William Gregg with twenty men upon the left. Bill Anderson with
twenty men, Gregg took with him Frank James, Arch Clemmons, Little,
Morrow, Harrison Trow and others of the most desperate men of the
band. Anderson took Hockinsmith, Long, McGuire, Parmer, Hicks, Hi
George, Doc Campbell and other equally desperate characters. Each
was ordered to burn a swath as they marched back parallel with the
main body and to kill in proportion as he burned. Soon on every
hand were columns of smoke beginning to rise, and soon was heard
the rattle of firing arms from around the consuming houses, and
old farmers who had taken up arms were shot down as a holiday
frolic. This unforgiving farewell lasted for twelve miles until
pressed too heavily in the rear. Quantrell was forced to recall his
detachments and look to the safety of his aggregate columns.
Missouriward from Kansas ten miles, Quantrell halted to rest and
eat a little. Cole Younger rode out into a cabbage patch and got
himself a cabbage head and began to eat it. The lady of the house
came out. Younger said:
“This is a very fine cabbage you have.” The lady replied:
“I hope it will choke you to death, you d----d old rebel
son-of-a-buck.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” was the reply. “Where is your husband?”
Before any of the men had finished eating, the pickets were drawn
into the rear, pressed to the girth. Todd and Jarrette held out as
two lines that had not broken fast. Step by step, and firing at
everyone in pursuit, at arm’s length, for ten miles further the
Federals would not charge. Overwhelming in numbers though they
were, and capable of taking at any moment everything in opposition
to them, they contented themselves with firing at long range and
keeping always at and about a deadly distance from the rear. The
Guerillas, relying principally upon dash and revolver, felt the
need of a charge. Quantrell halted the whole column for a charge.
The detachments on either flank had some time since been gathered
up and the men brought face to face with urgent need. Turned about
quickly and dressed up in line handsomely as he came trotting up
in the rear guard Todd fell into line upon the left and Quantrell
gave the word. The Federal pursuit had hardly time to fire a volley
before it was rent into shreds and scattered upon the prairie.
Order Number 11, August, 1863
Two days after his safe arrival in Missouri from the Lawrence
massacre, Quantrell disbanded the Guerrillas. Fully six thousand
Federals were on his track. The savageness of the blow struck there
had appalled and infuriated the country. The journalistic pulse
of the North rose to fever heat and beat as though to its raging
fever there had been added raving insanity. In the delirium of
the governing powers impossible things were demanded. Quantrell
was to be hunted to the death; he was to be hanged, drawn and
quartered; his band was to be annihilated; he was to be fought
with fire, persecution, depopulation and wholesale destruction. At
the height of the very worst of these terrible paroxysms, Ewing’s
famous General Order No. 11 was issued. It required every citizen
of Jackson, Cass, Bates and a portion of Vernon counties to abandon
their houses and come either into the lines of designated places
that were fortified, or within the jurisdiction of said lines. If
neither was done, and said citizens remained outside beyond the
time limit specified for such removal, they were to be regarded
as outlaws and punished accordingly. Innocent and guilty alike
felt the rigors of this unprecedented proscription. For the Union
man there was the same line of demarkation that was drawn for
the secessionist. Age had no immunity; sex was not regarded. The
rights of property vanished; predatory bands preyed at will;
nothing could be sold; everything had to be abandoned; it was the
obliterating of prosperity by counties; it was the depopulation of
miles upon miles of fertile territory in a night.
General Ewing had been unjustly censured for the promulgation of
such an order and held responsible in many ways for its execution.
The genius of a celebrated painter, Captain George C. Bingham of
Missouri, had been evoked to give infamy to the vandalism of the
dead and voice to the indignation of history over its consummation.
Bingham’s picture of burning and plundering houses, of a sky made
awful with mingling flames and smoke, of a long line of helpless
fugitives going away they knew not whither, of appealing women
and gray haired non-combatants, of skeleton chimneys rising like
wrathful and accusing things from the wreck of pillaged homesteads,
of uniformed things called officers rummaging in trunks and
drawers, of colonels loaded with plunder, and captains gaudy in
stolen jewelry, will live longer than the memories of the strife,
and keep alive horrible memories long after Guerrilla and Jayhawker
are well forgotten.
