USA > Kansas > A standard history of Kansas and Kansans, Volume II > Part 16
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By cutting a road through a thicket half a mile below the ford on Illinois Creek, Herron got Murphy's battery into fine position facing the enemy's center. This battery he divided into two sections, which he placed six hundred yards apart, both concealed by the thicket from the enemy. Two regiments of infantry were thrown to the right of the battery and one to the left. Colonel Orme was sent across Illinois Creek at the ford with the Second Brigade of the Third Division, and ordered to divide his battery as Murphy's had been, station his infan- try in the rear, and open at once. Colonel Bertram was ordered to
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take the First Brigade across the creek and form on the right of Orme, dividing his battery as had the others.
Most of these preliminaries were completed before eleven o'clock, and some of them perhaps as late as twelve, on Sunday morning. Gen- eral Herron gives the hour as ten o'clock. Murphy's battery opened the battle, and under his fire all the remaining batteries crossed the creek and were soon in positions in line of those with Orme and Bertram. In ten minutes General Herron had eighteen pieces doing most effective work, and they were replied to with twenty-two of the pieces of Hind- man, the firing of which never approached even fair gunnery. The fire of Herron's artillery was terrible and deadly from the first. Some of the Confederate guns were dismounted, and their artillery horses lay dead in heaps of four to six in every position taken. In an effort to abate this awful storm of lead and iron against which nothing could long stand, Hindman threw heavy infantry columns against the Union right. But this was without avail. They were always stopped by the Union artillery and pursued in their return to their own lines. Herron ordered the Nineteenth Iowa and Twentieth Wisconsin to turn them back again after the battle had been in progress for some time, which was done with such fierce enthusiasm that the rebel lines were rolled back a thousand yards, and a battery of four pieces was captured. To meet and stay this onslaught, Hindman sent forward every available man, and such numbers fell on the Union charging line that it could not bring off the captured battery, and retired without it.
This was late in the afternoon, and at that moment there appeared on the rebel left masses of men in blue. They emerged from the woods which fringed the prairies as a long-confined flood bursts its banks. The rush and roar of their coming were as the sound of storm-driven seas. They poured forth, seemingly in inextricable confusion-cav- alry, infantry, artillery, officers and subalterns, brigades, regiments, companies and squadrons-a throng wrought to the extreme of excite- ment, frenzy, madness. Every artillery horse was bestridden by a man plying a merciless lash, and was running as if coming down the home-stretch-neck straightened, ears flattened, eyes wild, nostrils dilated. Clinging to the guns and caissons were the artillerymen, flung and tossed like sailors on tempest-beaten wrecks. The cavalry, lying over saddle-horns, burst from the bordering thickets under whip and spur. The infantry, keeping even pace in this mad race, came into the open, hatless, coatless, accouterments streaming out behind, but with guns tightly clutched and ammunition safe. Over and above all floated the Stars and Stripes; and the showing of regimental banners halted men, straightened tangled ranks, formed columns, fashioned the confused mass into an orderly battle-line straight and rigid as a steel bar.
Because of the failure of a scouting column to report the movement north of Hindman's army General Blunt was in ignorance of the exact conditions confronting him on the morning of the 7th. He was still expecting an attack at Cane Hill and disposed his lines to receive it.
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At ten o'clock, when it was certain that the enemy in his front was only covering some maneuver, he moved in the direction of his base of supplies at Rhea's Mills, a few miles north. He was anxiously await- ing some intelligence from General Herron, whom he had expected to arrive at Cane Hill in the forenoon by the road turning toward the west at Prairie Grove Church. That a battle must be fought that day General Blunt knew, and when no enemy of consequence appeared he had set out to find one. He moved cautiously, and was ready for an
MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES G. BLUNT
[Copy by Willard of Portrait in Library of Kansas State Historical Society ]
attack from any quarter. The booming of General Herron's artillery was the first definite information which reached him. He knew at once what had happened and where the battle would be. And so did the army, which moved as one man toward Herron's position. General Blunt announced the arrival of his army on the field by two cannon- shots, and as he did not know the positions occupied by the contending forces, the balls fell among the Union skirmishers. General Herron furnished him exact information by the time his line was formed, and General Blunt quickly fronted the left wing of the Confederate battle- line, taking position near the skirt of woods extending from the grove
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down to the foot of the slope, but with his men in the clear and both wings of his army extending into open fields.
