Part 3

The house was surrounded. To the men withinside this meant, unless they could get out, death by fire and sword. Quantrell was trapped, he who had been accorded the fox’s cunning and the panther’s activity. He glided to the window and looked out cautiously. The cold stars above shone, and the blue figures under them and on every hand seemed colossal. The fist of a heavy man struck the door hard, and a deep voice commanded, “Make a light.” There had been no firing as yet, save the shot of the sentinel and its answering volley. Quantrell went quietly to all who were still asleep and bade them get up and get ready. It was the moment when death had to be looked in the face. Not a word was spoken. The heavy fist was still hammering at the door. Quantrell crept to it on tip-toe, listened a second at the sounds outside and fired. “Oh,” and a stalwart Federal fell prone across the porch, dying. “You asked for a light and you got it, d----n you,” Quantrell ejaculated, cooler than his pistol barrel. Afterwards there was no more bravado. “Bar the doors and barricade the windows,” he shouted; “quick, men!” Beds were freely used and applicable furniture. Little and Shepherd stood by one door; Jarrette, Younger, Toler and Hoy barricaded the other and made the windows bullet-proof. Outside the Federal fusilade was incessant. Mistaking Tate’s house for a frame house, when it was built of brick, the commander of the enemy could be heard encouraging his men to shoot low and riddle the building. Presently there was a lull, neither party firing for the space of several minutes, and Quantrell spoke to his people: “Boys, we are in a tight place. We can’t stay here, and I do not mean to surrender. All who want to follow me out can say so. I will do the best I can for them.” Four concluded to appeal to the Federals for protection; seventeen to follow Quantrell to the death. He called a parley, and informed the Federal commander that four of his followers wanted to surrender. “Let them come out,” was the order. Out they went, and the fight began again. Too eager to see what manner of men their prisoners were, the Federals holding the west side of the house huddled about them eagerly. Ten Guerrillas from the upper story fired at the crowd and brought down six. A roar followed this, and a rush back again to cover at the double quick. It was hot work now. Quantrell, supported by James Little, Cole Younger, Hoy and Stephen Shores held the upper story, while Jarrette, Toler, George Shepherd and others held the lower. Every shot told. The proprietor of the house, Major Tate, was a Southern hero, gray-headed, but Roman. He went about laughing. “Help me get my family out, boys,” he said, “and I will help you hold the house. It’s about as good a time for me to die, I reckon, as any other, if so be that God wills it. But the old woman is only a woman.” Another parley. Would the Federal officer let the women and children out? Yes, gladly, and the old man, too. There was eagerness for this, and much of veritable cunning. The family occupied an ell of the mansion with which there was no communication from the main building where Quantrell and his men were, save by way of a door which opened upon a porch, and this porch was under the concentrating fire of the assailants. After the family moved out the attacking party would throw skirmishers in and then--the torch. Quantrell understood it in a moment and spoke up to the father of the family: “Go out, Major. It is your duty to be with your wife and children.” The old man went, protesting. Perhaps for forty years the blood had not coursed so rapidly and so pleasantly through his veins. Giving ample time for the family to get safely beyond the range of the fire of the besieged, Quantrell went back to his post and looked out. He saw two Federals standing together beyond revolver range. “Is there a shotgun here?” he asked. Cole Younger brought him one loaded with buckshot. Thrusting half his body out the nearest window, and receiving as many volleys as there were sentinels, he fired the two barrels of his gun so near together that they sounded as one barrel. Both Federals fell, one dead, the other mortally wounded. Following this daring and conspicuous feat there went up a yell so piercing and exultant that even the horses, hitched in the timber fifty yards away, reared in their fright and snorted in terror. Black columns of smoke blew past the windows where the Guerrillas were, and a bright red flame leaped up towards the sky on the wings of the wind. The ell of the house had been fired and was burning fiercely. Quantrell’s face--just a little paler than usual--had a set look that was not good to see. The tiger was at bay. Many of the men’s revolvers were empty, and in order to gain time to reload them, another parley was held. The talk was of surrender. The Federal commander demanded immediate submission, and Shepherd, with a voice heard above the rage and the roar of the flames, pleaded for twenty minutes. No. Ten? No. Five? No. Then the commander cried out in a voice not a whit inferior to Shepherd’s in compass: “You have one minute. If, at its expiration, you have not surrendered, not a single man among you shall escape alive.” “Thank you,” said Cole Younger, _soto voce_, “catching comes before hanging.” “Count sixty, then, and be d----d to you”! Shepherd shouted as a parting volley, and then a strange silence fell upon all these desperate men face to face with imminent death. When every man was ready, Quantrell said briefly, “Shot guns to the front.” Six loaded heavily with buck shot, were borne there, and he put himself at the head of the six men who carried them. Behind these those having only revolvers. In single file, the charging column was formed in the main room of the building. The glare of the burning ell lit it up as though the sun was shining there. Some tightened their pistol belts. One fell upon his knees and prayed. Nobody scoffed at him, for God was in that room. He is everywhere when heroes confess. There were seventeen about to receive the fire of three hundred.

