The FReeper Foxhole Remembers Bushwhackers and Jayhawkers (1850's - 1860's) - June 27th, 2005

America's Civil War Magazine. | March 1999 | Bowen Kerrihard

[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

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for all those serving their country at this time.

.................................................................. .................... ...........................................

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Bitter Bushwhackers
and
Jayhawkers

For half a decade before the Civil War, residents of the neighboring states of Missouri and Kansas waged their own civil war. It was a conflict whose scars were a long time in healing.

The Civil War came early to Missouri and Kansas, stayed late, and was characterized at all times by unremitting and unparalleled brutality. More than anywhere else, it was truly a civil war.

The first formal military action in Missouri took place less than a month after the April 1861 Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter, S.C. On May 10, Federal troops led by hotheaded Captain Nathaniel Lyon took over at gunpoint the arsenal at Camp Jackson, near St. Louis. Lyon's soldiers brutally fired into a riotous mob of Southern sympathizers, leaving 20 people dead. It was an ominous beginning to official hostilities.

John Brown was the most controversial of the abolitionists who arrived in the Kansas territory with a committment of ending slavery.

Three years later, Confederate Maj. Gen. Sterling "Pap" Price led a last-gasp raid across the state. Forced to bypass St. Louis because of overwhelming Federal strength there, Price's troops struggled past Hermann, Boonville, Glasgow, Lexington and Independence before losing an engagement at Westport, now part of Kansas City, and retiring, exhausted, into Arkansas. Westport was the last major Civil War battle west of the Mississippi River, yet it was but one of the 1,162 battles and skirmishes fought in Missouri during the conflict.

Usually subordinated to events east of the Mississippi, these and other western battles became slender chapters in the history of the war. But it is in the footnotes, so to speak, that the true character of the war in Missouri and Kansas is revealed. This dark soul is epitomized by two words: Bushwhackers and Jayhawkers.

As a bird, the Jayhawk does not exist; it is as fabulous as the mythological roc. But Jayhawkers were very real, indeed, in the days leading up to the Civil War. A Jayhawker was one of a band of anti-slavery, pro-Union guerrillas coursing about Kansas and Missouri, impelled by substantially more malice than charity. Jayhawkers were undisciplined, unprincipled, occasionally murderous, and always thieving. Indeed, Jayhawking became a widely used synonym for stealing.


Free-State battery set-up by John Brown to protect Lawrence, Kansas.

For all this, Jayhawking carried no social stigma. Some prominent, influential and highly respected leaders were associated with Jayhawking. Among them was James Henry Lane, the self-styled "Grim Chieftain," a lanky Hoosier demagogue whose biography included terms in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, a penchant for fiery oratory, and a tendency not to repay his debts. Another was New England-born Dan Anthony, an ardent abolitionist and the brother of suffragette Susan B. Anthony, who was commemorated a century later by a poorly planned and short lived dollar coin.

Probably the most overt Jayhawker of all was Charles R. "Doc" Jennison. In truth, Jennison was unique. A runty, consumptive dandy, originally from New York, he practiced medicine briefly in Wisconsin before coming to Kansas to practice the more lucrative trade of horse stealing. For years, the lineage of many good horses in Iowa and Illinois was said to be "out of Missouri by Jennison."

While Jennison's skill at stealing horses was apocryphal, his abolitionist sympathies were clear. He demonstrated this in 1860 by heading a posse that hanged two unfortunate Missourians caught trying to return fugitive slaves to their masters.


James H. Lane was active in the U.S. military and government before moving to Kansas in 1855. He soon became one of the leaders of the Kansas Jayhawkers.

Bushwhackers were cut from much the same cloth, but that cloth was butternut instead of blue. Bushwhackers favored the Confederacy. Some Bushwhackers were semi-legitimate soldiers, even grudgingly acknowledged as such by the Confederate Army. Such men as William Quantrill, "Bloody Bill" Anderson, John Thrailkill, David Pool, Jo Shelby and Jeff Thompson were in this category. Others were simply banditti with a quasi-military excuse for vengeful ambush, robbery, murder, arson and plunder.

It was excellent training, as well, for the postwar careers of some survivors. Was there a shortage of money to live on, or to buy horses or food? Horses and food could always be stolen. But cash was in banks, stagecoaches and railroad trains. It did not take the guerrillas long to figure out how it could be liberated for their use. Frank James and his kid brother Jesse, tagging along with Quantrill's men, turned the knowledge to good account after 1865. So did their cousins, Coleman and Jim Younger. It was a fertile training ground for bandits of all stripes.

Price and Lyon, Lane and Jennison, Quantrill and Shelby are among the best-remembered names of the conflict. Myriad others, however--slaughtered men, women and children--were the forgotten victims of the undeclared Kansas-Missouri border war that raged in the 1850s. The perpetrators on both sides were labeled "border ruffians" by a young newspaper correspondent named James Redpath, and New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley publicized the epithet widely. But ruffians was too kind a term--murderers would have been more accurate.


Charles R. Jennison
In all the merciless warfare carried on in Linn County, Jennison bore an active part and became the scourge of the Missouri murderers and man-stealers.

Kansas was the catalyst for the spiraling violence. In 1854, Kansas was a territory, sparsely settled but a strong candidate for statehood under provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which left the decision of slavery up to the residents of the territory. At polar political extremes were the abolitionists and pro-slavery Southerners. The former, very strong in New England, detested slavery and wanted Kansas admitted to the Union as a Free State. The Southerners, for their part, feared Yankee domination of Kansas; if its settlers voted it in as a non-slave state, their grip on congressional power would be eroded. They saw a free Kansas as a dire threat to their political, economic and cultural existence. Representatives of both viewpoints rushed to stake property claims and establish voting rights in the contested territory.