And not a moment too soon did he form there, for the battle was reaching a critical juneture. The last of Hindman's infantry had arrived, which, together with Marmaduke's cavalry, Hindman was throw- ing forward to ernsh General Herron's right. It was to move by the rebel left over the field just occupied by the Union line, and General Blunt's men received this onset and turned it back after hard fighting. The right wing of the Eleventh Kansas formed in the edge of the woods and was led by Colonel Ewing, and the left under Moonlight formed in support of the batteries of Rabb and Hopkins. The left wing advanced halfway up the slope, fixed bayonets for a charge at the erest, and lay down to await the order to advance, which was given as the rebel infantry appeared four ranks deep driven by the cavalry regiments acting as file-closers. The fire of the Eleventh checked them for only a moment, and a fierce struggle ensued. The Eleventh was forced back, sometimes with line broken, but always closing quickly, to a fence below the top of the hill, where a stand was made. The posi- tion could not be held, but the main line was maintained until the enemy fell back at dark. The artillery had been protected and had played at short range on the enemy with double charges of grape and canister with terrible effect. As night was falling the batteries were just in the act of firing on a body of infantry coming out of the woods. Plumb believed it was the right wing of his regiment and prevented the fire. He rode forward and found it to be Colonel Ewing, as he had supposed. and whom he had saved by his watchful care.4
Hindman had done his best. His assault on Blunt's line had been desperate, but unsuccessful. Having doubt of the loyalty of much of his infantry, he drove it into action with his cavalry, as we have seen. One of his regiments deserted on the field. At nightfall he was defeated, and saw that he must retreat, and he feared that even retreat was im- possible. By the abuse of the usage of the flag of truce he seenred time ostensibly to bury his dead and attend his wounded, but which he utilized in getting his men on the road back to Van Buren, practically abandoning both his dead and wounded. With him disappeared the hope of the Confederacy in Missouri and Northwest Arkansas. His defeat was decisive.5
4 Those survivors interviewed mostly say that Plumb commanded the left wing of the Eleventh Kansas in the battle. The official reports give this honor to Colonel Moonlight, but he was an artillery officer, and no doubt gave some of his attention to the operations of the guns. In his report Colonel Moonlight specially mentions the services of Major Plumb on the field and pays a high tribute to his eourage and ability.
" The reports of the officers of both sides are published in Rebellion Records, Series 1. pp. 67-158.
CHAPTER XLHI
DISTRICT OF THE BORDER
General Blunt marched on Van Buren on the 27th of December. The melting snow on the Boston Mountains made this one of the hardest and most disagreeable marehes of the war. Cove Creek was running full of ice and slush, and the troops were compelled to ford this stream thirty-six times in marching twenty miles. There were no bridges, and the men were compelled to wade the stream, which was sometimes waist deep. On the 28th IIindman's rear guard was overtaken and attacked. It fled in a panie to Van Buren. Blunt's army soon entered that town and Hindman was driven ont. His army was demoralized, and he re- treated to Little Roek.
The Eleventh Kansas was sent to Kansas City, where it arrived in June, 1863, and became a part of the foree of the District of the Border. Thomas Ewing. Jr., was made Brigadier-General, in command of the Distriet. Thomas Moonlight was made Colonel of the Eleventh Kansas, and P. B. Plumb Lieutenant-Colonel.
The condition on the border at that time was deplorable. In Missouri there remained many who were disloyal. Various eanses prevented their enlistment and continuous service in the Confederate army, the desire to engage in the irregular and unrestrained warfare of the guerrilla being uppermost. Of these men Ingalls truly said :
During the war they became guerrillas and bushwhackers under Price, Anderson and Quantrill; assassins, thugs, poisoners of wells, murderers of captive women and children, sackers of defenseless towns, house- burners, horse-thieves, perpetrators of atrocities that would make the blood of Sepoys run cold.
These guerrillas moved in bands. They quartered themselves on the disloyal and such of the loyal as they did not despoil and murder. From brakes and coverts they attacked small detaehments of Federal soldiers passing from point to point. These bands had the full and nnreserved support of the Confederate officers.
