Lawrence massacre - Wikipedia

On August 21, 1863, raid at Lawrence Knsas by William Quantrilltook place. From the article:
On August 21, 1863, the raid at Lawrence Kansas by William Quantrill occurred. From the article:

The attack was the product of careful planning. Quantrill had been able to gain the confidence of many of the leaders of independent Bushwhacker groups, and chose the day and time of the attack well in advance. The different groups of Missouri riders approached Lawrence from the east in several independent columns, and converged with well-timed precision in the final miles before Lawrence during the pre-dawn hours of the chosen day. Many of the men had been riding for over 24 hours to make the rendezvous and had lashed themselves to their saddles to keep riding if they fell asleep. Almost all were armed with multiple six-shot revolvers.

Around 450 guerillas arrived on the outskirts of Lawrence shortly after 5 a.m. A small squad was dispatched to the summit of Mount Oread to serve as lookouts, and the remainder rode into town. Their initial focus was the Eldridge House, a large brick hotel in the heart of Lawrence. After gaining control of the building (which then served as Quantrill's headquarters during the raid), Quantrill's force broke into smaller groups that fanned out throughout the town. Over a four-hour period, the raiders pillaged and burned a quarter of the buildings in Lawrence, including all but two businesses. They looted most of the banks and stores and killed about 150 people (all of them men or older boys).[21] According to an 1897 account, among the dead were 18 of 23 unmustered army recruits.[22] By 9 a.m., the raiders were on their way out of town, evading the few units that came in pursuit, and eventually splitting up so as to avoid Union pursuit of a unified column into Missouri.

The raid was less of a battle and more of a mass execution. Two weeks prior to the raid, a Lawrence newspaper had boasted, "Lawrence has ready for any emergency over five hundred fighting men...every one of who would like to see [Quantrill's raiders]".[23] However, a squad of soldiers temporarily stationed in Lawrence had returned to Fort Leavenworth, and due to the surprise, swiftness, and fury of the initial assault, the local militia was unable to assemble and mount a defense. In fact, most of those who were killed by Quantrill and his raiders were not carrying any sort of weapon.

Because revenge was a principal motive for the attack, Quantrill's raiders entered Lawrence with lists of men to be killed and buildings to be burned. Senator James H. Lane was at the top of the list. Lane was a military leader and chief political proponent of the jayhawking raids that had cut a swath of death, plundering, and arson through western Missouri (including the destruction of Osceola) in the early months of the Civil War.[24] Lane escaped death by racing through a cornfield in his nightshirt. John Speer had been put into the newspaper business by Lane, was one of Lane's chief political backers, and was also on the list.[25] Speer likewise escaped execution, but two of his sons were killed in the raid. (One of Speer's sons may have been the same John L. Speer that appeared on a list of Redlegs previously issued by the Union military.[26]) Speer's youngest son, 15-year-old Billy, may have been included on the death lists, but he was released by Quantrill's men after giving them a false name. (Billy Speer later shot one of the raiders during their exit from Lawrence, causing one of the few casualties among Quantrill's command while in Lawrence.)[27] Charles L. Robinson, first governor of Kansas and a prominent abolitionist, may also have been on the list, although he was not killed.[28] According to Richard Cordley, a minister in Lawrence and a survivor of the attack:

Ex-Governor Charles Robinson was an object of special search among them. He was one of the men they particularly wanted. During the whole time they were in town he was in his large stone barn on the hillside. He had just gone to the barn to get his team to drive out into the country, when he saw them come in and saw them make their first charge. He concluded to remain where he was. The barn overlooked the whole town, and he saw the affair from beginning to end. Gangs of raiders came by several times and looked at the barn and went round it, but it looked so much like a fort, that they kept out of range.[29]

While many of the victims had been specifically targeted beforehand, executions were more indiscriminate among segments of the raiders, particularly Todd's band that operated in the western part of Lawrence.[30] The men and boys riding with "Bloody Bill" Anderson also accounted for a disproportionate number of the Lawrence dead. The raid devolved into extreme brutality, and according to witnesses, the raiders: killed a group of men who had surrendered under assurances of safety, murdered a father who was hiding in a field with his child, shot a defenseless man who was laying sick in bed, killed an injured man who was being held by his pleading wife, and bound a pair of men and forced them into a flaming building where they burned to death in horrible agony.[31][29] Another dramatic story was told in a letter written on September 7, 1863 by H.M. Simpson, whose entire family narrowly escaped death by hiding in a nearby cornfield as the massacre raged all around them:

My father was very slow to get into the cornfield. He was so indignant at the ruffians that he was unwilling to retreat before them. My little children were in the field three hours. They seemed to know that if they cried the noise would betray their parents whereabouts, and so they kept as still as mice. The baby was very hungry & I gave her an ear of raw green corn which she ate ravenously.[32]

Many have characterized Quantrill's decision to kill older boys alongside adult men as a particularly reprehensible aspect of the raid.[33] Bobbie Martin is generally cited as being the youngest victim; some histories of the raid state he was twelve years old,[34] while others state he was fourteen.[35] Most accounts state he was wearing a Union soldier uniform or clothing made from his father's uniform; some state he was carrying a musket and cartridges.[36] (For perspective on the age of participants in the conflict, it has been estimated that about 800,000 Union soldiers were seventeen years of age or younger, with about 100,000 of those being fifteen or younger.)[37] Most of Quantrill's guerrilla fighters were teenagers. One of the youngest was Riley Crawford, who was 13 when brought by his mother to Quantrill after her husband was shot and her home burned by Union soldiers.[38]"