Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/574

 564 ^F. H. Isely When Jones and Atchison attempted to destroy Lawrence in De- cember, 1855, their army of fifteen hundred invaders was partially equipped from the state armories at Independence and Lexington. Colonel J. l. Buford, who left Montgomery, Alabama, in April, 1856, with three hundred followers, came to Kansas unarmed. On leaving Mobile the members of the party were presented each with a Bible, in- tended as a rebuke to Beecher. Buford originally intended to have his men go armed, but gave up the plan in deference to President Pierce's proclamation of the previous Februan,'.^ Each man carried only a revolver and a bowie-knife. The expedition reached Kansas late in April ; and, under the pro-slavery administration of Shannon. Buford's men were promptly enrolled as members of the Kansas militia, armed, and paid from the territorial treasury." Companies formed in Missouri were equipped in like manner from the Kansas armory. It was these troops that sacked Lawrence and later estab- lished themselves at Franklin, Fort Saunders, Hickory Point, and Bull Creek. During August and September they were driven from these fortified stations by armed free-state bands. But the arms issued to the Buford and Missouri companies were never returned. Geary seems to have suspected as much and called on Cramer, in- spector-general, to report the disposition of territorial arms; the awkward position of the inspector is seen from his report, dated Lecompton, K. T., October 2, 1856, of which a portion reads :'' As I have stated to your Excellency a short time since, the arms were received here upon the eve of an outbreak, and were furnished the different corps of the militia in a hurried and informal manner, and the captains of the different companies never appeared at my office to give bond according to law. . . . A large portion of the arms issued to the militia have been captured by the insurgents, though what number I have not been able to ascer- tain. . . . Hoping the above may be satisfactory under the present circum- stances, I respectfully submit it. Thomas J. B. Cramer, Inspector General, Kansas Militia. His Excellency John W. Geary. A tabulation of the arms furnished to free-state settlers in ■Kansas, so far as can be ascertained, is as follows : ' Walter L. Flcminp;, " The Buford Expedition to Kansas ", Transactions of the Alabama Historical Society, IV. 174-175. "-Ibid., 182-183. " Transactions of the Kansas Historical Society, IV. 592.