EXECUTIVE OFFICE, SHAWNEE MISSION, I have received a reply to my dispatch to Colonel Sumner informing me that he will be ready at a moment's warning to move with his whole force, if desired, as soon as orders are received from Washington. My telegraphic dispatch to the President has been sent through before this time, and I will receive in a short time, I have no doubt, the authority desired to call on the United States troops. Under these circumstances you will wait until I can get the desired orders from Washington before attempting to execute your writs. This will prevent any effusion of blood, and will have a moral influence which will prevent hereafter any resistance to the laws. When these lawless men find that the forces of the United States can be used to preserve order, they will not be so ready to put themselves in opposition. And, if necessary, steps will be taken to station an adequate force in that region to protect the people against lawless violence, and to insure the execution of the laws. You will retain a force adequate to protect you from violence and to guard your prisoner. Any force beyond this had better remain at a distance until it shall be ascertained whether their aid will or will not be needed. The known deficiency in the arms and all the accoutrements of war, which necessarily must characterize the law abiding citizens that have rushed to your assistance in the maintainance of law will invite resistance on the other side, who are well armed, and it is wrong to place these men in a position where their lives may be endangered, when we will, in all probability, have an ample force from the fort in a few days. Show this letter to Major General Richardson and General Easten, who, I am advised, have gone to your aid. They go to Lecompton, but will join you wherever you are. Their forces are small, and may be required for your protection until advices are received from Washington. I send you a letter to General Richardson, which you will please place in his hands at as early a day as practicable. I refer him to this letter to you for my views; you will let him see it. Let me know the number of warrants you have, and the names of the defendants. I will probably accompany Colonel Sumner's command. Yours, &c., Mr. JONES, Sheriff. WILSON SHANNON. CAMP OF WAKARUSA, December 4, 1855. SIR: Enclosed is a dispatch from General Richardson, and accompanied I have the honor to inform you that I was in Lawrence yesterday and found two hundred and fifty men under arms, and about six hundred men in the town willing to bear arms against the officers. In camp Wakarusa there is now about two hundred and fifty men under my command. Governor SHANNON. Yours, respectfully, H. J. STRICKLER. Commanding second division. HEADQUARTER'S FIRST CAVALRY, Fort Leavenworth, December 5, 1855-1 o'clock, a. m. GOVERNOR: I have just received your letter of yesterday, with the telegraphic dispatch from the President. I will march with my regiment in a few hours, and will meet you at the Delaware crossing, on the Kansas, this evening. With high respect, your obedient servant, His Excellency WILSON SHANNON. E. F. SUMNER, HEADQUARTERS FIRST CAVALRY, Fort Leavenworth, December 5, 1855. GOVERNOR: On more mature reflection I think it will not be proper for me to move before I receive the orders of the government. I shall be all ready whenever I get them. This decision will not delay our reaching the scene of difficulty, for I can move from this place to Lawrence as quickly (or nearly so) as I could from the Delaware crossing, and we could not of course go beyond that place without definitive orders. With high respect, your obedient servant, E. F. SUMNER, Colonel First Cavalry, commanding. His Excellency WILSON SHANNON. WAKARUSA, December 6, 1855. I send you this special dispatch to ask you to come to Lawrence as soon as you possibly can. My object is to secure the citizens of that place, as well as all others from a conflict of arms which, if once commenced, there is no telling where it will end. I doubt not but you have received orders from Washington, but if you have not, the absolute pressure of this crisis is such as to justify you, with the President and the world, in moving with your forces to the scene of difficulties. It is hard to restrain the men here. They are beyond my power of restraint, or, at least, soon may be, to prevent them from making an attack on Lawrence, which, if once made, there is no telling where it will end. The presence of a portion of the United States troops in Lawrence will prevent an attack, save bloodshed, and enable me to get matters arranged in a satisfactory way, and at the same time secure the execution of the law. It is peace, not war, that we want, and you have the power to secure peace. Time is precious fear not but you will be sustained. Be pleased to send me a dispatch. With great respect, Col. SUMNER. WILSON SHANNON. HEADQUARTERS FIRST CAVALRY, Fort Leavenworth, December 7, 1855. GOVERNOR I have received your two letters of the 5th and 6th instant. I regret extremely to disappoint you, but the more I reflect upon it the more I am convinced I ought not to interpose my command between the two hostile parties in this Territory, until I receive orders from the government. We know that the whole matter is now in the hands of the Executive, and it is an affair of too much importance for any one to anticipate the action of the government. I am momentarily expecting to receive orders, and whenever they come I shall move instantly, by night or by day. If you find those people bent on attacking the town, I would respectfully suggest that they might be induced to pause for a time on being told that the orders of the general government were expected every moment, and that there was no doubt but these orders, framed from an enlarged view of the whole difficulty, would give general satisfaction, and settle the matter honorably for both parties. I am, governor, with much respect, your obedient servant, E. F. SUMNER, Colonel First Cavalry, commanding. His Excellency WILSON