Ewing, however, was a soldier. General Order No. 11 came from
district headquarters at St. Louis where Scofield commanded,
and through Scofield from Washington City direct. Ewing had
neither choice nor discretion in the matter. He was a brave,
conscientious, hard fighting officer who did his duty as it came
to his hands to do. He could not have made, if he had tried, one
hair of the infamous Order white or black. It was a portion of
the extraordinary order of things, and Ewing occupied towards it
scarcely the attitude of an instrument. He promulgated it but he
did not originate it; he gave it voice but he did not give it form
and substance; his name had been linked to it as to something that
should justly cause shame and reproach, but history in the end
will separate the soldier from the man and render unto the garb of
the civilian what it has failed to concede to the uniform of the
commander. As a citizen of the republic he deplored the cruelty of
an enactment which he knew to be monstrous; but as a soldier in the
line of duty, the necessity of the situation could not justify a
moment’s argument. He had but to obey and to execute, and he did
both--and mercifully.
For nearly three weeks Jackson County was a Pandemonium, together
with the counties of Cass, Bates, Vernon, Clay and Lafayette. Six
thousand Federals were in the saddle, but Quantrell held his grip
upon these counties despite everything. Depopulation was going on
in a two-fold sense--one by emigration or exodus, and one by the
skillful killing of perpetual ambushment and lyings-in-waiting.
In detachments of ten, the Guerrillas divided up and fought
everywhere. Scattered, they came together as if by instinct.
Driven from the flanks of one column, they appeared in the rear
of another. They had voices that were as the voices of the night
birds. Mysterious horsemen appeared on all the roads. Not a single
Federal scouting or exploring party escaped paying toll. Sometimes
the aggregate of the day’s dead was simply enormous. Frequently the
assailants were never seen. Of a sudden, and rising, as it were,
out of the ground, they delivered a deadly blow and rode away in
the darkness--invisible.
Fights and Skirmishes During Fall and Winter, 1863–1864
As the Lawrence raid put the whole Federal forces after us, it
was a continuous fight from September 1, 1863, to Price’s raid in
August, 1864, but Quantrell held his own.
Up to the time of the Lawrence massacre there had been no scalping
done; after it a good deal. Abe Haller, brother of Lieutenant
William Haller, was wounded and hiding in some timber near Texas
Prairie in the eastern edge of Jackson County. Alone, he faced
seventy-two men, killing and wounding five of the attacking party,
when he fell. His slayers scalped him and cut off his ears. Shortly
afterwards Andy Blunt came upon the body, mutilated as it was, and
pointed out the marks of the knife to his companions.
“We have something to learn yet, boys,” he said, “and we have
learned it.” “Scalp for scalp hereafter!”
The next day Blunt, Long, Clemens, Bill Anderson and McGuire
captured four militiamen from a regiment belonging to North
Missouri. Blunt scalped each of the four, leaving their ears
intact, however. He said he had no use for them.
Fire Prairie
The killing went on. Between Fire Prairie and Napoleon Gregg,
Taylor, Nolan, Little and Frank James captured six of Pennick’s
militiamen. They held over them a kind of court martial and killed
them all. These were not scalped.
Wellington
The next day Richard Kenney, John Farretts, Jesse James and Sim
Whitsett attacked a picket post of eight men about a mile from
Wellington and annihilated it, cutting them off from the town and
running them in a contrary direction. Not a man escaped.
Lexington Road
Two days afterwards Ben Morrow, Pat O’Donald and Frank James
ambushed an entire Federal company between Salem church on the
Lexington road and Widow Child’s. They fought eighty men for nearly
an hour, killing seven and wounding thirteen. O’Donald was wounded
three times and James and Morrow each once slightly.
Shawnee Town Road
Todd gathered together thirty of his old men and, getting a
volunteer guide who knew every hog path in the country, went around
past Kansas City boldly and took up a position on the Shawnee Town
road, looking for a train of wagons bringing infantry into Kansas
City. There were twenty wagons with twenty soldiers to the wagon,
besides the drivers. Here and there between the wagons intervals
of fifty yards had been permitted to grow. Todd waited until all
the wagons but three had passed by the point of his ambush when
he sprang out upon them and poured into them and upon their jammed
and crowded freight a deadly rain of bullets. Every shot told. Todd
butchered sixty in the three wagons and turned away from his work
of death and pursued the balance.
