made to tremble; many of our best and most religious mothers, who are now instilling the strictest piety into their growing up children, would be shown to have wished, anxiously brooded over the shrine, that death and destruction might sweep over the homes of their next door neighbors. Were they culpable? perhaps, will be the debatable question in a few generations to come. If so, the guilty could, undoubtedly, have been found in every regiment and army in the field; in every cast of party, and, to a qualified extent, every home to be found in the thickest of the trouble. Oh, the horrors of a civil war! May we all drink such Lethean draughts that we might never have aught against our neighbor. Then, it seems, as for the crimes of individuals, they have all vanished into the clouds of the war. The county records, of course, contain a great deal about outraged justice during those years of our history, but, to say the least, they must be very incomplete. Then it was the times and the occasions, and not the men, to a wonderful degree. The crimes, however, that these times inaugurated did not terminate with the war; but they are continuing on till this day (1881), and perhaps will grow for years to come. But for all later crimes, the law endeavors, and justly, too, to apprehend and bring the offenders to justice; in some degree it has been successful, but there are to-day, running at large, many highwaymen, who almost put the law at defiance. They had. their start in this career of crime in Jackson county, and are, therefore, to some extent, connected with its history. The bloody and destructive attack upon Lawrence, Kansas, could almost be incorporated into the history of Jackson county, for the identical leaders of that bond of death, and the most of its two hundred privates, lived formerly in Jackson county, Missouri. When Quantrell and his blood-guilty men returned from that raid of annihilation, they mysteriously disappeared somewhere in the county. Recent revelations seem to indicate that that wily chief, in association with Cole Younger, had a cavern in which they could conceal themselves, with several men and their horses and booty. Whenever, in the desperate years of 1861-4, they did mischief, either upon the Federal soldiers or upon citizens around in the country, they could be traced into certain localities in the county, and suddenly disappear as though the earth would swallow them up.

Imagine, if you can, the terrible condition a community would be in when they would be situated between the galling fires of Federals and guerrillas; not very often at once, but where one party would go killing and burning persons and things of the other party, the soldiers and scouts of that party would come in a few days and do worse. And it is well to notice and record the burning shame upon our history, that many crimes, individual crimes, were committed, but, perhaps, not one in a score was brought before the courts. Why were not those uncontrollable soldiers that murdered several innocent men, some few cases women, and fewer children, made to pay the debt of their guilt? Why was not that most terrible of all devils, Bill Anderson and his accomplices, that stabbed so many hearts and cut so many throats, brought to the bar of a most completely violated law and made to answer for his crimes? The answers to the preceding might be many and various, but the simplest and best would be, perhaps, that it was not able under such disorganized circumstances. The depredations of the guerrillas; their almost certain escape with valuable spoils; the soldiers pursuit out into the country districts of the county inaugurated a species of retaliatory vengence that did not subside for several years after the war. In fact, crimes and misdoings that resulted from those times have reached down to a very few years since; a full history of which, however, will be found in other parts of this volume.

CHAPTER XIV.

JACKSON COUNTY DURING THE WAR.

Sacking of the United States Arsenal, at Liberty-Confederate Camp on Rock Creek-Death of Capt. Halloway-Confederates enter Independence in 1861-Burning of Property-Capi. Fuller takes Independence and Hangs a man on the Public Square-Quantrell comes into Independence-Campaign in 1862-Battle of Lone Jack-Ft. Pennock-Order Number Eleven -Price's March through this Section-Organization of the Home Guards-The Iron-Clad Oath-Etc., etc.

The secession of several of the Southern States in the spring of 1861, precipitated the strife in Jackson county, and especially in and around Independence, and men began to express their opinions openly and boldly, with the cause that had their sympathies, whether it gave offense or not to their neighbors. The first immediate attack it seems between the two sections-the North and Southin these parts had anything to do, was the sacking of the United States Arsenal in Clay county.

