wrence, and at the point of the pistol compelled the State
officials to resign; issued writs for a new election, put in a slavery
governor, captured the government, and started back into Missouri. On
their way they passed through Pottawatamie. It was a guerrilla warfare.
When John Brown reached his son's cabin, he found the settlers preparing
for flight. He denounced them as cowards, and when one urged caution,
answered, "I am tired of that word Caution. It is nothing but
cowardice!" Either the border ruffians had to go, or else the settlers
must leave without striking a single blow in defense of their homes. A
man's cabin was his castle. Without waiting for the next attack to be
made, John Brown pointed the settlers to the smoking ashes of cabins
already burned and to the bodies that the Missouri guerrillas had left
on the ground, and took the aggressive himself. He seized five of the
outlaws and killed them for their crime.

The deed fired Kansas, some say freed Kansas, while others think it
opened the Civil War. Withdrawing to the forest, hiding in the
cottonwood swamps, John Brown organized his company. A reporter of the
_New York Tribune_ finally penetrated the thicket. "Near the edge of the
creek a dozen horses were tied, already saddled for a ride for life. A
dozen rifles were stacked against the trees. In an open space was a
blazing fire with a pot above it. Three or four armed men were lying on
red and blue blankets on the grass. John Brown himself stood near the
fire with his shirt sleeves rolled up and a piece of pork in his hand.
He was poorly clad, and his toes protruded from his boots. The old man
received me with great cordiality, and the little band gathered about
me. He respectfully, but firmly, forbade conversation on the
Pottawatamie affair. After the meal, thanks were returned to the
bountiful Giver. Often, I was told, the old man would retire to the
densest solitudes to wrestle with his God in prayer. He said he was
fighting God's battles for his children's sake: 'Give me men of good
principles, God-fearing men, men who respect themselves, and with a
dozen of them I will oppose a hundred such men as these border
ruffians.' I remained in the camp about an hour. Never before had I met
such a band of men. They were not earnest, but earnestness incarnate."

After several years of bloody conflict and political struggles between
the pro-slavery and anti-slavery parties, in 1859 the Constitution
prohibiti