John Brown and his men finally got the break they needed to make an advance on Henry Clay Pate and his band of pro-slavery guerillas. Anti-slavery guerillas captured six of Pate’s men as they rode into Prairie City, Kan. on June 1, 1856.
Pate and his men had come to Kansas from Missouri looking for Brown and his men. They had been terrorizing Kansas towns since their arrival. They had already captured two of Brown’s sons, John Brown, Jr. and Jason Brown. Brown wanted his sons back. Now, with the help of the six hostages, Brown knew for sure where to find Pate and his men.
“What followed was probably one of the most important events of American history,” said Brenda Day, head archivist at Baker University’s Old Castle Museum in Baldwin City. “This was the first time pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups armed themselves and battled.”
The site of the June 2, 1856 battle is known as Black Jack Battlefield. The battlefield sits about three miles east of Baldwin City. Cleanup efforts on the historic battlefield began recently to restore the park and encourage visitors. Day said she hopes the renovation of the park will help encourage people to learn more about the battle, and the history of the region.
Kerry Altenbernd, a member of the Black Jack Battlefield Trust, said Brown awoke at dawn and led his group of about 40 men to the campsite where they had learned Pate and his men were camping. Pate’s group numbered approximately 75.
Brown ordered one of his men to shoot all of Pate’s horses. This was a key to the victory for the anti-slavery forces. A signpost sits on the site of the battle showing visitors exactly where the horses stood when they were shot.
The skirmish lasted for three hours. Three were wounded during the battle and none were killed.
Altenbernd said a group of soldiers from Fort Leavenworth came down with orders to disarm the militia in the area. They ordered Brown and his men to let Pate and his men go. One of those men was J.E.B. “Jeb” Stuart, who went on to play a key role in the American Civil War. He would also be a key player in the incident at Harper’s Ferry that led to Brown’s death.
“This battle has significance because it happened before the start of the Civil War,” Altenbernd said. “But it was also marked the first time John Brown led a group into armed battle against pro-slavery forces. There had been other incidents in the area. But these were mostly either massacres or sackings. This time both sides were well-armed and came to fight over the issue of slavery.”
John Brown went on to become one of the icons of the Civil War era. He led numerous raids to free African American slaves and start them along the Underground Railroad to Canada. Pro-slavery fighters eventually caught and hanged Brown in Virginia in 1859 for attempting to put together a revolt led by an army of freed slaves. Altenbernd said Stuart, who knew Brown from their encounter at Black Jack, identified Brown at Harper’s Ferry, which exposed this seemingly minor incident as part of a larger scandal to sabotage the institution of slavery. Brown was a well-known abolitionist by this time, and his captors ordered him to be hung. Brown’s raids and execution played a significant role igniting the Civil War, Altenbernd said.
Scot Rogers is a senior studying history at Baker University and an archivist at the museum. Rogers said he thinks studying the local history is important because it puts things into context.
“There has always been a lot of focus on the metropolitan areas of the country,” Rogers said. “I think it is too easy to forget there is so much history that happened out here in the prairie. So much that had such a large impact on the shaping of this country into what we have today.”
Altenbernd said the Black Jack Battlefield Trust hopes fixing up the battle site would do just that by increasing the numbers of visitors to the park and providing educational resources at the site to teach visitors about the battle.
Signposts mark the spots where important events on the battlefield took place. The creek beds and ravines where the fighters took cover still meander through the field. Brochures and guided tours help bring the historic battle to life.
“It is really nothing more than an empty field with some signposts and an old house, there isn’t even a gate.” Rogers said. “But when you know the stories and the history, it becomes a completely different experience.”
Altenbernd said the old house on the site belonged to one of the fighters for John Brown, Robert Hall Pearson. Although he didn’t build the house until approximately 30 years after the battle, in the 1880s, the house is still an important part of the Black Jack Battlefield experience. It stayed in the Pearson family until 2003, when Friends of the Black Jack Battlefield and the Lawrence Preservation Alliance bought the house to preserve it.
“It really isn’t that there is something special about the house,” Altenbernd said. “It’s just that there aren’t many still standing.”
Rubbish and rusted farm machinery still occupy most of the house and the surrounding grounds. Volunteers have been giving their time to get the area cleaned up. Altenbernd said a lot of work remains before cleanup efforts on the site will be done. But with the help of the community, the site could become an important historical marker.
The Black Jack Battlefield is open for tours by appointment during the winter. Altenbernd said he is reluctant to guess how long it will take to get the battlefield finished.
“It will probably always be an ongoing thing,” Altenbernd said. “How fast it goes really depends on how much help we get from other sources.”
Altenbernd hopes a complete package for the site could be completed within five years or so. This package would include guided tours, nature trails, and interpreters to relate the story of the battle to visitors.