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.