From slaveholding Missouri came scores, then hundreds of "settlers" to vote on the vital statehood issue. Slave or Free? Votes were taken and tallied. The answer: Slave. And the voters? Gone, most of them, back to their homes in Missouri. "Foul!" screamed the Free Staters.

[SAMWolf]

As tempers rose, common people began to die uncommonly violent deaths. Near Lawrence, Kan., on November 21, 1855, Franklin Coleman, a pro-slavery claim-jumper from Missouri, gunned down Charles Dow, a neighboring Free Stater from Ohio, shooting him in the back. Pro-slavery Sheriff Samuel Jones of Westport cynically used the murder as a pretext to arrest Dow's companion Jacob Branson and gather 1,500 pro-slavers from Missouri for an attack on Lawrence.


Free stater William Frederick Milton Arny, in disguise to spy in Missouri in 1856

The ensuing "War of the Wakarusa" consisted more of diplomatic maneuvering than bloodshed, but it did cement the polarization and inflame passions in the area. It also spurred the gathering of armed Free Staters in Lawrence under the command of Dr. Charles Robinson. Second in command was "Colonel" James H. Lane.

Two weeks later, Thomas W. Barber, a Free Stater, was murdered near Lawrence by pro-slaver George Clark, and during election violence in January 1856, E.P. Brown of Leavenworth was killed in a skirmish as a member of a Free State company attempting to drive ruffians from Leavenworth County. Another unlucky Brown, R.P., was brutally hatcheted in the head the same year.

On April 23, Sheriff Jones, still harassing Free Staters under a tenuous guise of legality, was shot and severely wounded, as was Free Stater J.N. Mace five days later. Seeking vengeance, a posse led by Federal Marshal Israel B. Donaldson murdered a Free State boy named Jones and a friend of his near Lawrence on May 19. The youth had been returning home to care for his widowed mother. Free Staters were infuriated by the senseless killing.


Sheriff Sam Jones
He was a pro-slavery activist who was the postmaster of Weston Missouri. He gathered 1,500 men and led an attack on Lawrence in 1856

Violence grew in scale three days later when a band of about 800 ruffians assaulted Lawrence. Among their leaders was fire-breathing Missouri Senator David Rice Atchison, dubbed "Staggering Davy" by some for his alleged fondness for hard drink. The mob destroyed two local Free State newspaper offices, looted the town of more than $150,000 in merchandise, and burned the home of Governor Charles Robinson. A particular target was the Free State Hotel, a bastion for Free Staters. Its architecture included exceptionally thick walls and loopholes through which guns could be fired. A 12-pound howitzer was trundled to the hotel. The first shot at the three-story, 80-foot-wide building was reportedly aimed by Staggering Davy Atchison; it sailed over the hotel to a distant hill. The hotel withstood more than 50 rounds of more accurate fire and an attempt to blow it up with gunpowder placed within, but the structure was finally gutted by fire. Amazingly, the raid produced only two fatalities: a raider who accidentally shot himself, and another ruffian killed by a brick falling from the hotel.

Claiming revenge for the raid on Lawrence, fanatic abolitionist John Brown and seven followers shot and hacked five settlers to death near Dutch Henry's Crossing of Pottawatomie Creek, west of Osawatomie. Brown's motives may have extended beyond righteous fury at the ruffians' actions; there is some evidence they included horse theft to redeem his failing financial fortunes.

On May 19, 1858, a pro-slavery band led by Charles Hamelton executed unarmed Free State men near Marais des Cygnes on the Kansas-Missouri border. A native Georgian who had been forced from Kansas into Missouri, Hamelton assembled about 30 followers and returned to the territory. Along the way, the band captured 11 Free Staters, some of whom were former neighbors of Hamelton's and expected no harm from him. The captives were herded into a ravine and shot, first from horseback and then by the dismounted raiders. Five of the 11 victims died, and Hamelton and his men immediately returned to Missouri. The massacre was chronicled by abolitionist writer John Greenleaf Whittier in a poem that appeared in the the September 1858 issue of the Atlantic Monthly and further inflamed abolitionist sentiment, as Whittier had intended.


John Doy (seated) and his rescue party
Dr. John Doy was caught trying to free slaves in Missouri. He was put in jail at St. Joseph. This group of Lawrence men went to St. Joseph and broke Doy out of jail.

Such incidents were by no means isolated. Two hundred people died in the border dispute between November 1855 and December 1856 alone. The Civil War was not merely a seamless extension of the agony of "Bleeding Kansas," it was a direct result of it.

One of the most notorious individual units operating in Kansas was the 7th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. Doc Jennison started it, although he was not around at the end. Ubiquitous Dan Anthony led it for a while. To both friends and foes, it was better known as "Jennison's Jayhawkers" and was proclaimed as the "Independent Kansas Jay-Hawkers" on Jennison's original recruiting poster of August 1861.

Political ambition fed Jennison's military ardor, as it did Anthony's and Lane's. On October 28, 1861, the 7th Kansas was mustered into U.S. service with Jennison as colonel and Anthony as lieutenant colonel. The regiment, comprising volunteers from Kansas and nearby states, became part of Jim Lane's Kansas brigade. Birds of a feather were now flying in formation. Or, more accurately, Jayhawking in cahoots. Jennison referred to his regiment as "self-sustaining," which meant simply that every foray into Missouri liberated more supplies than were carried into the state. Contraband seized from Southern sympathizers inevitably included horses, livestock and wagonloads of agricultural products--a minuscule fraction of which found their way to the Federal commissary. Slaves, too, gleefully trooped westward to freedom in Kansas. If other items found their way into the Jayhawkers' possession--items such as civilian furniture, silverware and money--such was the bitter price of secession. And if a few Secesh homes caught fire along the way, that, too, was the price their owners paid for rebellion.


