The Prayer of the Lawrence Memorialists

Franklin Pierce

On May 22, 1856, J.M. Winchell, Lyman Allen, S.B. Prentiss, L.G. Hine, Joseph Cracklin, John A. Perry, O.E. Learnard, S.W. Eldridge, and C.W. Babcock allegedly put their names to a memorial for Franklin Pierce. William Phillips claimed afterwards that many of the men denied any part of the thing. He might have it right or he might have helped them cover for an understandable, if less than glorious, performance. Either way, someone wrote it and sent it off to the President. The memorial summarizes events in Lawrence over about a dozen pages, with rather less color than Phillips but agreeing in the essential facts.

Petitioners, then as now, don’t write and sign these documents for their health. They hoped for, even if they couldn’t have expected, constructive action from the Pierce administration. With his term almost over, maybe the president would finally give that a try. The “unparalleled chapter in the history of our country,” and attendant “gigantic … official villainy” beggared belief. Thus, while Pierce might take some convincing,

we cherish and trust that you will hear the voice, however feeble, that pours its complaint into your ear, and exert he influence of your office to prevent the possible occurrence of abuses of power on the parts of those officials who are directly responsible to you […] and institute such a scrutiny into their past conduct as will reveal its true character and inspire salutary caution in the future.

They did in all Pierce’s name with “at least a criminal disregard of good faith” that proved them unfit for their offices. He called the shots so he took the blame, though they didn’t phrase it quite that way. Instead, they prayed for Pierce to look into the events of the last few weeks. To help him, they included official correspondence for his perusal. And until the president’s heart swelled like that of a nineteenth century Grinch, Lawrence would maintain its committee of safety. They would, of course, disband as soon as the Government got its act together and made them safe.

The authors then moved to the question of damages. The posse came in on federal authority, under the leadership of either a US Marshal (Donaldson) or a territorial official (Jones) who Pierce and his allies had long construed as federal agents. They may have even had guns from a federal arsenal. Surely Lawrence deserved compensation, which the memorialists reminded Pierce he had the authority to recommend to Congress. He had best hop to it, as

It is at present impossible to estimate this damage, as new depredations are continually being made. How long these will be permitted to continue will depend to a great extent upon the pleasure of our rulers.

By delaying, Pierce would only increase the bill. Already the mob had destroyed hotel, furnishings, two printing presses, and the livelihoods of two newspaper men. For miles around Lawrence, not a soul had escaped losing some property. The president had to make this right: restoring order, damages, and sacking the guilty, immediately. If he didn’t, someone else might try.

Proslavery Scruples and the Sack of Lawrence

William Addison Phillips

William Phillips and the Lawrence memorialists both take pains to inform their readers that not every proslavery man came to Lawrence to rape or steal. Their officers, as they had back in December, wanted an orderly mob that would only molest direct political enemies. They had court orders to suppress the free state papers. Though it appears no direct order to destroy the Free State Hotel existed, Samuel Lecompte’s grand jury had condemned it and suggested removal. Alice Nichols’ Bleeding Kansas holds that Jones’ men only acted against it because he lied and claimed they had such an order.  Etcheson’s much more recent book of the same name doesn’t comment on the question.

As the memorialists put it:

We believe that many of the captains of the invading companies exerted themselves to the utmost for the protection of life and property. Some of them protested against these enormous outrages, and endeavored to dissuade Samuel J. Jones from their perpetration. Many used personal effort to remove such property as was possible from the Eldridge House before its destruction. Among those stood prominently Colonel Zadock Jackson, of Georgia, who did not scruple either in Lawrence or his own camp to denounce the outrages in terms such as they deserved.  Colonel Buford, of Alabama, also disclaimed having come to Kansas to destroy property, and condemned the course which had been taken. The prosecuting attorney of Douglas county, the legal adviser of the sheriff, used his influence in vain to prevent the destruction of property.

They might have included David Rice Atchison among the leaders with scruples. Phillips’ version had him direct the bombardment of the Free State Hotel, and Bourbon Dave didn’t mind a good scrap, but he had helped Wilson Shannon end the Wakarusa War. He could have understood his role there as part of the legitimate purpose of the mob and still condemned the outrages that took place once the posse had finished with the building. Etcheson’s Bleeding Kansas has him active on that front, but she references unpublished correspondence and a biography of the senator dating back to the Sixties, neither of which I presently have access to.

