Bates County, Missouri - Chapter 10: The Border Warfare, 1918 (part 2 of 2)

Half an hour before Major Plumb started from Kansas City on the night of the 21st, Captain Palmer, Eleventh Kansas, was sent by him from Westpoint w'ith 50 men of his company down the line to near Aubrey, where he met a messenger from Captain Coleman, directing re-enforcements to Spring Hill, at which point he struck Quantrill's trail, and followed it to within 7 miles of Lawrence. Thence, learning that Ouantrill had gone south, he turned southeast ; and at Lanesfield (Uniontown) was joined by a force about 80 strong, under Major Phillips, composed of detachments of Captain Smith's company. Enrolled Missouri Militia, Captain (T. P.) Killen's Ninth Kansas, and a squad of the Fifth Kansas. This latter force had been collected by Major (L. K.) Thacher, at Westport, and dispatched from there at noon on Friday, the 21 st, via Lexington, Kansas. The command of Major Phillips, thus increased to 130, pushed southeast from Lanesfield, and struck Quantrill's trail about sunrise, 5 miles north of Paola, and but a little behind the commands of Coleman and Clark.

Major Thacher, commanding at A\'estport when news arrived that Quantrill was returning by way of the Osage valley, took the rest of the mounted troops on the upper border (Company A, Ninth, and Company E, Eleventh Kansas, numbering 120 men) and moved down the line. He struck Quantrill's trail below Aubrey, immediately in the rear of Lieutenant-Colonel Clark's command.

Quantrill, wdien, after dark, he had baflled his pursuers, stopped to rest 5 miles northeast of Paola, and there, after midnight, a scjuad of Linn county militia, under Captain Pardee, in search of the trail, alarmed the camp. He at once moved on, and between that point and the Kansas line his column came within gunshot of the advance of about 150 of the Fourth Missouri State under Lieutenant-Colonel (W.) King, which had been ordered from the country of the Little Blue, in Jackson county, down the line, to intercept him. The advance apprised Lieutenant-Colonel King of the approach of another force. Skirmishers were thrown out, but Quantrill, aided by the darkness and broken character of the prairie, eluded the force, and passed on. Lieutenant- Colonel Kinsf was unable to find his trail that night.

The pursuing forces thus thrown behind, Ouantrill passed out of Kansas and got to the timber of the Middle Fork of Grand river in Missouri, near his last rendezvous before starting, about noon of the 23rd, an hour in advance of the head of the pursuing column. There his forces scattered, many dismounted or, worn out through fatigue or wounds, sought concealment and safety in the fastnesses of the region. About 100 moved down Grand river, wdiile the chief part of the force passed northeast towards Chapel Hill. Our forces divided in like manner at that point, Major Plumb and Major Thacher following the main body.

On the 20th of August, I went to Leavenworth on of^cial business. The dispatches of Captain Pike were not sent to Leavenworth until 8 a. m. on the morning of the 21st, because the telegraph ofTfices at Leavenworth City and Fort Leavenworth close at 11 p. m. for want of relief operators. I received those dispatches, and the one announcing that Quantrill had passed through Gardner going toward Lawrence, not until 10:45 a. m. on the 21st. There was no cavalry stationed at Fort Leavenworth, though five companies of the Eleventh Ohio were there outfitting for Fort Laramie, but without arms. There was one company at Leavenworth with nearly 300 men of these -companies. News reaching me at Leavenworth City of the burning of Lawrence, and of the avowed purpose of the Rebels to go thence to Topeka, I thought it best to eo to De Soto, and thence, after an unavoidable delav of live hours in crossing the Kansas river, to Lanesfield. Finding there, at daybreak, that Ouantrill had passed east, I left the command to follow as rapidly as possible, and pushed on, reaching, soon after dark, the point on Grand river where Ouantrill's force had scattered.

Lieutenant-Colonel Lazear, with the detachment of the First Missouri, from Warrensburg and Pleasant Hill, numbering al)out 200 men, after failing to find Quantrill on Blackwater on the 20th. encountered him at noon on the 21st on Big creek, broke up his force, and has since had five very successful engagements with different parties of his band. The pursuit of Quantrill, after our forces had caught up with him at Brooklyn, was so close that he was unable to commit any further damage to property on his route, but was compelled to abandon almost all his horses and much of the plunder from the Lawrence stores; and since he reached Missouri a large part of his men have abandoned their horses and taken to the brush afoot. The number of equipments so far captured exceeds one hundred, and the number of participants in the massacre ah-eady killed is fully as great. The most unremitting efforts are being made to hunt clown the remainder of the band before they recover from the pursuit.

