James Henry Lane ( Union general ) James Henry Lane also known as Jim Lane ( June 22 , 1814 – July 11 , 1866 ) was a partisan during the Bleeding Kansas period that immediately preceded the American Civil War . During the war , Lane served as a United States Senator and as a general who fought for the Union . Although reelected as a Senator in 1865 , Lane committed suicide the following year . Biography . The son of Amos Lane , Lane was born in Lawrenceburg , Indiana , where he practiced law when he was admitted to the bar in 1840 . He was a U . S . congressman from Indiana ( 1853 – 1855 ) where he voted for the Kansas - Nebraska Act . He moved to the Kansas Territory in 1855 . He immediately became involved in the abolitionist movement in Kansas , and was often called the leader of the Jayhawkers , a leading Free Soil militant group . After the Free Soilers succeeded in getting Kansas admitted to the Union in 1861 as a free state , Lane was elected as one of the new state ' s first U . S . Senators , and reelected in 1865 . During that time he presided over the Topeka convention . Civil War . During the American Civil War , in addition to his Senate service , Lane raised a brigade of Jayhawkers known as the " Kansas Brigade " , or " Lane ' s Brigade " , composed of the Third , Fourth , and Fifth Kansas Volunteers . He led this mixed force into action against pro - Southern general Sterling Price in the Battle of Dry Wood Creek as Price began an offensive early in the war to retake Missouri for the pro - Confederate state government that had been deposed by pro - Union forces . Lane lost the battle but stayed behind and attacked pro - South pockets in Missouri behind Price . His raids culminated in the Sacking of Osceola , in which Lane ' s forces killed at least nine men , then pillaged , looted , and then burned the town ; these events inspired the novel " Gone to Texas " by Forrest Carter , which was the basis for the 1976 Clint Eastwood movie " The Outlaw Josey Wales " . Lane was severely criticized for his actions in Osceola , most severely by General Henry Halleck , Commander of the Department of Missouri . Of their actions , he would state : " The course pursued by those under Lane and Jennison has turned against us many thousands who were formerly Union men . A few more such raids will make this State unanimous against us . " Thus , Lane ' s Brigade was ended . On December 18 , 1861 Lane was appointed brigadier general of volunteers . On Mar 21 , 1862 , his commission was canceled in culmination of an argument over whether a sitting U . S . Senator could concurrently hold the rank of general . However on April 11 , 1862 he was reinstated as brigadier general of volunteers with the confirmation of the U . S . Senate . During 1862 – 1863 he served as recruiting commissioner for the state of Kansas . On October 27 – 29 , 1862 , U . S . Senator Jim Lane recruited the 1st Regiment Kansas Volunteer Infantry ( Colored ) who debuted at the Skirmish at Island Mound . They are the first African - American troops to fight in the war , a year before the 54th Massachusetts . In their first action , 30 of their members defeated 130 mounted Confederate guerrillas . Lane was the target of the event that became the Lawrence Massacre ( or Quantrill ' s Raid ) on August 21 , 1863 . Confederate guerillas could be heard shouting , " Remember Osceola ! " Though Lane was in residence in Lawrence at the time , he was able to escape the attack by racing through a cornfield in his nightshirt . In 1864 when Sterling Price invaded Missouri , Lane served as a volunteer aide - de - camp to Samuel R . Curtis , commander of the Army of the Border . Lane was with the victorious Union forces at the battle of Westport . Death and legacy . Lane had survived many hardships in his life , including fighting in the Mexican - American War and the Civil War . But on July 1 , 1866 he shot himself in the head as he jumped from his carriage in Leavenworth , Kansas . He was allegedly deranged , depressed , had been charged with abandoning his fellow Radical Republicans and had been accused of financial irregularities . He died ten days later near Leavenworth , Kansas , a result of the self - inflicted gunshot . Edmund G . Ross was appointed to succeed him in the Senate . The following places were named in honor of the late senator :