and Captain Gordon, and asked Todd if he were a relative of the
somewhat notorious Si Gordon of Platte, relating at the same time
an interesting adventure he once had with him. En route from St.
Louis, in 1861, to the headquarters of his regiment, Colonel
Branch, with one hundred and thirty thousand dollars on his person,
found that he would have to remain in Weston over night and the
better part of the next day. Before he got out of the town Gordon
took it, and with it he took Colonel Branch. Many of Gordon’s men
were known to him, and it was eminently to his interest just then
to renew old acquaintanceship and be extremely complaisant to
the new. Wherever he could find the largest number of Guerrillas
there he was among them, calling for whiskey every now and then,
incessantly telling some agreeable story or amusing anecdote.
Thus he got through with what seemed to him an interminably long
day. Not a dollar of his money was touched, Gordon releasing him
unconditionally when the town was abandoned and bidding him make
haste to get out lest the next lot of raiders made it the worse for
him.
For three days, off and on, Quantrell was either with Branch at
his quarters or in company with him about town. Todd, elsewhere
and indefatigable, was rapidly buying caps and revolvers. Branch
introduced Quantrell to General Ben Loan, discussed Penick with him
and Penick’s regiment--a St. Joseph officer destined in the near
future to give Quantrell some stubborn fighting--passed in review
the military situation, incidently referred to the Guerrillas of
Jackson County and the savage nature of the warfare going on there,
predicted the absolute destruction of African slavery, and assisted
Quantrell in many ways in making his mission thoroughly successful.
For the first and last time in his life Colonel Branch was
disloyal to the government and the flag--he gave undoubted aid and
encouragement during those three days to about as uncompromising an
enemy as either ever had.
From St. Joseph Quantrell and Todd came to Kansas City in a hired
hack, first sending into Jackson County a man unquestionably
devoted to the South with the whole amount of purchases made in
both Hannibal and St. Joseph.
A Challenge
Quantrell with his band of sixty-three men were being followed by a
force of seven hundred cavalrymen under Peabody. Peabody came up in
the advance with three hundred men, while four hundred marched at a
supporting distance behind him. Quantrell halted at Swearington’s
barn and the Guerrillas were drying their blankets. One picket,
Hick George, an iron man, who could sleep in his saddle and eat
as he ran and who suspected every act until he could fathom it,
watched the rear against an attack. Peabody received George’s fire,
for George would fire at an angel or devil in the line of his duty,
and drove him toward Quantrell at a full run. Every preparation
possible under the circumstances had been made and if the reception
was not as cordial as expected, the Federals could attribute it to
the long march and the rainy weather.
Quantrell stood at the gate calmly with his hand on the latch; when
George entered he would close and fasten it. Peabody’s forces were
within thirty feet of the fence when the Guerrillas delivered a
crashing blow and sixteen Federals crashed against the barricade
and fell there. Others fell and more dropped out here and there
before the disorganized mass got back safe again from the deadly
revolver range. After them Quantrell himself dashed hotly, George
Maddox, Jarrette, Cole Younger, George Morrow, Gregg, Blunt, Poole
and Haller following them fast to the timber and upon their return
gathering all the arms and ammunition of the killed as they went.
At the timber Peabody rearranged his lines, dismounted his men and
came forward again at a quick run, yelling. Do what he would, the
charge spent itself before it could be called a charge.
Peabody arranged his men, dismounted them, and came forward again
at a double-quick, and yelling. Do what he would, the charge again
spent itself before it could be called a charge. Never nearer
than one hundred yards of the fence, he skirmished at long range
for nearly an hour and finally took up a position one mile south
of the barn, awaiting reinforcements. Quantrell sent out Cole
Younger, Poole, John Brinker and William Haller to “lay up close
to Peabody,” as he expressed it, and keep him and his movements
steadily in view.
The four daredevils multiplied themselves. They attacked the
pickets, rode around the whole camp in bravado, firing upon it
from every side, and finally agreed to send a flag of truce in to
Peabody with this manner of a challenge:
“We, whose names are hereunto affixed, respectfully ask of Colonel
Peabody the privilege of fighting eight of his best men, hand to
hand, and that he himself make the selection and send them out to
us immediately.”
This was signed by the following: Coleman Younger, William Haller,
David Poole and John Brinker.
