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General Lane, Louisa told me, was utterly convinced that the Missourians were poised to attack, and a few days after the incident in Leavenworth, he wrote two letters to President Pierce himself. Though they were over the signatures of both General Lane and Governor Robinson, they sounded much more like Lane, the hotheaded one, than Robinson, who was always advising patience. At any rate, I was alarmed: one letter said that we had authentic information that an attack was imminent, and the other that the Missourians had artillery to use against us (and both said that they planned to "butcher" the Free Staters of Kansas). Copies of the letters, or papers people said were copies, got passed around all over Lawrence, and I won’t say that everyone thought the Missourians were either massed or poised to attack. Owing to his recent experience, my husband thought they were ready to do anything but only "poised" to take advantage of any situation that might offer itself for the many to waylay the few. Thomas and Louisa, in fact, had a small debate about this very subject a few days after the letters were carried off to Washington.

"If we think in military terms," said Thomas, "we’ll get it all wrong. However much they call themselves captains and lieutenants, they are but bullies, and they think as bullies think. We’ve the arms and the men to handle them."

"The Missourians are but a portion of the forces arraying themselves at the border, and rapidly getting to be the smaller portion. Real military men from all over the south are ready to stir this pot and see what bubbles to the surface, if you ask me," said Louisa, with a sip of her tea (tea was plentiful and hot every night). "General Lane hears from his sources that slave-power newspapers are filled with advertisements for regiments of soldiers."

"Bands of emigrants—"

"Bands of armed emigrants, with no women, no children, no plows or sickles or seed."

Thomas ostentatiously pulled his shawl more closely about his shoulders and chuckled. "I hope they get here soon, because they will surely get a surprise if they do."

Charles interposed. ’’Anyway, we’ve elected our officials. Jim Lane says they have to comport themselves like elected officials now, or we an’t got a chance. I think calling for troops to protect us is an excellent strategy. Puts us in the right but shows them we know our way around these things."

"We are already in the wrong, according to them. I don’t know if there is any strategy that will put us in the right," said Thomas. ’’And another thing here is that we’re talking up these Ruffians as if they know what they’re doing. Didn’t we just finish a war, so called? Weren’t you a prisoner, so called? And what did you do? Why, you held up a blanket so the fire wouldn’t go out, while they drank themselves silly and gambled themselves poor. When we write to the President in these terms like ’butcher’ and ’artillery,’ we’re convincing ourselves to be scared off, and we forget what we already know."

"It could have easily been worse," said Charles.

"I do not believe that," said Thomas.

"However it was," said Louisa, "they may learn their lesson like anyone else. If we count on them remaining ignoramuses, then we are the fools. According to General Lane—and he told me these things himself—we are sitting here in the cold thinking all of these matters are far away, but the United States is getting ready to settle them and settle them quickly."

I said, "Frankly, speaking of the cold, how can they have slaves here? Cold like this would be death to slaves. It’s practically death to us, and the Indians can hardly abide it, either."

"I’d like to see them bring a few slaves into this cold," said Louisa. "You don’t give a child a little open-necked shirt and send him barefoot into this weather. They’d soon have to dress those slaves like men and feed them properly, and then they might learn something!"

In general, this is a fair example of how the talk went in the weeks following the letters to President Pierce.