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Some of the first indications of the Union leanings toward a total war philosophy occurred in Missouri. More than 1,000 military engagements took place in Missouri during the Civil War, War of Northern Aggression, and/or War for Southern Independence . Missouri was the scene of the most drastic and repressive military action directed against civilians in U.S. history. A majority of Missouri’s population was of southern origin and sympathy. One of the 13 stars in the Southern Cross honors Missouri. Union forces quickly occupied Missouri before secessionist sentiment could be marshaled in the state legislature. Pro-secessionist Governor Claiborne Jackson and former Governor Sterling Price left to form the Missouri State Guard and join with Confederate forces in Arkansas. Other southern sympathizers engaged in partisan warfare in Missouri. These Confederate partisans were generally treated as outlaws by Union officials. This outlaw status and mistreatment of their families and other Missouri civilians by Federal troops spawned the bloody vengeance raids of William Quantrill and William Anderson. The mistreatment of their families is a gross understatement. Women and children were herded as if they were cattle and forced onto trains. In true Socialist Nazi Germany Fashion the Missouri Confederate Soldier’s loved ones were shipped off to unknown destinations, and in most cases, were never seen nor heard from again. Now, I cant speak for anyone but myself, but there is nothing more cowardly in this world than deliberately using noncombatant citizens as a military support strategy. Also, under no circumstances should any army use the tactics of kidnapping women and children and then shipping them away from their homes, never to be seen again, as a way to attack their enemy. The mentality of these soldiers after they learned of the cruel and inhumane actions of their blue coat adversaries must have been pure abomination and malice. I can only imagine the thoughts of vengeance that would run through these soldiers consciousness. The War of Northern Aggression has copious amounts of chronicled butchery. Therefore after receiving the news that their families had been kidnapped, men like Cole Younger, Bob Younger, Frank, and Jesse James that were enlisted with William Clarke Quantrill’s Raiders, planned and executed a raid on August 21, 1863, slaughtering some 200 men and boys at Lawrence, Kansas. Strangely enough, no women were harmed in this raid. This became known as The Lawrence Massacre or Quantrill’s Raid, and history teaches it from the perspective of “the day of slaughter”. “These Confederate Raiders committed crimes against humanity killing 200 men and boys when on August 21, 1863, targeting Lawrence, KS for attack due to the town’s long support of abolition and its reputation as a center for Redlegs and Jayhawkers, which were free-state militia and vigilante groups known for attacking and destroying farms and plantations in Missouri’s pro-slavery western counties.” What teachers don’t teach and/or explain is why these Confederates did what they did. They fail to mention their families were kidnapped and freighted off. This is a mere single example of the extensive gobbledygook produced from the Yankee Myth Maker Machine. Remember always, its the conqueror that writes history or should i say, re-writes history. No southerner should ever feel ashamed that their ancestors picked-up arms to engage the Yankee invader!
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
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but it is certainly not as cut and dried as you seem to believe. I lived in Lawrence Ks. for a few years where Quantrill is still a presence – numerous markers throughout the city reference the numbers killed in specific places and I took some interest in him. According to most historians you are correct that there were brutal raids on the part of guerrilla groups of both confederate and unionist sympathizers,some sanctioned by official armies and some not. It was often tit-for-tat in terms of what each side claimed to be their motivation. Relatives of the southern guerrillas were detained, but on evidence of collusion – the extent of this detention was greatly exaggerated by the guerrillas attempting to justify their actions. It is true that some young women imprisoned with others for giving aid to the Missouri guerrilla bands were killed or injured when a prison building collapsed – among them a sister, I believe of Quantrill’s associate, William Anderson.
However, there is evidence that Quantrill had planned the Lawrence raid long before this particular event, although he found it convenient to claim that he was taking vengence for this and for a similar raid on the part of union sympathzers on Osceola Missouri. His lack of violence toward women reflected pseudo-chivalric mores of the time and examples of similar behavior can be found on the part of some Unionists leaders as well as Confederates. Quantrill was from a poor, middle-class Ohio background, but liked to play the Southern gentleman – though he did not spare women the spectacle of their husbands and sons (little boys) brutal murders, along with the destruction of their homes. While he enjoyed posing as a romantic defender of the old South, his main motivation, as with other raiders, seems to have been thievery and self-enrichment. His raids against federal outposts were quite profitable. He not only savaged Lawrence, killing simple farmers, along with elderly men (dragging some from their sick-beds), but his men very systematically looted the town – while Quantrill ate breakfast at the Eldridge house.
The border between Kansas and Missouri was a rough place and there was much brutality on both sides. Attempting to exalt a nasty piece of work like Quantrill won’t really wash, even for those who sympathize with the cause of the slave states. He was more likely just another of the violent psychopaths that crawl out in times of lawlessness and war on both sides.