Bloody Dawn Page 12

  Arthur Spicer was also with a group of Rebels. Unlike Sallie, however, the saloonkeeper was religiously pointing out men, homes, and businesses. And unlike the girl, Spicer couldn’t just pick up and leave anytime he wanted; to have had so many relatives would have been his end. It was coming soon enough, he thought, when he was handed back to Quantrill.28

  The man with the salty little grin wasn’t grinning today; he was praying. As he lay on his back in the dark cellar, squeezed up between a dirt ledge and the kitchen floor, he knew it was only a matter of time before they came.

  Like his old boss Jim Lane, Hugh Fisher entertained no rosy notions about tomorrow should he fall into Rebel hands today. That morning at Sibley had proven how important he was to Todd and the Missouri bushwhackers. Nor was he as ill as previously thought. At the initial shout, the jayhawker jumped from his sickbed and bounded out the door. First, he turned his horses loose from the barn, and then with his two young sons, Willie and Charlie, he ran for Mount Oread. The illness had sapped the preacher, however, and the sight of Rebel pickets on the crest made him think twice. Sending the boys on alone, Fisher fled back to his South Park home. Elizabeth, with a baby in her arms and a tot by her side, thought her husband was insane to return and said as much, but as he slipped into the tiny cellar the woman made up her mind to do everything she could to save her man.

  His wait was not long and Fisher soon heard the sounds—horses to the gate, spurs on the porch, knocks at the door, boots on the kitchen floor.

  “Is your husband about the house?”

  He is not, lied Elizabeth.

  “I know a damned sight better,” snapped the guerrilla. “He’s in the cellar; where is it?”

  Startled, yet composed, taking the four men to the door, the woman pointed with a straight face: “The cellar is open; if you think he is there, go look for yourselves.”

  Staring down into the black, a light was demanded. While the mother went upstairs to fetch a lamp, still keeping a grip on herself, the baby was placed in a bushwhacker’s arms. Waiting, the man made faces and cooed to keep the infant from crying.

  Below, Fisher could hear everything. When he heard his wife returning with the lamp and the cocking of revolvers, his left foot began to tremble uncontrollably. He placed his right foot over it to keep it still. Then as the light entered the cellar and boots came slowly down the steps, Hugh Fisher’s heart and lungs slowed, then stopped, and his whole life flashed across his mind in an instant. And Elizabeth, holding her baby tight to one ear and pressing her hand hard to the other, went quickly into the front room.

  As the Rebels reached the bottom, they were forced to stoop under the low ceiling. The man holding the lamp came to where the reverend was lying and stopped. In the glow of the lamp Fisher squinted upon the guerrilla’s face, less than two feet from his own. Because of the low ceiling the lamp too was held low; thus the preacher’s face remained in the shadow cast by the ledge he lay on. The men looked a bit longer but soon walked back up the stairs.

  “The woman told the truth. The rascal has escaped.”

  There was no time to listen to the echo in her ears. Elizabeth Fisher reached deep down, drew up every ounce of self-control she possessed, and let the words roll.

  “You will believe me now, I hope. I told you my husband had gone.”

  The Rebels lingered awhile, robbed the house, torched it, then left one of their men behind to see that the fire spread. But it wasn’t in him to stop the woman as she raced from the well to the blaze and back again, and so the reluctant guard just left. When the last of the flames were doused, Elizabeth came to the cellar door and spoke softly to her husband.

  “Pa,” she said, “Pray and trust in the Lord, and I’ll do all I can.”29

  After leaving their father, the two Fisher boys became separated somewhere in the hazel and sumac up the hill, and twelve-year-old Willie fell in with Robert Martin, a lad a little older and bigger than himself. Young Martin wore a blue shirt made from his father’s old uniform, and he also carried a musket with a cartridge box slung from his shoulder. So when a picket spotted them, he gave chase.

