of Black Jack
as free state advocates and pro-slavery supporters continued to clash over
whether Kansas would join the Union as a free or slave state, tensions were
Late that May, Captain H. C. Pate, in command of
of Black Jack
as free state advocates and pro-slavery supporters continued to clash over
whether Kansas would join the Union as a free or slave state, tensions were
Late that May, Captain H. C. Pate, in command of a company of Shannon's
Sharp-shooters, started for Osawatomie for the purpose of capturing
Brown was wanted for his participation in the execution of five proslavery men
in what became known as the
Pottawatomie Massacre, which was in retribution for the
Lawrence on May 21.
men found two of
Brown's sons -- John and Jason, the former a
member of the legislature -- working on their farms, arrested them and put them
in irons, but the elder
Brown was in hiding. A few other free-state men were
arrested and some cabins burned.
after this Captain Wood arrived with a company of dragoons and the prisoners
were turned over to him. Both companies then moved toward the
Santa Fe Trail, Wood heading toward Lecompton with the
prisoners. On the march the two Browns were treated with
great severity, and this, with the false stories of murder told on his father, caused
John's mind to give way, and at times he was violently insane.
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company made camp near Hickory Point, on the
head of a small branch called Black Jack, five miles southeast of Palmyra, at
the head of a ravine on the edge of the prairie a little north of the
Santa Fe Trail. William Addison Phillips in his Conquest of Kansas
described it, "The bottom of the ravine
at Black Jack, besides the growing timber, had some deep water-drains or ruts,
round which was a thicket; there were several bogs on the spot where the camp
That night Pate's company occupied the town of Palmyra and took several
prisoners. In the morning they plundered the place, and in the afternoon six of
his men attempted the same thing at Prairie City. Being Sunday, most of the
people were at church, but, as they attended services armed, the men rushed out
when a watchman gave the alarm and two of the men were captured.
Meanwhile, as soon
as he heard of the capture of his sons,
was determined to rescue them and
watched for the enemy's camp with the design of attacking it and releasing the
prisoners. He hunted through the woods of the Marias des Cygnes 