Abraham Lincoln : a history : the full and authorized record of his private life and public career . as Kansasmilitia; they invoked that name only as a cloak toshield them from the legal penalties due their realcharacter as organized banditti. The Governor called the chiefs together andmade them an earnest harangue. He explainedto them his conciliatory policy, read his instruc-tions from Washington, affirmed his determinationto keep peace, and appealed personally to Atchi-son to aid him in enforcing law and preservingorder. That wily chief, seeing that refusal wouldput him in the attitude of a
Abraham Lincoln : a history : the full and authorized record of his private life and public career . as Kansasmilitia; they invoked that name only as a cloak toshield them from the legal penalties due their realcharacter as organized banditti. The Governor called the chiefs together andmade them an earnest harangue. He explainedto them his conciliatory policy, read his instruc-tions from Washington, affirmed his determinationto keep peace, and appealed personally to Atchi-son to aid him in enforcing law and preservingorder. That wily chief, seeing that refusal wouldput him in the attitude of a law-breaker, feigned aready compliance, and he and Reid, his factotumcommander, made eloquent speeches calculatedto produce submission to the legal demands madeupon Some of the lesser captains, how-ever, were mutinous, and treated the Governor tochoice bits of Border-Ruffian rhetoric. Law andviolence vibrated in uncertain balance, when Colo-nel Cooke, commanding the Federal troops, took 1 Colonel Cooke to F. J. Porter, Sept. 16, 1856. Senate Ex. Doc,3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. GENERAL JOHN W. GEARY. JEFFEKSON DAVIS ON REBELLION 17 the floor and cut the knot of discussion in a sum- chap, imary way. I felt called upon to say some wordsmyself, he writes naively, appealing to thesemilitia officers as an old resident of Kansas andfriend to the Missourians to submit to the patrioticdemand that they should retire, assuring them ofmy perfect confidence in the inflexible justice ofthe Governor, and that it would become my pain-ful duty to sustain him at the cannons argument was decisive. The border chiefsfelt willing enough to lead their awkward squadsagainst the slight barricades of Lawrence, butquailed at the unlooked-for prospect of encounter-ing the carbines and sabers of half a regiment ofregular dragoons and the grape-shot of a well-drilled light battery. They accepted the inevita-ble ; and swallowing their rage but still nursingtheir revenge, they
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