e next day the citizens of Lawrence had
the opportunity to smother their indignation when they saw the embers
of the Free-State Hotel and the scattered fragments of their
printing-presses patrolled and "protected" by the Federal dragoons
whose presence they had vainly implored a few days before. It was time
the Governor should move. The guerrilla bands with their booty spread
over the country, and the free-State men rose in a spirit of fierce
retaliation. Assassinations, house-burnings, expulsions, and
skirmishes broke out in all quarters. The sudden shower of lawlessness
fell on the just and the unjust; and, forced at last to deal out equal
protection, the Governor (June 4) issued his proclamation directing
military organizations to disperse, "without regard to party names, or
distinctions,"[1] and empowering Colonel Sumner to enforce the order.

[Sidenote] Sumner to Cooper, June 23, 1856. Ibid., p. 50.

[Sidenote] Sumner to Cooper, August 11, 1856. Ibid., p. 59.

That careful and discreet officer, who had from the first counseled
this policy, at once proceeded to execute the command with his
characteristic energy. He disarmed and dispersed the free-State
guerrillas,--John Brown's among the earliest,--liberated prisoners,
drove the Missourians, including delegate Whitfield and General Coffee
of the skeleton militia, back across their State line, and stationed
five companies along the border to prevent their return. He was so
fortunate as to accomplish all this without bloodshed. "I do not
think," he wrote, June 23, "there is an armed body of either party now
in the Territory, with the exception perhaps of a few freebooters."
The colonel found very soon that he was only too efficient and
faithful. "My measures have necessarily borne hard against both
parties," wrote Sumner to the War Department, "for both have in many
instances been more or less wrong. The Missourians were perfectly
satisfied so long as the troops were employed exclusively against the
free-State party; but when they found that I would be strictly
impartial, that lawless mobs could no longer come from Missouri, and
that their interference with the affairs of Kansas was brought to an
end, then they immediately raised a hue and cry that they were
oppressed by the United States troops." The complaint had its usual
prompt effect at Washington. By orders dated June 27 the colonel was
superseded in his command, and Brigadier-General P.F. Smith was sent