Stark Mad Abolitionists

by Robert K. Sutton

  Fifty years following the raid, Jetta Dix was finally able to tell her story. Her husband, Ralph, operated a blacksmith and carriage shop in downtown Lawrence. She made extra money running a boarding house on the third floor of their house. Jetta, like many others, did not know what to make of the early morning commotion, but when Thomas Pardee, an African American man who worked for Ralph, rushed into their house and told the family to hide, she looked out the window and realized that the danger was real. She hid her three-year-old son and her eighteen-month-old twin daughters in a coal shed, under the care of the family’s African American maid. She pleaded with her husband to hide as well. But Ralph was so sure that the men of Lawrence would rally and get the guns from the arsenal—which was about a block from their house—that he refused to seek a hiding place. Jetta saw her brother-in-law, Frank Dix, shot, and she ran to try to help him. As she was holding Frank, a guerrilla shot him again—the bullet grazing her face. Her husband, and other men who had ventured outside their houses, were immediately captured by Quantrill’s men. They were promised protection if they would turn over their money and valuables. Jetta started running to her husband and the other men; she stumbled over a rock pile, and at that moment a thug shot the prisoners, including her husband. “I stood, completely dazed and rigid as I saw men falling to the right and left,” she later reported. “I could not get to my husband at once, as the guerrillas were coming in every direction, riding through the ally, right over the dead bodies, between the buildings and the street.”278

  Mayor George W. Collamore seemed to have escaped the carnage. When the bullets started flying, he was certain he would be a target, so he and a friend climbed down into the well behind his house. The guerrillas could not find him, but they burned his house to the ground. As the house was burning, Mrs. Collamore called to her husband, who responded. But later, after the bushwhackers had left town, she went back and this time there was no response. The mayor’s friend, Captain J. G. Lowe, climbed into the well, but after a few minutes, he did not respond either. When yet another went into the well, he found that all three men were dead. Captain Lowe slipped and fell, but Mayor Collamore and his friend, Pat Keefe, likely suffocated. The well was close to the house, and the house fire sucked the oxygen from the well, killing both men.279

  Quantrill and his men were in Lawrence for about four hours, from roughly 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. They left nearly as abruptly as they came—once their lookouts were sure the dust clouds coming from the East meant that soldiers were on their way to the rescue. Nearly all the men assembled and headed out of town, quickly and orderly. At least one straggler, Larkin Skaggs, a former “hard shell” and fallen Baptist minister, wanted to get in one last lick. He was very drunk and headed to the City Hotel, where he wanted to get even with a young woman from whom he had taken a ring earlier, which Quantrill forced him to return. Quantrill apparently had a romantic relationship with the woman when he was living in Lawrence as Charley Hart, and, as the story went, he had given her the ring. Skaggs rode up to the hotel, killed the proprietor, Nathan Stone, and wounded two others. Then he realized that he had been left behind and hurried to catch up. John Speer, the young son of the newspaper editor, picked up a dropped gun, aimed, and hit Skaggs, knocking him from his horse. The townspeople immediately pounced on Skaggs and made sure he was dead. The raid was over.280

  John McCorkle and Cole Younger described the raid, but both descriptions were brief. McCorkle wrote that most of those killed were Jayhawkers, but “in the raid, a few innocent men may have been killed but this was not intentional.” Younger devoted a little more attention to the massacre, but picked his words carefully. He reported that “Bloody Bill” Anderson claimed to have killed fourteen, which no one disputed. He said only one woman, an African American woman, was killed, but by accident. He then went on to describe how he personally saved the lives of many potential victims. He claimed that because he was such a kind, gentle, and heroic person in Lawrence, the beneficiaries of his “kindness” later vouched for and helped him receive a reprieve from prison after the bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota, years later. Younger wrote that his brother-in-law, John Jarrett, had his horse shot out from under him. Younger rescued him, but Jarrett had to leave behind his saddle and a saddlebag, carrying $8,000, “for the benefit of widows and orphans of Missouri.”281 That last statement, no doubt, was intended to gild the Robin Hood image. When the bushwhackers returned to Missouri, they split their spoils among themselves, and not with—as far as we know—widows and orphans.

  Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence, Kansas, Harper’s Weekly (September 5, 1863). Library of Congress.

  As soon as it was clear that the raid was over, Rev. Cordley and others hurried to the scene of the bloodbath, to see if there was anything they could do. “The first man I met,” reported Rev. Cordley, “was John Speer, editor of the Lawrence Republican. He was covered with ashes and soot as if he had been through the fire. He grasped my hand eagerly, and said, ‘I want you to help find my boy. They have killed one, and the other I cannot find. He slept in the printing-office, and I expect he was burned with the building.’ So we went where he said the bed stood, and raked about among the embers in the cellar with poles, but could find no signs of his boy, and no signs of him were ever found.”

  After tending to as many survivors as possible, Rev. Cordley and his wife found Rev. Bodwell; they were greatly relieved that he had survived. They then went to the site of the Cordley’s house. “All that remained was a bed of embers and ashes,” he wrote. “Not a book or sermon, not a letter or paper, not a relic of childhood or memento of [any] friend was saved. As we stood silently looking at the desolate scene, Mrs. Cordley quietly wept. Bodwell turned to her and said in his gentlest tones: ‘Don’t cry, Mary. You have got all you asked for. We are all here.’ No more tears were shed for the ruined house. So many all about us were carrying heavier sorrows…. [We were] thankful at our own escape.”282

  Following the raid, all who were able gathered around Senator Lane, who had emerged from his hiding place, and thirty-five men started in pursuit of Quantrill and his gang. The guerrillas were not hard to follow. They torched every house they encountered, with the smoke marking their trail. Lane and his men gave chase, but all they could do was nip at Quantrill’s heels. They spotted the bushwhackers, but with the small party it would have been suicide to attack. Lane sent messages back to Lawrence for every able-bodied man to join them. He then led his men along the left flank of the guerrillas, in hopes of enough men joining him along with the cavalry for an attack. Indeed, the cavalry was coming to the rescue. Quantrill’s lookouts were right about the dust clouds they saw when they called off the raid and started their retreat.

  Major P. B. Plumb led some 250 men in pursuit, and when he spotted smoke south and east of Lawrence, he rightly assumed that Quantrill and his men were in retreat. Major Plumb knew that Quantrill’s ultimate goal was to reach Missouri, so he headed directly south in an attempt to cut the guerrillas off. Not far from the community of Prairie City, Major Plumb’s and Senator Lane’s forces met, and Lane informed Plumb that his men had spotted Quantrill’s men on the other side of a cornfield. His men were preparing to attack the rear of the guerrillas. Lane requested that Plumb should circle around and meet the bushwhackers as they came out of the field. Then Lane directed Lieutenant Rankin to lead his men on the charge. The problem was that the Lawrence men, in their haste, had mounted whatever was available, so when Lieutenant Rankin started the charge with his beautiful, high-spirited steed, the rest of the men, riding farm horses, mules, donkeys, ponies, and just about everything else, were not able to keep up, so he called off the charge. Two of Major Plumb’s companies continued, and although they were not quick enough to meet the guerrillas when they emerged from the corn patch, they gave chase. Plumb’s and Lane’s men reached where the raiders had briefly stopped; they saw piles of plunder—calico cloth, saddles, trinkets, and other items—left behind. Quantrill avoided the potential
encounter and continued on.

  Plumb’s and Lane’s men began to gain on the guerrillas, and Quantrill skirted a cornfield near the house of a man by the name of Josiah Fletcher. Lieutenant Rankin knew the area and informed Major Plumb that they could take another route—a shortcut—that would place them in front of Quantrill. Sure enough, when they emerged from the cornfield, the bushwhackers were right in front of them. But to attack, the Union soldiers first needed to take apart a rail fence. They dismounted to dismantle the fence, and at that moment, a small contingent of bushwhackers charged, and the dismounted soldiers were disoriented just long enough that Quantrill and his main body escaped. For the remainder of the day, the cavalry tried to gain the advantage, but Quantrill’s rear guard kept them at bay. By nightfall, the pursuit was pretty much over. Quantrill and his men stopped to rest for an hour or so and to feed their horses. John McCorkle said that none of the men had closed their eyes for two days and two nights, and that it was impossible to stay awake. After the brief rest, the guerrillas continued and did not stop until they reached their old hiding places on the Grand River in Cass County, Missouri, by daybreak.283