Senator Atchison of Missouri held the office of President for one day between Polk and Taylor. He was a pro-slaver who rode with Sheriff Sam Jones and Quantrill’s raid.

Perhaps the pinnacle of Jennison's pointless depredation was achieved at Harrisonburg, Mo., where another outfit had looted the depository of the American Bible Society before Doc's men arrived, leaving only the stock of Bibles. The 7th took the Bibles. Webster Moses, a member of the regiment, wrote to his Illinois sweetheart Nancy about a typical foray near Lone Jack: "About 10 of us went out jayhawking...before breakfast...caught their horses and took the best ones...found some silver ware...I got the cupps, two silver Ladles and two sets spoons....I gave Downing one ladle and the other to Capt Merriman...some of the boys got in some places about $100.00 worth of silver and...considerable money."

Although such behavior continued for less than five months, it left an indelible mark on Missouri and the historical reputation of the 7th. Missouri was technically in the Union, and many of the citizens despoiled by the Jayhawkers were loyal Unionists. Wild with anxiety that the Jayhawkers would create more Rebels than they conquered, Federal authorities determined to put them where they could do no further harm. Originally they were to be transferred to New Mexico, but in May 1862 they were sent to Kentucky, then to Tennessee, and were seen no more in Kansas until their mustering out in September 1865.

Jennison, who was seldom with the regiment in the field, departed in April 1862, and Anthony resigned his commission four months later. Both pursued successful postwar commercial and political careers in Leavenworth, and the regiment, under new and more capable military leadership, performed well in subsequent campaigns, Jayhawking less but pursued to the end by a bad reputation richly earned in a short but boisterous period.

Jennison's closest Southern counterpart, William Clarke Quantrill, was a puzzle, seemingly a study in contradictions. Assertive at times, at other times moody and reclusive, he was a leader who earned both loyalty and contempt. He was undeniably intelligent; he had once been a schoolteacher in Fort Wayne, Ind. That he was also a coldblooded killer was discernible in his heavy-ridded, pale-blue eyes and the almost effeminate lips that smiled wanly beneath his sweeping moustache. He was 26 years old when he destroyed Lawrence, Kan., and entered the history books alongside Tamerlane and Attila the Hun.

[SAMWolf]

Quantrill and his followers sacked Lawrence on August 21, 1863. The deed was so dramatic, so bestial, and of such magnitude that it caught the imagination of the public and, in the end, made more of Quantrill than was really there. Other guerrilla leaders such as Bill Anderson and Jo Shelby accomplished more militarily. Quantrill's raid, conversely, symbolized the senseless violence that characterized Bushwhacking at its worst, and perhaps for that reason more than any other has been granted a permanent niche in American folklore.


William C. Quantrill
A Bushwhacker who played both sides, he formed a band of guerilla fighters and was responsable for the Lawrence massacre.

Revenge for Union atrocities, real or imagined, was one stimulus for the Lawrence raid. A three-story brick building in Kansas City was used by the Federals as a prison for women alleged to have aided Bushwhackers. On August 14, the building collapsed; among the five women who died were the sisters of Bushwhackers Bill Anderson and John McCorkle. Quantrill used this incident to fire up support for an attack on Lawrence, plans for which until then had drawn a cool reception even from his hard-bitten associates.

There were other motives for the raid, as well. Loot, of course, was always a motivation among Bushwhackers. To some extent, there was also the desire to show the Federals that they could operate with impunity in Union territory. Quantrill's need to invigorate his flagging support was another. And information that Jim Lane was in Lawrence whetted Quantrill's appetite. He wanted Lane's scalp--figuratively or literally--very badly. If it were to be literally, teenager Archie Clement would be delighted to please his leader. Archie "skelpt" more than one dead Union cavalryman and beheaded another.

Quantrill, Bill Anderson and George Todd led 450 men into Lawrence at 7 a.m. on August 21. They carried lists of specific targets for assassination, but they also heeded Quantrill's final instructions to "kill every man big enough to carry a gun."


"Bloody" Bill Anderson
One of the most ruthless of the Missouri guerilla fighters. Jessie James rode with his band.

The first Kansan to die was the Reverend S.S. Snyder, shot in his yard as he milked his cow. At 9 a.m. the Bushwhackers rode out, saddlebags laden with booty, many of the raiders swaying from the effects of newly liberated spirits. In 120 minutes, they had devastated the dusty town of 2,000 inhabitants and killed 150 of its male citizens. Many were gunned down before their wives and children; others died trapped in their flaming homes. Then the raiders torched the entire community, burning $2 million worth of property.

Jim Lane was, indeed, at Lawrence that day. The gaunt spellbinder heard the raiders coming and accurately guessed they would be looking very particularly for him. In his nightshirt, he ran from his house and hid in a corn patch. He survived then, as he did so often through his bizarre political career, on quick wit and quicker action, with no compunctions about his public appearance. Better a live coward than a dead hero, he reasoned.

Ironically, Quantrill's well-known and senseless raid on Lawrence was followed six weeks later by an almost forgotten but militarily more significant encounter. Leading his men southward to winter in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), Quantrill was drawn to the Union outpost at Baxter Springs, Kan., just west of Joplin, Mo. Here, on October 6, his forces captured the small fort and a wagon train of Union Maj. Gen. James Blunt's headquarters entourage. Blunt escaped to nearby Fort Scott, but 90 of his soldiers were captured and massacred, and Blunt was relieved of command. A drunken Quantrill boasted that he had accomplished in one day what Confederate Colonel Jo Shelby and Maj. Gen. John Marmaduke had failed for years to do: whip Blunt. The assertion was true, but it also emphasized Quantrill's increasingly desperate need to counter through acclaim the growing apathy and disgust of many of his own followers.


