Bloody Dawn Page 19
Rising with the sun, clearing the rubble, waiting on customers with soot-smeared face and hands, still Peter Ridenour was never so tired at day’s end that he could not return to the bedside of his friend. And to his great relief, he watched as Harlow Baker’s condition improved with each passing day. Although his partner could speak, he still suffered much, and little was said between the men, and not a word about the business. Then one evening, quite unexpectedly, Baker looked up at his old friend and smiled. “Now, tell me what you are doing,” he whispered. From that moment on, the last doubt vanished and Peter Ridenour knew they had won. The bond would not be broken.26
Money and supplies began to reach Lawrence in greater amounts. Although the East rose to the crisis, Leavenworth continued to give and do the most by far. Funds there were solicited anew and the machines of hastily formed sewing circles whirred night and day, stitching out clothes, sheets, and pillows. But the catastrophe was great, the resources of the state limited.
“For God’s sake,” wrote a citizen of Leavenworth to a wealthy Chicago friend, “This is no ‘shrieking Kansas cry.’ ” Having just returned from Lawrence he could vouch for that. The Kansan beseeched his friend to send as much clothing as possible for, he said, the survivors were almost naked.27 And for the people of Chicago the tragic stories of the past two weeks suddenly became much more than black ink and statistics when a host of widows and orphans stopped for a day in the town. The women, noted a journalist, were “exceedingly painful to behold.” They were “pale and haggard, as if just risen from a long illness, with an expression of terror and fright.… They seemed to tremble at every slight noise.”28
Like this pathetic group, hundreds more with no recourse were compelled to return to families in the East. Although only half the original population remained in Lawrence, recovery did continue. And with most admitting that a terrible mistake had indeed been made, Sallie Young returned from Fort Leavenworth, free of all charges.
Early on Wednesday, September 2, John Schofield stepped off the ferry and walked up through the streets of Leavenworth. Behind followed an impressive staff, gold and silver glittering on blue coats, revolvers on hips. Entering the Planter’s Hotel the officers from St. Louis got down to business.
Schofield first spoke with Governor Carney and his aides. Once more the governor pledged his support and determination to reestablish peace on the Kansas-Missouri line. Satisfied, the general then “asked and obtained” a long interview with his most bitter accuser, James Lane. Coming to the point, he asked Lane about the Paola movement and his plans for September 8. Speaking in his own inimitable way, the senator rehashed his views, the views of Kansas, so he said, the determination of the people to march from Paola to Missouri and make a “desert waste.” Little or nothing could prevent the inevitable, he added, and a prudent man wouldn’t try. Unimpressed, the general replied that no unauthorized force would enter Missouri.
Surprised at Schofield’s inner toughness, Lane tried to strike a sly deal, offering to the hard-smoking general—the man he was hoping to see unemployed within a fortnight—a position as supervisor of the Paola affair. If the general would oversee the operation then not only would he gain grace with Kansans, but he would also be on the spot to judge how the thing was handled, or so the reasoning went. John Schofield was no fool. And he had not traveled all the way from St. Louis just to hear this. To accept the offer, unthinkable as it was, would temporarily salve Kansas but place the blame firmly on his shoulders should pillage and murder erupt. To refuse, as Lane knew he must, would set him at odds with not only Kansans but radicals everywhere, and the senator would use it for all it was worth. Again the general’s response was a flat no.
