USA > Kansas > Johnson County > History of Johnson County, Kansas > Part 19
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS
about a mile to the east and south. A heavy body of cavalry was visible, emerging from the timber when a general charge was ordered. Swing- ing into a trot, then a gallop, six companies of the Fifteenth under Lieu- tenant Colonel Hoyt took the left of the road and myself the right, with the Third Wisconsin battalion, and two companies of the Second Col- orado and one of the Fifteenth. The Fourth brigade under Colonel Ford was also led by 'Fighting Jim' in a dashing charge well up to the front. Then when both armies were in plain sight upon the prairie the rebels broke and in thorough disorder began a precipitous retreat which was hastened by the well served artillery and dashing onsets of Pleas- anton's forces on their right and rear. This, briefly told, is how the bat- tle of Westport was fought and won."
BEGINNING OF QUANTRILL'S BAND.
Quantrill's guerilla band had a notable beginning. Its formation is not to be sought in any military activity of its members nor in any military ambition of its leader. The young men who organized the band lived in the neighborhood of Blue Springs, Jackson county, Mis- souri. They had no though of becoming either soldiers or guerillas. The band numbered few at first, but its initiation was dramatic and in perfect keeping with its subsequent record, the record of free lances.
George Searcy was a wholesale thief and all-round robber. It is not known precisely when he arrived in Missouri, but during the year 1861 his home was in Jackson county, although his operations extended over all the counties adjoining.
Thieves became abundant in Jackson county in 1861 ; they took every species of property, horses, cattle, negroes, everything. Petty thieving became a fine art, and wholesale plundering an art of war. All law was paralyzed and a saturnalia of pillage reigned throughout the country. Thieves, in bands, usually carried a flag and robbed patriotically in the day time, and individual thieves operated at night for personal profit. Some of the thieving gentry were indigenous to the county and some came from afar. Sometimes a man was found dead and sometimes a house burnt. A general state of lawlessness prevailed. The border quarrels between Missouri and Kansas began half a dozen years before, and were now developing some of the characteristics of the old Corsican vendetta. The conditions were ideal for thievery, affording both oppor- tunity and pretext. The owners of slaves were especially subject to loss, the negroes being transported by the owners as rapidly as possible to the South for safety. Property of every description was secreted or sent off. Household goods were often hidden in the thick underbrush or among the rocks and the cliffs; family fowling pieces were hidden in old trees or hollow logs ; horses were tied to stakes in the middle of corn- fields, or to trees in the deep woods. But none the less, thieves made a
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harvest. In many neighborhoods the citizens were banded in quasi-mili- tary organizations, but these were inadequate against petty thieving and were scarcely effective against squads of mounted thieves.
Toward the close of 1861 the people of Jackson county began to sus- pect that this man Searcy knew something of the whereabouts of the many horses which had lately disappeared. Searcy lived on the Little Blue, southeast of Independence. He had married a Miss Spencer, al- though he had a wife and five children in Illinois, so it was rumored. Some of the citizens in the vicinity of Blue Springs determined to in- vestigate his movements and his occupation. Not the least active man in this business was young Quantrill, who had been living quietly for some time at Morgan Walkers' house. This was the house which Quantrill had raided months before in company with three or four Kan- sans. Quantrill's purpose was to betray and kill his comrades out of revenge for the death of his brother some years before. Quantrill had conducted these men down from Lawrence, Kan., under the pretext of running off Walker's negroes. The inmates of the Walker home were accordingly notified by Quantrill of the projected raid and ample prep- ation was made for the occasion. On the night of the venture, all things being in readiness at the Walker home, Quantrill led his dupes up from the woods, where they had been in hiding all day, and into the trap set for them. Quantrill had visited the house during the day and had reported to his followers that the time was propitious, the men folks being absent that night. When the raiders entered the house Quantrill sprang forward and ranged himself in line with the elder Walker and the two sons. These four opened fire on the Kansans, three of whom fell dead. One was badly wounded, but escaped back into the woods, where he was discovered the next day, when he met the fate of his comrades, although the report was permitted to go forth that one had made good his escape.
After this episode Quantrill was henceforth welcome at the Walker home. The two Walker boys became guerillas. But this affair did not in any sense constitute Quantrill a leader, nor did it even recommend him to a favorable reception in Jackson county. On the contrary he was subjected in consequence to grave suspicions and was forced to undergo a severe investigation.