  When Lane and his posse returned to Lawrence after their futile effort to overtake the guerrillas, they and the rest of the town’s survivors faced the grim task of burying the dead and rebuilding the town. No one was ever able to determine an exact number of the fatalities. The official number was 183 dead, but a more accurate number was probably closer to 200, or maybe even higher.284 There were dead bodies everywhere, in some places in heaps. Near the livery stable, seventeen bodies were in a pile. In another location were five bodies in addition to charred remains where bodies were left to burn in the buildings. In some cases, it was days before anyone could even enter some of the still-smoldering buildings. One immediate problem was what to do with the corpses. Many of the town’s carpenters were victims, and those who survived had lost their tools in the raid. Several stacks of lumber remained, however, and there were plenty of charred nails from the burned buildings, so the men did the best they could to assemble makeshift coffins. But some bodies were so badly disfigured that the townspeople dug a common grave containing fifty-three unidentified victims. After a week, most of the bodies were buried.285

  Dealing with the loss of so many lives was beyond description. The near-total destruction of the town was catastrophic as well. Seventy-five buildings—nearly the entire business district—were destroyed. One building was left standing, but the two young men who worked there were dead on the floor. Over one hundred houses were completely destroyed; others were partially burned. Even the houses that were rescued from total destruction were ransacked of all of their contents. Most Lawrence residents had only the clothes they were wearing and nothing else. The guerrillas took all of the women’s jewelry they could carry, and one raider even had the audacity to steal the bracelet that had belonged to a small child who had died. When Amelia Read, the child’s mother, protested, the scoundrel replied that “I guess she won’t need it anymore.” Many residents had so little left, their earthly possessions could be carried in wheelbarrows. In addition to the loss of clothing, valuables, and furniture, food was either destroyed or taken. When the townsfolk took an inventory of food, they found only two sacks of flour in the entire town.

  Of the citizens whose houses had survived, nearly all opened their dwellings to the homeless. Almost immediately, farmers from the surrounding area and the residents of Leavenworth, Topeka, Wyandotte, and elsewhere started bringing food, clothing, and other essentials to the stricken populace. Residents from St. Louis quickly raised and donated $10,000 for interest-free loans for rebuilding the town, and when the loans were repaid, they refused to accept the principal, part of which went toward building the new state university. If anyone in town had two articles of clothing—such as a man who had two coats—he gave one away. The devastation was horrendous, but the outpouring of generosity was remarkable.

  Two days after the raid, East Coast newspapers carried the grim story. The Boston Sunday Herald’s headlines read: “Horrible Atrocities.” The paper went on to say that the Quantrill “affair [was] the most fiendish of the war! Parents [were] shot down with their children clinging about them.” Harper’s Weekly, one of the most widely read magazines of the period, featured an image of the burned-out remains of Lawrence and wrote that “no other such instance of wanton brutality has occurred during the American war.” Other news outlets carried similar stories.286 It’s not clear exactly when Amos Lawrence heard the news of the raid, but shortly thereafter, he again dug into his pocket and sent $5,000 to the town to aid the widows and orphans. As with the money donated from St. Louis, Lawrence’s generous gift became part of the seed money to establish the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

  The generosity shared with Lawrence from around the country could not heal the permanent wounds suffered by the eighty-five women who were instantly widows, nor their 250 children who were left fatherless. An estimated one-third of the population left town, never to return. Most of the eighty-five widows, however, stayed on, determined to help rebuild the town. Some remarried, others did not, and many who remained eked out livings by renting out space in boarding houses, taking in laundry, or other jobs. With the perseverance of these women and the steadfastness of the residents who stayed, the town of Lawrence was rebuilt, and although the scars remained, the new town was bigger and better than before. Rev. Cordley later said that “the sentiment for rebuilding was universal. Everybody said: ‘We must put Lawrence right back better than she was.’”287

