Confederate raider William Quantrill burned Lawrence to the ground 139 years ago. But before he did, he and Bishop John Miege had a face-to-face confrontation.
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Kansas City artist Ernst Ulmer painted this depiction of Quantrill's raid. It is displayed in the lobby of Lawrence's downtown Eldridge Hotel. The Eldridge was burned to the ground by Quantrill's raiders. |
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By Monte Mace
Leaven Staff
LAWRENCE - Confederate raider William Clarke Quantrill and his men sacked and burned much of this town 139 years ago.
And its citizens still haven't forgotten.
In fact, for the past seven years, the city has hosted a series of lectures, dramatic performances and walking tours commemorating the famous raid in which Quantrill and his band pillaged the town, which the raiders saw as a haven for abolitionists. In a single night - Aug. 21, 1863 - the Confederate guerrilla and his men killed nearly 200 boys and men and burned Lawrence's business district to the ground.
But few know that there is an interesting Catholic angle to the famous story. Bishop John Baptiste Miege, the first Catholic bishop of the territory, met Quantrill face to face in a brush with death just the night before the infamous raid in 1863.
Steve Jansen, a parishioner at Corpus Christi Church in Lawrence, knows the Bishop Miege story well. Jansen is a professional historian at the Watkins Community Museum of History and will present several talks and a walking tour during the event, including a presentation at the museum Aug. 20 entitled, "The Night Before the Raid."
Jansen relies on collections of letters and other original materials to flesh out the details of the tumultuous period in the region leading up to and through the war between the North and the South. He discovered the story of Bishop Miege's confrontation with the pro-slavery raider in a history of Lawrence's first Catholic church, St. John Parish, which was dedicated just three years before the famous raid. The history was written by a professor from Kansas University, Howard Smith, who was also a longtime St. John parishioner.
At that time, the town's population was around 2,000, and Jansen estimates only 100 or so residents would have been Catholic. They would have been viewed with some suspicion by most of the town's other residents, Jansen believes, because at that time Catholics were perceived as Democrats friendly to the South. This was significant because Kansas was just a territory at the time, so it was neither a free nor a slave state.
Lawrence had become a focal point for the growing dispute between the anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces in the nation, said Jansen. The city was established by liberal, abolitionist New Englanders in 1854 and immediately took a stand against the pro-slavery government located in Lecompton, 10 miles west of Lawrence.
"The town was not organized as a municipality until Feb. 20, 1858, because we refused to become organized as a municipal government so long as the pro-slavery territory legislature, which was elected through a bogus election, continued," Jansen said. "So in some ways Lawrence was in a state of civil disobedience from July 31, 1854, until Feb. 20, 1858."
In fact, Jensen - who holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Kansas - calls the area the "symbolic birthplace of the Civil War." He compared the tensions and violence in the area in the decade prior to the Civil War to Selma, Ala., and Little Rock, Ark., before the peak of the civil rights movement.
"It's not where civil rights began, but it's where civil rights went to a new level," said Jansen. "In 1854-56, this area is very much a fulcrum of the conflict between the North and the South. Kansas was very much perceived as a state that was on the border."
It was into this powder-keg atmosphere that Bishop Miege rode on Aug. 20, 1863. He came to town in order to confirm new Catholics at St. John Church, and stayed overnight at the home of the pastor, Father Sebastian Favre.
Smith's parish history recounts the confrontation this way:
"Father Sebastian Favre, pastor at the time of the raid, was awakened by the pounding of a Quaker minister and his wife. Father Favre wrapped the minister in an old carpet and hid them in the basement of the church. Quantrill had a particular dislike for ministers. Bishop Miege confronted Quantrill and explained his mission there. Quantrill closely scrutinized the occupants of the room and then with a sweep of his arm ordered his followers to leave without molesting anyone. Although the church, the rectory and the people in the rectory were spared the torch, 14 Catholics were killed in the raid."
Perhaps this close call during the border skirmishes convinced Bishop Miege to keep a gun near his bed. According to the official history of the archdiocese, "Bishop Miege was so fearful of the situation [the border wars] that he took to sleeping with a gun close at hand. One night the bishop was awakened by a sound and ended up shooting the tail off a nearby pig. That ended the bishop's association with firearms."
What caused Quantrill to spare Bishop Miege? We may never know. But one thing is sure. Had the confrontation of the two men led to the death of Bishop Miege, it would have changed the history of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas forever.
For Bishop Miege was not only the first bishop assigned to the Kansas territory. He was the bishop who, after that night in Lawrence, went on to oversee the founding of 55 churches and 82 missions in the region by 1869.
He also helped the Benedictine Sisters establish a monastery and school in Atchison, and the Sisters of Charity found a school and monastery in Leavenworth. Most of these churches, orders and schools are still in operation today.
For more information on Lawrence's "Civil War on the Western Frontier," running from Aug. 11-25, contact the Watkins Museum at 1047 Massachusetts St., (785) 841-4109, or the Visitor Information Center, 402 N. 2nd St., (785) 865-4499. The event includes showings of the movie, "Ride with the Devil," a Civil War drama filmed in Lawrence and starring Tobey Maguire.
- © 2002 by The Leaven. All rights reserved.