Bloody Dawn (22 page)

Some of the people, those who could prove their loyalty, did enter the garrisoned towns or crossed to an uncertain life in Kansas. Those who could not yet were fortunate enough to have relatives elsewhere and the means to get there left with a degree of hope. But for the majority, with little money and nowhere to go, they simply drifted off following others who were going nowhere, subsisting on roots, cracked corn, and green apples. Although begged for, shelter was denied at schools and churches.
³⁶
“There come the refugees, take in your clothes,” Union women mocked.
³⁷

One man, viewing the flight from a snug vantage point, laughed at their condition. Scornfully he remarked that the victims were “haggard, woe-begone, melancholy, and of course disloyal.” Others had similar comments. Whether these people noticed or not, or whether they cared, the irony of it all was that the same trains, boats, and trails used by the Missourians to flee their state were the same trains, boats, and trails used by Kansans to flee theirs.
³⁸

In a letter to John Schofield dated the last of August 1863, General Ewing sized up the situation in the West as he saw it and amplified on his recent Order No. 11. The message had ended on a cautious but positive note: “The execution of these orders will possibly lead to a still fiercer and more active struggle … but will soon result, though with much unmerited loss and suffering, in putting an end to this savage border war.”
³⁹

If Thomas Ewing could somehow look far away into the peaceful distance to a time when “this savage border war” would at last be ended, Kansans could not. They saw only the grim here and now and the “fiercer struggle” that yet lay ahead. Even with two additional regiments and the border patrols doubled, the general feeling was that no force known could keep Quantrill out of Kansas if he had a mind to come.

“Never,” noted an observer, had he “seen the people—the lionhearted courageous men and women of Kansas—so thoroughly disheartened.”
⁴⁰
“They have lost all confidence,” said another. And now, with the guerrillas undoubtedly more vengeful than ever before, the horizon in Kansas never looked blacker. Every shifting breeze carried its alarm. Quantrill was said to be here—pillaging and murdering near Fort Scott to the south, then there—leading a thousand men toward Leavenworth in the north. He was moving south to “kill, burn, and plunder everything,” while at the same time he was marching west to finish off Olathe. Osawatomie was on fire. Endless knots of his men were filtering up the Marais des Cygnes Valley to form and fall on a town in the rear. Again he was going south but at Elwood in the north there was wild panic. “Look Out,” warned an excited editor. “Where the blow will fall, nobody can tell.”
⁴¹

All business ground to a halt. And while their fields went to rot, local militias, exhausted and stretched to the limit, marched and patrolled day and night. “I wish to God, Quantrell was on the Union side!” one militiaman burst out.
⁴²

Terrified families from the border streamed into the larger towns while others fled far to the interior. Many gave up the state entirely. Some stubborn individuals did remain, however, determined to hold their hard-won farms to the last. But it wasn't for long. As the final act of Order No. 11 was being played out in Missouri, a rumor swept into Kansas like a whirlwind, causing a “perfect stampede,” emptying farms and villages, and completely clearing the land. An edict had been issued by Quantrill himself, so it went, requiring all Union citizens in the border counties south of the Kaw to be off the land within fifteen days. He and his men were surely coming, the report continued, and any man found in the restricted zone who could not prove his loyalty to the Confederacy must certainly know the rest!

Unlike Ewing's order, no troops were on hand to force Kansans from the border. But like their neighbors across the line, the people of the state went just as swiftly, just as surely.
⁴³

Then, with a strip of desolation fifty miles wide, an eerie calm settled over the western border. “The stillness,” wrote Ewing, “is like that which preceded the Lawrence raid.”

“No sign of Quantrill,” came the report from Lexington in the north.

“Still as death.… They have mysteriously disappeared,” echoed the eastern district. To the south, the word was the same with no Rebels seen in any sector. But they were there, and from some of his best spies Ewing soon knew where.
⁴⁴

