It was now the middle of August. My cabin was completed, and I was ready
to go back and bring Mrs. Butler and the children to Kansas. Bro.
Elliott accompanied me to Atchison, where I intended to take a steamboat
to St. Louis, thence going up the Illinois River to Fulton county,
Illinois, where Mrs. Butler had been stopping with her sister.
The things that had been happening in the Territory had been so strange
and unheard of, and the threats of the _Squatter Sovereign_ had been so
savage and barbarous, that I wanted to carry back to my friends in
Illinois some evidence of what was going on. I went, therefore, with
Bro. Elliott to the _Squatter Sovereign_ printing office to purchase
extra copies of that paper. I was waited on by Robert S. Kelley. After
paying for my papers I said to him: "I should have become a subscriber
to your paper some time ago only there is one thing I do not like about
it." Mr. Kelley did not know me, and asked: "What is it?"
I replied: "I do not like the spirit of violence that characterizes
it."
He said: "I consider all Free-soilers rogues, and they are to be treated
as such."
I looked him for a moment steadily in the face, and then said to him:
"Well, sir, I am a Free-soiler; and I intend to vote for Kansas to be a
free State."
He fiercely replied: "You will not be allowed to vote."
When Bro. Elliott and myself had left the house, and were in the open
air, he clutched me nervously by the arm and said: "Bro. Butler! Bro.
Butler! You must not do such things; they will kill you!"
I replied: "If they do I can not help it."
Bro. E. was now to go home. But before going he besought me with earnest
entreaty not to bring down on my own head the vengeance of these men. I
thanked him for his regard for me, and we bade each other good-by.
Bro. E. had come to feel that my life was precious to the Christian
brethren in Atchison county. Except myself they had no preacher, and
they needed a preacher.
The steamboat bound for St. Louis that day had been detained, and would
not arrive until the next day. I must, therefore, stay over night in
Atchison. I conversed freely with the people that afternoon, and said to
them: "Under the Kansas-Nebraska bill, we that are free State men have
as good a right to come to Kansas as you have; and we have as good a
right to speak our sentiments as you have."
A public meeting was called that night to consider my case, but I did
not know it. The steamboat was expected about noon the next day. I had
been sitting writing letters at the head of the stairs, in the chamber
of the boarding-house where I had slept, and heard some one call my
name, and rose up to go down stairs; but was met by six men, bristling
with revolvers and bowie-knives, who came up stairs and into my room.
The leader was Robert S. Kelley. They presented me a string of
resolutions, denouncing free State men in unmeasured terms, and demanded
that I should sign them. I felt my heart flutter, and knew if I should
undertake to speak my voice would tremble, and determined to gain time.
Sitting down I pretended to read the resolutions--they were familiar to
me, having been already printed in the _Squatter Sovereign_--and finally
I began to read them aloud. But these men were impatient, and said: "We
just want to know will you sign these resolutions?" I had taken my seat
by a window, and looking out and down into the street, had seen a great
crowd assembled, and determined to get among them. Whatever should be
done-would better be done in the presence of witnesses. I said not a
word, but going to the head of the stairs, where was my writing-stand
and pen and ink, I laid the paper down and quickly walked down stairs
and into the street. Here they caught me by the wrists, from behind, and
demanded, "Will you sign?" I answered, "_No_," with emphasis. I had got
my voice by that time. They dragged me down to the Missouri River,
cursing me, and telling me they were going to drown me. But when we had
got to the river they seemed to have got to the end of their programme,
and there we stood. Then some little boys, anxious to see the fun go on,
told me to get on a large cotton-wood stump close by and defend myself.
I told the little fellows I did not know what I was accused of yet. This
broke the silence, and the men that had me in charge asked:
"Did the Emigrant Aid Society send you here?"
"No; I have no connection with the Emigrant Aid Society."
"Well, what did you come for?"
"I came because I had a mind to come. What did you come for?"
"Did you come to make Kansas a free State?"
"No, not primarily; but I shall vote to make Kansas a free State."
"Are you a correspondent of the _New York Tribune_?"
"No; I have not written a line to the _Tribune_ since I came to Kansas."
By this time a great crowd had gathered around, and each man took his
turn in cross-questioning me, while I replied, as best I could, to this
storm of questions, accusations and invectives. We went over the whole
ground. We debated every issue that had been debated in Congress. They
alleged the joint ownership the South had with the North in the common
Territories of the nation; that slaves are property, and that they had a
natural and inalienable right to take their property into any part of
the national Territory, _and there to protect it by the strong right arm
of power_, while I urged the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and
that under it free State men have a right to come into the Territory,
and by their votes to make it a free State, if their votes will make it
so.