Some time after the Morgan raid Quantrill was employed on a trip to Texas with a squad of negroes for some wealthy Jackson county slave owners. He returned from Texas in August. On his way home he stopped at General Price's camp of state guards at Cowskin Prairie, in McDonald county. He accompanied the army when it moved, and as a private took part in the battle of Wilson's Creek, the second great battle of the Civil war. This battle was fought in August, 1861. Quan- trill was not at the battle of Lexington, fought in September. He lived quietly at Walker's after his return from Texas, from August until De-
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cember, displaying no desire to engage in the war. The time was ripe with martial activity ; recruiting camps were popular resorts, and young men from every neighborhood were flocking to Price's army.
The Morgan Walker raid marked Quantrill as a man of desperate courage, his trip to Texas marked him as a man of enterprise, a man both capable and trustworthy. He easily, therefore, assumed a sort of leadership in the search for Searcy. Quantrill and two or three other men, perhaps A. J. Liddil and Will Hallar, went to Searcy's house one night. Searcy was not there, but two negroes were found who thought they were going to Kansas with Searcy. Quantrill's squad chased a young man into the old mill at Blue Springs. He was captured and proved to be Searcy's cousin, a boy seventeen years of age, named Wells. He was badly frightened. but was reassured by his captors, who prom- ised him immunity and release if he would tell all he knew about Searcy. The boy's revelations were startling. Searcy was then at the rendez- vous in Johnson county, where he was arranging to start south with a large herd of stolen horses. The boy also reported a large herd of horses collected by Searcy on the Little Blue near the Missouri river.
The next night the several squads of hunters set out for Searcy's Johnson county headquarters, a few miles northeast of Chapel Hill. They arrived at the place about 3 o'clock in the morning. All was quiet. Quantrill stationed his men around the house, then boldly knocked at the door. After considerable knocking and considerable delay the door was opened by a woman. Two of the band entered the house with Quantrill. Quantrill never made mistakes in choosing men for arduous duties. Of the two men who entered the house with Quan- trill, one became a famous guerilla ; the other took part in the war, and is now a well known and highly respected citizen of Independence. The woman protested vehemently against the proposed search of her house. Quantrill was very gentle but very, very firm. His comrade, the future guerilla, had less patience with the demonstrative woman and roughly seized her to put her aside, so that he could pass to the rooms beyond. Quantrill sternly rebuked the young man for his rudeness to the woman.
In a back bedroom they discovered Searcy in a trundle-bed. He was heavily armed, but he offered no resistance, for resistance would have been suicidal. When daylight came the premises were searched. A large number of horses and cattle and a few wagons were found. It was impossible for the captors to bring away all the stolen property. They turned the cattle out to be taken up as strays or to find their way home. Horses constituted the only property of much value at that period. The horses were brought back and were ultimately delivered to the rightful owner.
The prisoner was carefully guarded. He exhibited remarkable nerve; some of his captors still living speak admiringly of his courage. On Christmas Day, 1861, the prisoner was put on trial before a drumhead
(13)
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court presided over by A. J. Liddil, now a justice of the peace at In- dependence, Mo. Liddil lived at that time five miles east of Independ- ence and the trial took place in his house. Searcy made no attempt to deny his offenses, and his attempt at palliation was limited to the re- mark that the property he had taken would have been stolen anyway, and he might as well have it as anybody. On his way up from Johnson county the prisoner talked freely of his plans, now frustrated. He expected to drive his horses and cattle to Texas and establish a ranch there. He expected to take negroes with him to run the ranch. At the trial he displayed a lack of judgment in proclaiming his animosity to Judge Liddil, whom he vowed to kill. This threat probably sealed his fate. On account of this threat Judge Liddil was in favor of turning him loose, but Quantrill and the others voted for hanging. About 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the prisoner was made to mount a horse; a rope was put about his neck; the other end was thrown over a limb of a tree. The horse was then led away and Searcy was left hanging be- tween heaven and earth.
