i know that, now read post #8 to which i replied...
Posted on 10/22/2015 5:57:43 PM PDT by Enlightened1
Abe really should’ve listened to Lige...
Note my tag line, in use since November 2008.
Western Kansas?
“I guess they were proud of it.”
I worked for a KS company for many years. I can assure you that the cultural divide between TX and KS is very wide. I had no difficulty with my employer, but they never quite got used to my direct manner. They were accustomed to yes men.
And I have been to Western KS. There are some places there that outsiders should be careful asking too many questions about the locals. There were some active militia groups there. (I know some in TX, but they are different)
It has been about 20 years since I made those observations, but I suspect it is still much like that.
Amazing coincidence! I hadn’t noticed.
Prior to, and during, the War Between the States (that’s the Civil War to yankees) Kansans would put on red leggings and raid into Missouri.
They claimed the leggings were the uniform that marked them as an official militia, but they were known even in Kansas as vigilantes.
For generations a native of Missouri calling a Kansan a Red Leg was worse than calling them a Godless Something Or Other.
The Kansas Missouri war was some of the most brutal fighting because it was between groups of civilians loosely formed into militias and vigilante groups.
Missouri took the worst of it because while there was little in the way of official Confederate forces there, Kansas had a detachment of Union cavalry that kept most of the fighting in Missouri.
The great exception was when Lawrence, Kansas was raided by Quantril in 1863.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_massacre
i know that, now read post #8 to which i replied...
I had family on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri line.
I’m sorry.
I replied to the wrong post. I meant to reply to #8, somehow I hit the reply on the wrong one
May have made for some tense family relations.
It truly was a brother against brother war at times, especially along the border states.
no worries... and you're right, they were evil
Well, they weren’t family then. I’m just descended from both.
LOL. Also whatever happened to Benny? In the scenes with Abe and Lige, Benny on the horse was suppose to be nearby.
I noticed it in the $5 bin at Walmart today, picked it up, and thought nah I’ll be frugal, and put it back.
Bad decision! Think I’ll go back and get it tomorrow, thanks for the prompting!
I spent five years in Western, Kansas. I worked the counties around Ford County which is Dodge City.
I was born and bred in the Florida Panhandle but those Kansans kept thinking I was a Texan.
One of the best movies ever made.
Living in three different areas where the Red Legs burnt towns and murdered people it was always good to see an accurate portrayal of them.
As I type this I am sitting on the spot where the Ghost Railroad was “supposed” to be.
One of my favorite movie moments ... EVER.
Thanks for posting.
The Outlaw Josie Wales also managed to incorporate several seldom remembered historical figures like Stand Watie and Ten Bears of the Comanche.
I am not a big fan of Clint Eastwood's personal life but he has been a major American cinematic champion. He has caused a generation or two of young men to admire spine.
Yes they were. The real militia, the Jayhawkers, were bad enough.
The red legs were evil incarnate. The worst of the abolitionist movement with a good measure of everyday rogues mixed in.
Lucky you.
Any of the family ever tell stories from those days?
Not much. Too far back for that.
The only story that came down from the Kansas Free Staters is that John Brown stopped off at the family farm near Fort Scott a number of times. Four adult family members, including my great-great-great grandfather Ezra Chandler and his wife, died young at Fort Scott, leaving their family to scatter...some west to Oregon, some to Nebraska, and some back east. Some of them never saw each other again, and others not for as much as the next fifty years.
My great-great grandfather Abner Chandler returned to Lake County Illinois where he joined Company D of the Illinois 96th Volunteer Infantry at the age of sixteen, serving throughout the war. He was wounded at the battle of Kenesaw Mountain, and recovered enough to fight at the battles of Franklin and Nashville. He ended up being one of the pioneers of Sac County, Iowa.
The Missouri clan, most families of which can be traced back through Kentucky to Tidewater Virginia, included Joel and Patsy Stollings Estes, who after having made a small fortune in California during the gold rush, ended up driving the first horses and cattle into Colorado...eventually discovering and then claiming what became Estes Park...the gateway to what is now Rocky Mountain National Park. They also brought the first black slaves to Colorado, which was a wonderment to the Indians. Thousands of them flocked to see this strange sight. It’s said that it was very difficult to keep the Indians from stealing them. Joel freed his slaves in Missouri not long before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was issued.
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