AC dBooks

Thus reinforced with a detachment of United States troops, our
valorous Sheriff Jones went a third time and arrested without
resistance six respectable citizens of Lawrence, on a charge of
contempt of court, because they had declined to break the Sabbath in
aiding him to make arrests on the Lord's day. In due course of law, it
should have been his duty to take his prisoners before a magistrate,
and allowed them to give bail to appear at a given time to answer for
this alleged contempt. But Jones elected to keep his prisoners without
bail, and to act as his own jailer, and so he encamped in a tent on
the prairie, using these United States soldiers as his guard. This was
a manifest bait to the people of Lawrence to attempt a rescue, but
they did not walk into the trap, and so these prisoners slept on the
prairie, and their wives slept at home bereaved of their husbands.
Somebody shot Jones. It is presumed that somebody thought he ought to
be shot, but it was as great a calamity to Lawrence as was the rescue
of Branson.


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