David Rice Atchison (D-MO)

A proslavery account Phillips shares, published first in the Lecompton Union, expands on the point:

Before entering town our commanders instructed each member of his company of the consequences befalling the violation of any private property. As far as we can learn, they attended strictly to these instructions. One act we regret to mention – the firing of Robinson’s house. Although there is but little doubt as to the real owners of this property [They believed the Emigrant Aid Company owned Robinson’s home.] yet it was a private residence, and should have remained untouched. During the excitement, the commisary, of Col. Abell, of Atchison city, learned that it was on fire, and immediately detailed a company to suppress the flames, which was done. Once afterwards, we understand, Sheriff Jones had the flames suppressed, and the boys guilty of the act were sent immediately to camp; but with regret we saw the building on fire that night about ten o’clock.

It bears noting in all of this that the proslavery force displayed these keen scruples, albeit imperfectly, in the defense of the property of fellow white Americans. A corporation dedicated to opposing them could have its rights trampled. The Free State Hotel and the Herald of Freedom both fit that description, as Emigrant Aid Company money kept them afloat. Miller’s Free State may have fallen under the rubric of “close enough”. Private looting and personal crimes, including the most horrific, could call into question just why they had come to defend slavery in the first place. An attack on property must call into question just how seriously they took the right to human property.

The Pillage of Lawrence

Gentle readers, this post discusses sexual violence in the context that my sources present it. They gave me few details and treat the matter in a way that reads now as almost completely dismissive. I don’t mean to replicate that, but I have no more information than they gave me: a few sentences admit a catalog of other offenses. I’m sorry. If reading either that presentation or the fact itself will upset you, please take a pass on today’s post. I’ve put the relevant portion at the very end, where I hope it will not come up in any reader’s summary text to be read accidentally along with this warning.

Samuel Jones

A combination of cannon fire, two of four gunpowder kegs exploding, and finally firing the building, Samuel Jones proslavery army disposed of the Free State Hotel. Neither William Phillips nor the memorial to Franklin Pierce put a firm time on it, but the destruction must have started after quarter after three and probably before five on the evening of May 21, 1856. The end of the hated symbol of the Emigrant Aid Company prompted jubilation from the mob. Sheriff Jones might sit on his horse and exult in his glory, but his men had a whole abolition town to vent themselves upon.

“Wild and reckless pillage,” in Phillips’ words, began at once. Where a door would not open, and not everyone had a lock or bolt, a window give way easily enough.

All the money and jewelry that could be found was taken, and also clothing. In fact, they took everything they wanted, or could carry away. Much of what they could not take, they destroyed.

Phillips, to a degree (and the memorialists somewhat more so) stressed the efforts of the mob’s officers to control them. Not all the officers scrupled so. A deputy marshal, one of many, took surgical tools. One of the Stringfellows -Phillips doesn’t say which- helped himself to two boxes of cigars, right off the shelf.

Ex-Vice-President Atchison was also seen with one of these, or another box. With such bright examples it would be needless to enter into a detail of the brilliant exploits of the rank and file.

Phillips estimates the losses near to $150,000. In addition to simple looting, the proslavery men took the papers of free state leaders and destroyed letters and family pictures. They tried to burn the Herald of Freedom building, but failed for already taking out most of what would have burned. What remained, a few brave sorts went in and doused. For the grand finale, the mob returned to Charles Robinson’s house on Mount Oread and burned it.

The discussion of sexual violence follows on from here, Gentle Readers.

According to the memorialists:

The work of pillage spread through the whole town, and continued until after dark. Every house and store which cold be entered was ransacked; trunks broken open and money and property taken at will. Where women had not fled, they were in some cases insulted, and even robbed of their clothing.

The insults to women included the everyday sort of insult which simply violated nineteenth century social mores. The proslavery men failed to confine themselves to rudeness and theft, as William Phillips writes:

There were also frightful stories of outrages, and of women being ravished. Such cases there may have been, but rare. There were villains in that posse who were certainly none too good for it.

Phillips probably knew more than he let on. What he reports as likely true stories, the Lawrence memorial takes as fact. Its closing passages refer to “women ravished in their homes.” To name a woman raped would have disgraced her and Phillips, expecting his book to have a longer shelf life and wider circulation than a petition, may have demurred to avoid further compounding their suffering. The victims of sexual violence suffer an unjust, and vile stigma in our time. They would not have had it easier in his. The last thing I want to do is treat this as, one horror amid many, but Phillips only makes it clear what happened paragraphs after, immediately following an estimate of the number of horses taken. The memorial states the fact and leaves it without elaboration.

