Osawatomie, Oct. 12, 1857.
Captain Brown.
Dear Sir, —
Learning that there is a messenger in town from you, I will take the
opportunity to drop you a line. We are just through with the October election,
and as far as this county is concerned it went off bright. This was owing in a
great measure to our thorough military organization here, and the well-known
reputation that our boys have for fighting. There were about four
hundred and twenty-five votes cast in this county: about three hundred and
fifty Free-State. I have a company organized here of about eighty men, and we
drilled twice a week for several weeks previous to election, which no doubt had
a wholesome effect upon the borderers. Our company is a permanent
institution. We have sent on to St. Louis for three drums and two fifes. We are
very poorly supplied with arms. However, I understand that you have some arms
with you which you intend to bring into the Territory. I hope that you will not
forget the boys here, a considerable number of whom have smelt
gunpowder, and have had their courage tried on several occasions. I do not like
to boast, but I think we have some of the best fighting stock here that there
is in the Territory. Speaking of arms reminds me that there was a box
containing five dozen revolvers sent to you at Lawrence last fall to be
distributed by you to your boys. K. and W. — two renegade Free-State men
from here — went up to Lawrence about that time, told a pitiful tale, and said
that they were your boys; and the committee that had the revolvers in
charge gave them each one, and a Sharpe's rifle. A few days after, I was in
Lawrence, and applied to the committee to know if they intended to distribute
the revolvers; if they did, that I would like to have one. They refused, however,
to let me have one, because forsooth I could not tell as big a yarn about what
I had done for the Free-State cause as K. and W. could. I have since learned
that the committee have distributed the revolvers to the “Stubs” and others
about Lawrence, with the understanding that they are to return them at your
order. But I think it is doubtful if you get them. There has been plenty of
Sharpe's rifles and other arms distributed at Manhattan and other points remote
from the Border, where they never have any disturbances, and a Border Ruffian
is a curiosity; while along the Border here, where we are liable to have an
outbreak at any time, we have had no arms distributed at all.
Two or three weeks before election I visited the Border
counties south of this, and organized a company of one hundred men on the
Little Osage, and a company on Sugar Creek; also at Stanton and on the
Pottawatomie above this point. According to the election returns, we have done
much better in this and the Border counties south than they have in the Border
counties north of this point. The boys would like to see you and shake
you by the hand once more. Nearly all would unite in welcoming you back here;
those that would not, you have nothing to fear from in this locality. The
sentiment of the people and the strength and energy of the Free-State party
here exercise a wholesome restraint upon those having Border Ruffian
proclivities.
Yours as of old for
the right,
HENRy H. Williams.1
_______________
1 This letter was addressed “To Captain John Brown,
Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa,” and among Brown's papers was accompanied with the
following memorandum
of the distribution made at Lawrence of the arms which Mr. Williams mentions,
and which are the same spoken of by Mr. White in his testimony on page 342.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of
John Brown, p. 364-6