SHANNON, CAMP WAKARUSA, December 8, 1855. SIR: Being fully satisfied that there will be no further resistance to the execution of the laws of this Territory, or to the service of any legal process in the county of Douglas, you are hereby ordered to cross the Kansas river to the north side, as near Lecompton as you may find it practicable with your command, and disband the same, at such time and place, and in such portions as you may deem most convenient. Yours, with great respect, Major General RICHARDSON. WILSON SHANNON. CAMP WAKARUSA, KANSAS TERRITORY, SIR: Being fully satisfied that there will be no further resistance to the execution of the laws of this Territory, or to the service of any legal process in the county of Douglas, you are hereby ordered to disband your command at such time and place as you may deem most convenient. Yours, with great respect, General STRICKLER. WILSON SHANNON. KANSAS TERRITORY, Camp Wakarusa, December 8, 1855. Having made satisfactory arrangements by which all legal process in your hands, either now or hereafter, may be served without the aid of your present posse, you are hereby required to disband the same. Yours, with great respect, S. J. JONES, Sheriff of Douglas County. WILSON SHANNON. LECOMPTON, KANSAS TERRITORY, DEAR SIR: I believe it to be essential to the peace and tranquillity of the Territory that the outlaws at Lawrence and elsewhere be required to surrender their Sharpe's rifles. There can be no security for the future safety of the lives and property of law-abiding citizens until these lawless men are at least deprived of their Sharpe's rifles, which we know have been furnished them for the purpose of resisting the laws. In fact, law-abiding citizens will be compelled to leave the Territory unless the outlaws are made to surrender their Sharpe's rifles and artillery, if they have any. I do not, however, feel authorized from your instructions to me to make this demand. Should you concur with me in opinion, please let me know by express at once. A new express had better be sent in lieu of the bearer of this, as he will be fatigued. I am diligently using every necessary precaution to prevent the effusion of blood and preserve the peace of the Territory. As the Sharpe's rifles may be regarded as private property by some, I can give a receipt for them, stating that they will be returned to their owners at the discretion of the governor. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, WM. P. RICHARDSON, His Excellency Governor WILSON SHANNON. CAMP CLARKE, December 3, 1855. DEAR SIR: I hasten to write you by our express, that is now on its way, (12 o'clock,) at night; my house is a fortification. I am compelled to keep a guard with sentinels all night. Unless the violators of the law are disarmed the country is ruined. If the troops should withdraw without this being done, a partisan war will continue. Murders, house-burnings, and all the outrages incident to civil war will follow; or we (the law-abiding men) will have to withdraw from the Territory, to our great pecuniary distress. The outlaws have marked our men, they keep their movements se cret, and we know not who is first to be attacked, or where it will be made. We have learned, from ample authority, that more than one hundred Sharp's rifles are distributed in this immediate neighborhood. My next-door neighbors have them in possession; and only two days ago ten armed men surrounded a member of my family with threatening language, and ended the interview with a threat to dispose of myself. We, the law-abiding men, appeal to you, and insist that nothing less than the surrender of the arms now held by the traitors can satisfy the country. They are in open rebellion. They have these arms for the special purpose of resisting the laws and avenging supposed injuries. With these arms in hand they have forcibly rescued prisoners from the hands of officers. They threaten to rescue others. They are protecting men who have broken custody, and in every sense they are traitors, and giving aid and comfort to traitors. In haste, your friend and obedient servant, Governor WILSON SHANNON, Shawnee Mission. GEORGE W. CLARKE. N. B. I commend my family to your protection. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Territory of Kansas: Be it remembered, that on the 7th day of December, A. D. 1855, personally came before me S. G. Cato, one of the associate justices of the supreme court of the Territory of Kansas, Samuel J. Jones, sheriff of the county of Douglas, and Territory aforesaid, of lawful age, who being by me duly sworn, deposeth and saith that on the 26th day of November, A. D. 1855, he received from the hands of Hugh Cameron, a legally appointed justice of the peace for said county of Douglas, a peace warrant issued by said justice of the peace and to him directed as sheriff-obtained upon the oath of one H. W. Buckley, against one Jacob Branson, and immediately after receiving said warrant he summoned a posse of ten men and proceeded to the house of said Branson and made the arrest, and on his return he and his posse were met by a mob of some forty men, armed with Sharp's rifles, who forcibly rescued the prisoner out of his hands, and defied his recapture, swearing at the same time that they recognized no law in the Territory, or no officers from the governor to the lowest officer, and relied only upon their rifles as the law of the land, and would at all times defend themselves from being arrested by any process issued by any officer of the said Territory. That he immediately made requisition on Gov. Wilson Shannon for a sufficient force to enable him to arrest the said Jacob Branson, and execute other process in his hands as sheriff of said county; that the said Jacob Branson was taken into the town of Lawrence, in said county, and there, as he verily believes, as he was informed by good authority, tried and acquitted by the citizens of the said town without any legal investigation; that a mob of some fifteen or twenty threatened to tar and feather and inflict other punishment |