ng and print, and borne by the secretary and
the adjutant-general of the Territory, would suffice to send them
back at once to their own borders, and he returned to Lecompton to
take up his thorny duties of administration. Though forewarned by
ex-Governor Shannon and by General Smith, Governor Geary did not yet
realize the temper and purpose of either the cabal conspirators or
the Border-Ruffian rank and file. He had just dispatched a military
force in another direction to intercept and disarm a raid about to be
made by a detachment of Lane's men, when news came to him that the
Missourians were still moving upon Lawrence, in increased force, that
his officers had not yet delivered his orders, and that skirmishing
had begun between the outposts.

[Sidenote] D.W. Wilder, "Annals of Kansas," p. 108. Gihon, p. 152.

Menaced thus with dishonor on one side and contempt on the other, he
gathered all his available Federal troops, and hurrying forward posted
them between Lawrence and the invaders. Then he went to the Missouri
camp, where the true condition of affairs began to dawn upon him. All
the Border-Ruffian chiefs were there, headed by Atchison in person,
who was evidently the controlling spirit, though a member of the
Legislature of the State of Missouri, named Reid, exercised nominal
command. He found his orders unheeded and on every hand mutterings of
impatience and threats of defiance. These invading aliens had not the
least disposition to receive commands as Kansas militia; they invoked
that name only as a cloak to shield them from the legal penalties due
their real character as organized banditti.

The Governor called the chiefs together and made them an earnest
harangue. He explained to them his conciliatory policy, read his
instructions from Washington, affirmed his determination to keep peace,
and appealed personally to Atchison to aid him in enforcing law and
preserving order. That wily chief, seeing that refusal would put him in
the attitude of a law-breaker, feigned a ready compliance, and he and
Reid, his factotum commander, made eloquent speeches "calculated to
produce submission to the legal demands made upon them."[14] Some of
the lesser captains, however, were mutinous, and treated the Governor
to choice bits of Border-Ruffian rhetoric. Law and violence vibrated in
uncertain balance, when Colonel Cooke, commanding the Federal troops,
took the floor and cut the knot of discussion in a summary way. "I fe