[Illustration: GENERAL JOHN W. GEARY.]

[Sidenote] Examination, Senate Ex. Doc., 3d Sess. 34th Cong.
Vol. II., pp. 156-69.

Nothing could more forcibly demonstrate the unequal character of the
contest between the slave-State and the free-State men in Kansas, even
in these manoeuvres and conflicts of civil war, than the companion
exploit to this third Lawrence raid. The day before Governor Geary,
seconded by the "cannon" argument of Colonel Cooke, was convincing the
reluctant Missourians that it was better to accept, as a reward for
their unfinished expedition, the pay, rations, and honorable discharge
of a "muster out," rather than the fine, imprisonment, or halter to
which the full execution of their design would render them liable,
another detachment of Federal dragoons was enforcing the bogus laws
upon a company of free-State men who had just had a skirmish with
a detachment of this same invading army of Border Ruffians, at a
place called Hickory Point. The encounter itself had all the usual
characteristics of the dozens of similar affairs which occurred
during this prolonged period of border warfare--a neighborhood feud;
neighborhood violence; the appearance of organized bands for retaliation;
the taking of forage, animals, and property; the fortifying of two or
three log-houses by a pro-slavery company then on its way to join in
the Lawrence attack, and finally the appearance of a more numerous
free-State party to dislodge them. The besieging column, some 350 in
number, had brought up a brass four-pounder, lately captured from the
pro-slavery men, and with this and their rifles kept up a long-range
fire for about six hours, when the garrison of Border Ruffians capitulated
on condition of being allowed "honorably" to evacuate their stronghold