  15 O God, the Heathen Are Come into Thine Inheritance

  ON AUGUST 30, 1863, NINE days after the massacre, Rev. Cordley later recalled: “so we laid our dead away, and turned our attention to the living.” Since it was Sunday, the survivors spontaneously gathered in the Plymouth Congregational Church for a memorial service. “Most of [the women] had only the clothes they had escaped with on the morning of the raid. The men were in their working clothes.” Rev. Cordley continued: “Rev. Grosvenor C. Morse, of Emporia … assisted in the service…. Neither of us felt that we could say anything, or that anything ought to be said. We had a brief devotional service, and dismissed the congregation, and they went away in silence. Of the service itself, I remember little beyond its profound solemnity.” He did recall the scripture Rev. Morse selected—Psalm 79—and how appropriate it was for the service: “O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance. The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.” In his brief devotional, Rev. Cordley offered: “My friends, Lawrence may seem dead, but she will rise again in a more glorious resurrection. Our ranks have been thinned by death, but let us ‘close-up’ and hold the ground…. The conflict may not be ended, but the victory must be ours. We may perish but the principles for which we contend will live.”288

  Revs. Cordley and Morse offered comfort to the grieving residents of Lawrence, but everyone knew Quantrill and his men were still out there somewhere, and it took little to set off panic. Rev. Cordley wrote that “a farmer two or three miles below the town had been burning some straw.” Someone spotted the smoke, he “mounted his horse and galloped into town, screaming at the top of his voice: ‘they are coming again, they are coming again; run for your lives….’ The report spread like wild-fire, and in a few minutes, men, women, and children were wildly running down the different streets towards the river, uttering the most piercing screams as they ran.”289 Nothing came of this alarm or others, and shortly after the raid, two companies of Union soldiers were permanently stationed in Lawrence for the duration of the war. They built fortifications, armed with artillery pieces, and had a commanding view of a wide area, so they could easily see any invasion from any direction. Men who earlier had remained on the sidelines joined the Kansas volunteers, including Rev. Cordley, who became “a member of the rifle company…. We had armed ourselves with repeating rifles.”290
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br />   With the presence of the military, the fear of another attack was never far away until the war was over. But the impetus to rebuild the town was stronger than fear, and Rev. Cordley recalled that the restoration “of Lawrence became a sort of religious obligation.” The townspeople agreed that “Lawrence must be rebuilt at all hazzards [sic], and rebuilt at once, … and in an incredibly short time it began to take form.” The grocery business of Ridenour & Baker was completely destroyed. Mr. Ridenour’s house and its contents were gone as well. Further, his partner, Mr. Baker, not only lost everything but was so severely injured in the raid, he nearly lost his life. But even as their place of business was still smoldering, workers began clearing away the debris, quickly started building a new store, and brought in groceries for sale. Before long, they were back in business in a bigger and better facility.

  The Simpson brothers, who owned one of the town’s banks, survived the attack, but their bank building was destroyed. Miraculously, the bank’s vault and its contents remained intact. They hired workers to build a temporary wooden structure around the vault, and opened for business. Then—and this became the norm—they hired builders to build a sound foundation and erected a solid brick bank building around the temporary frame structure. Mr. W. E. Sutliff, who had lived in Lawrence for six years, had built up one of the largest clothing stores in town. Like many others, he lost his stock and his building. He immediately decided to build a bigger store, with more and higher-quality of clothing, and before long he was back in business.

  Mr. B. W. Woodward, a druggist, also lost his building and goods. He had been contemplating moving his business to a larger and more centrally located site even before the raid. He moved to a better location, built a larger drug store, and offered a larger variety of medicines. Mr. J. G. Sands, an early resident of Lawrence, ran a harness business in a wooden building, which was destroyed along with the contents. Like many others, he started rebuilding immediately with a brick and stone edifice. He restocked even before the building was finished and posted one of the cleverest, and in many ways defiant, advertisements, which read: “ESTABLISHED IN 1855; STOOD THE DROUGHT IN 1860; TOTALLY DESTROYED IN 1863; DEFIES ALL COMPETITION IN 1864.”291