Record Data
Source citation
Sara Tappan Doolittle Lawrence Robinson, Diary of Sara Tappan Doolittle Lawrence Robinson, January, 1856, Kansas: Its Interior and Exterior Life, 4th edition, Boston, MA: Crosby, Nichols & Co., 1856, pp. 366.
Type
Diary
Date Certainty
Exact
Transcriber
Michael Blake
Transcription date
Transcription
The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
-- Still another snow. No security from the murderous midnight assassin can be more sure than the heavily drifting snows which cover the whole country. Plans of a guerilla warfare had been laid through the whole border. The murder of Brown and the invasion at Easton were the forerunners of intended attacks upon the whole territory. The leaders of the free-state party being destroyed, they calculated upon an easy victory over the remainder. A letter of Atchison, written just before the murder of Brown, reveals the plan. The following are a few extracts from it.
"We are in a constant state of excitement here (Platte city). The `border ruffians' have access to my room day and night. The very air is full of rumors. We wish to keep ourselves right before the world, and we are provoked and aggravated beyond sufferance. Our persons and property are not for a moment safe; and yet we are forbid, by the respect we owe our friends elsewhere, by respect for the cause in which we are engaged, to forbear. This state of things cannot last. You are authorized to publish the whole or a part of what I have written; but if Georgia intends to do anything, or can do anything, for us, let it be done speedily!
"Let your young men come forth to Missouri and Kansas. Let them come well armed, with money enough to support them for twelve months, and determined to see this thing out! One hundred true men will be an acquisition. The more the better. I do not see how we are to avoid civil war; come it will. Twelve months will not elapse before war -- civil war of the fiercest kind -- will be upon us. We are arming and preparing for it. Indeed, we of the border counties are prepared. We must have the support of the South. We are fighting the battles of the South. Our Institutions are at stake. You far southern men are now out of the nave of the war, but, if we fail, it will reach your own doors, perhaps your hearths. We want men, armed men. We want money -- not for ourselves, but to support our friends who may come from a distance. I have now in this house two gallant young men from Charleston, S. C. They are citizens of Kansas, and will remain so until her destiny is fixed.
"Let your young men come on in squads as fast as they can be raised, well armed. We want none but true men. Yours truly,
"P. S. -- I would not be astonished if this day laid the groundwork for a guerilla war in Kansas. I have heard of rumors of strife and battle at Leavenworth, seven miles from this place, but the ice is running in the Missouri river, and I have nothing definite. I was a peace-maker in the difficulty lately settled by Gov. Shannon. I counselled the `ruffians' to forbearance, but I will never again counsel peace.
"We are in a constant state of excitement here (Platte city). The `border ruffians' have access to my room day and night. The very air is full of rumors. We wish to keep ourselves right before the world, and we are provoked and aggravated beyond sufferance. Our persons and property are not for a moment safe; and yet we are forbid, by the respect we owe our friends elsewhere, by respect for the cause in which we are engaged, to forbear. This state of things cannot last. You are authorized to publish the whole or a part of what I have written; but if Georgia intends to do anything, or can do anything, for us, let it be done speedily!
"Let your young men come forth to Missouri and Kansas. Let them come well armed, with money enough to support them for twelve months, and determined to see this thing out! One hundred true men will be an acquisition. The more the better. I do not see how we are to avoid civil war; come it will. Twelve months will not elapse before war -- civil war of the fiercest kind -- will be upon us. We are arming and preparing for it. Indeed, we of the border counties are prepared. We must have the support of the South. We are fighting the battles of the South. Our Institutions are at stake. You far southern men are now out of the nave of the war, but, if we fail, it will reach your own doors, perhaps your hearths. We want men, armed men. We want money -- not for ourselves, but to support our friends who may come from a distance. I have now in this house two gallant young men from Charleston, S. C. They are citizens of Kansas, and will remain so until her destiny is fixed.
"Let your young men come on in squads as fast as they can be raised, well armed. We want none but true men. Yours truly,
"D. R. Atchison.
"P. S. -- I would not be astonished if this day laid the groundwork for a guerilla war in Kansas. I have heard of rumors of strife and battle at Leavenworth, seven miles from this place, but the ice is running in the Missouri river, and I have nothing definite. I was a peace-maker in the difficulty lately settled by Gov. Shannon. I counselled the `ruffians' to forbearance, but I will never again counsel peace.
D. R. A."