The War for Southern Independence on the Missouri-Kansas border was brutal. It was probably the most dangerous place in the country at the time. Much of what happened in the area during the time has been overlooked or forgotten. There was near genocide of Western Missouri at the time. I’m going to do my best to help you know what it was like for Missourians at the time and the extremely difficult hardships they were dealt.
Click on the cover above for the link to order Petersen’s book
Paul Petersen, in his book Quantrill at Lawrence: The Untold Story, detailed the exact nature of the guerrillas’ campaign in Lawrence and their reasoning behind it. I will give you different statements from Missourians and Jayhawkers alike during that time and provide details of the conditions along the border according to Mr Petersen’s book.
The Perdee farm in Missouri is the place where, en route to Lawrence, Quantrill’s 300 guerillas camped. Here Quantrill formulated his plans and put together the ‘Death Lists’ and the list of ‘Buildings to be destroyed.’ When the guerrillas of Johnson County, Missouri gathered at Perdee’s it was with a feeling of a just retaliation. Their county seat of Columbus and 50 homes had been completely destroyed by Captain Clark S. Merriman of the 7th Kansas Jayhawker Regiment on 9 January 1862. The same sense of anger and resentment could be felt by the 50 guerrillas from Cass County who joined Quantrill along the banks of the Grand River before crossing the state line into Kansas. Cass County before the war enjoyed a population of more than 10,000 people. By the start of the Lawrence raid in August 1863 there were only 600 surviving citizens.
Lieutenant William H Gregg was 22 years old when he joined Quantrill and had a reputation among the guerrillas for his skill in throwing a bowie knife. He was known for the ability to open up a Fed at 20 paces with this weapon as a projectile. He found that it was Colonel Charles Radford Jennison, the leader of the Jayhawkers, who had shot his uncle, David Gregg, for being a Southern sympathizer. Gregg’s own mother was also abused by Jayhawkers. She wore her watch and jewelry concealed in the bodice of her clothing, but the Jayhawkers finally discovered the watch chain about her neck. They tore her dress open, robbed her, almost choking her to death in trying to release the chain. Written accounts state:
In January, 1862, 17 of Jennison’s Kansans had been at the senior Gregg’s house, and had cruelly hanged and almost choked to death the inmates, and also poured out 2 casks of wine. Gregg was coming home that night. He had four men, only one of them armed. The 17 men fought Gregg, captured 2 of the unarmed men, and shot them after surrender. Gregg and the one man drove them back and saw the 2 men shot. The day after the 2 men were killed Gregg saw 14 houses burned at one time.
Gregg also found that the father of his fiancee Miss Elizabeth Hook had been jailed. In addition, the Federals who jailed him stole every one of the family’s horses, slaughtered every pig they owned, and seized the family’s slaves, money, jewelry, and even their bedclothes. After learning about this incident, Gregg immediately sought out Quantrill and joined his command. Elizabeth Hook later recalled:
Everybody was happy and prosperous…. But it was not until 1862 that the horrors of war were realized. I had never known a sorrow or a care until one day a company of Federal soldiers came to our home with wagons in which they loaded the negroes and their belongings; the negro men were mounted on my father’s horses and forced to ride them away. Colonel Jennison came down from Kansas, robbed, murdered, and burned everything in his way. Mother had spun and woven 5 pairs of blankets; had only recently before had them scoured, and these Redlegs took every one of them, placing them under their saddles.
A Missouri citizen at the time spoke of Captain Richard P Maddox and his family’s ranch:
When the rebellion broke out and Kansas troops under Jennison and Lane marched into Missouri in 1861, old Maddox and his sons were early victims of their hatred and revenge. The Redlegs made a descent upon the Maddox ranch, carried off their mules, horses and other stock, burned their houses, barns, Negro quarters, cribs and out-houses of all descriptions and took away with them all the Negroes on the place. They would doubtless have exterminated the last Maddox on the face of the earth if they could have laid hands on them, but some fled to the brush and the old man found it convenient for him to make a certain visit to the “loyal” state of Kentucky. It’s said that George Maddox joined Quantrill at Blue Springs in June of 1861 and fought with him in every fight until Quantrill left the state. The elder Maddox ventured back into Missouri before the close of the war but was speedily nabbed and lodged in the Independence jail and languished many months among the bushwhackers and lice.
This should give you but a small taste of what loyal Southerners from Missouri had been dealt and the extreme hardships that no man, woman or child should face. In part two, I shall dig more deeply into the hardships faced.
Also see: The Missouri-Kansas border war (part II) and The Missouri-Kansas border war (part III)
Sad thing is, there are people who believe we *deserved* this treatment. When I lamented on facebook the anniversary of the burning of Atlanta, and the many Southrons who suffered, were robbed and raped, and who lost their homes; a “friend” commented quite bluntly, “That’s what you get when you commit treason in the name of slavery.” This is how they view us, as contemptible traitors worthy of inhuman atrocities that, where they committed against any other people whatsoever, would be decried as abominations.
Everything you’ve said is true.
Evil is evil, and no human being deserves anything that was mentioned above.
I’m three miles from the border on the Kansas side and I’d say the rebel cause is more alive on this side now. I guess we haven’t been targeted as much by the yankee propaganda.
“At home we were disarmed, and left a prey to marauding outlaws. Prowling murderers, by day, dressed Federal uniform and bearing forged military orders, searched houses, barns, and stables for arms; and at night returned as ‘Red-legs’ to rob and hang the people. The militia were active in suppressing ‘bushwhackers,’ but gave themselves no concern about thieves and murderers.” – William Paxton, who lived in a Missouri county just across the river from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
I have an ancestor, John S. Cave, who was killed on Sept 6, 1863 in the area Order Number 11 took place. He was one of six men massacred by KS redlegs belonging to Col. Clark’s regiment. Among those killed was Benjamin Potter (75 years old), and Andrew Owsley (17 years old). All were preparing to leave the country in order to comply with Order 11, but evidently weren’t moving fast enough.