"But I Can Fire a Pistol"

Gene Campbell's January 4, 1859, letter to James Montgomery expressed the hatred, ill will, and personal anguish that marked Bleeding Kansas after the violence at this site killed her fiancé, pro-slaver John Little. At daybreak on December 16, 1858, about 100 heavily armed free-staters entered Fort Scott to free a companion jailed in the Free State Hotel. They gathered hostages in front of the hotel, shots broke out, and a bullet pierced John Little's skull as he looked from the window above the door of his father's store. Such violence, carried out by both free-staters and pro-slavers, symbolized the division of a nation soon to go to war. James Montgomery, an ardent free-stater, led the Fort Scott raid after fellow abolitionist John Brown declined to take part.

Fort Scott, Kansas · United States