Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/573

 TJie Sharps Rifle Episode in Kansas History 563 there was a large need for an extra supply. Robert ]Iorrov of Lawrence, one of the leaders, now applied to Governor Grimes for additional arms ; and his own statement tells what was accomplished : [The Governor] said if I could get them without compromising him I could do so. I had letters to some good friends of Kansas ; they got the keys to the arsenal, and in the night we loaded up three wagons with 200 stands of arms, and they were put into Colonel Eldridge's train and brought into Kansas.' Geary in the meantime had been made executive of the territory. He promptly ordered out five hundred regulars, dispersed Richard- son's arm}', and captured two hundred and forty free-state men under Eldridge, who claimed to be bona ftdc settlers and were set free by the Governor and permitted to keep their individual arms : but the other implements of war, enumerated in the following report by the United States marshal,- he retained : Three boxes of navy-revolver pistols, all new, viz. : 6 six- and 5 five- shooters; 12 Colt's, navy size; 24 Colt's, navy size; 4 boxes fixed ball cartridges; i bag caps; a small lot rifle cartridges ; i box, 10 Sharps rifles: 145 breech-loading muskets; 85 percussion muskets; 115 bayonets; 61 common sabres; 2 officers' sabres, iVj kegs of powder; 61 dragoon saddles; I drum. The party had also started with a field-piece, but on hearing of the approach of Cooke's dragoons buried the cannon in a well, where it remains to the present day. While the party was loath to give up these arms, its members had no intention or desire to resist Uncle Sam. A year later Governor Denver, rather against his will, was persuaded to restore this entire capture of arms to Eldridge and his men. Very little has been found as to the arming of parties from Alis- souri and the South. Nearly all the pro-slavery fighting men came from western Missouri, which had long been the frontier, and whose inhabitants invariably possessed arms of some sort. The following extracts from W. JM. Paxton's Annals of Platte County explain how some of the pro-slavery men secured arms for the invasion of Kansas : Nov. 27, 1855. Liberty Arsenal was surprised and taken by sixty pro-slavery men, who took a large sirpply of arms and ammunition. Two wagon-loads were brought to Platte City and hid under the Baptist church, then just finished.^ May-20, 1857. A squad of thirty five men was raised in Platte, and crossed at Deleware, taking two brass six-pounders. They were organ- ized as Missouri militia, and armed by the state. They went to Law- rence by way of Franklin.* ' Ibid., 305. ■Ibid., IV. 608. 'W. M. Paxton, Annals of Platte County, Missouri, p. 209. AM. HIST. REV., VOL. Xn. — 37.
 * Ibid., p. 214.