The daily Green Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1861-1865, 1863-09-17
From the Christian Messenger.
Letter from Kansas.
FOREST LODGE, NEAR BALDWIN City,
Douglas Co., Aug. %, 1868.


Mr.. EDITOR Little thought we when
we sent oft those letters to lions Herald
three days since, with this note appended, all
is quiet here that even then a gang of muir
derous banditti, were but few miles distant,
and that IN a few hours such horrd scenes
would be enacted in our midst as would make
the cheek of darkness turn pale. Such O. day
as yesterday and the previous night, Kansas,
with all her former scenes Of blood, never wit
messed. | and my little boy live alone during
MIR. LIS absence in the Army of the Missis-
slppl, on a claim between Baldwin City and
Lawrence, two miles from the former place,
and ten from the latter. A Methodist preach
er on his way to Lawrence had stopped with
US for the night, and our son, Capt. G. j. Love
Joy, Adjutant of the 18th was at homo on a.
visit.
At an early hour on Friday morning, look
ing in the direction of Lawrence, said he,
: Mother, Lawrence is all on fire, and in
trice he was in the saddle and gaoping down
street. rushed out and saw the flames of
the burning city, and met the preacher who
had spent the night with US, and had started
for Lawrence, painting for breath, and urging
on his horses to hide them in our woods; hav-
ing left his wagon by the waysdehe cried out,
Sister Lovejoy, Quantrell has burned Law
renee and is within two miles of US with 5000
men, some have since thought not so many,
and | could then see every house this side of
Lawrence, with a volume Of dense smoke aris-
ing from them as they advanced, firing every
house 10 their march Of death. MY neigh
bors began to clear their houses of all their
vauables, and secrete them in The woods and
cornheldS. | caught little tin trunk with
our valuable papers and husbands watch in
1t, that he had left as a kind of memento if he
never returned from the war, and concealed it
IN tall weeds, and dragged out trunk of cloth
ing, and looked to Heaven for help in this
time OF need. Nearer and nearer they came;
again hied to my watch-tower. Thank God
they have taken another road-tEe Santa Fe
Road, running parallel with this from Law
renee to Baldwin city. At this instant rode
up squad OF United States troops-three
hundred In the whole, who had been in saddle
during the night, and nearly famishcd | emp
tied the contents of my bread box, which suf-
heed Tor few they ate as they rode along.
The robbers were at that moment firing Brook
line, two miles of, and there our men, hundreds
OF whom were gallopiug over the prairies in
every direction, headed them off Baldwin CITY
and Prairie City, both Of which they had de-
signed to burn, and murder the inhabitants.
These soldiers had learned their intentions, and
had followed them from Kansas City, Mo-,
thirty miles. and traced them by the smoke Of
the burning buildings after they left Lawrence,
and healed them just the moment they were
to burn our city and had it not been for the
Of these troops, who had ridden
until a number of their horses fell dead in the
road, our beautiful University Building would
to day be heap Of ruins. At Prairie City
our company Of troops and citizens had aug.
mented to 800 or 1000 men. Our men