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Border ruffians also engaged in general violence against Free-State settlements. They burned farms and sometimes murdered Free-State men. Most notoriously, border ruffians twice attacked Lawrence, the Free-State capital of the Kansas Territory. On December 1, 1855, a small army of border ruffians laid siege to Lawrence, but were driven off.
G. Murlin Welch, a historian of the territorial period, described the Jayhawkers as bands of men that were willing to fight, kill, and rob for a variety of motives that included defense against pro-slavery "Border Ruffians", abolition, driving pro-slavery settlers from their claims of land, revenge, and/or plunder and personal profit.
After taking 11 local free-staters hostage from their homes and fields, the border ruffians forced them into a nearby ravine and began shooting at them. 10 of the men were hit by the fire, five of them fatally. The wife of one of the victims followed the border ruffians to the site, and attempted to give medical treatment to the wounded.
Almost immediately, tensions erupted into a full-blown border war waged mostly between civilians known as "Free-Staters", mostly from New England and other northeast states, and pro-slavery "Border ruffians" from Missouri. The question of whether Kansas Territory would become a slave state or a free state was far more than a question about ...
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Whereas, Certain judicial arrests have been directed to me by the First District Court of the United States, etc., to be executed within the county of Douglas, and whereas an attempt to execute them by the United States Deputy Marshal was evidently resisted by a large number of the people of Lawrence, and as there is every reason to believe that any attempt to execute these writs will be ...
Washington served as a Border Ruffian in a company under the command of Captain Henry Clay Pate. [ 28 ] [ 29 ] [ 30 ] On June 2, 1856, Washington and his company were attacked at their encampment near Baldwin City, Kansas by anti-slavery Free-Stater forces under the leadership of abolitionist John Brown .
Isley wrote of the Sharps rifle in 1907, saying, "The very name 'Sharps rifle' was to become a term to sober the border ruffian and give him serious pause. This breech-loading rifle was a new invention and extremely effective in comparison, the Missourian was poorly armed, carrying either a squirrel-knife, a heavy buffalo-gun, or a clumsy army ...