In this letter to Robert B. Mitchell of Paris in Linn County, Ewing commented on the summer and fall "disturbances in Linn & Bourbon" counties, and he predicted that many of the "scoundrels" responsible--presumably men on both sides of the slavery issue--would one day end up in the as yet to be established "penitentiary." Ewing wrote Mitchell, at that time a member of the territorial legislature, about the organization of the Democratic Party in Leavenworth and reported on several "of our free state friends" who had joined with the "Democracy." (Subsequently, despite Ewing's plea that moderates not take this action but "just bide their time," Mitchell joined the Democrats in 1859 and accepted their nomination for congressman.)