It is claimed by many that they were a wild, ignorant, fanatical or adventurous lot of rough men. _This is not so_, they were sons from good families, well trained by orthodox religious parents, too young to have settled views on many subjects, impulsive, generous, too good themselves to believe that God could possibly be the harsh unforgiving being He was at that day usually represented to be. Judging them by the rules laid down by Christ, I think they were uncommonly good and sincere Christians, if the term Christian means follower of Christ's example, and too great lovers of freedom to endure to be trammeled by church or creed.
No doubt the conduct of these free-booters, in the presence of the young women, at the Kennedy farm, was circumspect and commendable, and justified the estimate herein expressed of their exemplary characters, and of the Christian lives that she supposed they had led, and were living.
Little indeed did this pure minded girl know of the reckless careers and the lives of violence these adventurers represented, or of the motives that prompted them to undertake their present enterprise. Measuring them by the standards put forth by Christ, it will have to be admitted that they were a collection of "mis-fit" Christians--as "mild mannered men as ever scuttled ship or cut a throat." Leeman, for instance, may be taken as an illustration of one of these ideal "followers of Christ's example." "For three years," he had been secretly placing the example of his exalted character before the world, warring with slavery, in an association of as gallant fellows as ever "puled" a trigger. Who these gallant trigger "puling" fellows were, and what they did to earn their reputations as trigger "pulers," during these three years, is more or less conjectural. Mrs. Adams turns the light upon Leeman's Christian character a little further, by the statement, that "he smoked a good deal and drank sometimes." Mr. Villard states that he went to Kansas in 1856 with the second Massachusetts colony of that year, and became a member of John Brown's "Volunteer-Regulars," September 9, 1856. Also, that he fought well at Osawatomie. But since he is reported as having enlisted ten days after the battle of Osawatomie there may be some mistake as to that. George B. Gill, who knew a good bit about him and who may have been a trigger "puler" himself, says that he "had a good intellect with great ingenuity." Anne heard Hazlett and Leeman, one day, saying that "Barclay Coppoc and Dauphin Thompson were too nearly like good girls to make soldiers: that they ought to have gone to Kansas and roughed it awhile, to toughen them, before coming down there." Cook, it may be said, was less Christ-like than Leeman. He was disposed to "swagger," also he "was indiscreet" and "boastful." Once, when in a boastful mood, at Cleveland, he boasted that he had "killed five men in Kansas." Then too he "swaggered openly in his boarding house" which was bad form, from a Christian point of view. Also it is said that he "revealed too much to a woman acquaintance."[370] Then there was Hazlett; but the record as to his actions is so meager that one cannot estimate with any degree of accuracy how "Christ-like" he really was. About all that is known of him is that he stole a horse--a very fine stallion--from somebody in Missouri, which, as has been stated, he traded to Brown for a forty-acre United States land warrant. Also, he was with Stevens when the latter killed Cruise, to get possession of the slave girl. As to Stevens, it cannot truthfully be said that he was a follower of Christ's example, in the stricter interpretation of that expression. One of Christ's disciples--Peter--it is said, followed the Master "afar off." In that respect Stevens resembles the disciple rather than the Master. As a matter of fact, if Stevens followed Christ's example at all, it was at very long range. From what is known of the lives of these men, it may be assumed also, that if Charles Jennison had been under Anne's observation at the Kennedy farm, he too would have secured absolution for his crimes and would have received at her hands a certificate of Christianity.[371]