The Quantrill raid on Lawrence in the early morning of August 21, 1863, as depicted in water color by Mrs. Lauretta Louise Fox Fisk

By the third year of the war, a vast area of Missouri had been burned and depopulated. The western counties closest to Kansas were the hardest hit. Many former residents were either dead, had fled before torch and ambuscade, or had been evicted as a result of Union Brig. Gen. Thomas Ewing's notorious Order Number 11 of August 1863, which mandated the removal of all western counties inhabitants and the burning of their homes so that they could not harbor Confederate guerrillas.

Typical of the towns affected by Ewing's order was Nevada, about 25 miles east of Fort Scott. So many guerrillas lived in and around the little community that it had become known to Unionists as the "Bushwhacker capital." On May 24, 1863, it was the site of an attack on a Federal militia party by Bushwhackers led by Captain William Marchbanks and "Pony" Hill. Two days later, reinforced Union militia returned to Nevada and burned it. In some ways, Order Number 11 simply confirmed what had already been happening.

For all its infamy, Order Number 11 did achieve one goal: it deprived Bushwhackers of the protection, nurture and victims that fed their depredations. They simply took their business elsewhere. Elsewhere was "Little Dixie," the area flanking the rich valley of the Missouri River. Little Dixie's presence in the northern half of Missouri derived from a topographic peculiarity. As settlers, mostly Southerners, moved north and west into Missouri, the Scottish-Irish "hillbillies" from the upper South naturally gravitated toward the mountainous area of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. Lowland planters from the deep South crossed the path of the highlanders, settled in the fertile river basin, and financed pillared mansions with the income from slave-raised hemp and cotton.


Downtown Lawrence after Quantrill's Raid.

Despite desperate Union efforts to suppress Confederate Bushwhackers, Little Dixie witnessed almost daily--even into the war's last year--the savagery of guerrilla warfare. Take, for example, the three months from mid-July to mid-October 1864. By then, moody Bill Quantrill's behavior had become too bizarre for many of his own men. Some adopted Bill Anderson as their leader; others followed George Todd and John Thrailkill. Quantrill was left to wander at the head of a small band of loyalists.

Bill Anderson had grown up in Huntsville. Hometown allegiance, however, apparently did not deter Bill from raiding the place on July 15, robbing merchants and a bank of $45,000 and shooting down a passerby imprudent enough to try to stop the raiders. Anderson did, at least, make his boys return money stolen from people with whom he had gone to school.

Two days later, Anderson led 35 followers into nearby Rocheport, savaging the town and terrifying its inhabitants. On July 23, 100 of his raiders gutted the railroad station in Renick. The next day, the Bushwhackers ambushed and dispersed a pursuing company of the 17th Illinois Cavalry. Two slain Federals were found scalped. Attached to the collar of one was a note: "You come to hunt bush whackers. Now you are skelpt. Clemyent Skept you." Eighteen-year-old Archie had left his mad calling card.



Following the engagement, Anderson's men moved north into Shelby County, where they destroyed the Salt River railroad bridge and torched depots at Shelbina and Lakenan. Then, in August, Anderson attacked the riverboat Omaha near Glasgow and raided Rocheport again, shooting up more boats and snarling all river traffic.

Todd and Thrailkill, for their part, moved to Keytesville on September 20, capturing the Union garrison and burning the courthouse. During the same month, Anderson's men robbed 13 stagecoaches in Howard County. On September 23, Todd joined Anderson. The 300 guerrillas thus mustered together wiped out a 12-wagon Federal train near Rocheport, capturing 18,000 rounds of ammunition and killing 15 Union troops. The combined forces, briefly joined by Quantrill, then attacked Fayette, where they were repulsed by Federal soldiers barricaded in the courthouse.

Seeking revenge for this setback, Anderson's guerrillas raided Centralia on September 27. They prowled the village for three hours, looting stores and terrorizing citizens. Drunken Bushwhackers burned the depot, and the arrival of a stagecoach from Columbia gave them an opportunity for more plunder. A westbound train from St. Charles provided unexpected bounty: 25 unarmed Union soldiers. The helpless Federals were lined up on the platform and stripped of their uniforms. Anderson ordered Clement to "muster out" the naked and half-naked prisoners. Little Archie, a pistol in each hand, gleefully began to shoot them, and the fusillade was joined by the other guerrillas. The event became known as the Centralia Massacre.


The district Union commander, General Thomas Ewing, was furious when he heard what the Quantrill Raiders had done. On 25th August 1863, he issued Order No 11. This gave an eviction notice to all people in the area (Jackson, Cass, Bates and Vernon counties) who could not prove their loyalty to the Union cause. Ewing's decree virtually wiped out the entire region. The population of Cass County dropped from 10,000 to 600.

An officer in the Union Army, George Caleb Bingham, was appalled by the consequences of Order No 11 and wrote to General Thomas Ewing saying: “If you execute this order, I shall make you infamous with pen and brush". In 1868 Bingham painted a picture on Ewing's crime. Frank James, who had taken part in the Kansas raid, commented: "This is a picture that talks."

A Union detachment chased the fleeing guerrillas, who turned at bay outside Centralia and killed 114 of their pursuers. David Pool proved that Archie Clement was not the only barbaric Bushwhacker. Pool chose to enumerate fallen enemies by jumping from one body to another. "If they are dead, I can't hurt them, 'he asserted. "I cannot count 'em good without stepping on 'em."