Men were in that action from the counties of Clay, Jackson, Platte and Lafayette. They supplied themselves with muskets, holster pistols, sabers, ammunition, etc., and then quietly returned to their several counties and homes and awaited the course of events. It was not long afterward when a similar occurrence took place at Lexington, Missouri; as these things had been done it was evident to any one that there were serious apprehensions of trouble. So, early in the summer of 1861, there was a camp formed of Confederates, on Rock Creek, a few miles west of Independence; as ascertained, many of these were citizens of Independence. A short while after they had struck their camp, perhaps a day or two, there was a reconnoitering party sent out from Kansas City; the two companies met under truce-and it so turned out that the Captains were very nearly dressed alike, and were acquainted with each other, and each one advanced and both were talking upon the circumstance of their thus meeting, when the Confederates fired upon the Federal soldiers, which precipitated a fight, in which Captain Holloway, of the Confederates, was killed. This created no little excitement in Independence; the gravest and most unexcitable men of the town of both parties felt that a portentous crisis was just ahead.

A short time afterward Lowe & Jennison's cavalry from Kansas attacked Independence, placed several citizens under guard care at the grocery store of Porter & Fraser, and the hardware store of Moss & Co. and carried away a great deal of property such as carriages, horses, harness, wagons and cattle, As they were returning, it seems, to Kansas City they burnt Pitcher's mill, as well as his and Reuben Johnson's residence. This was in the fall of 1861; and during the winter Capt. Oliver was sent into the county with five companies of the seventh Missouri-the bloody seventh they called themselves. He and his command were charged by the people of Independence with many oppressive acts and needless cruelties.

In

In the spring of 1862, Capt Fuller was sent from Kansas City to Independence, soon after the bridge over the Big Blue had been burned by Quantrell. the neighborhood of the burned bridge he captured a man whom he had reason to believe was a member of Quantrell's band, and he took him to Independence and hanged him publicly on the public square. This same Capt. Fuller also captured the town and gathered many of the citizens on the public square, where they were more or less questioned concerning their political predilections. Fuller did not re

main in Independence very long, before Lieutenant-Colonel Brown, in the spring of 1862, with a detachment of soldiers came down from Kansas City; there were then in town several companies of infantry and cavalry. About this time when the Federal soldiers were making, or beginning to make, Independence a kind of headquarters for these parts, Quantrell, with his desperate scouts, who had been causing the Federals some trouble for some time, was known to be hovering around the neighborhood. They made one of their intrepid dashes upon the town, and before the Federals had time to array themselves, the Confederates were on the public square. Imagine the confusion, Three or four dozen men in the center of perhaps a thousand well armed soldiers. From the actions of Quantrell, it appears that he did not intend to hazard an engagement at this time, that it was not his wish to measure strength with a thousand soldiers; but rather to charge in, capture some important equipments, some five prisoners from whom to receive all the information that could be had, concerning the anticipated movements of the opposing side. Reports of persons who were living in the town at that time, say that there was one of Quantrell's men killed and two of the Federals, besides what were wounded on both sides.

Quantrell's men took a young man prisoner, unarmed him and were marching him off with them, as they were going out on the east side of the square, the young man was ordered to ride faster but he refused to do so, and he was shot, it is said on good authority, somewhere about the head. But the result of the shooting was not fatal The young man, either on foot or on horseback, broke and ran away, the Confederates after him. It appears, however, that he left his horse, and by dashing through alleys, over fences and through houses, he got away; perhaps, they were being too hotly pursued by the Federal soldiers and had to get out of town to save their lives.

As they were leaving Independence by way of the Spring Branch road, Quantrell's horse was either shot from under him, or stumbled and fell, and he had to take it afoot; such might have been a little unusual to Quantrell at that early day of the war, but at a later date it was quite ordinary for him to have to escape in that and similar ways. This little retreat of Quantrell's was nothing more than he expected, if we receive the best and most authenticated accounts of that transaction. The Federals stationed in the town took a little more precaution and consequently increased their assurances of future safety-but they "should have taken heed least they fall."