Suddenly, in mid-September Ewing sprang the trap. With hundreds of troops posted to guard the passes leading south, thousands more swarmed in from the north for a sweep up the Sni Valley. The general's plan was simple, yet direct: First, press the guerrillas so vigorously, so relentlessly that a club and claw fight to the finish would be their only option, and second, flush those who survived to the south for a slaughter on the prairie beyond. The core of the hunt was Col. William Weer's Tenth Kansas, just returned from Ohio and the successful chase of the raider John Morgan. Perhaps one of the best antipartisan men in the country, the colonel knew all the tricks. And as he moved up the Sni, Weer had a man on his left flank who understood the “habits of the animal” better than any, Charles Coleman. Also participating was Bazel Lazear and his Missouri militia, who, on that hot afternoon by the banks of Big Creek, had come within a hair of making much of the Sni campaign unnecessary. With almost a thousand men, Colonel Lazear eagerly joined the hunt. “If we could only succeed in catching Quantrill,” he excitedly wrote his wife, “that would put the cap-sheaf on for us.”
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Almost immediately Coleman struck home. He and his company surprised a large band of bushwhackers, killed two, captured forty horses, and destroyed a large amount of equipment. The rest were driven ahead. Lazear had a similar success. There were more clashes and more Rebels slain. As the last days of September slipped by and the net closed tighter on the Sni, Ewing sent a hasty reminder to his troops at the southern passes to get ready. Never in the history of the border war had such an operation taken place, and with Weer, Lazear, and Coleman in the brush there was a feeling in the air that the time had finally arrived. And if officers were guarded in their words, others were not.

“With a large force of experienced border fighters now on his track,” one man predicted, “his escape is hardly possible.”

“They cannot run far now.”
⁴⁶

Far to the south, James Blunt lounged comfortably in his parked buggy, “enjoying a quiet smoke,” a five-gallon demijohn of brandy by his side. It was a sunny autumn day in southeast Kansas and the general was on the road to Arkansas. Although he was hoping to make a “quick trip,” at the moment Blunt sat waiting for the rest of his column to close up before going into the Union fort at Baxter Springs, a mere stone's throw away. In addition to the eight wagons that composed his train, there were staff officers, civilians, Blunt's brass band, and regular soldiers acting as escort—over one hundred men in all.

After a wait of fifteen minutes the stragglers joined and the order to march was given. But just then, a short distance to the east, a large body of men were spied emerging from the woods. As the blue-clad riders were forming into a wide front, the Federal column halted to watch. Everyone, including the commanding general, assumed that these were troops from the fort beginning daily exercises. In a few moments the riders advanced.

Five minutes later James Blunt was several miles away lashing a fleet horse over the open prairie—hatless, saberless, no cigar, no brandy. Behind him, as the dust settled, the wagon train was ablaze and most of his men lay scattered about the road, each with a neat black hole burned into his head.
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Word traveled slower this time, back up the lonely Fort Scott Road with survivors; from there by couriers along the state line—the Trading Post, Aubrey, Kansas City, upriver to Leavenworth; by telegraph from here, across Missouri, fanning out until word had finally spread, “
QUANTRILL AGAIN!
”

That same day, as the corpses were being laid out for burial in the south, far to the north in Lawrence spades were also turning the earth. Two more bodies were pulled from a well.
⁴⁸

“
S
uch is the excitement and terror of the people caused by last year's experience,” wrote editor Hovey Lowman, “that the report ‘they are coming,' will create almost as much consternation as if they were upon us.”
¹

And that spring, 1864, like a gathering black cloud on a clear southern horizon, they were coming. All reports arriving from the south, and there was a storm of them, indicated that Quantrill, Todd, and Anderson had broken winter camp in Texas and were weaving their way north with hundreds—some said thousands—of followers. Frantic efforts to intercept and slow their progress were to no avail. Finally, in early May the guerrillas reached their Sni and Blackwater lairs. The nightmare began anew. For Missouri it proved the bloodiest, most ferocious summer of the war. Seldom did an hour pass without death and destruction. Reckless Federal patrols led by green officers stumbled into ambush and were annihilated; steamboats were riddled with rifle fire; railroad and stage lines stopped running; towns were captured; nightly, homes and barns shot orange sparks heavenward while in the fiery glow owners were beaten, tortured, or killed.

“The very air seems charged with blood and death,” wailed a Kansas City journalist. “Pandemonium itself seems to have broken loose, and robbery, murder, … and death runs riot over the country.”
²

Understandably, such savagery and strife across the line kept Kansas churning in dreadful anticipation. Awesome though it was, Kansans viewed the renewal of the vicious war in Missouri as merely a prelude of things to come, for there were no doubts in that state about the bushwhackers' ultimate ambition. Consequently, each city, town, and farm suffered its share of terror during the panic of 1864. And although each bloodcurdling report proved
in the end a false alarm, it mattered naught to Kansans. “We must take all these reports with many grains of allowance,” warned one high-ranking officer, “but there must be some fire where there is so much smoke.”
³

When the spring sun rose on Lawrence that year, it unveiled a transformation quite unlike anything seen in the brief history of Kansas. The most obvious change was Camp Lookout. Glowering over the wide valley the outpost crowning Mount Oread surveyed all movement on the roads leading into town. Built of rough, heavy logs, the stockade also housed several big cannons, which glared menacingly from the gunports. Fifty men ate, slept, lived in the fort night and day, without exception.

