John P. Burch

“ Gregg put a pistol to his head. “Keep back. Can’t you talk where you are? Do you mean to say anything?”
The old smile again; could anything ever drive away that smile—anything ever keep those teeth from shining? “You ask me if I want to talk, just as if I had anything to talk about. What can I say? I tell you that I have been hunted, proscribed, shot at, driven up and down, until I am tired. I want to kill somebody. I want to know what sleeping a sound night’s sleep means.” Quantrell’s grave voice broke calmly in: “Bring a rope.” Blunt brought it. “Make an end fast.” ”

“ Poole knew the situation well, and suggested to Jarrette that a sufficient detour should be made to encompass the building. Arriving there about eleven o’clock at night, it appeared from the outside as if there were some kind of a frolic. Lights shone from many of the windows, music and the sound of dancing feet could be heard occasionally. Frank James crept to a back door and looked in and counted five women and eleven men. Some of the men were sitting on the laps of the women and some were so close to others that to risk a volley would be murderous. ”

“ Not a shot had been fired. Todd showed a naked front, bare of skirmishers and stripped for a fight that he knew would be murderous to the Federals. And why should they not stand? The black flag waved alike over each, and from the lips of the leaders of each there had been all that day only threats of extermination and death.
Johnson halted his men and rode along his front speaking a few calm and collected words. They could not be heard in Todd’s ranks, but they might have been divined. Most battle speeches are the same. They abound in good advice. ”

“ One hundred and thirty-six dead lay about the streets and houses of the town, and five hundred and fifty wounded made up the aggregate of a fight, numbers considered, as desperate and bloody as any that ever crimsoned the annals of a civil war. A few more than two hundred breaking through the Confederate lines on the south, where they were weakest, rushed furiously into Lexington, Haller in pursuit as some beast of prey, leaping upon everything which attempted to make a stand between Lone Jack and Wellington. ”

“ That savage standing at bay and dying always as a wolf dies when barked at by hounds and dudgeoned by countrymen, made his enemies fear and hate him. Hence, from all their bomb-proofs his slanderers fired silly lies at long range, and put afloat unnatural stories that hurt him only as it deepened the savage intensity of an already savage strife. Save in rare and memorable instances, the Guerrilla murdered only when fortune in open and honorable battle gave into his hands some victims who were denied that death in combat which they afterward found by ditch or lonesome roadside. ”

“ Finally, in a desperate charge, and doing a hero’s work upon the stricken rear of the Second Colorado, he was killed. This was George Todd. Shepherd, a patient, cool, vigilant leader, knew all the roads and streams, all the fords and passes, all modes of egress and ingress, all safe and dangerous places, all the treacherous non-combatants, and all the trustworthy ones—everything indeed that the few needed to know who were fighting the many. In addition, there were few among the Guerrillas who were better pistol shots. It used to do Quantrell good to see him in the skirmish line. ”

“ Independence was alive with soldiers; several market wagons were about the streets—the trade in vegetables and the traffic in fruit were lively. This old woman was one of the ancient time. A faded sunbonnet, long and antique, hid almost all her face. The riding skirt, which once had been black, was now bleached; some tatters also abounded, and here and there an unsightly patch. On the horse was a blind bridle, the left rein leather and the right one a rope. Neither did it have a throat latch. The saddle was a man’s saddle, strong in the stirrups and fit for any service. ”

“ The prisoners were arranged in line, the Guerrillas opposite to them. They had confessed to belonging to Jennison, but denied the charge of killing and burning. Quantrell hesitated a moment. His blue eyes searched each face from left to right and back again, and then he ordered: “Take six men, Blunt, and do the work. Shoot the young man and hang the balance.”
The oldest man there, some white hair was in his beard, prayed audibly. Some embraced. Silence and twilight, as twin ghosts, crept up the river bank together. Blunt made haste, and before Quantrell had ridden far he heard a pistol shot. ”

“ There were no longer any leaves; nature had nothing more to do with the ambuscades. Bitter nights, with a foretaste of more bitter nights to follow, reminded Quantrell that it was time to migrate. Most of the wounded men were well again. All the dismounted had found serviceable horses. On October 22, 1862, a quiet muster on the banks of the Little Blue revealed at inspection nearly all the old faces and forms, with a sprinkling here and there of new ones. Quantrell counted them two by two as the Guerrillas dressed in line, and in front rank and rear rank there were just seventy-eight men. ”

“ The entire combat did not last ten minutes. It was a fight in which every man had to do for himself and do what was done speedily.
Once above the rattling of musketry, the neighing of horses and the shouting of combatants, Quantrell’s voice rang out loud and clear: “Cut through, boys, cut through somehow! Don’t surrender while there is a chance to get out.”
The fire upon the Guerrillas was furious. Quantrell’s horse, a thoroughbred animal of great spirit and speed, could not be caught. ”

“ Pastoral in many cases by profession, and reared among the bashful and timid surroundings of agricultural life, he knew nothing of the tiger that was in him until death had been dashed against his eyes in numberless and brutal ways, and until the blood of his own kith and kin had been sprinkled plentifully upon things that his hands touched, and things that entered into his daily existence. ”

“ Why the Quantrell Guerrillas Were Organized It all came about from the Redlegs or Kansas Jayhawkers. For two years Kansas hated Missouri and at all times during these two years there were Redlegs from old Jim Lane’s army crossing to Missouri, stealing everything they could get their hands on, driving stock, insulting innocent women and children, and hanging and killing old men; so it is the province of history to deal with results, not to condemn the phenomena which produce them. ”