Ready! Quantrell flung the door wide open and leaped out. The shotgun men--Jarrette, Younger, Shepherd, Toler, Little and Hoy, were hard behind him. Right and left from the thin short column a fierce fire beat into the very faces of the Federals, who recoiled in some confusion, shooting, however, from every side. There was a yell and a grand rush, and when the end had come and all the fixed realities figured up, the enemy had eighteen killed, twenty-nine badly wounded; and five prisoners, and the captured horses of the Guerrillas. Not a man of Quantrell’s band was touched, as it broke through the cordon on the south of the house and gained the sheltering timber beyond. Hoy, as he rushed out the third from Quantrell and fired both barrels of his gun, was so near to a stalwart Federal that he knocked him over the head with a musket and rendered him senseless. To capture him afterwards was like capturing a dead man. But little pursuit was attempted. Quantrell halted at the timber, built a fire, reloaded every gun and pistol, and took a philosophical view of the situation. Enemies were all about him. He had lost five men--four of whom, however, he was glad to get rid of--and the balance were afoot. Patience! He had just escaped from an environment sterner than any yet spread for him, and fortune was not apt to offset one splendid action by another exactly opposite. Choosing, therefore, a rendezvous upon the head waters of the Little Blue, another historic stream of Jackson County, he reached the residence of David Wilson late the next morning, after a forced march of great exhaustion. The balance of the night, however, had still to be one of surprises and counter-surprises, not alone to the Federals, but to the other portion of Quantrell’s command under Haller and Todd.

Encamped four miles south of Tate House, the battle there had roused them instantly. Getting to saddle quickly, they were galloping back to the help of their comrades when a Federal force, one hundred strong, met them full in the road. Some minutes of savage fighting ensued, but Haller could not hold his own with thirteen men, and he retreated, firing, to the brush.

Afterwards everything was made plain. The four men who surrendered so abjectly at the Tate house imagined that it would bring help to their condition if they told all they knew, and they told without solicitation the story of Haller’s advance and the whereabouts of his camp. A hundred men were instantly dispatched to surprise it or storm it, but the firing had roused the isolated Guerrillas, and they got out in safety after a rattling fight of some twenty minutes.

Fight at Clark’s Home

In April, 1862, Quantrell, with seventeen men, was camped at the residence of Samuel Clark, situated three miles southeast of Stony Point, in Jackson County. He had spent the night there and was waiting for breakfast the next morning when Captain Peabody, at the head of one hundred Federal cavalry, surprised the Guerrillas and came on at the charge, shooting and yelling. Instantly dividing the detachment in order that the position might be effectively held, Quantrell, with nine men, took the dwelling, and Gregg, with eight, occupied the smoke house. For a while the fighting was at long range, Peabody holding tenaciously to the timber in front of Clark’s, distant about one hundred yards, and refusing to come out. Presently, however, he did an unsoldierly thing--or rather an unskillful thing--he mounted his men and forced them to charge the dwelling on horseback. Quantrell’s detachment reserved fire until the foremost horseman was within thirty feet, and Gregg permitted those operating against his position, to come even closer. Then, a quick, sure volley, and twenty-seven men and horses went down together. Badly demoralized, but in no manner defeated, Peabody rallied again in the timber, while Quantrell, breaking out from the dwelling house and gathering up Gregg as he went, charged the Federals fiercely in return and with something of success. The impetus of the rush carried him past a portion of the Federal line, where some of their horses were hitched, and the return of the wave brought with it nine valuable animals. It was over the horses that Andrew Blunt had a hand-to-hand fight with a splendid Federal trooper. Both were very brave.

Blunt had just joined. No one knew his history. He asked no questions and he answered none. Some said he had once belonged to the cavalry of the regular army; others, that behind the terrible record of the Guerrillas he wished to find isolation. Singling out a fine sorrel horse from among the number fastened in his front, Blunt was just about to unhitch him when a Federal trooper, superbly mounted, dashed down to the line and fired and missed. Blunt left his position by the side of the horse and strode out into the open, accepting the challenge defiantly, and closed with his antagonist. The first time he fired he missed, although many men believed him a better shot than Quantrell. The Federal sat on his horse calmly and fired the second shot deliberately and again missed. Blunt went four paces toward him, took a quick aim and fired very much as a man would at something running. Out of the Federal’s blue overcoat a little jet of dust spurted up and he reeled in his seat. The man, hit hard in the breast, did not fall, however. He gripped his saddle with his knees, cavalry fashion, steadied himself in his stirrups and fired three times at Blunt in quick succession. They were now but twenty paces apart, and the Guerrilla was shortening the distance. When at ten he fired his third shot. The heavy dragoon ball struck the gallant Federal fair in the forehead and knocked him dead from his horse.

