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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.
Finally, the Border Ruffians charged, and Brown's forces were forced into a retreat through the woods and back across a river. [1] Five of the Free-Staters were killed, including Frederick Brown, with several others wounded. The pro-slavery forces, instead of trying to catch Brown's men, then felt free to turn their attention to the town itself.
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.
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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 .
Description: Border ruffians marching on Lawrence, Kansas Territory, from: J. N. Holloway. History of Kansas: From the first exploration of the Mississippi valley, to its admission into the Union: embracing a concise sketch of Louisiana; American slavery, and its onward march; the conflict of free and slave labor in the settlement of Kansas, and the overthrow of the latter, with all other ...
The rejection of the Lecompton Constitution, and the subsequent admittance of Kansas to the Union as a free state, highlighted the irregular and fraudulent voting practices that had marked earlier efforts by bushwhackers and border ruffians to create a state constitution in Kansas that allowed slavery.