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diff --git a/old/61100-0.txt b/old/61100-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3c82d28..0000000 --- a/old/61100-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6163 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Charles W. Quantrell, by Harrison Trow - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Charles W. Quantrell - A True Report of his Guerrilla Warfare on the Missouri and - Kansas Border During the Civil Was of 1861 to 1865 - -Author: Harrison Trow - -Editor: John P. Burch - -Release Date: January 4, 2020 [EBook #61100] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLES W. QUANTRELL *** - - - - -Produced by deaurider and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - -Transcriber’s Note: Boldface is indicated with =equals signs=; italics -is indicated with _underscores_. - - - - - CHARLES W. QUANTRELL - - A TRUE HISTORY OF HIS GUERRILLA WARFARE - ON THE MISSOURI AND KANSAS BORDER - DURING THE CIVIL WAR OF - 1861 TO 1865 - - By JOHN P. BURCH - - _ILLUSTRATED_ - - AS TOLD BY - - CAPTAIN HARRISON TROW - - ONE WHO FOLLOWED QUANTRELL THROUGH - HIS WHOLE COURSE - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1923 - BY J. P. BURCH - VEGA TEXAS - -[Illustration: CHARLES W. QUANTRELL] - - -[Illustration: CAPTAIN HARRISON TROW] - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - Introduction 11 - - The False Jonah 13 - - Early Life of Quantrell 15 - - Why the Quantrell Guerrillas Were Organized 23 - - Quantrell’s First Battle in the Civil War 29 - - Fight at Charles Younger’s Farm 35 - - Fight at Independence 37 - - Second Fight at Independence 39 - - Flanked Independence 41 - - Fight at Tate House 43 - - Fight at Clark’s Home 51 - - Jayhawkers and Militia Murdered Old Man Blythe’s Son 59 - - The Low House Fight 63 - - Quantrell and Todd Go After Ammunition 69 - - A Challenge 73 - - The Battle and Capture of Independence 77 - - Lone Jack Fight 85 - - The March South in 1862 97 - - Younger Remains in Missouri Winter of 1862 and 1863 105 - - The Trip North in 1863 121 - - Jesse James Joins the Command 131 - - Lawrence Massacre 141 - - Order Number 11, August, 1863 155 - - Fights and Skirmishes, Fall and Winter, 1863–1864 159 - - Blue Springs Fight, 1863 163 - - Wellington 165 - - The Grinter Fight 171 - - The Centralia Massacre 175 - - Anderson 187 - - Press Webb, a Born Scout 193 - - Little Blue 205 - - Arrock Fight, Spring of 1864 207 - - Fire Bottom Prairie Fight, Spring of 1864 209 - - Death of Todd and Anderson, October, 1864 213 - - Going South, Fall of 1864 223 - - The Surrender 229 - - Death of Quantrell 237 - - The Youngers and Jameses After the War 253 - - - - - Do not loan this book out to - neighbors and friends - If You Do You Will Never Get It Back - - Keep it in your Library - When You Are Not Reading It - - If You Want One Send to - - J. P. BURCH, VEGA, TEXAS - - And He Will Mail You One At Once - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -Captain Harrison Trow, who will be eighty years old this coming -October, was with Quantrell during the whole of the conflict from -1861 to 1865, and for the past twenty years I have been at him to -give his consent for me to write a true history of the Quantrell -Band, until at last he has given it. - -This narrative was written just as he told it to me, giving -accounts of fights that he participated in, narrow escapes -experienced, dilemmas it seemed almost impossible to get out of, -and also other battles; the life of the James boys and Youngers as -they were with Quantrell during the war, and after the war, when -they became outlaws by publicity of the daily newspapers, being -accused of things which they never did and which were laid at their -feet. - -Captain Trow identified Jesse James when the latter was killed at -St. Joseph. He also was the last man to surrender in the State of -Missouri. - - JOHN P. BURCH. - - - - -THE AUTHOR - - -Captain Harrison Trow was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October -16, 1843, moved to Illinois in 1848, and thence to Missouri in -1850, and went to Hereford, Texas, in 1901, where he now resides. -At the age of nine years, he, having one of the nicest, neatest and -sweetest stepmothers (as they all are), and things not being as -pleasant at home as they should be (which is often the case where -there is a stepmother), and getting all the peach tree sprouts for -the whole family used on him, he decided the world was too large -for him to take such treatment, and one day he proceeded to give -the stepmother a good flogging, such as he had been getting, and -left for brighter fields. - -In a few days he made his way to Independence, Missouri, got into -a game of marbles, playing keeps, in front of a blacksmith shop, -and won seventy-five cents. Then and there Uncle George Hudsbath -rode up and wanted to hire a hand. Young Trow jumped at the job and -talked to Mr. Hudsbath a few minutes and soon was up behind him and -riding away to his new home. Young Trow proved to be the lad Uncle -George was looking for and stayed with him until the war broke out. - - - - -The False Jonah - - -Early in the year of 1861, about in January, Jim Lane sent a false -Jonah down to Missouri to investigate the location of the negroes -and stock, preparing to make a raid within a short time. This Jonah -located first at Judge Gray’s house at Bone Hill, was fed by Judge -Gray’s “niggers” and was secreted in an empty ice house where they -kept ice in the summer time. He would come out in the night time -and plan with the “niggers” for their escape into Kansas with the -horses, buggies and carriages and other valuables belonging to -their master that they could get possession of. But an old negro -woman, old Maria by name, gave the Jonah away. - -Chat Rennick, one of the neighbors, and two other men secreted -themselves in the negroes’ cabin so as to hear what he was telling -the negroes. After he had made all his plans for their escape -Chat Rennick came out on him with the other two men and took him -prisoner and started north to the Missouri River. Securing a skiff, -they floated out into the river and when in about the center there -came up a heavy gale, and one of these gentlemen thought it best to -unload part of the cargo, so he was thrown overboard. As for the -negroes, they repented in sack cloth and ashes and all stayed at -home and took care of their master and mistress, as Jonah did in -the olden times. As for the Jonah, I do not know whether the fish -swallowed him or not, but if one did he did not get sick and throw -him up. This took place at my wife’s uncle’s home, Judge James -Gray. - - - - -Early Life of Quantrell - - -The early life of Quantrell was obscure and uneventful. He was born -near Hagerstown, Maryland, July 20, 1836, and was reared there -until he was sixteen years of age. He remained always an obedient -and affectionate son. His mother had been left a widow when he was -only a few years old. - -For some time preceding 1857, Quantrell’s only brother lived in -Kansas. He wrote to his younger brother, Charles, to come there, -and after his arrival they decided on a trip to California. About -the middle of the summer of 1857 the two started for California -with a freight outfit. Upon reaching Little Cottonwood River, -Kansas, they decided to camp for the night. This they did. All was -going well. After supper twenty-one outlaws, or Redlegs, belonging -to Jim Lane at Lawrence, Kansas, rode up and killed the elder -brother, wounded Charles, and took everything in sight, money, -and even the “nigger” who went with them to do the cooking. They -thought more of the d----d “nigger” than they did of all the rest -of the loot. They left poor Charles there to die and be eaten later -by wolves or some other wild animal that might come that way. -Poor Charles lay there for three days before anyone happened by, -guarding his dead brother, suffering near death from his wounds. -After three days an old Shawnee Indian named Spye Buck came along, -buried the elder brother and took Charles to his home and nursed -him back to life and strength. After six months to a year Charles -Quantrell was able to go at ease, and having a good education for -those days, got a school and taught until he had earned enough -money to pay the old Indian for keeping him while he was sick and -to get him to Lawrence. He reached Lawrence and went to where Jim -Lane was stationed with his company. He wanted to get into the -company that murdered his brother and wounded himself. After a -few days he was taken in and, from outward appearance, he became -a full-fledged Redleg, but in his heart he was doing this only to -seek revenge on those who had killed his brother and wounded him at -Cottonwood, Kansas. - -Quantrell, now known as Charles Hart, became intimate with Lane and -ostensibly attached himself to the fortunes of the anti-slavery -party. In order to attain his object and get a step nearer his -goal, it became necessary for him to speak of John Brown. He always -spoke of him to General Lane, who was at that time Colonel Lane, -in command of a regiment at Lawrence, as one for whom he had great -admiration. Quantrell became enrolled in a company that held all -but two of the men who had done the deadly work at Cottonwood, -Kansas. First as a private, then as an orderly and sergeant, -Quantrell soon gained the esteem of his officers and the confidence -of his men. - -One day Quantrell and three men were sent down in the neighborhood -of Wyandotte to meet a wagon load of “niggers” coming up to -Missouri under the pilotage of Jack Winn, a somewhat noted horse -thief and abolutionist. One of the three men failed to return with -Quantrell, nor could any account be given of his absence until his -body was found near a creek several days afterwards. In the center -of his forehead was the round, smooth hole of a navy revolver -bullet. Those who looked for Jack Winn’s safe arrival were also -disappointed. People traveling the road passed the corpse almost -daily and the buzzards found it first, and afterwards the curious. -There was the same round hole in the forehead and the same sure -mark of the navy revolver bullet. This thing went on for several -months, scarcely a week passing but that some sentinel was found -dead at his post, some advance picket surprised and shot at his -outpost watch station. - -The men began to whisper, one to another, and to cast about for -the cavalry Jonah who was in their midst. One company alone, that -of Captain Pickins, the company to which Quantrell belonged, had -lost thirteen men between October, 1859 and 1860. Other companies -had lost two to three each. A railroad conductor named Rogers -had been shot through the forehead. Quantrell and Pickens became -intimate, as a captain and lieutenant of the same company should, -and confided many things to each other. One night the story of -the Cottonwood River was told and Pickens dwelt with just a -little relish upon it. Three days later Pickens and two of his -most reliable men were found dead on Bull Creek, shot like the -balance, in the middle of the forehead. For a time after Pickens’ -death there was a lull in the constant conscription demanded by -the Nemesis. The new lieutenant bought himself a splendid uniform, -owned the best horse in the territory and instead of one navy -revolver, now had two. Organizations of all sorts now sprang up, -Free Soil clubs, Men of Equal Rights, Sons of Liberty, Destroying -Angels, Lane’s Loyal Leaguers, and everyone made haste to get his -name signed to both constitution and by-laws. - -Lawrence especially effected the Liberator Club, whose undivided -mission was to found freedom for all the slaves now in Missouri. - -Quantrell persevered in his efforts to kill all of the men who -had had a hand in the killing of his brother and the wounding -of himself. With this in view, he induced seven Liberators to -co-operate with him in an attack on Morgan Walker. These seven men -whom Quantrell picked were the last except two of the men he had -sworn vengeance upon when left to die at Cottonwood River, Kansas. -He told them that Morgan Walker had a lot of “niggers,” horses and -cattle and money and that the sole purpose was to rob and kill him. -Quantrell’s only aim was to get these seven men. Morgan Walker was -an old citizen of Jackson County, a venerable pioneer who had -settled there when buffalo grazed on the prairie beyond Westport -and where, in the soft sands beyond the inland streams, there were -wolf and moccasin tracks. This man, Morgan Walker, was the man -Quantrell had proposed to rob. He lived some five or six miles -from Independence and owned about twenty negroes of various ages -and sizes. The probabilities were that a skillfully conducted raid -might leave him without a “nigger.” - -Well mounted and armed, the little detachment left Lawrence -quietly, rode two by two, far apart, until the first rendezvous was -reached, a clump of timber at a ford on Indian Creek. It was the -evening of the second day, and they tarried long enough to rest -their horses and eat a hearty supper. - -Before daylight the next morning the entire party were hidden in -some heavy timber about two miles west of Walker’s house. There -these seven men stayed, none of them stirring, except Quantrell. -Several times during the day, however, he went backwards and -forwards, apparently to the fields where the negroes were at work, -and whenever he returned he brought something either for the horses -or the men to eat. - -Mr. Walker had two sons, and before it was yet night, these boys -and their father were seen putting into excellent order their -double-barrel shotguns, and a little later three neighbors who -likewise carried double-barrel shotguns rode up to the house. -Quantrell, who brought news of many other things to his comrades, -brought no note of this. If he saw it he made no sign. When -Quantrell arranged his men for the dangerous venture they were to -proceed, first to the house, gain access to it, capture all the -male members of the family and put them under guard, assemble all -the negroes and make them hitch up the horses to the wagons and -then gallop them for Kansas. Fifty yards from the gate the eight -men dismounted and fastened their horses, and the march to the -house began. Quantrell led. He was very cool and seemed to see -everything. The balance of his men had their revolvers in their -hands while he had his in his belt. Quantrell knocked loudly at -the oaken panel of the door. No answer. He knocked again and -stood perceptibly at one side. Suddenly the door flared open and -Quantrell leaped into the hall with a bound like a red deer. A -livid sheet of flame burst out through the darkness where he had -disappeared, followed by another as the second barrels of the guns -were discharged and the tragedy was over. Six fell where they -stood, riddled with buckshot. One staggered to the garden and -died there. The seventh, hard hit and unable to mount his horse, -dragged himself to a patch of timber and waited for the dawn. They -tracked him by the blood upon the leaves and found him early in the -morning. Another volley, and the last Liberator was liberated. - -Walker and his two sons, assisted by three of the stalwart and -obliging neighbors, had done a clean night’s work, and a righteous -one. This being the last of the Redlegs, except two, who murdered -Quantrell’s brother and wounded him in Cottonwood, Kansas, in 1857, -he closed his eyes and ears from ever being a scout for old Jim -Lane any more. - -In a few days after the ambuscade at Walker’s, Charles W. -Quantrell, instead of Charles Hart, as he was known, then was not -afraid to tell his name on Missouri soil. He wrote to Jim Lane, -telling him what had happened to the scouts sent out by him, and as -the war was on then, Quantrell told Lane in his letter that he was -going to Richmond, Virginia, to get a commission from under Jeff -Davis’ own hand, which he did (as you will read further on in this -narrative), to operate on the border at will. So Quantrell, being -fully equipped with all credentials, notified Jim Lane of Missouri, -telling him he would treat him with the same or better courtesy -than he (Lane) had treated him and his brother at Cottonwood River, -Kansas, in 1857. This made Jim Lane mad, and he began to send his -roving, robbing, and thieving bands into Missouri, and Charles W. -Quantrell, having a band of well organized guerrillas of about -fifty men, began to play on their golden harps. Every time they -came in sight, which was almost every day, they would have a fight -to the finish. - - - - -Why the Quantrell Guerrillas Were Organized - - -It all came about from the Redlegs or Kansas Jayhawkers. For two -years Kansas hated Missouri and at all times during these two years -there were Redlegs from old Jim Lane’s army crossing to Missouri, -stealing everything they could get their hands on, driving stock, -insulting innocent women and children, and hanging and killing old -men; so it is the province of history to deal with results, not to -condemn the phenomena which produce them. Nor has it the right to -decry the instruments Providence always raises up in the midst of -great catastrophes to restore the equilibrium of eternal justice. -Civil War might well have made the Guerrilla, but only the excesses -of civil war could have made him the untamable and unmerciful -creature that history finds him. When he first went into the war he -was somewhat imbued with the old-fashioned belief that soldiering -meant fighting and that fighting meant killing. He had his own -ideas of soldiering, however, and desired nothing so much as to -remain at home and meet its despoilers upon his own premises. Not -naturally cruel, and averse to invading the territory of any other -people, he could not understand the patriotism of those who invaded -his own territory. Patriotism, such as he was required to profess, -could not spring up in the market place at the bidding of Redleg -or Jayhawker. He believed, indeed, that the patriotism of Jim Lane -and Jennison was merely a highway robbery transferred from the -darkness to the dawn, and he believed the truth. Neither did the -Guerrilla become merciless all of a sudden. Pastoral in many cases -by profession, and reared among the bashful and timid surroundings -of agricultural life, he knew nothing of the tiger that was in -him until death had been dashed against his eyes in numberless -and brutal ways, and until the blood of his own kith and kin had -been sprinkled plentifully upon things that his hands touched, and -things that entered into his daily existence. And that fury of -ideas also came to him slowly, which is more implacable than the -fury of men, for men have heart, and opinion has none. It took him -likewise some time to learn that the Jayhawkers’ system of saving -the Union was a system of brutal force, which bewailed not even -that which it crushed; and it belied its doctrine by its tyranny, -stained its arrogated right by its violence, and dishonored its -vaunted struggles by its executions. But blood is as contagious as -air. The fever of civil war has its delirium. - -When the Guerrilla awoke he was a giant! He took in, as it were, -and at a single glance, all the immensity of the struggle. He saw -that he was hunted and proscribed; that he had neither a flag nor a -government; that the rights and the amenities of civilized warfare -were not to be his; that a dog’s death was certain to be his if -he surrendered even in the extremest agony of battle; that the -house which sheltered him had to be burned; the father who succored -him had to be butchered; the mother who prayed for him had to be -insulted; the sister who carried him food had to be imprisoned; -the neighborhood which witnessed his combats had to be laid waste; -the comrade shot down by his side had to be put to death as a wild -beast--and he lifted up the black flag in self-defense and fought -as became a free man and a hero. - -Much obloquy has been cast upon the Guerrilla organization because -in its name bad men plundered the helpless, pillaged the friend and -foe alike, assaulted non-combatants and murdered the unresisting -and the innocent. Such devils’ work was not Guerrilla work. It -fitted all too well the hands of those cowards crouching in the -rear of either army and courageous only where women defended -what remained to themselves and their children. Desperate and -remorseless as he undoubtedly was, the Guerrilla saw shining upon -his pathway a luminous patriotism, and he followed it eagerly that -he might kill in the name of God and his country. The nature of his -warfare made him responsible, of course, for many monstrous things -he had no personal share in bringing about. Denied a hearing at -the bar of public opinion, of all the loyal journalists, painted -blacker than ten devils, and given a countenance that was made -to retain some shadow of all the death agonies he had seen, is -it strange in the least that his fiendishness became omnipresent -as well as omnipotent? To justify one crime on the part of a -Federal soldier, five crimes more cruel were laid at the door of -the Guerrilla. His long gallop not only tired, but infuriated his -hunters. That savage standing at bay and dying always as a wolf -dies when barked at by hounds and dudgeoned by countrymen, made his -enemies fear and hate him. Hence, from all their bomb-proofs his -slanderers fired silly lies at long range, and put afloat unnatural -stories that hurt him only as it deepened the savage intensity of -an already savage strife. Save in rare and memorable instances, the -Guerrilla murdered only when fortune in open and honorable battle -gave into his hands some victims who were denied that death in -combat which they afterward found by ditch or lonesome roadside. -Man for man, he put his life fairly on the cast of the war dice, -and died when the need came as the red Indian dies, stoical and -grim as a stone. - -As strange as it may seem, the perilous fascination of fighting -under a black flag--where the wounded could have neither surgeon -nor hospital, and where all that remained to the prisoners was -the absolute certainty of speedy death--attracted a number of -young men to the various Guerrilla bands, gently nurtured, born to -higher destinies, capable of sustaining exertion in any scheme or -enterprise, and fit for callings high up in the scale of science -or philosophy. Others came who had deadly wrongs to avenge, and -these gave to all their combats that sanguinary hue which still -remains a part of the Guerrilla’s legacy. Almost from the first -a large majority of Quantrell’s original command had over them -the shadow of some terrible crime. This one recalled a father -murdered, this one a brother waylaid and shot, this one a house -pillaged and burned, this one a relative assassinated, this one a -grievous insult while at peace at home, this one a robbery of all -his earthly possessions, this one the force that compelled him to -witness the brutal treatment of a mother or sister, this one was -driven away from his own like a thief in the night, this one was -threatened with death for opinion’s sake, this one was proscribed -at the instance of some designing neighbor, this one was arrested -wantonly and forced to do the degrading work of a menial; while all -had more or less of wrath laid up against the day when they were to -meet, face to face and hand to hand, those whom they had good cause -to regard as the living embodiment of unnumbered wrongs. Honorable -soldiers in the Confederate army--amenable to every generous -impulse and exact in the performance of every manly duty--deserted -even the ranks which they had adorned and became desperate -Guerillas because the home they had left had been given to the -flames, or a gray-haired father shot upon his own hearthstone. -They wanted to avoid the uncertainty of regular battle and know -by actual results how many died as a propitation or a sacrifice. -Every other passion became subsidiary to that of revenge. They -sought personal encounters that their own handiwork might become -unmistakably manifest. Those who died by other agencies than their -own were not counted in the general summing up of the fight, nor -were the solacements of any victory sweet to them unless they had -the knowledge of being important factors in its achievement. - -As this class of Guerrilla increased, the warfare of the border -became necessarily more cruel and unsparing. Where at first -there was only killing in ordinary battle, there came to be no -quarter shown. The wounded of the enemy next felt the might of -this individual vengeance--acting through a community of bitter -memories--and from every stricken field there began, by and by, to -come up the substance of this awful bulletin: Dead, such and such -a number; _wounded, none_. The war had then passed into its fever -heat, and thereafter the gentle and the merciful, equally with the -harsh and the revengeful, spared nothing clad in blue that could be -captured. - - - - -Quantrell’s First Battle in the Civil War - - -Quantrell, together with Captain Blunt, returned from Richmond, -Virginia, in the fall of 1861, with his commission from under the -hand of Jeff Davis, to operate at will along the Kansas border. He -began to organize his band of Guerrillas. His first exploits were -confined to but eight men. These eight men were William Haller, -James and John Little, Edward Koger, Andrew Walker, son of Morgan -Walker, at whose farm Quantrell got rid of the last but two of the -band that murdered his brother at Cottonwood River, Kansas, and -left himself to die; John Hampton James Kelley and Solomon Bashman. - -This little band knew nothing whatever of war, and knew only how to -fight and shoot. They lived on the border and had some old scores -to settle with the Jayhawkers. - -These eight men, or rather nine--for Quantrell -commanded--encountered their first hereditary enemies, the -Jayhawkers. Lane entered Missouri only on grand occasions; Jennison -only once in a while as on a frolic. One was a collossal thief; -the other a picayune one. Lane dealt in mules by herds, horses -by droves, wagons by parks, negroes by neighborhoods, household -effects by the ton, and miscellaneous plunder by the cityful; -Jennison contented himself with the pocketbooks of his prisoners, -the pin money of the women, and the wearing apparel of the -children. Lane was a real prophet of demagogism, with insanity -latent in his blood; Jennison a _sans coulotte_, who, looking upon -himself as a bastard, sought to become legitimate by becoming -brutal. - -It was in the vicinity of Morgan Walker’s that Quantrell, with -his little command, ambushed a portion of Jennison’s regiment and -killed five of his thieves, getting some good horses, saddles and -bridles and revolvers. The next fight occurred upon the premises -of Volney Ryan, a citizen of Jackson County, with a company -of Missouri militia, a company of militia notorious for three -things--robbing hen roosts, stealing horses, and running away from -the enemy. The eight Guerrillas struck them just at daylight, -charged through it, charged back again, and when they returned from -the pursuit they counted fifteen dead, the fruits of a running -battle. - -An old man by the name of Searcy, claiming to be a Southern man, -was stealing all over Jackson County and using violence here and -there when he could not succeed through persuasion. Quantrell -swooped down upon him one afternoon, tried him that night and -hanged him the next morning, four Guerrillas dragging on the -rope. Seventy-five head of horses were found in the dead man’s -possession, all belonging to the citizens of the county, and any -number of deeds to small tracts of land, notes and mortgages, and -private accounts. All were returned. The execution acted as a -thunder-storm. It restored the equilibrium of the moral atmosphere. -The border warfare had found a chief. - -The eight Guerrillas had now grown to fifty. Among the new recruits -were David Poole, John Jarrette, William Coger, Richard Burns, -George Todd, George Shephers, Coleman Younger, myself and several -others of like enterprise and daring. An organization was at once -effected, and Quantrell was made captain; William Haller, first -lieutenant; William Gregg, second; George Todd, third, and John -Jarrette, orderly sergeant. The eagles were beginning to congregate. - -Poole, an unschooled Aristophanes of the Civil War, laughed -at calamity, and mocked when any man’s fear came. But for its -picturesqueness, his speech would have been comedy personified. He -laughed loudest when he was deadliest, and treated fortune with -no more dignity in one extreme than in another. Gregg, a grim -Saul among the Guerrillas, made of the Confederacy a mistress, -and like the Douglass of old, was ever tender and true to her. -Jarrette, the man who never knew fear, added to fearlessness and -immense activity an indomitable will. He was a soldier in the -saddle _par excellence_. John Coger never missed a battle nor a -bullet. Wounded thirteen times, he lived as an exemplification -of what a Guerrilla could endure--the amount of lead he could -comfortably get along with and keep fat. Steadfastness was his -test of merit--comradeship his point of honor. He who had John -Coger at his back had a mountain. Todd was the incarnate devil of -battle. He thought of fighting when awake, dreamed of it at night, -mingled talk of it in laxation, and went hungry many a day and -shelterless many a night that he might find his enemy and have his -fill of fight. Quantrell always had to hold him back, and yet he -was his thunderbolt. He discussed nothing in the shape of orders. -A soldier who discusses is like a hand which would think. He only -charged. Were he attacked in front--a charge; were he attacked -in the rear--a charge; on either flank--a charge. Finally, in a -desperate charge, and doing a hero’s work upon the stricken rear of -the Second Colorado, he was killed. This was George Todd. Shepherd, -a patient, cool, vigilant leader, knew all the roads and streams, -all the fords and passes, all modes of egress and ingress, all safe -and dangerous places, all the treacherous non-combatants, and all -the trustworthy ones--everything indeed that the few needed to know -who were fighting the many. In addition, there were few among the -Guerrillas who were better pistol shots. It used to do Quantrell -good to see him in the skirmish line. Coleman Younger, a boy having -still about his neck the purple marks of a rope made the night when -the Jayhawkers shot down his old father and strung him up to a -blackjack, spoke rarely, and was away a great deal in the woods. -“What was he doing?” his companions began to ask one of another. -He had a mission to perform--he was pistol practicing. Soon he was -perfect, and then he laughed often and talked a good deal. There -had come to him now that intrepid gaiety that plays with death. He -changed devotion to his family into devotion to his country, and he -fought and killed with the conscience of a hero. - - - - -Fight at Charles Younger’s Farm - - -The new organization was about to be baptized. Burris, raiding -generally along the Missouri border, had a detachment foraging -in the neighborhood of Charles Younger’s farm. This Charles -Younger was an uncle of Coleman, and he lived within three miles -of Independence, Missouri, the county seat of Jackson County. -The militia detachment numbered eighty-four and the Guerrillas -thirty-two. At sunset Quantrell struck their camp. Forewarned of -his coming, they were already in line. One volley settled them. -Five fell at the first fire and seven more were killed in the -chase. The shelter of Independence alone, where the balance of -the regiment was as a breakwater saved the detachment from utter -extinction. On this day--the 10th of November, 1861--Cole Younger -killed a militiaman seventy-one measured yards. The pistol practice -was bearing fruit. - -Independence was essentially a city of fruits and flowers. About -every house there was a _parterre_ and contiguous to every -_parterre_ there was an orchard. Built where the woods and the -prairies met, when it was most desirable there was sunlight, and -when it was most needed there was shade. The war found it rich, -prosperous and contented, and it left it as an orange that had -been devoured. Lane hated it because it was a hive of secession, -and Jennison preyed upon it because Guerrilla bees flew in and -out. On one side the devil, on the other the deep sea. Patriotism, -that it might not be tempted, ran the risk very often of being -drowned. Something also of Spanish intercourse and connection -belonged to it. Its square was a plaza; its streets centered there; -its courthouse was a citadel. Truer people never occupied a town; -braver fathers never sent their sons to war; grander matrons never -prayed to God for right, and purer women never waited through it -all--the siege, the sack, the pillage and the battle--for the light -to break in the East at last, the end to come in fate’s own good -and appointed time. - - - - -Fight at Independence - - -Quantrell had great admiration for Independence; his men adored it. -Burris’ regiment was still there--fortified in the courthouse--and -one day in February, 1862, the Guerrillas charged the town. It was -a desperate assault. Quantrell and Poole dashed down one street. -Cole Younger and Todd down another, Gregg and Shepherd down a -third, Haller, Coger, Burns, Walker and others down the balance of -the approaches to the square. Behind heavy brick walls the militia, -of course, fought and fought, besides, at a great advantage. Save -seven surprised in the first moments of the rapid onset and shot -down, none others were killed, and Quantrell was forced to retire -from the town, taking some necessary ordnance, quartermaster and -commissary supplies from the stores under the very guns of the -courthouse. None of his men were killed, though as many as eleven -were wounded. This was the initiation of Independence into the -mysteries as well as the miseries of border warfare, and thereafter -and without a month of cessation, it was to get darker and darker -for the beautiful town. - -Swinging back past Independence from the east the day after it had -been charged, Quantrell moved up in the neighborhood of Westport -and put scouts upon the roads leading to Kansas City. Two officers -belonging to Jennison’s regiment were picked up--a lieutenant, -who was young, and a captain, who was of middle age. They had only -time to pray. Quantrell always gave time for this, and had always -performed to the letter the last commissions left by those who -were doomed. The lieutenant did not want to pray. “It could do no -good,” he said. “God knew about as much concerning the disposition -it was intended to be made of his soul as he could suggest to -him.” The captain took a quarter of an hour to make his peace. -Both were shot. Men commonly die at God’s appointed time, beset -by Guerrillas, suddenly and unawares. Another of the horrible -surprises of Civil War. - -At first, and because of Quantrell’s presence, Kansas City swarmed -like an ant hill during a rainstorm; afterwards, and when the dead -officers were carried in, like a firebrand had been cast thereon. - - - - -Second Fight at Independence - - -While at the house of Charles Cowherd, a courier came up with the -information that Independence, which had not been garrisoned for -some little time, was again in possession of a company of militia. -Another attack was resolved upon. On the night of February 20, -1862, Quantrell marched to the vicinity of the town and waited -there for daylight. The first few faint streaks in the East -constituted the signal. There was a dash altogether down South -Main Street, a storm of cheers and bullets, a roar of iron feet on -the rocks of the roadway, and the surprise was left to work itself -out. It did, and reversely. Instead of the one company reported in -possession of the town, four were found, numbering three hundred -men. They manned the courthouse in a moment, made of its doors an -eruption and of its windows a tempest, killed a noble Guerrilla, -young George, shot Quantrell’s horse from under him, held their own -everywhere and held the fort. As before, all who were killed among -the Federals, and they lost seventeen, were those killed in the -first few moments of the charge. Those who hurried alive into the -courthouse were safe. Young George, dead in his first battle, had -all the promise of a bright career. None rode further nor faster in -the charge, and when he fell he fell so close to the fence about -the fortified building that it was with difficulty his comrades -took his body out from under a point blank fire and bore it off in -safety. - -It was a part of Quantrell’s tactics to disband every now and -then. “Scattered soldiers,” he argued, “make a scattered trail. -The regiment that has but one man to hunt can never find him.” The -men needed heavier clothing and better horses, and the winter, -more than ordinarily severe, was beginning to tell. A heavy -Federal force was also concentrating in Kansas City, ostensibly to -do service along the Missouri River, but really to drive out of -Jackson County a Guerrilla band that under no circumstances at that -time could possibly have numbered over fifty. Quantrell, therefore, -for an accumulation of reasons, ordered a brief disbandment. It -had hardly been accomplished before Independence swapped a witch -for a devil. Burris evacuated the town; Jennison occupied it. In -his regiment were trappers who trapped for dry goods; fishermen -who fished for groceries. At night passers-by were robbed of their -pocketbooks; in the morning, market women of their meat baskets. -Neither wiser, perhaps, nor better than the Egyptians, the patient -and all-suffering citizens had got rid of the lean kine in order to -make room for the lice. - - - - -Flanked Independence - - -At the appointed time, and at the place of David George, the -assembling was as it should be. Quantrell meant to attack Jennison -in Independence and destroy him if possible, and so moved in that -direction as far as Little Blue Church. Here he met Allen Parmer, -a regular red Indian of a scout, who never forgot to count a -column or know the line of march of an enemy, and Parmer reported -that instead of three hundred Jayhawkers being in Independence -there were six hundred. Too many for thirty-two men to grapple, -and fortified at that, they all said. It would be murder in the -first degree and unnecessary murder in addition. Quantrell, -foregoing with a struggle the chance to get at his old acquaintance -of Kansas, flanked Independence and stopped for a night at the -residence of Zan Harris, a true Southern man and a keen observer of -passing events. Early the next morning he crossed the Big Blue at -the bridge on the main road to Kansas City, surprised and shot down -a detachment of thirteen Federals watching it, burned the structure -to the water, and marched rapidly on in a southwest direction, -leaving Westport to the right. At noon the command was at the -residence of Alexander Majors. - - - - -Fight at Tate House - - -After the meal at Major’s Quantrell resumed his march, sending -Haller and Todd ahead with an advance guard and bringing up the -rear himself with the main body of twenty-two men. Night overtook -him at the Tate House, three miles east of Little Santa Fe, a small -town in Jackson County, close to the Kansas line, and he camped -there. Haller and Todd were still further along, no communication -being established between these two parts of a common whole. The -day had been cold and the darkness bitter. That weariness that -comes with a hard ride, a rousing fire, and a hearty supper, fell -early upon the Guerrillas. One sentinel at the gate kept drowsy -watch, and the night began to deepen. In various attitudes and in -various places, twenty-one of the twenty-two men were sound asleep, -the twenty-second keeping watch and ward at the gate in freezing -weather. - -It was just twelve o’clock and the fire in the capacious fireplace -was burning low. Suddenly a shout was heard. The well known -challenge of “Who are you?” arose on the night air, followed by a -pistol shot, and then a volley. Quantrell, sleeping always like a -cat, shook himself loose from his blankets and stood erect in the -glare of the firelight. Three hundred Federals, following all day -on his trail, had marked him take cover at night and went to bag -him, boots and breeches. They had hitched their horses back in -the brush and stole upon the dwelling afoot. So noiseless had been -their advance, and so close were they upon the sentinel before they -were discovered, that he had only time to cry out, fire, and rush -for the timber. He could not get back to his comrades, for some -Federals were between him and the door. As he ran he received a -volley, but in the darkness he escaped. - -The house was surrounded. To the men withinside this meant, unless -they could get out, death by fire and sword. Quantrell was trapped, -he who had been accorded the fox’s cunning and the panther’s -activity. He glided to the window and looked out cautiously. The -cold stars above shone, and the blue figures under them and on -every hand seemed colossal. The fist of a heavy man struck the door -hard, and a deep voice commanded, “Make a light.” There had been -no firing as yet, save the shot of the sentinel and its answering -volley. Quantrell went quietly to all who were still asleep and -bade them get up and get ready. It was the moment when death had -to be looked in the face. Not a word was spoken. The heavy fist -was still hammering at the door. Quantrell crept to it on tip-toe, -listened a second at the sounds outside and fired. “Oh,” and a -stalwart Federal fell prone across the porch, dying. “You asked for -a light and you got it, d----n you,” Quantrell ejaculated, cooler -than his pistol barrel. Afterwards there was no more bravado. -“Bar the doors and barricade the windows,” he shouted; “quick, -men!” Beds were freely used and applicable furniture. Little and -Shepherd stood by one door; Jarrette, Younger, Toler and Hoy -barricaded the other and made the windows bullet-proof. Outside -the Federal fusilade was incessant. Mistaking Tate’s house for -a frame house, when it was built of brick, the commander of the -enemy could be heard encouraging his men to shoot low and riddle -the building. Presently there was a lull, neither party firing -for the space of several minutes, and Quantrell spoke to his -people: “Boys, we are in a tight place. We can’t stay here, and I -do not mean to surrender. All who want to follow me out can say -so. I will do the best I can for them.” Four concluded to appeal -to the Federals for protection; seventeen to follow Quantrell to -the death. He called a parley, and informed the Federal commander -that four of his followers wanted to surrender. “Let them come -out,” was the order. Out they went, and the fight began again. Too -eager to see what manner of men their prisoners were, the Federals -holding the west side of the house huddled about them eagerly. Ten -Guerrillas from the upper story fired at the crowd and brought -down six. A roar followed this, and a rush back again to cover at -the double quick. It was hot work now. Quantrell, supported by -James Little, Cole Younger, Hoy and Stephen Shores held the upper -story, while Jarrette, Toler, George Shepherd and others held -the lower. Every shot told. The proprietor of the house, Major -Tate, was a Southern hero, gray-headed, but Roman. He went about -laughing. “Help me get my family out, boys,” he said, “and I will -help you hold the house. It’s about as good a time for me to die, -I reckon, as any other, if so be that God wills it. But the old -woman is only a woman.” Another parley. Would the Federal officer -let the women and children out? Yes, gladly, and the old man, -too. There was eagerness for this, and much of veritable cunning. -The family occupied an ell of the mansion with which there was no -communication from the main building where Quantrell and his men -were, save by way of a door which opened upon a porch, and this -porch was under the concentrating fire of the assailants. After -the family moved out the attacking party would throw skirmishers -in and then--the torch. Quantrell understood it in a moment and -spoke up to the father of the family: “Go out, Major. It is -your duty to be with your wife and children.” The old man went, -protesting. Perhaps for forty years the blood had not coursed so -rapidly and so pleasantly through his veins. Giving ample time -for the family to get safely beyond the range of the fire of the -besieged, Quantrell went back to his post and looked out. He saw -two Federals standing together beyond revolver range. “Is there -a shotgun here?” he asked. Cole Younger brought him one loaded -with buckshot. Thrusting half his body out the nearest window, and -receiving as many volleys as there were sentinels, he fired the -two barrels of his gun so near together that they sounded as one -barrel. Both Federals fell, one dead, the other mortally wounded. -Following this daring and conspicuous feat there went up a yell so -piercing and exultant that even the horses, hitched in the timber -fifty yards away, reared in their fright and snorted in terror. -Black columns of smoke blew past the windows where the Guerrillas -were, and a bright red flame leaped up towards the sky on the wings -of the wind. The ell of the house had been fired and was burning -fiercely. Quantrell’s face--just a little paler than usual--had a -set look that was not good to see. The tiger was at bay. Many of -the men’s revolvers were empty, and in order to gain time to reload -them, another parley was held. The talk was of surrender. The -Federal commander demanded immediate submission, and Shepherd, with -a voice heard above the rage and the roar of the flames, pleaded -for twenty minutes. No. Ten? No. Five? No. Then the commander cried -out in a voice not a whit inferior to Shepherd’s in compass: “You -have one minute. If, at its expiration, you have not surrendered, -not a single man among you shall escape alive.” “Thank you,” said -Cole Younger, _soto voce_, “catching comes before hanging.” “Count -sixty, then, and be d----d to you”! Shepherd shouted as a parting -volley, and then a strange silence fell upon all these desperate -men face to face with imminent death. When every man was ready, -Quantrell said briefly, “Shot guns to the front.” Six loaded -heavily with buck shot, were borne there, and he put himself at the -head of the six men who carried them. Behind these those having -only revolvers. In single file, the charging column was formed in -the main room of the building. The glare of the burning ell lit it -up as though the sun was shining there. Some tightened their pistol -belts. One fell upon his knees and prayed. Nobody scoffed at him, -for God was in that room. He is everywhere when heroes confess. -There were seventeen about to receive the fire of three hundred. - -Ready! Quantrell flung the door wide open and leaped out. The -shotgun men--Jarrette, Younger, Shepherd, Toler, Little and Hoy, -were hard behind him. Right and left from the thin short column a -fierce fire beat into the very faces of the Federals, who recoiled -in some confusion, shooting, however, from every side. There was a -yell and a grand rush, and when the end had come and all the fixed -realities figured up, the enemy had eighteen killed, twenty-nine -badly wounded; and five prisoners, and the captured horses of -the Guerrillas. Not a man of Quantrell’s band was touched, as it -broke through the cordon on the south of the house and gained the -sheltering timber beyond. Hoy, as he rushed out the third from -Quantrell and fired both barrels of his gun, was so near to a -stalwart Federal that he knocked him over the head with a musket -and rendered him senseless. To capture him afterwards was like -capturing a dead man. But little pursuit was attempted. Quantrell -halted at the timber, built a fire, reloaded every gun and pistol, -and took a philosophical view of the situation. Enemies were all -about him. He had lost five men--four of whom, however, he was -glad to get rid of--and the balance were afoot. Patience! He had -just escaped from an environment sterner than any yet spread for -him, and fortune was not apt to offset one splendid action by -another exactly opposite. Choosing, therefore, a rendezvous upon -the head waters of the Little Blue, another historic stream of -Jackson County, he reached the residence of David Wilson late -the next morning, after a forced march of great exhaustion. The -balance of the night, however, had still to be one of surprises -and counter-surprises, not alone to the Federals, but to the other -portion of Quantrell’s command under Haller and Todd. - -Encamped four miles south of Tate House, the battle there had -roused them instantly. Getting to saddle quickly, they were -galloping back to the help of their comrades when a Federal force, -one hundred strong, met them full in the road. Some minutes of -savage fighting ensued, but Haller could not hold his own with -thirteen men, and he retreated, firing, to the brush. - -Afterwards everything was made plain. The four men who surrendered -so abjectly at the Tate house imagined that it would bring help to -their condition if they told all they knew, and they told without -solicitation the story of Haller’s advance and the whereabouts of -his camp. A hundred men were instantly dispatched to surprise it -or storm it, but the firing had roused the isolated Guerrillas, -and they got out in safety after a rattling fight of some twenty -minutes. - - - - -Fight at Clark’s Home - - -In April, 1862, Quantrell, with seventeen men, was camped at the -residence of Samuel Clark, situated three miles southeast of Stony -Point, in Jackson County. He had spent the night there and was -waiting for breakfast the next morning when Captain Peabody, at the -head of one hundred Federal cavalry, surprised the Guerrillas and -came on at the charge, shooting and yelling. Instantly dividing -the detachment in order that the position might be effectively -held, Quantrell, with nine men, took the dwelling, and Gregg, with -eight, occupied the smoke house. For a while the fighting was at -long range, Peabody holding tenaciously to the timber in front of -Clark’s, distant about one hundred yards, and refusing to come -out. Presently, however, he did an unsoldierly thing--or rather an -unskillful thing--he mounted his men and forced them to charge the -dwelling on horseback. Quantrell’s detachment reserved fire until -the foremost horseman was within thirty feet, and Gregg permitted -those operating against his position, to come even closer. Then, -a quick, sure volley, and twenty-seven men and horses went down -together. Badly demoralized, but in no manner defeated, Peabody -rallied again in the timber, while Quantrell, breaking out from -the dwelling house and gathering up Gregg as he went, charged the -Federals fiercely in return and with something of success. The -impetus of the rush carried him past a portion of the Federal line, -where some of their horses were hitched, and the return of the -wave brought with it nine valuable animals. It was over the horses -that Andrew Blunt had a hand-to-hand fight with a splendid Federal -trooper. Both were very brave. - -Blunt had just joined. No one knew his history. He asked no -questions and he answered none. Some said he had once belonged to -the cavalry of the regular army; others, that behind the terrible -record of the Guerrillas he wished to find isolation. Singling -out a fine sorrel horse from among the number fastened in his -front, Blunt was just about to unhitch him when a Federal trooper, -superbly mounted, dashed down to the line and fired and missed. -Blunt left his position by the side of the horse and strode out -into the open, accepting the challenge defiantly, and closed with -his antagonist. The first time he fired he missed, although many -men believed him a better shot than Quantrell. The Federal sat on -his horse calmly and fired the second shot deliberately and again -missed. Blunt went four paces toward him, took a quick aim and -fired very much as a man would at something running. Out of the -Federal’s blue overcoat a little jet of dust spurted up and he -reeled in his seat. The man, hit hard in the breast, did not fall, -however. He gripped his saddle with his knees, cavalry fashion, -steadied himself in his stirrups and fired three times at Blunt in -quick succession. They were now but twenty paces apart, and the -Guerrilla was shortening the distance. When at ten he fired his -third shot. The heavy dragoon ball struck the gallant Federal fair -in the forehead and knocked him dead from his horse. - -While the duel was in progress, brief as it was, Blunt had not -watched his rear, to gain which a dozen Federals had started from -the extreme right. He saw them, but he did not hurry. Going back -to the coveted steed, he mounted him deliberately and dashed back -through the lines closed up behind him, getting a fierce hurrah of -encouragement from his own comrades, and a wicked volley from the -enemy. - -It was time. A second company of Federals in the neighborhood, -attracted by the firing, had made a junction with Peabody and were -already closing in upon the houses from the south. Surrounded now -by one hundred and sixty men, Quantrell was in almost the same -straits as at the Tate house. His horses were in the hands of -the Federals, it was some little distance to the timber, and the -environment was complete. Captain Peabody, himself a Kansas man, -knew who led the forces opposed to him and burned with a desire -to make a finish of this Quantrell and his reckless band at one -fell sweep. Not content with the one hundred and sixty men already -in positions about the house, he sent off posthaste to Pink Hill -for additional reinforcements. Emboldened also by their numbers, -the Federals had approached so close to the positions held by the -Guerrillas that it was possible for them to utilize the shelter the -fences gave. Behind these they ensconced themselves while pouring -a merciless fusillade upon the dwelling house and smoke house in -comparative immunity. This annoyed Quantrell, distressed Gregg -and made Cole Younger--one of the coolest heads in council ever -consulted--look a little anxious. Finally a solution was found. -Quantrell would draw the fire of this ambuscade; he would make the -concealed enemy show himself. Ordering all to be ready and to fire -the very moment the opportunity for execution was best, he dashed -out from the dwelling house to the smoke house, and from the smoke -house back again to the dwelling house. Eager to kill the daring -man, and excited somewhat by their own efforts made to do it, the -Federals exposed themselves recklessly. Then, owing to the short -range, the revolvers of the Guerrillas began to tell with deadly -effect. Twenty at least were shot down along the fences, and as -many more wounded and disabled. It was thirty steps from one house -to the other, yet Quantrell made the venture eight different times, -not less than one hundred men firing at him as he came and went. On -his garments there was not even the smell of fire. His life seemed -to be charmed--his person protected by some superior presence. -When at last even this artifice would no longer enable his men to -fight with any degree of equality, Quantrell determined to abandon -the houses and the horses and make a dash as of old to the nearest -timber. “I had rather lose a thousand horses,” he said, when some -one remonstrated with him, “than a single man like those who have -fought with me this day. Heroes are scarce; horses are everywhere.” - -In the swift rush that came now, fortune again favored him. Almost -every revolver belonging to the Federals was empty. They had -been relying altogether upon their carbines in the fight. After -the first onset on horseback--one in which the revolvers were -principally used--they had failed to reload, and had nothing but -empty guns in their hands after Quantrell for the last time drew -their fire and dashed away on the heels of it into the timber. -Pursuit was not attempted. Enraged at the escape of the Guerrillas, -and burdened with a number of dead and wounded altogether out of -proportion to the forces engaged, Captain Peabody caused to be -burned everything upon the premises which had a plank or shingle -about it. - -Something else was yet to be done. Getting out afoot as best he -could, Quantrell saw a company of cavalry making haste from toward -Pink Hill. It was but a short distance to where the road he was -skirting crossed a creek, and commanding this crossing was a -perpendicular bluff inaccessible to horsemen. Thither he hurried. -The work of ambushment was the work of a moment. George Todd, -alone of all the Guerrillas, had brought with him from the house a -shotgun. In running for life, the most of them were unencumbered. -The approaching Federals were the reinforcements Peabody had -ordered up from Pink Hill, and as Quantrell’s defense had lasted -one hour and a half, they were well on their way. - -As they came to the creek, the foremost riders halted that their -horses might drink. Soon others crowded in until all the ford was -thick with animals. Just then from the bluff above a leaden rain -fell as hail might from a cloudless sky. Rearing steeds trampled -upon wounded riders; the dead dyed the clear water red. Wild panic -laid hold of the helpless mass, cut into gaps, and flight beyond -the range of the deadly revolvers came first of all and uppermost. -There was a rally, however. Once out from under the fire the -lieutenant commanding the detachment called a halt. He was full -of dash, and meant to see more of the unknown on the top of the -hill. Dismounting his men and putting himself at their head, he -turned back for a fight, marching resolutely forward to the bluff. -Quantrell waited for the attack to develop itself. The lieutenant -moved right onward. When within fifty paces of the position, George -Todd rose up from behind a rock and covered the young Federal with -his unerring shotgun. It seemed a pity to kill him, he was so brave -and collected, and yet he fell riddled just as he had drawn his -sword and shouted “Forward!” to the lagging men. At Todd’s signal -there succeeded a fierce revolver volley, and again were the -Federals driven from the hills and back towards their horses. - -Satisfied with the results of this fight--made solely as a matter -of revenge for burning Clark’s buildings--Quantrell fell away from -the ford and continued his retreat on towards his rendezvous upon -the waters of the Sni. Peabody, however, had not had his way. -Coming on himself in the direction of Pink Hill, and mistaking -these reinforcements for Guerrillas, he had quite a lively fight -with them, each detachment getting in several volleys and killing -and wounding a goodly number before either discovered the mistake. - -“The only prisoner I ever shot during the war,” relates Captain -Trow, “was a ‘nigger’ I captured on guard at Independence, -Missouri, who claimed that he had killed his master and burned his -houses and barns. The circumstances were these: Captain Blunt and -I one night went to town for a little spree and put on our Federal -uniforms. While there we came in contact with the camp guard, -which was a ‘nigger’ and a white man. They did not hear us until -we got right up to them, so we, claiming to be Federals, arrested -them for not doing their duty in hailing us at a distance. We took -them prisoners, disarmed them, took them down to the Fire Prairie -bottom east of Independence about ten miles, and there I thought -I would have to kill the ‘nigger’ on account of his killing his -master and burning his property. I shot him in the forehead just -above the eyes. I even put my finger in the bullet hole to be sure -I had him. The ball never entered his skull, but went round it. To -make sure of him, I shot him in the foot and he never flinched, so -I left him for dead. He came to, however, that night and crawled -out into the road, and a man from Independence came along the next -morning and took him in his wagon. This I learned several years -afterwards at Independence in a saloon when one day I chanced to be -taking a drink. There I met the ‘nigger’ whom I thought dead. He -recognized me from hearing my name spoken and asked if I remembered -shooting a ‘nigger.’ I said ‘Yes.’ I had the pleasure of taking a -drink with him.” - - - - -Jayhawkers and Militia Murder Old Man Blythe’s Son - - -Quantrell and His Company Were on Foot Again and Jackson County -was filled with troops. At Kansas City there was a large garrison, -with smaller ones at Independence, Pink Hill, Lone Jack, Stoney -Point and Sibley. Peabody caused the report to be circulated that -a majority of Quantrell’s men were wounded, and that if the brush -were scoured thoroughly they might be picked up here and there and -summarily disposed of. Raiding bands therefore began the hunt. Old -men were imprisoned because they could give no information of a -concealed enemy; young men murdered outright; women were insulted -and abused. The uneasiness that had heretofore rested upon the -county gave place now to a feeling of positive fear. The Jayhawkers -on one side and the militia on the other made matters hot. All -traveling was dangerous. People at night closed their eyes in dread -lest the morrow should usher in a terrible awakening. One incident -of the hunt is a bloody memory yet with many of the older settlers -of Jackson County. - -An aged man by the name of Blythe, believing his own house to be -his own, fed all whom he pleased to feed, and sheltered all whom it -pleased him to shelter. Among many of his warm personal friends was -Cole Younger. The colonel commanding the fort at Independence sent -a scout one day to find Younger, and to make the country people -tell where he might be found. Old man Blythe was not at home, -but his son was, a fearless lad of twelve years. He was taken to -the barn and ordered to confess everything he knew of Quantrell, -Younger, and their whereabouts. If he failed to speak truly he was -to be killed. The boy, in no manner frightened, kept them some -moments in conversation, waiting for an opportunity to escape. -Seeing at last what he imagined to be a chance, he dashed away from -his captors and entered the house under a perfect shower of balls. -There, seizing a pistol and rushing through the back door towards -some timber, a ball struck him in the spine just as he reached the -garden fence and he fell back dying, but splendid in his boyish -courage to the last. Turning over on his face as the Jayhawkers -rushed up to finish him he shot one dead, mortally wounded another, -and severely wounded the third. Before he could shoot a fourth -time, seventeen bullets were put into his body. - -It seemed as if God’s vengeance was especially exercised in the -righting of this terrible wrong. An old negro man who had happened -to be at Blythe’s house at the time, was a witness to the bloody -deed, and, afraid of his own life, ran hurriedly into the brush. -There he came unawares upon Younger, Quantrell, Haller, Todd, and -eleven of his men. Noticing the great excitement under which the -negro labored, they forced him to tell them the whole story. It -was yet time for an ambuscade. On the road back to Independence was -a pass between two embankments known as “The Blue Cut.” In width it -was about fifty yards, and the height of each embankment was about -thirty feet. Quantrell dismounted his men, stationed some at each -end of the passageway and some at the top on either side. Not a -shot was to be fired until the returning Federals had entered it, -front and rear. From the Blue Cut this fatal spot was afterwards -known as the Slaughter Pen. Of the thirty-eight Federals sent out -after Cole Younger, and who, because they could not find him, had -brutally murdered an innocent boy, seventeen were killed while -five--not too badly shot to be able to ride--barely managed to -escape into Independence, the avenging Guerrillas hard upon their -heels. - - - - -The Low House Fight - - -The next rendezvous was at Reuben Harris’, ten miles south of -Independence, and thither all the command went, splendidly mounted -again and eager for employment. Some days of preparation were -necessary. Richard Hall, a fighting blacksmith, who shot as well as -he shod, and knew a trail as thoroughly as a piece of steel, had -need to exercise much of his handiwork in order to make the horses -good for cavalry. Then there were several rounds of cartridges to -make. A Guerrilla knew nothing whatever of an ordnance master. His -laboratory was in his luck. If a capture did not bring him caps, he -had to fall back on ruse, or strategem, or blockade-running square -out. Powder and lead in the raw were enough, for if with these he -could not make himself presentable at inspection he had no calling -as a fighter in the brush. - -It was Quantrell’s intention at this time to attack Harrisonville, -the county seat of Cass County, and capture it if possible. With -this object in view, and after every preparation was made for a -vigorous campaign, he moved eight miles east of Independence, -camping near the Little Blue, in the vicinity of Job Crabtree’s. -He camped always near or in a house. For this he had two reasons. -First, that its occupants might gather up for him all the news -possible; and, second, that in the event of a surprise a sure -rallying point would always be at hand. He had a theory that after -a Guerrilla was given time to get over the first effects of a -sudden charge or ambushment the very nature of his military status -made him invincible; that after an opportunity was afforded him to -think, a surrender was next to impossible. - -Before there was time to attack Harrisonville, however, a scout -reported Peabody again on the war path, this time bent on an utter -extermination of the Guerrillas, and he well-nigh kept his word. -From Job Crabtree’s, Quantrell had moved to an unoccupied house -known as the Low house, and then from this house he had gone to -some contiguous timber to bivouac for the night. About ten o’clock -the sky suddenly became overcast, a fresh wind blew from the east, -and rain fell in torrents. Again the house was occupied, the horses -being hitched along the fence in the rear of it, the door on the -south, the only door, having a bar across it in lieu of a sentinel. -Such soldiering was perfectly inexcusable, and it taught Quantrell -a lesson to remember until the day of his death. - -In the morning preceding the day of the attack Lieutenant Nash, -of Peabody’s regiment, commanding two hundred men, had struck -Quantrell’s trail, but lost it later on, and then found it again -just about sunset. He was informed of Quantrell’s having gone from -the Low house to the brush and of his having come back to it when -the rain began falling heavily. To a certain extent this seeking -shelter was a necessity on the part of Quantrell. The men had no -cartridge boxes, and not all of them had overcoats. If once their -ammunition were damaged, it would be as though sheep should attack -wolves. - -Nash, supplied with everything needed for the weather, waited -patiently for the Guerrillas to become snugly settled under -shelter, and then surrounded the house. Before a gun was fired the -Federals had every horse belonging to the Guerrillas, and were -bringing to bear every available carbine in command upon the only -door. At first all was confusion. Across the logs that once had -supported an upper floor some boards had been laid, and sleeping -upon them were Todd, Blunt and William Carr. Favored by the almost -impenetrable darkness, Quantrell determined upon an immediate -abandonment of the house. He called loudly twice for all to follow -him and dashed through the door under a galling fire. Those in -the loft did not hear him, and maintained in reply to the Federal -volleys a lively fusillade. Then Cole Younger, James Little, Joseph -Gilchrist and a young Irish boy--a brave new recruit--turned back -to help their comrades. The house became a furnace. At each of the -two corners on the south side four men fought, Younger calling on -Todd in the intervals of every volley to come out of the loft and -come to the brush. They started at last. It was four hundred yards -to the nearest shelter, and the ground was very muddy. Gilchrist -was shot down, the Irish boy was killed, Blunt was wounded and -captured, Carr surrendered, Younger had his hat shot away, Little -was unhurt, and Todd, scratched in four places, finally got safely -to the timber. But it was a miracle. Twenty Federals singled him -out as well as they could in the darkness and kept close at his -heels, firing whenever a gun was loaded. Todd had a musket which, -when it seemed as if they were all upon him at once, he would point -at the nearest and make pretense of shooting. When they halted -and dodged about to get out of range, he would dash away again, -gaining what space he could until he had to turn and re-enact the -same unpleasant pantomime. Reaching the woods at last, he fired -point blank, and in reality now, killing with a single discharge -one pursuer and wounding four. Part of Nash’s command were still on -the track of Quantrell, but after losing five killed and a number -wounded, they returned again to the house, but returned too late -for the continued battle. The dead and two prisoners were all that -were left for them. - -Little Blue was bank full and the country was swarming with -militia. For the third time Quantrell was afoot with unrelenting -pursuers upon his trail in every direction. At daylight Nash would -be after him again, river or no river. He must get over or fare -worse. The rain was still pouring down; muddy, forlorn, well-nigh -worn out, yet in no manner demoralized, just as Quantrell reached -the Little Blue he saw on the other bank Toler, one of his own -soldiers, sitting in a canoe. Thence forward the work of crossing -was easy, and Nash, coming on an hour afterwards, received a -volley at the ford where he expected to find a lot of helpless and -unresisting men. - -This fight at the Low house occurred the first week in May, 1862, -and caused the expedition against Harrisonville to be abandoned. -Three times surprised and three times losing all horses, saddles, -and bridles, it again became necessary to disband the Guerrillas -in this instance as in the preceding two. The men were dismissed -for thirty days with orders to remount themselves, while -Quantrell--taking Todd into his confidence and acquainting him -fully with his plans--started in his company for Hannibal. It had -become urgently necessary to replenish the supply of revolver caps. -The usual trade with Kansas City was cut off. Of late the captures -had not been as plentiful as formerly. Recruits were coming in, and -the season for larger operations was at hand. In exploits where -peril and excitement were about evenly divided, Quantrell took -great delight. He was so cool, so calm; he had played before such a -deadly game; he knew so well how to smile when a smile would win, -and when to frown when a frown was a better card to play, that -something in this expedition appealed to every quixotic instinct of -his intrepidity. Todd was all iron; Quantrell all glue. Todd would -go at a circular saw; Quantrell would sharpen its teeth and grease -it where there was friction. One purred and killed, and the other -roared and killed. What mattered the mode, however, only so the end -was the same? - - - - -Quantrell and Todd Go After Ammunition - - -Clad in the full uniform of Federal majors--a supply of which -Quantrell kept always on hand, even in a day so early in the war -as this--Quantrell and Todd rode into Hamilton, a little town on -the Hannibal & St. Louis Railroad, and remained for the night at -the principal hotel. A Federal garrison was there--two companies -of Iowa infantry--and the captain commanding took a great fancy to -Todd, insisting that he should leave the hotel for his quarters and -share his blankets with him. - -Two days were spent in Hannibal, where an entire Feneral regiment -was stationed. Here Quantrell was more circumspect. When asked to -give an account of himself and his companion, he replied promptly -that Todd was a major of the Sixth Missouri Cavalry and himself -the major of the Ninth. Unacquainted with either organization, the -commander at Hannibal had no reason to believe otherwise. Then -he asked about that special cut-throat Quantrell. Was it true -that he fought under a black flag? Had he ever really belonged to -the Jayhawkers? How much truth was there in the stories of the -newspapers about his operations and prowess? Quantrell became -voluble. In rapid yet picturesque language he painted a perfect -picture of the war along the border. He told of Todd, Jarrette, -Blunt, Younger, Haller, Poole, Shepherd, Gregg, Little, the -Cogers, and all of his best men just as they were, and himself -also just as he was, and closed the conversation emphatically by -remarking: “If you were here, Colonel, surrounded as you are by a -thousand soldiers, and they wanted you, they would come and get -you.” - -From Hannibal--after buying quietly and at various times and in -various places fifty thousand revolver caps--Quantrell and Todd -went boldly into St. Joseph. This city was full of soldiers. -Colonel Harrison B. Branch was there in command of a regiment -of militia--a brave, conservative, right-thinking soldier--and -Quantrell introduced himself to Branch as Major Henderson of -the Sixth Missouri. Todd, by this time, had put on, in lieu of -a major’s epaulettes, with its distinguishing leaf, the barred -ones of a captain. “Too many majors traveling together,” quaintly -remarked Todd, “are like too many roses in a boquet: the other -flowers don’t have a chance. Let me be a captain for the balance of -the trip.” - -Colonel Branch made himself very agreeable to Major Henderson -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.” - -A mighty blow seemed impending. Commanders turned pale, and lest -this head or that head felt the trip-hammer, all the heads kept -wagging and dodging. Burris got out of Cass County; Jennison -hurried into Kansas; the Guerrillas kept a sort of open house; -and the recruits--drove after drove and mostly unarmed--hastened -southward. Then the Federal wave, which had at first receded beyond -all former boundaries, flowed back again and inundated Western -Missouri. Quantrell’s nominal battalion, yielding to the exodus, -left him only the old guard as a rallying point. It was necessary -again to reorganize. - -After the Guerrillas had reorganized they stripped themselves for -steady fighting. Federal troops were everywhere, infantry at the -posts, cavalry on the war paths. The somber defiance mingled with -despair did not come until 1864; in 1862 the Guerrillas laughed as -they fought. And they fought by streams and bridges, where roads -crossed and forked and where trees or hollows were. They fought -from houses and hay stacks; on foot and on horseback; at night -when the weird laughter of owls could be heard in the thickets; in -daylight, when the birds sang as they found sweet rest. The black -flag was being woven, but it had not yet been unfurled. - -Breaking suddenly out of Jackson County, Quantrell raided -Shawneetown, Kansas, and captured its garrison of fifty militia. -Then at Olathe, Kansas, the next day, the right hand did what the -left one finished so well at Shawneetown; seventy-five Federals -surrendered there. Each garrison was patrolled and set free save -seven from Shawneetown; these were Jennison’s Jayhawkers and they -had to die. A military execution is where one man kills another; -it is horrible. In battle, one does not see death. He is there, -surely--he is in that battery’s smoke, on the crest of that hill -fringed with the fringe of pallid faces, under the hoofs of the -horses, yonder where the blue or the gray line creeps onward -trailing ominous guns--but his cold, calm eyes look at no single -victim. - -The seven men rode into Missouri from Shawneetown puzzled; when the -heavy timber along the Big Blue was reached and a halt made, they -were praying. Quantrell sat upon his horse looking at the Kansans. -His voice was unmoved, his countenance perfectly indifferent as he -ordered: “Bring ropes; four on one tree, three on another.” All of -a sudden death stood in the midst of them, and was recognized. One -poor fellow gave a cry as piercing as the neighing of a frightened -horse. Two trembled, and trembling is the first step towards -kneeling. They had not talked any save among themselves up to this -time, but when they saw Blunt busy with some ropes, one spoke up -to Quantrell: “Captain, just a word: the pistol before the rope; a -soldier’s before a dog’s death. As for me, I’m ready.” Of all the -seven this was the youngest--how brave he was. - -The prisoners were arranged in line, the Guerrillas opposite to -them. They had confessed to belonging to Jennison, but denied the -charge of killing and burning. Quantrell hesitated a moment. His -blue eyes searched each face from left to right and back again, and -then he ordered: “Take six men, Blunt, and do the work. Shoot the -young man and hang the balance.” - -The oldest man there, some white hair was in his beard, prayed -audibly. Some embraced. Silence and twilight, as twin ghosts, crept -up the river bank together. Blunt made haste, and before Quantrell -had ridden far he heard a pistol shot. He did not even look up; it -affected him no more than the tapping of a woodpecker. At daylight -the next morning a wood-chopper going early to work saw six stark -figures swaying in the river breeze. At the foot of another tree -was a dead man and in his forehead a bullet hole--the old mark. - -[Illustration: QUANTRELL HANGS SIX MEN ON THE SNI] - -“After Quantrell hanged these men, the only time I was ever scared -during the war,” relates Captain Trow, “I had left camp one night -to visit a lady friend of mine, and a company of Federals got after -me, and in the chase I took to the woods and it was at the place -where Quantrell had hanged these men. My saddle girth broke right -there, but I held on to my horse. I thought the devil and all his -angels were after me, but I made it to the camp.” - - - - -The March South in 1862 - - -Winter had come and some snow had fallen. There were no longer any -leaves; nature had nothing more to do with the ambuscades. Bitter -nights, with a foretaste of more bitter nights to follow, reminded -Quantrell that it was time to migrate. Most of the wounded men were -well again. All the dismounted had found serviceable horses. On -October 22, 1862, a quiet muster on the banks of the Little Blue -revealed at inspection nearly all the old faces and forms, with a -sprinkling here and there of new ones. Quantrell counted them two -by two as the Guerrillas dressed in line, and in front rank and -rear rank there were just seventy-eight men. On the morrow they -were moving southward. That old road running between Harrisonville -and Warrensburg was always to the Guerrilas a road of fire, and -here again on their march toward Arkansas, and eight miles east -of Harrisonville, did Todd in the advance strike a Federal scout -of thirty militia cavalrymen. They were Missourians and led by a -Lieutenant Satterlee. To say Todd is to say Charge. To associate -him with something that will illustrate him is to put torch and -powder magazine together. It was the old, old story. On one side -a furious rush, on the other panic and imbecile flight. After a -four-mile race it ended with this for a score: Todd, killed, six; -Boon Schull, five; Fletch Taylor, three; George Shepherd, two; -John Coger, one; Sim Whitsett, one; James Little, one; George -Maddox, one; total, twenty; wounded, none. Even in leaving, what -sinister farewells these Guerrillas were taking! - -The second night out Quantrell stopped over beyond Dayton, in -Cass County, and ordered a bivouac for the evening. There came to -his camp here a good looking man, clad like a citizen, who had -business to transact, and who knew how to state it. He was not fat, -he was not heavy. He laughed a good deal, and when he laughed he -showed a perfect set of faultlessly white teeth. He was young. An -aged man is a thinking ruin; this one did not appear to think--he -felt and enjoyed. He was tired of dodging about in the brush, he -said, and he believed he would fight a little. Here, there and -everywhere the Federals had hunted him and shot at him, and he -was weary of so much persecution. “Would Quantrell let him become -a Guerrilla?” “Your name?” asked the chief. The recruit winced -under the abrupt question slightly, and Quantrell saw the start. -Attracted by something of novelty in the whole performance, a crowd -collected. Quantrell, without looking at the newcomer, appeared -yet to be analyzing him. Suddenly he spoke up: “I have seen you -before.” “Where?” “Nowhere.” “Think again. I have seen you in -Lawrence, Kansas.” The face was a murderer’s face now, softened by -a woman’s blush. There came to it such a look of mingled fear, -indignation and cruel eagerness that Gregg, standing next to him -and nearest to him, laid his hand on his revolver. “Stop,” said -Quantrell, motioning to Gregg; “do not harm him, but disarm him.” -Two revolvers were taken from his person and a pocket pistol--a -Derringer. While being searched the white teeth shone in a smile -that was almost placid. “You suspect me,” he said, so calmly that -his words sounded as if spoken under the vault of some echoing -dome. “But I have never been in Lawrence in my life.” - -Quantrell was lost in thought again, with the strange man--standing -up smiling in the midst of the band--watching him with eyes that -were blue at times and gray at times, and always gentle. More -wood was put on the bivouac fire, and the flames grew ruddy. In -their vivid light the young man did not seem quite so young. He -had also a thick neck, great broad shoulders, and something of -sensuality about the chin. The back of his skull was bulging and -prominent. Here and there in his hair were little white streaks. -Because there was such bloom and color in his cheeks, one could -not remember these. Quantrell still tried to make out his face, -to find a name for that Sphinx in front of him, to recall some -time or circumstance, or place, that would make obscure things -clear, and at last the past returned to him in the light of a -swift revealment. “I have it all now,” he said, “and you are a -Jayhawker. The name is immaterial. I have seen you at Lawrence; I -have seen you at Lane’s headquarters; I have been a soldier myself -with you; we have done duty together--but I have to hang you this -hour, by G--d.” Unabashed, the threatened man drew his breath hard -and strode a step nearer Quantrell. Gregg put a pistol to his -head. “Keep back. Can’t you talk where you are? Do you mean to say -anything?” - -The old smile again; could anything ever drive away that -smile--anything ever keep those teeth from shining? “You ask -me if I want to talk, just as if I had anything to talk about. -What can I say? I tell you that I have been hunted, proscribed, -shot at, driven up and down, until I am tired. I want to kill -somebody. I want to know what sleeping a sound night’s sleep -means.” Quantrell’s grave voice broke calmly in: “Bring a rope.” -Blunt brought it. “Make an end fast.” The end was made fast to -a low lying limb. In the firelight the noose expanded. “Up with -him, men.” Four stalwart hands seized him as a vice. He did not -even defend himself. His flesh beneath their grip felt soft and -rounded. The face, although all the bloom was there, hardened -viciously--like the murderer’s face it was. “So you mean to get -rid of me that way? It is like you, Quantrell. I know you but you -do not know me. I have been hunting you for three long years. -You killed my brother in Kansas, you killed others there, your -comrades. I did not know, till afterwards, what kind of a devil -we had around our very messes--a devil who prowled about the camp -fires and shot soldiers in the night that broke bread with him in -the day. Can you guess what brought me here?” - -The shifting phases of this uncommon episode attracted all; even -Quantrell himself was interested. The prisoner--threw off all -disguise and defied those who meant to hang him. “You did well to -disarm me,” he said, addressing Gregg, “for I intended to kill -your captain. Everything has been against me. At the Tate house -he escaped; at Clark’s it was no better; we had him surrounded at -Swearington’s and his men cut him out; we ran him for two hundred -miles and he escaped, and now after playing my last card and -staking everything upon it, what is left to me? A dog’s death and -a brother unavenged.” “Do your worst,” he said, and he folded his -arms across his breast and stood stolid as the tree over his head. -Some pity began to stir the men visibly. Gregg turned away and went -out beyond the firelight. Even Quantrell’s face softened, but only -for a moment. Then he spoke harshly to Blunt, “He is one of the -worst of a band that I failed to make a finish of before the war -came, but what escapes today is dragged up by the next tomorrow. If -I had not recognized him he would have killed me. I do not hang him -for that, however, I hang him because the whole breed and race to -which he belongs should be exterminated. Sergeant, do your duty.” -Blunt slipped the noose about the prisoner’s neck, and the four men -who had at first disarmed him, tightened it. To the last the bloom -abode in his cheeks. He did not pray, neither did he make plaint -nor moan. No man spoke a word. Something like a huge pendulum swung -as though spun by a strong hand, quivered once or twice, and then -swinging to and fro and regularly, stopped forever. Just at this -moment three quick, hot vollies, and close together, rolled up from -the northern picket post, and the camp was on its feet. If one had -looked then at the dead man’s face, something like a smile might -have been seen there, fixed and sinister, and beneath it the white, -sharp teeth. James Williams had accepted his fate like a hero. At -mortal feud with Quantrell, and living only that he might meet him -face to face in battle, he had joined every regiment, volunteered -upon every scout, rode foremost in every raid, and fought hardest -in every combat. It was not to be. Quantrell was leaving Missouri. -A great gulf was about to separate them. One desperate effort now, -and years of toil and peril at a single blow, might have been -rewarded. He struck it and it cost him his life. To this day the -whole tragic episode is sometimes recalled and discussed along the -border. - -The bivouac was rudely broken up. Three hundred Federal cavalry, -crossing Quantrell’s trail late in the afternoon, had followed it -until the darkness fell, halted an hour for supper, and then again, -at a good round trot, rode straight upon Haller, holding the rear -of the movement southward. He fought at the outpost half an hour. -Behind huge trees, he would not fall back until his flanks were in -danger. All the rest of the night he fought them thus, making six -splendid charges and holding on to every position until his grasp -was broken loose by sheer hammering. At Grand River the pursuit -ended and Quantrell swooped down upon Lamar, in Barton County, -where a Federal garrison held the courthouse and the houses near -it. He attacked but got worsted, and attacked again and lost one -of his best men. He attacked the third time and made no better -headway. He finally abandoned the town and resumed, unmolested, -the road to the south. From Jackson County to the Arkansas line -the whole country was swarming with militia and but for the fact -that every Guerrilla was clad in Federal clothing, the march would -have been an incessant battle. As it was, it will never be known -how many isolated Federals, mistaking Quantrell’s men for comrades -of other regiments not on duty with them, fell into a trap that -never gave up their victims alive. Near Cassville in Barry County, -twenty-two were killed thus. They were coming up from Cassville and -were meeting the Guerrillas, who were going south. The order given -by Quantrell was a most simple one, but a most murderous one. By -the side of each Federal in the approaching column a Guerrilla was -to range himself, engage him in conversation, and then, at a given -signal, blow his brains out. Quantrell gave the signal promptly, -shooting the militiaman assigned to him through the middle of the -forehead, and where, upon their horses, twenty-two confident men -laughed and talked in comrade fashion a second before, nothing -remained of the unconscious detachment, which was literally -exterminated, save a few who straggled in agony upon the ground, -and a mass of terrified and plunging horses. Not a Guerrilla missed -his mark. - - - - -Younger Remains in Missouri With a Small Detachment--Winter of 1862 -and 1863 - - -The remaining part of this chapter is the escapades of Cole -Younger, who stayed in Missouri the winter of 1862 and 1863, with -quite a number of the old band who were not in condition to ride -when Quantrell and Captain Trow went south. But I know them to be -true. - -Younger was exceedingly enterprising, and fought almost daily. He -did not seem to be affected by the severity of the winter, and at -night, under a single blanket, he slept often in the snow while it -was too bitter cold for Federal scouting parties to leave their -comfortable cantonments or Federal garrisons to poke their noses -beyond the snug surroundings of their well furnished barracks. - -The Guerrilla rode everywhere and waylaid roads, bridges, lines of -couriers and routes of travel. Six mail carriers disappeared in one -week between Independence and Kansas City. - -In a month after Quantrell arrived in Texas, George Todd returned -to Jackson County, bringing with him Fletch Taylor, Boon Schull, -James Little, Andy Walker and James Reed. Todd and Younger again -came together by the bloodhound instinct which all men have who -hunt or are hunted. Todd had scarcely made himself known to the -Guerrilla in Jackson County before he had commenced to kill -militiamen. A foraging party from Independence were gathering corn -from a field belonging to Daniel White, a most worthy citizen of -the vicinity, when Todd and Younger broke in upon it, shot five -down in the field and put the rest to flight. Next day, November -30, 1862, Younger, having with him Josiah and Job McCockle and -Tom Talley, met four of Jennison’s regiment face to face in -the neighborhood of the county poor house. Younger, who had an -extraordinary voice, called out loud enough to be heard a mile, -“You are four, and we are four. Stand until we come up.” Instead -of standing, however, the Jayhawkers turned about and rode off as -rapidly as possible, followed by Younger and his men. All being -excellently mounted, the ride lasted fully three miles before -either party won or lost. At last the Guerrillas began to gain -and kept gaining. Three of the four Jayhawkers were finally shot -from their saddles and the fourth escaped by superior riding and -superior running. - -Todd, retaining with him those brought up from Arkansas, kept -adding to them all who either from choice or necessity were forced -to take refuge in the brush. Never happy except when on the war -path, he suggested to Younger and Cunningham a ride into Kansas -City west of Little Santa Fe, always doubtful if not dangerous -ground. Thirty Guerrillas met sixty-two Jayhawkers. It was a -prairie fight, brief, bloody, and finished at a gallop. Todd’s -tactics, the old yell and the old rush, swept everything--a -revolver in each hand, the bridle reins in his teeth, the horse at -a full run, the individual rider firing right and left. This is the -way the Guerrillas charged. The sixty-two Jayhawkers fought better -than most of the militia had been in the habit of fighting, but -they could not stand up to the work at revolver range. When Todd -charged them furiously, which he did as soon as he came in sight of -them, they stood a volley at one hundred yards and returned it, but -not a closer grapple. - -It was while holding the rear with six men that Cole Younger was -attacked by fifty-two men and literally run over. In the midst -of the _melee_ bullets fell like hail stones in summer weather. -John McDowell’s horse went down, the rider under him and badly -hit. He cried out to Younger for help. Younger, hurt himself and -almost overwhelmed, dismounted under fire and rescued McDowell -and brought him safely back from the furious crash, killing as he -went a Federal soldier whose horse had carried him beyond Younger -and McDowell who were struggling in the road together. Afterwards -Younger was betrayed by the man to save whose life he had risked -his own. - -Divided again, and operating in different localities, Todd, Younger -and Cunningham carried the terror of the Guerrilla name throughout -the border counties of Kansas and Missouri. Every day, and -sometimes twice a day, from December 3rd to December 18th, these -three fought some scouting party or attacked some picket post. -At the crossing of the Big Blue on the road to Kansas City--the -place where the former bridge had been burned by Quantrell--Todd -surprised six militiamen and killed them all and then hung them up -on a long pole, resting it, either end upon forks, just as hogs -are hung in the country after being slaughtered. The Federals, -seeing this, began to get ready to drive them away from their lines -of communication. Three heavy columns were sent out to scour the -country. Surprising Cunningham in camp on Big Creek, they killed -one of his splendid soldiers, Will Freeman, and drove the rest of -the Guerrillas back into Jackson County. - -Todd, joining himself quickly to Younger, ambuscaded the column -hunting him, and in a series of combats between Little Blue and -Kansas City, killed forty-seven of the pursuers, captured five -wagons and thirty-three head of horses. - -There was a lull again in marching and counter marching as the -winter got colder and colder and some deep snow fell. Christmas -time came, and the Guerrillas would have a Christmas frolic. -Nothing bolder or braver is recorded upon the records of either -side in the Civil War than this so-called Christmas frolic. - -Colonel Henry Younger, father of Coleman Younger, was one of the -most respected citizens of Western