34th Cong.
Vol.II., pp.

156-9.
The rejoicing of the free-State men over this not too brilliant victory was short-lived.

Returning home in separate squads, they were successively intercepted by the Federal dragoons acting as a posse to the Deputy United States Marshal,[16] who arrested them on civil writs obtained in haste by an active member of the territorial cabal, and to the number of eighty-nine[17] were taken prisoners to Lecompton.

So far the affair had been of such frequent occurrence as to have become commonplace--a frontier "free fight," as they themselves described and regarded it.

But now it took on a remarkable aspect.