  The two boys raced over the hill, side by side, as in a game where home base and blue sky are always just ahead and everything somehow ends as it should. But a blast sounded behind them, and as Robert tripped, Willie felt something wet and warm spray his face. Robert didn’t get up to finish the race because half his head was gone. And when Willie wiped his face he found his hand dripping blood, bone, and bits of brain.

  Little Charlie Fisher also joined with another boy and together they hid in the cemetery. But a child’s superstition forced them to a nearby cotton patch instead.30

  As he crept along the ravine toward home, George Bell soon came to realize the futility of it all. He was cut off. Peering between the weeds and limbs, he could see no hope of reaching his family on the hill. In the streets, in the alleys, around burning homes and barns, only guerrillas were about. To climb the barren slopes of Mount Oread would be suicide. But his nerves cracked. Bell panicked.

  Convinced it was just a matter of time before the raiders swarmed in and murdered them all, the county clerk and another man ran into the street. Once in the open and alone, the two abruptly returned to reality. But then, as fortune would have it, they spied a familiar sight—a partially completed brick home. The men dashed in, climbed to the second story, and crawled up among the joists. They could only keep quiet, count the seconds, and pray they hadn’t been seen.

  But they had.31

  When a gang came to the home on South New Hampshire Street looking for Louis Carpenter, they didn’t have far to look. He was right there.

  Absorbed with the more important things in life, the good judge had never given much thought to fear; and so, being unfamiliar with it, he could not fully express it. Thus when hate and the big black guns stood around him he didn’t react as most men might. He certainly didn’t run because running never entered his head. His hands didn’t tremble. His bodily functions didn’t betray him. His voice didn’t waver, and when lethal questions were posed the New Yorker replied straightly and honestly in a clear upstate accent. There was also a strange, kindly quality about him. Some Rebels could not resist the temptation and stole a few items from the house, but no one was in a mood any longer to burn it. And certainly no one could bring himself to harm the judge. When the guerrillas left the yard, Carpenter was still standing there while behind him, his bride, Mary, and her sister, Abigail, began to breathe once more.

  It was no act—the judge was always like that. A little later, another mob came and, seeing the pretty home, decided to burn it. But once again and as calm as ever, Carpenter met the raiders and sent them away disarmed. The pressure on the women, however, was almost unbearable.32

  It was a miracle! The bushwhacker just started shooting at the men clinging to the beams when George Bell yelled out. The firing stopped, and everything became still.

  It was true. The Rebel was actually Bell’s old friend. In happier times the two had often broken bread together at the Kansan’s table, and each had greatly enjoyed one another’s company. Bell and his companion were told to come down, for from that moment on both men were home free. The old friend would talk to the Missourians and straighten things out. The county clerk jumped down followed by the other man, and together the three walked outside. That’s where the miracle ended. The crowd of guerrillas standing around them, wild and bitter, didn’t care a dime about old acquaintances.

  “Shoot him! Shoot him!” was their cry, and not a word was uttered by the old friend. A religious man, Bell asked for a moment to pray. Granted. Finished, the clerk said amen, and in a burst of fire his companion fell down and George Bell dropped dead.

  From there the gang scaled Mount Oread to complete the job. At home Mrs. Bell met the raiders and recognized the former guest. “We have killed your husband,” he blandly informed her, “and we have come to burn his house.”33

  When a group of bushwhac
kers broke into the home of Edward Fitch and shouted for him to come from hiding, he did. While Sarah and the three terrified children watched, the Massachusetts native walked down the stairs and into the circle of waiting men. As soon as Fitch hit the foot of the stairs he was dead. But just to make certain, the Rebel who shot him grabbed another revolver and continued to pump slugs into the corpse until that gun too was emptied. The guerrillas then moved on to rob and torch the home.

  As the smoke began to drift about, Sarah pleaded and tried three separate times to remove her husband’s body. But three separate times the murderer forbade it. She then ran to retrieve a small painting of Edward, but once more was denied. Finally the woman ceased all efforts and just wandered from room to room watching as her home was destroyed. At last, when the place was engulfed in flames, and with sparks and debris showering about her, a guerrilla forced her to leave.