Missouri. He was a stalwart -pioneer of Jackson County, having fourteen children born to him -and his noble wife, a true Christian woman. A politician of the -old school, Colonel Younger was for a number of years a judge of -the county court of Jackson County, and for several terms was a -member of the state legislature. In 1858, he left Jackson County -for Cass County where he dealt largely in stock. He was also an -extensive farmer, an enterprising merchant and the keeper of one of -the best and most popular livery stables in the West, located at -Harrisonville, the County seat of Cass County. His blooded horses -were very superior, and he usually had on hand for speculative -purposes amounts of money ranging from $6,000 to $10,000. On one -of Jennison’s periodical raides in the fall of 1862, he sacked and -burned Harrisonville. Colonel Younger, although a staunch Union -man, and known to be such, was made to lose heavily. Jennison and -his officers took from him $4,000 worth of buggies, carriages and -hacks and fifty head of blooded horses worth $500 each. Then the -balance of his property that was perishable and not movable, was -burned. The intention was to kill Colonel Younger, on the principle -that dead men tell no tales, but he escaped with great difficulty -and made his way to Independence. Jennison was told that Colonel -Younger was rich and that he invariably carried with him large -amounts of money. A plan was immediately laid to kill him. Twenty -cut-throats were organized as a band, under a Jayhawker named -Bailey, and set to watch his every movement. They dogged him from -Independence to Kansas City and from Kansas City down to Cass -County. Coming upon him at last in an isolated place within a few -miles of Harrisonville, they riddled his body with bullets, rifled -his pockets and left his body stark and partially stripped by the -roadside. - -Eight hundred Federals held Kansas City, and on every road was a -strong picket post. The streets were patrolled continually, and -ready always for an emergency. Horses saddled and bridled stood in -their stalls. - -Early on the morning of December 25th, 1862, Todd asked Younger if -he would like to have a little fun. “What kind of fun?” the latter -inquired. “A portion of the command that murdered your father are -in Kansas City,” said Todd, “and if you say so we will go into -the place and kill a few of them.” Younger caught eagerly at the -proposition and commenced at once to get ready for the enterprise. -Six were to compose the adventuresome party--Todd, Younger, Abe -Cunningham, Fletch Taylor, Zach Traber and George Clayton. Clad in -the uniform of the Federal cavalry, carrying instead of one pistol, -four, they arrived about dusk at the picket post on the Westport -and Kansas City road. They were not even halted. The uniform was a -passport; to get in did not require a countersign. They left the -horses in charge of Traber, bidding him do the best he could do if -the worst came to the worst. - -The city was filled with revelry. All the saloons were crowded. -The five Guerrillas, with their heavy cavalry overcoats buttoned -loosely about them, boldly walked down Main Street and into the -Christmas revelry. Visiting this saloon and that saloon, they sat -knee to knee with some of the Jennison men, some of Jennison’s most -blood-thirsty troopers, and drank confusion over and over again to -the cut-throat Quantrell and his bushwhacking crew. - -Todd knew several of the gang who had waylaid and slain Colonel -Younger, but hunt how he could, he could not find a single man of -them. Entering near onto midnight an ordinary drinking place near -the public square, six soldiers were discovered sitting at two -tables playing cards, two at one and four at another. A man and a -boy were behind the bar. Todd, as he entered, spoke low to Younger. - -“Run to cover at last. Five of the six men before you were in -Bailey’s crowd that murdered your father. How does your pulse feel?” - -“Like an iron man’s. I feel like I could kill the whole six myself.” - -They went up to the bar, called for whiskey and invited the card -players to join. They did so. - -If it was agreeable, the boy might bring their whiskey to them and -the game could go on. - -“Certainly,” said Todd, with purring of a tiger cat ready for a -spring, “that’s what the boy is here for.” - -Over their whiskey the Guerrillas whispered. The killing now was -as good as accomplished. Cunningham and Clayton were to saunter -carelessly up to the table where the two players sat, and Todd, -Younger and Taylor up to the table where the four sat. The signal -to get ready was to be, “Come, boys, another drink,” and the -signal to fire was, “Who said drink?” Cole Younger was to give the -first signal in his deep resonant voice and Todd the last one. -After the first each Guerrilla was to draw a pistol and hold it -under the cape of his cavalry coat and after the last he was to -fire. Younger, as a special privilege, was accorded the right to -shoot the sixth man. Cole Younger’s deep voice broke suddenly in, -filling all the room and sounding so jolly and clear. “Come, boys, -another drink.” Neither so loud nor so caressing as Younger’s, -yet sharp, distinct, and penetrating, prolonging, as it were, the -previous proposition, and giving it emphasis, Todd exclaimed, “Who -said drink?” A thunderclap, a single pistol shot, and then total -darkness. The barkeeper dum in the presence of death, shivered and -stood still. Todd, cool as a winter’s night without, extinguished -every light and stepped upon the street. “Steady,” he said to his -men, “do not make haste.” So sudden had been the massacre, and so -quick had been the movements of the Guerrillas, that the pursuers -were groping for a clue and stumbling in their eagerness to find -it. At every street corner an alarm was beating. - -Past the press in the streets, past the glare and the glitter of -the thicker lights, past patrol after patrol, Tod had won well his -way to his horses when a black bar thrust itself suddenly across -his path and changed itself instantly into a line of soldiers. Some -paces forward a spokesman advanced and called a halt. - -“What do you want?” asked Todd. - -“The countersign.” - -“We have no countersign. Out for a lark, it’s only a square or two -further that we desire to go.” - -“No matter if its only an inch or two. Orders are orders.” - -“Fire; and charge men!” and the black line across the streets as -a barricade shrivelled up and shrank away. Four did not move, -however, nor would they ever move again, until, feet foremost, -their comrades bore them to their burial place. But the hunt was -hot. Mounted men were abroad, and hurrying feet could be heard -in all directions. Rallying beyond range and reinforcements, -the remnant of the patrol were advancing and opening fire. Born -scout and educated Guerrilla, Traber--judging from the shots -and shouts--knew what was best for all and dashed up to his -hard-pressed comrades and horses. Thereafter the fight was a -frolic. The picket on the Independence road was ridden over and -through, and the brush beyond gained without an effort; and the -hospitable house of Reuben Harris, where a roaring fire was blazing -and a hearty welcome extended to all was reached. - -[Illustration: TODD AND YOUNGER WENT TO KANSAS CITY TO HAVE A -LITTLE FUN] - -In a week or less it began snowing. The hillsides were white with -it. The nights were long, and the days bitter, and the snow did -not melt. On the 10th of February, 1863, John McDowell reported -his wife sick and asked Younger permission to visit her. The -permission was granted, the proviso attached to it being the order -to report again at 3 o’clock. The illness of the man’s wife was -a sham. Instead of going home, or even in the direction of home, -he hastened immediately to Independence and made the commander -there, Colonel Penick, thoroughly acquainted with Younger’s camp -and all its surroundings. Penick was a St. Joseph, Missouri, man, -commanding a regiment of militia. The echoes of the desperate -adventure of Younger and Todd in Kansas City had long ago reached -the ears of Colonel Penick, and he seconded the traitor’s story -with an eagerness worthy the game to be hunted. Eighty cavalry, -under a resolute officer, were ordered instantly out, and McDowell, -suspected and closely guarded, was put at their head as a pilot. - -Younger had two houses dug in the ground, with a ridge pole to -each, and rafters. Upon the rafters were boards, and upon the -boards straw and earth. At one end was a fireplace, at the other a -door. Architecture was nothing, comfort everything. - -The Federal officer dismounted his men two hundred yards from -Younger’s huts and divided them, sending forty to the south and -forty to the north. The Federals on the north had approached to -within twenty yards of Younger’s cabins when a horse snorted -fiercely and Younger came to the door of one of them. He saw the -approaching column on foot and mistaking it for a friendly column, -called out: “Is that you, Todd?” Perceiving his mistake, in a -moment, however, he fired and killed the lieutenant in command -of the attacking party and then aroused the men in the houses. -Out of each the occupants poured, armed, desperate and determined -to fight but never to surrender. Younger halted behind a tree -and fought fifteen Federals for several moments, killed another -who rushed upon him, rescued Hinton and strode away after his -comrades, untouched and undaunted. Fifty yards further Tom Talley -was in trouble. He had one boot off and one foot in the leg of the -other, but try as he would he could get it neither off nor on. He -could not run, situated as he was, and he had no knife to cut the -leather. He too called out to Younger to wait for him and to stand -by him until he could do something to extricate himself. Without -hurry, and in the teeth of a rattling fusilade. Younger stooped -to Talley’s assistance, tearing literally from his foot by the -exercise of immense strength the well-nigh fatal boot, and telling -him to make the best haste he could and hold to his pistols. Braver -man than Tom Talley never lived, nor cooler. As he jumped up in his -stocking feet, the Federals were within twenty yards, firing as -they advanced, and loading their breech loading guns as they ran. -He took their fire at a range like that and snapped every barrel of -his revolver in their faces. Not a cylinder exploded, being wet by -the snow. He thus held in his hand a useless pistol. About thirty -of the enemy had by this time outrun the rest and were forcing the -fighting. Younger called to his men to take to the trees and drive -them back, or stand and die together. The Guerrillas, hatless and -some of them barefoot and coatless, rallied instantly and held -their own. Younger killed two more of the pursuers here--five since -the fighting began--and Bud Wigginton, like a lion at bay, fought -without cover and with deadly effect. Here Job McCorkle was badly -wounded, together with James Morris, John Coger and five others. -George Talley, fighting splendidly, was shot dead, and Younger -himself, encouraging his men by his voice and example, got a bullet -through the left shoulder. The Federal advance fell back to the -main body and the main body fell back to their horses. - -A man by the name of Emmet Goss was now beginning to have it -whispered of him that he was a tiger. He would fight, the -Guerrillas said, and when in those savage days one went out upon -the warpath so endorsed, be sure that it meant all that it was -intended to mean. Goss lived in Jackson County. He owned a farm -near Hickman’s mill, and up to the fall of 1861, had worked it -soberly and industriously. When he concluded to quit farming and -go fighting, he joined the Jayhawkers. Jennison commanded the -Fifteenth Kansas Cavalry, and Goss a company in this regiment. -From a peaceful thrifty citizen he became suddenly a terror to -the border. He seemed to have a mania for killing. Twenty odd -unoffending citizens probably died at his hand. When Ewing’s -famous General Order No. 11 was issued--that order which required -the wholesale depopulation of Cass, Bates, Vernon and Jackson -Counties--Goss went about as a destroying angel, with a torch in -one hand and a revolver in the other. He boasted of having kindled -the fires in fifty-two houses, of having made fifty-two families -homeless and shelterless, and of having killed, he declared, until -he was tired of killing. Death was to come to him at last by the -hand of Jesse James, but not yet. - -Goss had sworn to capture or kill Cole Younger, and went to the -house of Younger’s mother on Big Creek for the purpose. She was -living in a double log cabin built for a tenant, by her husband -before his death, and Cole was at home. It was about eight o’clock -and quite dark. Cole sat talking with his mother, two little -sisters and a boy brother. Goss, with forty men, dismounted back -from the yard, fastened their horses securely, moved up quietly and -surrounded the house. - -Between the two rooms of the cabin there was an open passageway, -and the Jayhawkers had occupied this before the alarm was given. -Desiring to go from one room to another, a Miss Younger found the -porch full of armed men. Instantly springing back and closing the -door, she shouted Cole’s name, involuntarily. An old negro woman--a -former slave--with extraordinary presence of mind, blew out the -light, snatched a coverlet from the bed, threw it over her head and -shoulders. - -“Get behind me, Marse Cole, quick,” she said in a whisper. - -And Cole, in a second, with a pistol in each hand, stood close up -to the old woman, the bed spread covering them both. Then throwing -wide the door, and receiving in her face the gaping muzzles of a -dozen guns, she querously cried out: - -“Don’t shoot a poor old nigger, Massa Sogers. Its nobody but me -going to see what’s de matter. Ole missus is nearly scared to -death.” - -Slowly, then, so slowly that it seemed an age to Cole, she strode -through the crowd of Jayhawkers blocking up the portico, and out -into the darkness and night. Swarming about the two rooms and -rumaging everywhere, a portion of the Jayhawkers kept looking for -Younger, and swearing brutally at their ill-success, while another -portion, watching the movements of the old negress, saw her throw -away the bed-spread, clap her hands exultantly and shout: “Run, -Marse Cole; run for your life. The debbils can’t catch you dis -time!” - -Giving and taking a volley that harmed no one, Cole made his -escape without a struggle. As for the old negress, Goss debated -sometime with himself whether he should shoot her or hang her. -Unquestionably a rebel negro, she was persecuted often and often -for her opinion’s sake, and hung up twice by militia to make her -tell the whereabouts of Guerrillas. True to her people and her -cause, she died at last in the ardor of devotion. - - - - -The Trip North in 1863 - - -On the return from Texas in the spring of 1863, Quantrell’s journey -in detail would read like a romance. The whole band, numbering -thirty, were clad in Federal uniforms, Quantrell wearing that of -a captain. Whenever questioned, the answer was, “A Federal scout -on special service.” Such had been the severity of the winter, and -such the almost dead calm in military quarters, that all ordinary -vigilance seemed to have relaxed and even ordinary prudence -forgotten. - -South of Spring River a day’s march, ten militia came upon -Quantrell’s camp and invited themselves to supper. They were fed, -but they were also killed. Quantrell himself was the host. He -poured out the coffee, supplied attentively every little want, -insisted that those whose appetites were first appeased should eat -more, and then shot at his table the two nearest to him and saw the -others fall beneath the revolvers of his men, with scarcely so much -as a change of color in his face. - -North of Spring River there was a dramatic episode. Perhaps -in those days every country had its tyrants. Most generally -revolutions breed monsters. - -On the way to Missouri, they fell in with Marmaduke, who was -commanding a bunch of Bushwhackers in St. Claire County, Missouri. -He also had been wintering in Texas, and they camped one night near -us. Marmaduke was telling Quantrell about an old Federal captain -named Obediah Smith--what a devil he was and how he was treating -the Southern people. Quantrell laughed and asked: - -“Why don’t you kill him?” - -Marmaduke said he was too sharp and cunning for him. - -Quantrell said, “If you will detail one or two of your men to come -with me and show me where he lives, I will kill him with his own -gun.” - -It being agreed upon, the next morning Marmaduke called on Oliver -Burch to pilot Quantrell to where Smith lived. The following -morning all marched up to within about a mile or so of where -Captain Smith lived. Quantrell called his men together, chose Wash -Haller, Dick Burns, Ben Morrow, Dick Kenney, Frank James and myself -of his own command, and Oliver Burch of Marmaduke’s command. They -rode up to Captain Smith’s house, all dressed in Federal uniforms, -and called at the gate, “Hello.” Smith came walking out and -Quantrell saluted him and told him he was a scout for the Federals -from Colonel Penick’s army. Smith saw them in the same uniform as -himself and did not once think of their betraying him. They talked -for a few minutes when Quantrell said: - -“Captain, that is a fine gun you have there; why don’t you furnish -us scouts with a gun like that.” - -“This is a fine gun,” replied Smith, “it has killed lots of d----d -bushwhackers.” - -Quantrell said, “Captain, would you mind letting me see that gun?” - -Taking it from him, Quantrell began to look it over, and turning to -his pals, said, “Ain’t that a dandy?” - -They all answered, “Yes, wish I had one.” - -Quantrell kept fooling with the gun and, catching Captain Smith’s -eye off him, fired it at him, shooting him through the heart and -killing him instantly. Killing Smith was getting rid of one of the -worst men in Cedar County. - -That day about ten o’clock, three militiamen came to the column and -were killed. A mile from where dinner was procured, five more came -out. These also were killed. In the dusk of the evening two more -were killed, and where we bivouacked, one was killed. The day’s -work counted eleven in the aggregate, and nothing of an exertion to -find a single soldier made, at that. - -Evil tidings were abroad, however--evil things that took wings -and flew as birds. Some said from the first that Quantrell’s men -were not Union men and some swore that no matter what kind of -clothing they wore, those inside of said clothing were wolves. Shot -evenly; that is to say, by experienced hands, in the head, the -corpses of the first discovered ten awakened from their sleep the -garrison along the Spring River. Smith’s execution stirred them to -aggression, and the group of dead militiamen crossed continually -upon the roadside, while it enraged it also horrified every -cantonment or camp. Two hundred cavalrymen got quickly to horse and -poured up from the rear after Quantrell. It was not difficult to -keep on his track. Here a corpse and there a corpse, here a heap -and there a heap--blue always, and blue continually--what manner of -a wild beast had been sent out from the unknown to prey upon the -militia? - -At the Osage River the Federal pursuit, gathering volume and -intensity as it advanced, struck Quantrell hard and brought him to -an engagement south of the river. Too much haste, however, cost -him dearly. The advance, being the smaller, had outridden the main -army and was unsupported and isolated when attacked. Quantrell -turned upon it savagely and crushed it at a blow. Out of sixty-six -troopers he killed twenty. In those days there were no wounded. -Before the main body came up he was over the Osage and away, and -riding fast to encompass the immense prairie between the river and -Johnstown. When scarcely over it, a flanking column made a dash at -him coming from the west, killed Blunt’s horse and drove Quantrell -to timber. Night fell and he rode out of sight and out of hearing. -When he drew rein again it was at the farm of Judge Russell Hicks -on the Sni, in Jackson County. The next morning at David George’s -he disbanded for ten days, sending messengers out in all directions -to announce his arrival and make known the rendezvous. - -The ten days allotted by Quantrell for concentration purposes -had not yet expired, but many of the reckless spirits, rapacious -for air and exercise, could not be kept still. Poole, Ross and -Greenwood made a dash for the German settlement of Lafayette -County, and left some marks there that are not yet obliterated. -Albert Cunningham, glorying in the prowess of a splendid manhood, -and victor in a dozen combats against desperate odds, fell before -the spring came, in an insignificant skirmish on the Harrisonville -and Pleasant Hill road. - -In the lull of military movements in Jackson County, Cass was to -see the inauguration of the heavy Guerrilla work of 1863. Three -miles west of Pleasant Springs, Younger and his comrades struck -a blow that had the vigor of the olden days in it. The garrison -at Pleasant Hill numbered three hundred, and from the garrison of -Lieutenant Jefferson took thirty-two cavalrymen and advanced three -miles towards Smith’s, on a scouting expedition. While Hulse and -Noah Webster, two Guerrilas who seemed never to sleep and to be -continually hanging about the flanks of the Federals, discovered -Jefferson and reported his movements to the main body encamped at -Parson Webster’s. Taking with him eight men, Joe Lee hurried to -cut Jefferson off from Pleasant Hill. Younger, with eight more, -was close up from the west. Lee had with him John Webster, Noah -Webster, Sterling Kennedy, David Kennedy, William Hays, Perry -Hays, Henry McAninch, James Marshall, Edward Marshall and Edward -Hink. He was to gain the east end of the lane and halt there until -Younger came up at its western extremity. Jefferson discovered -Lee, however, and formed a line of battle in front of Smith’s, -throwing some skirmishers forward and getting ready apparently for -a fight, although afterwards it was reported that Lee’s men were -mistaken for a portion of the garrison left behind at Pleasant -Hill. Younger had further to go than he at first supposed, but -was making all the haste possible, when Lee, carried away by the -uncontrolable impulse of his men, charged down the lane from the -east, at a furious rate. Jefferson held his troopers fair to their -line, until the Guerrillas reached a carbine range, but could hold -them no longer. A volley and a stampede and the wild race was on -again. About a length ahead and splendidly mounted, William Hays -led the Guerrillas. Shot dead, his horse fell from under him and -crushed his senses out for half an hour. John and Noah Webster took -Hays’ place through sheer superiority of horse flesh and forced -the fighting, John killing three of the enemy as he ran and Noah, -four. Noah’s pistols were empty, but he dashed alongside of the -rearmost trooper and knocked him from his saddle with the butt -of one of them, and seized another by the collar of his coat and -dragged him to the ground. Both were dispatched. Too late to block -the western mouth of the lane, Younger joined in the swift pursuit -as it passed him to the left and added much to the certainty of -the killing. Of the thirty-two, four alone escaped, and Jefferson -was not among them. Hulse shot him running at a distance of fifty -yards, and before he got to him he was dead. - -Pleasant Hill was instantly evacuated. Not a Federal garrison -remained in Cass, outside of Harrisonville, and the garrison there -was as effectively imprisoned as if surrounded by the walls of a -fortress. The Guerrillas rode at ease in every direction. - -Younger and Lon Railey hung about the town for a week killing its -pickets and destroying its foraging parties. Other bands in other -directions gathered up valuable horses for future service and -helped onward to the southern army troops of recruits who needed -only pilots and protection to the Osage River. - -Like Cunningham, the man who had fought as a lion in twenty -different combats, was destined to fall in a sudden and unnoted -skirmish. Returning northward in the rear of Quantrell, Lieutenant -William Haller was attacked at sunset and fought till dark. He -triumphed, but he fell. His comrades buried him and wept for him, -and left him. - -The battle of the year 1863 had commenced; formidable men were -coming to the surface in every direction. Here and there sudden -Guerrilla fires leaped up from many places about the State, and -burned as if fed by oil, until everything in their reach had been -consumed. It was a year of savage fighting and killing; it was the -year of the torch and the black flag; it was the year when the -invisible reaper reaped sorest in the ranks of the Guerrillas and -gathered into harvest sheaves, the bravest of the brave. - -Anderson, newly coming into sight, was flashing across the military -horizon as a war comet. Left to himself and permitted to pursue -his placid ways in peace, probably the amiable neighbor and -working man would never have been developed into a tiger. But see -how he was wrought upon! One day late in 1862, a body of Federal -soldiers, especially enrolled and uninformed to persecute women -and prey upon non-combatants, gathered up in a half day’s raid a -number of demonstrative Southern girls whose only sin had been -extravagant talk and pro-Confederacy cheering. They were taken to -Kansas City and imprisoned in a dilapidated tenement close upon a -steep place. Food was flung to them at intervals, and brutal guards -sang ribald songs and used indecent language in their presence. -With these women, tenderly nurtured and reared, were two of Will -Anderson’s sisters. Working industriously in Kansas with his -father, Anderson knew nothing of the real struggles of the war, nor -of the imprisonment of his sisters. A quiet, courteous, fair-minded -man who took more delight in a book than in a crowd, he had a most -excellent name in Randolph County, Missouri, where he was born, and -in Johnson County, Kansas, where he was living in 1862. Destiny had -to deal with him, however. The old rickety, ramshackle building in -which were the huddled women, did not fall down fast enough for -the brutes who bellowed about it. At night and in the darkness it -was undermined, and in the morning when a little wind blew upon -it and it was shaken, it fell with a crash. Covered up, the faces -disfigured, the limp, lifeless bodies were past all pain! Dead to -touch, or kiss, or passionate entreaty, Anderson’s eldest sister -was taken from the ruins a corpse. The younger, badly injured -in the spine, with one leg broken and her face bruised and cut -painfully, lived to tell the terrible story of it all to a gentle, -patient brother kneeling before her at her bedside and looking up -above to see if God were there. - -Soon a stir came along the border. A name new to the strife was -beginning to pass from band to band and about the camp fires to -have a respectful hearing. - -“Anderson?” “Anderson?” “Who is this Anderson?” The Guerrillas -asked one of another. “He kills them all. Quantrell spares now and -then, and Poole and Blunt, and Yager, and Haller, and Jarrette, and -Younger, and Gregg, and Todd, and Shepherd, and all the balance; -but Anderson, never. Is he a devil in uniform?” - - - - -Jesse James Joins Command - - -Jesse James, younger brother of Frank James, had now emerged from -the awkwardness of youth. He was scarcely thirteen years of age, -while Frank was four years older. The war made them Guerrillas. -Jesse was at home with his stepfather, Dr. Reuben Samuels, of Clay -County. He knew nothing of the strife save the echoes of it now and -then as it reached his mother’s isolated farm. One day a company -of militia visited this farm, hanged Dr. Samuels to a tree until -he was left for dead, and seized upon Jesse, a mere boy in the -fields plowing, put a rope about his neck and abused him harshly, -pricking him with sabers, and finally threatening him with death -should they ever again hear of his giving aid or information to the -Guerrillas. That same week his mother and sisters were arrested, -carried to St. Joseph and thrown into a filthy prison, where the -hardships they endured were dreadful. Often without adequate food, -insulted by sentinels who neither understood nor cared to learn -the first lesson of a soldier--courtesy to women--cut off from -all communication with the world, the sister was brought near to -death’s door from a fever which followed the punishment, while the -mother--a high spirited and courageous matron--was released only -after suffering and emaciation had aged her in her prime. Before -Mrs. Samuels returned to her home, Jesse had joined Frank in the -camp of Quantrell, who had preceded him a few years, and who had -already, notwithstanding the briefness of his service, made a name -for supreme and conspicuous daring. Jesse James had a face as -smooth and innocent as the face of a school girl. The blue eyes, -very clear and penetrating, were never at rest. His form, tall and -finely moulded--was capable of great effort and great endurance. On -his lips there was always a smile, and for every comrade a pleasant -word or a compliment. Looking at the small white hands with their -long, tapering fingers, it was not then written or recorded -that they were to become with a revolver among the quickest and -deadliest hands in the West. Frank was four years older, and -somewhat taller than Jesse. Jesse’s face was something of an oval; -Frank’s was long, wide about the forehead, square and massive about -the jaw and chin, and set always in a look of fixed repose. Jesse -laughed at many things; Frank laughed not at all. Jesse was light -hearted, reckless, devil-may-care; Frank sober, sedate, a splendid -man always for ambush or scouting parties. - -Scott had to come back from the South and, eager for action, -crossed the Missouri River at Sibley May 20, 1863, taking with him -twelve men. Frank James and James Little led the advance. Beyond -the river thirteen miles, and at the house of Moses McCoy, the -Guerrillas camped, concocting a plan whereby the Federal garrison -at Richfield, numbering thirty, might be got at and worsted. - -Captain Sessions was in command at Richfield, and his grave had -already been dug. Scott found a friendly citizen named Peter -Mahoney who volunteered to do the decoy work. He loaded up a wagon -with wood, clothed himself in the roughest and raggedest clothes -he had, and rumbled away behind as scrawny and fidgety a yoke of -oxen as ever felt a north wind in the winter bite their bones, or -deceptive buckeye in the spring swell their body. - -“Mr. Mahoney, what is the news?” This was the greeting he got. - -“No news, I have wood for sale. Yes, there is some news, too. -I like to have forgot. Eight or ten of those Quantrell men are -prowling about my way, the infernal scoundrels, and I hope they may -be hunted out of the country.” - -Mahoney did well, but Scott did better. He secreted his men three -miles from Richfield, and near the crossing of a bridge. If an -enemy came the bridge was a sentinel--its resounding planks, the -explosion of a musket. Scott, with eight men, dismounted and lay -close along the road. Gregg, with Fletch Taylor, James Little and -Joe Hart, mounted and ready to charge, kept still and expectant -fifty yards in the rear in ambush. Presently