In the summer of 1862, Colonel Buell was placed in command of the forces at Independence; though a good soldier and splendid commander, he did not thoroughly understand the kind of men he was expecting to meet. If he had and studied their modes of warfare, it probably would have saved him an inglorious defeat. About fifteen hundred men under Hughs and other commanders, atatcked Independence and after hard fight defeated Colonel Buell and took about 350 prisoners, all of whom they paroled. But the Federal soldiers came into town in such numbers that the Confederates could not hold the place. But as it seems from their general mode of warfare in these parts, they had done mostly what they had desired to do, namely, to show their power, to obtain arms and large stores of ammunition, all of which they got in abundance in that engagement. They also dislodged many offensive persons and restored as well as took off some considerable property. In no State of the Union was the horrors of the war more visible, or more severely felt than in Missouri; especially was Missouri more deeply and severely scourged with the evils and evil consequences of guerrilla warefare than any other. No county of Missouri suffered as much from that species of warfare as did the County of Jackson; and no township, perhaps, in the county had greater reason to complain of those evils than Van Buren. The Sni Hills in this and adjoining townships came to be considered but another name for bush-whacking exploits, and barbarities on one side, and

Federal retaliation and revenge on the other. Every southern State had its battlefields, gory with blood and ghastly with the dead; some of them surpassing in ghastliness anything in modern times, but none of them surpassing in stubborn courage, determined resistance, and heroic valor that scene which was witnesssd in the little village christened for the lone tree of the township.

The citizens of that village had been accustomed to alarms and scenes of bloodshed and cruelty. Scarcely a week passed without some exciting occurrence, or some violent death. But it was reserved for the 16th of August, 1862, to witness the grim monsters, war and death, and carnage, in all their horrors. It is the battle then of Lone Jack that the historian of the township will have to record as the bloodiest of all the bloody scenes in the township during all of that long and crual war.

For months the guerrilla, Quantrell, and others had been carrying on their system of bush-whacking warfare from their hiding places in the Sni Hills and other parts of the county; while the Union soldiers held and garrisoned the principal towns, and sent out scouting parties to chastise the troublesome bushwhackers; and too often the chastisement fell upon the innocent in place of the guilty. During the first week in August, 1862, a strong effort was made to strengthen the Confederate force in the county, and recruiting officers were busy swelling their ranks. A very large majority of the citizens were in sympathy with the South, and many of them who were opposed to a guerrilla warfare, and had managed to stay at home, by hiding in the woods when ever a Federal scout was in the vicinity, were persuaded then to enter the regular Confederate service, as the surest means of safety; and Col. John T. Hughes, a regular Confederate officer, on recruiting service, was prepared to enlist and swear them into service, as honorable soldiers. While others, who were not at all averse to the bush-whacking mode of warfare, were at the same time swelling the ranks of Quantrell. Hughes, Quantrell and Hays having mustered and united their forces, on the 10th of August made an attack on Independence; garrisoned by a Federal force under Col. Buell; which place and force they captured, with all its stores of arms and ammunition; which circumstance still further aided and stimulated the Confederates in the work of recruiting. Col. Hughes was killed at the taking of Independence, and his command devolved on Col. Gideon Thompson, of Clay county, and Col. Upton Hays. The Confederate officers, with their regiments, battalions and companies, were hurrying up from the South, recruiting and swelling their ranks as they came; and it was given out, that Lexington and other Federal posts would soon fall, as Independence had done. In the forenoon of August 15th, those regiments, battalions and companies began to arrive in Lone Jack, and continued to arrive during the day, under the command of Cols. Cockrell, Tracy, Hunter, Jackman and Lewis. Col. Totten, commanding the Federal post at Lexington, after the battle at Independence, having learned that Thompson and Hays were somewhere between Independence and Lone Jack, in compliance with orders from General Schofield, sent out Major Emory Foster, with eight hundred men to cut them off from the reinforcements coming from the south, before those reinforcements could arrive. At the same time Col. Fitz Henry Warren, 15th Iowa cavalry, was ordered from Clinton to co-operate with Major Foster, having left Lexington early in the morning of Friday, August 15th; sent out two small flanking parties to make inquiries, and hunt up the enemy he was after; posted on with his main force, over seven hundred strong, and arrived at Lone Jack at 8 o'clock in the night. His force consisted mostly of Missouri militia, mustered into the United States, drawn from the 6th, the 7th and 8th, Catherwood's, Phillips' and McClurg's regiments, and Nugent's battalion. also had some Illinois and Indiana soldiers and the 7th Missouri cavalry, with two field pieces of Babb's Indiana battery. Foster had been told before reaching town that Confederates to the number of four thousand were there; but, as he