While the duel was in progress, brief as it was, Blunt had not watched his rear, to gain which a dozen Federals had started from the extreme right. He saw them, but he did not hurry. Going back to the coveted steed, he mounted him deliberately and dashed back through the lines closed up behind him, getting a fierce hurrah of encouragement from his own comrades, and a wicked volley from the enemy.

It was time. A second company of Federals in the neighborhood, attracted by the firing, had made a junction with Peabody and were already closing in upon the houses from the south. Surrounded now by one hundred and sixty men, Quantrell was in almost the same straits as at the Tate house. His horses were in the hands of the Federals, it was some little distance to the timber, and the environment was complete. Captain Peabody, himself a Kansas man, knew who led the forces opposed to him and burned with a desire to make a finish of this Quantrell and his reckless band at one fell sweep. Not content with the one hundred and sixty men already in positions about the house, he sent off posthaste to Pink Hill for additional reinforcements. Emboldened also by their numbers, the Federals had approached so close to the positions held by the Guerrillas that it was possible for them to utilize the shelter the fences gave. Behind these they ensconced themselves while pouring a merciless fusillade upon the dwelling house and smoke house in comparative immunity. This annoyed Quantrell, distressed Gregg and made Cole Younger--one of the coolest heads in council ever consulted--look a little anxious. Finally a solution was found. Quantrell would draw the fire of this ambuscade; he would make the concealed enemy show himself. Ordering all to be ready and to fire the very moment the opportunity for execution was best, he dashed out from the dwelling house to the smoke house, and from the smoke house back again to the dwelling house. Eager to kill the daring man, and excited somewhat by their own efforts made to do it, the Federals exposed themselves recklessly. Then, owing to the short range, the revolvers of the Guerrillas began to tell with deadly effect. Twenty at least were shot down along the fences, and as many more wounded and disabled. It was thirty steps from one house to the other, yet Quantrell made the venture eight different times, not less than one hundred men firing at him as he came and went. On his garments there was not even the smell of fire. His life seemed to be charmed--his person protected by some superior presence. When at last even this artifice would no longer enable his men to fight with any degree of equality, Quantrell determined to abandon the houses and the horses and make a dash as of old to the nearest timber. “I had rather lose a thousand horses,” he said, when some one remonstrated with him, “than a single man like those who have fought with me this day. Heroes are scarce; horses are everywhere.”

In the swift rush that came now, fortune again favored him. Almost every revolver belonging to the Federals was empty. They had been relying altogether upon their carbines in the fight. After the first onset on horseback--one in which the revolvers were principally used--they had failed to reload, and had nothing but empty guns in their hands after Quantrell for the last time drew their fire and dashed away on the heels of it into the timber. Pursuit was not attempted. Enraged at the escape of the Guerrillas, and burdened with a number of dead and wounded altogether out of proportion to the forces engaged, Captain Peabody caused to be burned everything upon the premises which had a plank or shingle about it.

Something else was yet to be done. Getting out afoot as best he could, Quantrell saw a company of cavalry making haste from toward Pink Hill. It was but a short distance to where the road he was skirting crossed a creek, and commanding this crossing was a perpendicular bluff inaccessible to horsemen. Thither he hurried. The work of ambushment was the work of a moment. George Todd, alone of all the Guerrillas, had brought with him from the house a shotgun. In running for life, the most of them were unencumbered. The approaching Federals were the reinforcements Peabody had ordered up from Pink Hill, and as Quantrell’s defense had lasted one hour and a half, they were well on their way.

As they came to the creek, the foremost riders halted that their horses might drink. Soon others crowded in until all the ford was thick with animals. Just then from the bluff above a leaden rain fell as hail might from a cloudless sky. Rearing steeds trampled upon wounded riders; the dead dyed the clear water red. Wild panic laid hold of the helpless mass, cut into gaps, and flight beyond the range of the deadly revolvers came first of all and uppermost. There was a rally, however. Once out from under the fire the lieutenant commanding the detachment called a halt. He was full of dash, and meant to see more of the unknown on the top of the hill. Dismounting his men and putting himself at their head, he turned back for a fight, marching resolutely forward to the bluff. Quantrell waited for the attack to develop itself. The lieutenant moved right onward. When within fifty paces of the position, George Todd rose up from behind a rock and covered the young Federal with his unerring shotgun. It seemed a pity to kill him, he was so brave and collected, and yet he fell riddled just as he had drawn his sword and shouted “Forward!” to the lagging men. At Todd’s signal there succeeded a fierce revolver volley, and again were the Federals driven from the hills and back towards their horses.

