war, the fraudulent statutes of the Territory, and the laws of
Congress were combined and perverted with satanic ingenuity in
furtherance of the conspiracy.

The vigorous proceedings of Governor Geary, the forced retirement of
the Missourians on the one hand, and the arrest and conviction of the
free-State partisans on the other, had the effect to bring the
guerrilla war to an abrupt termination. The retribution had fallen
very unequally upon the two parties to the conflict,[19] but this was
due to the legal traps and pitfalls prepared with such artful design
by the Atchison conspiracy, and not to the personal indifference or
ill-will of the Governor. He strove sincerely to restore impartial
administration; he completed the disbandment of the territorial
militia, reënlisting into the Federal service one pro-slavery and one
free-State company for police duty.[20] By the end of September he was
enabled to write to Washington that "peace now reigns in Kansas."
Encouraged by this success in allaying guerrilla strife, he next
endeavored to break up the existing political persecution and
intrigues.

[Sidenote] Marcy to Geary, August 26, 1856. Gihon, p. 272.

It was not long, however, before Governor Geary became conscious, to
his great surprise and mortification, that he had been nominated and
sent to Kansas as a partisan manoeuvre, and not to institute
administrative reforms; that his instructions, written during the
presidential campaign, to tranquillize Kansas by his "energy,
impartiality, and discretion," really meant that after Mr. Buchanan
was elected he should satisfy the Atchison cabal.