This was the first work of Quantrill's band. Some seven or eight of those who took part in the capture and execution of Searcy consid- ered themselves now well launched in the business of recovering stolen property, and in ridding the country of thieves. They found sixty-five head of horses at the Little Blue rendezvous, whither Wells directed them. These added to those brought up from Johnson county made a herd of 130 or 140 animals. These had to be fed and watered through the winter season until the owners could come and get them. Each owner was expected to pay something for the services of recovery and for feed and labor. The report was soon circulated that these men took horses belonging to Union men and held them for ransom. A Captain Burrus came down from Leavenworth to look into the matter. Quan- trill and his band waylaid Colonel Burrus' company and killed five of them. Colonel Jennison's men came next and they fell into an ambiis- cade, losing several men. Quantrill's band of less than a dozen at the beginning of 1862 soon numbered twenty. By midsummer of that year the band numbered over one hundred. These were mustered into the regular Confederate service a few days before the battle of Lone Jack, Col. Gideon W. Thompson, of Clay county, administering the oath. The band had already engaged in numerous hot skirmishes on its own account. After becoming a part of the regular Confederate army, the band continued its peculiar mode of warfare. It attracted many re- cruits and attained a numerical strength of over 400 before its disintegra- tion.
WHEN QUANTRILL RAIDED OLATHE.
"I was the first man that discovered Quantrill's men when they came to rail Olathe, September 6, 1862," said J. H. Milhoan, as he sat in his office at the city hall, where for a dozen years he has filled the dig-
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nified position of police judge of the city of Olathe, and Mr. Milhoan, by the way, has been connected with the city of Olathe since the town was organized, way back in the prairie days of 1857. He was its first marshal, and Governor Robinson appointed him constable also when the county was organized, and for twelve years he was deputy sheriff, including the days of border warfare. Mr. Milhoan is a quiet, level-headed man with n unusually bright mind, and remembers with remarkable clearness the events that transpired prior to and during the war. He impresses one as being a man fearless, but sensible with it, and the fact that he kept cool head during the Quantrill raid is the only rea- son that he is alive and well today.
"It was a moonlight night," said Mr. Milhoan, as he filled his pipe, and reached for a match, "and I had just returned from De Soto, Kan., with a lawyer and some witnesses that I had taken up there to court.
"We stopped in the street in front of a saloon, on the square, and I held the horses outside while the others went in to get a drink. When they came back I went in to get a drink, and the saloon was full of men. I got the drink, then stepped around a bunch of ten or twelve men who were standing there to see who were at the card tables in the back end of the saloon. The saloon stood where Hershey's meat market stands now, and faced the west and the old trail ran along where the Grange Store now stands. When I got back there I could see east along the trail and I noticed some troops, by the bright moonlight, and asked who they were, as I suspicioned they were Quantrill's men. Some one spoke up and said they were looking for Captain Harvey's company from Leav- enworth and it might be them. I watched them, they were about a quarter of a mile away, and when I got outside they rode up and some one asked: 'Is this Captain Harvey's company?' 'Yes, flank right and left and take possession of the town.' It was Quantrill's order. I made for my team at once and started to drop the tugs, thinking that if I let them loose the men might not be able to catch them, as they were pretty hard to catch, but before I got this done one of Quantrill's men said to me: 'Fall into line, I will take that team.'
"Three or four men came running out on the street from the saloon, among them Colonel Ocheltree and my brother, and one of the men shot my brother in the foot. I was wearing a cavalry overcoat and one of Quantrill's men seeing it, said : 'Pull off that coat.' I told him I had no coat under it and he answered: 'Take it off, - - it, you won't need a coat very long,' and I took it off and gave it to him. Hiram Blanchard, a Spring Hill merchant was in the saloon at the time Quan- trill came, which was about 12 o'clock at night, not ten minutes either way. He had left his home at Spring Hill at 10 o'clock, at night, to come to Olathe. His sisters who lived with him, had tried their best to keep him at home that night, but could not persuade him to stay. The only way to reconcile his coming here," said Mr Milhoan, is "That
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a man will go to meet his fate. Blanchard rode a mare up here and she was tied outside. He started to untie his mare when one of Quantrill's men told him he would take charge of the horse. The man prevented him from taking her when he, Blanchard, stepped around on the other ·side, pulled a butcher knife from his boot and attempted to get on, but as his head rose above the horse's back a shot from a double barrel shot gun, in the hands of the Quantrill man blew off the top of his head, and he fell like a beef, and on striking the ground, he jumped around like a chicken with his head cut off. Quantrill's man then took the mare and led her away.
