Bloody Dawn (9 page)

Other generals had penned such statements, although in practice they usually fell by the board. Good to his word, however, Blunt followed through, and guerrilla captives either mounted the scaffold or faced the firing squad.

Bushwhackers pored over newspapers eagerly and were aware of events as they occurred. Some of the men with Quantrill were children when the territorial cry of “No quarter!” was raised in 1854. That threat, the threat of their fathers, never actually happened. Now, almost a decade later these sons read that in fact they were engaged in just such a contest; not the noble kind of romantic novels, but a brutal, vicious, primitive kind in which the defeated died and the victorious lived. A few would never respond in the manner Blunt's edict seemed to demand; instead, they quietly left the war. And for the time being Quantrill himself continued to parole captured Federals and seek exchanges whenever the occasion arose. There were a growing number, however, such as George Todd—tight-lipped, cold-eyed, deadly George Todd—there were a number like him who held no illusions about the border war, and the altered course of the struggle was for them one of the easiest paths in the world to take. In time most would think, and act, like George Todd.

By the second week of August 1862, anyone could see that western Missouri was ablaze with revolt. After the capture of two steamboats the Missouri virtually dried up from a Rebel blockade, and everywhere large bodies of men moved silently through forest and valley.
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When all was ready, Confederate recruiter Col. John Hughes appeared and took charge of this burgeoning army, then marched it to camp near Independence. There, on the tenth he was joined by Upton Hayes and his raw recruits, and that same day, still nursing his leg wound, in rode Quantrill and his seasoned guerrillas. In all, the assembled force approached four hundred men. Early the next morning the Rebels struck the garrison at Independence. The fighting raged for several hours, but after dozens lay dead on both sides, including Colonel Hughes, the white flag was lifted and the Southerners had control of the town.
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Federal troops soon began converging, however, and after paroling his captives, Hayes—who now took command—led his army to the southeast. And while Hayes was
gaining an even bloodier victory at Lone Jack several days later, Quantrill and his band were elsewhere, being officially sworn in as a Partisan Ranger Company. In suit, Quantrill was voted captain by his followers.
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The stir among loyal Missourians caused by Independence and Lone Jack was immediate. There was no lack of concern across the border either. If it was any consolation to Kansans, however, the Rebels showed small inclination to menace their state, and the whole affair had the appearance of an internal scrap between Union and Confederate Missourians. As the weeks passed, sketchy but welcome reports arrived, which stated that the Southern army, possibly five thousand men, demoralized and low on ammunition, was flying south in utter disarray. Quantrill was thought to be among them.
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“Heels up and coat tails streaming in the wind,” clapped one Kansan. “They are running. That is the latest news.”
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Within days, the sleeping town of Olathe discovered that not all of the Rebels were running.

Five weeks later Quantrill returned to Kansas. On the night of October 17, 1862, the guerrillas surrounded and captured Shawnee. As at Olathe, stunned citizens were herded into the square to watch helplessly while the Missourians tore their town apart. The stores were quickly looted and torched, as was the large hotel. Townsmen such as William Laurie were dragooned to help load the plunder; Laurie, a photographer who had been run from Kansas City in 1861 for refusing to raise a Rebel flag, was stripped of his clothes and put to work. Seeing his opportunity, however, and clad only in underwear, Laurie quickly escaped to a nearby field.

A former resident of the place, a raider now with Quantrill, recognized a much-hated neighbor from the territorial days. He, George Todd, and several others approached the man. One of the gang baited the Kansan and asked him where he stood politically. Proud, defiant to the end, he boldly responded that he was a devout Unionist, same as always. In a twinkling Todd raised his gun, jerked the trigger, and shot him through the head. And as the man's wife and daughter screamed in horror, the old neighbor, feeling cheated, bent down, placed a pistol to the victim's mouth, and shot him once again. Another guerrilla, angry and wild, accused the wife of being an informer and argued to kill her too. At that Quantrill quickly stepped in and threatened to shoot the bushwhacker if he didn't calm down.

Finally, after setting a number of houses on fire and murdering another man, the raiders rounded up the horses and rode back into the night. When they thought it was safe to do so, many of the citizens raced in a mad attempt to save their property. A few were lucky. For most, however, the flames were too far advanced, and as they had been doing all evening long, they could only gaze on helplessly while their homes went up in smoke.

For his part, William Laurie was determined that he would never be driven from a town again. First Kansas City, now Shawnee. He would escape the war entirely and move to a haven beyond its reach. There, in faraway Lawrence, he would set up shop and live in peace.

After waylaying several more men, the guerrillas crossed the state line and finally disappeared into Missouri. With Kansas aglow to his back and a handful of dead in his wake, William Quantrill had carried the Civil War to still another Kansas town.
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In the weeks after the raid on Shawnee, as the days grew short and golden leaves sprinkled the valleys, Quantrill organized his men for a trip south. Unseen to a passerby in summer, junglelike lairs became entirely stripped of foliage in the winter. Also, mounts needed constant forage, and the frigid Missouri winter could chill even the most ardent fighting spirit. And so, around the first of November 1862, the captain led his company away from the Missouri River country and took up the southward march. They passed through ravaged western Missouri, moving swiftly over stretches of prairie and field, coursing when possible the timber along the Grand and Osage. Other bushwhacking bands, emboldened by Quantrill's presence, mushroomed on the countryside, engaged in a variety of acts, then vanished almost as quickly as he passed.

