Gov. Shannon left the Territory a disgraced and ruined man. He had
proved himself, both to the Free State party and the Law and Order
party, a broken staff that pierces the hand of him that leans on it.
Mr. Woodson, who took his place as acting Governor, showed himself
hale fellow well met with such spirits as Sheriff Jones and Judge
Lecompte; and this faction made piteous appeals to the Great Father at
Washington to give them a man after their own heart, and this they
found in John Calhoun, Surveyor-General of Kansas and Nebraska, whose
official patronage made him a man of considerable influence, and whose
freighting outfit, kept for his peculiar business, would have made him
eminently useful to this party in the transportation of military
stores. But their appeal had been denied them, and instead of
Surveyor-General Calhoun, Mr. Geary, of Pennsylvania, had been
appointed.
That great party, of which the President was the official head, was
convulsed with such internal feuds and contentions, consequent on
these very Kansas troubles, as threatened its existence. A
Presidential election was pending, and attention must be paid to this
fact, rather than to the desperate schemes of this Kansas faction.
John W. Geary was, therefore, announced as the appointee of the
President. Mr. G. came with high claims to public favor. He had passed
through the Mexican war with honor; he had discharged high public
trust in California with such fidelity and skill as won for him a
distinguished reputation. He was the friend, and almost the neighbor,
of the incoming President, James Buchanan, and he enjoyed the
confidence of the outgoing President, Franklin Pierce; and was
closeted with him and with his Secretary of State, Mr. Marcy, before
leaving Washington. That nothing might be wanting to his success, he
spent a day at Jefferson City, Mo., with Gov. Sterling Price, and with
him arranged to have the blockade removed from the Missouri River.
Mr. Geary met at Glasgow, Mo., the retiring ex-Governor, and Dr. Gihon
reports that he was fleeing in terror that his life would be taken by
the men for whom he had been such an abject tool.
While these parting ceremonies were being performed a
steamboat bound down the river, and directly from Kansas,
came along side the Keystone. Ex-Governor Shannon was a
passenger, who, upon learning the close proximity of Gov.
Geary, sought an immediate interview with him. The
ex-Governor was greatly agitated. He had fled in haste and
terror from the Territory, and still seemed laboring under
an apprehension for his personal safety. His description
of Kansas was suggestive of everything that is frightful
and horrible. Its condition was deplorable in the extreme.
The whole Territory was in a state of insurrection, and a
destructive civil war was devastating the country. Murder
ran rampant, and the roads were everywhere strewn with the
bodies of slaughtered men.
Dr. Gihon afterwards published a small volume of 348 pages, from which
the preceding extract has been taken. The work is entitled "Governor
Geary's Administration in Kansas." This work does not bear the sign
manual of Gov. Geary, but as it was written by the Governor's private
secretary, it must be taken as an authentic statement of what these
gentlemen saw with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, as
touching the condition of things in the Territory. Dr. Gihon gives the
following testimony concerning the troubles in and around Leavenworth
and their cause:
After the removal of Shannon on the 21st of August, when
Secretary Woodson became acting Governor until the arrival
of Gov. Geary in September, the belligerents had matters
pretty much their own way, and the ruffians improved the
time, under pretense of authority from Woodson, to
perpetrate with impunity the most shocking barbarities.
During this time Gen. Smith received much censure from the
Free State people. Emory, Wilkes, Stringfellow and others
were driving these from their homes in Leavenworth, and
many of them fled in terror for protection within the
enclosures of the fort; when the General caused hand-bills
to be posted over the grounds commanding them to leave
before a certain specified time, and gave orders to his
subordinates to enforce this command. These unfortunate
people, among whom were men of the highest respectability,
and even women and children, were compelled, some of them
without money or suitable clothing, to take to the
prairies, exposed at every step to the danger of being
murdered by scouting or marauding parties, or at the risk
of their lives effect their escape upon the downward-bound
boats. Some of these were shot in the attempt upon the
river banks, whilst others were seized at Kansas City and
other Missouri towns, brought back as prisoners, and
disposed of in such a manner as will only be made known at
that great day when all human mysteries will be revealed.
Captain Frederick Emory, a United States Mail Contractor,
rendered himself conspicuous in Leavenworth at the head of
a band of ruffians mostly from Western Missouri. They
entered houses, stores and dwellings of Free State people,
and in the name of "Law and Order" abused and robbed the
occupants, and drove them out into the roads, Irrespective
of age, sex or condition. Under pretense of searching for
arms, they approached the house of William Phillips, the
lawyer who had been previously tarred and feathered and
carried to Missouri. Phillips, supposing he was to be
subjected to a similar outrage, and resolved not to submit
to the indignity, stood upon his defense. In repelling the
assaults of the mob, he killed two of them, when the
others burst into the house, and poured a volley of balls
into his body, killing him instantly in the presence of
his wife and another lady. His brother, who was also
present, had an ana broken with bullets, and was compelled
to submit to an amputation. Fifty of the Free State
prisoners were then driven on board the Polar Star, bound
for St. Louis. On the next day a hundred more were
embarked by Emory and his men on the steamboat Emma.
At this time civil war raged in all the populous
districts. Womi n and children had fled from the
Territory. No man's life was safe, and every person, when
he lay down to rest at night, bolted and barred his doors,
and fell asleep grasping firmly his pistol, gun or knife.
Emory's company were all mounted on "pressed" horses, the
owners of some of which were present to point out and
claim them; but as there existed no courts or judges from
whom the necessary legal process could be obtained, and as
Gen. Smith would not listen to their complaints, they had
no means by which to recover their property.
Emory and his company held their headquarters at
Leavenworth City, whence they sallied into the surrounding
country to "press," _not steal,_ the horses, cattle,
wagons and other property of Free State men. It was during
these excursions that Major Sackett, of the United States
Army, found in the road near Leavenworth City a number of
the bodies of men who had been seized, robbed, murdered
and mutilated, and left unburied by the wayside.
On the 17th of August, 1856, a shocking affair occurred in
the neighborhood of Leavenworth. Two ruffians sat at a
table in a low groggery, imbibing potations of bad whisky.
One of them, named Fugert, bet his companion six dollars
against a pair of boots that he would go out and in less
than two hours bring in the scalp of an Abolitionist. He
went into the road, and, meeting a Mr. Hoppe, who was in
his carriage just returning to Leavenworth from a visit to
Lawrence, where he had conveyed his wife, Fugert
deliberately shot him; then, taking out his bowie knife,
whilst his victim was still alive, he cut and tore off his
scalp from his quivering head. Leaving the body of Hoppe
lying in the road, he elevated his bloody trophy upon a
pole, and paraded it through the streets of Leavenworth.
On the same day a teamster, who was approaching
Leavenworth, was murdered and scalped by another human
monster.
A poor German, when the scalp of Hoppe was brought into
Leavenworth, was impudent enough to express his horror of
the shocking deed, when he was ordered to run for his
life--in attempting which a number of bullets sped after
him, and he fell dead in the street.