Bloody Dawn (23 page)

“It will be adequate,” said George Bingham as he laid down the brush from his latest painting. For five long years the artist had pressed ahead with the huge oil, despite entreaties from friends to let old wounds heal. But Bingham was not like that. The bitter little man meant each and every word that day at the Pacific House, and passing time, if a balm to some, only fueled his determination. His attacks on Ewing were tireless, and when he wasn't exhibiting the monumental work “Order No. II” or distributing prints of it to Ohio politicians, the Missourian was wielding the pen like a rapier: “Scarcely was the ink dry upon the paper, when like a pack of infuriated and starved bloodhounds they were unleashed and turned loose upon the horror-stricken communities. … Never was a robbery so stupendous, more cunningly devised or successfully accomplished, with less personal risk to the robbers.”
¹³

Much through Bingham's efforts, Ewing's first bid fell short when Ohio leaders failed to back his name for office. But several years later, and with the aid of his illustrious brother “Cump” and old commander Schofield, Ewing fought back and won for himself a seat in Congress. Then began the stretch for the governorship, which in the eyes of all was the next stepping-stone to the White House in 1880. But once again and with renewed vigor Bingham and other Missourians rose to the attack. More copies of “Order No. 11” were circulated; essays increased in virulence. Finally, when the crucial votes for governor were counted Thomas Ewing had fallen by a 3-percent margin. And with that the political dreams of a lifetime ended.

Years later, talking with a visitor in his New York law office, the aging man reminisced about his life in Kansas, the war, and George C. Bingham. “I suppose my military order changed the lives of a lot of people,” he confided. “It changed mine, I know.”

“You might have been President of the United States or should I say now, an ex President?”

Ewing sat quietly, listening, contemplating the words. “It is in the past now,” he finally answered, “but I sometimes wonder if I had not issued that order … what might have happened.”

Crossing to his downtown office on January 21, 1896, Thomas Ewing, Jr., was struck by a streetcar and died from injuries a few hours later. He was sixty-six.
¹⁴

The Battle of Pilot Knob dashed whatever hope Sterling Price had of capturing St. Louis. Two days had elapsed, two precious days that gave Union forces in Missouri the much-needed margin to work with. Consequently, when Price's army left the battlefield it marched not north toward St. Louis, but west toward the Kansas border. And as it did large numbers of guerrillas came out of the woods to ride along. The sight of these half-wild creatures was a jolt to regular soldiers and a graphic, sickening comment on the condition of the war in Missouri. Proudly displayed around the necks of their horses or dangling from bridles were trophies of human ears and freshly torn scalps.
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On September 27, 1864, Bill Anderson, George Todd, and several hundred bushwhackers swarmed in and around the village of Centralia, Missouri. The day was hot, the whiskey plentiful. Shortly before noon a train pulled into the station. Among the passengers were more than twenty Union soldiers, many returning home on leave from Georgia. These helpless men were taken from the car, hustled to a nearby wall, and then, despite pleas for mercy, shot.

Not long after the Rebels left, a patrol of over one hundred raw militiamen rode into Centralia and started off on the trail at once. After a short ride the militia found itself on a small hill. And suddenly, as if arisen from hell, the land all about them was ringed with the most experienced killers in the West. Surrounded, outnumbered, frightened, the issue was never in doubt. Anderson charged, then Todd, and after a harmless volley by the militia the great slaughter began. Those who died quickly were blessed. Those who surrendered suffered most. When Federal troops arrived the following day they were overwhelmed by the scene spread about them. “The war has furnished no greater barbarism,” muttered a stunned Union general.
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Legend has it that when the last knot was added, the silk cord carried by Bill Anderson had fifty-three tied into it. The first fourteen were knotted at Lawrence. “I have fully glutted my vengeance. I have killed many. I am a guerrilla.”
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One month after Centralia, with two musket balls in the back of his head, Bill Anderson at age twenty-five was dead. At twenty-four, so too was George Todd. And soon, many more young men would join them. Their fight for Missouri was over.

