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For a brochure on the Black Jack Battlefield and Nature Park click here
To access a map of the Battle of Black Jack titled Prelude to War, published
by the Lawrence Journal-World for the
150th anniversary of the Battle, click here
At dawn on June 2, 1856, the abolitionist John Brown led a Free-State militia in an attack on the
camp of a pro-slavery militia led by Henry Clay Pate that was encamped
along the Santa Fe Trail in southeastern Douglas County,
Kansas Territory.
Around 100 men fought an intense three hour battle that ended with Hentry
Clay Pate, the leader of the pro-slavery militia surrendering to Brown.
This action became known as the Battle of Black Jack.
Pate, a 24 year-old Virginia native, and his militia were in the field
to "get Old Brown" as a response to the
Pottawatomie Massacre on the night of May 24-25, 1856, for which Brown
was implicated.
They were using this as an opportunity to put pressure on Free-State partisans
in the area, Brown was attempting to stop Pate and his men from their anti-Free-State
activities, and to rescue two of his sons who had been captured by
the proslavery men.
Brown himself called the action "the first regular battle between Free-State and proslavery forces
in Kansas"
Previous "Bleeding Kansas" violence consisted of sackings, massacres, and other events in which a
more powerful group quickly overwhelmed smaller unarmed or non-resisting
groups and individuals.
The Battle of Black Jack was the first armed action in which two forces
of comparable strength and determination
fought in Kansas. It was the beginning of civil war combat in Kansas, where
a growing number of historians agree that
the American Civil War began.
The Battle of Black Jack is where John Brown began his armed war on slavery.
One local historian has called the Battle of Black Jack and Brown's raid
on Harpers Ferry the bookends of that war.
There are many direct connections between the battle and the raid.
Brown used the bowie knife he captured from Pate in the battle as the model for the 1,000 pikes that he took
to arm freed slaves at Harpers Ferry. J.E.B. Stuart, who was in the military detachment sent to force John Brown to release Pate and his men, was later at Harpers Ferry, and was able to identify the man leadng the raid as
the man he had met in Kansas in the aftermath of
The Battle of Black Jack.
Where it all began......