“ Something like the beating of a strong man’s heart might have been heard, and something as though a brave man were breathing painfully through his teeth lest a sigh escape him. Whitsett cried out: “One more ballot yet to be opened. Let it tell the tale, Trow, and make an end to this thing speedily.” Trow, with scarcely any more emotion than a surgeon has when he probes a bullet wound, unfolded the remaining slip of paper, and read, “Life”! ”

“ He who had John Coger at his back had a mountain. Todd was the incarnate devil of battle. He thought of fighting when awake, dreamed of it at night, mingled talk of it in laxation, and went hungry many a day and shelterless many a night that he might find his enemy and have his fill of fight. Quantrell always had to hold him back, and yet he was his thunderbolt. He discussed nothing in the shape of orders. A soldier who discusses is like a hand which would think. He only charged. Were he attacked in front—a charge; were he attacked in the rear—a charge ”

“ Seven hundred Confederates—armed with shotguns, horse pistols, squirrel rifles, regulation guns, and what not—attacked nine hundred and eighty-five Federal cavalrymen in a town for a position, and armed with Spencer rifles and Colt’s revolvers, dragoon size. There was also the artillery. Lone Jack sat quietly in the green of emerald prairie, its orchards in fruit and its harvests goodly. On the west was timber, and in this timber a stream ran musically along. To the east the prairies stretched, their glass waves crested with sunshine. On the north there were groves in which birds abounded. ”

“ Not superior to Todd in courage and enterprise, nor to Haller, Poole, Jarrette, Younger, Taylor, Anderson, Frank James, Gregg, Lea, Maddox, Dan Vaughn, or Yager, he yet had one peculiar quality which none of these save Gregg, Frank James, Thrailkill, Lea and Younger possessed to the same pre-eminent degree—extraordinary resource and cunning.
All the Guerrillas fought. Indeed, at certain times and under certain conditions fighting might justly have been considered the least of their accomplishments. ”

“ A splendid pistol shot, fearless as a horseman, knowing nature well enough to choose desperate men and ambitious men, reticent, heroic beyond the conception of most conservative people, and covered with blood as he was to his brow, his fall was yet majestic, because it was accompanied by patriotism. ”

“ Beds were freely used and applicable furniture. Little and Shepherd stood by one door; Jarrette, Younger, Toler and Hoy barricaded the other and made the windows bullet-proof. Outside the Federal fusilade was incessant. Mistaking Tate’s house for a frame house, when it was built of brick, the commander of the enemy could be heard encouraging his men to shoot low and riddle the building. Presently there was a lull, neither party firing for the space of several minutes, and Quantrell spoke to his people: “Boys, we are in a tight place. We can’t stay here, and I do not mean to surrender. ”

“ The Jayhawkers on one side and the militia on the other made matters hot. All traveling was dangerous. People at night closed their eyes in dread lest the morrow should usher in a terrible awakening. One incident of the hunt is a bloody memory yet with many of the older settlers of Jackson County.
An aged man by the name of Blythe, believing his own house to be his own, fed all whom he pleased to feed, and sheltered all whom it pleased him to shelter. Among many of his warm personal friends was Cole Younger. ”

“ Those mentioned excelled in these qualities, but at times they were too eager to fight, took too many desperate chances, or rushed too recklessly into combats where they could not win. Quantrell counted the cost of everything; watched every way lest an advantage should be taken of him; sought to shield and save his men; strove by much strategy to have the odds with rather than against him; traveled a multitude of long roads rather than one short one once too often; took upon himself many disguises to prevent an embarrassing familiarity; retreat often rather than fight and be worsted ”

“ As for the Guerrillas, as soon as Trow found himself obliged to shoot or be throttled, they rushed back safely and noiselessly to their horses, mounted them and waited. A pistol shot, unless explained, is always sinister to soldiers. It is not to be denied. Fighting men never fire at nothing. This is a maxim not indigenous to the brush, nor an outcome of the philosophy of those who were there. A pistol shot says in so many words: “Something is coming, is creeping, is crawling, is about—look out!” ”

“ Such risks are often taken in war; to save one thousand men, one hundred are sometimes sacrificed. Death equally with exactness has its mathematics.
The reinforcements came up rapidly. One hundred joined Peabody on the prairie, and two hundred masked themselves by some timber on the north and advanced parallel with Quantrell’s line of retreat—a flank movement meant to be final. Haller hurried off to Quantrell to report, and Peabody, vigorous and alert, now threw out a cloud of cavalry skirmishers after the three remaining Guerrillas. The race was one for life. ”

“ When Quantrell arranged his men for the dangerous venture they were to proceed, first to the house, gain access to it, capture all the male members of the family and put them under guard, assemble all the negroes and make them hitch up the horses to the wagons and then gallop them for Kansas. Fifty yards from the gate the eight men dismounted and fastened their horses, and the march to the house began. Quantrell led. He was very cool and seemed to see everything. The balance of his men had their revolvers in their hands while he had his in his belt. ”

“ Quantrell, by the dim light of a single candle, recognized James, smiled and held out his hand, and said to him very gently, though a little reproachfully: “Why did you come back? The enemy are thick about you here; they are passing every hour.”
“To see if you were alive or dead, Captain. If the first, to save you; if the last, to put you in a grave.”
“I thank you very much, Frank, but why try to take me away? I am cold below the hips. I can neither ride, walk nor crawl; I am dead and yet I am alive.”
Frank James went to the door and called in Parmer,245 Ross and Hulse. ”

“ Nothing so weak as the Kansas detachment could possibly live before the deadly prowess and pistol practice of the Missourians. Of the thirty-two, twenty-nine were killed. One, riding a magnificent race horse, escaped on the wings of the wind—one, a negro barber, was taken along to wait upon the Guerrillas, and the third, a poor emaciated skeleton, as good as dead of consumption, was permitted to ride on northward, bearing the story of the thunderbolt. ”