Ceremony commemorates Quantrill’s Raid with reading of victims’ names

Around 30 people traveled back in time within the tranquil hedges of the Japanese Friendship Garden in downtown Lawrence Saturday afternoon. The destination: Aug. 21, 1864, a year after the infamous Quantrill’s Raid swept through town, killing about 200 men one bloody night in the summer of 1863.

In the garden, just north of the Watkins Community Museum of History at 1047 Massachusetts St., local historian and re-enactor Herschel Stroud read the names of the victims one by one as visitors silently watched, some bowing their heads in reverence.

Portraying Elizabeth Speer, Jacque Stroud pours a ladle of water on the ground after her husband, Herschel Stroud, portraying John Speer, reads the name of one of the victims who died in Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence as a crowd gathers to watch in Japanese friendship garden next to Watkins Community Museum of History, 1047 Massachusetts. Also pictured is Connie Schlageck, who portrayed Elizabeth Fisher. The two women took turns pouring water onto the ground after each name was read. John Speer and his wife Elizabeth lost two sons in the attack.

Dressed in period garb, Stroud channeled John Speer, a real-life survivor of Quantrill’s Raid, in his remarks during the service.

Speer, a successful Lawrence newspaperman, escaped death that night but lost his sons John Jr. and Robert in the massacre.

“They came to maim, to kill, to loot and to burn. Many are gone, but for those who are left, this is our obligation,” Shroud said, mirroring a speech Speer delivered on the one-year anniversary of the massacre. “We will remember, we will honor, we will commemorate and we will glorify all those who were murdered here.”

The annual ceremony was just one of many activities slated for this week to mark the 151st anniversary of Quantrill’s Raid, when William Quantrill and his band of Missouri ruffians led the bloody attack through Lawrence.

The Watkins Museum led a bus tour and walking tours that highlighted significant spots affected by the massacre from morning until early afternoon Saturday, in addition to presentations from Eastern Illinois University history professor Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz and a performance of Civil War-era music by the Kaw Valley Concert Band.

Also on the schedule: an interactive tour of Black Jack Battlefield, 163 E. 200 Road in Wellsville at 4 p.m. Sunday and a flashlight cemetery tour around the gravesites of raid victims from 8 to 9:30 p.m. Friday.

Mary Feitz drove all the from Omaha to attend this weekend’s festivities. The Olathe native, a graduate student in historical preservation at the University of Pennsylvania, stopped by the Japanese Friendship Garden, camera in hand, Saturday afternoon.

Growing up, Feitz’s parents took her to all the major Civil War battlefields — Gettysburg, Antietam — and a few minor ones too, but as far she’s concerned, nothing parallels her “obsession” with Lawrence history and Quantrill’s Raid.

“I’m really interested in what happened to certain buildings, looking at the modern streets and reconstructing what happened there,” Feitz said. “It’s cool how something so major happened here.”

Lawrence resident Michele Kumm also noted how the impact of the raid on the present-day city drew her to Saturday’s ceremony.

The self-described “history buff” often visits the Quantrill’s Raid memorial in Oak Hill Cemetery, and attended many of last year’s anniversary events.

“It’s just so powerful,” Kumm said after hearing the names of the victims. “I find it incredible that it’s 151 years later and it’s still alive.”