  Sarah walked with her screaming children across the road, sat on the grass, and watched while the home and everything she owned crackled and roared over the body of her husband. Above, on an adjoining shed, a small Union flag hung limp. The children, playing soldier a day or two before, had planted it high so that everyone in town could see they were loyal and proud to be Yankees.34

  Escape was the thing, escape by any means. Politicians, doctors, and merchants bellied toward safety side by side with local layabouts and town drunks, crawling in underclothes through flowerbeds and cabbage rows, along weedy lots and ditches until they finally reached what to them seemed a God-sent sanctuary—a cottonwood chicken coop or a tiny, stinking outhouse. Others simply hurled headlong into wells or shimmied beneath wooden walkways. An outdoor cellar in the center of town with a hidden entrance was a haven where many fled.35 But more found refuge in the ravine, along the tangled banks of the river, or in Jim Lane’s vast cornfield. Often chasing a victim right to the edge of these places, guerrillas always slammed to a halt and galloped away as if expecting a volley of shots to ring out. In the cornfield, scores of thirsty citizens were hidden. Several times the raiders rode along the perimeter; some were for going in. Uncertainty, however, always held them back. A woman living on the hem of the field who had carried water to the fugitives was asked by a group of Rebels, who themselves stopped for water, what was in the corn.

  “Go in and see,” she replied, in a tone that left no doubts.

  Had they gone in they wouldn’t have found Jim Lane. Nor would they find him anywhere near the field. Instead he was among the bluffs far to the southwest of Lawrence, “on his belly under some bushes.”36

  Escape was the thing; there were other ways. After somehow avoiding the slaughter, the lieutenant of the recruits eluded his pursuers and ran naked into an abandoned shanty. There he found clothes and quickly dressed. In a moment or two he left the hut and walked into the street unnoticed, wearing a dress and bonnet.

  Another man burst into a home occupied by three women and begged for help. Soon a noisy gang stomped through the door. Searching the rooms without success, the guerrillas loudly entered the parlor. At this the indignant ladies scolded the Rebels to please be quiet and more considerate, since “poor Aunt Betsie” was neither well nor accustomed to such excitement. Sitting in an invalid’s chair, “Aunt Betsie” was eyed suspiciously—an old woman’s cap, a shawl across her lap, medicine bottles and cups nearby, a “niece” fanning her. Finally, the raiders left and the grateful “Aunt Betsie” and three resourceful women breathed easily once again.37

  Some men without recourse simply put on the dirtiest, most ragged set of clothes they had and mixed with the Missourians. One dentist went even further. Besides finding money for the guerrillas and guiding them to the best stock of liquor in town, he also joined in and set several homes on fire.38

  When raiders knocked on their doors, women too employed almost any device in an attempt to save their homes—and very often the men hiding just above or just below.

  Where in hell is Fred Read?

  Gone east for goods.

  Peter Ridenour?

  Gone east to buy goods.

  What are your politics?

  Sound on the goose.

  Has your old man ever stolen any niggers in Missouri?

  Never been in Missouri.

  But as often as not, no amount of pleading or lying would suffice, and a home was put to the torch anyhow. And as soon as the bushwhackers had done their work and moved on, behind them women and children rushed with quilts and slopping buckets of water in an attempt to smother the flames. But as was commonly the case, after gamely battling and subduing a blaze, the soot-smeared ladies looked up only to find another squad approaching with the same intent.

  “Put that out if you can!” said an exasperated guerrilla to a woman who had just stopped one fire. When he had gone, she did just that.39

  Those at the home of John Thornton were more persistent. When the straw bed they ignited was put out, the Rebels returned and started it again, but this time Nancy Thornton was forced to leave. In a short while, when the husband too appeared and raced out the back, the guerrillas were ready and waiting. A chunk of hot lead burned into Thornton’s hip. He didn’t go down, however, but turned and fled back into the house. Again the heat became unbearable, and when he reappeared another shot was fired, this time blowing his knee apart. Once more, and followed by his horrified wife, Thornton limped back into his blazing home.