The Razing of the Free State Hotel

Samuel Jones

For almost as long as the proslavery party in Kansas and Missouri had known of Lawrence, they complained about the Free State Hotel. The accursed Emigrant Aid Company, that gaggle of fanatical Yankees, owned the building and had made it into a fortress. Samuel Lecompte’s grand jury had recommended its reduction and now that the proslavery mob had come to Lawrence unopposed, they intended to get the job done. They would waste the trip if they went home with only two printing presses destroyed and a few books stolen.

Once again, William Phillips sets the scene:

The enemy planted their artillery in front of the hotel, one hundred and fifty feet distant from it, across Massachusetts-street. The hotel was a very large building, three full stories high besides the basement; it seemed almost impossible that they could miss it.

At this point, the mob hit a snag. I.B. Donaldson, Wilson Shannon, and their own captains had made assurances that the Eldridges, who had furnished the hotel out of their own pocket, would have their belongings protected. Samuel Jones, riding high, made an effort to keep those promises. According to the memorial Lawrence wrote to Franklin Pierce the next day, the sheriff told the Eldridges at quarter after three that they could have until five. The Eldridges protested that they could not remove all their furniture in so short a time. Some of Jones’ men agreed to go help with the moving, but according to Phillips they soon diverted themselves to more urgent matters:

They discovered the wins and liquors, a good stock of which was on hand, and, helping themselves freely to these and to eatables and cigars, the heroes of this gallant campaign were soon in an interesting condition.

The Eldridges got out what the memorial tactfully calls their “most necessary effects” whilst the artillery crews made their final preparations. The mob set them in carriages and escorted them away. Outside the hotel their other possessions remained in the sights of David Rice Atchison, literally. Phillips has him personally aiming the first gun to fire, or rather playing the part of drunken backseat artillerist. Under the ex-Senator’s helpful direction, the crew “let her rip!”

the ball missing the hotel altogether, going clear over it.

David Rice Atchison (D-MO)

Phillips probably embroidered that moment, but an inexperienced gunner at a distance of more than a hundred feet probably could miss a three story building even without the aid of alcohol. The second shot found the building, albeit on a corner.

Some fifty rounds were fired, when, finding it slow business, the hotel looking, externally, little the worse for it, they undertook to blow it up. Four kegs of gunpowder were placed in it, but only two of them exploded, and they made little report, and still less impression on the walls; but fire was communicated to the building in several places, and it was soon magnificent a sea of flame.

In other words, the proslavery men tried to blow the hotel away. Failing at that, they opted to blow it up. Failing once more, some brave, frustrated souls torched it. One imagines they spared some thoughts for those two unexploded kegs of gunpowder when they went up with their burning brands.

As the flames hissed and crackled, Jones leaned upon his horse and contemplated the spectacle. His eyes glistened with a wild delight, and he said, “This is the happiest moment of my life.”

That day, all Samuel Jones’ dreams had come true.

“At the point of the bayonet”

George W. Brown

The border ruffians came into Lawrence and, after a brief delay to confirm that no one had mined the street, began their fun at the offices of the Free State, Josiah Miller’s paper. Miller, like many printers, sold books as well as his paper. The mob helped themselves to his stock whilst destroying his press. The press itself went into the Kansas River, but somewhere along the line hauling the type there became too much work and it got tossed in the street. An officer or two tried to stop the looting and restrict the work to ending the paper, to no avail.

Scratch one antislavery paper and one half of those that Judge Lecompte’s grand jury ordered suppressed. Lawrence had another such publication, our old friend the Herald of Freedom. While the proslavery men worked over the Free State, others made for it. George Washington Brown didn’t get to defend his paper in person, as he tried to flee Kansas, turned back, and got captured before reaching home. William Phillips describes the scene:

The Herald of Freedom office is a tall, narrow, concrete building. Into this the gallant “chivalry” were afraid to venture. The dread of mines and infernal machines was a sort of nightmare with them. In order to be safe in entering the office in question, they drove some young men, residents of the town, up the stairs and into the building at the point of the bayonet.

I would like to know how they expected that to work. Driving someone by bayonet requires one to stand close by, probably in range of any explosion they would trigger. Phillips calls it a “stupid policy”. He may have made it up, but his puzzlement suggests otherwise. The filibusters might not have known themselves and simply decided that if Lawrence’s people would swear to a building’s safety, they could do it on their own flesh and blood.