Younger bore it. Tieing a white handkerchief to a stick he rode
boldly up to the nearest picket and asked for a parley. Six started
towards him and he bade four go back. The message was carried to
Peabody, but he laughed at it and scanned the prairie in every
direction for the coming reinforcements. Meanwhile Quantrell was
retreating. His four men cavorting about Peabody were to amuse him
as long as possible and then get away as best they could. Such
risks are often taken in war; to save one thousand men, one hundred
are sometimes sacrificed. Death equally with exactness has its
mathematics.
The reinforcements came up rapidly. One hundred joined Peabody on
the prairie, and two hundred masked themselves by some timber on
the north and advanced parallel with Quantrell’s line of retreat--a
flank movement meant to be final. Haller hurried off to Quantrell
to report, and Peabody, vigorous and alert, now threw out a cloud
of cavalry skirmishers after the three remaining Guerrillas. The
race was one for life. Both started their horses on a keen run.
It was on the eve of harvest, and the wheat, breast high to the
horse, flew away from before the feet of the racers as though the
wind were driving through it an incarnate scythe blade. As Poole
struck the eastern edge of this wheat a very large jack, belonging
to Swearingen, joined in the pursuit, braying loudly at every jump,
and leading the Federals by a length. Comedy and tragedy were in
the same field together. Carbines rang out, revolvers cracked, the
jack brayed, the Federals roared with merriment, and looking back
over his shoulder as he rode on, Poole heard the laughter and saw
the jack, and imagined the devil to be after him leading a lot of
crazy people.
The Battle and Capture of Independence
“On August 11, 1862,” says Trow, “about a month prior to the
capture of Independence, while Press Webb and I were out on a
little frolic, we attended a dance at his father’s, Ace Webb, and
stayed all night there. During the night a regiment of soldiers
surrounded the house. We barred the doors against them and I aimed
to get away in a woman’s garb and had my dress all on, bonnet and
everything, with permission to get out of the house with the women
without being fired upon. But old Mrs. Webb objected to my going
out for fear it would cause her son to be killed, so I had to pull
off the dress and hide my pistols in the straw tick under the
feather bed and surrender to them. I was taken to Independence and
made a prisoner for a month.
“While in prison several incidents happened. A Federal officer in
the prison who called himself Beauregard, was put into jail with me
for some misdemeanor and challenged me to a sparring match, with
the understanding that neither one of us was to strike the other in
the face. However, he hit me in the face the first thing he did and
I kicked him in the stomach and kept on kicking him until I kicked
him down the stairs. For this offense I was chained down on my back
for ten hours.
“The provost marshal would come in once in a while and entertain
me while I was chained down. He was a Dutchman, and would say in
broken Dutch, ‘How duse youse like it?’ and would sing me a song
something like this: ‘Don’t youse vish you vas in Dixie, you d----d
old secess?’ and dance around me.
“After I had been there a few days they cleaned up the prison
and took out the rubbage and dirt. Press Webb, who had been
captured with me, and I were detailed to do the work. We had an
understanding that when we went out into the back yard, which was
walled, we were each to capture the guards who were guarding us,
take their arms and scale the wall. But Webb weakened and would not
attempt to take his man, so we did not attempt to get away then.
Then I was court-martialed and remained there in jail, while Webb
was sent to Alton prison. I was held there under court-martial and
sentenced to be shot.
“All this time Quantrell was trying to hear from me, whether I had
been killed, and at the same time getting the boys together to make
a raid on Independence and try to capture the town and release me
from jail, all unbeknown to me, should I still be alive. Colonel
Hughes had joined Quantrell with his company, the expedition being
agreed between Quantrell and Colonel Hughes. Colonel Hughes asked
Quantrell for some accurate information touching the strongest and
best fortified points about the town. It was three days previous
to the attack; the day before it was begun the information should
be forthcoming. ‘Leave it to me,’ said Cole Younger, when the
promise made to Hughes had been repeated by Quantrell, ‘and when
you report you can report the facts. A soldier wants nothing else.’
The two men separated. It was the 7th day of August, 1862.
“On the 8th, at about ten o’clock in the morning, an old woman with
gray hair and wearing spectacles, rode up to the public square from
the south. Independence was alive with soldiers; several market
wagons were about the streets--the trade in vegetables and the
traffic in fruit were lively. This old woman was one of the ancient
time. A faded sunbonnet, long and antique, hid almost all her face.
