One of the first deeds in this campaign, and the one that
certainly first turned the tide and caused the pro-slavery
ruffians to feel that they had need to look to their own safety,
and would not be suffered with impunity to murder whom they chose
and fire honest men's houses like fiends let loose, was the
midnight massacre at Pottawatomie. Along a certain creek there
lived five of these incendiaries and outrage-mongers who were
specially notorious. A report reached Brown that they were sworn
to sweep the neighbourhood clear of Abolitionists, not forgetting
'those Browns.' That they were to be kept in terror by such a
gang seemed to Brown an unrighteous state of things, and he
formed the desperate design of visiting them first. But he loved
not slaughter for slaughter's sake. Not only could he strike
upon occasion, but he could be just in his rough-and-ready
fashion. He argued within himself, 'I shall be right in killing
these men if I am sure they intend these murders, but I will not
act upon mere report.' Disguising himself, he started with two
men to carry a surveyor's chain, and one to carry a flag. No
coward was this man. He would put his life in peril rather than
act on mere suspicion. So he ran his lines past the houses of
these five men, and they naturally came out to see what this
surveying business was. Brown told them, as he looked through
his instrument and waved the flagman to this side or that, 'Yours
is a grand country. Are there many Abolitionists about here?'
In his pocket-book he jotted down the answer 'Yes,' and, swearing
great oaths, they told him that they meant to sweep the region
clear of them in a week. 'Are there some called Brown?' 'Yes,'
and man by man they swore the Browns should be killed by their
hands. Back he went saying to himself, 'If I understand the Book