Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/572

 562 IF. H. Isely a climax to the various state efforts to aid the free-state cause. The movement for a national committee was general, but exceptionally vigorous in Ohio ; final organization was effected at Buffalo in July, 1856. Thayer and Barnes planned the details of this committee; Thaddeus Hyatt was chosen president ; and the committee had head- quarters in Chicago, with Harvey B. Hurd as secretary and Horace White as assistant secretary. At the only general meeting of the committee, held in New York City, January, 1857, i*^ was reported that two thousand emigrants and fifty tons of clothing had been sent to Kansas ; and that the committee had raised and expended ninety thousand dollars in the direct aid and support of the free- state cause. ^ The men composing the two thousand emigrants were generally armed, many of these arms being furnished by the National Committee; but since no printed report was ever made of its expenditures, it is impossible to give details. Fortunately there exists the testimony of Horace White, given before the Harpers Ferry Congressional investigating committee, in which he states that the National Committee expended about ten thousand dollars for arms.- This then must be accepted as the amount spent by the Chicago organization for arming purposes. At least one free state furnished arms direct from its arsenal for fighting in Kansas. Iowa had sent many of her sons to the territory and, being so near the border, was materially interested in the con- flict. Governor Grimes had also written President Pierce that Iowa could not remain indifferent to the treatment of the free-state people in Kansas. In the spring of 1856 pro-slavery warriors patrolled the Missouri River and excluded Northern emigrants from that great highway. Emigration was now forced to follow the wagon-road through Iowa and Nebraska ; and in August, 1856, some five hundred persons had collected in southwestern Iowa, preparatory to crossing into Kansas. This is the so-called " Jim Lane Army " ; for though Lane had only a small part in collecting these men, he understood thoroughly the art of self-advertisement, and by means of Eastern newspaper correspondents was given credit for the " whole thing ". Thaddeus Hyatt and Dr. S. G. Howe, on behalf of the National Committee, forced Lane from his assumed leadership,'' not even per- mitting him to accompany the party into the state. Richardson had gathered an army of border ruffians to intercept these emigrants from Iowa; and while most of the incoming free-state men carried arms, '^Nexij York Tribune, January 27, 1857. ''■ Serial 1040, 36 Cong., i Sess., Senate Report 27S, p. 247. ^New York Tribune, August 11, 1856; see also Transactions of Kansas His- torical Society, VIII. 308-309.