The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [182]
Back at the newspaper office, I sat quietly at a desk and wrote my article. From time to time, I referred for stylistic models to the copies of old papers that were lying about in stacks. My article ran as follows:
As our friends are aware, our struggle against the thieves and murderers of the so-called Free State party takes many forms. Though most southern-rights sympathizers are good law-and-order men (however their patience is tried by the creeping slowness of the judiciary in Kansas), extreme elements do and must exist, for the sentiments of active and loyal southerners must have their outlet. Everyone knows that vigilance committees, who would seize the law and make righteousness their own, are frequently proposed by even the soberest men, whose patience has been sorely tried by the devilish antics of the so-called Free State party. Few should be surprised, then, that certain small groups of men, young men, have formed themselves around the territory and that they are only waiting for the opportunity of making a name for themselves.
Your correspondent, himself a young man, went out recently and beat the countryside in search of one of these elusive bands, in order to bring you news of their doings and of the sort of lives these young soldiers of the southern cause have been leading. We are not aware that any news of these young men has been printed in any other newspaper in the territory, and so all of their doings have the added interest of mystery.
I found five men, I will not say where, I will not say how, except to remark that their neighbors knew them, and were grateful for the protection their presence in the neighborhood afforded. I understood that a sixth was away from the camp on a provisioning expedition. Of the five present, Captain Joseph Mabee was clearly in command. Captain Mabee is a tall son of the deep south, Louisiana to be precise. Both circumstance and conviction brought him to our area—the circumstance being employment on a riverboat, the conviction being loyalty to honorable southern principles of freedom under the law. A fine horseman, Captain Mabee was especially grieved at the recent loss of his lovely mare to a ball from the gun of an abolitionist thief. He averred that he would most likely not be able to find or afford such a mount again, in spite of the excellent reputation of horseflesh in our area.
The other four members of the party shall remain nameless, in accordance with the demands of their chosen field of battle. Suffice it to say that of these men and boys (two were not above eighteen years old), two were native Missourians, one was a son of our sister state to the south, Arkansas, and one, a native Ohioan, came over to the pro-southern side because he was so disgusted with the deeds of the so-called Free State party. He said to me, "They call themselves Americans, but I don’t see it." None of these young soldiers could be said to be possessed of an education, but all have a rough eloquence as they discuss their adventures so far.
The group has been together since the Pottawatomie massacre in Kansas Territory, which all men know took place in May, shortly after the successful campaign of our forces against the abolitionist hellhole of Lawrence. These honorable young men were so outraged by those Pottawatomie murders that they felt they could not live without acting against the sort of criminals and madmen that were coming into the territory from the northern states. They therefore left their happy homes, much to the distress of each of their mothers, knowing that perhaps they would not soon see their families again but that the cause was a just