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Old John Brown, the man whose soul is marching on by Walter Hawkins
page 32 of 53 (60%)
numbering some 400, by whose scouts our dear Frederick was shot
dead.' (This was his son, and it was by a Methodist preacher's
rifle he was killed. Such was the support which the pulpit
sometimes gave in those turbulent days to the slavery cause.)
'At this time I was about three miles off, where I had some
fourteen or fifteen men over-night that had just enlisted under
me. These I collected with some twelve or fifteen more, and in
about three-quarters of an hour I attacked them from a wood with
thick undergrowth.

'With this force we threw them into confusion for about fifteen
or twenty minutes, during which time we killed or wounded from
seventy to eighty of the enemy--as they say--and then we escaped
as we could with one killed, two or three wounded, and as many
more missing. Jason (another son) fought bravely by my side. I
was struck by a partly spent shot which bruised me some, but did
not injure me seriously. "Hitherto the Lord has helped me,
notwithstanding my afflictions."'

Later there was a futile attack upon Lawrence by 2,700 Of the
Border ruffians, and while the governor claimed afterwards the
credit for the failure of the attack, it is certain that his
dilatory intervention had less to do with the result than the
prompt action of a couple of hundred defenders of the place who
made a dash outwards towards the advancing rabble. Mounted on a
grocer's box in the main street, John Brown thus addressed them
before action: 'If they come up and attack don't yell, but
remain still. Wait till they get within twenty-five yards of
you: get a good object: be sure you see the hind sight of your
gun--then fire. A great deal of powder and lead is wasted on
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