~Black Jack Battlefield~

On May 21, 1856, pro-slavery forces attacked Lawrence, the center of Free-State activity in Kansas, destroying the offices of the Herald of Freedom newspaper and burning a number of buildings including the Free-State Hotel. Late in the month, John Brown learned that a pro-slavery militia lead by Henry C. Pate, who had participated in the sack of Lawrence, was searching the countryside, trying to find and capture him and his followers. On Sunday, June 1, Brown and eleven mounted men, including his sons Frederick, Owen, and Watson, and his son-in-law, Henry Thompson, arrived in Prairie City. There they met a group of Free-State men lead by Samuel T. Shore. The two groups united and the twenty-seven men moved out late that night under Brown's command on the trail of Pate.

Early on the morning of June 2, 1856, John Brown led the Free-State militia in an attack on Pate’s camp near the site of the town of Black Jack, approximately three miles east of present day Baldwin City. Fighting was reported to have occurred in a grove of black jack oaks along Black Jack Creek and on a hill covered with prairie grass. There are reports of men on both sides using ruts left by wagons moving along the Santa Fe Trail as makeshift trenches and rifle pits. After three hours of intense fighting, Pate and 28 of his men surrendered to Brown.

John Brown called this action "the first regular battle fought between Free-State and Pro-Slavery men in Kansas." Because it is the first recorded battle between two organized military forces on opposite sides of the slavery question in the United States, the Battle of Black Jack is regarded by many as the first battle of the Civil War.

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