The Battle of Black Jack

At dawn on June 2, 1856, on this site in Kansas Territory, the abolitionist John Brown, with co-commander Samuel Shore, led a free-state militia in an attack on the camp of a proslavery force led by Henry Clay Pate. Considered the first pitched battle between proslavery and antislavery groups, and by some the first battle of the Civil War, the clash grew out of the violent struggle known as Bleeding Kansas, after proslavery men sacked Lawrence, Brown's men killed several proslavery men in the Pottawatomie Massacre, and Pate came looking for Brown. Probably totaling around 90 to 100 men, the two sides fought intensely for several hours in the ravines and tall grass. No one was killed, and Pate, believing he was outnumbered and possibly surrounded, eventually surrendered to Brown.

Kansas · United States