Battle of Black Jack

Henry Clay Pate, a Virginian, published the proslavery Westport Border Star and hunted Brown as a deputy U.S. marshal. Federal troops under Col. Edwin Sumner freed him and his men, and Lt. J.E.B. Stuart rode with Sumner. Pate's summary was "I went to take Old Brown, and Old Brown took me." Brown kept Pate's Bowie knife, which later served as a model for the pike heads made for the Harpers Ferry raid. Pate visited Brown in jail in 1859 and was killed at Yellow Tavern on May 11, 1864, holding a position for Stuart.

What the plaque says

Battle of Black Jack This "battle" was part of the struggle to make Kansas a free state. In May, 1856, Proslavery men destroyed buildings and newspaper presses in Lawrence, Free-State headquarters. John Brown's company then killed five Proslavery men on Pottawatomie creek not far from this spot. In retaliation Henry C. Pate raided near-by Palmyra and took three prisoners. Early on the morning of June 2 Brown attacked Pate's camp in a grove of black jack oaks about 1/4 mile south of this sign. Both sides had several wounded and numerous desertions before Pate and 28 men surrendered, Brown claiming he had only 15 men left. As evidence of civil war this fight received much publicity and excited both the North and South. Erected by Kansas Historical Society and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Haskell Cultural Center and Museum — 13 mi
  Haskell Indian Nations University's own museum in Lawrence, built of cypress logs in 2002 to tell the truth about the federal boarding school the university grew out of.
• Watkins Museum of History — 15 mi
  Douglas County's free museum in J. B. Watkins's 1888 bank and mortgage building on Massachusetts Street, a red-brick fortune built on Kansas farm loans and given to the city by his widow.
• John Brown Museum State Historic Site — 21 mi
  The log cabin of Samuel and Florella Adair at Osawatomie, Oberlin-trained abolitionists whose home was an Underground Railroad station and the headquarters of Florella's half brother, John Brown.

More markers nearby

• Baldwin — 1.9 mi
• Overland Trails — 11 mi
• Lawrence — 15 mi
• Lawrence and the Old Trails — 17 mi