The riding skirt, which once had been black, was now bleached; some
tatters also abounded, and here and there an unsightly patch. On
the horse was a blind bridle, the left rein leather and the right
one a rope. Neither did it have a throat latch. The saddle was a
man’s saddle, strong in the stirrups and fit for any service. Women
resorted often to such saddles then; Civil War had made many a hard
thing easy. On the old lady’s arm was a huge market basket, covered
by a white cloth. Under the cloth were beets, garden beans and some
summer apples. As she passed the first picket he jibed at her.
‘Good morning, grandmother,’ he said. ‘Does the rebel crop need any
rain out in your country?’ Where the reserve post was the sergeant
on duty took her horse by the bridle, and peered up under her
bonnet and into her face. ‘Were you younger and prettier I might
kiss you,’ he said. ‘Were I younger and prettier,’ the old lady
said, ‘I might box your ears for your impudence.’
“‘Oh, ho! you old she-wolf, what claws you have for scratching,’
and the rude soldier took her hand with an oath and looked at it
sneeringly. She drew it away with a quick motion and started her
horse so rapidly ahead that he did not have time to examine it. In
a moment he was probably ashamed of himself, and so let her ride on
uninterrupted.
“Once well in town no one noticed her any more. At the camp she was
seen to stop and give three soldiers some apples out of her basket.
The sentinel in front of Buell’s headquarters was overheard to say
to a comrade: ‘There’s the making of four good bushwhacking horses
yet in that old woman’s horse,’ and two hours later, as she rode
back past the reserve picket post, the sergeant still on duty, did
not halt her himself, but caused one of his guards to do it; he was
anxious to know what the basket contained, for in many ways of late
arms and ammunition had been smuggled out to the enemy.
“At first the old lady did not heed the summons to halt--that
short, rasping, ominous call which in all tongues appears to have
the same sound; she did, however, shift the basket from the
right arm to the left and straighten up in the saddle for the
least appreciable bit. Another cry and the old lady looked back
innocently over one shoulder and snapped out: ‘Do you mean me?’ By
this time a mounted picket had galloped up to her, ranged alongside
and seized the bridle of the horse. It was thirty steps back to the
post, maybe, where the sergeant and eight men were down from their
horses and the horses hitched. To the outpost it was a hundred
yards, and a single picket stood there. The old woman said to the
soldier, as he was turning her horse around and doing it roughly:
‘What will you have? I’m but a poor lone woman going peacefully to
my home.’ ‘Didn’t you hear the sergeant call for you, d----n you?
Do you want to be carried back?’ the sentinel made answer.
“The face under the sunbonnet transformed itself; the demure eyes
behind their glasses grew scintillant. From beneath the riding
skirt a heavy foot emerged; the old horse in the blind bridle
seemed to undergo an electric impulse; there was the gliding of
the old hand which the sergeant had inspected into the basket,
and a cocked pistol came out and was fired almost before it got
in sight. With his grasp still upon the reins of the old woman’s
bridle, the Federal picket fell dead under the feet of the horse.
Then stupified, the impotent reserve saw a weird figure dash away
down the road, its huge bonnet flapping in the wind, and the trail
of an antique riding skirt, split at the shoulders, streaming
back as the smoke that follows a furnace. Coleman Younger had
accomplished his mission. Beneath the bonnet and the bombazine was
the Guerrilla, and beneath the white cloth of the basket and its
apples and beets and beans the unerring revolvers. The furthest
picket heard the firing, saw the apparition, bethought himself of
the devil, and took to the brush.
“During this month’s stay in prison, being chained down, drinking
coffee sweet as molasses, when they knew I did not like sweetened
coffee they made it that much sweeter, running a boxing match,
having songs sung to me of the sweet South in an insulting way and
being janitor for the jail and thousands of other things that go
with a prison life, and while Cole Younger was getting information
under disguise as an old lady Sally selling apples and cookies to
the Federals three days before, I made my bond, my father being a
Union man and interceding with Colonel Buell in my behalf. I made
bond for $50,000 to report at headquarters every two hours during
the day and be locked up at night.
