The People.

Ever since the rendition of Anthony Burns, in Boston, I have been looking for men. I have found them in Kanzas. The virtue of courage (for although these two words originally meant the same thing, they have become separated now) has not died out of the Anglo-American race, as some have hastily supposed. It needs only circumstances to bring it out. A single day in Kanzas makes the American Revolution more intelligible than all Sparks or Hildreth can do. The same event is still in progress here.

I have always wondered whether, in the midst of war, tumult, and death, the same daily current of life went on, and men’s hearts accommodated themselves to the occasion. In heroic races, I now see that it is so. In Kanzas, nobody talks of courage, for every one is expected to exhibit it.

Take, for instance, the Sunday attack on Lawrence, a fortnight ago. The army which approached it consisted of 2,800 by the estimate here—3,000 by Governor Geary’s estimate, and 3,200 by the statement of The Missouri Republican, in a singular article, which described the capture of the town, although it never happened. This force was in sight the greater part of the day, and though Governor Geary’s aid was invoked, it was known that it could not arrive till evening; thus allowing time for the destruction of everything.

Against this force, the number at first counted upon was one hundred; that being the supposed number of fighting men left, after the arrest of the hundred about whom I wrote to you, as prisoners. To the surprise of all, however, more than two hundred rallied to the fort. The lame came on crutches, and the sick in blankets.

Two hundred men against fourteen times their number! And the fort a mere earthen redoubt, of no pretensions—for the only fort worth the name is on the hill above the town, and was at this time useless. And yet (here comes the point) I was assured by Governor Robinson and a dozen others, that among this devoted handful the highest spirits prevailed; they were laughing and joking as usual, and only intent on selling their lives as dearly as possible.

They had no regular commander, any more than at Bunker Hill; but the famous “Old Captain Brown” moved about among them, saying, “Fire low, boys; be sure to bring down your eye to the hinder sight of your rifle, and aim at the feet rather than the head.”

A few women were in the fort that day—all who could be armed. Others spent the whole Sunday making cartridges. I asked one of these how she felt: “Well, I can ’t remember that I felt any way different from usual,” answered the quiet housekeeper, after due reflection. So they all say. One young girl sat at her door, reading, a mile or so from the scene of action. “Once in a while I looked up,” she said, “when there was a louder shot than usual.”

The chief fighting was among skirmishers, and there was no actual attack on the fort. The newspapers have had the particulars before, and I only mention the affair to show the spirit of buoyant courage which almost universally prevails. It must be remembered, also, that even now these people are poorly armed, and still worse off for ammunition. On this occasion they had but a few rounds apiece.

Persons at the North who grudge their small subscriptions to Kanzas, should remember that a few dollars may sometimes save a thousand. Osawatamie was sacrificed, after one of the most heroic defences in history, for want of ammunition. Brown and twenty-seven others resisted two hundred, killing thirty-three and wounding forty-nine, (eighty-two in all, by the Pro-Slavery statement,) and then retreated through these, with the loss of but one man, shot as he was swimming the creek. A hundred dollars worth of ammunition would have prevented, on that occasion, the destruction of $60,000 worth of property.

I walked out yesterday to the scene of the last fight at Franklin, and heard the narrative from one of the Pro-Slavery men who had defended the fort. He said “he did n’t like those d—d Sharp’s rifles; did n’t mind the ball so much, but hated the whizzing of them”—just, I suppose, as the hum of a mosquito is more annoying than the bite. He said also: “As soon as they shoved up the wagon-load of hay, and set it on fire, we boys cried for quarter, and then we all ran.” I saw where the hay was taken from, a very exposed place, and where the door had been burned by it. He showed also the narrow space through which the defenders fired, and I observed that nearly all the rifle balls of the assailants went above it, the tendency of Sharp’s rifles in inexperienced hands. My Pro-Slavery friend dug out one of these for me, as a memorial.

Franklin was the place where the Free State men were charged with plundering the letters from the Post-Office. I suppose it will not have the smallest effect on the Democratic newspapers when I say that this young man, the postmaster’s son, entirely denied this story. He only charged them with stealing sixty dollars worth of stamps. But as the village of Franklin consists of less than a dozen houses, and as I have found it hard to buy a dollar’s worth of stamps at much larger places in this region, I must doubt the precise accuracy of these figures, and I told him so.