Independence
Cole Younger, while Todd was operating in Kansas, gathered about
him ten men and hid himself as close to Independence as it was
possible to get without getting into town. His eyes for some time
had been fastened upon a large corral. He sent William Hulse out
to reconnoiter the position and bring word of the guard stationed
to protect it. Younger avoided the pickets and by eleven o’clock
had made the distance, halting at the turning off place on the main
road and giving his horses in charge of two of the detachment. With
the other eight on foot led by Hulse, he crept close to the reserve
post and fired point blank into the sleeping guard, some rolled up
in their blankets and some resting at ease about the fire. Choosing
his way as well as possible by the uncertain light. Younger escaped
unpursued with three excellent horses to the man after killing
seventeen Federals in the night attack and wounding many more.
Blue Springs Fight in December, 1863
Colonel Pennick’s men came from Independence down to Blue Springs
and burned houses, killed old men--too old to be in the service.
They numbered two hundred, while Quantrell’s men numbered one
hundred. On the road from Blue Springs to Independence they killed
John Sanders and a man named Kimberland--both old men--and left
them lying in the roadway. If neighbors had not offered their
services the hogs would have eaten their bodies. They burned from
two to twelve houses and left the families homeless.
The people of the neighborhood sent a runner to Quantrell. We
mounted, struck a gallop and did not slow down until we charged the
rear and went through them like fire through stubble, killing as we
went. After the battle was over we counted seventy-five killed and
an equal number wounded. Those who were not hit were so scared that
we had no more trouble with them.
On our retreat Quantrell’s password was, “Bat them, boys, over the
left eye.”
A good old citizen by the name of Uncle George Rider, hearing the
firing and seeing us coming, got off his horse and laid down in
the woods close to the road, face up, having a belly on him like a
ten-gallon beer keg. Quantrell said to Dick Burns, “You go out and
bat him over the left eye.” Burns went out to him and hollered
back to Quantrell that “he has been dead a week; see how he is
swelled up.” We had lots of fun afterwards about his belly saving
him.
Wellington
Four miles east of Wellington stood a large house occupied by some
lewd women, notorious for their favors and their enticements.
Poole knew the situation well, and suggested to Jarrette that
a sufficient detour should be made to encompass the building.
Arriving there about eleven o’clock at night, it appeared from the
outside as if there were some kind of a frolic. Lights shone from
many of the windows, music and the sound of dancing feet could be
heard occasionally. Frank James crept to a back door and looked in
and counted five women and eleven men. Some of the men were sitting
on the laps of the women and some were so close to others that to
risk a volley would be murderous. At no time without hitting a
woman could they make sure of hitting a man. They waited an hour to
gain a favorable opportunity, but waited in vain. Jarrette solved
the problem.
He was dressed in Federal uniform, and after placing his men so as
to cut off any escape from the house if the occupants once came
outside, he rode boldly up to the fence in front of the premises
and cried, “Hello!” A soldier came to the door with a gun in his
hand and answered him. Jarrette continued, “Who are you that you
come to this place in defiance of every order issued for a month?
What business have you here tonight? Who gave you permission
to come? Where are your passes? Come out here and let me read
them.” Thinking Jarrette a provost captain scouting for runaways
from the Lexington garrison, ten of the eleven militiamen started
confidently for the fence, receiving, when half way, the crushing
fire of twenty concealed Guerrillas. In a space four blankets might
have covered the ten fell and died, only one of the lot discharging
a weapon or making a pretense of resistance.
Frank James stooped to count them, and as he rose he remarked:
“There are but ten here. Awhile ago there were eleven.” The
building was entered, searched from top to bottom in every nook and
corner, but no soldier. The women were questioned, one at a time,
separately. They knew only that when the man at the fence called
they all went out together.
Frank James, whose passive face had from the first expressed
neither curiosity nor doubt, spoke up again and briefly: “Awhile
ago I counted but five women, now there are six.” Save four
sentinels on duty at either end of the main road, Guerrillas had
gathered together in the lower large room of the dwelling house.
The fire had burned low, and was fitful and flickering. Where there
had been half a dozen candles there were now only two.
“Bring more,” said Poole, “and we will separate this wolf from the
ewes.”
“Aye, if we have to strip the lot,” spoke up a coarse voice in the
crowd.