Lane continued the argument and tried to bargain but Schofield, not swayed in the least, only shook his head. No mob, under any circumstances, would cross the line, and now the senator from Kansas knew it! Lane warned the commander to consider what he had just said and digest it slowly, for if he persisted in his refusal to allow Kansans the “right” to search for their property, he would lay the case at the feet of his close friend and confidant, President Abraham Lincoln. With that the stormy duel ended. And John Schofield, facing down one of the most powerful men in America, had not budged an inch.29
That evening as promised Jim Lane delivered his second speech in less than a week. As before he spoke to a large audience in front of the Mansion House. Once more the senator called on the people to rise up and march on Missouri, assuring the crowd that the military would not interfere; on the contrary, he said, they would even cooperate with the expedition. The speech rambled on in a similar vein, Lane touching upon politics and himself, railing into the night against Missouri and treason.30
On the day following his joust with Lane, General Schofield steamed downriver and met with Thomas Ewing. The two men discussed at length the crisis along the border and the best means of dealing with it. Just speaking with a few leaders was not enough, they agreed, and so the generals issued a proclamation, spelling out in black and white the government’s position. “No armed bodies of men,” ran the decree, “will be permitted, under any pretext whatever, to pass from one State to the other.”31 The statement was brief, yet clear; how the majority of Kansans would react remained to be seen.
When the dawn of September 8 came, the date appointed for the invasion of Missouri, dark and heavy skies hung low over the border. Throughout the morning men continued to arrive in Paola, a place that had seen its share of excitement in the past two weeks. One hundred blacks were on hand, and even some women joined the crowd. Although the gathering was large for such a small town, it was not the 5,000 men asked for, certainly not the 10,000 promised. But everyone agreed that if the turnout was disappointing, their numbers were still more than enough, and just as important, the spirit of vengeance was very much alive.
Then as promised, and with a claque at his coattails, James Lane stalked through the crowd and mounted the stage. “I know not what course others may pursue,” the senator began, “but as for me, I don’t intend to leave this town until I have indemnity for the past, and security for the future.”
With that the clouds broke open and the rain came down in a roar. As the drenched crowd gathered about the speaker’s stand, Lane began a rant that continued in the deluge for three solid hours. Unlike the Leavenworth harangues, however, talk of invasion was noticeably lacking. The few times he alluded to it his speech was halted by loud applause, which only caused the senator to quickly shift to slavery, Schofield, or Quantrill.
“Why the devil don’t Schofield go after him, and if he can’t catch him, why don’t he let us? We are entitled to protection.… We’ve got the brains on Schofield, big! I don’t pretend to hold Old Abe responsible for the acts of Schofield; I hold that officer himself responsible, and I don’t think another man so deficient and wanting in brains as Schofield could be found.”
“Let’s go to Missouri,” came an impatient voice over the pounding rain. “Down with Schofield and Ewing.”32
But other than this, little occurred save Lane telling the waterlogged crowd that Schofield would not grant them the right to enter Missouri. And with that the meeting wound down by tamely passing resolutions. Thus, as the dispirited men splashed back home, the much-vaunted expedition to Missouri came to an end. Undoubtedly, a number of fair-weather soldiers were kept away by rain and muddy roads. A far greater number, however, had indeed taken a “sober second thought,” and when their anger cooled sufficiently it was easy to see the truth of the matter—that Generals Schofield and Ewing, along with nearly all Kansans, were striving to achieve the same goal: an end to the border war. But probably most bitter and embarrassing of all, especially for those swept right into Paola, was the dawning that once more they had been diced up and skewered for yet another political barbecue.