In five smoke-filled days, from the nineteenth of October 1864 to the twenty-third, the Civil War on the border effectively came to an end. During that time the Rebel army under Sterling Price engaged the combined might of Kansas militia and Union regulars, and after several bloody assaults near Kansas City the climactic Battle of Westport was fought. The result sent Price reeling south in total retreat. As the beaten Confederates fled down the state line with the Federals hard at their heels, there was no chance to go further into Kansas and gather the military stores so desperately needed. Nor did Missouri soldiers find the time to go and get “their things.” It was enough to escape. And escape they did—down the desolate border, through southern Missouri, with hunger and death stalking every mile of the way. By early November Price's army of “half-starved bushwhackers and brutish vagabonds” crossed the Arkansas River never to return.
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With rousing cheers and notes of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” filling the crisp autumn air, the Lawrence militia crossed the new bridge looking every inch the conquering heroes. And for their role in routing Price they received a welcome befitting such. Grown men ran to the bridge “like a lot of school boys let loose.” There were speeches, toasts, and tears, much thanksgiving, and much pride in a common effort.

Hardly had the sounds of victory faded when a new reason to shout spread through the city. On November 26, workmen drove the last spike at Lawrence of the long-awaited Pacific Railroad. “Today we bid farewell to the past,” announced a local speaker, “today we emerge into a new life.”
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Although he held minor positions and was active locally, the flame for high office never quite died in Charles Robinson. More than a decade after the bond scandal and his impeachment, Robinson again sought the public eye. And for the moment it seemed as if healing time had wiped much of the stain from his name for, and probably much to his surprise, the former governor was elected to a term in the state senate. Later, however, the sand castle crumbled when he was denied a seat in Congress. No one had really forgotten his earlier disgrace, and when the real test came Robinson was soundly defeated in a race for the governorship. Once more, broken and alone, the Father of Kansas retired to his new home across the river while the sweep of events moved on without him.
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To his dying day, Charles Robinson, the only Lawrence man to view the massacre from beginning to end, felt that his archenemy James Lane was in some satanic way connected with it. Of course it was just a feeling. There existed no hard evidence to support such a claim and thus the governor kept his beliefs largely to himself. In his blinding hatred, however, Robinson firmly believed that Lane was willing and able to engineer such a scheme. And that the senator would stop at nothing to attain a goal, alas, the former governor knew all too well.
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But whether Charles Robinson was right or whether he was wrong the world would never know. Depressed over his waning support among the radicals of Kansas, discouraged at his inability to stay atop the tiger, one year after war's end Jim Lane stuck a pistol in his mouth, then squeezed the trigger. “His suicide,” wrote a friend to Robinson, “was his own verdict on his life & actions.”
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On April 10, 1865, Lawrence was “electrified” by word of Lee's surrender. Instantly, despite the rain and mud, people ran to the telegraph office to learn more. “Soon crowds gathered in the streets, and cheer after cheer went up in every direction. All was hilarity and excitement.” There were parades and music and singing into the evening, and that night bonfires and rockets painted the sky.
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The celebration really didn't stop for the entire week when the war was ending everywhere. There was peace and then there was much more to be happy about, for Lawrence was well along the road to recovery.

To anyone returning since the raid—and there were many coming back now that it was safe to do so—the town was a far cry from the blackened shell they had fled. Proud citizens were forever counting their achievements: “Fourteen places where groceries and provisions are sold, five livery stables, two milliner shops, two daguerrian artists, two lumber yards, two banks, two jewelers, two harness shops, eight saloons, one foundry and machine shop, four flour mills, one brewery, three hotels,” and on and on. Then there were the tireless sawmills whirring day and night, devouring whole forests to keep pace with demand. Over three hundred and fifty homes stood in Lawrence, and across the river a hundred more had risen since the raid. But even these impressive figures were not enough. More homes were needed, homes for new arrivals.