at the crossing a dull -booming was heard, and the Guerrillas knew that Sessions had bit -at the bait Mahoney offered. A sudden clinking along the line--the -eight were in a hurry. - -“Be still,” said Scott; “You cock too soon. I had rather have two -cool men than ten impatient ones.” - -The Federals came right onward; they rode along gaily in front of -the ambuscade; they had no skirmishers out and they were doomed. -The leading files were abreast of Scott on the right when he -ordered a volley, and Sessions, Lieutenant Graffenstein and seven -privates fell dead. What was left of the Federal array turned -itself into a rout; Gregg, Taylor, Little, and Hart thundered down -to the charge. Scott mounted again, and altogether and away at a -rush, pursuers and pursued dashed into Richfield. The remnant of -the wreck surrendered, and Scott, more merciful than many among -whom he soldiered, spared the prisoners and paroled them. - - -House Occupied by Women Light of Love - -Four miles from Independence, and a little back from the road -leading to Kansas City, stood a house occupied by several women -light of love. Thither regularly went Federal soldiers from the -Independence garrison, and the drinking was deep and the orgies -shameful. Gregg set a trap to catch a few of the comers and goers. -Within the lines of the enemy much circumspection was required -to make an envelopment of the house successful. Jesse James was -chosen from among the number of volunteers and sent forward to -reconnoiter the premises. Jesse, arrayed in coquettish female -apparel, with his smooth face, blue eyes, and blooming cheeks, -looked the image of a bashful country girl, not yet acquainted -with vice, though half eager and half reluctant to walk a step -nearer to the edge of its perilous precipice. As he mounted, woman -fashion, upon a fiery horse, the wind blew all about his peach -colored face the pink ribbons of a garish bonnet and lifted the -tell-tale riding habit just enough to reveal instead of laced shoes -or gaiters, the muddy boots of a born cavalryman. Gregg, taking -twelve men, followed in the rear of James to within a half a mile -of the nearest picket post and hid in the woods until word could be -brought from the bagnio ahead. If by a certain hour the disguised -Guerilla did not return to his comrades, the pickets were to be -driven in, the house surrounded, and the inmates forced to give -such information as they possessed, of his whereabouts. - -Jesse James, having pointed out to him with tolerable accuracy the -direction of the house, left the road, skirted the timber rapidly, -leaped several ravines, floundered over a few marshy places and -finally reached his destination without meeting a citizen or -encountering an enemy. He would not dismount, but sat upon his -horse at the fence and asked that the mistress of the establishment -might come out to him. Little by little, and with many gawky -protests and many a bashful simper, he told a plausible story of -parental _espionage_ and family discipline. He, ostensibly a she, -could not have a beau, could not go with the soldiers, could not -sit with them late, nor ride with them, nor romp with them. She was -tired of it all and wanted a little fun. Would the mistress let her -come to her house occasionally and bring some of the neighborhood -girls with her, who were in the same predicament? The mistress -laughed and was glad. New faces to her were like new coin, and -she put forth a hand and patted the merchantable thing upon the -knee, and ogled her smiling mouth and girlish features gleefully. -As the she-wolf and venturesome lamb separated, the assignation -was assured. That night the amorous country girl, accompanied by -three of her female companions, was to return, and the mistress, -confident of her ability to provide lovers was to make known among -the soldiers the attractive acquisition. - -It lacked an hour of sunset when Jesse James got back to Gregg; an -hour after sunset the Guerrillas, following hard upon the tracks -made by the boy spy, rode rapidly on to keep the trysting place. -The house was aglow with lights and jubilant with laughter. Drink -abounded, and under cover of the clinking glasses, the men kissed -the women. Anticipating the orgy of unusual attraction, twelve -Federals had been lured out from the garrison and made to believe -that barefoot maidens ran wild in the woods and buxom lasses hid -for the hunting. No guards were out; no sentinels posted. Jesse -James crept close to a window and peered in. The night was chilly -and a large wood fire blazed upon a large hearth. All the company -were in one room, five women and a dozen men. Scattered about, -yet ready for the grasping, the cavalry carbines were in easy -reach, and the revolvers handy about the persons. Sampson trusting -everything to Delilah, might not have trusted so much if under the -old dispensation there had been anything of bushwhacking. - -Gregg loved everybody who wore the gray, and what exercised him -most was the question just now of attack. Should he demand a -surrender? Jesse James, the boy, said no to the veteran. Twelve -men inside the house, and the house inside their own lines where -reinforcements might be hurried quickly to them, would surely hold -their own against eleven outside, if indeed they did not make it -worse. The best thing to do was to fire through the windows and -kill what could be killed by a carbine volley, then rush through -the door and finish, under the cover of the smoke, horror and -panic, those who should survive the broadside. - -[Illustration: JESSE JAMES GOING TO HOUSE OF LIGHT OF LOVE] - -Luckily the women sat in a corner to themselves and close to a -large bed fixed to the wall and to the right of the fireplace. On -the side of the house the bed was on, two broad windows opened low -upon the ground, and between the windows there was a door, not -ajar, but not fastened. Gregg, with five men, went to the upper -window, and Taylor, with four, took possession of the lower. The -women were out of immediate range. The house shook; the glass -shivered, the door was hurled backward, there was a hot stifling -crash of revolvers; and on the dresses of the women and the white -coverlet of the bed great red splotches. Eight out of the twelve -fell dead or wounded at the first fire; after the last fire all -were dead. It was a spectacle ghastly beyond any ever witnessed by -the Guerrillas, because so circumscribed. Piled two deep the dead -men lay, one with a glass grasped tightly in his stiffened fingers, -and one in his shut hand the picture of a woman scantily clad. -How they wept, the poor, painted things, for the slain soldiers, -and how they blasphemed; but Gregg tarried not, neither did he -make atonement. As they lay there heaped where they fell and piled -together, so they lay still when he mounted and rode away. - - * * * * * - -In the three months preceding the Lawrence massacre, over two -hundred citizens were killed and their property burned or stolen. -In mid-winter houses were burned by the hundred and whole -neighborhoods devastated and laid waste. Aroused as he had never -been before, Quantrell meditated a terrible vengeance. - - - - -Lawrence Massacre - - -In the spring of 1863, Quantrell issued a proclamation to the -Federal forces of Kansas that if they did not stop burning and -robbing houses, killing old men and women, he would in return come -to Lawrence at some unexpected time and paint the city blacker than -hades and make its streets run with blood. - -On Blackwater, in Johnson County, and at the house of Captain -Purdee, Quantrell called the Guerrillas together for the Lawrence -massacre. Todd, Jarrette, Blunt, Gregg, Trow, Anderson, Yager, -Younger, Estes and Holt, all were there, and when the roll was -called three hundred and ten answered promptly to their names. -Up to the mustering hour Quantrell had probably not let his left -hand know what his right hand had intended. Secrecy necessarily -was to be the salvation of the expedition, if indeed there was -any salvation for it. The rendezvous night was an August night--a -blessed, balmy, mid-summer night--just such a night as would be -chosen to give force to reflections and permit the secrets of the -soul to escape. The sultry summer day had lain swarthily in the -sun and panting; the sultry summer winds had whispered nothing of -the shadowy woods, nothing of the babble of unseen brooks. Birds -spoke goodbye to birds in the tree tops, and the foliage was filled -with twilight. Quantrell sat grave and calm in the midst of his -chieftains who were grouped about him. Further away where the -shadows were, the men massed themselves in silent companies or -spoke low to one another, and briefly. Something of a foreboding, -occult though it was, and undefinable, made itself manifest. The -shadow of a great tragedy was impending. - -Without in the least degree minimizing or magnifying the -difficulties of the undertaking, Quantrell laid before his -officers his plans for attacking Lawrence. For a week a man of the -command--a cool, bold, plausible, desperate man--had been in the -city--thought it, over it, about it and around it--and he was here -in their midst to speak. Would they listen to him? - -“Let him speak,” said Todd, sententiously. - -Lieutenant Fletcher Taylor came out from the shadow, bowed gravely -to the group, and with the brevity of a soldier who knew better -how to fight than to talk, laid bare the situation. Disguised as a -stock trader, or rather, assuming the role of a speculating man, -he had boldly entered Lawrence. Liberal, for he was bountifully -supplied with money; keeping open rooms at the Eldridge House, and -agreeable in every way and upon every occasion, he had seen all -that it was necessary to see, and learned all that could be of -any possible advantage to the Guerrillas. The city proper was but -weakly garrisoned; the camp beyond the river was not strong; the -idea of a raid by Quantrell was honestly derided; the streets were -broad and good for charging horsemen, and the hour for the venture -was near at hand. - -“You have heard the report,” Quantrell said with a deep voice, -“but before you decide it is proper that you should know it all. -The march to Lawrence is a long one; in every little town there -are soldiers; we leave soldiers behind us; we march through -soldiers; we attack the town garrisoned by soldiers; we retreat -through soldiers; and when we would rest and refit after the -exhaustive expedition, we have to do the best we can in the midst -of a multitude of soldiers. Come, speak out, somebody. What is it, -Anderson?” - -“Lawrence or hell, but with one proviso, that we kill every male -thing.” - -“Todd?” - -“Lawrence, if I knew not a man would get back alive.” - -“Gregg?” - -“Lawrence, it is the home of Jim Lane; the foster mother of the Red -Legs; the nurse of the Jayhawkers.” - -“Shepherd?” - -“Lawrence. I know it of old; ‘niggers’ and white men are just the -same there; its a Boston colony and it should be wiped out.” - -“Jarrette?” - -“Lawrence, by all means. I’ve had my eye on it for a long time. The -head devil of all this killing and burning in Jackson County; I -vote to fight it with fire--to burn it before we leave it.” - -“Dick Maddox?” - -“Lawrence; and an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; God -understands better than we do the equilibrium of Civil War.” - -“Holt?” - -“Lawrence, and be quick about it.” - -“Yager?” - -“Where my house once stood there is a heap of ruins. I haven’t a -neighbor that’s got a house--Lawrence and the torch.” - -“Blunt?” - -“Count me whenever there is killing. Lawrence first and then some -other Kansas town; the name is nothing.” - -“Have you all voted?” - -“All.” - -“Then Lawrence it is; saddle up, men!” - -Thus was the Lawrence Massacre inaugurated. - -Was it justifiable? Is there much of anything that is justifiable -in Civil War? Originally, the Jayhawkers in Kansas had been very -poor. They coveted the goods of their Missouri neighbors, made -wealthy or well-to-do by prosperous years of peace and African -slavery. Before they became soldiers they had been brigands, and -before they destroyed houses in the name of retaliation they had -plundered them at the instance of personal greed. The first -Federal officers operating in Kansas; that is to say, those who -belonged to the state, were land pirates or pilferers. Lane was a -wholesale plunderer; Jennison, in the scaly gradation, stood next -to Lane; Anthony next to Jennison; Montgomery next to Anthony; -Ransom next to Montgomery, and so on down until it reached to the -turn of captains, lieutenants, sergeants, corporals and privates. -Stock in herds, droves and multitudes were driven from Missouri -into Kansas. Houses gave up their furniture; women, their jewels; -children, their wearing apparel; store-rooms, their contents; the -land, their crops, and the banks, their deposits. To robbery was -added murder; to murder, arson, and to arson depopulation. Is it -any wonder, then, that the Missourian whose father was killed -should kill in return, whose house was burnt should burn in return, -whose property was plundered, should pillage in return, whose -life was made miserable, should hunt as a wild beast and rend -accordingly? Many such were in Quantrell’s command--many whose -lives were blighted; who in a night were made orphans and paupers; -who saw the labor and accumulation of years swept away in an hour -of wanton destruction; who for no reason on earth save that they -were Missourians, were hunted from hiding place to hiding place; -who were preyed upon while not a single cow remained or a single -shock of grain; who were shot at, bedeviled and proscribed, and -who, no matter whether Union or disunion, were permitted to have -neither flag nor country. - -It was the summer night of August 16, 1863, that the Guerilla -column, having at its head its ominous banner, marched west from -Purdee’s place on Blackwater. With its simple soldiers, or rather -volunteers for the expedition, were Colonels Joseph Holt and Boaz -Roberts. Officers of the regular Confederate army, who were in -Missouri on recruiting service when the march began, fell into line -as much from habit as from inclination. - -The first camp was made upon a stream midway between Pleasant Hill -and Lone Jack, where the grazing was good and the hiding places -excellent. All day Quantrell concealed himself there, getting to -saddle just at dark and ordering Todd up from the rear to the -advance. Passing Pleasant Hill to the north and marching on rapidly -fifteen miles, the second camp was at Harrelson’s, twenty-five -miles from the place of starting. At three o’clock in the afternoon -of the second day, the route was resumed and followed due west to -Aubrey, a pleasant Kansas stream, abounding in grass and timber. -Here Quantrell halted until darkness set in, feeding the horses -well and permitting the men to cook and eat heartily. At eight -o’clock the march began again and continued on throughout the -night, in the direction of Lawrence. Three pilots were pressed into -service, carried with the command as far as they knew anything of -the road or the country, and then shot down remorselessly in the -nearest timber. - -On the morning of the 21st, Lawrence was in sight. An old man a -short distance upon the right of the road was feeding his hogs -in the gray dawn, the first person seen to stir about the doomed -place. Quantrell sent Cole Younger over to the hog-pen to catechize -the industrious old farmer and learn from him what changes had -taken place in the situation since Taylor had so thoroughly -accomplished his mission. Younger, dressed as a Federal lieutenant, -exhausted speedily the old man’s limited stock. Really, but little -change had taken place. Across the Kansas river there were probably -four hundred soldiers in camp, and on the Lawrence side about -seventy-five. As for the rebels, he didn’t suppose there was one -nearer than Missouri; certainly none within striking distance of -Lawrence. - -It was a lovely morning. The green of the fields and the blue of -the skies were glad together. Birds sang sweetly. The footsteps of -autumn had not yet been heard in the land. - -“The camp first,” was the cry which ran through the ranks, and -Todd, leading Quantrell’s old company, dashed down, yelling and -shooting. Scarcely any resistance was made, as every time they -stuck their heads out of a tent it was met with a bullet. Ridden -over, shot in their blankets, paralyzed, some of them with terror, -they ran frantically about. What could they do against the -quickest and deadliest pistol shots along the border? - -Bill Anderson, Todd, Jarrette, Little, McGuire, Long, Bill McGuire, -Richard Kenney, Allen Parmer, Frank James, Clemmons, Shepherd, -Hinton, Blunt, Harrison Trow, and the balance of the older men did -the most of the killing. They went for revenge, and they took it. -These men killed. They burned. The Federals on the opposite side of -the river made scarcely any attempt to come to the rescue of their -butchered comrades. A few skirmishes held them in check. It was a -day of darkness and woe. Killing ran riot. The torch was applied -to every residence; the air was filled with cries for mercy; -dead men lay in cellars, upon streets, in parlors where costly -furniture was, on velvet carpets. The sun came up and flooded the -sky with its radiance and yet the devil’s work was not done. Smoke -ascended into the air, and the crackling of blazing rafters and -crashing of falling walls filled the air. A true story of the day’s -terrible work will never be told. Nobody knows it. It is a story of -episodes, tragic--a story full of collossal horrors and unexpected -deliverances. - -Frank James, just as he was in the act of shooting a soldier in -uniform who had been caught in a cellar--his pistol was at the -Federal’s head--heard an exceedingly soft and penetrating voice -calling out to him, “Do not kill him for my sake. He has eight -children who have no mother.” James looked and saw a beautiful -girl just turned sixteen, blushing at her boldness and trembling -before him. In the presence of so much grace and loveliness her -father was disarmed. He remembered his own happy youth, his sister, -not older than the girl beside him, his mother who had always -instilled into his mind lessons of mercy and charity. He put up his -pistol. - -“Take him, he is yours. I would not harm a hair of his head for the -whole state of Kansas,” said James. - -Judge Carpenter was killed in the yard of H. C. Clark, and Colonel -Holt, one of the Confederate officers with the expedition, saved -Clark. He saved others besides Clark. He had been a Union man doing -business in Vernon County, Missouri, as a merchant. Jennison, -belonging to old Jim Lane of Lawrence, noted “nigger” thief, -robber and house burner, who always ran from the enemy, raided the -neighborhood in which he lived, plundered him of his goods, burnt -his property, insulted his family, and Holt joined the Confederate -army for revenge. The notorious general, James H. Lane, to get whom -Quantrell would gladly have left and sacrificed the balance of the -victims, made his escape through a corn field, hotly pursued but -too speedily mounted to be captured. He swam the river. - -There were two camps in Lawrence at the time of the attack, one -camp of the “nigger” troops being located at the southern end of -Massachusetts street and the other camp of white soldiers were -camped in the heart of the city. In this latter camp there were -twenty-one infantry, eighteen of whom were killed in the first wild -charge. - -Cole Younger had dragged from his hiding place in a closet a very -large man who had the asthma. In his fright and what with his hurry -the poor man could not articulate. Younger’s pistol was against his -heart when his old wife cried out, “For God’s sake, do not shoot -him. He has not slept in a bed for nine years.” This appeal and the -asthma together, caused Younger to roar out, “I never intended to -harm a hair of his head.” - -Todd and Jarrette, while roaming through Eldridge’s house in search -of adventure, came upon a door that was locked. Todd knocked and -cried out that the building was in flames and it was time to get -away. “Let it burn and be d----d,” a deep voice answered, and then -the voices of three men were heard in conversation. Jarrette threw -his whole weight against the door, bursting it open, and as he did -so Todd fired and killed one of the three, Jarrette another and -Todd the third, who were hiding there. They were soldiers who had -escaped in the morning’s massacre, and who did not even make an -effort to defend themselves. Perhaps the number killed will never -be accurately known, but I should say there were at least one -thousand killed, and none wounded. The loss of property amounted -to the enormous sum of $1,500,000. The total buildings consumed -were one hundred and eighty-nine. In the city proper Quantrell had -one man killed and two wounded. The man who lost his life was drunk -when the firing began. His name was Larkin Skaggs, and the fighting -at Lawrence was the first he had ever done as a Guerilla. - -Fate favored Quantrell from the time he left Missouri until he -returned to Missouri. A man from Johnson County, Kansas, started by -an Indian trail to inform the people of Lawrence of his coming. He -rode too carelessly and his horse fell and so injured him that he -died. A full company of soldiers were situated at Oxford, but they -seemed more anxious to keep out of the way than to fight. - -As Quantrell retreated from Lawrence, he sat upon the right end, -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. - -Johnson rode east of south, probably three miles. The scouts who -went to Singleton’s barn, where Anderson camped, came back to say -that the Guerrillas had been there, had fed there, had rested -there, and had gone down into the timber beyond to hide themselves. -It was now about four o’clock in the afternoon. - -Back from the barn, a long, high ridge lifted itself up from the -undulating level of the more regular country and broke the vision -southward. Beyond this ridge a wide, smooth prairie stretched -itself out, and still beyond this prairie, and further to the -south, was the timber in which the scouts said Bill Anderson was -hiding. - -As Johnson rode towards the ridge, still distant from it a mile -or so, ten men anticipated him by coming up fair to view, and in -skirmishing order. The leader of this little band, Captain John -Thrailkill, had picked for the occasion David and John Poole, Frank -and Jesse James, Tuck Hill, Peyton Long, Ben Morrow, James Younger, -E. P. DeHart, Ed Greenwood and Harrison Trow. Next to Thrailkill -rode Jesse James, and next to Jesse, Frank. Johnson had need to -beware of what might be before him in the unknown when such giants -as these began to show themselves. - -The Guerrillas numbered, all told, exactly two hundred and -sixty-two. In Anderson’s company there were sixty-one men, in -George Todd’s forty-eight, in Poole’s forty-nine, in Thomas Todd’s -fifty-four, and in Thrailkill’s fifty--two hundred and sixty-two -against three hundred. - -As Thrailkill went forward to skirmish with the advancing enemy, -Todd came out of the timber where he had been hiding, and formed -a line of battle in an old field in front of it. Still further -to the front a sloping hill, half a mile away, arose between -Johnson and the Guerillas. Todd rode to the crest of this, pushing -Thrailkill well forward into the prairie beyond, and took his -position there. When he lifted his hat and waved it the whole -force was to move rapidly on. Anderson held the right, George Todd -joined to Anderson, Poole to George Todd, Thomas Todd to Poole, and -Thrailkill to Thomas Todd--and thus were the ranks arrayed. - -The ten skirmishers quickly surmounted the hill and disappeared. -Todd, as a carved statue, stood his horse upon its summit. Johnson -moved right onward. Some shots at long range were fired and some -bullets from the muskets of the Federals reached to and beyond the -ridge where Todd watched, Peyton Long by his side. From a column of -fours Johnson’s men galloped at once into line of battle, right in -front, and marched so, pressing up well and calmly. - -The advanced Guerillas opened fire briskly at last, and the -skirmishing grew suddenly hot. Thrailkill, however, knew his -business too well to tarry long at such work, and fell back towards -the ridge. - -As this movement was being executed, Johnson’s men raised a shout -and dashed forward together and in a compact mass order formation, -ranks all gone. This looked bad. Such sudden exultation over a -skirmish wherein none were killed exhibited nervousness. Such a -spontaneous giving way of the body, even beyond the will of their -commander, should have manifested neither surprise nor delight and -looked ominous for discipline. - -Thrailkill formed again when he reached Todd’s line of battle, and -Johnson rearranged his ranks and went towards the slope at a brisk -walk. Some upon the right broke into a trot, but he halted them, -cursed them, and bade them look better to their line. - -Up the hill’s crest, however, a column of men suddenly rode into -view, halted, dismounted and seemed to be busy or confused about -something. - -Inexperienced, Johnson is declared to have said to his adjutant: -“They will fight on foot--what does that mean?” It meant that the -men were tightening their saddle girths, putting fresh caps on -their revolvers, looking well to bridle reins and bridle bits, -and preparing for a charge that would have about it the fury of -a whirlwind. By and by the Guerrillas were mounted again. From a -column they transformed themselves into a line two deep and with a -double interval between all files. At a slow walk they moved over -the crest towards Major Johnson, now advancing at a walk that was -more brisk. - -Perhaps it was now five o’clock. The September sun was low in the -west, not red nor angry, but an Indian summer sun, full yet of -generous warmth and grateful beaming. The crisp grass crinkled -under foot. A distance of five hundred yards separated the two -lines. Not a shot had been fired. Todd showed a naked front, bare -of skirmishers and stripped for a fight that he knew would be -murderous to the Federals. And why should they not stand? The black -flag waved alike over each, and from the lips of the leaders of -each there had been all that day only threats of extermination and -death. - -Johnson halted his men and rode along his front speaking a few -calm and collected words. They could not be heard in Todd’s ranks, -but they might have been divined. Most battle speeches are the -same. They abound in good advice. They are generally full of such -sentences as this: “Aim low, keep cool, fire when you get loaded. -Let the wounded lie till the fight is over.” - -But could it be possible that Johnson meant to receive the charge -of the Guerrillas at a halt! What cavalry books had he read? -Who had taught him such ruinous and suicidal tactics? And yet, -monstrous as the resolution was in a military sense, it had -actually been made, and Johnson called out loud enough to be heard -by the opposing force: “Come on, we are ready for the fight!” - -The challenge was accepted. The Guerillas gathered themselves -together as if by a sudden impulse, and took the bridle reins -between their teeth. In the hands of each man there was a deadly -revolver. There were carbines, too, and yet they had never been -unslung. The sun was not high, and there was great need to finish -quickly whatever had need to be done. Riding the best and fastest -horses in Missouri, George Shepherd, Oll Shepherd, Frank Shepherd, -Frank Gregg, Morrow, McGuire, Allen Parmer, Hence and Lafe Privin, -James Younger, Press Webb, Babe Hudspeth, Dick Burnes, Ambrose -and Thomas Maxwell, Richard Kinney, Si and Ike Flannery, Jesse -and Frank James, David Poole; John Poole, Ed Greenwood, Al Scott, -Frank Gray, George Maddox, Dick Maddox, De Hart, Jeff Emery, -Bill Anderson, Tuck Hill, James Cummings, John Rupe, Silas King, -James Corum, Moses Huffaker, Ben Broomfield, Peyton Long, Jack -Southerland, William Reynolds, William and Charles Stewart, Bud -Pence, Nat Tigue, Gooly Robertson, Hiram Guess, Buster Parr, -William Gaw, Chat Rennick, Henry Porter, Arch and Henry Clements, -Jesse Hamlet, John Thrailkill, Si Gordon, George Todd, Thomas Todd, -William and Hugh Archie, Plunk Murray, Ling Litten, Joshua Esters, -Sam Wade, Creth Creek, Theodore Castle, John Chatman and three -score men of other unnamed heroes struck fast the Federal ranks as -if the rush was a rush of tigers. Frank James, riding a splendid -race mare, led by half a length, then Arch Clements, then Ben -Morrow, then Peyton Long and then Harrison Trow. - -There was neither trot not gallop. The Guerrillas simply dashed -from a walk into a full run. The attack was a hurricane. Johnson’s -command fired one volley and not a gun thereafter. It scarcely -stood until the five hundred yards were passed over. Johnson cried -out to his men to fight to the death, but they did not wait even -to hear him through. Some broke ranks as soon as they had fired, -and fled. Others were attempting to reload their muskets when the -Guerrillas, firing right and left, hurled themselves upon them. -Johnson fell among the first. Mounted as described, Frank James -singled out the leader of the Federals. He did not know him then. -No words were spoken between the two. When James had reached within -five feet of Johnson’s position, he put out a pistol suddenly and -sent a bullet through his brain. Johnson threw out his hands as -if trying to reach something above his head and pitched forward -heavily, a corpse. There was no quarter. Many begged for mercy -on their knees. The Guerrillas heeded the prayer as a wolf might -the bleating of a lamb. The wild route broke up near Sturgeon, -the implacable pursuit, vengeful as hate, thundering in the rear. -Death did its work in twos, threes, in squads--singly. Beyond the -first volley not a single Guerrilla was hurt, but in this volley -Frank Shepherd, Hank Williams and young Peyton were killed, and -Richard Kenney mortally wounded. Thomas Maxwell and Harrison Carter -were also slightly wounded by the same volley, and two horses were -killed, one under Dave Poole and one under Harrison Trow. Shepherd, -a giant in size, and brave as the best in a command where all -are brave, fought the good fight and died in the harness. Hank -Williams, only a short time before, had deserted from the Federals -and joined Poole, giving rare evidences, in his brief Guerrilla -career, of great enterprise and consummate daring. Peyton was but -a beardless boy from Howard County, who in his first battle after -becoming a Guerrilla, was shot dead. - -Probably sixty of Johnson’s command gained their horses before -the fierce wave of the charge broke over them, and these were -pursued by five Guerrillas--Ben Morrow, Frank James, Peyton Long, -Arch Clements and Harrison Trow--for six miles at a dead run. Of -the sixty, fifty-two were killed on the road from Centralia to -Sturgeon. Todd drew up the command and watched the chase go on. For -three miles nothing obstructed the vision. Side by side over the -level prairie the five stretched away like the wind, gaining step -by step and bound by bound, upon the rearmost rider. Then little -puffs of smoke rose. No sounds could be heard, but dashing ahead -from the white spurts terrified steeds ran riderless. - -Knight and Sturgeon ended the killing. Five men had shot down -fifty-two. Arch