Once inside, the proslavery men gave the Herald of Freedom an expert destruction, “thorough and enlightened,” betraying the work of “a practical printer.” Neither paper’s steam press survived the day, but apparently the group knew their business well enough to ensure no one would come along and salvage parts from Brown’s. He had brought it with him all the way from Pennsylvania. The mob ransacked the office, “the more prudent” helping themselves to books, but others

marching about the streets with books stuck on the points of their bayonets. Others were tearing books to shreds

That struck two items off the agenda, but the destruction of the Free State Hotel remained undone.

Honor, Pride, and Free Books at the Free State

David Rice Atchison (D-MO)

David Rice Atchison gave a speech outside Lawrence, interrupted by cheers as Samuel Jones came back with the town’s cannons. Then the proslavery mob, after waiting so long, finally moved in with flags waving. Rumors of mined streets delayed them only briefly. Many of the women and children exited, some of the former looking back over their shoulders and telling the proslavery mob just what they thought of affairs.

They had come to do more than visit. Early in the month, Samuel Lecompte’s grand jury declared the antislavery papers and free state hotels public menaces in need of suppression. The mob got to that straightaway, starting with Josiah Miller’s Free State. Miller operated out of the second story of what William Phillips calls “a concrete building”. I think he means cemented stone, not a modern poured concrete structure. A store occupied the first floor and the border ruffians went there first.

One of the ruffian officers entered the store and demanded of the proprietor if there was a mine under the building to blow it up. The merchant assured him there was not, when the interrogator told him that they were going up into the printing office, and that if anything happened he would hold him responsible.

A keg of gunpowder wouldn’t blow up a building quite like a modern artillery shell, but expecting to survive the experience still sounds awfully hopeful. Satisfied, the proslavery men entered the Free State office.

The press and other articles were first broken, so as to be rendered perfectly useless, and then thrown into the Kansas river. As this was some distance to carry the articles, they got tired of it, and began throwing the remainder in the street. Books and papers were thrown in the street.

If the Free State had machinery anything like the Herald of Freedom did, which seems likely, then the proslavery men had to lug a lot of metal around just in the steam press. The lead type would only add to the fun. Since this meant free books, some of the mob helped themselves. Some officers intervened to stop that, claiming that the antislavery men would use the theft against them. William Phillips, just the antislavery man who did, must have related that with particular relish.

Colonel Zadoc Jackson, of Georgia, exerted himself to prevent the plunder, as did several others; they were prepared for the most desperate war against Freedom and American rights, but they had too much honor, or too much pride, to wish to occupy the position of highwaymen. Unfortunately, these officers were unable to prevent these outrages, or restrain the villains they had gathered up to do their lawless work.

Honor and pride had their pleasures, but free books offered still greater joys.

For “supremacy of the white race”

Samuel Jones

I.B. Donaldson’s overgrown posse, now handed over to Samuel Jones and still bent on delivering some long-awaited punishment to the antislavery town of Lawrence, cheered when Jones and twenty of their number came out of Lawrence with the town’s cannons in tow. David Rice Atchison, Missouri’s just-former Senator, resumed his speech after. The Senator wanted the mob to behave themselves. Gentlemen should treat women well, even women of the enemy, unless they fought back. Then those gentlemen should kill those women without hesitation. At “the least appearance of resistance,” they could cast all restraint aside. Good order would last as long as no one got in the way.

Then the posse marched in a line, straight to Lawrence. William Phillips made much of how some wore red; the redcoats (or red flannel shirts) had come again to

trample under foot the rights of American freemen. As motley an assortment of banners floated over them. The flag of South Carolina, with a crimson star in the centre, and the motto “Southern rights.” Another flag resembled the American flag, being striped like it; but there were no stars, and in their stead a rampant tiger, -fit emblem of the men it floated over, and the cause it vindicated. Another had white and black alternate stripes, which truly represented the cursed amalgamation of races which is ruining the slave states, and which these nullifying filibusters meant to introduce into Kansas, and to nationalize. One banner bore the inscription, “South Carolina;” another, “Supremacy of the white race,” on the one side, and “Kansas, the outpost,” on the other.

Phillips shared his fear of racial amalgamation with most white Americans, whatever their politics. By implication he repeated the standard abolitionist attack that slavery turned the whole South into a brothel, which had some truth to it, but his fear of race mixing also stands on its own. The notion that the proslavery force would have boasted their intent via a flag doesn’t bear scrutiny, though. Most likely Phillips invented the flag or gave it his own meaning.

