avoid this fatal scrutiny on the part of the railroad official, I had arranged with Isaac Rolls, a hackman, to bring my baggage to the train just on the moment of starting, and jumped upon the car myself when the train was already in motion. Had I gone into the station and offered to purchase a ticket, I should have been instantly and carefully examined, and undoubtedly arrested.... In my clothing I was rigged out in sailor style. I had on a red shirt and a tarpaulin hat and black cravat, tied in sailor fashion, carelessly and loosely about my neck. My knowledge of ships and sailors' talk came much to my assistance, for I knew a ship from stem to stern and from keelson to cross-trees, and could talk sailor like an "old salt." On sped the train, and I was well on the way to Havre de Grace before the conductor came into the negro car to collect tickets and examine the papers of his black passengers. My whole future depended upon the decision of this conductor. . . . "I suppose you have your free papers?" [he observed]. To which I answered: "No, sir; I never carry my free papers to sea with me." But you have something to show that you are a free man, have you not?” "Yes, sir," I answered; I have a paper with the American eagle on it, that will carry me round the world." With this I drew from my deep sailor's pocket my seaman's protection, as before described. The merest glance at the paper satisfied him, and he took my fare and went on about his business.... Though much relieved, I realized that I was still in great danger: I was still in Maryland and subject to arrest at any moment. I saw on the train several persons who would have known me in any other clothes, and I feared they might recognize me, even in my sailor's "rig," and report me to the conductor. . . ... Though I was not a murderer fleeing from justice, I felt, perhaps, quite as miserable as such a criminal.... Minutes were hours, and hours were days during this part of my flight. After Maryland I was to pass through Delaware-another slave State, where slave catchers generally awaited their prey.... The border lines between slavery and freedom were the dangerous ones for the fugitives. The heart of no fox or deer, with hungry hounds on his trail in full chase, could have beaten more anxiously or noisily than mine did from the time I left Baltimore till I reached Philadelphia.... A German blacksmith, whom I knew very well, was on the train with me, and looked at me very intently [on the ferry over the Susquehanna River]. I really believe he knew me, but had no heart to betray me. At any rate, he saw me escaping and held his peace. The last point of imminent danger, and the one I dreaded most, was Wilmington. Here we left the train, and took the steamboat for Philadelphia. In making the change I again apprehended arrest, but no one disturbed me, and I was soon on the broad and beautiful Delaware, speeding away to the Quaker City. On reaching Philadelphia in the afternoon I inquired of a colored man how I could get on to New York. He directed me to the Willow St. depot, and thither I went, taking the train that night. I reached New York Tuesday morning, having completed the journey in less than twenty-four hours. Such is briefly the manner of my escape from slavery — and the end of my experience as a slave. Other chapters will tell the story of my life as a freeman. " " On the afternoon of December 4, 1855, the newsboys 85. The on Broadway were hawking an "extra" of the New York Herald, on the "Great War in Kansas." CALL FROM THE GOVERNOR FOR UNITED By Telegraph Accounts from Kansas state that Governor Shannon has telegraphed to the President concerning the present condition of affairs in that Territory. He says that one thousand men have arrived in Lawrence, and rescued a prisoner from the sheriff of Douglas County, and burned some houses and other property. He asks the President to order out the troops at Fort Leavenworth to aid in the execution of the laws. Douglas Brewerton, an old companion of Kit Carson on his Rocky Mountain travels, bought a copy of the "extra," Bogus Legislature" of Kansas, 1855 [389] read the dispatch, and hastened to the Herald office to offer his services as special correspondent from Kansas. Arrived on the scene, Brewerton secured the following account of the origin of the disorder from James Christian, a moderate proslavery man from Kentucky, who was filling a county clerkship in the territory. The true cause of these Kansas troubles was not an arrest by the Sheriff under the Territorial law; it had its origin far back in the halls of Congress, when the Nebraska and Kansas bills were passed, when the Missouri Compromise was declared null and void, and ultra men boasted in our Legislative Assemblies, that if they could not defeat these bills in one way they would in another, and returned to their homes to organize" Emigrant Aid Societies" and "Kansas Leagues," with the avowed intention of defeating the Kansas Bill, by Abolitionizing the Territory. This was the first wrong, and it aroused the indignation of the "Fire Eaters" of Western Missouri. . . . When the first election in Kansas [for delegate] came on [November, 1854], these gentlemen called out the pro-slavery forces and marched their men into our Territory to cast their votes for Whitfield. This was done to counteract the influence of the Boston Aid Societies and Kansas Leagues, already alluded to. This might have