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Ragingbear (Anonymous) says…

Except this time Quantrill accidentally tried to enter Lawrence via Redbud lane. So by the time they got downtown, they had been robbed of all their stuff, shot for not having more money and at least three of them had to go to a clinic to get their VD treated.

ksmom (Anonymous) says…

Oh my Ragingbear! I'm still laughing!

kansasnative (Anonymous) says…

lolololol - *disclaimer of my laughing out loud - I am in no way making light of Quantril's raid on Lawrence I am simply enjoying Ragingbear's humor - no ill will is to be construed or implied herewith.

partisanranger (Anonymous) says…

Not that those of us from the Sni-a-bar region ever claimed Quantril for our own(from Ohio)Many did agree with his views on Lawrence. Hope this film will include a brief history of folks named Lane, Jennison, Montgomery and Brown, and their raids into Missouri. Folks might also be interested in the goods these fellows were bringing back from Missouri, and hence some of the reasoning behind the raid. Not to say that it was right or wrong, but being a decendent of one who visited on that day, it wold be nice to see a different perspective. Remember, history is written by the winners

Ragingbear (Anonymous) says…

Being that he was pro-slavery, I would say he was WRONG. I guess not all readers of this board think that slavery was bad.

partisanranger (Anonymous) says…

Well Raginbear, here is where the problem lies. Most of those who rode with Quaintril were poor ol farmers, just out of Tennessee and Kentucky, 30yrs prior. Most were pioneers, not slave holders(less than 1% Mo. population in 1860 were slaves). Most accounts I have read mention nothing of slavery. Furthermore, some blacks rode with this group(Baxter Springs raid-see account). No, slavery is not RIGHT, but unfortunatley, still exist. Quantril, did not even have a beef in this fight, his was personal. The same people on his death list were the same people who had snubbed him while he was a residant of Lawrence. He produced such a following for the raid by convincing folks that they were going to take back the spoils captured during Jennison and Montgomery raids into Missouri. You may also find interesting the falling out amoung quantril's band after the raid. Many just went back home after the raid, disillusioned by the violence, never to take up arms again. Just remember, these people lived in an era, where even this discussion, could land you and your family in a military prison !!!!!

Leprechaunking13 (Anonymous) says…

There is a movie that depicts the raid from the side of the bush-whacker. It's called Ride with the Devil, pretty good movie.

yourworstnightmare (Anonymous) says…

partisanranger,

I haven't seen such tortured rationalization since that leading up to the Iraq war.

camper (Anonymous) says…

Quantrill and his group were opportunists who capitalized on the conflict to fill their pockets. Happens in all wars, by both sides. But these actions should never be defended or rationalized as stated above.

75x55 (Anonymous) says…

partisanranger - you're living up to your name, unfortunately.

Missouri guerillas will defy your rather simplistic characterization, which is a little too 'Josey Wales'. Quantrill is far too enigmatic to fit descriptions by either side, and he was certainly not the worst of the bunch - the Lawrence Raid being his high point of leadership.

““I believe this story is the most unique story in the Civil War,” he said. “People were murdered for just being at home.””

This statement makes me think that Spurgeon needed to quite a bit more research in to the Bleeding Kansas era, as well as Reconstruction in Missouri. People being murdered for just being at home was the norm.

Virginia (Anonymous) says…

The Partisan Ranger isn't completely off base. Early in the war, Lane and Jennsion appeared to loot and burn at will in Missouri. Lane destroyed Oseola in 1861. The Missourians retaliate by forming guerilla organizations and raiding border towns. By 1863, the Federals are detaining civilians who support Quantrill. Some of them were killed when their jail in KC collapsed right before the raid, which may account for the raid's ferocity. Lawrence is the unfortunate result of a series of chain reactions. As for slavery, Quantrill's supporters were not happy to see their slaves escape to KS, but many Missouri slaveholders supported the Union as well. Read the exception pertaining to them in the Emancipation Proclamation.

max1 (Anonymous) says…

“It wold be nice to see a different perspective.” -partisanranger
“Being that he was pro-slavery, I would say he was WRONG. I guess not all readers of this board think that slavery was bad.” -ragingbear

