Henry T. Titus was an adventurer and soldier of fortune who had participated in a failed invasion of Cuba led by Narsico Lopez in 1850. The foray was quickly repelled.

Lopez returned to Cuba in 1851. Most of the men were captured by overwhelming Spanish forces and executed, including Lopez. Titus managed to escape.

A year later Titus and his son, Elett, were aboard the paddlewheel steamer Atlantic as it steamed across Lake Erie out of Buffalo, N.Y. on Aug. 19, 1852. At 2 a.m. the morning of Aug. 20, the Atlantic was suddenly struck by the Ogdensburg, a new propeller steamer. The Ogdensburg reversed engines and backed away relatively unscathed. The Atlantic steamed away, but soon began to take on water. Survivors, including Titus and his son, were picked up by the Ogdensburg. An estimated 300 people were lost.

Titus then moved to Jacksonville, Fla., where he ran a grocery and operated a saw mill. He was drawn to the proslavery cause in Kansas and joined Maj. Jefferson Buford’s Expedition to support the effort to make Kansas a slave state. The call to action was published across the south.

“The time has come for action — bold, determined action. Words will no longer do any good; we must have men in Kansas, and that by the tens of thousands. A few will not answer.”

Buford sold his slaves and used most of the money to raise his militia. By April 4, 1856 Buford had 400 men assembled at Montgomery, Ala. each with a bible in hand, given to them by the members of a local congregation.

The expedition boarded a steamboat and arrived in Kansas on May 2. Within days of their arrival U. S. Marshal Israel Donalson called for citizens to come to his aid in sufficient numbers to execute the law.

Marshal Donalson was responding to resistance he had experienced at the hands of a large body of armed men when he tried to issue warrants for the arrest of Free State leaders. He eventually accomplished his goal, housing the leaders at Camp Sackett, defended by U. S. troops near Lecompton, Kan.

The call for militiamen “to execute the law” was diverted to Franklin, Kan., where on May 21, 1856, Sheriff Samuel Jones directed an attack on Lawrence. The Free State Hotel, downtown businesses, and homes were burned.

Titus, and Donalson led the southern partisans in the destruction of the presses of the Herald of Freedom and the Kansas Free State. The lead type used in printing was thrown in the Kansas River. The type was later rescued to play a significant role in Free State revenge. The attack was known as “the sack of Lawrence.” Buford was appalled at the actions taken that day. He reportedly “disclaimed having come to Kansas to destroy property, and condemned the course that had been taken.” Many of the southerners returned home and some even joined “the freestate partisans.”

Henry Titus remained committed to the proslavery cause. Following the sack of Lawrence, Titus with a small band of dedicated southerners, located a claim a short distance south of Lecompton. Never mind that it had been one of the earliest settled claims in the territory. Seeing the claimholder was away, Titus and his men tore the cabin down and built a fortified blockhouse, known as Fort Titus, in its place.

At 2 a.m. Aug. 16, 1856, Titus, saying he wanted six abolitionists for breakfast, led an attack on the fortified cabin of Judge Wakefield. John Allen Wakefield was a respected justice in the local “squatters court.” It seemed that everyone built their cabins for the dual purpose of shelter and defense. When unable to overrun the fortress, Tutus returned to Fort Titus.

Hearing of the Wakefield attack, Free Staters attacked Fort Titus just at daybreak the same day. When the initial attack stalled, “Old Sacramento” was brought into play. The famous cannon had been used in the Mexican War and had been captured and recaptured by both sides in the “debate” over Kansas sovereignty. Before leaving Lawrence the lead type from the Herald of Freedom’s ransacked office was melted and cast into cannon “shot”.

As the gunner fired the first volley from Old Sacramento filled with transformed newspaper type, he shouted,“This is the second edition of The Herald of Freedom!” Just three months after their “burial” in the Kansas River the resurrected type made memorable impression upon Titus and his “ruffian horde.”

The white flag was quickly unfurled and with it came surrender. Titus had gotten his belly full. It just wasn’t the breakfast that he had expected on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road Geneseo, Kan. Phone: (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.