Abraham Lincoln, a History — Volume 02 by John Hay;John George Nicolay
page 29 of 471 (06%)
page 29 of 471 (06%)
|
and retire. The casualties were one man killed and several wounded.
[Sidenote] Gihon, p. 158. [Sidenote] Record of examination, Senate Ex. Doc., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. II., pp. 156-9. The rejoicing of the free-State men over this not too brilliant victory was short-lived. Returning home in separate squads, they were successively intercepted by the Federal dragoons acting as a posse to the Deputy United States Marshal,[16] who arrested them on civil writs obtained in haste by an active member of the territorial cabal, and to the number of eighty-nine[17] were taken prisoners to Lecompton. So far the affair had been of such frequent occurrence as to have become commonplace--a frontier "free fight," as they themselves described and regarded it. But now it took on a remarkable aspect. Sterling G. Cato, one of the pro-slavery territorial judges, had been found by Governor Geary in the Missouri camp drilling and doing duty as a soldier, ready and doubtless more than willing to take part in the projected sack of Lawrence. This Federal judge, as open a law-breaker as the Hickory Point prisoners (the two affairs really forming part of one and the same enterprise), now seated himself on his judicial bench and committed the whole party for trial on charge of murder in the first degree; and at the October term of his court proceeded to try and condemn to penalties prescribed by the bogus laws some eighteen or twenty of these prisoners, for offenses in which in equity and good morals he was personally _particeps criminis_--some of the convicts being held in confinement until the following March, when they were pardoned by the Governor.[18] _Inter arma silent leges_, say the publicists; but in this particular instance the license of guerrilla |
|