He

said, having been lied to so often, he refused to credit the report, and pushed on thinking it was the force he was in search of. That force, however, was not there; nor was there any immediately in the village. Thompson and Hays with five hundred men or more were encamped on the eastern banks of the Little Blue, some fifteen miles away; Quantrell, still further off, and of the reinforcements just from the South, Cockrell was northwest of the village three or four miles; Tracy and Coffee south of it about a mile, on the farm of David Arnold; Lewis still further south; Jackman was also in the neighborhood. Passing through the village, Foster opened fire on Coffee's and Tracy's company; a skirmish ensued as the Confederates retreated west, in which a few of them were wounded, and two of Foster's men killed by their comrades, in the darkness and confusion.

After the retreat, Foster returned to the village, where he remained unmolested until morning. Foster and some of his officers occupied the large hotel of B. B. Cave; who, with a majority of the male citizens of the place, had left the town in the care of the woman and children. The horses were picketed in the town, and along a lane running south; and the men lay down to sleep as best they could. In the mean time, the word was being carried to Cockrell, Hays, Quantrell and others, of the situation of things in the village. Thompson and Hays united their forces with Cockrell's, and at daylight arrived within one and a half miles of town; there they first heard the Federal bugle, sounding the morning reveille, and then they dismounted and inarched to the attack on foot.

The town was divided into new and old town. The hold, and Federal camp being in the new town, on the prairie ridge, where stood the lone tree, from which the town derived its name. The main street being half a mile in length, from the south side of the new town to the north of the old. On the east of the new town, was a hedge, and full of corn; on the west was a field, uncultivated that year, and overgrown with rank and tall weeds. Through these weeds, the Confederates made their way, stooping and crouching, and arrived in shooting distance undiscovered; and while the Union soldiers were busy in feeding their horses, and getting breakfast, a single gun, and then a volley, announced the battle begun.

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The Federals were taken by surprise, but they soon rallied, each man to his post. The artillery drew up on the public square, and joined its roar to the roar of musketry already going on. The hotel, the hedge row, the fences, the shops and the houses, were converted into fortifications and breast works. The Confederates advanced on and on; and it was soon a hand to hand conflict. The artillery supports, the artillery horses, and the artillery men were shot down, and the guns were taken by the Confederates. In a short time they were re-taken by the Federals. Taken by the Confederates a second time; and again re-taken. A large blacksmith shop, which stood near, was a blockhouse and fortification, for each party in turn. The hotel, was at the commencement a fortification for the Federal forces; from the windows of which they fought and did great action : but the Confederates worked their way nearer and nearer, and at length set fire to it, and it was soon in flames; and the occupants forced to retire; and two or three dead bodies were consumed in the burning building. The hours passed, and the contest was kept up, it was Missourian against Missourian, and neighbor against neighbor. Boys who had played together, gone to school together, and grown up together; were opposed to each other in a deadly strife. Four hours passed, and the conflict of arms was still going on. Both parties, however, were nearly exhausted; faint with hunger, thirst, heat and fatigue: and shortly after ten o'clock, the Federals spiked the cannon, drew them off a short distance, collected their horses and retired, unmolested from the field, and made good their retreat to Lexington. This was a hard fought contest; and for the numbers engaged, the hardest fought in the State-perhaps in any State-during the whole war; and it is often asked who had the best of it?