Additional Sources:

www.territorialkansasonline.org
www.borderraiders.com
www.ljworld.com
www.kancoll.org
everyman.typepad.com

[SAMWolf]

On October 11, Anderson's Bushwhackers sacked Boonville, while their leader joined Quantrill to capture Glasgow. Todd, riding with Jo Shelby's cavalry division, was killed in battle near Independence on October 21, and Anderson fell five days later in a skirmish near Orrick.

Everywhere, Bushwhacker leaders were dying. On January 10, 1863, Joe Porter had been killed in a skirmish with Federal troops near Marshfield. Quantrill fled to Kentucky with a few loyal followers. On May 10, 1865, they were surprised by Federal rangers in Spencer County. Quantrill was shot in the back and lay in agony for nearly a month, paralyzed, before he died.


Pro-slavery forces carried this flag while attacking the anti-slavery stronghold of Lawrence. Sheriff Samuel Jones led the group in sacking the town on May 21, 1856. A group of South Carolinians known as the Palmetto Guards participated in the attack, and flew their "Southern Rights" flag over the "Herald of Freedom" newspaper offices and the Free State Hotel before destroying the buildings.

Archie Clement surrendered to Federal authorities at the end of the war, but he was shot from his horse in Lexington on December 13, 1866, while attempting to flee arrest by state militiamen. Jim Lane, too, died a violent death. Despondent over his failing political fortunes, Lane shot himself while in Lawrence on July 1, 1866, dying 10 days later.

Jesse James lasted longer--he was murdered in 1882, shot down in his own home by "the dirty little coward" Robert Ford, who was himself killed by a James supporter a few years later.

The Jayhawkers and Bushwhackers died off, some violently, some in the peace and prosperity of old age. But the wounds of the bitter struggles in Kansas and Missouri, which presaged the Civil War and epitomized its brutality, lasted. Understandably, the first years after the war saw emotions still running high on both sides, and a number of acts of violence and revenge, some by individuals, others by groups, continued to darken the public mind.


Lawrence Free Staters make a charge on Fort Titus during

In one typical postwar incident, in the western hamlet of Haynesville, Mo., a pro-Union townsman named Loft Easton drank heavily and accused a former guerrilla captain named Jim Green (whom he had run into at a local grocery store) of being part of a company of Bushwhackers that had burned out Easton's father during the war. Green attempted to reason with Easton, pleading with him "not to get in a fuss," but the drunken man continued berating Green and all other Southern guerrillas he could bring to mind. Green, to his credit, attempted to walk away from the fight, pulling a pistol and telling Easton not to follow him. Easton kept coming, however, and a grocery clerk, perhaps attempting to keep the peace--or else a fellow Union sympathizer of Easton's--tried to knock Green's gun out of his hand. Instead, for his troubles, the clerk found himself on the fatal end of a stray shot from Easton.

Green dove for his pistol while Easton continued firing wildly. Getting up, he shot his assailant once, knocking him over, then coolly walked up and killed Easton with two more shots to the head. A local diarist, Sarah Harlan, herself a pro-Union resident of Haynesville, noted fairly, "I believe that everybody that seen it justifies Jim." Green surrendered to the local sheriff and was placed on bond awaiting trial; he eventually was exonerated of all charges against him.

Another, less lethal, encounter between old enemies took place in Chariton County in October 1866. As noted by Southern sympathizer William Hill, the fight consisted in its entirety of the following exchange: "Old Dave came down here last week & told Jube West he came down to straighten out the damn Rebels. Jube immediately knocked him down twice & beat him vere [sic] severly [sic] in the face. Dave left immediately on the stage. Everyone was glad and said it was the best thing ever happened here."


Jessie James as a border ruffian.

Not even ministers were exempt from the postwar violence. Unionists still nursed a grudge against Baptist and Methodist ministers who had supported the South during the war--or, on some occasions, had merely counseled Christian charity to a defeated foe. One such victim was a Reverend Hadlee of Webster County, in south central Missouri. Reputed to have been a "bitter Rebel" by the pro-Union sheriff at Springfield, Hadlee had fled the state during the war and had only recently returned. One Sabbath day in August 1866, Hadlee attempted to resume preaching at his old church, but he was refused entry by Union loyalists who told him that he was "obnoxious" and that because of his "rebellious acts" they did not want him to preach to or teach them.

Enraged, Hadlee pulled down the American flag flying outside the church and started down the road toward his own land, where he intended to preach to a group of pro-Southern followers. He did not make it that far. A conveniently unidentified gunman rode alongside the minister and shot him dead; no one was willing to identify the killer, either from fear of reprisal or in support of his decidedly unchristian act.

Such acts, whether comparatively harmless fisticuffs or coldblooded murder, were the natural fruit of a decade-long planting of bitter, mean-spirited seeds. For everyone in the war-torn states of Missouri and Kansas, the scars of both civil war and Civil War were a long time in healing. Talk to many residents of the area today, and you will find that they have never totally healed, even now.

[SAMWolf]

Veterans for Constitution Restoration is a non-profit, non-partisan educational and grassroots activist organization. The primary area of concern to all VetsCoR members is that our national and local educational systems fall short in teaching students and all American citizens the history and underlying principles on which our Constitutional republic-based system of self-government was founded. VetsCoR members are also very concerned that the Federal government long ago over-stepped its limited authority as clearly specified in the United States Constitution, as well as the Founding Fathers' supporting letters, essays, and other public documents.

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[GailA]

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[SAMWolf]

Morning GailA.

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone.

[alfa6]

Running Behind Bump for the Freeper Foxhole, will post update Pigeon Pad pic at lunch.