Below Mount Oread, carving the city up like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, stretched a system of trenches, pits, and breastworks capable of containing hundreds of men. Down Massachusetts Street two solid blockhouses anchored the heart of town. Others were scattered about at key points. Eight men remained at each bastion continually, four inside, four out. Five companies of city militia marched and drilled more often than not and stood ready at a moment's notice. Although armed by the state, one dissatisfied company bought the best repeating rifles available. Every able-bodied man belonged to the militia. Exemptions were few. Two companies of U.S. regulars also guarded the town permanently.

Scouts ranged the countryside, patrolling the Santa Fe Road from the border west as far as Council Grove. Strangers crossing the earthworks by day were questioned and watched, sometimes roughed up and arrested, and no one entered the town at night without being stopped. Failure to do so could mean death.
⁴
Forts, cannons, drums, bugles, pickets, scouts, signs, and countersigns—in six months the place had become one of the most fortified towns in the West. Lawrence was a citadel.

And when the people weren't working on the defenses or standing guard or watching strangers, visitors, and very often one another, they were busy rebuilding their town. Blackened lots on broad Massachusetts Street began to sprout new shops and stores, some raised by former merchants, some by new. Homes were also rising, grander and more ornate than ever. Altogether over one hundred and fifty various buildings had been constructed since the raid, including more than a score on the opposite side of the river. There were other improvements as well.

Spanning the Kaw, the new wooden bridge connected the two sections of town, making the cumbersome ferry all but obsolete. Beyond,
grading for the long-awaited Pacific Railroad had been completed to Lawrence; citizens eagerly watched for smoke from the first locomotive. And the telegraph had reached town: overnight Lawrence found itself only a finger tap away from the thoughts of Chicago, New York, and Boston; more important, at least while the war lasted, Lawrence also had instant contact with Leavenworth, Kansas City, and Olathe. There was a modest immigration to the city as well, which eased the labor shortage. The influx of eligible males also did much to put sparkle into the lives of a large number of widows and maturing young women. And for the town as a whole the arrival of new faces was a spectacle that was bound to boost sagging spirits, for it was reassuring to know that others felt so confident in Lawrence that they were actually willing to move there.

The work went on without letup. Sawmills ran night and day and the sounds of the hammer and trowel were notes both constant and comforting. Optimism soared as the paint dried on each new shining home, and each proud store shingle signaled business as usual. “If Quantrell will let us alone, the anniversary of his butchery will see Lawrence fully revived,” waxed John Speer in his new paper, the
Kansas Tribune
.
⁵

Whether intended or not Speer expressed a sentiment that, despite outward appearances, always ran deep and would remain the dominant theme of day-to-day thought—Quantrill. Although Lawrence was a fortress and through hard work and courage had made itself invulnerable to guerrilla raids, no one truly believed in its safety. The general mood in town was “it can be done again,” as Hovey Lowman noted. “Such great crimes … seldom repeat themselves. Civilization don't crimson its pages with such an awful deformity but rarely. We trust in God it may never happen again. To guard against it, we must watch without ceasing. Eternal vigilance alone is our protection.”
⁶

Every man, regardless of occupation, went to work each day with a musket on his arm and at least one revolver under his coat. An accidental discharge of a gun or a rider galloping through the streets at night was more than enough to rally the militia, and when the sawmill whistle went off one dark morning the entire town flew to the alarm. Later it was discovered the whistle had simply been stuck, and everyone laughed in relief. But these same people jumped just as quickly at the next alarm and the next.
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June and July came and went with similar panics, but other than the terrifying rumors, nothing whatsoever was heard of Quantrill. Nevertheless work on the fortifications continued, and as the anniversary of the raid approached, three additional cannons plus hundreds of extra troops and militiamen arrived.
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But except for one more nervous day and one more sleepless night, Sunday, August 21, 1864, passed without incident.