Even as excitement swirled in Kansas over the Paola movement, just east of the line the gears of Order No. 11 were grinding on and hurling the people from the land. At
first the evacuation had been hesitant; some who left early returned again and again to haul away possessions. But as the deadline drew nigh, the trickle of refugees on the roads soon became a swift stream. Most packed what little they owned into broken-down wagons and once-splendid carriages, hitched a mule with washboard ribs, took a backward glance, and left their homes forever. The journey alone would have been enough. But there were other hazards. Ewing’s men, composed almost entirely of Kansas troops, were on the roads too, waiting at fords and crossroads, ensuring that the order was obeyed, searching for weapons and other contraband. Many showed only a thimble of restraint and seized the chance to punish their old foes and steal what little remained. A number didn’t even wait for the Missourians to clear their dwellings, but burst in, pushing and shoving, looting and setting fires. To protest was to invite a drawn pistol, a beating, or worse. Some were arrested and thrown into prison and never heard from again, whereas others showed up days later, floating face down in the Missouri.33
Near Lone Jack, shortly before the deadline, a group was loading the last of its belongings, “straining every nerve” to escape the doomed region. Just as the people were about to leave, a party of Federals rode up. After interrogating the menfolk, two were allowed to continue with the women and children but six others ranging in age from seventeen to seventy-five were held for further questioning. When the families had gone about a mile, shots were heard back up the road. Returning to the area, six bodies were found sprawled on the grass, “shockingly mangled,” some unrecognizably so. The widows could do little more than weep, bury the dead, and hurry in their flight. “The world will doubtless be told that six more bushwhackers have been cut off,” lamented a survivor.34
As promised, George Caleb Bingham set to work on his next painting. Bingham was wealthy, and for him money had ceased to be a concern in life. Not only was he the most sought after portraitist in Missouri but he was also one of the most accomplished landscape artists in America. Unlike his previous works, however, which so vividly expressed his own free spirit and winging optimism, Bingham knew that, when completed, the next would be stiff and ugly to behold; in creating it each stroke of the brush would be a bitter, painful reminder of a deep and personal tragedy. Passing along the roads of western Missouri, the former Union soldier witnessed for himself the suffering and confusion of his beloved countrymen. Each cruel scene that met his burning gaze became yet another terrible sketch seared forever in his mind. Eventually, the outline was complete. As for Thomas Ewing, a seat of honor in the painting was being reserved especially for him, and more than ever before the little artist was determined to cast down to “eternal infamy” the man and the deed, as he had vowed.35
But no amount of painting could undo what was already done. By September 9, two weeks after Ewing signed the paper, western Missouri was bleak and silent. Order No. 11 had been carried out, as one officer put it, “to the letter.” By day the smoke hung thick in the air, and at night the clouds above the border were streaked with red. From that time forth, the region so happy and prosperous prior to the war came to be known as simply “the burnt district.”
Some of the people, those who could prove their loyalty, did enter the garrisoned towns or crossed to an uncertain life in Kansas. Those who could not yet were fortunate enough to have relatives elsewhere and the means to get there left with a degree of hope. But for the majority, with little money and nowhere to go, they simply drifted off following others who were going nowhere, subsisting on roots, cracked corn, and green apples. Although begged for, shelter was denied at schools and churches.36 “There come the refugees, take in your clothes,” Union women mocked.37
One man, viewing the flight from a snug vantage point, laughed at their condition. Scornfully he remarked that the victims were “haggard, woe-begone, melancholy, and of course disloyal.” Others had similar comments. Whether these people noticed or not, or whether they cared, the irony of it all was that the same trains, boats, and trails used by the Missourians to flee their state were the same trains, boats, and trails used by Kansans to flee theirs.38
In a letter to John Schofield dated the last of August 1863, General Ewing sized up the situation in the West as he saw it and amplified on his recent Order No. 11. The message had ended on a cautious but positive note: “The execution of these orders will possibly lead to a still fiercer and more active struggle … but will soon result, though with much unmerited loss and suffering, in putting an end to this savage border war.”39
If Thomas Ewing could somehow look far away into the peaceful distance to a time when “this savage border war” would at last be ended, Kansans could not. They saw only the grim here and now and the “fiercer struggle” that yet lay ahead. Even with two additional regiments and the border patrols doubled, the general feeling was that no force known could keep Quantrill out of Kansas if he had a mind to come.
