Aaron Dwight Stevens - Life

Life

Born in Lisbon, New London County, Connecticut, March 15, 1831, Stevens ran away from home at the age of sixteen, in 1847, and enlisted in Cushing's Massachusetts regiment of volunteers, in which he served in Mexico during the Mexican War. Later, he enlisted in Company F of the First United States Dragoons, and was tried for "mutiny, engaging in a drunken riot, and assaulting Major George A. H. Blake" of the 1st U.S. Dragoons at Taos, New Mexico, on March 8, 1855. According to testimony offered at a court of inquiry, the assault on Major Blake was precipitated by Stevens's outrage over Blake's continuous abuse of enlisted soldiers. Stevens and three other mutineers were sentenced to death, but these sentences were commuted by President Pierce to imprisonment for three years at hard labor at Fort Leavenworth, from which post he escaped and joined the Free State forces. In these he became colonel of the Second Kansas Militia, under the name of Whipple. He became Colonel of the 2nd Kansas Militia and met Brown on August 7, 1856 at the Nebraska line when Lane’s Army of the North marched into “Bleeding Kansas.” He later became one of Brown's bravest and most devoted followers.

While serving under Brown in Kansas, Stevens shot and killed a slave owner named David Cruise while attempting to free a female slave. According to Stevens's own account, while entering the home, Stevens saw Cruise reaching for a weapon and shot him dead. In subsequent years, Stevens freely admitted the killing but disliked talking about it. "You might call it a case of self-defense," he recounted, "or you might say that I had no business in there, and that the old man was right."