A different perspective might include the fact that Quantrill was not proslavery — he was simply a raider (pirate) who took advantage of Civil War chaos, and he targeted both Confederate and Union forces. Camper's description is accurate. He came to Kansas as a free-soiler, and as I recall he settled in Miami County, where he began his life of criime as a petty thief and livestock rustler.
I think it would be great if someone would address his reported stint as a teacher here in Lawrence, under the alias Charlie Hart.

http://americanhistory.about.com/library…
Quantrill was born in Ohio in 1837. He decided to become a schoolteacher as a young man and started his profession. However, he decided to leave Ohio to try and make more money for himself and his family.
… He had grown up in a Unionist family, and he himself espoused Free Soil beliefs. He … decided to quit his profession and sign up as a teamster from Fort Leavenworth. His mission was to resupply the Federal Army embroiled in a fight against the Mormons in Utah.

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/onli…
quantrill, william clarke (1837-1865).
William Clarke Quantrill (AKA: Charley Hart, Charles William Quantrill, and Billy Quantrill), Civil War guerrilla leader, was born at Canal Dover, Ohio, on July 31, 1837, to Thomas Henry and Caroline Cornelia (Clarke) Quantrill. He taught school briefly in Ohio and Illinois; in 1857 he moved to Kansas, and in 1858 he accompanied an army provision train to Utah. At Fort Bridger, Salt Lake City, and elsewhere in the territory, Quantrill was associated with a number of murders and thefts. He fled a warrant for his arrest in Utah in 1860 and returned to Kansas. In December he joined a group in an effort to free the slaves of a Missouri man; he betrayed the plans, and three of the abolitionists were killed.
Oct 26, 1863
Lt. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Trans-Mississippi Confederacy, approved of Quantrill and ordered McCulloch to use Quantrill's men to help round up the increasing number of deserters and conscription-dodgers in North Texas. Quantrill's men captured but few and killed several, whereupon McCulloch pulled them off this duty; . . Finally, General McCulloch determined to rid North Texas of Quantrill's influence. On March 28, 1864, when Quantrill appeared at Bonham as requested, McCulloch had him arrested on the charge of ordering the murder of a Confederate major. Quantrill escaped that day and returned to his camp near Sherman, pursued by over 300 state and Confederate troops.

max1 (Anonymous) says…

Gun and the Gospel
http://americanhistory.about.com/gi/dyna…
Wm. C. Quantrell was born in Canal Dover, Ohio, in 1837. His father was a tinner by trade, a school teacher by profession. Under his direction the son was given a fairly good education. Quantrell junior came to Kansas in 1857, locating near Stanton, Miami County.
… After a few months he returned from the West and located in Lawrence under the alias of Charley Hart. Here he taught school for a brief term, but his associates were low and he was shortly connected with them in an inter-state thievery of no small pretensions. This consisted in the liberation of slaves and mules from Missouri and horses from Kansas, to be returned to their respective owners when reward of sufficient amount to justify the transaction was offered. The Lawrence officials at length became aware of this brigandage and broke it up, ordering the soi-disant Charley Hart and his associates out of the state. This so embittered him against the town that the enfevered guerrilla chief, as he afterwards became, was imbued with the spirit of revenge and the determination took possession of him to give vent to it in destruction and death when his moment should come.

the loyal west in the times of the rebellion (published 1865)
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/tex…
pg 642:
On the 6th of the ensuing October, his wagon train and escort were surprised by a large body of Quantrill and Coffey's guerillas, disguised in federal uniforms, when most of them, panic-stricken, fled. Gen Blunt, who was along, rallied a small band of men under Lieut. Pierce, of the 14th Kansas, and drove back their advance.
pg 644:
…One of their (Quantrill's) number was captured near Olathe, and he gave the names of fifty of Quantrill's gang who are citizens of Jackson county Missouri, and are well known here and have always been considered union men.
The best informed citizens of Lawrence are of the opinion that Quantrill's troops are mainly composed of paroled prisoners from Pemberton's army, and some of them from Price's command, from the fact that they are much sunburned and have the appearance of being long in the service.

