Omaha daily bee., 1895-09-28

trells W company dashed upon them, and
most Of them died in that sleop-ail, In their
blankets. The camp across the river was
broken, and, after a sklrmish, the men fed,
Jim Lane in the lead.
Quantrell's band then applied the torch to
the town. Occasionally a citizen with a child
In his arms ventured out for a safer place.
lie was shot In his tracks. While some OF
these Missouri bandits made music with pis-
tol and carbine balls, others fired houses.
business houses and anything that would
burn. A church steeple smoked and burst into
names, and as II fell the bell went changing
to the red ruin below. Women fell upon
their knees and prayed, and their little ones
cried plteously with uplifted hands and up
turned faces. AS homes burned their embers
fell upon men and women who, having sought
safety In the cellars, were burned to death.
There was a woman whose husband had
been an abolitionist preacher. His wife per-
suaded him to put his feet In the well bucket
and hold on to the rope while she lowered
MIN with the windlass. After the piilago she
pulled him up. lie was dead. The gas In
the well had killed him.
There was a young woman who was the
niece OF old Ex-Governor shannon. She was a
union girl, pretty as a flower and as sympa-
thetic as a mother. During the pillage she
was a ministering angel where there was an
opportunity. She was at the side Of the guer-
rilla and j~ayhawker with the cup OF cold
water. When the massacre and robbery was
over she was arrested as a confederate spy
and sent to Leavenworth. Old ID. II. An
thony knew better than this, and I am told
that he denounced her arrest and had her set
free.
There was a woman in the town, Mrs.
Bromley, who was a union woman. But she
had pluck and policy and entertained the no.
torious Bill Anderson, Quantrell's boldest
rider, at her house. She was afterward the
wife Of Major Warner, mayor of Kansas
City, and still later member Of congress from
the Kansas City district.
A Mr.. Bullene entertained Cole Younger,
Jesse and Frank James and others Of Guam
trelIs staff that day in his houve at dinner.
In the annals of border warfare there is no
parallel to this Lawrence raid and pillage.
A man was pursued to the door of the
church where he had worshiped, He ives
wounded, and when he fell the nriest bent
over him with his consolation. One Of the
bandits rode up and the priest begged for
a little mercy for his parishioner. Hurry
up was the reply. We've got no time to
waste with prayer There was a truce, how
ever, for a moment. The bandit uncovered
his head while the priest bent above the
wounded man. 1t may have been the bandits
Idea of deriding the church. 1t may have
been some tender recollection. You never
could tell what was in the heart of one of
those men. The priest finished his minis
terial function; the bandit replaced his hat,
drew his revolver and sent d bullet through
the brain Of his victim, and then rode away.
There were citizens who were saved through
Masonic recognition, strange as that may
read in connection with such a scene of horror
and crime.
One of Quantrell's men. in his fuzzy. or
through craze, got drunk. AS the pillage
went on the man drank deeper. Quantrell
had him shot, and such was the faith of the
followers Of this captain that they applauded
the order and the killing. A band of negroes
took the body. after the fight was over,
dragged it through the streets, and starting
a fire to a log heap, they threw the dead
body OF the guerrilla upon 1t and danced
around the pyre, singing and howlng like
dervishes.
One of Qdantrell's officers, Lieutenant Bled-
soc, was wounded during the massacre. He
was a favorite with his men. When the re-
treat began Bledsoe could not sit his horse.
The guerrillas stole a carriage and team and
carried away the wounded man.
HOW BLEDSOE DIED.
Edwards, the guerrilla historian Of the Dor
der, who was singularly fascinated by these
men, tells in a dramatic way how Bledsoe
died at last:
Deep in the recesses Of a stretch of heavy
timber in Lafayette county, Missouri, his
comrades placed him and left him. At in
teryals a physician stole to his hiding place
and dressed his hurts. Women also found
him out and fed him. He was convalescing
Just a little when a federal cavalry scout,
numbering twenty-five, came unawares upon
the manned guerrilla and began to fire. 1t
WAS u COIlDdI OF OuITdnCe-One against
twenty-five. Bledsoe had kept with him to
the end his three dragon revolvers, and
these he laid aside when he first heard the
feet of the approaching horses crashing the
underbrush. He spoke not a word during all
the battle; scarcely able to lift up a hand
before the final mercy stroke, he did not ask
for quarter by a sign. Shot in the right
shoulder, he fired with his left hand. Shot
in the left arm, he REINFORCED it with his
wounded right, and kept up the unequal COM
bat. Two of the enemy were killed and three
wounded. Crippled as he was, and weak from
an old hurt, they dared not grapple with him.
D!smounted and protected by trees, they took
a quarter of an hour to shoot him to death.
At last a bullet found the brain and he fell
from his knees to his face. dead. But two
chambers remained loaded of his three re-
%volvers; he had literally fought to the death.
The day was crowded with such incidents
as are here revived. My informant, now a
police commissioner in a western city, himself
one of the band of Quantrell, said, as he sat
in his cheerful home, his hand a little palsied
as it twined the sunlocks of a daughter, now
at womanhood:
.'The retreat was marked by columns of
smoke on either side for ten miles. We were
ordered to burn on our way back, and we
did II. 1t was never known-at least | never
heard-how many were killed at Lawrence
that day. The estimate varied from $50 to
200. l have been told that 1S9 buildings were
burned, the loss aggregating 81, 500, 900. And
when we got back to Missouri and exam
med the pockets in the saddle of one of our
men it contained $4,000 in greenbacks taken
from a Lawrence bank"
The face of the woman at her fathers knees
Swallowed when he told this.
every dollar OF that money, by Guam
trell's order, was distributed among the con-
federate widows and orphans, who had been
made such on account of Quantrell." :
The shadow passed from the face of the
woman at this explanation and she looked
admiringly into her fathers eyes, as only
a woman can look when the man before her
Is her hero.
The more scandal is spread out, the thicker
II gets. |