, however, soon took place which is associated with the entrance of John Brown into the history of Kansas. Brown and his sons were living at Osawatomie, some thirty miles south of Lawrence.

There is but little consolation in the fact that almost every representative of a new idea has had to struggle and suffer under similar difficulties. Is it of any avail that a former president of a republic pays homage at Osawatomie to the memory of John Brown?

In September came the news of the raid at Osawatomie and that thirty out of the fifty settlers had been killed by the "border ruffians."