“Never,” noted an observer, had he “seen the people—the lionhearted courageous men and women of Kansas—so thoroughly disheartened.”40 “They have lost all confidence,” said another. And now, with the guerrillas undoubtedly more vengeful than ever before, the horizon in Kansas never looked blacker. Every shifting breeze carried its alarm. Quantrill was said to be here—pillaging and murdering near Fort Scott to the south, then there—leading a thousand men toward Leavenworth in the north. He was moving south to “kill, burn, and plunder everything,” while at the same time he was marching west to finish off Olathe. Osawatomie was on fire. Endless knots of his men were filtering up the Marais des Cygnes Valley to form and fall on a town in the rear. Again he was going south but at Elwood in the north there was wild panic. “Look Out,” warned an excited editor. “Where the blow will fall, nobody can tell.”41
All business ground to a halt. And while their fields went to rot, local militias, exhausted and stretched to the limit, marched and patrolled day and night. “I wish to God, Quantrell was on the Union side!” one militiaman burst out.42
Terrified families from the border streamed into the larger towns while others fled far to the interior. Many gave up the state entirely. Some stubborn individuals did remain, however, determined to hold their hard-won farms to the last. But it wasn’t for long. As the final act of Order No. 11 was being played out in Missouri, a rumor swept into Kansas like a whirlwind, causing a “perfect stampede,” emptying farms and villages, and completely clearing the land. An edict had been issued by Quantrill himself, so it went, requiring all Union citizens in the border counties south of the Kaw to be off the land within fifteen days. He and his men were surely coming, the report continued, and any man found in the restricted zone who could not prove his loyalty to the Confederacy must certainly know the rest!
Unlike Ewing’s order, no troops were on hand to force Kansans from the border. But like their neighbors across the line, the people of the state went just as swiftly, just as surely.43
Then, with a strip of desolation fifty miles wide, an eerie calm settled over the western border. “The stillness,” wrote Ewing, “is like that which preceded the Lawrence raid.”
“No sign of Quantrill,” came the report from Lexington in the north.
“Still as death.… They have mysteriously disappeared,” echoed the eastern district. To the south, the word was the same with no Rebels seen in any sector. But they were there, and from some of his best spies Ewing soon knew where.44
Suddenly, in mid-September Ewing sprang the trap. With hundreds of troops posted to guard the passes leading south, thousands more swarmed in from the north for a sweep up the Sni Valley. The general’s plan was simple, yet direct: First, press the guerrillas so vigorously, so relentlessly that a club and claw fight to the finish would be their only option, and second, flush those who survived to the south for a slaughter on the prairie beyond. The core of the hunt was Col. William Weer’s Tenth Kansas, just returned from Ohio and the successful chase of the raider John Morgan. Perhaps one of the best antipartisan men in the country, the colonel knew all the
tricks. And as he moved up the Sni, Weer had a man on his left flank who understood the “habits of the animal” better than any, Charles Coleman. Also participating was Bazel Lazear and his Missouri militia, who, on that hot afternoon by the banks of Big Creek, had come within a hair of making much of the Sni campaign unnecessary. With almost a thousand men, Colonel Lazear eagerly joined the hunt. “If we could only succeed in catching Quantrill,” he excitedly wrote his wife, “that would put the cap-sheaf on for us.”45
Almost immediately Coleman struck home. He and his company surprised a large band of bushwhackers, killed two, captured forty horses, and destroyed a large amount of equipment. The rest were driven ahead. Lazear had a similar success. There were more clashes and more Rebels slain. As the last days of September slipped by and the net closed tighter on the Sni, Ewing sent a hasty reminder to his troops at the southern passes to get ready. Never in the history of the border war had such an operation taken place, and with Weer, Lazear, and Coleman in the brush there was a feeling in the air that the time had finally arrived. And if officers were guarded in their words, others were not.
“With a large force of experienced border fighters now on his track,” one man predicted, “his escape is hardly possible.”
“They cannot run far now.”46
Far to the south, James Blunt lounged comfortably in his parked buggy, “enjoying a quiet smoke,” a five-gallon demijohn of brandy by his side. It was a sunny autumn day in southeast Kansas and the general was on the road to Arkansas. Although he was hoping to make a “quick trip,” at the moment Blunt sat waiting for the rest of his column to close up before going into the Union fort at Baxter Springs, a mere stone’s throw away. In addition to the eight wagons that composed his train, there were staff officers, civilians, Blunt’s brass band, and regular soldiers acting as escort—over one hundred men in all.