Satisfied with the results of this fight--made solely as a matter of revenge for burning Clark’s buildings--Quantrell fell away from the ford and continued his retreat on towards his rendezvous upon the waters of the Sni. Peabody, however, had not had his way. Coming on himself in the direction of Pink Hill, and mistaking these reinforcements for Guerrillas, he had quite a lively fight with them, each detachment getting in several volleys and killing and wounding a goodly number before either discovered the mistake.

“The only prisoner I ever shot during the war,” relates Captain Trow, “was a ‘nigger’ I captured on guard at Independence, Missouri, who claimed that he had killed his master and burned his houses and barns. The circumstances were these: Captain Blunt and I one night went to town for a little spree and put on our Federal uniforms. While there we came in contact with the camp guard, which was a ‘nigger’ and a white man. They did not hear us until we got right up to them, so we, claiming to be Federals, arrested them for not doing their duty in hailing us at a distance. We took them prisoners, disarmed them, took them down to the Fire Prairie bottom east of Independence about ten miles, and there I thought I would have to kill the ‘nigger’ on account of his killing his master and burning his property. I shot him in the forehead just above the eyes. I even put my finger in the bullet hole to be sure I had him. The ball never entered his skull, but went round it. To make sure of him, I shot him in the foot and he never flinched, so I left him for dead. He came to, however, that night and crawled out into the road, and a man from Independence came along the next morning and took him in his wagon. This I learned several years afterwards at Independence in a saloon when one day I chanced to be taking a drink. There I met the ‘nigger’ whom I thought dead. He recognized me from hearing my name spoken and asked if I remembered shooting a ‘nigger.’ I said ‘Yes.’ I had the pleasure of taking a drink with him.”

Jayhawkers and Militia Murder Old Man Blythe’s Son

Quantrell and His Company Were on Foot Again and Jackson County was filled with troops. At Kansas City there was a large garrison, with smaller ones at Independence, Pink Hill, Lone Jack, Stoney Point and Sibley. Peabody caused the report to be circulated that a majority of Quantrell’s men were wounded, and that if the brush were scoured thoroughly they might be picked up here and there and summarily disposed of. Raiding bands therefore began the hunt. Old men were imprisoned because they could give no information of a concealed enemy; young men murdered outright; women were insulted and abused. The uneasiness that had heretofore rested upon the county gave place now to a feeling of positive fear. The Jayhawkers on one side and the militia on the other made matters hot. All traveling was dangerous. People at night closed their eyes in dread lest the morrow should usher in a terrible awakening. One incident of the hunt is a bloody memory yet with many of the older settlers of Jackson County.

An aged man by the name of Blythe, believing his own house to be his own, fed all whom he pleased to feed, and sheltered all whom it pleased him to shelter. Among many of his warm personal friends was Cole Younger. The colonel commanding the fort at Independence sent a scout one day to find Younger, and to make the country people tell where he might be found. Old man Blythe was not at home, but his son was, a fearless lad of twelve years. He was taken to the barn and ordered to confess everything he knew of Quantrell, Younger, and their whereabouts. If he failed to speak truly he was to be killed. The boy, in no manner frightened, kept them some moments in conversation, waiting for an opportunity to escape. Seeing at last what he imagined to be a chance, he dashed away from his captors and entered the house under a perfect shower of balls. There, seizing a pistol and rushing through the back door towards some timber, a ball struck him in the spine just as he reached the garden fence and he fell back dying, but splendid in his boyish courage to the last. Turning over on his face as the Jayhawkers rushed up to finish him he shot one dead, mortally wounded another, and severely wounded the third. Before he could shoot a fourth time, seventeen bullets were put into his body.

It seemed as if God’s vengeance was especially exercised in the righting of this terrible wrong. An old negro man who had happened to be at Blythe’s house at the time, was a witness to the bloody deed, and, afraid of his own life, ran hurriedly into the brush. There he came unawares upon Younger, Quantrell, Haller, Todd, and eleven of his men. Noticing the great excitement under which the negro labored, they forced him to tell them the whole story. It was yet time for an ambuscade. On the road back to Independence was a pass between two embankments known as “The Blue Cut.” In width it was about fifty yards, and the height of each embankment was about thirty feet. Quantrell dismounted his men, stationed some at each end of the passageway and some at the top on either side. Not a shot was to be fired until the returning Federals had entered it, front and rear. From the Blue Cut this fatal spot was afterwards known as the Slaughter Pen. Of the thirty-eight Federals sent out after Cole Younger, and who, because they could not find him, had brutally murdered an innocent boy, seventeen were killed while five--not too badly shot to be able to ride--barely managed to escape into Independence, the avenging Guerrillas hard upon their heels.

The Low House Fight