tions were passed, deploring the act and pledging themselves to use proper means to bring the guilty to punishment, and at the same time urging the ab staining from house-burning or other extreme and worthless conduct. The murderer and both of his accomplices had in the meantime fled towards Missouri. Their families were not long in following them; and other pro-slavery settlers took their example, not because they were either threatened or driven, but from reasoning of the consequences of such a crime had the cases been reversed.

Near the Shawnee Mission the murderer fell in with Samuel J. Jones, who resided at Westport, Missouri, but who had been appointed sheriff of Douglas County, Kansas. To him he made known what had happened, whereupon Jones took him to Governor Shannon, with the understanding that he must go through some sort of trial in the Territory, which should be a matter of no consequence in the end. After referring the case to Shannon these two men started for Lecompton, where the Legislature had located the capital, under the pretense that the criminal was to be examined there. This much is certain. The theory of the Free-State men was that as these men journeyed towards Lecompton they fell in with the two accomplices to the murder, and with these they laid the plan for bringing on the war immediately between the two parties. Hargis and Buckley were to swear to certain things, and a peacewarrant should be taken out before a magistrate at Lawrence, who it was known would perform the

service required, for the arrest of Jacob Branson; that Branson should be taken to Lawrence for trial, and that there, of course, he would be rescued from the sheriff, and that would bring about the rupture the pro-slavery factionists desired. At all events, this program was carried out substantially. The sheriff gathered a posse of fifteen men, proceeded to Hickory Point, and arrested Branson in the night, and started with him to Lawrence. Their business becoming known to the Free-State neighbors, fourteen or fifteen of them, some unarmed and others carrying pistols or Sharpe's rifles, came upon the sheriff's posse and rescued Branson without firing a shot. In the rescuing party there were only three citizens of Lawrence, and at this point the case did not stand just as had been desired by the "Law-and-Order" sheriff, as the main point was to have a pretext for the destruction of Lawrence, and for this it was necessary the rescue of Branson from the officer of the law should be by Lawrence men, and in Lawrence. But the plan should not prove resultless by this unlooked-for turn, and what was wanting in fact could be supplied in lies and bluster.

The rescue of Branson occurred on the 27th, and on the same night the sheriff sent one of the scamps with the following exaggerated statement and demand to Governor Shannon:

"DOUGLAS COUNTY, K. T., November 27, 1855. SIR,-Last night I, with a posse of ten men, arrested one Jacob Branson by virtue of a peace-warrant regularly issued, who, on our return was rescued by a party of forty

armed men, who rushed upon us suddenly from behind a house upon the road-side, all armed to the teeth with Sharpe's rifles.

"You may consider an open rebellion as having already commenced, and I call upon you for three thousand men to carry out the laws. Mr. Hargis (the bearer of the letter) will give you more particularly the circumstances.

"Most respectfully,

"SAMUEL J. JONES, Sheriff of Douglas County." The sheriff and two of his men made sworn statements before Judge Cato, transferring the conflict in part, as was designed, to other willing hands. There were some oversights in these statements, besides the mere untruths, which made against them then, and have stood against them ever since; one of which was as to the demand for three thousand men to carry out the laws. The sheriff knew that Governor Shannon had no men, and also knew that neither three thousand nor three hundred militia could be raised in the Territory. There was no such thing as an organized or enrolled militia, although the Legislature at the Mission had given military offices to some of its members, and to others. If Governor Shannon did not dream of the source from which these men could be drawn, the sheriff of Douglas County did. The Governor now sent similar dispatches to the two generals, William P. Richardson and H. J. Strickler, appointed by the Legislature, telling them of his letter from Jones, urging them to collect forces and report to Jones at Lecompton, but for the sole purpose of aiding the sheriff in executing

the laws.

"BLEEDING KANSAS"-GOVERNOR SHANNON, WOODSON, ET AL.-FREE-STATE CONVENTION-FREE-STATE ELECTION GOVERNOR ROBINSON - PRESIDENT PIERCE'S PROCLAMATION-PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.

“Independence, Mo., December 2d.

"AN express in at ten o'clock last night says all the volunteers, ammunition, etc., that can be raised will be needed. The express was forwarded by Governor Shannon to Colonel Woodson, and by Woodson to this place, to be transmitted to various parts of the county. Call a meeting and do every thing you can.

"DRS. MCMURRY AND HENRY."

"KANSAS CITY, Mo., December 3d.

"Mr. Payne, the mayor of this city, went to Liberty to-day, and succeeded in raising one hundred men and one thousand dollars for the assistance of Jones."

"INDEPENDENCE, December 3d.

"Jones will not make a move until there is sufficient force in the field to ensure success. We have not more than three hundred men in the Territory (except at elections). You will therefore, urge all who are interested in the matter to start immediately for the seat of war. There is no doubt as to having a fight, and we all know that a great many were disappointed heretofore in regard to a fight. Say to them, now is the time to show game, and if we are defeated this time, the Territory is lost to the South."

This was signed by five responsible citizens of Independence. A. G. Boone, a friend of Governor Shannon's and a descendant of Daniel Boone, the hunter and Indian fighter, who resided at Westport and was a business partner of Sheriff Jones, issued an inflammatory appeal to the people of Missouri. Others did the same, and these were all circulated through the State, some of them under the most extravagant and exasperating pretensions calling the "lovers of law and order" to rally for the conflict.

The Governor now wrote the following wonderful letter to the President, showing how utterly incomplete his data were; and on the next day issued a proclamation looking to the protection of the sheriff of Douglas County and the suppression of lawless organizations against the system he was upholding :—

"EXECUTIVE OFFICE, SHAWNEE MISSION,

KANSAS TERRITORY, November 28, 1855.}

"SIR,-Affairs in this Territory are daily assuming a shape of great danger to the peace and good order of society. I am well satisfied that there exists in this Territory a secret military organization, which has for its object, among other things, resistance to the laws by force. Until within a few days past I have looked upon the threats of leading men and public papers, who have placed themselves in an attitude of resistance to the laws, as not intended by those who made them to be carried into execution. I am now satisfied of the existence of this secret military organization, and that those engaged in it have been secretly supplied with arms and munitions of war, and that it is the object and purpose of this organization to resist the laws by force. The strength of this organization is variously estimated at from one to two thousand, but I have no satisfactory data from which to estimate its real strength, and I do not believe they can command, for any given purpose, more than one