George L. Stearns to John Brown, November 7, 1857

Your most welcome letter of the 16th ulto. came to hand on Saturday. I am very glad to learn that after your hard pilgrimage you are in more comfortable quarters with the means to meet present expenses.

Let me hear from you as often as you can, giving your impressions of passing events in Kansas.

I have written Whitman, to whom I shall enclose this, that in my opinion the Free-state party should wait for the Border-ruffian moves, and checkmate them, as they are developed. Don't attack them, but if they attack you, “Give them Jessie” and Fremont besides. You know how to do it. But I think both in Kansas and in Congress, if we let the Democratic party try to play their game, we shall find they will do themselves more harm than we can do them.

SOURCE: Frank Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 144

John Brown to George L. Stearns, August 10, 1857

I am now waiting further advice from Free-state friends in Kansas, with whom I have speedy private communication lately started. I am at this moment unable to move very much from an injury of my back, but getting better fast. I am in immediate want of from five hundred to one thousand dollars for secret service and no questions asked.

Will you exert yourself to have that amount, or some part of it, placed in your hands subject to my order?

SOURCE: Frank Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 144

John Brown to Franklin B. Sanborn et al, July 23, 1858

July 23. Since the previous date another Free-State Missourian has been over to see us, who reports great excitement on the other side of the line, and that the house of Mr. Bishop (the man who fled to us) was beset during the night after he left, but on finding he was not there they left. Yesterday a proslavery man from West Point, Missouri, came over, professing that he wanted to buy Bishop's farm. I think he was a spy. He reported all quiet on the other side. At present, along this part of the line, the Free-State men may be said, in some sense, to “possess the field;” but we deem it wise to “be on the alert.” Whether Missouri people are more excited through fear than otherwise, I am not yet prepared to judge. The blacksmith (Snyder) has got his family back; also some others have returned, and a few new settlers are coming in. Those who fled or were driven off will pretty much lose the season. Since we came here about twenty-five or thirty of Governor Denver's men have moved a little nearer to the line, I believe.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 476

Congressman Eli Thayer to John Brown, March 30, 1857

Worcester, March 30, 1857.

Captain Brown, — I have received your letter from Easton, Penn. Some of the men engaged in the Virginia scheme care nothing for slavery or antislavery but to make money. Of course such will do nothing for Kansas; but most of us have been doing, and shall continue to do, till the thing is settled. We have not the remotest idea of relinquishing Kansas, — not at all. I have just seen Mr. Higginsou, and he informs me that our county committee will let you have fifty dollars. Perhaps, also, something will be raised by subscription, — I gave the papers to Mr. Higginson. He will write to you. Please let me know when you are coming this way. Do not pay postage on your letter to me, — let Uncle Sam do his part.

Truly yours,

Eli Thayer.¹

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¹ This letter is indorsed by John Brown, “Hon. Eli Thayer. Answered 1st April,” — which was soon after Brown's return from a visit he had made with Martin Conway and myself to Governor Reeder at his home at Easton, in the hope of persuading him to go back and take the lead of the Free-State men in Kansas in place of Robinson, who had lost the confidence of the people.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 381

John Brown: “The Lawrence Foray,” January 1857

THE LAWRENCE FORAY.

I well know, that, on or about the 14th of September last, a large force of Missourians and other ruffians, numbering twenty-seven hundred (as stated by Governor Geary), invaded the Territory, burned Franklin, and while the smoke of that place was going up behind them, they, on the same day, made their appearance in full view of, and within about a mile of, Lawrence. And I know of no possible reason why they did not attack and burn that place except that about one hundred Free-State men volunteered to go out on the open plain before the town and there give them the offer of a fight, which they declined, after getting some few scattering shots from our men, and then retreated back towards Franklin. I saw that whole thing. The government troops at this time were with Governor Geary at Lecompton, a distance of twelve miles only from Lawrence, and, notwithstanding several runners had been to advise him in good time of the approach or of the setting out of the enemy, who had to march some forty miles to reach Lawrence, he did not on that memorable occasion get a single soldier on the ground until after the enemy had retreated back to Franklin, and had been gone for more than five hours. He did get the troops there about midnight afterwards; and that is the way he saved Lawrence, as he boasts of doing in his message to the bogus Legislature!

This was just the kind of protection the administration and its tools have afforded the Free-State settlers of Kansas from the first. It has cost the United States more than half a million, for a year past, to harass poor Free-State settlers in Kansas, and to violate all law, and all right, moral and constitutional, for the sole and only purpose of forcing slavery upon that Territory. I challenge this whole nation to prove before God or mankind the contrary. Who paid this money to enslave the settlers of Kansas and worry them out? I say nothing in this estimate of the money wasted by Congress in the management of this horrible, tyrannical, and damnable affair.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 332-3