with his brother Benjamin Franklin Washington; however, there are no existing records of Washington finding gold during his pursuit. While in California, Washington authored the novel, A Tale to be Told Some Fifty Years Hence, which was published in 1853. Washington then relocated east to Missouri in the 1850s, where he remained for a few years and fought as a border ruffian during the Bleeding Kansas confrontations over slavery along the border between Kansas Territory and Missouri. While in Missouri, Washington wrote poetry and contributed to local newspapers. He returned to Virginia later in the 1850s. While in Virginia, Washington again applied for a military office in March 1855 under an expansion in the Regular Army after Congress added two new regiments to protect the large additional territory obtained from Mexico. By December 1855, Washington was in Kanawha County where he established a joint stock company to promote emigration to Kansas. He returned to Missouri in 1856, where he continued to serve as a Border Ruffian. Washington served as a Border Ruffian in a company under the command of Captain Henry Clay Pate. On June 2, 1856, Washington and his company were attacked at their encampment near Baldwin City, Kansas by anti-slavery Free-Stater forces under the leadership of abolitionist John Brown. Upon seeing that the Free-Staters' reinforcements were nearby, Captain Pate instructed Washington to send for reinforcements of their own. Washington departed during the early stages of the engagement to send for reinforcements, and sustained slight wounds. Pate surrendered to Brown and his men, and Brown took 25 of the Border Ruffians as prisoners. The attack came to be known as the Battle of Black Jack or the Black Jack Point Affray. Death and legacy Washington died by drowning after falling overboard from a steamboat on the Missouri River near Rocheport in Boone County, Missouri, on the night of September 21, 1856. Washington family descendants claim that Washington was murdered by Kansas Jayhawkers because of his pro-slavery Southern sympathies and possibly in retaliation for his participation in the Bleeding Kansas conflicts as a Border Ruffian. In remarking of Washington's death, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch stated that the incident "gave Kansas the name of 'Bloody'". Washington was a lifelong bachelor, and he died without issue. His younger brother, John Thornton Augustine Washington, memorialized Washington by naming his fifth child Lawrence Berry Washington; he was born in San Antonio, Texas, on July