Clements, in apportionment made afterwards, had -credited to himself fourteen. Trow ten, Peyton Long nine, Ben -Morrow eight, Frank James, besides killing Major Johnson and others -in the charge upon the dismounted troopers, killed in the chase an -additional eleven. - -Johnson’s loss was two hundred ninety one. Out of the three -hundred, only nine escaped. - -History has chosen to call the ferocious killing at Centralia a -butchery. In civil war, encounters are not called butcheries where -the combatants are man to man and where over either ranks there -waves a black flag. - -Johnson’s overthrow, probably, was a decree of fate. He rushed -upon it as if impelled by a power stronger than himself. He did -not know how to command and his men did not know how to fight. He -had, by the sheer force of circumstances, been brought face to -face with two hundred and sixty-two of the most terrible revolver -fighters the American war or any other war ever produced; and he -deliberately tied his hands by the very act of dismounting, and -stood in the shambles until he was shot down. Abject and pitiable -cowardice matched itself against recklessness and desperation, and -the end could be only just what the end was. The Guerrillas did -unto the militia just what the militia would have done unto them -if fate had reversed the decision and given to Johnson what it -permitted to Todd. - - - - -Anderson - - -In June, 1864, Anderson crossed the Missouri River. Four miles -out from the crossing place, he encountered twenty-five Federals, -routed them at the first onset, killing eight, two of whom Arch -Clements scalped, hanging the ghastly trophies at the head-stall of -his bridle. One of the two scalped was a captain and the commander -of the squad. - -Killing as he marched, Anderson moved from Carroll into Howard, -entered Huntsville the last of June with twenty-five men, took -from the county treasury $30,000, and disbanded for a few days for -purposes of recruiting. - -The first act of the next foray was an ambuscade into which -Anderson fell headlong. Forty militia waylaid him as he rode -through a stretch of heavy bottom land, filled his left shoulder -full of turkey shot, killed two of his men and wounded three -others. Hurt as he was, he charged the brush, killing eighteen -of his assailants, captured every horse and followed the flying -remnant as far as a single fugitive could be tracked through the -tangled undergrowth. - -In July Anderson took Arch Clements, John Maupin, Tuck and Woot -Hill, Hiram Guess, Jesse Hamlet, William Reynolds, Polk Helms, -Cave Wyatt and Ben Broomfield and moved up into Clay County to -form a junction with Fletch Taylor. By ones and twos he killed -twenty-five militiamen on the march and was taking breakfast at -a house in Carroll County when thirty-eight Federals fired upon -him through doors and windows, the balls knocking dishes onto the -floor and playing havoc with chinaware and eatables generally. The -Guerrillas, used to every phase of desperate warfare, routed their -assailants after a crashing volley or two, and held the field, or -rather the house. In the melee Anderson accidentally shot a lady in -the shoulder, inflicting a painful wound, and John Maupin killed -the captain commanding the scouts, cut off his head and stuck it -upon a gate-post to shrivel and blacken in the sun. - -In Ray County, one hundred and fifty Federal cavalrymen found -Andersons’ trail, followed it all day, and just at nightfall -struck hard and viciously at the Guerrillas. Anderson would not -be driven without a fight. He charged their advance guard, killed -fourteen out of sixty, and drove the guard back upon the main body. -Clements, Woot Hill, Hamlet and Hiram Guess had their horses killed -and were left afoot in the night to shift for themselves. Walking -to the Missouri River, ten miles distant, and fashioning a rude -raft from the logs and withes, Hamlet crossed to Jackson County and -made his way safe into the camp of Todd. - -While with Anderson John Coger was wounded again in the right -leg. Suffering from this wound and with another one in the left -shoulder, he had been carried by his comrades to a house close to -Big Creek, in Cass County, and when it was night, and by no road -that was generally traveled. Coger, without a wound of some kind or -in some portion of his body, would have appeared as unaccountable -to the Guerrillas as a revolver without a mainspring. - -At the end of every battle some one reckless fighter asked of -another: “Of course, John can’t be killed, but where is he hit this -time?” And Coger, himself, no matter how often or how badly hurt, -scarcely ever waited for a old wound to get well before he was in -the front again looking for a new one. He lived for fifty years -after the battle, carrying thirteen bullet wounds. - -The wonderful nerve of the man saved him many times during the war -in open and desperate conflicts, but never when the outlook was so -unpromising as it was now, with the chances as fifty to one against -him. - -Despite his two hurts, Coger would dress himself every day and -hobble about the house, watching all the roads for the Federals. -His pistols were kept under the bolster of his bed. - -One day a scout of sixty militiamen approached the house so -suddenly that Coger had barely time to undress and hurry to bed, -dragging in with him his clothes, his boots, his tell-tale shirt -and his four revolvers. Without the help of the lady of the house -he surely would have been lost. To save him she surely--well, she -did not tell the truth. - -The sick man lying there was her husband, weak from a fever. -Bottles were ostentatiously displayed for the occasion. At -intervals Coger groaned and ground his teeth, the brave, true woman -standing close to his bedside, wiping his brow every now and then -and putting some kind of smelling stuff to his lips. - -A Federal soldier, perhaps a bit of a doctor, felt Coger’s left -wrist, held it awhile, shook his head, and murmured seriously: “A -bad case, madam, a bad case, indeed. Most likely pneumonia.” - -Coger groaned again. - -“Are you in pain, dear?” the ostensible wife tenderly inquired. - -“Dreadful!” and a spasm of agony shot over the bushwhacker’s -sun-burnt face. - -For nearly an hour the Federal soldiers came and went and looked -upon the sick man moaning in his bed, as deadly a Guerrilla as ever -mounted a horse or fired a pistol. - -Once the would-be doctor skirted the edge of the precipice so -closely that if he had stepped a step further he would have -pitched headlong into the abyss. He insisted upon making a minute -examination of Coger’s lungs and laid a hand upon the coverlet to -uncover the patient. Coger held his breath hard and felt upward for -a revolver. The first inspection would have ruined him. Nothing -could have explained the ugly, ragged wound in the left shoulder, -nor the older and not entirely healed one in the right leg. The -iron man, however, did not wince. He neither made protest nor -yielded acquiescence. He meant to kill the doctor, kill as many -more as he could while life lasted and his pistol balls held out, -and be carried from the room, when he was carried at all, feet -foremost and limp as a lock of hair. Happily a woman’s wit saved -him. She pushed away the doctor’s hand from the coverlet and gave -as the emphatic order of her family physician that the sick man -should not be disturbed until his return. - -Etiquette saved John Coger, for it was so unprofessional for one -physician to interfere with another physician’s patient, and the -Federal soldier left the room and afterwards the house. - - - - -Press Webb, a Born Scout - - -Press Webb was a born scout crossed upon a highlander. He had the -eyes of an eagle and the endurance of the red deer. He first taught -himself coolness, and then he taught it to others. In traveling -he did not travel twice the same road. Many more were like him in -this--so practicing the same kind of woodcraft and cunning--until -the enemy began to say: “That man Quantrell has a thousand eyes.” - -Press Webb was ordered to take with him one day Sim Whitsett, -George Maddox, Harrison Trow and Noah Webster and hide himself -anywhere in the vicinity of Kansas City that would give him a good -view of the main roads leading east, and a reasonably accurate -insight into the comings and going of the Federal troops. - -The weather was very cold. Some snow had fallen the week before and -melted, and the ground was frozen again until all over the country -the ground was glazed with ice and traveling was made well nigh -impossible. The Guerrillas, however, prepared themselves and their -horses well for the expedition. Other cavalrymen were forced to -remain comparatively inactive, but Quantrell’s men were coming and -going daily and killing here and there. - -On the march to his field of operation, Webb overtook two -Kansas infantrymen five miles west of Independence on the old -Independence road. The load under which each soldier staggered -proved that their foraging expedition had been successful. One -had a goose, two turkeys, a sack of dried apples, some yarn -socks, a basket full of eggs and the half of a cheese; while the -other, more powerful or more greedy than the first--toiled slowly -homeward, carrying carefully over the slippery highway a huge -bag miscellaneously filled with butter, sausages, roasted and -unroasted coffee, the head of a recently killed hog, some wheaten -biscuits not remarkably well cooked, more cheese and probably a -peck of green Jenniton apples. As Webb and his four men rode up the -foragers halted and set their loads on the ground as if to rest. -Piled about them, each load was about as large as a forager. - -Webb remarked that they were not armed and inquired of the nearest -forager--him with the dried apples--why he ventured so far from -headquarters without his gun. - -“There is no need of a gun,” was the reply, “because the fighting -rebels are all out of the country and the stay-at-homes are all -subjugated. What we want we take, and we generally want a good -deal.” - -“A blind man might see that,” Webb rather grimly replied, “but -suppose some of Quantrell’s cut-throats were to ride up to you -as we have done, stop to talk with you as we have done, draw out -a pistol as I am doing this minute, cover you thus, and bid you -surrender now as I do, you infernal thief and son of a thief, what -would you say then?” - -“Say!”--and the look of simple surprise yet cool indifference which -came to the Jayhawker’s face was the strongest feature of the -tragedy--“what could I say but that you are the cut-throat and I am -the victim? Caught fairly, I can understand the balance. Be quick.” - -Then the Jayhawker rose up from the midst of his spoils with a sort -of quiet dignity, lifted his hat as if to let his brow feel the -north wind, and faced without a tremor the pistol which covered him. - -“I cannot kill you so,” Webb faltered, “nor do I know whether I can -kill you at all. We must take a vote first.” - -Then to himself: “To shoot an unarmed man, and a brave man at that, -is awful.” - -There amid the sausages and cheese, the turkeys and the coffee -grains, the dried apples and the green, five men sat down in -judgment upon two. Whitsett held the hat; Webster fashioned the -ballots. No arguments were had. The five self-appointed jurors -were five among Quantrell’s best and bravest. In extremity they -had always stood forth ready to fight to the death; in the way -of killing they had done their share. The two Kansas Jayhawkers -came close together as if in the final summing up they might find -in the mere act of dying together some solace. One by one the -Guerrillas put into the hat of Whitsett a piece of paper upon which -was written his vote. All had voted. Harrison Trow drew forth -the ballots silently. As he unfolded the first and read from it -deliberately; “Death,” the younger Jayhawker blanched to his chin -and put a hand on the shoulder of his comrade. The two listened -to the count, with every human faculty roused and abnormally -impressionable. Should any one not understanding the scene pass, -they would not be able to comprehend the situation--one man -standing bareheaded, solemnly, and all the eyes bent keenly forward -as another man drew from a hat a dirty slip of folded paper and -read therefrom something that was short like a monosyllable and -sepulchral like a shroud. - -“Life,” said the second ballot, and “Life” said the third. The -fourth was for death and made a tie. Something like the beating -of a strong man’s heart might have been heard, and something as -though a brave man were breathing painfully through his teeth lest -a sigh escape him. Whitsett cried out: “One more ballot yet to be -opened. Let it tell the tale, Trow, and make an end to this thing -speedily.” Trow, with scarcely any more emotion than a surgeon -has when he probes a bullet wound, unfolded the remaining slip of -paper, and read, “Life”! - -The younger Jayhawker fell upon his knees and the elder ejaculated -solemnly: “Thank God, how glad my wife will be.” - -Webb breathed as one from whose breast a great load had been lifted -and put back into its scabbard his revolver. The verdict surprised -him all the more because it was so totally unexpected, and yet the -two men there--Jayhawkers though they were and loaded with spoils -of plundered farm houses--were as free to go as the north wind that -blew or the stream that was running by. - -As they rode away the Guerrillas did not even suggest to one -another the virtue of the parole. At the two extremities of their -peculiar warfare there was either life or death. Having chosen -deliberately as between the two, no middle ground was known to them. - -Press Webb approached to within sight of Kansas City from the old -Independence road, made a complete circle about the place, as -difficult as the traveling was, entered Westport notwithstanding -the presence of a garrison there; heard many things told of the -plans and number of the Federal forces upon the border; passed -down between the Kansas river and what is now known as West Kansas -City, killed three foragers and captured two six-mule wagons -near the site of the present gas works; gathered up five head of -excellent horses, and concealed himself for two days in the Blue -Bottom, watching a somewhat notorious bawdy house much frequented -by Federal soldiers. This kind of houses during the war, and when -located upon dangerous or debatable grounds, were man traps of more -or less sinister histories. - -Eleven women belonged to this bagnio proper, but on the night Webb -stalked it and struck it, there had come five additional inmates -from other quarters equally as disreputable. Altogether the male -attendants numbered twenty, two lieutenants, one sergeant major, a -corporal, four citizens and twelve privates from an Iowa regiment. -Webb’s attacking column, not much larger than a yard stick, was -composed of the original detail, four besides himself. - -The night was dark; the nearest timber to the house was two hundred -and fifty yards. There was ice on everything. The tramping of iron -shod feet over the frozen earth reverberated as artillery wheels. -At the timber line Maddox suggested that one man should be left in -charge of the horses, but Webb overruled the point. - -“No man shall stir tonight,” he argued, “except he be hunted for -either war or women. The horses are safe here. Let us dismount and -make them fast.” - -As they crept to the house in single file, a huge dog went at -Harrison Trow as if he would not be denied, and barked so furiously -and made so many other extravagant manifestations of rage, that a -man and a woman came to the door of the house and bade the dog -devour the disturber. Thus encouraged he leaped full at Trow’s -throat and Trow shot him dead. - -In a moment the house emptied itself of its male occupants, who -explored the darkness, found the dog with the bullet through its -head, searched everywhere for the author of the act, and saw no -man, nor heard any retreating steps, and so returned unsatisfied to -the house, yet returned, which was a great deal. - -As for the Guerrillas, as soon as Trow found himself obliged to -shoot or be throttled, they rushed back safely and noiselessly -to their horses, mounted them and waited. A pistol shot, unless -explained, is always sinister to soldiers. It is not to be denied. -Fighting men never fire at nothing. This is a maxim not indigenous -to the brush, nor an outcome of the philosophy of those who were -there. A pistol shot says in so many words: “Something is coming, -is creeping, is crawling, is about--look out!” - -The Federals heard this one--just as pertinent and as intelligible -as any that was ever fired--but they failed to interpret aright -this significant language of the ambuscade, and they suffered -accordingly. - -Webb waited an hour in the cold, listening. No voices were heard, -no skirmishers approached his position, no scouts from the house -hunted further away than the lights from the windows shone, no -alarm had been raised, and he dismounted with his men and again -approached the house. - -By this time it was well on to twelve o’clock. Chickens were -crowing in every direction. The north wind had risen high and was -blowing as a winter wind always blows when there are shelterless -men abroad in a winter night. - -The house, a rickety frame house, was two stories high, with two -windows on the north and two on the south. - -George Maddox looked in at one of these windows and counted -fourteen men, some well advanced in liquor and some sober and -silent and confidential with the women. None were vigilant. The six -upstairs were neither seen nor counted. - -At first it was difficult to proceed upon a plan of action. All the -Federals were armed, and twenty armed men holding a house against -five are generally apt, whatever else may happen, to get the best -of the fighting. - -“We cannot fire through the windows,” said Webb, “for women are in -the way.” - -“Certainly” replied Whitsett, “we do not war upon women.” - -“We cannot get the drop on them,” added Trow, “because we cannot -get to them.” - -“True again,” replied Maddox, “but I have an idea which will -simplify matters amazingly. On the south there is a stable half -full of plank and plunder. It will burn like pitch pine. The wind -is from the north is strong, and it will blow away all danger from -the house. Were it otherwise I would fight against the torch, for -not even a badger should be turned out of its hole tonight on word -of mine, much less a lot of women. See for yourself and say if the -plan suits you.” - -They saw, endorsed the proposition, and put a match at once to the -hay and to the bundles of fodder. Before the fire had increased -perceptibly the five men warmed their hands and laughed. They were -getting the frost out of their fingers to shoot well, they said. A -delicate trigger touch is necessary to a dead shot. - -“Fire!” - -All of a sudden there was a great flare of flames, a shriek from -the women and a shout from the men. The north wind drove full head -upon the stable, roared as like some great wild beast in pain. - -The Federals rushed to the rescue. Not all caught up their arms as -they hurried out--not all even were dressed. - -The women looked from the doors and windows of the dwelling, and -thus made certain the killing that followed. Beyond the glare -of the burning outhouse, and massed behind a fence fifty paces -to the right of the consuming stable, the Guerrillas fired five -deadly volleys into the surprised and terrified mass before them, -and they scattered, panic-striken and cut to pieces,--the remnant -frantically regained the sheltering mansion. - -[Illustration: PRESS WEBB, A BORN SCOUT] - -Eight were killed where they stood about the fire; two were -mortally wounded and died afterwards; one, wounded and disabled, -quit the service; five, severely or slightly wounded, recovered; -and four, unhurt, reported that night in Kansas City that Quantrell -had attacked them with two hundred men, and had been driven off, -hurt and badly worsted, after three-quarters of an hour’s fight. -Press Webb and his four men did what work was done in less than -five minutes. - - - - -Little Blue - - -Captain Dick Yager, commanding ten men, the usual number the -Guerrillas then operated with, engaged twenty Federals under -Lieutenant Blackstone of the Missouri Militia regiments, and slew -fourteen. - -Yager had ambushed a little above a ford over the Little Blue -and hid behind some rocks about fifteen feet above the crossing -place, and Blackstone, unconscious of danger, rode with his troops -leisurely into the water and halted midway in the stream that his -horses might drink. He had a tin cup tied to his saddle and a -bottle of whiskey in one of his pockets. After having drunk and -while bending over from his stirrups to dip the cup into the water, -a volley hit him and knocked him off his horse dead, thirteen -others falling close to and about him at the same time. - -Jarrette and Poole, each commanding ten men, made a dash into -Lafayette County and struck some blows to the right and left, which -resounded throughout the West. - -Poole pushed into the German settlement and comparatively surprised -them. - -Where Concordia now is, there was then a store and a fort, strong -and well built. This day, however, Poole came upon them unawares -and found many who properly belonged to the militia feeding stock -and in an exposed position. Fifteen of these he killed and ten he -wounded severely but not so severely as to prevent them from making -their way back to the fort. - - - - -Arrock Fight, Spring of 1864 - - -Todd and Dave Poole went east through Fayette County to Saline -County and thence to Arrock, with one hundred and twenty men to -avenge the death of Jim Janes, Charles Bochman and Perkins, who -were captured by the Federals under Captain Sims. - -The men who captured the boys made them dig their own graves and -shot them and rolled them into them. We made the raid for the -benefit of this captain and were successful. We caught him and his -men playing marbles in the street, unaware of any danger. We rode -slowly into town with our Federal uniforms on, Sim Whitsett in -advance. - -“Boys,” said he, “I will knock the middle man out for you.” - -He fired the first shot. Then it was a continuous fire and the -Federals surrendered in a very few minutes. - -We killed twenty-five men, wounded thirty-five and had only one -man, Dick Yager, wounded. - -Ben Morrow and I had the pleasure of capturing the captain in an -upstairs bed room of a hotel. He died with quick consumption with a -bullet through his head. - -We captured one hundred and fifty men and swore them out of -service. - - - - -Fire Bottom Prairie Fight, Spring of 1864 - - -One of the most daring things I ever witnessed was when Ben Morrow -saved my life at the time they got me off my horse at the battle of -Fire Prairie Creek near Napoleon, Missouri, in the spring of 1864. - -George Todd, in command, was sent out to meet a bunch of Federals -going from Lexington to Independence. We expected to meet them in -the road and charge them in the usual way, but they got word we -were coming and dismounted, hid their horses in the woods and came -up, on foot, and fired on us from the brush as we charged. They -caught my horse by the bridle and before they could shoot me I -jumped off over the horse’s head. As I went over, I fired at the -man holding him and he fell. I was on foot amidst the worst of -them. This gave me an advantage as I could fire in any direction I -wanted to and they could not, as their men were all around me and -in danger of being hit by their own bullets. I saw a hole where a -large tree had been uprooted, a hole large enough to conceal me -almost, and I made direct for it, firing at everything in sight as -I went. - -Captain Todd ordered his men back, with three of them, Babe -Hudspath, Bill McGuire and Tid Sanders, so badly wounded they were -unable to go further. - -I was left there in the hole, bullets blowing up the dirt all -around me, the hole being deep enough for me to get out of sight. -I lay on my back, loading my pistols and watched close as a hawk. -They said I was dead and wanted to come up and get my pistols. -Whenever one would show his head I took a shot at him and they saw -that I was very much alive and their scheme would not work. - -One of the blue billies climbed a tree close by, thinking he would -be able to get a better shot at me. I waited until he got fairly up -in the tree and then shot him in the thigh and down he came. I kept -up firing, thinking the boys would hear it and come back and help -me. - -They were a quarter of a mile off when Ben Morrow said, “Boys, we -are all here except Harrison Trow, and do you hear that shooting? -He is still alive and by G--d I am going back to get him.” So on -came Ben Morrow, yelling and shooting with a pistol in each hand. -When within forty yards of me and letting in on the enemy with a -pistol in each hand, he saw me and came straight for me. I caught -the crupper of his saddle, jumped up behind him, and pulling two -pistols, one in each hand, firing as we went, we got safely away. -From that day on, I would have died any where, and any place and -any how for Ben Morrow, who saved my life at the risk of his own. - -After the Fayette fight Lieutenant Jim Little, one of Quantrell’s -best men, was badly wounded in Howard County, Missouri, and -Quantrell went with him to the woods to take care of him until he -recovered. - -Then, after the Centralia fight, Ben Morrow, Bill Hulsh and I went -to where Quantrell and Jim Little were in the woods. Jim was much -better by this time, so that Quantrell could leave him and he came -back to us in Jackson County, where we swam the river on our horses -near Saline City. After we had crossed the river we went to a house -to get breakfast and dry our clothes. Quantrell wanted to intercept -General Price who was on a raid and have a consultation with him. - -At this house we discovered some Federal clothing--caps, etc.--in -the hall and asked whose they were. We were told they belonged to -some Federal soldiers who had stayed there through the night and -attended a dance. We captured them at once and swore them out of -service. We then went on to intercept Price at Waverly, Saline -County, Missouri, where arrangements were made for Quantrell’s -men to take the advance clear on up through Fayette and Jackson -Counties, and up through Kansas City. We were in advance all of the -way from that time until Price started south, and we went with him, -about one hundred miles, almost to the Arkansas line, and turned -back to Jackson County. - - - - -Death of Todd and Anderson, October, 1864 - - -Curtis’ heavy division, retreating before General Price all the way -from Lexington to Independence, held the western bank of the Little -Blue, and some heavy stone walls and fences beyond. Marmaduke and -Shelby broke his hold from these, and pressed him rapidly back to -and through Independence, the two Colorado regiments covering his -rear stubbornly and well. Side by side McCoy and Todd had made -several brilliant charges during the morning, and had driven before -them with great dash and spirit every Colorado squadron halted to -resist the continual marching forward of the Confederate cavalry. - -Ere the pursuit ended for the day, half of the 2nd Colorado -regiment drew up on the crest of a bold hill and made a gallant -fight. Their major, Smith, a brave and dashing officer, was killed -there, and there Todd fell. General Shelby, as was his wont, was -well up with the advance, and leading recklessly the two companies -of Todd and McCoy. Next to Shelby’s right rode Todd and upon his -left was McCoy. Close to these and near to the front files were -Colonels Nichols, Thrailkill, Ben Morrow, Ike Flannery and Jesse -James. - -The trot had deepened into a gallop, and all the crowd of -skirmishers covering the head of the rushing column were at it, -fierce and hot, when the 2nd Colorado swept the road with a furious -volley, broke away from the strong position held by them and -hurried on through the streets of Independence, followed by the -untiring McCoy, as lank as a fox-hound and as eager. - -That volley killed Todd. A Spencer rifle ball entered his neck in -front, passed through and out near the spine, and paralyzed him. -Dying as he fell, he was yet tenderly taken up and carried to the -house of Mrs. Burns, in Independence. Articulating with great -difficulty and leaving now and then almost incoherent messages to -favorite comrade or friend, he lingered for two hours insensible to -pain, and died at last as a Roman. - -George Todd was a Scotchman born, his father holding an honorable -position in the British navy. Destined also for the sea, it was the -misfortune of the son to become engaged in a personal difficulty -in his eighteenth year and kill the man with whom he quarreled. He -fled to Canada, and from Canada to the United States. His father -soon after resigned and followed him, and when the war began both -were railroad contractors in North Missouri, standing well with -everybody for business energy, capacity and integrity. - -Todd made a name by exceeding desperation. His features presented -nothing that could attract attention. There was no sign in visible -characters of the powers that was in him. They were calm always, -and in repose a little stern; but if anything that indicated “a -look of destiny” was sought for, it was not to be found in the face -of George Todd. His was simple and confiding, and a circumspect -regard for his word made him a very true but sometimes a very blunt -man. In his eyes the fittest person to command a Guerrilla was -he who inspired the enemy before people began to say: “That man, -George Todd, is a tiger. He fights always; he is not happy unless -he is fighting. He will either be killed soon or he will do a great -amount of killing.” It has just been seen that he was not to be -killed until October, 1864--a three years’ lease of life for that -desperate Guerrilla work never had a counterpart. By and by the -Guerrillas themselves felt confidence in such a name, reliance in -such an arm, favor for such a face. It was sufficient for Todd to -order a march to be implicitly followed; to plan an expedition to -have it immediately carried out; to indicate a spot on which to -assemble to cause an organization sometimes widely scattered or -dispersed to come together as the jaws of a steel trap. - -Nature gave him the restlessness of a born cavalryman and -the exterior and the power of voice necessary to the leader -of desperate men. Coolness, and great activity were his main -attributes as a commander. Always more ready to strike than to -speak, if he talked at all it was only after a combat had been -had, and then modestly. His conviction was the part he played, and -he sustained with unflinching courage and unflagging energy that -which he had set down for his hands to do. - -A splendid pistol shot, fearless as a horseman, knowing nature well -enough to choose desperate men and ambitious men, reticent, heroic -beyond the conception of most conservative people, and covered with -blood as he was to his brow, his fall was yet majestic, because it -was accompanied by patriotism. - -Before the evacuation of Independence, Todd was buried by his men -in the cemetery there, and Poole succeeded to the command of his -company, leading it splendidly. - -The night they buried Todd, Ike Flannery, Dick Burns, Andy McGuire, -Ben Morrow, Press Webb, Harrison Trow, Lafe