Familiar as many of Quantrill's men were with our prairie - unobstructed as to course by any roads or fords, with a rolling country to traverse, as open as the sea - to head off his well-mounted, compact, and well-disciplined force was extremely difficult. The troops which followed and overtook him south of Lawrence, without a co-operating force which did not follow, but undertook to head him, failed, thoug-h nearly all exerted themselves to the utmost to accomplish it. There were few of the troops which did not travel a hundred miles in the first twenty-four hours of the pursuit. Many horses were killed. Four men of the Eleventh Ohio were sun-stricken, amono^ them Lieutenant Dick, who fell dead on dismounting to rest. The citizens engaged in pursuit. Though they were able, generally, to keep close upon the enemy between Brooklyn and Paola, killing and wounding many stragglers and men in the rear guard, they were without the requisite arms, organization, or numbers to successfully encounter the enemy.

Although Quantrill was nearly eleven hours in Kansas before reaching Lawrence, no information of his approach was conveyed to the people of that town. Captain Pike, at Aubrey, sent no messenger either to Paola, Olathe, or Lawrence, one or the other of which towns, it was plain, was to be attacked. Captain Coleman, on getting the news at Little Santa Fe, at once dispatched a messenger to Olathe asking the commanding officers there to speed it westward. That officer, not knowing in wdiat direction the guerrillas were moving, sent a messenger out the Santa Fe road, who, when nearly at Gardner, hearing that Quantrill had just passed through there, returned to Olathe.

With one exception, citizens along the route who could well have given the alarm did not even attempt it. One man excused himself for his neglect on the plea that his horses had been working hard the day before. A boy living 10 or 12 miles from Lawrence begged his father to let him mount his pony, and, going a by-road, alarm the town, but he was not allowed to go. Mr. J. Reed, living in the Heser neighborhood, near Fudora, started ahead of Quantrill from the place to carry the warning to Lawrence, but while riding at full speed, his horse fell and was killed, and he himself so injured that he died next day.

Thus surprised, the people of Lawrence were powerless. They had never, except on the occasion I referred to above, thought an attack probable, and, feeling strong in their own preparation, never, even then, asked for troops to garrison the town. They had an abundance of arms in their city arsenal, and could have met Ouantrill, on half an hour's notice, with 500 men. The guerrillas, reaching the town at sunrise, caught most of the inhabitants asleep, and scattered to the various houses so promptly as to prevent the concentration of any considerable number of men. They robbed most of the stores and banks, and burned one hundred and eighty-five buildings, including one-fourth of the private residences and nearly all of the business houses of the town, and, with circumstances of the most fiendish atrocity, murdered 140 unarmed men, among them 14 recruits of the Fourteenth Regiment and 20 of the Second Kansas Colored Volunteers.

The proximity of the John Brown farm, and the John Brown Fort, so-called, to Bates county makes a brief sketch about him pertinent to this history.

There is no record, so far as I know, that John Brown ever sought to do any one in Bates county harm, or to commit an unlawful act of any kind in this county. His name is connected with Spy Mound, but it appears that he used it, if at all, merely as an outlook into Missouri. There is some history of an invasion of Vernon county for the purpose of carrying off some negroes to send them to Canada and freedom. But no ante-bellum character looms larger upon the horizon of that excited period.

The story of his career after going to Kansas Territory is interesting, and it depends largely upon the sympathies of the writer of the story whether he is pictured as saint or sinner, bandit or hero. In a sense he paid the price of his folly on the scaffold; in another sense, he paid the full measure of devotion of truth and the great principle of human freedom. History since his execution for what was regarded at the time as a great public crime by the law, and in the minds of the great body of the American people, suggests the thought of Bryant in "The Battle Field":

From an editorial by the author printed in the "Bates County Record," April 5, 1918, after a personal visit to the Brown farm, the following excerpts are taken :

"John Brown's mound lies about a mile and a half north and about a mile west of Amoret. just west of the state line road; and Spy mound a little to the southeast, just east of the state line road in Bates county, Missouri. This mound is quite large and has a large acreage almost level on top. Just south of the Brown mound in Kansas is the beautiful Taylor home mound, and just a short distance from that 'Toadhead' mound looms up. This mound looks exactly like an egg with the little end up and is a striking feature of a landscape otherwise broken and beautified by a number of mounds and lovely valleys between as far as the eye can see in every direction. From the top of Brown's mound there is nothing to break the view to the east and northeast within the limit of human vision, but to the southeast the vision is arrested by Spy mound. From this fact must come the story that 'Old Osawatomie John' frequently left his fort and and^led over on Spy mound whence he could get an unobstructed view to the eastward and all angles for forty or fifty miles with his trusty field glasses. His object was to spy out the pro-slavery men from Missouri and elsewhere who were ma'"^'' ing to Kansas to help make her a slave state. We can not go into the stories of his life in connection with the 'war in Kansas' from '54 to '58: our only purpose is to give a brief account of what we saw. To get to the Brown farm go west from Amoret, Missouri, to the State line road, turning north at the cemetery corner, thence about a mile and a half to a private road turning to the left into the state of Kansas. This is about a quarter from an old dilapidated, unoccupied house just on the rise of the mound, and when you are through the gate by this old house you will be fairly on Brown's mound, and it is about a quarter thence to the summit, over a fairly rough road.

