Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/189

Rh powder and lead and very precious time is wasted by shooting too high. You had better aim at their legs than at their heads. In either case, be sure of the hind sights of your guns. It is from this reason that I myself have so many times escaped; for if all the bullets which have ever been aimed at me had hit me, I would have been as full of holes as a riddle."

It was a desperate situation. The free state forces were scattered, leaving but a handful to face an army. But in that handful was John Brown, and the invaders knew it, and advanced cautiously. Redpath who was with Brown says: "About five o'clock in the afternoon, their advance-guard, consisting of four hundred horsemen, crossed the Wakarusa, and presented themselves in sight of the town, about two miles off, when they halted, and arrayed themselves for battle, fearing, perhaps, to come within too close range of Sharps rifle balls. Brown's movement now was a little on the offensive order; for he ordered out all the Sharps riflemen from every part of the town,—in all not more than forty or fifty,—marched them a half mile into the prairie, and arranged them three paces apart, in a line parallel with that of the enemy; and then they lay down upon their faces in the grass, awaiting the order to fire."

The invaders hesitated, halted and then retired. John Brown says: "I know of no possible reason why they did not