The chief of these marauders was Quantrill, a renegade Ohioan. His bloody deeds shocked the world; but even that did not meet the demands of the disloyal element in Missouri ; he was dethroned, and Todd, more brutal and diabolic, was elevated to his place. Quantrill had no love for the Confederacy; but Todd's devotion to it was fanatical. Bill Anderson had all the bloody attributes of Todd, but was made of baser
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clay and possessed lower instincts. In the District of the Border were also a score of lesser guerrilla captains, Parker, the Youngers, and others, all bent on the murder of Missouri Union men, whether soldiers or non- combatants, and with a thirst for robbery which it took the law thirty years to quench after the war was over.
When General Ewing assumed command of the District of the Border he found his Missouri counties overrun with this banditti. It lurked in every thicket and prowled around every outpost. It crossed the border-
GEN. THOMAS EWING, JR.
[Copy by Willard of Portrait in Library of Kansas State Historical Society!
line and sacked helpless villages in Kansas, and, returning to Missouri fastnesses, left a trail of blood and ruin. The conditions were greatly aggravated by the presence in Kansas of sordid and unpatriotie men, who, as General Ewing said, were preying on the misery of Missouri and stealing themselves rich in the name of liberty.
This warfare was not wholly between Kansas and the people of Mis- souri. Indeed, it had its deepest bitterness between the people of Missouri themselves, neighbor against neighbor. Of those who remained at home, or who returned after a temporary service, the sympathizers with the Confederacy far outnumbered those who loved the Old Flag.
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These latter were almost all expelled or murdered by the former. Of those who fled from home the majority went to Kansas, where they either enlisted in Kansas regiments or sought favorable occasions to visit their old homes with arms in their hands to even up former differences with neighbors. There were many Missourians in every Kansas regiment. In every county in Missouri the loyal men enlisted in the Union army. These soldiers, whether in Missouri or Kansas regiments, were far more bitter towards their former neighbors and fellow-citizens than were the Kansans. They were nearly always moved by personal grievances.
When General Ewing had looked over his field he was appalled at the conditions and the magnitude of the task assigned him. On the 20th of June he wrote General Schofield that the whole border thirty miles into Kansas was greatly disturbed, and that it would take little more than the present demonstration of guerrillas to stampede the whole country.
Three gangs of bushwhackers in Cass and Jackson counties had al- ready grown formidable sinee the removal of Colonel Penick's regiment. Yager and his band of outlaws had, in May, ridden west over the Santa Fe Trail beyond Council Grove, committing many robberies and murders, and had returned to Missouri with small loss. General Ewing found awaiting him an urgent demand for six companies of cavalry to protect the country along the Santa Fe Trail as far west as Larned, and while he recognized the justiee of the request, he had no troops to spare for the purpose. The guerrillas killed four Union men and one girl, and wounded nine, in a German settlement near Lexington on the 14th of July. After the removal of the Fifth Missouri, guerrillas crowded up to the bounds of Kansas City. Citizens were murdered and their homes burned almost daily in Jackson County, and conditions were worse in the outlying portions of the District. General Ewing wrote, on August 3d, that :
About one-half the farmers in the border tier of counties of Missouri in my Distriet, at different times since the war began, entered the rebel service. One-half of them are dead or still in the serviee ; the other half, quitting from time to time the rebel armies, have returned to those counties. Unable to live at their homes if they would, they have gone to bushwhaeking, and have driven almost all avowed Unionists out of the country or to the military stations. And now, sometimes in bands of several hundred, they scour the country, robbing and killing those they think unfriendly to them, and threatening the settlements of the Kansas border and the towns and stations in Missouri.
Continuing, General Ewing said that about two-thirds of the families on the oeeupied farms of that region were related to the guerrillas, and were actively and heartily engaged in feeding, clothing, and sustaining them. The physical character of the land greatly favored guerrilla war- fare, and the presence there of the families eaused the presence of the guerrillas. It was impossible to elear the country of them as long as the families remained, and General Ewing proposed and was granted per- mission, to send the families of the most active guerrillas out of his District to some point in Arkansas accessible by steamboat, there to re- main until the war ended. This was the ineeption of Order No. 11.
