A parley ensued.  The slave-holder demanded his slaves, who he said were concealed in the house.  The colored men presented themselves successively at the window, and asked if they were the slaves claimed; Gorsuch said, that neither of them was his slave.  They told him that they were the only colored men in the house, and were determined never to be taken alive as slaves.  Soon the colored people of the neighborhood, alarmed by the horn, began to gather, armed with guns, axes, corn-cutters, or clubs.  Mutual threatenings were uttered by the two parties.  The slave-holders told the blacks that resistance would be useless, as they had a party of thirty men in the woods near by.  The blacks warned them again to leave, as they would die before they would go into Slavery.

From an hour to an hour and a half passed in these parleyings, angry conversations, and threats; the blacks increasing by new arrivals, until they probably numbered from thirty to fifty, most of them armed in some way.  About this time, Castner Hanaway, a white man, and a Friend, who resided in the neighborhood, rode up, and was soon followed by Elijah Lewis, another Friend, a merchant, in Cooperville, both gentlemen highly esteemed as worthy and peaceable citizens.  As they came up, Kline, the deputy marshal, ordered them to aid him, as a United States officer, to capture the fugitive slaves.  They refused of course, as would any man not utterly destitute of honor, humanity, and moral principle, and warned the assailants that it was madness for them to attempt to capture fugitive slaves there, or even to remain, and begged them if they wished to save their own lives, to leave the ground.  Kline replied, “Do you really think so?” “Yes,” was the answer, “the sooner you leave, the better, if you would prevent bloodshed.”  Kline then left the ground, retiring into a very safe distance into a cornfield, and toward the woods.  The blacks were so exasperated by his threats, that, but for the interposition of the two white Friends, it is very doubtful whether he would have escaped without injury.  Messrs. Hanaway and Lewis both exerted their influence to dissuade the colored people from violence, and would probably have succeeded in restraining them, had not the assailing party fired upon them.  Young Gorsuch asked his father to leave, but the old man refused, declaring, as it is said and believed, that he would “go to hell, or have his slaves.”

Finding they could do nothing further, Hanaway and Lewis both started to leave, again counselling the slave-hunters to go away, and the colored people to peace, but had gone but a few rods, when one of the inmates of the house attempted to come out at the door.  Gorsuch presented his revolver, ordering him back.  The colored man replied, “You had better go away, if you don’t want to get hurt,” and at the same time pushed him aside and passed out.  Maddened at this, and stimulated by the question of