Among the Jackson county folks who insisted on their right to shelter
their friends was an old man named Blythe.
Col. Peabody at Independence had sent out a scouting party to find me or
any one else of the company they could “beat up.” Blythe was not at home
when they came but his son, aged twelve, was. They took him to the barn
and tried to find out where we were, but the little fellow baffled them
until he thought he saw a chance to break through the guard, and started
for the house.
He reached it safely, seized a pistol, and made for the woods followed by
a hail of bullets. They dropped him in his tracks, but, game to the last,
he rolled over as he fell, shot one of his pursuers dead, mortally wounded
a second, and badly hurt a third.
They put seventeen bullets in him before he could shoot a fourth time.
A negro servant who had witnessed the seizure of his young master, had
fled for the timber, and came upon a party of a dozen of us, including
Quantrell and myself. As he quickly told us the story, we made our plans,
and ambushed at the “Blue Cut,” a deep pass on the road the soldiers must
take back to Independence. The banks are about thirty feet high, and the
cut about fifty yards wide.
Not a shot was to be fired until the entire command was in the cut.
Thirty-eight had started to “round up” Cole Younger that morning;
seventeen of them lay dead in the cut that night and the rest of them had
a lively chase into Independence.
To this day old residents know the Blue Cut as “the slaughter-pen.”
Early in May, 1862, Quantrell’s men were disbanded for a month. Horses
were needed, and ammunition. There were plenty of horses in Missouri, but
the ammunition presented more of a problem.
Capt. Quantrell, George Todd and myself, attired as Union officers, went
to Hamilton, a small town on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad,
undetected by the company of the Seventh United States Cavalry in camp
there, although we put up at the principal hotel. Todd passed as a major
in the Sixth Missouri Cavalry, Quantrell a major in the Ninth, and I a
captain in an Illinois regiment. At Hannibal there was a regiment of
Federal soldiers. The commander talked very freely with us about
Quantrell, Todd, Haller, Younger, Blunt, Pool and other guerrillas of whom
he had heard.
While in Hannibal we bought 50,000 revolver caps and such other ammunition
as we needed. From there we went to St. Joseph, which was under command
of Col. Harrison B. Branch.
“Too many majors traveling together are like too many roses in a bouquet,”
suggested Todd. “The other flowers have no show.”
He reduced himself to captain and I to lieutenant.
Our disguise was undiscovered. Col. Branch entertained us at his
headquarters most hospitably.
“I hope you may kill a guerrilla with every bullet I have sold you,” said
one merchant to me. “I think if ever there was a set of devils let loose,
it is Quantrell, Todd, Cole Younger and Dave Pool.”
From St. Joseph we went to Kansas City in a hack, sending Todd into
Jackson county with the ammunition. When within three miles of Kansas
City the hack was halted by a picket on outpost duty, and while the driver
argued with the guard, Quantrell and I slipped out on the other side of
the hack and made our way to William Bledsoe’s farm, where we were in
friendly hands.