David Rice Atchison (D-MO)

The proslavery men came despite Donaldson’s promise not to bring his posse into town. By handing them off to Jones, he made them Jones’ posse and no one had pledged anything about that body of men. They advanced past an earthwork at the end of Massachusetts Street, which dated back to the Wakarusa War. There they stopped and brought up their own cannons, aiming them down the street. Phillips reports that they stopped there for fear that Lawrence had mined the street. Some pressed on despite orders, but Jefferson Buford called them back. The delay didn’t last long. Two “spies” came forward and told Buford the mines existed only in rumor. Soon the force “was in possession of the town.”

Phillips credits Jones with advising the women and children to get out of town before the army arrived, which speaks volumes. We can attribute some of the impetus to custom, but it also repeats the undercurrent often seen among proslavery leaders that once their boys got going they might not stop for, or at, anything. All the same, few had gone until then.

It was a trying and sorrowful scene to see the people of Lawrence leave their homes and fly from the place. Some of the women were moved to tears, and others would look back, like Lot’s wife, and freely vent their indignation. They had not time to move their effects; and, had they been seen taking them off, they would probably have been stopped.

“Blow them to h-ll with a chunk of cold lead!”

David Rice Atchison (D-MO)

David Rice Atchison, one of the principle architects of Kansas’ woes, had probably had a few. He may or may not have had the multi-day “debauch” that William Phillips credited him with, but he earned his reputation as a hard drinking man fair and square. As Sheriff Jones hauled Lawrence’s cannons out of town, Missouri’s former senator probably still hoped his Kansas antics would get him his seat back. He gave a speech.

Phillips referred to false versions of Atchison’s words circulating. He probably didn’t hear the speech himself -it sounds like he remained in Lawrence through the full affair- but may have had it fresh from those who did hear Bourbon Dave sound off. Atchison commenced,

“Boys, to-day I’m a Kickapoo Ranger, by G-d! This day we have entered Lawrence, and the abolitionists have not dared to fire a gun.”

That Atchison would connect himself with the proslavery militia that killed Reese Brown seems entirely in character. He associated openly with the Platte County Self-Defense Association, so Kickapoo didn’t make much of a stretch. Through “an odd mixture of drunken enthusiasm, restraining forbearance, partisan ferocity, and profanity,” Atchison affirmed they ought to destroy the Free State Hotel and the printing presses, per Judge Lecompte’s order, but must behave as “gallant” gentlemen who “respect[ed] ladies.”

Even restraint required restraint, though:

“if you find a woman armed as a soldier, and thus putting off the garb of her sex, trample her under foot as you would a snake.”

Lawrence appeared resigned to submission, but should that change and the face “the least appearance of resistance, no quarter should be shown.” Those Southern gentlemen had come a long way to kill abolitionists. If they needed an excuse, then Davy Atchison gave it to them. Over the course of his speech he dismounted, went over to one of the proslavery army’s cannons, and mounted it. One could not miss the symbolism.

Speaking of cannons, as Atchison spoke Jones arrived with the field pieces taken from Lawrence. Jones informed the mob of his own orders against the hotel and papers, courtesy of Lecompte, and reminded them of their duty to “loud and enthusiastic cheers.” Atchison took the stump again:

“And now we will go in with our highly honorable Jones, and test the strength of that d—-d Free-State Hotel!” He said something more, urging them to bravery and good order, and finished by saying, “If any man or woman stand in your way, blow them to h-ll with a chunk of cold lead!”

“For several days he and his confreres had been engaged in a debauch”

David Rice Atchison (D-MO)

William Addison Phillips did not like Samuel Pomeroy, of the Emigrant Aid Society, or Lieutenant Governor Roberts one bit. To hear him tell it, the people of Lawrence had gone to the trouble of burying their five cannons under the foundation of a house. No one would find them there. When Samuel Jones came into town at the head of a posse of twenty men, with a few hundred friends not far off, they could have let him ransack Lawrence all day and he would have left empty handed. Pomeroy, Roberts, and the rest of the committee of safety, didn’t care to risk that and gave up the artillery. They even did some of the digging themselves.

That put Jones in possession of the free state cannons and still in Lawrence, perhaps not the ideal place for a man recently ventilated by a resident to linger with his spoils. He thus ordered the cannons delivered to the camp outside town,

and free-state men were called on to do this ignominious service. Numbers of those whom Jones thus asked haughtily refused. Some of the men with Jones threatened to use their arms, and rode at some of the young men who refused, and threatened them with their bayonets, but did not intimidate them into compliance. A few, less resolute, aided the ruffians to remove the guns.