Since breaking up this den of thieves, the vicinity has been quiet, except when the noble army of two thousand eight hundred, on returning, burnt a large mill close by, on which the whole neighborhood depended for meal and lumber. It is not far from here to Blanton’s Bridge, which the Grand Jury declared a nuisance, because it gave aid and comfort to Free State men. I suppose that this mill was a nuisance for the same reason. The heaps of sawdust of the building were still in flames as I stood before them.

The owner of this mill was a Pennsylvanian, named Straub. We saw his daughter, a noble looking girl of 20, but rather unnecessarily saucy and spirited in her replies, I at first thought. Presently she said, with surprise, “Why, I thought you were Missourians, and I was resolved that you should hear the truth.” This was a piece of genuine Kanzas pluck, as it was a lonely place, and we were three to one. Afterward, we found that this girl had walked alone into the midst of the Missourians, while the house and mill were burning, and demanded her horse from one of them with such spirit that the others compelled him to dismount. She mounted it and rode away—he presently followed and attempted to get the halter from her hand. She held on. He took his bowie-knife and threatened to cut her hand off; she told him to do it if he dared; he cut the rope close to her hand, and led the horse away. She slipped off, and presently two of the man’s companions rode up and brought her the horse once more. A horse is worth more than a life in this region, and you can estimate the extent of such a triumph.

As for Lawrence, it has one of the most beautiful situations I ever looked upon. It stands on a bank above a bend in the river; across the river are miles of woods, while behind the town rise two beautiful hills, which are hills, and not merely the endless swells of rolling prairie of which my Eastern eyes have grown so tired. Indeed, this whole region far surpasses, in respect to hills and forest, both Iowa and Nebraska, and even Northern Kanzas, while the prairies are richer, and coal and stone are interspersed. Give it freedom, and a few years will make Kanzas the garden of America. This year the Missourians have almost ruined the corn; but never have I seen such luxuriance of melons, squashes, and pumpkins. I have seen some fine stock, too, on the more favored farms; but that kind of riches soon takes to itself legs, more dangerous, in the present state of Kanzas, than the proverbial wings.

Lawrence is three times as large as Topeka, and at present much more busy. It has, however, suffered much more from want of food. For instance, I have just talked with a man whom I knew at the East. “I came out here,” said he, “with $1,500 in money. I have served through the whole war. My wife and nine children have lived more than two weeks on green corn and squash. I have in my house no meat, no flour, no meal, no potatoes, no money to buy them, no prospect of a dollar; but I’ll live or die in Kanzas!”

Afterwards this man’s wife wrote to me in almost the same words.

Such is the spirit of multitudes, many of whom are as badly off as this man. There is the greatest generosity, and men share with each other while anything is left; but after that, what then?

The State Committee works with energy and system to relieve distress, and may be entirely relied upon, but its funds are also exhausted. The expense of sending emigrants, arms, and ammunition, through Iowa and Nebraska, has been so enormous, that but little has yet reached Kanzas in any other form; and the cost of supporting the army here has been also enormous—some $300 per day. At the very time when farm labor was most needed, all the able-bodied men have been obliged to live for weeks in camp, at the public expense—they themselves being the principal public.

This discourages and drives out the timid and lukewarm, and educates the remainder to endurance. People in Kanzas are like Indians—they eat what they can, and sleep where they can; and when they have no house and no food they wait awhile till something turns up. I can see that this state of things brings out some bad qualities, but far more good ones.

Last Sunday I preached in this place (though I must say that I am commonly known here by a title which is elsewhere considered incompatible with even the Church Militant.) It was quite an occasion; and I took for my text the one employed by the Rev. John Martin the Sunday after he fought at Bunker Hill—Neh. iv: 14; “Be not ye afraid of them; remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses.”

To-night I speak again, and leave to-morrow for Leavenworth, there to witness a Border Ruffian election, as there is to be no voting at Lawrence.