At length an old man came near to me, and dropping his voice to a
half-whisper, said in a confidential tone: "N-e-ow, Mr. Butler, I want
to advise you as a friend, and for your own good, _when you get away,
just keep away._"
I knew this man was a Yankee, for I am a Yankee myself. His name was Ira
Norris. He had been given an office in Platte county, Mo., and must
needs be a partisan for the peculiar institution. I gave my friend
Norris to understand that I would try to attend to my own business.
Others sought to persuade me to promise to leave the country and not
come back. Then when no good result seemed to come from our talk, I said
to them: "Gentlemen, there is no use in keeping up this debate any
longer; if I live anywhere, I shall live in Kansas. Now do your duty as
you understand it, and I will do mine as I understand it. I ask no
favors of you."
Then the leaders of this business went away by themselves and held a
consultation. Of course I did not know what passed among them, but Dr.
Stringfellow afterwards made the following statement to a gentleman who
was getting up a history of Kansas:
A vote was taken upon the mode of punishment which ought to be accorded
to him, and to this day it is probably known but to few persons that a
decided verdict of death by hanging was rendered; and furthermore, that
Mr. Kelley, the teller, by making false returns to the excited mob,
saved Mr. Butler's life. Mr. Kelley is now a resident of Montana, and
volunteered this information several years ago, while stopping at St.
Joe with the former senior editor of the _Squatter Sovereign_, Dr. J. H.
Stringfellow. At the time the pro-slavery party decided to send Mr.
Butler down the Missouri River on a raft, Dr. Stringfellow was absent as
a member of the Territorial Legislature.
The crowd had now to be pacified and won over to an arrangement that
should give me a chance for my life. A Mr. Peebles, a dentist from
Lexington, Mo., who was working at the business of dentistry in
Atchison, and himself a slave-holder, was put forward to do this work.
He said: "My friends, we must not hang this man; he is not an
Abolitionist, he is what they call a Free-soiler. The Abolitionists
steal our niggers, but the Free-soilers do not do this. They intend to
make Kansas a free State by legal methods. But in the outcome of the
business, there is not the value of a picayune of difference between a
Free-soiler and an Abolitionist; for if the Free-soilers succeed in
making Kansas a free State, and thus surround Missouri with a cordon of
free States, our slaves in Missouri will not be worth a dime apiece.
Still we must not hang this man; and I propose that we make a raft and
send him down the river as an example."
And so to him they all agreed. Then the question came up, What kind of
a raft shall it be? [1] Some said, "One log"; but the crowd decided it
should be two logs fastened together. When the raft was completed I
was ordered to take my place on it, after they had painted the letter
R. on my forehead with black paint. This letter stood for _Rogue_. I
had in my pocket a purse of gold, which I proffered to a merchant of
the place, an upright business man, with the request that he would
send it to my wife; but he declined to take it. He afterwards
explained to me that he himself was afraid of the mob. They took a
skiff and towed the raft out into the middle of the Missouri River. As
we swung away from the bank, I rose up and said: "Gentlemen, if I am
drowned I forgive you; but I have this to say to you: If you are not
ashamed of your part in this transaction, I am not ashamed of mine.
Good-by."
Floating down the river, alone and helpless, I had opportunity to look
about me. I had noticed that they had put up a flag on my raft, but
had paid no attention to it; now I looked at it and it charged me with
stealing negroes; and it was thought by many to be no sin to shoot a
"nigger thief." Down that flag must come; and then I remembered that
they had said they would follow me down the river and shoot me if I
did pull it down. The picture on the flag was that of a white man
riding at full gallop, on horseback, with a negro behind him. The flag
bore this inscription: "GREELEY TO THE RESCUE: I HAVE A NIGGER. THE
REV. MR. BUTLER, AGENT FOR THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD."
This flag I pulled down, cut off the flag with my pen-knife, and made
a paddle of the flag staff, which was a small sapling which they had
cut out of the brush, and was forked at the upper end. Between these
forks they had carefully sewed this flag with twine, and this part of
the canvas I left and made it serve as the blade of my paddle; and so
in due time I paddled to the Kansas shore. The river was rapid, and
there were in the river heaps of drift-wood, called "rack-heaps,"
dangerous places into which the water rushed with great violence; but
from these I was mercifully saved, and though I could not swim, I
landed a few miles below Atchison without harm or accident, and made
my way to Port William, a small town about twelve miles down the
river.
[Illustration: The flag placed on Pardee Butler's raft.]