As it
was, their curses would not be edifying reading in a Christian
newspaper. Lecompton could not give its friends food or lodging. It
had been located in an out-of-the-way and inaccessible place; its
proprietors were Sheriff Jones, Judge Lecompton, and men of that
_ilk,_ and business men avoided the place as if it had been smitten
with a pestilence. The people of the surrounding country were
generally Free State men, and the South Carolinians could not choose,
but were forced to return to Atchison. They had been angry and
impatient when their friends in Atchison had constrained them to do
things up in such "milk and water" style, and in Lawrence they had
been held back in the same manner, and they returned in a savage
temper. Should a cowardly Yankee be allowed to defy them, and scoff at
them, and call them "bull-dogs and blood-hounds," with impunity? and
now, with this man they had to have a settlement.
We have already seen how the contending factions spread murder and
violence south of the Kaw River; but from May till September
Leavenworth county became a "dark and bloody ground.
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