Henry Clay Pate.
Henry Clay Pate was the leader of a gang of border ruffians during the territorial struggles of Kansas.
Pate was born on April 21, 1833, into a slaveholding family in Bedford County, Virginia, and grew up to be an ardent supporter of the pro-slavery cause. He entered the University of Virginia in 1848 but left after only two years and moved to Kentucky. Afterward, he drifted to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he organized a party of Virginians to travel to Westport (Kansas City), Missouri, in April 1855 with the intent “of swelling the emigration from the South and making Kansas a slave state.”
After arriving in Westport, Pate began publishing his own newspaper, variously called the “Border Star,” “Frontier News,” or “Star of the Empire.” He was also engaged as the local correspondent for the St. Louis, Missouri Republican, covering the Kansas battle, including the meetings of the Bogus Legislature. Believing the Northern states were exploiting the South, stating:
“The longer we submit to the blasting monopoly of the northern merchants, the more difficult will it be to cast off the yoke of oppression under which we live.”
He was particularly bitter in his denunciations of the Free-State advocates. He commanded a detachment of the Territorial Militia, organized under Governor Wilson Shannon’s call, most of which was composed of citizens of the southern states.
John Brown.
After John Brown brutally murdered five pro-slavery settlers as part of the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856, Pate set out to capture Brown. Pate and his men caught up with Brown near Palmyra in Douglas County on June 2, 1856, and the two sides began to fight. Known as the Battle of Black Jack, Brown and another free stater, Colonel Edwin V. Sumner, captured Pate along with some of his troops who surrendered without much resistance. Sumner released Pate on June 8.
“H. C. Pate told his friends: I went to take Old Brown and Old Brown took me.”
– John Brown, summer 1856
The following September, he became warlike again. He wrote to Governor John Geary that he would organize and command the settlers of Lykins (Miami) County, “for the protection of the polls,” if the governor would give him a commission. To this proposal, Governor Geary responded:
“While thanking you most kindly for your suggestions and for your friendly offer, I have made every necessary arrangement to protect the bona fide citizens of this territory in the exercise of their right of suffrage.”
This was not to Pate’s liking, as he wanted to protect not the “bona fide” settlers but the voters who would come over from Missouri to carry the election, as they had done on previous occasions. Finding that the governor would not aid his scheme, he withdrew from Kansas affairs.
A re-creation of the Battle of Black Jack in which Pearson fought with John Brown. Photo courtesy Baldwin City Signal.
When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the Confederate Army and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the 5th Virginia Cavalry.
He was killed, along with famous Confederate Major General J.E.B. Stuart, in the Battle of Yellow Tavern near Richmond, Virginia, on May 11, 1864. Major General Philip Sheridan claimed a victory for the Union army, but lost 625 men. They captured nearly 300 Confederates and reclaimed 300 Union soldiers held captive.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, updated May 2026.
Also See:
Territorial Kansas & the Struggle for Statehood
Sources:
Blackmar, Frank W.; Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Vol I; Standard Publishing Company, Chicago, IL 1912.
Kansapedia
Kansas Bogus Legislature