max1 (Anonymous) says…

“People being murdered for just being at home was the norm.” -75x55

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/jun/03…
http://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/199…
How Bloody was Bleeding Kansas? Political Killings in Kansas Territory, 1854 - 1861 by Dale E. Watts (1995)
One proslavery Atchison newspaper reported that fifteen proslavery men had been killed at the Battle of Black Jack in Douglas County in June1856. In reality no one on either side was killed during the battle. The antislavery papers were not any more accurate in their reporting. The Lawrence Herald of Freedom took the proslavery newspapers to task for exaggerating free-state losses at the Battle of Osawatomie in Lykins (Miami) County in August1856, but in the same article the Herald made the wild claim that thirty or forty dead proslavery men were hauled from the battlefield. Only two of these proslavery casualties can be documented. A careful search of representative sources reveals a total of 157 violent deaths during the territorial period. Of these, fifty-six may be attributed with some confidence to the political conflict or the slavery issue. The remaining 101 killings comprise fiftytwo resulting from personal conflicts such as fights or brawls, seventeen stemming directly from land disputes, eleven from lynchings, and five occurring during robberies.
Douglas County suffered the most from violence, incurring a total of fifteen political killings during the territorial period. Sol Miller, the irascible and opinionated editor of the White Cloud Kansas Chief, saw some humor in the exaggerated accounts of bloodshed. He wrote early in 1858: The late civil war in Kansas did not last but a day and a half. A Kansas correspondent thus sums up the result: Killed: 0, Wounded, contusion of the nose: 2, Missing: 0, Captured: 3, Frightened: 5,718

75x55 (Anonymous) says…

thank ye kindly max - good info. Times were a bit flaky, to say the least.

No truer statement that newspapers were wildly inaccurate - most of the time actually. One of the better known books on missouri guerrillas (Brownlee's “Grey Ghosts of the Confederacy”) is, unfortunately, rather tainted as it depended heavily upon newspaper accounts for info - much of which was spurious at best.

I'm not even so sure that Quantrill (for one) was all that interested in profit, as the label 'pirate' or 'raider' might infer. His primary motivation appears to have been fame and notoriety - to be 'someone'. The Spencer Collection at KU has many of his actual letters to his mother, and this view seems to permeate them.

The idea that these were 'oppressed poor farmers' is romantic, but in many cases you find that they were more 'dispossessed well-to-do farmers' , tradesmen and major property owners (or from families of). Revenge for family murders, property theft and appropriation, and high-handed mistreatment by anti-slavery local militias appear to been common 'causes' for guerrillas to take to the bush. Harsh over-reaction by Federal commanders with “no surrender” policies just only firmed up the resolve of the 'outlawed'.

I've always thought a more interesting character study would be the secondary guerrilla commanders such as Anderson, Clement, Poole and their like.

max1 (Anonymous) says…

“I'm not even so sure that Quantrill (for one) was all that interested in profit, as the label 'pirate' or 'raider' might infer. His primary motivation appears to have been fame and notoriety - to be 'someone'.” -75x55

I realized I should not have put “pirate” in parenthesis to describe Quantrill immediately after I posted it. The word “pirate” has a “profiteer” connotation, and even though Quantrill was a raider, and a definition of pirate is raider, Quantrill's main goal was not to loot riches. Nonetheless, I assume his gang did depend on looted resources for survival.

75x55 (Anonymous) says…

And a not-too-small population of admiring civilians that housed, fed, and supplied them - they were not pariahs in their time by any stretch of the imagination. 'Winner's history' and all that….

max1 (Anonymous) says…

As far as the so called “Bleeding Kansas” era is concerned, I'm surprised the Battle at Blackjack has been given more attention than the burning of the Robinson home at the intersection of 12th & Ohio, and I'm equally surprised that Mayor (Col.) James Blood's participation in the Underground Railroad hasn't gotten more attention.

kansas; its interior and exterior life by Sara Robinson
Chapter XVI
the attack upon lawrence
But, when the morning sun arose on the 21st of May, 1856, hordes of men, armed with United States muskets, were marshalled upon Mt. Oread… The fair summit of Oread never before witnessed such an assemblage of creatures calling themselves men… Between the hours of eight and nine o'clock a part of this band moved down from Capitol Hill, above our house, nearer the town, upon the table land where the house stood.