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Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[The Mayor]

June 27, 2005

Perfecting Holiness

Read:
Galatians 5:16-26

Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. —2 Corinthians 7:1

Bible In One Year: 2 Kings 14:21-25, Jonah 1-4

I had not worked in my yard for several weeks, and I was amazed at how quickly weeds had sprung up and taken over. Weeds don't need tending; they seem to love to sprout up for anyone who just lets things go. A bed of beautiful flowers, however, takes watering, feeding, and of course, weeding. Flowers thrive under the care of one who is not afraid to get dirt under his fingernails.

The Christian life takes work too. It requires the commitment of one's whole being to Jesus—body, mind, emotions, and will—to have a life that is wholesome, attractive, uplifting to others, and fulfilling to oneself. Even then, weeds of selfishness and sinful attitudes can quickly spring up and overrun the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

That was the problem with many believers at Corinth. They had become overgrown with envy and divisiveness (1 Corinthians 3:1-3). So Paul told them to cleanse themselves from all "filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Corinthians 7:1). By "holiness" he didn't mean they could be sinless, but blameless.

Lord, help us uproot any weeds of the flesh and the spirit before they become ugly habits. May the beauty of Jesus' character be what others see in us. —Dennis De Haan

The Weeding Process
1. Identify sins of the flesh or the spirit (Gal. 5:17-21).
2. Call them sin and confess them (1 John 1:9).
3. Stand firm in your position in Christ (Gal. 2:20).

If you yield to God, you won't give in to sin.

FOR FURTHER STUDY
Why Would Anyone Want To Be Holy?

[Professional Engineer]

More than three years after the flag was first run up the pole, a spontaneous display of patriotism created by two local men has been lighted for all to see. With the help of PennDOT, PECO and State Rep. Bill Adolph (R-165), the Old Glory waving atop the hill at West Chester Pike and the Blue Route is illuminated for night viewing.

Read all about it

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on June 27:
1462 Louis XII (the Just) king of France (1498-1515)
1550 Charles IX king of France (1560-74)
1682 Charles XII king of Sweden (1697-1718)
1828 Junius Daniel, Brig General (Confederate Army), died in 1864
1846 Charles Stewart Parnell Ireland, nationalist
1862 May Irwin US comedienne/singer (A Hot Time in the Old Town)
1869 Emma Goldman anarchist/publisher (Mother Earth)
1880 Helen Keller blind-deaf author/lecturer had more sense than many
1905 Ruby Middleton Forsythe, teacher (50 years in 1 room school in SC)
1906 Vernon P Watkins, Welsh poet (Ballad of Mari Lwyd)
1907 John McIntire Spokane Ws, actor (Naked City, Wagon Train, Virginian)
1913 Willie Mosconi world champion pool player (1941-57)
1914 Giorgio Almirante Italy, fascist (member of parliament (1948-87))
1925 Jerome "Doc" Pomus, songwriter (Lonely Avenue)

1927 Bob Keeshan aka Capt Kangaroo/Clarabelle (Good Morning Captain)

1930 H Ross Periot Texas billionaire/presidental candidate (1992
1930 Tamio Kono US, weightlifter (Olympic-gold-1952)
1933 Gary Crosby son of Bing, actor (Which Way to the Front)
1937 Joseph P Allen IV Crawfordsville Ind, PhD/astronaut (STS-5, STS 51A)
1941 James P Hogan, UK, sci-fi author (The Gentle Giants of Ganymede)
1950 Benjamin Peterson US, heavyweight boxer (Olympic-gold-1972)
1950 Julia Duffy Minneapolis Mn, actress (Stephanie-Newhart, Baby Talk)
1951 Sidney M Gutierrez Albuquerque NM, Major USAF/astronaut (STS 40)
1951 Ulf Andersson Sweden, International Chess Grandmaster (1972)
1955 Isabelle Adjani Paris, actress (Story of Adele H, Driver, Ishtar)

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Deaths which occurred on June 27:
0444 Cyrillus van Alexandria, patriarch of Alexandria, dies
1458 Alfonso V, King of Aragon/Sicily/Naples (Alfonso I), dies
1776 Thomas Hickey, American sergeant convicted of treason, hanged
1829 James Smithson dies, (His will established Smithsonian Institute)
1836 James Madison, 4th US pres (1809-17), dies in Montpelier Va at 85
1844 Joseph & Hyrum Smith Mormon leaders killed by a mob in Carthage Ill
1862 Chatham Roberdeau Wheat, Confederate major, dies in battle at about 35
1863 Martin E Green, Confederate brig-general, shot dead at 38
1864 Charles Garrison Harker, US Union-brig-general, dies in battle at 26
1973 Ernest Truex actor (Pop-Pete & Gladys, Mr Peepers), dies at 73
1975 Rod Serling, writer/host (Twilight Zone, Night Gallery), dies at 50
1975 Raymond Dous & Jean Donatini French intelligence agents killed by Carlos the Jackal
1983 Maxie Anderson & Don Ida balloonists, die during a race
1986 Don Rogers of the Cleveland Browns, dies of cocaine poisoning
1991 Klas Bruinsma, leader criminal organization, murdered
1993 Wolfgang Grams, German RAF-terrorist, shot to death at 40
2001 Chico O’Farrill, Afro-Cuban jazz trumpeter, died age 79.
2001 Jack Lemmon (b.1925), film actor (Mr. Roberts, Odd Couple, Some Like It Hot.......)
2002 John Entwistle (57), bassist The Who, died

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GWOT Casualties

Iraq
27-Jun-2003 1 | US: 1 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Corporal Tomas Sotelo Jr. Baghdad Hostile - hostile fire - RPG attack

27-Jun-2004 1 | US: 1 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US 1st Sergeant Ernest E. Utt Camp Cuervo (old Camp Muleskinner) Hostile - hostile fire - rocket attack