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On the 31st of July General Ewing had present for duty in the District of the Border one hundred and two officers and twenty-five hundred and forty-six men. With this small force he was expected to garrison and patrol, battle over and protect nearly sixty thousand square miles of territory, including an Indian frontier of vast extent, the supply- line from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Scott for General Blunt's District of the Frontier, and one hundred miles of bloody border-line. General Ewing's plans for guarding the border were the best that could be made with the troops at his disposal. To prevent the invasion of Kausas he established posts or stations on and along the State-line south of Kansas City to the limits of his District.
These stations were usually about twelve miles apart, and were :
Westport, six miles out.
Shawnee Mission, three miles from Westport.
Little Santa Fe, ten miles south of Westport; commanded by Captain Charles F. Coleman, Company D, Ninth Kansas, with his company and a detachment of Company M, Fifth Kansas Cavalry, in all about eighty men.
Aubry, twelve miles south of Little Santa Fe; commanded by Cap- tain J. A. Pike. Company K, Ninth Kansas, with his own company and Company D, Eleventh Kansas; both companies made a force of about one hundred men.
Coldwater Grove, thirteen miles south of Aubry; commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Charles S. Clark, Ninth Kansas, with Company E of his own regiment. All the troops south of Little Santa Fe, in the Dis- triet of the Border, were under the immediate command of Colonel Clark.
Rockville, thirteen miles south of Coldwater Grove; commander and number of men not found.
Trading Post, on the Marais des Cygnes, fifteen miles south of Rock- ville; Captain B. F. Goss, Company F, Ninth Kansas.
Barnesville, in north part of Bourbon County; a garrison of one or two companies, but not shown in the returns.
Patrols were to pass constantly from post to post, at hourly intervals. Important information was to be passed along by a line of couriers to headquarters at Kansas City. If a hostile force appeared it was to be pursued instantly, and if too large to be attacked by the pursuers, help was to be summoned from other posts. Couriers were to be sent to alarm the Kansas border towns, where the defense was mainly composed of militia quartered usually in their own homes and sometimes difficult to assemble.
CHAPTER XLIII
COLLAPSE OF THIE MILITARY PRISON
The most unfortunate event in the administration of General Ewing was the Lawrence Massacre. An incident which was responsible for many of the barbarities committed in the sacking of that defenseless town was the collapse at Kansas City of the military prison for women. It was made the excuse for many inhuman erimes later committed by the guerrillas.
In the midst of such conditions as existed in the District of the Border it was inevitable that women should become spies for the bush- whackers and commit other violations of military regulations. Women had been arrested before General Ewing's arrival. On the 26th of June, 1863, a number of prisoners were sent from Fort Leavenworth to Kansas City, among them ten women, two of whom were sisters of Jim Vaughan, the outlaw executed May 29th. These women were treated with great consideration, being quartered at the Union Hotel under guard.
When Bill Anderson found it necessary to leave his home at Council Grove in the night on a stolen horse in the spring of 1862 to escape punishment for various crimes, he sought the border and there engaged in indiscriminate robbery. He was arrested and disarmed by Quantrill for preying on Confederate sympathizers. After his release he was in a way subject to Quantrill until that outlaw was repudiated by his fol- lowers. Anderson removed his sisters from Kansas and for a year they lived on the border, stopping finally with the Munday family on the Missouri side of the line near Little Santa Fe. Both parents of this family were dead, one son was in Price's army, and three daughters were at home-Sue Munday. Martha ( or Matt ) Munday, and Mrs. Lou Munday Gray, whose husband probably was a bushwhacker. The Munday girls and the three Anderson sisters were arrested as spies. On the same day others were arrested, among them a Miss Hall, Mollie Grandstaff, Charity Kerr, Mrs. Nannie Harris MeCorkle, Mrs. Sue Vandiver and Mrs. Arminna Selvey, the two latter being daughters of William Crawford, who, by marriage, was the uncle of Cole Younger. There were other arrests, but it is not known how many women were imprisoned when the building in which they were quartered collapsed. Among them, however, was Miss Alice Van Ness, whose daughter, Fay Templeton, achieved fame as an actress.
The Union Hotel could not accommodate such a number of prisoners, and to those already quartered there were now added the newcomers.
