Named Entity Results, Prairie City (Illinois, United States)

armed; but their pistols were in their belts. I inquired of them the way to Prairie City; one, in giving directions, tried to ride outside of me. It was no time, I fce; and then, they having separated, I halted until both were out of sight. Prairie City, according to their directions, was to be reached by an Indian trail, which not till then, the horses were discovered and returned. I walked over to Prairie City,--a municipality which consisted of two log cabins and a well,--and from ther, of the approach and supposed design of the Federal troops. I remained in Prairie City several days, to ascertain and describe the condition of the country. I ffreemen. arrest as A horse Thief. On the afternoon of my first day at Prairie City, I was sitting reading a book at the door of the cabin, when, unexpectedly, s situated on the southern side of a creek, which is two or three miles from Prairie City. I was advised to seek the cabin of Captain Carpenter; and there, where arm

ned soon to meet as foes. Mr. Pate set out from Westport, Missouri, about the end of May, with the avowed intention of arresting Old Brown, whom the pro-slavery men had charged with the slaughter of the ruffians of Pottawattomie, and for whom already they had a salutary and daily increasing dread. His only fear, he said, was, that he might not find him! Captain Pate's achievements, from the day he left Westport until Old Moore, the minister, started for Missouri, with my letters from Prairie City, are thus narrated by my friend, Mr. Phillips, in his Conquest of Kansas:-- While near Ossawatomie, he contrived to seize two of the old man's sons-Captain John Brown, Jr., and Mr. Jason Brown. These were taken while quietly engaged in their avocations. Captain Brown, Jr., had been up with his company at Lawrence, immediately after the sacking of the place, and at the time the men at Pottawattomie were killed. He had returned home when he saw he could not aid Lawrence, and quietly

w additions and corrections only. A Sabbath gathering. After dinner on Sunday, Pate's men wanted to go over to Prairie City and plunder it. Fancying that it would be easily taken, and that no resistance would be offered, six of Pate's men started on the expedition. At the time this party approached Prairie City, the people of that place and vicinity were congregated in the house of Dr. Graham to hear preaching, the doctor himself being a prisoner in the camp at Black Jack. They could we; but their search was unsuccessful. As the gray dawn of Monday morning, June 2d, glimmered in, they had returned to Prairie City, when two scouts brought the tidings that the enemy was encamped on Black Jack, some four or five miles off. A small pd the four prisoners, and the remainder immediately took up their line of march for the enemy. Of those who thus left Prairie City, Captain Shore's company numbered twenty men, himself included; and Captain Brown had nine men besides himself. They

A Sabbath gathering. After dinner on Sunday, Pate's men wanted to go over to Prairie City and plunder it. Fancying that it would be easily taken, and that no resistance would be offered, six of Pate's men started on the expedition. At the time this party approached Prairie City, the people of that place and vicinity were congregated in the house of Dr. Graham to hear preaching, the doctor himself being a prisoner in the camp at Black Jack. They could watch as well as pray, however. TherePrairie City, the people of that place and vicinity were congregated in the house of Dr. Graham to hear preaching, the doctor himself being a prisoner in the camp at Black Jack. They could watch as well as pray, however. There were some twenty men present, and most of them, after the old Revolutionary pattern, had gone to church with their guns on their shoulders. It was one of those primitive meetings, which may often be found in the West, with the slight addition of its military aspects: simple and unostentatious garb; easy and primitive manners; a log house, the ribbed timbers of which gave a rough-cast look to the simple scene, with here and there the heavy octagon barrel of a long Western rifle, or the smooth

search for Pate. Through the whole of that Sunday night did Captain Brown and Shore's united company hunt for Captain Pate; but their search was unsuccessful. As the gray dawn of Monday morning, June 2d, glimmered in, they had returned to Prairie City, when two scouts brought the tidings that the enemy was encamped on Black Jack, some four or five miles off. A small party was left to. guard the four prisoners, and the remainder immediately took up their line of march for the enemy. Of those who thus left Prairie City, Captain Shore's company numbered twenty men, himself included; and Captain Brown had nine men besides himself. They rode towards the Black Jack. Arrived within a mile of it, they left their horses, and two of their men to guard them. They despatched two other messengers to distant points for additional assistance, if it should be needed. The remainder,twenty-six men, all told,--in two divisions, each captain having his own men, marched quietly forward on the en

urdered seven Free State men, not one of whom was armed, when they were taken prisoners by the invading forces. Mr. Cantroll was murdered by a ruffian named Forman, one of Captain Pate's men, who was wounded at Black Jack, carefully nursed at Prairie City, and dismissed by his captors uninjured. Of such were the Southern companies. The Captain of the dragoons, when near Prairie City, heard that Old John Brown was in the neighborhood, and sent a messenger to him, requesting to have an intervPrairie City, heard that Old John Brown was in the neighborhood, and sent a messenger to him, requesting to have an interview. The old man came in response to the call, and voluntarily offered to give up his prisoners, in order that they might be tried for their highway robberies. But the dragoons insisted that they should be unconditionally surrendered; as, whatever their offences might be, there was no warrant out against them; and to receive them as prisoners, as the old man proposed, would be tacitly to admit that civil war existed, which, as a Federal officer, he could not acknowledge. John Brown had volu

ed about the head, and with his throat partly cut, after he had been dragged, sick, from the house of Ottawa Jones, and thrown over the bank of the Ottawa Creek for dead. About the first of September, I, and five sick and wounded sons, and a son-in-law, were obliged to lie on the ground, without shelter, for a considerable time, and at times almost in a state of starvation, and dependent on the charity of the Christian Indian I have before named, and his wife. I saw Dr. Graham, of Prairie City, who was a prisoner with the ruffians on the 2d of June, and was present when they wounded him, in an attempt to kill him, s he was trying to save himself from being murdered by them during the fight at Black Jack. I know that numerous other persons, whose names I cannot now remember, suffered like hardships and exposures to those I have mentioned. I know well that on or about the 14th of September, 1856, a large force of Missourians and other ruffians, said by Governor Geary to be