Afghanistan
A Good Day

http://icasualties.org/oif/
Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White

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On this day...
0678 St Agatho begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1693 1st woman's magazine "The Ladies' Mercury" published (London)
1743 English defeat French at Dettingen
1833 Prudence Crandall, a white woman, arrested for conducting an academy for black females at Canterbury Conn
1857 H Goldschmidt discovers asteroid #45 Eugenia
1862 Day 3 of the 7 Days battle-Battle of Gaines' Mill
1864 Atlanta Campaign-Battle of Kennesaw Mountain
1867 Bank of Calif opens doors
1876 1st NLer to get 6 hits in 9 inn game (Dave Force, Phila Athletics)
1905 Sailors mutiny on The battleship Potemkin on the Black Sea
1915 100ø F (38ø C), Fort Yukon, Alaska (state record)
1917 1st baseball player (Hank Gowdy) to enter WW I military service
1927 U.S. Marines adopt the English bulldog as their mascot
1929 1st color TV demo (NYC)
1934 Federal Savings & Loan Association created
1939 1st night game at Cleveland Municipal Stadium (Indians 5, Tigers 0)
1942 FBI captures 8 Nazi saboteurs from a sub off NY's Long Island
1942 Allied Convoy PQ-17 leave Iceland for Murmansk and Archangel (47 ship convoy, 21 lost)
1944 Cherbourg, France captured by Allies
1949 W Baade discovers asteroid #1566 Icarus
1950 Pres Truman orders Air Force & Navy into Korean conflict
1950 North Koreans troops reach Seoul.
1950 UN Security Council calls on members for troops to aid South Korea
1950 US sends 35 military advisers to South Vietnam
1954 1st atomic power station opens (Obninsk, near Moscow, Russia)
1954 CIA-sponsored rebels overthrow elected government of Guatemala
1955 1st automobile seat belt legislation enacted (Illinois)
1957 390 die by Hurricane Audrey in coastal La & Tx
1958 Billy Pierce's perfect game bid broken with 2 outs in 9th
1960 British Somaliland becomes part of Somalia
1960 Chlorophyll "A" synthesized Cambridge Mass
1962 NASA civilian pilot Joseph Walker takes X-15 to 6,606 kph, 37,700 m
1963 USAF Major Robert A Rushworth in X-15 reaches 86,900 m 1966 1st sci-fi soap opera, "Dark Shadows," premiers
1967 Race riot in Buffalo NY (200 arrested)
1969 Police raid the Stonewall Gay Bar in Greenwich Village, NY, about 400 to 1,000 patrons riot against the police, it lasts 3 days
1971 T Smirnova discovers asteroid #2121 Sevastopol
1973 John W Dean tells Watergate Committee about Nixon's "enemies list"
1977 5-4 Supreme Court decision allows lawyers to advertise
1977 Djibouti gains independence from France (National Day)
1978 Soyuz 30 carries 2 cosmonauts (1 Polish) to Salyut 6 space station
1979 Muhammad Ali retires as boxing champ
1983 NASA launches space vehicle S-205
1983 Soyuz T-9 carries 2 cosmonauts to Salyut 7 space station
1984 Supreme Court ends NCAA monopoly on college football telecasts
1985 Route 66 (Chicago to Santa Monica), is decertified
1986 Anne White shocks Wimbeldon by wearing only a body stocking
1986 In referendum, Irish uphold ban on divorce
1986 Robby Thompson (SF) sets record, caught stealing 4 times in 1 game
1986 US informs New Zealand it will not defend it against attack
1986 World Court rules US aid to Nicaraguan contras illegal
1987 Supreme Court Justice Powell retires
1989 President Bush, criticizing a Supreme Court decision upholding the right to desecrate the American flag as a form of political protest, called for a constitutional amendment to protect the Stars and Stripes
1990 Jos‚ Canseco signs record $4,700,000 per year Oak A's contract
1990 Salman Rushdie, condemned to death by Iran, contributes $8600 to help their earthquake victims
2000 In Poland 107 participants joined to endorse a declaration of the “community of democracies.” France alone excluded itself.
2001 It was reported that Wang Guoqi, a Chinese doctor seeking political asylum, had presented a written statement to US authorities that he had taken part in harvesting body parts from executed prisoners in China.
2004 Turkey rejects the demands of Islamic terrorists who are threatening to behead three of its kidnapped citizens during a visit by President Bush to Turkey

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Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Honor America Days (thru 7-4)
Iowa : Independence Sunday (1776) (Sunday)
Newfoundland : Discovery Day (1497-John Cabot)
National Ducks and Wetlands Day
Carpenter Ant Awareness Week Begins
Paul Bunyon Day
National Fink Day.
Zoo and Aqarium Month

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Religious Observances
Christian : Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
RC : Memorial of Cyril of Alexandria, bishop & doctor (opt)
Christian : Commem of St Ladislas I (St Lazlo), king of Hungary
Feast of St. Ladislas I, King of Hungary.

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Religious History
1299 In his encyclical 'Scimus fili,' Pope Boniface VIII claimed that Scotland owed allegiance to the Catholic Church.
1739 English revivalist George Whitefield wrote in a letter: 'Christ's servants have always been the world's fools.'
1760 English founder of Methodism John Wesley wrote in a letter: 'Every one, though born of God in an instant, yet undoubtedly grows by slow degrees.'
1844 Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons, and his brother Hyrum were lynched by a mob in Carthage, Illinois, resulting in part from the community's moral outrage at Smith's recent authorization of polygamous Mormon marriages.
1961 In England, Arthur Michael Ramsey was enthroned as the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, the principal see of the Established Church of England.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

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New storm returns cross lost to Hurricane Ivan in Panhandle
FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A foot-tall cross washed away from a ground-floor condominium unit during Hurricane Ivan's storm surge last September was washed back ashore when Tropical Storm Arlene hit the Panhandle earlier this month.
As Island Echoes condominium workers watched Arlene roll in June 11, they noticed an object that had been swept in by the oncoming water.

