DAWN
August 21, 1863
Over 150 dead
… men and
boys
Some 80 widows
Perhaps 200 orphans
Town burned
William Clarke Quantrill
Tonight William Quantrill stands charged
with 150 counts of murder. On each count,
the penalty sought is death.
… we should learn something about
the tides of history that brought Quantrill
and his men to Mount Gilead overlooking
Lawrence on that early August morning.
In 1776, the United States declared its independence.
Speaking for his countrymen, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“All men are created equal.”
In 1787, the United States adopted a Constitution…
… and hedged on the promise of equality.
All white men were created equal
But all black men and women might be
made slaves
Thomas Jefferson said of it:
“I tremble for my
country when I
reflect that God
is just.”
And they hoped that,
somehow, slavery would
wither away.
The onset of the Industrial
Revolution in England and
elsewhere…
… and the suitability of the
American south for raising
cotton made slavery
increasingly profitable.
SLAVERY
BECAME A
REGIONAL
INSTITUTION
By 1820, slavery
had effectively
been abolished
in eleven
Northern states.
But slavery
flourished in
eleven Southern
states.
Increasing numbers of
Northern voices were
raised against slavery.
And the nation was
expanding West.
-- John Quincy Adams
1820: The
Missouri
Compromise
Admitted
Missouri as a
Slave State.
Admitted Maine
as a Free State.
If slavery were barred from new states formed
out of the western territories, the South
would be outnumbered in Congress and
slavery itself might be imperiled.
So, for decades new states were admitted in
pairs – one slave and one free.
Barred slavery
from territories
north of
southern border
of Missouri.
Congress passed the
Kansas-Nebraska Act:
 It created the Kansas and
Nebraska Territories, and decreed
 Settlers would vote on whether to
enter Union as free or slave state.
Everyone knew Nebraska would
come in as a free state…
Stephen A. Douglas
1854: The Race Was On
Eastern groups
offered
abolitionist
families money
to move to
Kansas
Pro-slavery
Missourians
living along the
border staked
claims in Kansas
“We will have the Devil
to pay in Kansas and
this State. We are
organizing to meet [the
Free Staters’]
organization. We will
be compelled to shoot,
burn, and hang. But
the thing will soon be
over.”
Missourians were unwilling
to have Kansas elections
decided by a peaceful
immigration race.
-- U.S. Senator (MO) David
Rice Atchison to U.S.
Secretary of War Jefferson
Davis (1854)
B.F Stringfellow to
Missourians along the
Kansas border:
“I advise you one
and all to enter
every election
district in
Kansas and vote
at the point of
the bowie knife
and revolver.”
Despite there being only
about 3,000 qualified
voters in Kansas, more
than 6,200 votes were
cast…
…5,427 for proslavery candidates.
The Administration of
President Franklin Pierce
accepts the election
results anyway.
The new pro-slavery
legislature
immediately passes
laws that legalize
slavery in Kansas and
criminalize opposition
to the peculiar
institution.
Kansas Free Soilers
respond by electing
their own state
legislature, which
meets in Topeka. It is
led by men like Jim
Lane, an ambitious,
fire-breathing orator.
Jim Lane
President
Franklin Pierce
The administration
of President Franklin
Pierce sides with the
pro-slavery Kansas
legislature and
declares the Free Soil
legislature a
“treasonable
insurrection.”
Enter John
Brown
A deeply religious
abolitionist who
has devoted his life
to the destruction
of slavery.
In 1855, John Brown
follows his sons to
Kansas to join the
fight.
The Free-State
stronghold of
Lawrence, Kansas
is sacked (for the
first time) by a
pro-slavery posse
of Missourians.
Buildings burned.
One person killed.
Outraged by the attack on Lawrence, John
Brown and a group of Free Soil Kansans
sweep down the Creek, pull five pro-slavery
men from their homes … and murder them.
Violence escalates
Pro- and anti-slavery
men fight pitched battles
… and commit hundreds
of unremembered
brutalities.
The Kansas Territory
becomes known
throughout the world as
“Bleeding Kansas.”
In 1858, pro-slavery Missourians murder five unarmed
Kansas Free Soilers on the Marais de Cygnes Creek .
But for the next two years, relative calm prevails on the
border.
Abraham
Lincoln is
elected
President.
 Convinced that Lincoln’s
election would doom
their social order,
Southern states secede.
 They form the
Confederate States of
America … and elect
Jefferson Davis as their
President
South
Carolinians
fire on Fort
Sumter
 Missouri is a slave state
 But has large numbers of
anti-slavery inhabitants
 Even many of its
slaveholders are
reluctant to secede
 But Missouri’s governor
and many of its
legislators favor
secession
Gov. Claiborne Fox
Jackson
Unionists strike first:
 Seize federal
armory in St. Louis
 Drive proConfederate state
officials out of St.
Louis
 Then Jefferson City.
Camp Jackson, May 1861
Hastily assembled proUnion and proConfederate armies clash
across Missouri.
Led by General Sterling
Price, the Confederates
have early successes.
General Price’s
Confederates seize
Lexington, Missouri.
En route to Lexington, the
Confederates defeat a unit
of pro-Union Kansans
raised by Jim Lane.
Repulsed by Gen. Price’s
Confederates, Jim Lane
takes his men on a raid
into Price’s rear.
They attack Price’s
supply lines … and
settlements believed to
be pro-secession.
In Osceola,
Lane’s men burn and loot
the town, and allegedly
shoot a number of men
who resist them.
By October 1861, Price’s Confederate
Army was driven from Missouri
General Sterling Price
Pro-Southern Missourians had three
choices:
 Go south to fight with the regular
Confederate Army
 Go home, lay down their arms, and
accept that Missouri remained in the
Union
 Or go into the bush and fight a guerrilla
war
… and the Border War burst into
flame again.
Murderer?
Terrorist?
Soldier?