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G. M. Walker, of Company C, Eleventh Kansas, was Sergeant of the Guard when the prisoners were brought in. IIe took them to the prison for men, but they refused to enter this building even when shown that their apartments were entirely separated from those of the men. Then a frame building on the west side of Main Street, between Ninth and Tenth Streets, one story in front and two stories in the rear, and with a porch, was prepared for them. In was with difficulty that they were made to enter this building, the Anderson girls being the leaders in abuse of the Union, its soldiers, generally, and those at Kansas City in particular. There was a three-story brick building on the east side of Grand Avenue, in McGee's Addition, between Fourteenth and Fifteenth Streets, on each side of which were two-story buildings, in the second story of which men formerly had been imprisoned. It was No. 1409 Grand Avenue. That part of the city was at the time little settled, there being no buildings in the block opposite on the west side of the avenue, which was then the main thoroughfare to Westport. This building had a frontage of about twenty-five feet. The stairway to the second floor, from the front, and all access to the third story had been permanently closed. An old Jew had a store of cheap goods on the first floor-a medley of merchandise, including flashy jewelry, clothing, groceries and liquors. The second floor was reached only by an outside stairway in the rear of the building.1 To this building these women prisoners were removed.
The second floor of the building was the prison. There were three rooms, in one of which was segregated one, possibly two, women of known bad character, the other prisoners refusing to speak to them, though they were Quantrill's trusted spies. The women separated into groups, which, if not hostile, were indifferent, and between which there was little communication. The first guard was a detail from the Twelfth Kansas and was strict with the women. Major Plumb had the guard changed. Those who would pledge their word that they would not try to escape were permitted to visit stores accompanied by a guard under orders to remain back far enough so that the prisoners could converse without being overheard. The Captain of the Guard was Frank Parker, Company C, Eleventh Kansas.2
There were friendships between members of the guard and officers at headquarters and some of the women, and it is even asserted that a soldier of Company I, Eleventh Kansas, married one of the prisoners. Parker sent to Little Santa Fe for the bedding of the Munday home to be used by the Munday and Anderson girls. Cards and musical instru- ments were provided, and sometimes officers from headquarters visited
1 There is a conflict in the statements of those who remember the build- ing. Some say it was but two stories in height, and Mrs. Sue Womack, one of the women imprisoned there, says the entrance from the front had not been closed. With one exception it is agreed that it was on the east side of the street and fronted west.
2 On September 19, 1910, he made a statement to the author on this subject.
Vol. II-10
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the prison in the evening and were entertained with music. It is estab- lished beyond question that these women were treated with respect and kindness.
On the day of the collapse of this building Lieutenant John M. Singer. Company II, Ninth Kansas, was Captain of the Provost Guard. Early in the day the Captain of the Guard at the building sent a request to Singer to examine it, saying that he feared it was no longer safe. Singer found the walls cracked and mortar-dust on the ground. He reported to General Ewing, who sent his Adjutant to examine the building. The Adjutant believed the building safe, but the Captain of the Guard was uneasy. When the prisoners had been given their dinner he requested Thomas Barber, a member of his company, to examine the prison. Bar- ber's recollection is that there were prisoners on both the second and third floors, and that he and Parker went to the third floor. He saw the walls slowly separating from the ceiling, and advised Parker to get the women out of the building with all haste. Parker shouted: "Get out of here! This building is going to fall!" Barber, some of the women, and one or two guards ran down the stairs, and as they reached the ground the building collapsed, falling inward.
A great cloud of dust arose from the wreck, and for an instant noth- ing could be done. Soon some of the uninjured erawled from the ruins. A courier was at once sent to headquarters, and Major Plumb hurried to the prison. A crowd of five thousand people assembled. The women were in a state of exeitement, and were abusing the Government and the Union troops, asserting that the building had been undermined with intent to kill them. The crowd was in sympathy with them and jeered the guard. Major Plumb ordered up other troops and threw a cordon about the premises. He ordered the troops to fix bayonets and foree a number of citizens to help rescue the wounded and bring out the dead. The uninjured were sent to the Union Hotel, where they were guarded until another house could be made ready for them. The wounded were taken to the military hospital, where a ward was given them. The names of four of the dead are now remembered : Charity Kerr. Mrs. Vandiver. Mrs. Selvey and Josephine Anderson.3
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