"Phil Wiggins and Josiah Skinner were two men of the Twelfth Kan- sas regiment, Company A, all of whom were quartered here. Wiggins had said he would never be taken by bushwhackers. Wiggins was upstairs in a frame building, that stood on the lot where the First National Bank now stands.
"Three or four men went upstairs, in the building where Wiggins was. Wiggins jerked the revolver from the leader and snapped it three or four times at him but it failed to go off. One of the other men then shot him in the back and after he fell the first man that Wiggins had tried to shoot, shot Wiggins three or four times after he had fallen. Quantrill had said if any of his men were killed he would burn the place and shoot all captives.
"Mr. Skinner lay asleep in the First Presbyterian church, built by Rev. J. C. Beach, and used for soldiers' quarters. It stood where Whit- ney's drug store is now. He slept very sound and was hard to awaken. When Quantrill's men came to his room and called for him to get up the call did not awaken him, so one of them shot him through the body as he lay in bed. He died about one week later. Quantrill had about one hundred and fifty men with him, perhaps, though it was hard to tell the exact number. The Quantrill men went to all the residences in town and ordered all the men into the court house square. I sat over there in the square with Mayor Pellett, father of the present mayor, while the looting of the town was going on. A three-board fence surrounded the square at that time. Before they started to leave the town with their plunder, I went to Mr. Quantrill, who was at Judge Campbell's resi- dence, which stood where the Patrons' Bank is now, and asked Mr. Quantrill if he could not let me have my team. He said if I would drive the team to Pappinsville, Mo., with a load of plunder on the wagon, that I could have my team to bring home, but he said, 'I can't furnish a guard to come back with you, and I wouldn't advise you to do it.' Quantrill's men robbed all the stores and took all the good horses they could find. A. M. Hoff owned a store on the west side of the square, and Hoff was with the men corralled in the square. His wife, excited at the looting of the store, kept calling to her husband as she saw their property being loaded, and Mr. Hoff in his frenzy attempted to cross
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over where she was, when one of the guards struck him on the head with the butt end of a musket and knocked him senseless. 'It was a wonder,' said Mr. Milhoan, 'that he was not shot down.' 'Did they take any whisky?' was asked. 'Don't think they bothered the whisky,' said Mr. Milhoan. 'Up there at Lawrence one of Quantrill's men got drunk and failed to get out of town with the other men and next morning the citi- zens found him and killed him.'
"Quantrill was after the men who belonged to the Twelfth Kansas. On his way to Olathe he took Frank Cook from the residence of David Williams, his father-in-law, and shot him. Cook had just enlisted in the company and had gone out that day to see his wife who was at her parents' home. Cook was in bed at the time the bandits came and hearing an unusual noise came out and was immediately taken prisoner. His body was found in a ravine, not far from the house, with two bullet holes in his breast and his head crushed with a cannon ball. Mr. Cook was a most excellent neighbor and friend, straightforward in all his dealings, and the fact that he had joined the Twelfth was the cause of his being murdered, for murder it was, for no rules of honorable warfare give the victors the right to kill defenseless prisoners. From the Wil- liams' residence, Quantrill and his men came on towards Olathe to the John J. Judy residence, a mile and one-half east of town. Here John J. and his brother, James, had gone that day to get ready to leave with their company. Mrs. Judy and a neighbor girl staying there were still sitting up, the brothers having retired, when the house was surrounded and ten or fifteen men entered. They ordered the two brothers to get up and dress at once, and then ransacked the house for any valuables they might find. They talked jestingly of 'Happy Kansas' and some- times a snatch of a song would be mingled with the oaths and curses of the men. 'If you have much Union about you, better work it off by crying, and we'll give you cause enough,' said one. Getting tired of this sport in a short time, they ordered the brothers to mount behind two of their men and galloped away. Mrs. Judy left for a neighbor's, a half mile away, as soon as they had gone, and while on the road heard the five shots that killed her husband and his brother. She thought that the shots were at Olathe, however, believing they had been gone long enough to get there. The next morning the bodies of the men were found on the Jonathan Millikan farm, about one-half the distance between the Judy home and town. The Judys were men of excellent character and good citizens and their killing was no less than cold- blooded murder. John Judy had been shot once in the left eye and twice in the breast. His brother, James, once in the face and once in the breast.
