Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow - Fight With Kansas Governor Andrew Reeder

Fight With Kansas Governor Andrew Reeder

On July 2, 1855, he was accused of attacking Kansas Territory Governor Andrew Horatio Reeder at Reeder's office in the Shawnee Methodist Mission in Fairway, Kansas. The free state version of the encounter says:

Stringfellow sprang to his feet, seized his chair, and felled the Governor to the floor, kicking him when down. He also attempted to draw a revolver, but was prevented from using it by District Attorney Isaaks, and Mr. Halderman, the Governor's private secretary. And this the origin of the term, so common on the Kansas border for so many years, of "Border Ruffian"

The slave state version said that Stringfellow told the governor:

I understand, sir, that you have publicly spoken and written of me in the East as a frontier ruffian, and I have called to ascertain whether you have done so...Then, sir, you uttered a falsehood, and I demand of you the satisfaction of a gentleman. I very much question your right to that privilege, for I do not believe you to be a gentleman; but nevertheless give you the opportunity to vindicate your title to that character, by allowing you to select such friends as you may please, and I will do the same, and we will step out here and settle the matter as gentlemen do...Then I will have to treat you as I would any other offensive animal.

Bloodshed would occur on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas border in the Bleeding Kansas skirmishes as attempts were to influence how the state entered the union with 5,000 Missourians voting in one Kansas election alone.