you will come to the two-story farm house dwelling, abutting a solid stone formation, with a front two-story porch or veranda built of wood. The rock formations all about the place are wonderful, and no more obscure or defensible location could have been selected for 'military purposes' as old John Brown spoke of it. The original John Brown house or fort stood about fifty yards to the southwest of the present dwelling, but only a few of the huge logs used in its construction may now be seen. These logs with the score marks of the axe left by the hewer still plainly visible, and the 'dove-tail' cuts at the ends, were of curious interest. They seemed to be about 18 feet long, 6 inches thick and from 12 to 15 inches wide. They have recently been used as a part of an old barn or cattle coral. It seemed an ignoble use after the heroic association of history. The gulches or ravines run south by west, and as we followed a foot path up the ravine about half a quarter from the site of the fort to the big hawthorn tree, all scarred up, on trunk and branches, by the initials of visitors to that historic spot, we had a curious sense of treading upon sacred soil - where the blood of men 'whose only offense was that they were free-state men' was spilled by a gang of outlaws and rullfians. Here, by this great old hawthorn tree, a tragedy was enacted known in history as the 'Hamilton massacre,' which marked an epoch in the life of Kansas and which had much to do with blotting out the stain of African slavery in this nation. Eleven men were lined up and ruthlessly shot down to make a ruffian holiday. Five w^ere instantly killed, and the others were wounded, except one, who fell and feigned death and thus escaped unhurt.

"In 1888 a splendid monument was erected in the Trading Post cemetery some four miles away from the spot of the bloody tragedy, which has carved upon it the names of the men shot, the date, two stanzas of Whittier's poem on the 'Marais du Cygnes Massacre,' all in memory of the 'martyrs.'

"In just one year, six months and thirteen days from this foul massacre of innocent men old 'Osawatomie John Brown' was executed by hanging by the neck at Charlestown, Virginia, now West Virginia, for his insurrectionary move upon Harper's Ferry ; and in an old encyclopedia we read : 'After a trial of three days, in which Brown was unable on account of his wounds, to stand up, he was found guilty and sentenced to death on the scaffold within 48 hours. He died calmly on the 2nd day of December, 1859. It mav safely be assumed that his execution hastened the downfall of slavery in the United States. Brown was a man of stern and uncompromising moral principle; and though open to the charge of fanaticism, and regarded as justly and necessarily condemned to death under the law, he seemed to be increasingly viewed as a martyr and a hero.' Brown was fifty-nine years of age wdien hung. The book quoted was published in 1880, thirty-eight years ago, and in that time 'Osawatomie Brown' has taken his place among the heroic and martyred dead of our country.

"Strange is the mutation of time ! A felon and an outlaw yesterday ! Executed by his fellow human beings; today admired, honored and worshipped as an example of the w^orld's real heroes - the forerunner of a higher and more righteous civilization!

"We are reminded of Lowell's line : 'Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.' In the light of the present era it is not pleasant to think of an old man so wounded in his fight for right that he could not stand up to be sentenced to die 'within 48 hours' an ignoble death on the scafTold. But this was only one of a multitude of similar things which has been enacted by society in the full conviction that society was only defending and preserving itself. But society has moved up somewhat since then, and few men are now hanged by the neck until dead."

Supplementary to the foregoing I append the letter of William E. Connelley, secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas, author of a "Life of John Brown," a "History of Kansas," and other historical works. He is an authority on all matters touching Kansas history and this letter is an important contribution:

John La Rue lived at that time half a mile north of the Osage river, on Duncan's creek, and on the northwest ^ of the southeast H of section 8, township 37, range 33. He owned five slaves. Harvey G. Hicklin lived on the south ^ of the southeast 54 of section 5, township 37, range 33, on the estate of James Lawrence, deceased. Hicklin had married a daughter of Lawrence. Near the village of Hoover, on the south side of the Osage, David Cruise lived on the northeast ^ of the southeast % of section 21, township 37, range 33.

John Brown during the summer of 1858 had built his fort on the Snyder claim, in Linn county, Kansas, which was less than half a mile from the Missouri line, being the northwest J4 oi fractional section 26, township 20, range 25.