Privin, George -Shepherd, George Maddox, Allen Parmer, Dan Vaughn, Jess and Frank -James and John Ross took a solemn oath by the open grave of the -dead man to avenge his death, and for the following three days of -incessant battle it was remarkable how desperately they fought--and -how long. - -Until General Price started southward from Mine Creek in full -retreat, the Guerrillas under Poole remained with him, scouting and -picketing, and fighting with the advance. After Mine Creek they -returned to Bone Hill, in Jackson County, some going afterwards to -Kentucky with Quantrell, and some to Texas with George Shepherd. - -Henceforward the history of the Guerrillas of Missouri must be the -history of detachments and isolated squads, fighting always, but -fighting without coherency or other desire than to kill. - -Anderson had joined Price at Boonville and the meeting was a -memorable one. The bridles of the horses the men rode were adorned -with scalps. One huge red-bearded Guerrilla--six feet and over, and -girdled about the waist with an armory of revolvers--had dangling -from every conceivable angle a profuse array of these ghastly -trophies. Ben Price was shocked at such evidence of a warfare -so utterly repugnant to a commander of his known generosity and -forbearance, and he ordered sternly that they be thrown away at -once. He questioned Anderson Long of Missouri, of the forces in -the state, of the temper of the people, of the nature of Guerrilla -warfare, of its relative advantages and disadvantages and then when -he had heard all he blessed the Guerrillas probably with about as -much unction as Balaam blessed Israel. - -General Price was a merciful man. Equable in every relation of -life, conservative by nature and largely tolerant through his -earlier political training, thousands are alive today solely -because none of the harsher or crueler indulgences of the Civil -War were permitted to the troops commanded by this conscientious -officer. - -Finally, however, he ordered Anderson back into North Missouri, -and he crossed at Boonville upon his last career of leave taking, -desperation and death. - -Tired of tearing up railroad tracks, cutting down telegraph poles, -destroying miles and miles of wire, burning depots, and picking up -and killing isolated militiamen, terrified at the uprising in favor -of Price, Anderson dashed into Danville, Montgomery County, where -sixty Federals were stationed in houses and strong places. - -He had but fifty-seven men, and the fight was close and hot. - -Gooley Robinson, one of his best soldiers, was mortally wounded -while exposing himself in a most reckless manner. - -It was difficult to get the enemy out of the houses. Snatching up -torches and braving the guns of the entrenched Federals, Dick and -Ike Berry put fire to one house. Arch Clements and Dick West to -another, Theo. Castle, John Maupin and Mose Huffaker to a third, -and Ben Broomfield, Tuck, Tom and Woot Hill to the fourth. - -It was a night of terror and agony. As the militiamen ran out they -were shot down by the Guerrillas in the shadow. Some wounded, -burnt to death, and others, stifled by the heat and smoke, rushed, -gasping and blackened into the air, to be riddled with bullets. -Eight, barely, of the garrison escaped the holocaust. - -Anderson turned west towards Kansas City, expecting to overtake -General Price there. En route he killed as he rode. Scarcely an -hour of all the long march was barren of a victim. Union men, -militiamen, Federal soldiers, home guards, Germans on general -principles--no matter what the class or the organization--if they -were pro-United States, they were killed. - -Later on, in the month of October, while well advanced in Ray -County, Anderson received the first news of the death of Todd and -the retreat of Price. By this time, however, he had recruited his -own command to several hundred, and had joined to it a detachment -of regular Confederates, guiding and guarding to the South a motley -aggregation of recruits, old and young. Halting one day to rest -and to prepare for a passage across the Missouri River, close to -Missouri City, Anderson found one thousand Federals--eight hundred -infantry and two hundred cavalry. He made haste to attack them. -His young lieutenant, Arch Clements, advised him urgently against -the attack, as did Captain A. E. Asbury, a young and gallant -Confederate officer, who was in company with him, commanding fifty -recruits. Others of his associates did the same, notably Colonel -John Holt, a Confederate officer, and Colonel James H. R. Condiff. -Captain Asbury was a cool, brave, wary man who had had large -experience in border fighting, and who knew that for a desperate -charge raw recruits could not be depended upon. - -Anderson would not be held back. Ordering a charge, his horse ran -away with him and he was seventy-five yards ahead of his followers -when he was killed. Next to him was William Smith, a veteran -Guerrilla of four years’ service. Five balls struck him, and three -struck Anderson. Next to Smith was John Maupin, who was wounded -twice, and next to Maupin, Cundill, who was also hit, and next to -Cundill, Asbury, who got four bullets through his clothes. John -Holt, Jim Crow Chiles and Peyton Long had their horses killed. The -three Hill brothers and Dick West and ten others of Anderson’s old -company fought their way up to Anderson’s body and sought to bring -it out. Tuck Hill was shot, so was his brother Woot and Dick West. -Their wounds were severe, but not mortal. Once they succeeded in -placing it upon a horse; the horse was killed and fell upon the -corpse and held it to the ground. Still struggling heroically over -the body of his idolized commander, Hank Patterson fell dead, not -a foot from the dead Guerrilla. Next, Simmons was killed, and then -Anson Tolliver, and then Paul Debonhorst, and then Smith Jobson, -and then Luckett, then John McIlvaine, and finally Jasper Moody -and William Tarkington. Nothing could live before the fire of the -concealed infantry and the Spencer carbines of the cavalry. - -A single blanket might have covered the terrible heap of dead and -wounded who fought to recover all that remained of that tiger of -the jungle. John Pringle, the red-headed giant of the Boonville -scalps, far ahead of his company, was the last man killed, -struggling even to the death to bear back the corpse. He was a -captain of a company, and a veteran of the Mexican war, but he did -what he would not order his men to do--he rushed up to the corpse -heap and fastened about the leg of Anderson a lariat that he might -drag the body away. The Federals killed his horse. Shot once, -he tugged at the rope himself, bleeding pitifully. Shot again, -he fell, struggled up to his feet, fired every barrel of three -revolvers into the enemy, and received as a counter blow two more -bullets. - -This time he did not rise again or stir, or make a moan. All the -wild boar blood in his veins had been poured out, and the bronzed -face, from being rigid, had become august. - -Joseph and Arch Nicholson, William James, Clell Miller and John -Warren, all young recruits in their first battle, fought savagely -in the melee, and all were wounded. Miller, among those who strove -to rescue the corpse of Anderson, was shot, and Warren, wounded -four times, crawled back from the slaughter pen with difficulty. A -minie ball had found the heart of Anderson. Life, thank God, was -gone when a rope was put around his neck and his body dragged as -the body of a dog slain in the woods. - -Many a picture was taken of the dead lion, with his great flowing -beard, and that indescribable pallor of death on his bronzed face. -The Federals cut his head off and stuck it on a telegraph pole. - - - - -Going South, Fall of 1864 - - -Todd’s death fell upon the spirits of his men as a sudden -bereavement upon the hearts of a happy and devoted family. Those -who mourned for him mourned all the more tenderly because they -could not weep. Nature, having denied to them the consolation of -tears, left them the infinite intercourse and remembrances of -comradeship and soldierly affection. - -The old bands, however, were breaking up. Lieutenant George -Shepherd, taking with him Matt Wyman, John Maupin, Theo. Castle, -Jack Rupe, Silas King, James and Alfred Corum, Bud Story, Perry -Smith, Jack Williams, Jesse James and Arthur Devers, Press Webb, -John Norfolk and others to the number of twenty-six, started south -to Texas, on the 13th of November, 1864. With Shepherd also were -William Gregg and wife, Richard Maddox and wife, and James Hendrix -and wife. These ladies were just as brave and just as devoted and -just as intrepid in peril or extremity as were the men who marched -with them to guard them. - -Jesse and Frank James separated at White River, Arkansas, Frank to -go to Kentucky with Quantrell, and Jesse to follow the remnant of -Todd’s still organized veterans into Texas. - -Besides killing isolated squads of Federals and making way for -every individual militiaman who supposed that the roads were -absolutely safe for travelers because General Price and his army -had long been gone, Shepherd’s fighting for several days was only -fun. On the 22nd, however, Captain Emmett Goss, an old acquaintance -of the Fifteenth Kansas Cavalry, Jennison’s, was encountered, -commanding thirty-two Jayhawkers. - -Of late Goss had been varying his orgies somewhat. He would drink -to excess and lavish his plunder and money on ill-famed mistresses, -who were sometimes Indians, sometimes negresses, and but rarely -pure white. He was about thirty-five years old, square built, had -broad shoulders, a swaggering gait, stood six feet when at himself, -and erect, had red hair and a bad eye and a face that meant fight -when cornered--and desperate fight at that. - -November 22, 1864, was an autumn day full of sunshine and falling -leaves. Riding southward from Missouri Lieutenant Shepherd met -Captain Goss riding northward from Cane Hill. Shepherd had -twenty-six men, rank and file. It was an accidental meeting--one of -those sudden, forlorn, isolated, murderous meetings not rare during -the war--a meeting of outlying detachments that asked no quarter -and gave none. It took place on Cabin Creek, in the Cherokee -Nation. Each rank arrayed itself speedily. There were twenty-six -men against thirty-two. The odds were not great--indeed they never -had been considered at all. There came a charge and a sudden and -terrible storm of revolver bullets. - -Nothing so weak as the Kansas detachment could possibly live before -the deadly prowess and pistol practice of the Missourians. Of the -thirty-two, twenty-nine were killed. One, riding a magnificent -race horse, escaped on the wings of the wind--one, a negro barber, -was taken along to wait upon the Guerrillas, and the third, a poor -emaciated skeleton, as good as dead of consumption, was permitted -to ride on northward, bearing the story of the thunderbolt. - -Among the Missourians four were killed. In the melee Jesse James -encountered Goss and singled him out from all the rest. As -James bore down upon him, he found that his horse, an extremely -high-spirited and powerful one, had taken the bit in its teeth and -was perfectly unmanageable. Besides, his left arm being left weak -from a scarcely healed wound, it was impossible for him to control -his horse or even to guide him. - -Pistol balls were as plentiful as the leaves that were pattering -down. However, James had to put up his revolver as he rode, and -rely upon his right hand to reinforce his left. Before he could -turn his horse and break its hold upon his bit, Goss had fired upon -him four times. Close upon him at last James shot him through and -through. Goss swayed heavily in his saddle, but held on. - -“Will you surrender?” Jesse asked, recocking his pistol and -presenting it again. - -“Never,” was the stern reply. Goss, still reeling in the saddle and -bleeding dreadfully. - -When the blue white smoke curled up again there was a riderless -steed among the trees and a guilty spirit somewhere out in the -darkness of the unknown. It took two dragoon revolver bullets to -finish this one, and yet James was not satisfied with his work. - -There was a preacher along who also had sat himself steadfast in -the saddle, and had fought as the best of them did. James rode -straight at him after he had finished Goss. The parson’s heart -failed him at last, however, and he started to run. James gained -upon him at every step. When close enough for a shot, he called out -to him: - -“Turn about like a man, that I may not shoot you in the back.” The -Jayhawker turned, and his face was white and his tongue voluble. - -“Don’t shoot me,” he pleaded, “I am the chaplain of the Thirteenth -Kansas; my name is U. P. Gardner, I have killed no man, but have -prayed for many; spare me.” James did not answer. Perhaps he turned -away his head a little as he drew out his revolver. When the smoke -lifted, Gardner was dead upon the crisp sere grass with a bullet -through his brain. - -Maddox, in this fight, killed three of Goss’ men, Gregg five, Press -Webb three, Wayman four, Hendrix three, and others one or two each. - -The march through the Indian country was one long stretch of -ambushments and skirmishes. - -Wayman stirred up a hornet’s nest one afternoon, and though stung -twice himself quite severely, he killed four Indians in single -combat and wounded the fifth who escaped. - -Press Webb, hunting the same day for a horse, was ambushed by three -Pins and wounded slightly in the arm. He charged singlehanded into -the brush and was shot again before he got out of it, but he killed -the three Indians and captured three excellent ponies, veritably a -god-send to all. - -The next day about noon the rear guard, composed of Jesse James, -Bud Story, Harrison Trow and Jack Rupe, was savagely attacked by -seventy-five Federal Cherokees and driven back upon the main body -rapidly. Shepherd, one of the quickest and keenest soldiers the -war produced, had formed every man of the command in the rear of -an open field through which the enemy must advance and over which -in return a telling charge could be made. The three heroic women, -mounted on excellent horses and given shelter in some timber still -further to the rear of the Guerrilla line, bade their husbands, -as they kissed them, fight to the death or conquer. The Indians -bore down as if they meant to ride down a regiment. Firing their -pistols into their very faces with deadly effect, the rear guard -had not succeeded in stopping them a single second, but when in -the counter-charge Shepherd dashed at the oncoming line, it melted -away as snow in a thaw. Shepherd, Maddox, Gregg, the two Corums, -Rupe, Story, James, Hendrick, Webb, Smith Commons, Castle, Wayman -and King fought like men who wanted to make a clean and a merciless -sweep. - -John Maupin, not yet well from the two ugly wounds received the day -Anderson was killed, insisted on riding in the charge, and was shot -the third time by the Indian into whom he had put two bullets and -whose horse he rushed up to secure. - -Jesse James had his horse killed and a pistol shot from his -hand. Several other Guerrillas were wounded but none killed, and -Williams, James Corum and Maddox lost horses. - -Of the sixty-five Indians, fifty-two were counted killed, while -some, known to be wounded, dragged themselves off into the mountain -and escaped. - -During the battle Dick Maddox’s wife could not keep still under -cover, and commenced to shoot at the enemy, and had a lock of her -hair shot off just above the ear. - - - - -The Surrender - - -Early in the month of March, 1865, Captain Clements, having been -reinforced by ten men under the command of Captain David Poole, -marched from Sherman, Texas, to Mount Pleasant, Titus County, -Arkansas. From Mount Pleasant, on the 14th of April, the march -began once more and for the last time into Missouri. Forming an -advance of David Poole, John Poole, John Maupin, Jack Bishop, Theo. -Castle, Jesse James and Press Webb, Clements pushed on rapidly, -killing five militiamen in one squad, ten in another, here and -there a single one, and now and then as many together as twenty. In -Benton County, Missouri, a Federal militiaman named Harkness, was -captured, who had halted a brother of Clements and burnt the house -of his mother. James, Maupin and Castle held Harkness tightly while -Clements cut his throat and afterwards scalped him. - -At Kingsville, in Johnson County, something of a skirmish took -place and ten Federals were killed. A militiaman named Duncan, -who had a bad name locally and who was described as being a -highwayman and a house burner, also was captured at the same -time. Being fifty-five years of age and gray headed did not save -him. But before he surrendered he fought a desperate battle. -Knowing instinctively what his fate would be if he fell alive into -the hands of any hostile organization, much less a Guerrilla -organization, he took a stand behind a plank fence, armed with a -Spencer rifle and two revolvers, and faced the enemy, now close -upon him. Arch Clements, Jesse James and Jack Bishop dashed at -Duncan. The first shot killed his horse, and in falling the horse -fell upon the rider. At the second fire Clement’s horse also was -killed, but James stopped neither for the deadly aim of the old man -nor for the help of his comrades who were coming up as fast as they -could on foot. He shot him three times before he knocked him from -his feet to his knees, but the fourth shot, striking him fair in -the middle of the forehead, finished the old man and all his sins -together. - -The last of April a council was held among the Guerrillas to -discuss the pros and cons of a surrender. Virtually the war was -over. Everywhere the regular Confederate armies had surrendered and -disbanded, and in no direction could any evidences be discovered of -that Guerrilla warfare which many predicted would succeed to the -war of the regular army and the general order. All decided to do as -the rest of the Southern forces had done. - -Anxious, however, to give to those of the command who preferred -a contrary course the dignity and the formality of official -authority, Captain Clements entered Lexington, Mo., on the -fifteenth, with Jesse James, Jess Hamlet, Jack Rupe, Willis King -and John Vanmeter, bearing a flag of truce. The provost marshall -of Lexington, Major J. B. Rogers, was a liberal officer of the -old regime, who understood in its fullest and broadest sense that -the war was over, and that however cruel or desperate certain -organizations or certain bodies of men had been in the past, all -proscription of them ceased with their surrender. - -Shortly after the surrender, and as Jesse James was riding at the -head of a column with the white flag, eight Federals were met who -were drunk and who did not see the flag of truce or did not regard -it. They fired point blank at the Guerrillas, and were charged -in turn and routed with the loss of four killed and two wounded. -These eight men were the advance of a larger party of sixty, thirty -Johnson County militia, and thirty of the Second Wisconsin Cavalry. -These in the counter attack drove back the Guerrillas and followed -them fiercely, especially the Second Wisconsin. Vanmeter’s horse -was killed but Jack Rupe stopped under fire for him and carried him -to safety. James and Clements, although riding jaded horses--the -same horses, in fact, which had made the long inhospitable trip up -from Texas--galloped steadily away in retreat side by side, and -fighting as best they could. Mounted on a superb black horse, a -single Wisconsin trooper dashed ahead of the balance and closed -in swiftly upon James, who halted to court the encounter. At a -distance of ten feet both fired simultaneously and when the smoke -cleared away the brave Wisconsin man was dead with a dragoon ball -through his heart. Scarcely had this combat closed before another -Wisconsin trooper rushed at James, firing rapidly, and closing -in as he fired. James killed his horse, and the Federal in turn -sent a bullet through James’ right lung. Then the rush passed over -and past him. Another volley killed his horse, and as the Johnson -County militia galloped by, five fired at him as he lay bleeding -under the prostrate horse. - -Clements, seeing horse and rider going down together, believed his -beloved comrade was killed, and strove thereafter to make good his -own escape. - -Extricating himself with infinite toil and pain, Jesse James left -the road for the woods, pursued by five Federals, who fired at him -constantly as they followed. At a distance of two hundred yards he -killed the foremost Federal and halted long enough under fire to -disencumber himself of his heavy cavalry boots, one of which was a -quarter full of blood. He fired again and shattered the pistol arm -of the second pursuer, the other three closing up and pressing the -maimed Guerrilla as ravenous hounds the torn flanks of a crippled -stag. James was getting weaker and weaker. The foremost of the -three pursuers could be heard distinctly yelling: “Oh! g----d----n -your little soul, we have you at last! Stop, and be killed like a -gentleman!” - -James did not reply, but when he attempted to lift his trusty -dragoon pistol to halt the nearest trooper, he found it too heavy -for his hand. But reinforcing his right arm with his left, he fired -finally at the Wisconsin man almost upon him and killed him in the -saddle. - -Perhaps then and there might have been an end made to the career -of the desperate Guerrilla if the two remaining pursuers had been -Wisconsin Cavalry instead of Johnson County militia; but terrified -at the prowess of one who had been so terribly wounded, and who -killed even as he reeled along, the militiamen abandoned the chase -and James, staggering on four or five hundred yards further, fell -upon the edge of a creek and fainted. From the 15th to the 17th he -lay alongside the water, bathing his wound continually and drinking -vast quantities of water to quench his burning thirst and fever. -Towards sunset, on the evening of the 17th, he crawled to a field -where a man was plowing, who proved to be a Southern man and a -friend. - -That night he rode fifteen miles to the house of a Mr. Bowman, held -upon a horse by his new-found friend, where he remained, waited -upon by Clements and Rupe, until the surrender of Poole, on the -21st, with one hundred and twenty-nine Guerrillas. - -Major Rogers was so well satisfied that James would die that he -thought it unnecessary to parole him, and so declared. To give him -every chance, however, for his life, and to enable him to reach -his mother, then a fugitive in Nebraska, Rodgers furnished him with -transportation, money and a pass. - -A good many of my men surrendered with Poole, while others planned -to go to Old Mexico with me and not surrender at all. However, -when I came up from the South, planning to go back to Old Mexico -and join General Shelby with his old command, some of my best -citizen friends insisted on my surrendering and going home, and -through their influence arrangements were made with Major Rodgers -to meet me at the Dillard farm, on Texas Prairie. There we held -a consultation, he and I, for about half a day, regarding my -surrender. He promised me protection and my side arms, and the -horse that I had, and I surrendered, receiving the protection he -had promised me. - -I went home and went to work and took my part in trying to make -peace with the Federal soldiers, some of whom proved to be very -good friends to me, and we lived very peacefully after the war. - -I very much opposed and tried to put a stop to the robbery, -thieving and horse stealing that was so prominent after the war, -and advised the boys that got into trouble to leave the country -time and time again, and go to Old Mexico while it was yet time to -get away. - -I returned home with no money and no means at all, but found plenty -of friends who were ready to help me and who furnished me money to -start with. - -I advise all who read this book to appreciate character above -money. - - - - -Death of Quantrell - - -Quantrell, with forty-eight of the most daring of his old band, -accompanied Shepherd as far south as White River, Arkansas. He -left them there to go to his old home in Maryland. He passed all -Federal camps, had no trouble staying in Federal camps, eating with -Federal soldiers, playing Federal himself until he reached Upton -Station, in Hart County, Kentucky, where he crossed the Louisiana -& Nashville Railroad, still representing himself and his men as -Federal soldiers. - -Near Marion County he entered the Lebanon and Campbellville -turnpike at Rolling Fork and traveled north to New Market, thence -east to Bradford, and from Bradford towards Hustonville, camping -for the night preceding the entrance into this place at Major -Dray’s, on Rolling Fork. Thirty Federal soldiers were at garrison -at Hustonville, possessed of as many horses in splendid condition, -and these Quantrell determined to appropriate. No opposition was -made to his entrance into the town. No one imagined him to be other -than a Union officer on a scout. - -He dismounted quietly at a hotel in the place and entered at once -into a pleasant conversation with the commander of the post. -Authorized by their chieftain, however, to remount themselves as -speedily as possible and as thoroughly as possible, the Guerrillas -spread quickly over the town in search for horses, appropriating -first what could be found in the public stables and later on those -that were still needed to supply the deficiency, from private -places. - -As Quantrell conversed with the commander, a Federal private -made haste to inform him of the kind of work the newcomers were -doing, and to complain loudly of the unwarranted and outrageous -appropriation. - -Enraged and excited, the commander snatched up a brace of revolvers -as he left his headquarters and buckled them about him and hurried -to the nearest livery stable where the best among the animals of -his men had been kept. Just as he arrived, Allen Parmer was riding -out mounted on a splendid horse. The Federal major laid hands upon -the bridle and bade Parmer dismount. It was as the grappling of a -wave with a rock. - -No Guerrilla in the service of the South was cooler or deadlier; -none less given to the emotion of fear. He looked at the Federal -major a little curiously when he first barred the passageway of his -horse and even smiled pleasantly as he took the trouble to explain -to him the nature of the instructions under which he was operating. - -“D----n you and d----n your instructions,” the major replied -fiercely. “Dismount!” - -“Ah,” ejaculated Parmer, “has it really come to this?” and then -the two men began to draw. Unquestionably there could be but one -result. The right hand of the Federal major had hardly reached -the flap of his revolver, before Parmer’s pistol was against his -forehead, and Parmer’s bullet had torn half the top of his head off. - -In June, 1865, Quantrell started from Bedford Russell’s, in -Nelson County, with John Ross, William Hulse, Payne Jones, Clark -Hockinsmith, Isaac Hall, Richard Glasscock, Robert Hall, Bud -Spence, Allen Parmer, Dave Helton and Lee McMurtry. His destination -was Salt River. - -At Newel McClaskey’s the turnpike was gained and traveled several -miles, when a singularly severe and penetrating rain storm began. -Quantrell, to escape this, turned from the road on the left and -into a woods pasture near a postoffice called Smiley. Through this -pasture and for half a mile further he rode until he reached the -residence of a Mr. Wakefield, in whose barn the Guerrillas took -shelter. Unsuspicious of danger and of the belief that the nearest -enemy was at least twenty miles away, the men dismounted, unbridled -their horses, and fed them at the racks ranged about the shed -embracing two sides of the barn. - -While the horses were eating the Guerrillas amused themselves with -a sham battle, choosing sides and using corncobs for ammunition. In -the midst of much hilarity and boisterousness, Glasscock’s keen -eye saw through the blinding rain a column of cavalry, one hundred -and twenty strong, approaching the barn at a trot. - -He cried out instantly, and loud enough to be heard at Wakefield’s -house sixty yards away: “Here they are! Here they are.” Instantly -all the men were in motion and rushing to their horses. - -Captain Edward Terrell, known well to Quantrell and fought -stubbornly once before, had been traveling the turnpike from the -direction of Taylorsville, as completely ignorant of Quantrell’s -proximity as Quantrell had been of his, and would have passed on -undoubtedly without a combat if the trail left by the Guerrillas in -passing from the road to the pasture had not attracted attention. -This he followed to within sight of the barn, understood in a -moment the character of the men sheltered there, and closed upon it -rapidly, firing as he came on. - -Before a single Guerrilla had put a bridle upon a horse, Terrill -was at the main gate of the lot, a distance of some fifty feet -from the barn, and pouring such a storm of carbine bullets among -them that their horses ran furiously about the lot, difficult to -approach and impossible to restrain. - -Fighting desperately and deliberately, and driving away from the -main gate a dozen or more Federals stationed there, John Ross, -William Hulse, Allen Parmer, Lee McMurtry, and Bud Pence, cut -their way through, mounted and defiant. The entire combat did not -last ten minutes. It was a fight in which every man had to do for -himself and do what was done speedily. - -Once above the rattling of musketry, the neighing of horses and the -shouting of combatants, Quantrell’s voice rang out loud and clear: -“Cut through, boys, cut through somehow! Don’t surrender while -there is a chance to get out.” - -The fire upon the Guerrillas was furious. Quantrell’s horse, a -thoroughbred animal of great spirit and speed, could not be caught. -His master, anxious to secure him, followed him composedly about -the lot for several minutes, trying under showers of bullets to get -hands upon his favorite. - -At this moment Clark Hockingsmith, who was mounted and free to go -away at a run, saw the peril of his chief, and galloped to his -rescue. Quantrell, touched by this act of devotion, recognized it -by a smile, and held out his hand to his comrade without speaking. -Hockingsmith dismounted until Quantrell took his own place in the -saddle, and then sprang up behind him. - -Another furious volley from Terrill’s men lining all the fence -about the great gate, killed Hockingsmith and killed the horse -he and Quantrell were upon. The second hero now gave his life to -Quantrell. Richard Glasscock also had secured his own horse as -Hockingsmith had done and was free to ride’ away in safety as he -had been. - -Opposite the main entrance to the barn lot there was an exit -uncovered by the enemy and beyond this exit a stretch of heavy -timber. Those who gained the timber were safe. Hockingsmith knew -it when he deliberately laid down his life for his chief, and -Glasscock knew it when he also turned about and hurried up to the -two men struggling there--Quantrell to drag himself out from under -the horse and Hockingsmith in the agonies of death. - -The second volley from the gate mortally wounded Quantrell and -killed Glasscock’s horse. Then a charge of fifty shouting, shooting -men swept over the barn lot. Robert Hall, Payne Jones, David -Helton, and Isaac Hall had gone out some time before on