Then in September a telegram arrived that sent a cold, violent shiver through the town. Quantrill had finally been captured. Arrested as a spy in Indiana, a man fitting his description was currently sitting in an Indianapolis jail cell within days of execution. His name—Charles Hart. Several Missourians had already viewed the prisoner and agreed that he was the man, but to make absolutely certain the Indiana commandant wired Kansas requesting further information. When that message was returned, last doubts were removed. Asking the authorities there to delay execution, a committee of four men, including Peter Ridenour, was quickly appointed to rush east and bring William Quantrill back to Lawrence for trial and punishment. And within forty-eight hours of leaving, the cell door swung open and the Kansans stood staring into the eyes of the prisoner.

A few days later, amid great anticipation, the committeemen returned to Lawrence. To the dismay of the people, however, they came back alone. There were many similarities, argued Ridenour to the incredulous townsfolk, and to be sure it was a terrible, fantastic chain of coincidence, but beyond doubt the Hart of Indiana was not the Quantrill of Kansas. And thus the prayers of thousands went unanswered.
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Following the excitement, September faded quietly away. In fact, although Missouri was abroil, and despite the awful alarms, the summer of 1864 had proven the most peaceful and uneventful of the war. But that all began to change when the leaves began to fall.

In mid-September, with his band playing “Dixie,” Gen. Sterling Price crossed over from his Arkansas exile and marched into his beloved home state. Behind “Old Pap” followed nearly 12,000 Rebel cavalrymen, Missourians for the most part, many rugged veterans toughened by three years of fighting. Price's objectives were as varied as recruiting men for the drained Confederacy to swaying public opinion in the November elections, but the old general's chief ambition was nothing less than the recapture of Missouri. Initially, his first target was the metropolis of St. Louis.
¹⁰

From his headquarters by the banks of the Mississippi, new Department of the Missouri commander, William S. Rosecrans, sent urgent messages alerting the state and ordering a concentration of troops around St. Louis. Far downriver a small force was standing by, but for the time-being no sufficient body of Union soldiers stood between
the Rebel army and St. Louis. If Price moved swiftly he might soon hold the keys to the seventh largest city in America. At the moment only a scratch outfit of 1,000 men could be placed anywhere near Price's advance. But to Rosecrans's mind the sacrifice was necessary, and to buy time this unit was sent forward to try to slow the Rebel host.

At age thirty-three, John Schofield left his St. Louis desk to join William T. Sherman in his epic campaign for Atlanta. Without question the bright, young general was glad to be rid of the hopeless Missouri quagmire. He had tried to find an answer for the “evil on the border,” as he called it, but to the best of his abilities he had not. Schofield had survived, however. And although no one in Kansas or Missouri mourned his departure, he left with his reputation intact. Not only had the one-time physics professor shown himself to be a wise and capable administrator, but shortly the record would prove him a valuable field commander as well. Later, success in conflict was crowned in peace when in 1888 John Schofield was appointed commanding general of the United States Army.

During the final days of September the army of Sterling Price marched nearly one hundred miles into Missouri without a trace of Federal opposition. There was even talk of taking the war to Iowa as confidence swelled in the ranks.

Then, on September 26, in the shadow of a towering crag called Pilot Knob, Price suddenly found his path barred. A small Union force had settled in behind earthworks to meet the onslaught. Twice the Rebel general demanded surrender and twice he was refused. Thus Price deployed his thousands and sent them charging against the works, hoping to root the Federals out with as little time lost as possible. But two days of fierce fighting and 1,500 Rebel casualties later, Tom Ewing and his hard-pressed little band still held the pass.

Time had run out, however, and with the railroad to his rear destroyed and hope of reinforcements out of the question, Ewing withdrew his exhausted force and led it away to safety.
¹¹

As most demanded, as everyone expected, Thomas Ewing by his own request was replaced as commander of the border. By March 1864 he found himself in the District of St. Louis, an area that had been a military backwater and all signs indicated it would remain so until the end of the war. But fate and Sterling Price intervened, and Ewing was given a last opportunity to revive his failing career. After the war, however, and all but friendless, Ewing saw no reason to return to his adopted home in Kansas. Practicing law for a time in Washington, he returned to his native Lancaster, Ohio, and as expected he then set sail on a political voyage worthy of his father.
¹²
And when he did, his foremost foe was right there, ready and waiting.