“About the third day after I gave bond and after I was thoroughly
acquainted with the location of the soldiers I made my escape
through the back way, through the guard, and found my way to a
near-by friend by the name of Sullivan and got a horse and saddle,
went by Webb’s and got my pistols out of a hollow log back of
the barn where Mrs. Webb had hid them, and rode on to Quantrell’s
camp, arriving there about eleven o’clock that night. After telling
Quantrell how the soldiers and camps were located, and as Younger
had told him about six hours before, it was decided to make the
charge the next morning, and after a hard night’s riding we struck
Independence just a little before daylight on the morning of
August 11, 1862, surprised the camp, and nine hundred soldiers,
with the exception of the colonel, who was in command, surrendered
to two hundred and fifty of us. Colonel Buell was quartered in a
brick building with his body guard and it was not until about nine
o’clock that he surrendered. Buell lost about three hundred killed,
besides three hundred and seventy-five wounded. We had a loss of
only one man killed and four wounded. In attempting to take the
provost marshal, who tortured me so when I was in prison, Kitt
Child was shot and killed, making two men lost in the attack, all
told.
“In the skirmish I was badly cut up by a saber, but I got away from
them on foot, and so did Quantrell. While the colonel was slashing
at me I struck him with a heavy dragoon pistol and burst his knee
cap and he fell off his horse. This ended the fight. That night we
got together at camp and Quantrell came in on foot, and I had to
remount.
“If Quantrell’s men could have been decorated for that day’s fight,
and if at review some typical thing that stood for glory could
have passed along the ranks, calling the roll of the brave, there
would have answered modestly, yet righteously, Trow, Haller, Gregg,
Jarrette, Morris, Poole, Younger, James Tucker, Blunt, George
Shepherd, Yager, Hicks, George, Sim Whitsett, Fletch Taylor, John
Ross, Dick Burns, Kit Chiles, Dick Maddox, Fernando Scott, Sam
Clifton, George Maddox, Sam Hamilton, Press Webb, John Coger, Dan
Vaughn, and twenty others, some dead now, but dead in vain for
their country. There were no decorations, however, but there was
a deliverance. Crammed in the county jail, and sweltering in the
midsummer’s heat, were old men who had been pioneers in the land,
and young men who had been sentenced to die. The first preached the
Confederacy and it triumphant; the last to make it so, enlisted for
the war. These jailbirds, either as missionaries or militants, had
work to do.”
The Lone Jack Fight
Once there stood a lone blackjack tree, taller than its companions
and larger than any near it. From this tree the town of Lone
Jack, in the eastern portion of Jackson County, was named. On the
afternoon of the 13th of August clouds were seen gathering there.
These clouds were cavalrymen. Succoring recruits in every manner
possible, and helping them on to rendezvous by roads, or lanes, or
water courses, horsemen acquainted with the country kept riding
continuously up and down. A company of these on the evening of the
15th were in the village of Lone Jack.
Major Emory L. Foster, doing active scouting duty in the region
round about Lexington, had his headquarters in the town. The
capture of Independence had been like a blow upon the cheek; he
would avenge it. He knew how to fight. There was dash about him;
he had enterprise. Prairie life had enlarged his vision and he did
not see the war like a martinet; he felt within him the glow of
generous ambition; he loved his uniform for the honor it had; he
would see about that Independence business--about that Quantrell
living there between the two Blues and raiding the West--about
those gray recruiting folks riding up from the South--about the
tales of ambuscades that were told eternally of Jackson County, and
of all the toils spread for the unwary Jayhawkers. He had heard,
too, of the company which halted a moment in Lone Jack as it
passed through, and of course it was Quantrell.
[Illustration: COLE YOUNGER GOING TO INDEPENDENCE]
It was six o’clock when the Confederates were there, and eight
o’clock when the Federal colonel, Colonel Foster, marched in,
leading nine hundred and eighty-five cavalrymen, with two pieces
of Rabb’s Indiana battery--a battery much celebrated for tenacious
gunners and accurate firing. Cockrell, who was in command, knew
Foster well; the other Confederates knew nothing of him. He was
there, however, and that was positive proof enough that he wanted
to fight. Seven hundred Confederates--armed with shotguns, horse
pistols, squirrel rifles, regulation guns, and what not--attacked
nine hundred and eighty-five Federal cavalrymen in a town for a
position, and armed with Spencer rifles and Colt’s revolvers,
dragoon size. There was also the artillery. Lone Jack sat quietly
in the green of emerald prairie, its orchards in fruit and its
harvests goodly. On the west was timber, and in this timber a
stream ran musically along. To the east the prairies stretched,
their glass waves crested with sunshine. On the north there were
groves in which birds abounded. In some even the murmuring of doves
was heard, and an infinite tremor ran over all the leaves as the
wind stirred the languid pulse of summer into fervor.