“Silence,” cried Jarrette, laying a hand upon a pistol and turning
to his men in the shadow, “not a woman shall be touched. We are
wild beasts, yes, but we war on wild beasts.”
More light was brought, and with a candle in each hand Poole
went from woman to woman, scanning the face of each long and
searchingly, and saying when he had finished, “I give it up. If one
of the six here is a man, let him keep his dress and his scalp.”
Frank James, just behind Poole, had inspected each countenance also
as the candles passed before it, and when Poole had done speaking,
he laid a finger upon a woman’s shoulder and spoke as one having
authority: “This is the man. If I miss my reckoning, shoot me dead.”
The marvelous nerve, which up to this time had stood with the
militiaman as a shield and a defense, deserted him when the
extremity came, and he turned ghastly white, trembled to his
feet, and fell, sobbing and praying on his knees. Horrified by
the slaughter in the yard, and afraid to rush from the house lest
he be shot down also, he hurriedly put on the garments of one of
the women, composed his features as best he could, and waited in
suspense the departure of the Guerrillas. Almost a boy, his smooth
face was fresher and fairer than the face of any real woman there.
His hair, worn naturally long and inclined to be brown, was thick
and fine. The dress hid his feet, or the boots would have betrayed
him at the start. Not knowing that an observation had been made
before the firing, and the number accurately taken of both men and
women, he hoped to brave it through and laugh afterwards and tell
to his messmates how near death had passed by him and did not stop.
The reaction, however, upon discovery, was pitiful. He was too
young to die, he pleaded. He had never harmed a human being in his
life. If he was spared he would abandon the army and throw away his
gun. As he prayed he wept, but Jarrette abated further abasement of
his manhood.
“He is yours, James,” he said, “and fairly yours. When he changed
color ever so little under Poole’s inspection you saw it and no
other man saw it, and he belongs to you. Take him.” Property in
human flesh was often disposed of in this way.
“Come,” said Frank James, lifting the young Federal up to his feet
with his left hand and drawing his revolver with his right; “come
outside, it is not far to go.”
Scarcely able to stand, yet unresisting, the militiaman followed
the Guerrilla--the lamb following the tiger. As they went by the
ghastly heap, all ragged and intangible in the uncertain light,
the one shuddered and the other was glad. At the fence the poor
prisoner was so weak he could scarcely climb it. Beyond the fence
was the road and down this road a few hundred yards towards
Lexington Frank James led his victim. Under the shadows of a huge
tree he halted. It was quite dark there. Only the good God could
see what was done; the leaves shut the stars out.
“Do not kill me for my mother’s sake,” came from the pinched lips
of the poor victim, “for I have no one else to pray for me. Spare
me just this once.”
“You are free,” said James, “go,” and as he spoke he pointed in the
direction of Lexington.
“Free? You do not kill me? You tell me go? Great God, am I sleeping
or awake!” and the man’s teeth chattered and he shook as if in a
fit of ague.
“Yes, go and go quickly; you are past the guards, past all danger;
you belong to me and I give you your life. =Go!=”
At that moment Frank James lifted his pistol in the air and fired.
When he returned to the house Jarrette, who had heard the pistol
shot, rallied him.
“Yes,” he said, “it was soon over. Boys and babies are not hard
to kill.” James had just taken the trouble to save the life of a
Federal soldier because he had appealed to him in the name of his
mother.
Jarrette continued on his raid. South of Lexington six miles he
came suddenly upon nine Federals in a school house, sheltered
against a heavy rain that was falling. After shooting the nine and
appropriating the house, he propped each corpse up to a desk, put
a book before it and wrote upon the blackboard fixed against the
wall: “John Jarrette and David Poole taught this school today for
one hour. We found the pupils all loyal and we left them as we
found them.”
Again in the German settlement a company of militia were engaged
and cut to pieces. Near Dover five militiamen from Carroll County
were caught encamped at Tebo bridge and shot. Near Waverly ten men
at odd times were picked up and put out of the way. And on the
return march to Jackson County no less than forty-three straggling
Federals, in squads of from three to nine, were either surprised or
overtaken and executed without trial or discussion.
