The Triumph of Lane
IN the midst of the campaign against Price, Lane took out time from military warfare to resume his political battle with Robinson. He was angered by the efforts of Robinson to restrict the operations of the Kansas Brigade and to supplant him in the Senate, and he was now determined to crush his "hereditary foe" once and for all. The time for doing so was opportune, for he had won fresh laurels as "the saviour of Kansas from Price," and Robinson was vulnerable to attack on several fronts.
Leaving his command at Kansas City, Lane journeyed to Leavenworth and on October 8 made the most sensational speech of his career.1 Before a capacity audience in Stockton Hall, he accused Robinson of conspiring with disloyal army officers at Fort Leavenworth, Captain Prince in particular, to wreck his brigade. He claimed that their machinations had deprived him of the artillery he needed to defeat Price at Drywood Creek and so avert the fall of Lexington and "the shedding of rivers of blood." Robinson and Prince, he declared, were "guilty of treason baser than that of Price," and he called Prince "a dirty puppy" and Robinson "that still dirtier creature." As for being labeled
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