In the center of the town a large hotel made a strong
fortification. The house from being a tavern, had come to be a
redoubt. From the top the Stars and Stripes floated proudly--a
tricolor that had upon it then more of sunshine than of blood.
Later the three colors had become as four.
On the verge of the prairie nearest the town a hedge row stood as
a line of infantry dressed for battle. It was plumed on the sides
with tawny grass. The morning broke upon it and upon armed men
crouching there, with a strange barred banner and with guns at
trail. Here they waited, eager for the signal.
Joining Hays on the left was Cockrell and the detachments of Hays,
Rathburn and Bohannon. Their arms were as varied as their uniforms.
It was a duel they were going into and each man had the gun he
could best handle. From the hedgerow, from the green growing corn,
from the orchards and the groves, soldiers could not see much save
the flag flying skyward on the redoubt on the Cave House.
At five o’clock a solitary gunshot aroused camp and garrison, and
all the soldiers stood face to face with imminent death. No one
knew thereafter how the fight commenced. It was Missourian against
Missourian--neighbor against neighbor--the rival flags waved over
each and the killing went on. This battle had about it a strange
fascination. The combatants were not numerous, yet they fought as
men seldom fight in detached bodies. The same fury extended to an
army would have ended in annihilation. A tree was a fortification.
A hillock was an ambush. The cornfields, from being green, became
lurid. Dead men were in the groves. The cries of the wounded
came in from the apple orchards. All the houses in the town were
garrisoned. It was daylight upon the prairies, yet there were
lights in the windows--the light of musket flashes.
There is not much to say about the fight in the way of description.
The Federals were in Lone Jack; the Confederates had to get them
out. House fighting and street fighting are always desperate. The
hotel became a hospital, later a holocaust, and over all rose and
shone a blessed sun while the airy fingers of the breeze ruffled
the oak leaves and tuned the swaying branches to the sound of a
psalm.
The graycoats crept nearer. On east, west, north or south. Hays,
Cockrell, Tracy, Jackman, Rathburn or Hunter gained ground. Farmer
lads in their first battle began gawkies and ended grenadiers. Old
plug hats rose and fell as the red fight ebbed and flowed; the
shotgun’s heavy boom made clearer still the rifle’s sharp crack. An
hour passed, the struggle had lasted since daylight.
Foster fought his men splendidly. Wounded once, he did not make
complaint; wounded again, he kept his place; wounded a third time
he stood with his men until courage and endurance only prolonged a
sacrifice. Once Haller, commanding thirty of Quantrell’s old men,
swept up to the guns and over them, the play of their revolvers
being as the play of the lightning in a summer cloud. He could not
hold them, brave as he was. Then Jackman rushed at them again and
bore them backward twenty paces or more. Counter-charged, they
hammered his grip loose and drove him down the hill. Then Hays and
Hunter--with the old plug hats and wheezy rifles--finished the
throttling; the lions were done roaring.
Tracy had been wounded. Hunter wounded. Hays wounded, Captains
Bryant and Bradley killed, among the Confederates, together with
thirty-six others and one hundred and thirty-four wounded. Among
the Federals, Foster, the commander, was nigh unto death; his
brother, Captain Foster, mortally shot, died afterwards. One
hundred and thirty-six dead lay about the streets and houses of the
town, and five hundred and fifty wounded made up the aggregate of a
fight, numbers considered, as desperate and bloody as any that ever
crimsoned the annals of a civil war. A few more than two hundred
breaking through the Confederate lines on the south, where they
were weakest, rushed furiously into Lexington, Haller in pursuit as
some beast of prey, leaping upon everything which attempted to make
a stand between Lone Jack and Wellington. Captain Trow, who was in
this battle, narrates that at one time during the battle, “I was
forced to lie down and roll across the street to save my scalp.”