To the editor:

This month marks the 161st anniversary of two Civil War atrocities, one in Lawrence, the other in what’s called the Burnt District in western Missouri. We are painfully aware of the Lawrence massacre, William Quantrill’s surprise attack on Lawrence when 400 guerillas murdered as many as 200 of our citizens.

But who knows about General Order No. 11, issued four days later by Union General Thomas Ewing? The decree effectively removed 25,000 Missourians from their homes and farms in four counties on the Kansas-Missouri border. The goal was to move the populations of Jackson, Cass, Bates and Vernon counties off their land and expose the Missouri guerillas still in hiding.

The action was unsuccessful. But those two events left a decades-long legacy of hate and suspicion on both sides of the border for decades.

Frank Barthell,

Lawrence