While these parting ceremonies were being performed a steamboat bound down the river, and directly from Kansas, came along side the Keystone.  Ex-Governor Shannon was a passenger, who, upon learning the close proximity of Gov.  Geary, sought an immediate interview with him.  The ex-Governor was greatly agitated.  He had fled in haste and terror from the Territory, and still seemed laboring under an apprehension for his personal safety.  His description of Kansas was suggestive of everything that is frightful and horrible.  Its condition was deplorable in the extreme.  The whole Territory was in a state of insurrection, and a destructive civil war was devastating the country.  Murder ran rampant, and the roads were everywhere strewn with the bodies of slaughtered men.

Dr. Gihon afterwards published a small volume of 348 pages, from which the preceding extract has been taken.  The work is entitled “Governor Geary’s Administration in Kansas.”  This work does not bear the sign manual of Gov.  Geary, but as it was written by the Governor’s private secretary, it must be taken as an authentic statement of what these gentlemen saw with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, as touching the condition of things in the Territory.  Dr. Gihon gives the following testimony concerning the troubles in and around Leavenworth and their cause: 

After the removal of Shannon on the 21st of August, when Secretary Woodson became acting Governor until the arrival of Gov.  Geary in September, the belligerents had matters pretty much their own way, and the ruffians improved the time, under pretense of authority from Woodson, to perpetrate with impunity the most shocking barbarities.

During this time Gen. Smith received much censure from the Free State people.  Emory, Wilkes, Stringfellow and others were driving these from their homes in Leavenworth, and many of them fled in terror for protection within the enclosures of the fort; when the General caused hand-bills to be posted over the grounds commanding them to leave before a certain specified time, and gave orders to his subordinates to enforce this command.  These unfortunate people, among whom were men of the highest respectability, and even women and children, were compelled, some of them without money or suitable clothing, to take to the prairies, exposed at every step to the danger of being murdered by scouting or marauding parties, or at the risk of their lives effect their escape upon the downward-bound boats.  Some of these were shot in the attempt upon the river banks, whilst others were seized at Kansas City and other Missouri towns, brought back as prisoners, and disposed of in such a manner as will only be made known at that great day when all human mysteries will be revealed.