Phillips anger burns off the page here. At the moment of decision, his neighbors folded like cowards. They even did the border ruffians’ dirty work for them, though only a minority went so far. Perhaps more did at the time and Phillips counted for convenience in his appeal to outraged antislavery people back East. Either way, Lawrence lost its heavy weapons and a few of the Sharpe’s rifles.

While Jones and his posse secured the cannons, the larger body of the posse originally gathered by I.B. Donaldson advanced on Lawrence. The Lawrence memorial, written the next day, has

several hundred men, with United States muskets and fixed bayonets […] taking position in the town.

Phillips names their leaders, Atchison, Buford, Stringfellow, and Colonel Titus, and puts them at the south end of town, “dragging their cannon with them.” They arrayed themselves in formation and Atchison gave a speech.

That great border ruffian, ex-Senator, ex-Vice President of the United States, was not remarkably sober on this important occasion. For several days he and his confreres had been engaged in a debauch, in which, perhaps, they strove to drown their knowledge of better things.

Proslavery men tend toward drunkenness in the accounts of abstemious antislavery types. When you don’t drink at all, any drinking becomes more noticeable. But even friendly sources, and the man himself, have cracked jokes about Bourbon Dave’s habit. A version of this speech floats around the internet in various places, but I’m given to understand much of it was invented after the fact. Phillips himself refers to the issue:

Various reports of this wild speech have been published, but all more or less incorrect.

William Phillips, naturally had the true version.

“I demand that all the arms of Lawrence be given up, or we will bombard the town”

Samuel Jones

Sorry for the tardy post, Gentle Readers. I scheduled it incorrectly.

Samuel Jones, process in hand, posse at his back, and fresh off getting shot the last time he came to Lawrence, had probably gave more than a little thought to revenge on May 21, 1856. W.P. Fain had come, made arrests, and gone. Jones still had his pretense to attend to and meant to see himself revenged on Lawrence. He inherited Marshal Donaldson’s posse and rode into town with about twenty of them, arriving about three in the afternoon. Jones made for the Free State Hotel and there called out Samuel Pomeroy.

William Phillips recounts their conversation:

Pomeroy came out and shook hands with him. [Jones.]

“Gen. Pomeroy,” said Jones, “I recognize you as one of the leading citizens here, and as one who can act for the people of Lawrence. I demand that all the arms of Lawrence be given up, or we will bombard the town.” Jones here took out his watch, and continued: “I give you five minutes to decide on this proposition, and half an hour to stack the arms in the streets.”

Jones had pulled this ultimatum off before, giving the judges of election five minutes to vacate, let anyone who offered vote without swearing that they lived in Kansas, or die at the hands of his mob. Pomeroy, like the judges then, asked more time. The year since the legislative elections and his own shooting must have hardened Jones; he refused to grant even the additional minute he had before. Pomeroy went into the hotel and discussed the issue with the committee of safety, for what little they had to discuss:

Jones, with an army at his back, thirsting for blood and plunder; the committee, who had provided no means of defence, and who had only a handful of men in Lawrence, who, if they attempted to resist, would merely be butchered, unless the invaders were cowards!

An answer came back before the Sheriff called down a bombardment. Lawrence would surrender her cannons, but the rifles and other arms belonged to the men who held them. The committee had no authority to demand their surrender. Jones would have to go person to person and ask each one.

The memorial that Lawrence sent off to Franklin Pierce tells things a little differently, with some portion of the rifles accepted as community property and so surrendered while others, still private property, remained with their owners. The memorialists, writing for a hostile audience in the White House, stress their submission as much as Phillips excoriates it. For Jones to just take the cannons and let go the rifles, which loomed large in proslavery imaginations, seems improbable. Phillips does refer to some rifles taken up later, but not as part of a general surrender. He may have the same arms in mind as the memorialists, each writer slanting the facts to suit their present audience. For Phillips, righteous Kansas led by cowards in the absence of the usual heroes cave without a fight. Antislavery Americans rally to their defense. For the memorialists, submitting to the law and doing all their enemies asked might move a hostile president to take a softer line against them. Either version could be true; both agree that Lawrence lost its cannons:

The artillery in question consisted of the twelve-pound brass howitzer, brought into Lawrence so gallantly during the Wakarusa war, and some four other small brass breech-loading cannon, carrying a pound ball.

Phillips describes the four smaller field pieces as “nearly useless” but doesn’t miss the chance to go after the Committee for giving them up. He informs the reader that Lawrence had buried all the cannons beneath a house, where no one would think to look. Pomeroy and Lieutenant Governor Roberts thus gave them up gratuitously.