The Saint Paul globe., 1898-08-08


other Days-Respected Citizen
Tells of the Time He Rode With
the Daring Fighter-QuantreH
Was Never Guilty of Train Rob-
bing.
From the New York Sun.
Living in New York apartment house
above Central park is a man on whose head
was once placed price by a Union general.
In the country where this man made him.
self feared by those who were opposed to
his manner of warfare he was known as
guerrilla. In the coinage of the civilian ne
was a bushwhacker-
Naturally" he said TO the only man In
the city who knows his antecedents, Il was
very much interested in the accounts l read
of the fighting around Guantanamo Bay.
l cannot say l wanted TO take a hand.
do not know what sort of guerrillaS can be
made out of marines or regulars. | am not
questioning the courage of either. That
has been demonstrated. If l were asked
to make a guess, il would be that the volun-
teer will be more effective in the gueir LA
warfare in Cuba than the marine or the
regular. And | believe the hard fighting
is to come, When we have SAINT ago and
guerrilla will be stubborn. It's like fire
in cotton. You never know when it is g)ing
to break out, or where. The Sapn a d is a
guerrilla by instinct and the military customs
And yet the best guerrillas Of the civil
E5ar-you understand the in which l
before the war were as peaceful as that OF
a pastoral poet. l cannot recall one who
was city man, or a commercial man, O.,
what you would call an aggressive man. They
were men who were known as counrymen.
But they had some of the ms cts OF the
tiger. A tiger is peaceful until his right is
disputed. The blood Of his whelp iniu a es
him.
Some o. the most desperate men in
guerrilla warfare were those who triel to
stay at home during the civil war to care
for helpless ones, or who, having gone to
the front, returned from tine to tine to
look after their homes.
SOMETIMES FOUND ASHES
Where their homes stood. The people of the
home were not to be found, or, if found, they
were naked and hungry, and now and then
one would be found whose reason had been
overthrown. Then the returned soldier lay
in wait in the woods. He skulked by night
When the weather permitted he lay down to
sleep by day in the tall grass of the prairie
After he had lived in this way little while
after he had comforted his feeling of re-
venge by the results of some unerring Shots
and would have been willing to call 1t even,
he found that he was prescribed. He knew he
was hunted. He knew that whatever he had
of kin, wherever it was found, would be made
to suffer for his sake. And he knew, God help
him, that he had no country and no flag And
then he fought to the death.
Now, when you find a dozen, TWENTY-FIVE
llfty, or one hundred men whose lives have
come together in this way you can under
stand how they come 20 be terrors. You can
understand the portent of the black flag.
There IS no mounting of guard, or dress pa
rade, or hope of reward from congress- or of
degrees in colleges, or of iorid descriptions
or the fight with pictures, for who are
guerrillaS. Two stand sentinel somewhere in
the thicket while the others get a little Steep
And sometimes there is no sentinel but the
guerrillaS S faithful horse. ! have heard that
horse I ponp
depends upon the man who owns him. I never
stopped to study it, but there was some sort
Of affinity between a guerrilla and his horse.
nave slept IN my saddle and trusted nv
faithful horse to keep out of danger. l have
sometimes. when alone and tired disnounted
lay down in the grass thicket, and left
my horse on guard. l always found him there
when I woke.
Yes, once my horse called me. 1 had
been in the saddle nearly thirty hours. In
that time the rain was incessant. | went to
sleep under some branches on the ground
Under such conditions a man will sleep the
sleep of the just. I awakened by the
shaking and breaking of the brush.
MY HORSE WAS PULLING IT.
was barely in the saddle when a lot Of
jayhawkers were upon me. But for my know
ledge OF the country l would not have escap-
ed. 1 think I owe my life to my horse
I remember l spoke of this once to Guam
trell, and he said it showed that horse ap-
preciaed low voice, for the guerilla was
never known to speak otherwise; at least.
not after he had been a guerilla very long.
The American gueril,a's voice was musical
An old cava-ryman once told me that he
broke a horse with kindness. and I believe it
can De done. l reckon you remember what
an old French marshal once said-at least he
Is credited with it-.hat the best cuirassiers s
were those who embraced their horse before
they did their mistresses.
With us, TO be a Kansas man was the
9npardonabIe crime. 1t sounds strange,
doesn't it? There was a reason for it. Oar
homes were on the border We believed. and
some Of us sill believe, that the first horse
stealing. the first barn burning the first
stampede OF live stock, and the first desecra-
tlon of home and church were by the Kansas
layhawker, or, as he was often known red
leg But there were times when his Kansas
anteeedents didn't cause him to die. A lieu
tenant was brought into our corral. He made
some sort of a sign which l did not under
stand. but our captain asked him if he was
lively.
g Are you Kansas man.? asked our can.
&" Yes was the reply.
Then to he'll with YOU said our can-
tain. And while he cooked his pistol tears
came into the lieutenants ewes
How old are you? asked our captain.
inc lieutenant cchoked. but managed to say
" Married. asked the captain. The lieu
tenant said he was
'Chidren?'
Yes
Hate to die I reckon%' But the u.u-
tenant was speechless
lou are free. Git
The hentenant was dumb: but as soon as
ne recovered he undertook to thank the man
MDose voice and heart were at war
Damn your thanks and damn womb
Cit '''u '0u you are free'
Il remember once when a troop that had
been separated from the main body. II
can speak of q guerrilla band in tha, -ray
came IN, and the lieutenant was questioned
by Quantrell as to the
RESULT OF HIS WORK.
The guerrilla's report was never write,
ard the words We're as brief and to the poInt
as Dewey's to Gridley. The leutenant,s re-
port was:
All killed but one.'
1t should be all killed. none womb
ed, said QUantrell. Let II be so hereafter ,
THE lieutenant saluted and rode away
There is one thing charged to the guerritla
from which he should be absolved. l mean
train robbing. There never was ANYTHING
of that kind in guerrilla warfare We bwrnad
towns we pillaged homes when there were
no women and children in them we slew in
me race or PRAYER; we obstructed, but We
never robbed a train or a stage coach ana
we never mutilated the dcad Train robb ary
followed after guerrilla warfare ceased
in answer 10 the question, What made a
guerrilla of Quan.rell?' the ola man answeraS
promptly and in a quiet manner:
1T was in 1856 He and his brother and
the father had camped in their overland jour-
ney. They were teaming. It was in the
troubled days Of Missouri Kansas affairs len
nlson's 5 men we, We're prowling, like wolves. Taey
killed the father. wounded the brothers and
robbed them and rode away The Ouantrafl
known afterwsrd in history dragged the todv
of his brother to creek. washed his wounds