"I looked down and said, 'Pick up the cross,' " recalled general manager Phyllis Shanks.

For all she knew the cross could have come from anywhere, but a closer look showed "1E" inscribed on the bottom of its pedestal. Shanks then suspected it must have come from the Island Echoes because other nearby condos number their units differently.

Unit owners Dean and Ruth Lindsey, of Carmel, Ind., were stunned when they got an e-mail from Shanks about the cross being found.

"It was amazing," Ruth Lindsey said. "It's the most miraculous thing I've ever seen."

The couple leave it in the condo when they return to Indiana after spending the winter in the Florida Panhandle and will do so again. They say summer tourists who rent the unit are respectful of it.

"Maybe that cross will protect us," Ruth Lindsey said. "We just assumed everything was gone. All the furniture (in the condo) was smashed against the wall."

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Thought for the day :
"Establishing goals is all right if you don't let them deprive you of interesting detours."

[F-117A]

After finding no mention of "Red Legs" I did a search and came across this...

Partisans, Guerillas, Irregulars and Bushwhackers

[Leg Olam]

Morning Sam! Hot and muggy here in Missouri, as it usually is in Summer.

Incidently, two of the women that were in that building which collapsed were sisters of Capt. William, aka 'Bloody Bill' Anderson. Prior to that Anderson was at most a horse thief but the death of one and the maiming and disfigurement of the other turned him into the vicious monster he was known to be. That building BTW, was donated for the purpose of a jail by it's previous owner who had used it as a studio, his name was George Caleb Bingham. The soldiers who were lodged there as guards removed several support pillars to make their quarters more barracks-like and thereby weakened the already unstable structure. The site today is soon to be under a new downtown arena. An unlucky place for a sports team to call home I'd say.

A few other things about Anderson. He kept a cord of silk that he tied a knot in for every man he killed. There were said to be over sixty knots. Horses will not step on a person if they can help it. Anderson had trained his to do just that and was fond of saving a bullet by letting his horse do the job. His battered and decapitated body was buried in the old Mormon cemetary in Richmond Missouri. Not because he was a Mormon, he wasn't, but rather because he wasn't deemed fit to bury in a 'Christian' grave. For many years his grave was unmarked but it's location was known and flowers were often left there by unknown friends. Today there is a marker. The spot where he was killed near Orrick is on the side of a steep hill near an old pioneer graveyard. There is a marker and several of his men were buried there as well.

[w_over_w]

Morning Glory Folks~

I've been wanting to read more about this aspect of the CW. Today's post really puts much in perspective . . . especially the lengths that hatred will carry a man.

Quantrill, Bill Anderson and George Todd led 450 men into Lawrence at 7 a.m. on August 21. They carried lists of specific targets for assassination, but they also heeded Quantrill's final instructions to "kill every man big enough to carry a gun."

My wife has been following this Spielberg series, "Into the West". I just happened to catch a segment that showed this raid in the series and wasn't sure as to the accuracy. As always it's better to read about it first before letting Hollywood spin it's version.

[stand watie]

PROUD bushwhacker/REBEL descendant checking IN!

my ancestor, PVT William James "Little Thunder" Freeman, late of the 4th Missouri Partisan Rangers & the 1st Mounted Cherokee Rifles (he was a full-blood Tsalagiyi), rode on the Lawrence Raid with COL Quantrell.

other than his God, church & family, that was the thing he was proudest of in his long life. (he died of old age in Jan 1917.)

i HONOR his memory.

free dixie,sw

[Leg Olam]

"kill every man big enough to carry a gun."

'Pups grow up to be hounds.'

[PoorMuttly]

*ping*

[Leg Olam]

"The Call of Quantrill"

This song was reportably the favorite of Jesse James.

1st Verse:

Up! comrades, up! The moon´s in the west, and the hounds of old Pennock will find out our nest.
We must be gone ere the dawning of day; the Quantrill they seek shall be far, far away.
Their toils after us shall ever be vain. Let them scout through the brush and scour the plain;
We´ll pass through their midst in the dead of the night. We are lions in combat and eagles in flight.Rouse, my brave boys, up, up and away; press hard on the foe ere the dawning of day;
Look well to your steeds so gallant in chase. May they never give o´er till they win in the race.

When old Pennock is weary and the chase given o´er, we´ll pass through their midst and bathe in their gore. We´ll come as a thunderbolt comes from the cloud; we´ll smite the oppressor and humble the proud. Few shall escape us and few shall be spared, for keen is our saber, in vengeance ´tis bared; For none are so strong, so mighty in fight, as the the warrior who battles for our Southern right.

Chorus:

Rouse, my brave boys, up, up and away; press hard on the foe ere the dawning of day;
Look well to your steeds so gallant in chase. May they never give o´er till they win in the race.

3rd Verse:

Though the bush is our home, the green sod our bed, our drink from the river, and roots for our bread, We pine not for more; we bow not the head, for freedom is ever within the green wood.
Tyrants shan´t conquer and fetters shan´t bind, for true are our rifles; our steeds like the wind.
We´ll sheathe not the sword; we´ll draw not the rein, till Pennock is banished from valley and plain.Rouse, my brave boys, up, up and away; press hard on the foe ere the dawning of day;
Look well to your steeds so gallant in chase. May they never give o´er till they win in the race.

Here's to your ancestor Stand Watie.