Conservative *
Lane's brigade which forced Lane out
of the army and back to the senate there
was no pretention to the common
amenities of civilized war , and in fact
with the guerillas and bushwhackers
there was no quarter given or taken
until the surrender of Lee. It was a
fight to the death by combatants on both
sides all through the war. The bush
whackers , who were the demon-devils
of ( his border war personally more for
plunder and dare-devil notoriety than
for patriotic impulses were led by men
holding roving commissions from the
confederate government. The } ' paid
and supported themselves by robbery ;
by plundering homes and villages ,
wrecking and robbing trains , attacking
weakly protected supply trains , am
bushing and waylaying soldiers. In
fights with Union men they were
treated as pirates should be , no quarter
given ; and of course our men expected
like treatment. Two of my troopers
were scalped by Quanlrill's men , and I
saw live of his men hung on the present
site of the Now Coates House , Kansas
City. This demoralized inhuman con
dition of affairs in the "District of the
Border" was not confined to one side.
T.he Seventh Kansas cavalry , organized
October 28 , 1801 , commanded by Charles
11. Jennison , gained under his control
a world-wide reputation as the "Jay-
hawkers. " Returning from their first
raid into Missouri , they marched
through Kansas Citj' , nearly all dressed
in women's clothes , old bonnets and
outlandish hats on their heads , spinning
wheels and even gravestones lashed to
their saddles , their pathway through the
country strewn with , to them , worth
less household goods , their route lighted
by burning homes. This regiment was
a little less than an armed mob until
Jennison was forced to resign , May ] ,
1862. As might bo inferred , this man
Jonnison brought only disgrace to Kan-
1 sas soldiery. Ho was a coward and a
< < b
murderer , and for shooting , while he
was colonel commanding the Fifteenth
Kansas cavalry , four bravo Kansas
state militia men , October 23 , 1804'was
tried in Jnuo , ISOo , by a court martial ,
of which Major-General George Sykes
of Antietam fame was president and
myself the junior member. The sen
tence , death , was changed by the com-
mander of the department to imprison
ment for life , and finally , through the
great influence of Senator James H.
Lane with President Andrew Johnson ,
to simply a dishonorable dismissal from
the service. Lane was a warm friemi
tJennison's and morally nearly as bad
and died a coward's death suicide.
William Clark Quantrill , the bravest-
most successful guerilla of the "War of
the Rebellion and chief bushwhacker o :
the Border "War , was born in Cana
Dover , Ohio , in 1837. His father
Thomas H. Qnantrill , was principal o
the public school. Both parents were
from Hagcrstown , Maryland. The
elder Quantrill was a whig , a religious ,
enthusiastic educator. Young Quan
trill enjoyed the best advantages , was
indor strict religious training ; at 10
taught a country school. In 1857 , in
lis 20th year , Quantrill went to Kansas
o secure a homestead. Being under
ige , ho was compelled to trust a sup
posed friend , who proved false ; this
embittered the young man and from
; hat time it seems he lost control of the
noral instincts that should be the guid-
ng star of true manhood. For two or
three years he taught school in Kansas ;
jctween terms , worked with the im
mortal John Brown , who was stealing
slaves from Missouri , and as slaves were
chattels he also took horses , mules and
anything else of value to compensate
limself and companions for the risk
incurred , and to supply the tjinews ol
war , for the freedom of a suppressed
uid benighted race. John Brown could
.n-ay , shoot , steal slaves or horses and
renlly thought ho was serving God in
lis almost single-handed war against
slavery , an institution supported by the
laws of our country and enforced by
the courts , and by the army. Not a
dollar's worth of Brown's plunder or
captured booty was used by him
for selfish purposes. Quantrill be
came one of Brown's best men ;
the false friend and an embittered mind
caused him to start with his elder
brother , in 1860 , for California by team.
They were attacked by Indians on the
Little Cottonwood in Kansas ; the
brother was killed and scalped. Young
Quantrill , badly wounded , escaped to
the brush ; after the Indians loft with
the horses and provisions Quantrill
crawled to the creek and laid there for
nearly three days when a friendly In
dian found him and nursed him to stal
wart health and strength , and from this
date Quautrill became the most cruel ,
desperate robber and murderer that
ever lived. Ho was a blonde haired ,
handsome mild-mannered nothing
, - man ,
ing indicating the desperado or robber
in appearance.
Edwards , in his book entitled "Noted
Guerrillas of the Border War , " tolls ot
Quantrill's interview in Richmond , Va. ,
with the confederate .secretary of war ,
in November , 1801 , after Quantrill had
been for more than seven months mur
dering his Kansas neighbors and com
rades in the name and in behalf of the
Southern cause , which he had so sud
denly and unexpectedly espoused , aftoi
years of work on the opposite side of
the question. Like Saul of Tarsus , this
fiend had experienced a change of heart
but the devil had engineered the change
I quote the interview as reported to
Edwards and written up 03 * him in his
laudatory work of showing Quantrill as
a hero , a patriot , and as a chivalrous
Southern soldier who was willing to laj
down his life for the Southas was Gush
ng , who sunk the Albemarle. Read ,
and judge as you will.
"His interview at Richmond with the
confederate secretary of war was a
memorable one. General Louis T."Wig-
fall , then a senator from Texas , was
present , and described it afterwards in
lis rapid , vivid , picturesque way. Quan-
rill asked to be commissioned a colonel
inder the Partisan Ranger Act , and to
be so recognized by the department as
o have accorded to him whatever protec
tion the confederate government might
in a condition to exercise. Never
uind the question of men , he would
lave the complement required in a
nonth after ho had reached western
Missouri. The warfare was desperate ,
le knew ; the service desperate ; every
thing connected with it desperate ; but
the Southern people to succeed had to
fight a desperate fight. The secretary
suggested that war had its amenities
and its refinements , and that in the nine
teenth century it was simply barbarism
to talk of a black flag.
"Barbarism , " ami Quantrill's blue
eyes blazed , and his whole manner and
attitude underwent a transformation ;
'barbarism , Mr. Secretary , means war
and war means barbarism. Since you
nave touched upon this subject , let us
discuss it a little. Times have their
crimes as well as men. For twenty
years this cloud has been gathering ; for
twenty years , inch by inch and little by
little , those people called the Abolition
ists have been on the track of slavery ;
for twenty years the people of the South
liave been robbed , here of a negro and
there of a negro ; for twenty years hates
have been engendered and wrathful
things laid up against the day of wrath.
The cloud has burst. Do not condemn
the thunderbolt. "
The war secretary bowed his head.
Quantrill. leaving his own seat , and
standing over him as it were and above
him went on.
"Who are these people you call con
federates ? Rebels , unless they succeed ;
outcasts , traitors , food for hemp and
gunpowder. There were no great states
men in the South , or this war would
have happened ten years ago ; no in
spired men , or it would have happened
fifteen years ago. Today the odds are
desperate. The world hates slavery.
The world is fighting you. The ocean
belongs to the Union navy. There is a
recruiting officer in ovury foreign port.
I have captured and killed many who
did not know the English tongue. Mile
by mile the cordon is being drawn about
the granaries of the South ; Missouri
will go first , next Kentucky , next Ten
nessee , by and by Mississippi and Ar
kansas , and then what ? That wo must
put gloves on our hands , and honey in
our mouths , and fight this war as Christ
fought the wickedness of the world ? "
The war secretary did not speak.
Quantrill , perhaps did not desire that he
