380 
KANSAS. 
# # # j!< u }y e are j n a constant state of excitement here 
( Platte city). The ‘ border ruffians 5 have access to my room day 
and night. The very air is full of rumors. We wish to keep 
ourselves right before the world, and we are provoked and aggra¬ 
vated beyond sufferance. Our persons and property are not for a 
moment safe; and yet we are forbid, by the respect we owe our 
friends elsewhere, by respect for the cause in which we are engaged, 
to forbear. This state of things cannot last. You are authorized, 
to publish the whole or a part of what I have written; but if 
Georgia intends to do anything, or can do anything for us, let it 
be done speedily ! 
“ Let your young men come forth to Missouri and Kansas. Let 
them come well armed, with money enough to support them for 
twelve months, and determined to see this thing out! One hun¬ 
dred true men will be an acquisition. The more the better. I do 
not see how we are to avoid civil war; come it will. Twelve 
months will not elapse before war — civil war of the fiercest kind — 
will be upon us. We are arming and preparing for it. Indeed, 
we of the border counties are prepared. We must have the sup¬ 
port of the South. We are fighting the battles of the South. Our 
institutions are at stake. You far southern men are now out of 
the nave of the war, but, if we fail, it will reach your own doors, 
perhaps your hearths. We want men, armed men. We want 
money — not for ourselves, but to support our friends who may 
come from a distance. I have now in this house two gallant young 
men from Charleston, S. C. They are citizens of Kansas, and will 
remain so until her destiny is fixed. 
“ Let your young men come on in squads as fast as they can be 
raised, well armed. We want none but true men. Yours truly, 
“ D. R. Atchison. 
“ P. S. — I would not be astonished if this day laid the ground¬ 
work for a guerilla war in Kansas. I have heard of rumors of 
strife and battle at Leavenworth, seven miles from this place, but 
the ice is running in the Missouri river, and I have nothing defi¬ 
nite. I was a peace-maker in the difficulty lately settled by Gov. 
Shannon. I counselled the ‘ruffians’to forbearance, but I will 
never again counsel peace. D. Id. A.” 