The guerrillas continued their march out of Missouri, through the Indian Nations and finally, before severe weather set in, crossed into Arkansas behind Confederate lines.
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Two months after the premature report, Quantrill had gone south and a great and abiding silence settled over the western border. Among Missouri Rebels, however, his aura lingered. He had been little more than a hope, a dream, a vision prior to Aubrey and Liberty and the skirmishes of spring. But over the long and bloody summer months, after Independence and a dozen other encounters, his reality had gained so, his image had grown so that finally, at Olathe and Shawnee, the Missouri ideal was fully realized. Whereas Price and other prominent Southerners had abandoned the state in its hour of need, this stranger, this answer to a thousand prayers, had remained to continue the fight. But more than any one thing, the war, in the shape and spirit of this man, was at long last and with a sweet, sweet vengeance being carried back to Kansas where it all began. Feeble old men, crusty veterans of 1812 and the Indian wars, saluted and hurrahed in their hearts again and secretly urged him on. Daydreaming girls, swept with emotion, dedicated poetry to their romantic, blue-eyed cavalier. One grateful woman, after giving birth to twins, paid the ultimate tribute and named one of her children Quantrill.
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And in a hundred other quiet ways the people's love was thus expressed.

And even across the line, although many Kansas families slept in fields and quaked at the very sound of his name, there still was a curious respect building for the daring, phantom Rebel. Some boasted of their experiences in a Quantrill raid—“No counterfeit either,” one man insisted, “but the real, genuine Quantrell”—while others told tall tales about narrow escapes from the hands of the captain himself.
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But through all the yarns the respect held, couched at times, but there nonetheless; a grudging admission among a warlike race that this man, their enemy, was a bold and fearless fighter. And too, there was the tacit understanding that in a grim little war where
restraints were rapidly slipping, Quantrill, despite “no quarter” edicts, managed to preserve a degree of humanity, even gallantry, as his parole of Union captives would suggest. A respect it was, but nothing more. All Kansans would concur that any repeat of the previous summer's onslaught would be the worst possible calamity to befall their state. There was hope that the year 1863 would be better. In the long intervening winter months there was the chance that their nemesis might be killed or that he might grow weary of a war that was looking more every day like a lost cause. Or perhaps he and his Missouri “whackers” considered the debt of 1861 paid and would trouble Kansas no longer.

But down in Arkansas William Quantrill had no intention of being killed. And if he agreed in his heart that the struggle for Missouri was over, his special war against Kansas was not. As he had said that night at Olathe, he would never be finished until the debt had been paid in full, until the border of Kansas was as stricken and desolate as was that of Missouri. Then all too quickly, and with this haunting thought still fresh in the air, the winter passed; soon from the spring woods of western Missouri a Federal spy was pushing on a secret message bearing the ominous words: “Quantrill is here.”
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In May 1863, while troops were away on scout, a band of Rebels slipped into Plattsburg, Missouri, and set fire to the courthouse. Before the raiders left, the town's Unionist press was “knocked into pie.”
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For Missouri loyalists the omen was clear.

Even clearer to Kansans, however, was Dick Yager's march from Diamond Springs that same month. Thus the border braced for the summer of 1862 to repeat itself. Then, to the surprise of everyone, nothing happened. Thomas Ewing stepped onto the stage and the war for all appearances ended. Within a matter of weeks the “live” man generated a feeling of trust and confidence like no time in the past, and unlike his bombastic predecessor, the energetic young general allowed actions to speak for themselves. His troops took the field, attacked and scattered Rebel bands, and his spies mixed with the guerrillas so effectively that Ewing felt no major move could be made without his knowledge. Proof of his success, he felt, was Quantrill's inactivity. And finally, after two agonizing years of sudden descents from Missouri, a guard was placed on the open border in effect sealing off Kansas from the war, or more to the point, locking Missouri out. With this Kansans were given peace and a pledge: Quantrill will never invade the state again.
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No one bothered to inform Quantrill. As the best weeks for action passed—a time of good grass and water—the man who had wrought such havoc along the line in 1862 remained fast in the woodlands of west Missouri and did nothing; nothing, that is, except watch, wait, and plan.

Increasingly his mind locked on one place—his boldest stroke of the war: Lawrence. Returning after a three-year absence and taking a town he had left as a fugitive—no one could miss the irony. In view of the huge gamble, however—breaking clear of the border guard, the grueling fifty-mile ride through a hostile land, attacking a city the size of Lawrence, then returning with every Federal of the border between him and Missouri—convincing enough desperate men, enough needed to attempt such a ride, seemed at the time remote. But the wind was shifting. Already, although Kansas failed to see it as such, a fateful chain of events was rapidly unfolding.

In late spring, while Blunt was still in command, his troops captured a certain well-liked bushwhacker named Jim Vaughn. Clad in Union blue, Vaughn had prankishly come to Wyandotte one day to get a haircut and shave but was soon recognized and taken prisoner. In a bid to gain his release, Quantrill tried to bargain with Blunt, offering not one but three Federal captives, including a Yankee officer. The gesture failed, however, and Vaughn was given to the hangman. At the rope the condemned man spoke his last: “We can be killed but we cannot be conquered. Taking my life today will cost you one hundred lives, and this debt my friends will pay in a very short time.”
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Then in July came what guerrillas feared most—the arrest of relatives and their exile from Missouri. Bill Anderson did make a mad dash to hide his family, and Younger and Yager lashed out as best they could. And George Todd did send a letter to Ewing threatening to burn Kansas City if the women and children were not released.
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But the prisoners remained, the arrests continued, and in the end it was this frustration at preventing the banishment of their loved ones that loosened restraints to an attack on Lawrence. Quantrill worked out plans for the raid, scheduled to coincide when the full moon illuminated the Kansas prairie, around the first of August. He then did nothing. And, as expected, word of the impending march quickly reached Lawrence.