Record Data
Source citation
Spencer Kellogg Brown, Diary of Spencer Kellogg Brown, May, 1858, Spencer Kellogg Brown, His Life in Kansas and His Death as a Spy, 1842-1863, As Disclosed in His Diary, Smith, George Gardner, editor, New York, NY: D. Appleton & Co., 1903, p. 380.
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.
On May 19th occurred the "Marais des Cygnes Massacre," an event so prominent in the history of Kansas that I wonder to find no mention of it in Spencer's journal. The boy's wise caution may have warned him to leave it unrecorded, even in his cipher pages.
His father writes: "Later the `Marais des Cygnes Massacre,' under the leadership of the notorious Hamilton, occurred, south of Osawatomie. A large company of armed men went from house to house calling out the Free-State settlers to the number of twelve. These they marched out upon the prairie, where they were drawn up in line and shot down. Two not fatally wounded, though feigning death, were found after the ruffians had left. A Baptist clergyman by the name of Reid, one of the survivors, now lives in Osawatomie."
His father writes: "Later the `Marais des Cygnes Massacre,' under the leadership of the notorious Hamilton, occurred, south of Osawatomie. A large company of armed men went from house to house calling out the Free-State settlers to the number of twelve. These they marched out upon the prairie, where they were drawn up in line and shot down. Two not fatally wounded, though feigning death, were found after the ruffians had left. A Baptist clergyman by the name of Reid, one of the survivors, now lives in Osawatomie."