"The men who were held in the court house square by the Quantrill gang while the looting was going on over the city, were, no doubt, won- dering what was in store for them, and just before daylight the news
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was broken to them. Quantrill surrounded the prisoners with a cordon of men, and ordered all citizens to go to the left and the recruits to the right, warning the recruits not to go over to the citizens' side. John Hayes, a recruit, took the chance, however, and escaped detection. Then Quantrill started the wagons loaded with the plunder on ahead towards Spring Hill, and he with the prisoners followed, the prisoners on foot. It was evidently the intention of Quantrill to rob the town of Spring Hill also, as the town was as defenseless as Olathe, but on getting within a mile of town at the farm house of Mr. McKoin he, McKoin, told them that several companies of soldiers had just arrived there and Quantrill not desiring any fighting, turned east through the fields, taking McKoin along as a guide and tearing fences down wherever they were on the route he wished to go. A. P. Trahern's house was just east of McKoin's. Mr. McKoin's rifle, violin and horse were taken, his furniture broken and Mr. Trahern ordered to fall in with the prisoners. Quantrill's men seemed to have a fondness for photographs of young ladies and always took them in robbing a house and in Mr. Trahern's house they took every photograph he had of this kind. Squiresville was a town laid out two miles east of the present site of Ochiltree, Kan., on the old Ft. Scott stage line. On the way there Cliff Turpin, one of Quantrill's men, offered Lieutenant Pellet a horse to ride, which Pellet accepted. A short time afterwards one of the bushwhackers rode up to him and tried to get him to jump off and run, assuring him escape would be very easy. 'You - little Yankee schoolmaster run,' he would say, 'You can get away just as well as not.' Mr. Pellet, however, stayed on his horse, not caring to be a target for the fellow who evidently wanted to shoot him. The prisoners were confined to a store room on arrival at Squiresville, while Quantrill and his men took breakfast. Breakfast over, Quantrill had the prisoners all lined up before him and said, 'For the last half bour I have been doing something I never did before, I have been mak- ing up my mind whether to shoot you or not.' He then told them that he decided to have them take an oath not to take up arms against the Confederacy, and release them, and the oath was administered accord- ingly, and the prisoners were released, returning to Olathe about noon, footsore, weary and hungry, yet thankful that they had escaped with their lives. When the prisoners were marshalled in line Mr. Trahern and a young man, John Dunn, were ordered to stand aside. Lieutenant Gregg, the third in command, rode up to Quantrill and, seeing them out of line, asked him about it. 'I don't know anything about it. I don't know who in the hell they are,' Quantrill answered. It seems that Tra- hern had been in service with Jennison in Missouri and Quantrill's men suspected it, while they had a suspicion that Dunn, too, might have been connected with a Missouri raid. Both, however, strictly denied everything, but they were kept prisoners and each ordered to drive a wagon, and at night their captors tied them to a wagon wheel to pre-
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vent their escape. As soon as the prisoners were released at Squiresville they returned home. Steps were taken at once for the release of Tra- hern and Dunn. A party was sent to John J. Jackson, a farmer living near Squiresville, who was known to be in sympathy with the Confed- eracy, and informed him it was up to him to obtain the release of Dunn and Trahern, or meet the same fate that befell them. Jackson started immediately and arrived at the camp of Quantrill at midnight and next morning laid the case before him. Quantrill's own men did not know where he slept in seclusion. Quantrill, after hearing the case, decided to turn the men loose, as his friend Jackson would have to suffer, but had not Jackson arrived when he did, both Dunn and Trahern would have been executed. Mr. Trahern had a good opportunity to see Quan- trill, while he was his prisoner, and says that Quantrill had his men thoroughly disciplined and his orders were obeyed with alacrity when or wherever given. Occasionally a scout would come excitedly to him and report that a body of men had been seen or that something alarming had happened. Quantrill, unconcerned apparently, would answer, 'See who they are,' or 'See that they do not come too close,' and ride on as cool and calm as if danger to him was unknown. The fact that there was quite a number of Quantrill's friends in and around Olathe that might have had to suffer, no doubt, saved Olathe from receiving at the hands of Quantrill the fate that Lawrence met at a later date.
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