The Grinter Fight
A Dutch colonel, with his company of men, one day came into Piser’s
saloon in Independence, Mo., and got to drinking pretty freely and
said to Piser, the saloon keeper:
“Dose you’se knows where dot Quantrell, dot kill-devil, iss? Gife
us another drink. We are going out and get dot Quantrells today,
brings his scalps in on ours vidle bits.”
Piser, a friend of both Federals and Confederates, pleaded with him
to leave the job alone. The Dutch colonel wore a pair of earrings
as big as a ring in a bull’s nose.
“Give us another drinks,” the Dutch colonel said. “Ills tells youse
we are going after Quantrells, and ven I finds him I is going to
says, ‘Haltz!’ and ven I says ‘haltz’ dot means him stops a little
viles.”
So they took the Independence and Harrisonville road and found
Quantrell camped close to old man Grinter’s and as usual always
ready for any surprise, for he had been surprised so much. When the
Dutch colonel and his company came in sight, Quantrell ordered his
men to mount and charge, which they did, and when the smoke cleared
away only two remained to tell the story. They were a couple
hundred yards away sitting on their horses cursing us, calling us
all kinds of d----d “secesh,” telling us to come on. I said to
Sim Whitsett, “Let’s give them a little chase. They seem to be so
brave.” We took after them but they would not stand. They broke
and ran. We ran them for a quarter of a mile down the big road.
One fell off his horse dead, the other one jumped off and ran into
old man Grinter’s house. Mrs. Grinter was in the yard. He ran to
her and said, “Hide me.” She put him under a bee gum. Sim and I
stopped but never could find him. Sim does not to this day like the
Grinter name. Sim said, “I got the earring, but he is the lad.” He
afterwards gave them to a girl on Texas Prairie, Missouri. Poor old
Dutchman. He lost his life with all his men but one.
[Illustration: TAKING DINNER WITH THE FEDERALS]
The Centralia Massacre
In history, this is called a battle of massacre, but there never
was a fight during the Civil War that was fought any more fairly
than this battle was fought.
Along about September, 1864, at Paris, in Monroe County, there had
been a Federal garrison three hundred strong, under the command of
a Major Johnson. These soldiers, on the watch for Anderson, had
been busy in scouting expeditions and had come down as near to
Centralia as Sturgeon.
After Anderson had done all the devilment that he could lay his
hands to in Centralia and had retired again to the Singleton camp,
Major Johnson came into the pillaged town, swearing all kind of
fearful and frightful things.
At the head of his column a black flag was carried. So also was
there one at the head of Todd’s column. In Johnson’s ranks the
Stars and Stripes for this day had been laid aside. In the ranks
of the Guerrillas the Stars and Stripes flew fair and free, as if
there had been the intention to add to the desperation of the sable
banner the gracefulness and abandon of legitimate war.
The Union citizens of Centralia, knowing Anderson only in his
transactions, besought Johnson to beware of him. He was no match
for Anderson. It was useless to sacrifice both himself and his
men. Anderson had not retreated; he was in ambush somewhere about
the prairie. He would swoop down like an eagle; he would smite
and spare not. Johnson was as brave as the best of them, but he
did not know what he was doing. He had never in his life fought
Guerrillas--such Guerrillas as were now to meet him.
He listened patiently to the warnings that were well meant, and
he put away firmly the hands that were lifted to stay his horse.
He pointed gleefully to his black flag, and boasted that quarter
should neither be given nor asked. He had come to carry back with
him the body of Bill Anderson, and that body he would have, dead or
alive.
Fate, however, had not yet entirely turned its face away from the
Federal officer. As he rode out from the town at the head of his
column a young Union girl, described as very fair and beautiful,
rushed up to Major Johnson and halted him. She spoke as one
inspired. She declared that a presentiment had come to her, and
that if he led his men that day against Bill Anderson, she felt and
knew that but few of them would return alive. The girl almost knelt
in the dust as she besought the leader, but to no avail.
Johnson’s blood was all on fire, and he would march and fight, no
matter whether death waited for him one mile off, or one hundred
miles off. He not only carried a black flag himself, and swore
to give no quarter, but he declared on his return that he would
devastate the country and leave of the habitations of the southern
men not one stone upon another. He was greatly enraged towards the
last. He cursed the people as “damned secesh,” and swore that they
were in league with the murderers and robbers. Extermination, in
fact, was what they all needed, and if fortune favored him in the
fight, it was extermination that all should have. Fortune did not
favor him.