Marcus Parrot wrote from Leavenworth City, Kansas Territory, to his father, Thomas Parrott, in Dayton, Ohio. Marcus told him that the local citizens had been in "a state of war for the last ten days", referring to the events of the Wakarusa War. Marcus had raised his own company of free state men to fight the invading Missourians, and was captured by them, but freed at the conclusion of the skirmish. He also mentioned a duel which was supposed to take place (but never occurred) between James Lane and G.P. Lowery, in which he himself was to be Lane's "second".