18thVirginia
Major
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2012
What I find from women's diaries and journals, JPK, is that they often give a different 'snapshot' of the daily happenings of the era, that we often don't get in the larger histories. We hear about Bleeding Kansas and how John Brown killed 5 people with a broad sword, but not the details about the killings, threats, conflicts that erupted all the time in early Kansas.
According to the Kansas historians, Sarah Robinson didn't like John Brown and saw him as a "murderer and a stain on
Kansas's reputation." (http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder.org/content/robinson-sara)
She felt that some were trying to rewrite the history of early Kansas and spent the last years of her life trying to honor her version, one which didn't feature John Brown. One of the authors writing about the Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas border says that in the region the Civil War came early and stayed late. I think the details from Sarah Robinson's work give us an indication of how much that was true. Robinson had a view from one side, just as the Confederate sympathizing women's diaries from Missouri show a different side. But, what I think they demonstrate most is how everyday the level of conflict and violence had become in their regions.
While this shows the state of things in the Missouri border, outrage and pillage were already committed by the ruffians arrived in the territory. As a party of free-state men, on the fifteenth of May, were quietly at work in a field in Benicia, a little town about eight miles from Lawrence, unarmed, they were suddenly surrounded by twenty-five Missourians, wholly armed, who, without any warrant or authority, took them prisoners. They carried them into a neighboring cabin, and, with many threats of instant death, ordered them to leave Kansas. "G--d d--n you, if you are ever caught here again you shall be strung up! Go to Nebraska, d--n you! You have no right in Kansas!" was the language of the ruffians. "We are coming to Lawrence in a few days, to wipe out the d--d abolition city, and to kill or drive off every one of the inhabitants," was the finale of all their threats. All the prisoners except a Mr. S., of Worcester, Mass, were soon released. He had answered them like a man, and was reserved for further punishment. The following is the speech of Major Herbert, the leader of the ruffians:
According to the Kansas historians, Sarah Robinson didn't like John Brown and saw him as a "murderer and a stain on
Kansas's reputation." (http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder.org/content/robinson-sara)
She felt that some were trying to rewrite the history of early Kansas and spent the last years of her life trying to honor her version, one which didn't feature John Brown. One of the authors writing about the Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas border says that in the region the Civil War came early and stayed late. I think the details from Sarah Robinson's work give us an indication of how much that was true. Robinson had a view from one side, just as the Confederate sympathizing women's diaries from Missouri show a different side. But, what I think they demonstrate most is how everyday the level of conflict and violence had become in their regions.
While this shows the state of things in the Missouri border, outrage and pillage were already committed by the ruffians arrived in the territory. As a party of free-state men, on the fifteenth of May, were quietly at work in a field in Benicia, a little town about eight miles from Lawrence, unarmed, they were suddenly surrounded by twenty-five Missourians, wholly armed, who, without any warrant or authority, took them prisoners. They carried them into a neighboring cabin, and, with many threats of instant death, ordered them to leave Kansas. "G--d d--n you, if you are ever caught here again you shall be strung up! Go to Nebraska, d--n you! You have no right in Kansas!" was the language of the ruffians. "We are coming to Lawrence in a few days, to wipe out the d--d abolition city, and to kill or drive off every one of the inhabitants," was the finale of all their threats. All the prisoners except a Mr. S., of Worcester, Mass, were soon released. He had answered them like a man, and was reserved for further punishment. The following is the speech of Major Herbert, the leader of the ruffians:
Bringing the