Among the Lawrence negroes under the care of Mr. Hicklin, was a young man named Jim. On the night of Sunday, December 19, Jim rode into Kansas to see John Brown. It is said that Brown was at that time at Bain's fort. Jim told Brown that the slaves of his neighborhood were to be taken to Texas and sold in a few days and implored Brown to rescue them. This, Brown agreed to do. On Monday night Brown organized two parties to go into Missouri. He led one party himself. It was composed of about fifteen men. The other party numbered nine men and was led by John H. Kagi. Brown went to the Lawrence farm and to the house of La Rue. Kagi went to the house of David Cruise. Brown took from Hicklin on the Lawrence farm, five negroes, two men, one woman and two children. Kagi found the door to the residence of Mr. Cruise locked, and demanded that it be opened. Mr. Cruise attempted to fire on Kagi and his men but his weapon was not discharged. He was, however, shot and killed. Kagi took a slave woman from the premises of Mr. Cruise. He also took two yoke of oxen and a wagon laden with provisions and clothes. It is said that he also took eleven head of mules and two horses. Brown secured five additional slaves from John La Rue, although in the statement of Harvey G. Hicklin it is said that these slaves belonged to Isaac La Rue. These slaves and the other property taken by John Brown and his party, and by Kagi and his party, were carried into Kansas, and eventually found their way into Canada over the underground railroad.

This raid, in connection with the Marais des Cygnes massacre by Hamilton, in the preceding May, gave rise to the famous "Parallels" written by John Brown, and wdiich are as follow:

'Gents: You will greatly oblige a humble friend by allowing mc the use of your columns while I briefly state two parallels in my poor way. Not One year ago Eleven quiet citizens of this neighborhood (Viz.) Wm. Robertson, Wm. Colpetzer, Amos Hall, Austin Hall, John Campbell, Asa Snyder, Thos. Stilwell, Wm. Hairgrove, Asa Hairgrove, Patrick Ross, and B. L. Reed, were gathered up from their work, & their homes by an armed force (under One Hamilton) & without trial; or opportunity to speak in their own defense, were formed into a line

& all but one shot. Five killed & five wounded. One fell unharmed, pretending to be dead. All were left for dead. Now I inquire what action has ever since (the occasion in May last) has been taken by either the President of the United States; the Governor of Missouri; the Governor of Kansas or any of their tools; or by any proslavery or administration man ?

'Now for the other parallel. On Sunday, the 19th of December, a Negro man called Jim came over to the Osage settlement from Missouri & stated that he, together with his Wife, Two Children, & another Negro man* were to be sold within a day or Two & begged for help to get away. On Monday night of the following day Two small companies were made up to go to Missouri & forcibly liberate the Five slaves, together with other slaves. One of those companies I assume to direct. We proceeded to the place, surrounded the buildings, liberated the slaves; & also took certain other property supposed to belong to the Estate. W^e however learned before leaving that a portion of the articles we had taken belonged to a man living on the plantation as a tenant & who was supposed to have no interest in the Estate. We promptly restored to him all we had taken so far I believe. We then went to another where we freed Five more slaves, took some property , & Two white men. W^e moved all slowly away, into the territory for some distance & then sent the White men back, telling- them to follow us as soon as they chose to do so. The other company freed One female slave, took some property ; & as I am informed killed One White man (the master) who fought against liberation.

'Now for a comparison. Eleven persons are forcibly restored to their natural; & unalienable rights with but one man killed; & all 'Hell is stirred from beneath.' It is currently reported that the Governor of Missouri has made a requisition upon the Governor of Kansas for the delivery of all such as were concerned in the last named 'dreadful outrage ;' the Marshall of Kansas is said to be collecting a posse of Missouri (not Kansas men) at West Point in Missouri, a little town about Ten Miles distant, to 'enforce the laws,' & and all proslavery conservative Free State dough faced men & administration tools are filled with holy horror. Respectfully yours,

The Marais des Cygnes massacre occurred on the 19th of May, 1858. The men who committed this massacre were commanded by Charles Hamelton, who came to Kansas from Cassville, Georgia. He was a notorious and rabid pro-slavery man. He had no particular grievance against any of the murdered men. His animosity w^as toward all free-state men. He regarded those massacred as the leading free-state men in the community. He was in command of 32 men. He made his first arrest at Trading Post. He went to the houses of the settlement north of Trading Post, and arrested men until he had eleven prisoners. These he took to the high land on the east half of the northeast 34 of section 27, township 20. range 25. He left them there in charge of his band, and went to Snyder's claim to arrest Snyder, the blacksmith. Snyder resisted and fought him off, severely wounding a man named Bell, who died a few days later. This repulse by Snyder angered Hamelton, who returned to his command having the prisoners. The men were driven into a ravine, ranged in line, and fired on by the Missourians. Five were killed, five wounded, and one was unhurt but feigned death. Trusting this will give you the information you desire.