Civilians Expelled from Northern Missouri

Ewing

After the massacre at Lawrence, Kansas on August 21th, it did not take the Federals long to respond. 150 years ago today General Thomas Ewing issued General Order No. 11, which said:

All persons living in Jackson, Cass, and Bates counties, Missouri ... are hereby ordered to remove from their present places of residence within fifteen days from the date hereof.

Those who within that time establish their loyalty to the satisfaction of the commanding officer of the military station near their present place of residence will receive from him a certificate stating the fact of their loyalty, and the names of the witnesses by whom it can be shown. All who receive such certificates will be permitted to remove to any military station in this district, or to any part of the State of Kansas, except the counties of the eastern border of the State. All others shall remove out of the district. Officers commanding companies and detachments serving in the counties named will see that this paragraph is promptly obeyed.

All grain and hay in the field or under shelter, in the district from which inhabitants are required to remove, within reach of military stations after the 9th day of September next, will be taken to such stations and turned over to the proper officers there …. All grain and hay found in such district after the 9th day of September next, not convenient to such stations, will be destroyed.

Bloody Bill Anderson, Confederate bushwacker

Ewing believed Buskwackers such as Quantrill were able to raid like they did because of the support of the local population. With this order he sought to strike at the root of the problem by forcing the population of Missouri into military stations or out of the area. He was also trying to stop the Union Jayhawkers, lead by Senator James Lane, who wanted to retaliate for Lawrence by destroying a pro-slavery town. But in doing so the Federal troops uprooted families, both southern and northern, destroying their property and leaving the area where they had once lived into “The Burnt District.” The order was also not effective in preventing Confederate guerillas. In fact it made supplies more readily available, as now there was no one to stop them from taking food from the abandoned farms of the settlers. The tragic situation in Kansas and Missouri resulted in great hardships for both sides. A pro-Union artist who was in the area at the time wrote:

It is well-known that men were shot down in the very act of obeying the order, and their wagons and effects seized by their murderers. Large trains of wagons, extending over the prairies for miles in length, and moving Kansasward, were freighted with every description of household furniture and wearing apparel belonging to the exiled inhabitants. Dense columns of smoke arising in every direction marked the conflagrations of dwellings, many of the evidences of which are yet to be seen in the remains of seared and blackened chimneys, standing as melancholy monuments of a ruthless military despotism which spared neither age, sex, character, nor condition. There was neither aid nor protection afforded to the banished inhabitants by the heartless authority which expelled them from their rightful possessions. They crowded by hundreds upon the banks of the Missouri River, and were indebted to the charity of benevolent steamboat conductors for transportation to places of safety where friendly aid could be extended to them without danger to those who ventured to contribute it.

The artist painted this scene of the Burnt District

Lawrence Massacre

There were few battles in Kansas turning the Civil War, but it was the scene of brutal guerrilla fighting. This had been occurring between the pro-slavery and anti-settlers since John Brown was here in the 1850s. 150 years ago today one of the most notorious guerrilla actions occurred – the Lawrence Massacre.

Quantrill

The Confederate in charge of the men who perpetrated the slaughter was William Quantrill. Although he was born in Ohio and anti-slavery, he became a drifter and ruffian in Missouri and Kansas and learned the profitability of turning in escaped slaves. His political views followed his pocketbook. When the war came, he joined a regiment of Cherokee Indians fighting for the Confederacy, and learned guerrilla tactics from them. After fighting in the Battle of Wilson's Creek he deserted the army and set out to form his own group of raiders. A handful of men joined him to attack the Union army and civilians along the Kansas-Missouri border. His men included Frank and Jesse James and the Younger Brothers, who would gain notoriety as criminals after the war.

In 1863 Quantrill decided to attack and destroy a Union town as retaliation for Union deprecations on a smaller scale. He picked the town of Lawrence, Kansas, which had been sacked already in the “Bleeding Kansas” fighting before the war. He convinced other Bushwakers to join him, and all told they numbered 300-400 men. Multiple columns converged on the town, striking early on the morning of August 21. There were no soldiers in the town at the time, and the raiders were free to ride through, looting, burning and plundering. The military age men and boys were stopped and killed. Quantrill had prepared lists of men and businesses to be specially targeted. At the top of the list was Senator James Lane, a leader who had led devastating raids into Missouri. He escaped only by running through a cornfield in his nightshirt.

Lane

After four hours of destruction the Buskwackers made their escape. A quarter of the buildings in the town were burnt, and about 200 men and boys lay dead. The raiders only lost one man, shot from his horse as they left the town. The column split up, effectively avoiding the weak Union pursuit.

Ruins of Lawrence

The issues of the guerrilla fighting were not as clear cut as they might seem. The southerners had suffered much at the hands of their pro-slavery neighbors. One boy, Riley Crawford, was sent by his mother to ride with Quantrill when he was only 13, because the Yankees had burned their home and killed his father. The Lawrence Massacre was certainly unwarranted, but the wrongs were not all one sided.