They came by the hundreds after the war. The flow was so swift, in fact, that almost overnight the old-time residents became a minority. And with each new face the collective memory of Lawrence unavoidably grew a little fainter. Most latecomers actually knew little about the town's history; except for the blockhouses and maze of trenches, vestiges of the famous raid were fast disappearing. Few would have guessed when talking to him over the counter of his store that at one time Harlow Baker had been so riddled with bullet holes that he was twice passed over for dead. Or that the quiet lady librarian had been widowed one morning before she had cleared the sleep from her eyes. Or that the church where they now heard the Reverend Cordley's sermons was once littered with bodies and used as a morgue. Or that the same brushy ravine where little boys played and chased frogs had once been crowded with scores of terrified men whose sole hope for survival lay in choking back tears and clinging to its steep banksides.

With each day that passed, there was less to remind. Soon tall rows of buildings, larger and sturdier than before, again walled Massachusetts Street, creating one unbroken line of business and trade. The limits of the city expanded and reached out along the old California Road, sprawled around and over Mount Oread, and edged up to the new state university that crowned its top. And shortly, the crumbling blockhouses were torn down and the trenches covered over with lawns and gardens.

William Quantrill never attempted another raid into Kansas. He really didn't need to. By the summer of 1864 his giant, dark shadow crossed and recrossed the border as surely as if he cast it himself, and in his or her mind some Kansan somewhere saw him each and every hour of each and every day. He was said to have been almost everywhere and yet he was nowhere. It was only when frightened, running people finally slowed to a walk and began looking about that they discovered to their amazement he existed in these places through the mind alone. “We hear nothing of Quantrill,” was the last word when hysteria had crested. And that was the story for the remainder of the war. “We hear nothing of Quantrill.”
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There are a number of possible reasons why the enigmatic Ohioan left the war when he did. Certainly, William Quantrill's purpose for war lay west of the state line. And undoubtedly, he above all saw the madness of attempting another raid into Kansas. Before 1863 the risks had been great enough; after the raid on Lawrence, however, although Kansans refused to believe it, to get into the state and out again had become an impossibility, and any force attempting it would have certainly faced destruction. There is also the likelihood
that Quantrill, the refined former schoolteacher, had no stomach for the brutal savagery that later shamed the fighting in Missouri and the ugly games played with fervor by both sides.

But perhaps the best reason for his sudden departure from the war was given by Quantrill himself. After his triumphant return to Lawrence, his “greatest exploit,” he mentioned to someone that morning that for him there was no more aim in life. His goal was reached; he was now “ready to die.”
²⁵
He had destroyed Lawrence and by so doing accomplished that which others had threatened but been unable to do for almost a decade.

“And not one of us has ever regretted that we were in it,” announced one raider long after the war. “We are proud that we were able to revenge our fathers and mothers and sisters.”
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And so it was. On one side of the border he was a hero, a cavalier, an avenging angel.

Yet a few yards west of that same line, his memory burned like white iron: “Butcher”; “Monster”; “He comes from the dregs of a degraded population. He cannot write his name. … He seldom washes his hands or changes his shirt. He … lives in wretchedness, squalor and crime.”
²⁸
Whatever the mood, Kansas had quaffed from the cup of war, and for that state, William Quantrill had proven the bitter red wine. On May 10, 1865, near Bloomfield, Kentucky, one of the last skirmishes of the Civil War took place. Several weeks later, at a military hospital in Louisville, the quiet, mysterious man with the strange-sounding name closed his eyes forever. He was twenty-seven.

Not long after the massacre, the Reverend Richard Cordley had written how time would soon erase “the real marks of Quantrell's steps.” And in a sense this was true. With an energy and determination that seemed to defy the purely materialistic, the people reconstructed their town, laboring day and night, lending more than a willing hand to one another when their own task was complete, working to the point of exhaustion as if fleeing from a moment in history they chose to forget. Their success was remarkable. Several years afterward the visitor to Lawrence would be hard pressed to discover an outward trace of the raid. These “marks,” as the Reverend Cordley once knew them, were gone forever.