Kansas settlers from Maine, the Middle West and Canada, trained in guerrilla warfare under Brown and Montgomery and thoroughly disliking the slave system which they had seen. They were personal admirers of Brown and lovers of adventure. The last recruit, Merriam, was a New England aristocrat turned crusader, fighting the world's ills blindly but devotedly. The Negro Lewis Hayden met him in Boston, "and, after a few words, said, 'I want five hundred dollars and must have it.' Merriam, startled at the manner of the request, replied, 'If you have a good cause, you shall have it' Hayden then told Merriam briefly what he had learned from John Brown, Jr.: that Captain Brown was at Chambersburg, or could be heard of there; that he was preparing to lead a party of liberators into Virginia, and that he needed money; to which Merriam replied: 'If you tell me John Brown is there, you can have my money and me along with it.'"[1]
These were the men—idealists, dreamers, soldiers and avengers, varying from the silent and thoughtful to the quick and impulsive; from the cold and bitter to the ignorant and faithful. They believed in God, in spirits, in fate, in liberty. To them the world was a wild, young unregulated thing, and they were born to set it right. It was a veritable band of crusaders, and while it had much of weakness and extravagance, it had nothing nasty or unclean. On the whole, they were an unusual set of men. Anne Brown who lived with them
- ↑ Sanborn in the Atlantic Monthly, Hinton, p. 570.
