A Bloodbath

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They (whoever “they” are) say that “history is written by the winners.” I tend to think that history is written more by people with very short attention spans. When there’s a mass shooting we hear things like it’s “the worst mass shooting in history” or something like that. It’s not even close. Today I was at the scene of a bloodbath: the Quantrill raid on Lawrence, Kansas. Some might dismiss this as “war,” so it “doesn’t count.” That’s, in the words of Colonel Potter from M*A*S*H, “horse hockey.” On August 21, 1863, William Quantrill led a group of guerrillas from Missouri into Lawrence, Kansas. There, he and his men slaughtered between 170 and 200 men and boys. Yes, it was during the Civil War. And, yes, Quantrill was a Confederate officer. But their target wasn’t military, it was civilian. Quantrill was looking for one man: James Henry Lane. The Union officer was believed to be responsible for conducting attacks on towns in Missouri (think Lt. Calley and My Lai [if you’re old enough to remember it]). Quantrill wanted to retaliate for the damage done in Missouri, so he picked Lawrence, Kansas as the place to attack. It was Lane’s home; additionally, it was a “Jay-hawker” (pro-Union civilians) town and comparatively affluent. Lane escaped. Most of the men in the town did not. The death toll was between 175 and 200, and that does not include a company of newly-enlisted black soldiers who vanished (some historians say they were all killed, which is likely given Quantrill’s pro-slavery beliefs, and other historians think they escaped into cornfields with several other townspeople). When Quantrill left Lawrence about four hours after he arrived, the town had largely been burnt to the ground. Women and children were spared, but men and boys “old enough to hold a gun” were shot down. There are a couple of interesting post-scripts about William Quantrill. First, one of his “raiders” was a young man by the name of Frank James, brother of Jesse. Secondly, Quantrill escaped from Missouri without being caught but was finally shot and killed....in my hometown, Louisville, Kentucky. He’s buried in a cemetery in Louisville. War is hell. Attacking citizens in the name of “war” is worse than hell.