Part of the struggle to make Kansas a free state, this fight followed a chain of escalating violence in eighteen fifty-six. In May, Proslavery men destroyed buildings and newspaper presses in Lawrence, the Free-State headquarters. John Brown's company then killed five Proslavery men on Pottawatomie Creek not far from here. In retaliation, Henry C. Pate raided nearby Palmyra and took three prisoners. Early on the morning of June 2, Brown attacked Pate's camp in a grove of black jack oaks about one-quarter mile south of this location. Both sides suffered several wounded and numerous desertions before Pate and twenty-eight men surrendered, with Brown claiming he had only fifteen men left. As evidence of civil war, the fight received much publicity and excited both the North and the South.