been all well or ill enough, if the evil had stopped here, as the Free Soilers, when they came in, ruled it with a high hand; in many instances treating the Pro-Slavery and Western settlers with the grossest injustice, by driving them from their improvements, or cutting their timber before their eyes, at the same time bidding them defiance, as they [the Yankees] " had the power and meant to take the country." This it was that prompted the Pro-Slavery and Western men to seek protection from their friends in Missouri, who, to do them justice, were as zealous in giving assistance as they were prompt to ask it. Things were in this condition when the spring elections came on for members of the Council and House of Representatives. This took place on the 30th of March, 1855, and the people of Missouri, delighted with their success at the fall election, came in with renewed vigor to the Kansas ballot-boxes, bringing with them an ample supply of their favorite institutions bowie-knives, pistols, and whisky to the great terror of the Yankees. Upon the morning of the 30th of March, a clear sunshiny day, the voters of Lawrence District began assembling about the door of the polls, which was held in a small log shanty, situated upon the outskirts of the city of Lawrence. In the meantime, the invading army of Missouri voters, who had arrived the day before, to the number of some eight or nine hundred men, were encamped in the vicinity of the polls. At 9 A.M., the hour appointed for the opening of the polls, the Missourians, well armed, walked down to the one-horse shanty, before alluded to. Their leader Young then took the oath required by the judges of election. To avoid the rush, and prevent unnecessary crowding, the Missourians then formed a line some hundred yards in length on either side of the shanty window, in which the voters were to deposit their ballots. Through this alley-way the voters passed in; but as the living stream was for some time continuous, and a retreat through the lane impossible, it became necessary to adopt some plan by which to get rid of the voter after he had been polled. This was no easy matter; but, as a happy expedient, it was at length determined to hoist each polled man upon the roof of the shanty, where he seized hold of the shingles and thus assisted himself over until he had gained the other side, from whence a second jump brought him in safety to the ground, leaving him at liberty to supply the place of some friend who had not yet voted. Thus the vote polled in the Lawrence District was upward of one thousand, of which two hundred and twenty-five were Free Soil and the balance Pro-Slavery. . . . This Legislature-styled Bogus, by the Free-Soil partymet, in accordance with the Governor's proclamation, at Pawnee, a paper city on the extreme verge of civilization, with no house to shelter them from the inclemency of the weather. I was present, and shall never forget the first meeting of the Kansas Legislature; it was a most novel sight to see grave councilmen and brilliant orators of the House of Representatives cooking their food by the side of a log, or sleeping on a buffalo-robe in the open air, with the broad canopy of heaven for a covering. During the meeting of the Legislature at Pawnee, we had several severe showers, and it was amusing enough to behold these Romuluses of Kansas, as they scampered, with their beds upon their backs—like an Irish pedlar — to some new houses which boasted neither window nor door, and kept out but illy the pelting storm. There were but two things in abundance at Pawnee rocky mounds and highly rectified whisky. Being fairly drowned out, the Legislature finally adjourned to Shawnee Mission, whereupon the Governor vetoed the Bill: this was the final rupture between the Governor and the Legislature; then came the tug of war. Both parties from this moment broke out into open hostility. The Governor and his Free-Soil friends repudiated the Legislature and its acts, and bid defiance to both; they spoke of it as the Missouri Bogus Legislation. The Legislature, on their part, were not slow to retaliate; they racked their ingenuity to insult and aggravate the Free-Soil party, and if possible widen the breach between the two contending factions, for I can scarcely dignify with the name of party those who condescend to such a petty warfare as exists between the Kansas agitators. The Legislature, in the first place, memorialized President Pierce to remove Governor Reeder, which was done. . . . They then attempted to padlock the mouths of the Free-Soilers by preventing their expressing an opinion as to the right of individuals to hold slaves in Kansas Territory. Their next move was to appoint officers to put this padlock on, or in other words, to execute their laws, and as most of the members lived in Missouri, it was no very singular thing that they had friends to reward in that State, who were patriotic enough to move into Kansas" if they could get an office there; this several of them did, and accordingly came into the Territory with their commissions in their pockets. In due time the Legislature closed this, their labor of love, and returned to the bosom of their families, with their well earned pay in their pockets, with which to improve their farms in Jackson and other counties of Missouri. . . . Colonel John Scott, city attorney of St. Joseph, Missouri, was one of the "invaders" of Kansas. He voted at the |