  Blinded by smoke, the wounded man soon came out again, leaning on Nancy for support. One of the raiders rode up, took aim, but just before he could jerk the trigger the Kansan lunged for his leg. Thornton was unable to reach the weapon, however, and a slug at point-blank smashed into his eye and exploded out the cheek. Another gun went off and a ball entered his back, ripped down the spine, and tore into a buttock. But still Thornton clung to his attacker. Frustrated and out of ammunition, the bushwhacker tried again.

  “I can kill you,” he growled as he used the heavy revolver like a hammer to bash the head of the struggling man. At last John Thornton lost his grip and released the leg. But he wasn’t dead.

  “Stand back and let me try,” yelled an impatient guerrilla nearby. “He is the hardest man to kill I ever saw.” With that, the enraged attacker let fly every ball in his weapon, striking the target three times. Thornton stumbled a few steps, then collapsed in a heap. Still doubtful, one of the Rebels reared his horse back to stomp the body, then leveled his pistol to fire again.

  “For God’s sake,” shrieked the hysterical wife as she grabbed the horse’s bridle, “let him alone, he’s killed now.” Satisfied, though amazed at the time and energy needed to do it, the bushwhackers finally moved on.

  To preserve it for burial, Nancy managed to drag the body away from the fire to an open space across the street. There, she saw that her husband had a wound for almost any given place and was literally soaked in blood from head to toe. Looking closer, however, the woman saw something else—John Thornton was still alive!40

  “Fred, one of them damned nigger-thieving abolitionists ain’t dead yet; go and kill him.” Neither Harlow Baker nor Simeon Thorp could be sure which of them had moved, but it was certain that one would soon find out.

  Since being shot, the two had lain in the street feigning death as the guerrillas rode nearby. When it was clear, they had whispered back and forth to one another describing where they were hit. Baker still had the strength to get up, but dared not. Senator Thorp, hurt much the worse, could not.

  The horse stopped beside them and they heard the Rebel dismount. When he was kicked over onto his face, Baker knew he was the one. He heard the explosion, felt a sharp sting, and in a rush all the air left his right lung. He grew dizzy and almost fainted, but through the pain Baker was still around to hear Fred congratulate himself as he rode back to his pal.41

  This time George Todd came in person. Only a twist of fate had kept him from meeting the preacher that morning near Sibley, and Todd today wanted no stone left unturned.

  Despite this, Elizabeth Fisher
, as unflappable as ever, insisted that her husband was not at home; that he had gone over the hill long ago and was by now probably well on his way to Topeka. And again the woman boldly invited the doubting Rebels to search the house. To his great relief though, Hugh Fisher did not hear the cellar door open, nor did he hear the thud of boots down the steps. He did hear, however, the breaking of chairs and shutters for kindling and a guerrilla swearing to kill his wife if she tried to extinguish the fire.

  Ignoring the threat, Elizabeth slammed the door in the raider’s face and raced to the well to fill buckets, pans, and tubs. This took time, however, and meanwhile more fires were being set. By the time she returned with the water, her two-story home was hopelessly ablaze. Running back to the front of the house, the desperate woman turned her energies toward saving the one-story kitchen and trying to keep her husband from being broiled alive. Climbing on the cookstove she doused the ceiling first. Then lugging two tables outside—setting one atop the other—Elizabeth scrambled up to the roof and threw more water on. But just as these flames were quenched much of the burning roof on the house crashed across the kitchen. Dipping up more water the woman drenched her clothing, then once again waded into the flames. But it was hopeless. At length, as the Rebels stood around the home watching her futile efforts, Elizabeth ran for more water and began flooding the kitchen floor under which her husband lay. A neighbor woman, as mystified as the bushwhackers, asked her why she was trying to save a piece of floor when her entire world was burning. “A memento,” she yelled back above the roar.