foot. -J. B. Tooley, A. B. Southwick and C. H. Southwick, wounded badly, -escaped fighting. Only the dead man lying by his wounded chief, -and Glasscock, erect, splendid, and fighting to the last, remained -as trophies of the desperate combat. Two balls struck Quantrell. -The first, the heavy ball of a Spencer carbine, entered close to -the right collar bone, ranged down along the spine, injuring it -severely, and hid itself somewhere in the body. The second ball cut -off the finger next to the little finger of the left hand, tearing -it from its socket, and lacerating the hand itself badly. The -shoulder wound did its work, however, for it was a mortal wound. -All the lower portion of Quantrell’s body was paralyzed and as he -was lifted and carried to Wakefield’s house his legs were limp and -his extremities cold and totally without sensation. - -At no time did he either make complaint or moan. His wonderful -endurance remained unimpaired to the end. His mind, always clear in -danger, seemed to recognize that his last battle had been fought -and his last encounter finished. He talked very little. Terrill -came to him and asked if there was any good service he might do -that would be acceptable. - -“Yes,” said Quantrell quietly, “have Clark Hockingsmith buried like -a soldier.” - -After he had been carried to the house of Wakefield and deposited -upon a pallet, he spoke once more to Terrell: - -“While I live let me stay here. It is useless to haul a dying man -about in a wagon, jolting out what little life there is left in -him.” - -Terrell pledged his word that he should not be removed, and rode -away in pursuit of those who had escaped. - -Some of the fugitive Guerrillas soon reached the well known -rendezvous at the house of Alexander Sayers, twenty-three miles -from Wakefield’s, with tidings of the fight. - -Frank James heard the story through with a set face, strangely -white and sorrowful, and then he arose and cried out: “Volunteers -to go back. Who will follow me to see our chief, living or dead?” - -“I will go back,” said Allen Parmer, “and I,” said John Ross, and -“I,” said William Hulse. - -“Let us ride, then,” rejoined James, and in twenty minutes -more--John Ross having exchanged his jaded horse for a fresh -one--these four devoted men were galloping away to Wakefield’s. - -At two o’clock in the morning they were there. Frank James -dismounted and knocked low upon the door. There was the trailing -of a woman’s garments, the circumspect tread of a watching woman’s -feet, the noiseless work of a woman’s hand upon the latch and Mrs. -Wakefield, cool and courtly, bade the strange armed men upon the -threshold to enter. - -Just across on the other side of the room from the door a man lay -on a trundle bed. James stood over the bed, but he could not speak. -If one had cared to look into his eyes they might have seen them -full of tears. - -Quantrell, by the dim light of a single candle, recognized James, -smiled and held out his hand, and said to him very gently, though a -little reproachfully: “Why did you come back? The enemy are thick -about you here; they are passing every hour.” - -“To see if you were alive or dead, Captain. If the first, to save -you; if the last, to put you in a grave.” - -“I thank you very much, Frank, but why try to take me away? I am -cold below the hips. I can neither ride, walk nor crawl; I am dead -and yet I am alive.” - -Frank James went to the door and called in Parmer, Ross and Hulse. -Quantrell recognized them all in his old, calm, quiet fashion, and -bade them wipe away their tears, for they were crying visibly. - -Then Frank James, joined in his entreaties by the entreaties of his -comrades, pleaded with Quantrell for permission to carry him away -to the mountains of Nelson County by slow and easy stages, each -swearing to guard him hour by hour until he recovered or died over -his body, defending it to the last. He knew that every pledge made -by them would be kept to the death. He felt that every word spoken -was a golden word and meant absolute devotion. His faith in their -affection was as steadfast and abiding as of old. He listened until -they had done talking, with the old staid courtesy of victorious -Guerrilla days, and then he silenced them with an answer which, -from its resoluteness, they knew to be unalterable. - -“I cannot live. I have run a long time; I have come out unhurt from -many desperate places; I have fought to kill and I have killed; I -regret nothing. The end is close at hand. I am resting easy here -and will die so. You do not know how your devotion has touched my -heart, nor can you understand how grateful I am for the love you -have shown me. Try and get back to your homes, and avoid if you can -the perils that beset you.” - -Until 10 o’clock the next day these men remained with Quantrell. -He talked with them very freely of the past, but never of the -earlier life in Kansas. Many messages were sent to absent friends, -and much good advice was given touching the surrender of the -remnant of the band. Again and again he returned to the earlier -struggles in Missouri and dwelt long over the recollections and the -reminiscences of the first two years of Guerrilla warfare. - -Finally the parting came, and those who looked last upon -Quantrell’s face that morning as they stooped to tell him goodbye, -looked their last upon it forever. - -Terrill had promised Quantrell positively that he should not be -removed from Wakefield’s house, but in three days he had either -forgotten his promise or had deliberately broken his pledge. He -informed General Palmer, commanding the department of Kentucky, -of the facts of the fight, and of the desperate character of the -wounded officer left paralyzed behind him, suggesting at the same -time the advisability of having him removed to a place of safety. - -General Palmer sent an ambulance under a heavy escort to -Wakefield’s house and Quantrell, suffering greatly and scarcely -more alive than dead, was hauled to the military hospital in -Louisville and deposited there. - -Until the question of recovery had been absolutely decided against -him, but few friends were permitted into his presence. If any -one conversed with him at all, the conversation of necessity was -required to be carried on in the presence of an official. Mrs. Ross -visited him thus--Christian woman, devoted to the South, and of -active and practical patriotism--and took some dying messages to -loved and true ones in Missouri. - -Mrs. Ross left him at one o’clock in the afternoon and at four the -next afternoon the great Guerrilla died. - -His passing away, after a life so singularly fitful and -tempestuous, was as the passing of a summer cloud. He had been -asleep, and as he awoke he called for water. A Sister of Charity at -the bedside put a glass of water to his lips, but he did not drink. -She heard him murmur once audibly--“Boys, get ready.” Then a long -pause, then one word more--“Steady!” and then when she drew back -from bending over the murmuring man, she fell upon her knees and -prayed. Quantrell was dead. - -Before his death he had become a Catholic and had been visited -daily by two old priests. To one of these he made confession, and -such a confession! He told everything. He was too serious and -earnest a man to do less. He kept nothing back, not even the least -justifiable of his many homicides. - -As the priest listened and listened, and as year after year of the -wild war work was made to give up its secrets, what manner of a man -must the priest have imagined lay dying there. - -Let history be just. On that hospital bed, watched by the calm, -colorless face of a Sister of Charity, a dead man lay who, when -living, had filled with his deeds four years of terrible war -history. A singularly placid look had come with the great change. -Alike was praise or censure, reward or punishment. Fate had -done its worst and the future stood revealed to the spirit made -omniscient by its journey through the Valley of the Shadow of -Death. He had done with summer’s heat and winter’s cold, with -spectral ambuscades and midnight vigils. There would never be any -war in the land of the hereafter. The swoop of cavalry, the roar of -combat, the agony of defeat, white faces trampled by the iron hoofs -of horses, the march--the bivouac, the battle; what remains of -these when the transfiguration was done and when the river called -Jordan rolled between the shores of the finite and the infinite? -Nothing! And yet by those, standing or falling, must the great -Guerrilla be judged. - -Quantrell differed in some degree from every Guerrilla who was -either a comrade or his contemporary. Not superior to Todd in -courage and enterprise, nor to Haller, Poole, Jarrette, Younger, -Taylor, Anderson, Frank James, Gregg, Lea, Maddox, Dan Vaughn, or -Yager, he yet had one peculiar quality which none of these save -Gregg, Frank James, Thrailkill, Lea and Younger possessed to the -same pre-eminent degree--extraordinary resource and cunning. - -All the Guerrillas fought. Indeed, at certain times and under -certain conditions fighting might justly have been considered the -least of their accomplishments. A successful leader requires -coolness, intrepidity, robust health, fine horsemanship, expert -pistol practice, quick perception in peril, great rapidity of -movement, immense activity, and inexorable fixedness of purpose. - -Those mentioned excelled in these qualities, but at times they were -too eager to fight, took too many desperate chances, or rushed too -recklessly into combats where they could not win. Quantrell counted -the cost of everything; watched every way lest an advantage should -be taken of him; sought to shield and save his men; strove by much -strategy to have the odds with rather than against him; traveled -a multitude of long roads rather than one short one once too -often; took upon himself many disguises to prevent an embarrassing -familiarity; retreat often rather than fight and be worsted; kept -scouts everywhere; had the faculty of divination to an almost -occult degree; believed in young men; paid attention to small -things; listened to every man’s advice and then took his own; stood -by his soldiers; obeyed strictly the law of retaliation; preferred -the old dispensation to the new--that is to say, the code of Moses -to the code of Jesus Christ; inculcated by precept and example -the self abnegation and devotion to comrade; fought desperately; -carried a black flag; killed everything; made the idea of surrender -ridiculous; snapped his fingers at death; was something of a -fatalist; rarely drank; trusted few women, but these with his -life; played high at cards; believed in religion; respected its -ordinances; went at intervals to church; understood human nature -thoroughly; never quarreled; was generally taciturn and one of the -coolest and deadliest men in a personal combat known to the border. -He rode like he was carved from the horse beneath him. In an -organization where skill with a pistol was a passport to leadership -he shot with a revolver as Leatherstocking shot with a rifle. He -drilled his men to fight equally with either hand. Fairly matched, -God help the column that came in contact with him. - -As to the kind of warfare Quantrell waged, that is another matter. -Like the war of La Vendee, the Guerrilla war was one rather of -hatred than of opinion. The regular Confederates were fighting for -a cause and a nationality--the Guerrilla for vengeance. Mementoes -of murdered kinsmen mingled with their weapons; vows consecrated -the act of enlistment and the cry for blood was heard from -homestead to homestead. Quantrell became a Guerrilla because he had -been most savagely dealt with, and he became a chief because he had -prudence, firmness, courage, audacity and common sense. In personal -intrepidity he was inferior to no man. His features were pleasing -without being handsome, his eyes were blue and penetrating. He -had a Roman nose. In height he was five feet, eleven inches, and -his form was well knit, graceful and sinewy. His constitution was -vigorous, and his physical endurance equal to an Indian. His -glance was rapid and unerring. His judgment was clearest and surest -when the responsibility was heaviest, and when the difficulties -gathered thickest about him. Based upon skill, energy, perspicacity -and unusual presence of mind, his fame as a Guerrilla will endure -for generations. - -Quantrell died a Catholic and was buried in a Catholic cemetery at -Louisville, Kentucky. - - - - -The Youngers and Jameses After the War - - -The end of the war also brought an end to armed resistance by the -Guerrillas. As an organization, they never fought again. The most -of them kept their weapons; and a few of them had great need to -keep them. Some were killed because of the terrible renown won in -the four years’ war; some were forced to hide themselves in the -unknown of the outlying territories, and some were persecuted and -driven into desperate defiance and resistance because they were -human and intrepid. To this latter class the Jameses and Youngers -belonged. - -No men ever strove harder to put the past behind them. No men ever -submitted more sincerely to the results of a war that had as many -excesses on one side as on the other. No men ever went to work -with a heartier good will to keep good faith with society and make -themselves amenable to the law. No men ever sacrificed more for -peace, and for the bare privilege of doing just as hundreds like -them had done--the privilege of going back again into the obscurity -of civil life and becoming again a part of the enterprising economy -of the commonwealth. They were not permitted so to do, try how they -would, and as hard, and as patiently. - -After the death of Quantrell and the surrender of the remnant of -his Guerrillas, Frank James was not permitted, at first, to return -to Missouri at all, much less to his home in Clay County. - -He lingered in Clay County as long as possible, very circumspect -in his actions and very conservative in his behavior. Tempted one -day by his beardless face and innocent walk and to bear upon him -roughly, four Federal soldiers set upon Frank James in Brandenburg -and made haste to force an issue. For a moment the old fire of his -earlier and stormier days flared up all of a sudden from the ashes -of the past and consumed as with a single hot blast of passion -prudence, accountability, caution and discretion. He fought as he -had fought at Centralia. Two of the Federals were killed instantly, -the third was desperately wounded, while the fourth shot Frank -badly in the joint of the left hip, inflicting a grievous hurt and -one which caused him afterwards a great deal of pain and trouble. - -Staunch friends hid him while the hue and cry were heaviest, and -careful surgical attention brought him back to life when he lay so -close to death’s door that by the lifting of a hand he also might -have lifted its latch. - -This fight, however, was not one of his own seeking, nor one -which he could have avoided without the exhibition of a quality -he never had known anything about and never could know anything -about--physical cowardice. - -Jesse James, emaciated, tottering as he walked, fighting what -seemed to everyone a hopeless battle--of “the skeleton boy against -skeleton death”--joined his mother in Nebraska and returned with -her to their home near Kearney, in Clay County. His wound would -not heal, and more ominous still, every now and then there was a -hemorrhage. - -In the spring of 1866 he was just barely able to mount a horse and -ride a bit. And he did ride, but he rode armed, watchful, vigilant, -haunted. He might be killed, waylaid, ambuscaded, assassinated; but -he would be killed with his eyes open and his pistols about him. - -The hunt for this maimed and emaciated Guerrilla culminated on the -night of February 18th, 1867. On this night an effort was made to -kill him. Five militiamen, well armed and mounted, came to his -mother’s house and demanded admittance. The weather was bitterly -cold, and Jesse James, parched with fever, was tossing wearily in -bed. His pistols were under his head. His step-father. Dr. Samuels, -heard the militiamen as they walked upon the front porch, and -demanded to know what they wanted. They told him to open the door. -He came up to Jesse’s room and asked him what he should do. “Help -me to the window,” was the low, calm reply, “that I may look out.” -He did so. - -There was snow on the ground and the moon was shining. He saw that -all the horses hitched to the fence had on cavalry saddles, and -then he knew that the men were soldiers. He had but one of two -things to do--drive them away or die. - -Incensed at the step-father’s silence, they were hammering at the -door with the butts of their muskets and calling out to Jesse to -come down stairs, swearing that they knew he was in the house, and -that they would have him out, dead or alive. - -He went down stairs softly, having first dressed himself, crept -close up to the front door and listened until from the talk of the -men he thought he was able to get a fairly accurate pistol range. -Then he put a heavy dragoon pistol to within three inches of the -upper panel of the door and fired. A man cried out and fell. Before -the surprise was off he threw the door wide open, and with a pistol -in each hand began a rapid fusillade. A second man was killed as -he ran, two men were wounded severely, and surrendered, while the -fifth marauder, terrified, yet unhurt, rushed swiftly to his horse -and escaped in the darkness. - -What else could Jesse James have done? In those evil days bad men -in bands were doing bad things continually in the name of the law, -order and vigilance committees. - -He had been a desperate Guerrilla; he had fought under a black -flag, he had made a name for terrible prowess along the border; -he had survived dreadful wounds; it was known that he would fight -at any hour or in any way; he could not be frightened out from -his native county; he could be neither intimidated nor robbed, -and hence the wanton war waged upon Jesse and Frank James, and -this is the reason they became outlaws, and hence the reason also -that--outlaws as they were and proscribed in county, or state or -territory--they had more friends than the officers who hunted them, -and more defenders than the armed men who sought to secure their -bodies, dead or alive. - -The future of the Youngers after the war was similar to the -Jameses. Cole was in California when the surrender came, and he -immediately accepted the situation. He returned to Missouri, -determined to forget the past, and fixed in his purpose to reunite -the scattered members of his once prosperous and happy family, and -prepare and make comfortable a home for his stricken and suffering -mother. - -Despite everything that has been said and written of this man, -he was, during all the border warfare, a generous and merciful -man. Others killed and that in any form or guise or fashion; he -alone in open and honorable battle. His heart was always kind, and -his sympathies always easily aroused. He not only took prisoners -himself, but he treated them afterwards as prisoners, and released -them to rejoin commands that spared nothing alive of Guerrilla -associations that fell into their hands. - -He was the oldest son, and all the family looked up to him. His -mother had been driven out of Cass County into Jackson, out of -Jackson into Lafayette, and out of Lafayette into Jackson again. -Not content with butchering the father in cold blood, the ravenous -cut-throats and thieves followed the mother with a malignity -unparalleled. Every house she owned or inhabited was burnt, every -outbuilding, every rail, every straw stack, every corn pen, every -pound of food and every store of forage. Her stock was stolen. Her -household goods were even appropriated. She had no place to lay -her head that could be called her own, and but for the kindness -and Christianity of her devoted neighbors, she must have suffered -greatly. - -At this time Coleman and James returned to Missouri and went -hopefully and bravely to work. Their father’s land remained to -them. That at least had neither been set fire to nor hauled away in -wagons, nor driven into Kansas. - -Western Missouri was then full of disbanded Federal soldiers, -organized squads of predatory Redlegs and Jayhawkers, horse thieves -disguised as vigilance committees, and highway robbers known as law -and order men. - -In addition, Drake’s constitution disfranchised every property -owner along the border. An honest man could not officially stand -between the helpless of his community and the imported lazzaroni -who preyed upon them; a decent man’s voice could not be heard -above the clamor of the beggars quarreling over stolen plunder; and -a just man’s expostulations penetrated never into the councils of -the chief scoundrels who planned the murders and the robberies. - -Coleman Younger’s work was like the work of a pioneer in the -wilderness, but he did it as became the hardy descendants of a -stalwart race of pioneers. He cut logs and built a comfortable log -house for his mother. He made rails and fenced in his land. In lieu -of horses or mules, he plowed with oxen. He stayed steadfastly -at home. He heard rumors of threats being made against his life, -but he paid no attention to them. He took part in no political -meetings. He tried to hide himself and be forgotten. - -The bloodhounds were on his track, however, and swore either to -kill him or drive him from the country. A vigilance committee -composed of skulking murderers and red-handed robbers went one -night to surprise the two brothers and end the hunt with a -massacre. Forewarned, James and Coleman fled. The family were -wantonly insulted, and a younger brother, John, a mere boy, was -brutally beaten and then hung until life was almost extinct. This -was done to force him to tell the whereabouts of James and Coleman. - -Mrs. Younger never entirely recovered from the shock of that -night’s work, lingering along hopelessly yet patiently for several -months and finally dying in the full assurance of the Christian’s -blessed hereafter. - -The death of this persecuted woman, however, did not end the -persecution. Cole Younger was repeatedly waylaid and fired at. His -stock was killed through mere deviltry, or driven off to swell -the gains of insatiable wolves. His life was in hourly jeopardy, -as was the life of his brother James. They plowed in the fields -as men who saw suspended above them a naked sword blade. They -permitted no light to be lit in the house at night. They traveled -the public highway warily. They were hunted men and proscribed men -in the midst of their own people. They were chased away from their -premises by armed men. Once Cole was badly wounded by the bullet of -an assassin. Once, half dressed, he had to flee for his life. If he -made a crop, he was not permitted to gather it and when something -of a success might have come to him after the expenditure of so -much toil, energy, long-suffering and forbearance, he was not let -alone in peace long enough to utilize his returns and make out of -his resources their legitimate gains. - -Of course there could be but one ending to all this long and -unbroken series of malignant persecutions, lying-in-wait, midnight -surprises, perpetual robbings, and most villainous assaults and -attempted murders--Coleman and James Younger left home and left -Jackson County. They buckled on their pistols and rode away to -Texas, resolved from that time on to protect themselves, to fight -when they were attacked, and to make it so hot for the assassins -and the detectives who were eternally on their track that by and -by the contract taken to murder them would be a contract not -particularly conducive to steady investments. They were hounded to -it. - -They endured every species of insult and attack, and would have -still continued to endure it in silence and almost non-resistance -if such forbearance had mitigated in any manner the virulence -of their enemies, or brought any nearer to an appeasement the -merciless fate which seemed to be eternally at their heels. The -peaceful pursuits of life were denied them. The law which should -have protected them was overridden. Indeed, there was no law. -The courts were instruments of plunder. The civil officers were -cutthroats. Instead of a legal process, there was a vigilance -committee. Men were hung because of a very natural desire to keep -hold of their own property. To the cruel vigor of actual war, there -had succeeded the irresponsible despotism of greedy highwaymen -buttressed upon assassination. The border counties were overrun -with bands of predatory plunderers. Some Confederate soldiers dared -not return home and many Guerrillas fled the country. It was dark -everywhere, and the bravest held their breath, not knowing how much -longer they would be permitted to remain peacefully at home, or -suffered to enjoy the fruits of the labors they had endured. - -Fortunately for all, however, the well nigh extinct embers of -a merciless border war were not blown upon long enough and -persistently enough to kindle another conflagration. - -But neither the Jameses nor the Youngers had been permitted to -rest long at any one time since the surrender of the Confederate -armies. Some dastardly deeds had been done against them, too, in -the name of the law. Take for example, Pinkerton’s midnight raid -upon the house of Mrs. Zerelda Samuels, mother of the James boys. -The family was wrapped in profound sleep. Only women and children -were about the premises, and an old man long past his prime. The -cowards--how many is not accurately known, probably a dozen--crept -close to this house through the midnight, surrounded it, found its -inmates asleep, and threw into the kitchen where an old negress was -in bed with her children, a lighted hand grenade, wrapped about -with flannel saturated with turpentine. The lurid light from this -inflammable fluid awakened the negro woman and she in turn awakened -the sleeping whites. They rushed to subdue the flames and save -their property. Children were gathered together in the kitchen, -little things, helpless and terrified. All of a sudden there was a -terrible explosion. Mrs. Samuels’ right arm was blown off above the -elbow, a bright little boy, eight years old, had his bowels torn -out. Dr. Samuels was seriously cut and hurt, the old negro woman -was maimed, and several of the other children more or less injured. -The hand grenade had done its work, and there had been a tragedy -performed by men calling themselves civilized, in the midst of a -peaceful community and upon a helpless family of women and children -and what would have disgraced Nero or made some of the monstrous -murders of Diocletian was as white is to black. Yet Pinkerton’s -paid assassins did this because his paid assassins knew better how -to kill women and children than armed men in open combat. - -Dear Reader, what would you have done under the same circumstances? -Put yourself in the Jameses’ and Youngers’ places, and think it -over. - -When Jesse James was killed at St. Joseph, Missouri, Governor -Crittenden, then governor of the state of Missouri, wired me to -know if I would go up and identify him. - -I wired him I would, providing I could go armed. - -He answered, “Perfectly satisfactory to me. Meet me at Union -Station, Kansas City, Missouri, tomorrow morning.” - -I secured several of my old Guerrilla friends to accompany the -Governor and myself to St. Joseph, Missouri, unbeknown to the -Governor, however, for I did not know how I stood with the people -at St. Joseph. I was just playing safety first. I met the Governor -at the depot. He asked me what attitude I thought Frank James would -take towards him for offering a reward and having Jesse killed. I -told him “If Frank wanted to kill him for revenge, he surely would.” - -He looked pale, but not half so pale as he did the day Frank -surrendered. A heavy reward hanging over Frank James’ head, he made -his way past the guards and sergeant-at-arms, stationed at the -Governor’s mansion at Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri, and -surrendered to Governor Crittenden in his office. On entering his -office, Frank said: - -“Is this Governor Crittenden?” - -“Yes,” was the reply. - -“This is Frank James. I came to surrender,” at the same time -pulling two heavy dragoon pistols and handing them to the Governor. -“Here are arms, Governor, but not all I have, nor will I give them -up until I know you will give me protection.” - -Frank told me afterwards that “Governor Crittenden’s face will -never be whiter when he is dead than it was the day I surrendered.” - -I identified Jesse James at St. Joseph, Missouri, to the Governor’s -entire satisfaction. Since then it has been said that Jesse was -still alive and that it was a wax figure that was buried, but this -is all a lie. - -There is one good act the James boys did while they were outlaws. - -A southern widow woman some time soon after the war had mortgaged -her farm to an old Redleg who had moved from Lawrence, Kansas, to -Kansas City. - -When the loan expired he drove out to see her and informed her that -if she did not have the money by ten o’clock the next morning he -would foreclose. - -Soon after he had left, up rode Jesse and Frank James, and found -the lady crying and taking on. They inquired what was wrong, and -she related the whole story. - -Frank said, “You send your son in the morning and tell the old -Federal to bring all releases and all papers fully signed and you -will pay him in full. Jesse and I will let you have the money.” - -Next morning the boy went with the message, and in the evening out -came the old Federal in his bus with his negro driver, drove up -to the house, went in, and the lady paid him in full with cash, -getting all releases and papers fixed up. The old man bowed and -scraped and, tipping his hat, said, “Goodbye, lady,” and he and his -“nigger” driver started back to Kansas City. When but a few hundred -yards or so from the house and close to a ravine, Jesse and Frank -held him up and relieved him of the money they had loaned the lady, -together with all the rest he had for interest. - - * * * * * - -During the World War, in conversation with friends, I told them -to take away from Germany her airplanes, gases and machine guns, -and if it were possible to call Quantrell’s old band together, of -which at no time were there over three hundred and fifty men, all -told, under Todd, Poole, Yager, Anderson, Younger, Jarrett, Haller, -Quantrell and myself, I could take these three hundred and fifty -men and go to Berlin in a gallop, for history does not now and -never will know the power there was in the Quantrell band. It has -been given up long ago that they were the most fighting devils the -world has ever known or ever will know. - - -THE END - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes - - -Transcriber added six missing chapter references to the Table of -Contents. - -Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a -predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise -they were not changed. - -Many simple typographical errors were silently corrected, but -several words that today would be considered misspelled have not -been changed. - -Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs -and outside quotations. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Charles W. Quantrell, by Harrison Trow - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLES W. 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