of the second brigade, Kansas militia, must serve
as a sample of the dispatches that were scattered broadcast through the
border Missouri counties:

"TO ARMS! TO ARMS!"

It is expected that every lover of _law and order_ will
rally at Leavenworth on Saturday, December 1, 1855,
prepared to march at once to _the scene of rebellion_ to
put down the outlaws of Douglas county, who are committing
depredations upon persons and property, burning down houses
and declaring open hostility to the laws, and have forcibly
rescued a prisoner from the Sheriff. Come one, come all!
The outlaws are armed to the teeth, and number 1,000 men.
Everyman should bring his rifle and ammunition, and it
would be well to bring two or three days' provisions. Every
man to his post and do his duty. MANY CITIZENS.

In answer to the above appeal 1,500 men, mostly from Missouri, encamped
around Lawrence, under such notabilities as Maj. Gens. Strickler and
Richardson, Brig. _Gen_. Eastin, Col. Atchison, Col. Peter T. Abell,
Robert S. Kelley, Stringfellow and Sheriff Jones. They had broken into
the United States Arsenal at Liberty, Clay County, Mo., and stolen guns,
cutlasses and such munitions of war as they required.

But when this was known the free State men turned out from all the
settlements of Kansas with equal alacrity, to defend Lawrence. They came
singly, and in squads and in companies. They came by night and by day.
Sam Wood, Tappin and Smith, the rescuers of Branson, and who were
residents of Lawrence, left the city, and there were none there against
whom Sheriff Jones had any writs to execute. Dr. Robinson was appointed
Commander-in-Chief for the defense of the city, and James H. Lane was
appointed second in command. But Lane was the principal figure in the
enterprise. He alone had military experience, and he alone had the
daring, the genius and the personal magnetism of a real leader.

The free State men, for the last year, had been passing through the
furnace-fires of a vigorous discipline, and they would have fought as
the Tennessee and Kentucky backwoodsmen of Andrew Jackson fought behind
their cotton bales at the battle of New Orleans. They had seen their
rights wrested out of their hands by a mob of ruffians, and now they
were proposing to settle the matter in that court of last resort that is
the final and ultimate appeal of the nations. Except Gen. Lane, they had
small knowledge of military tactics, but they knew how to look alon