Quantrell and Todd Go After Ammunition

  CLAD in the full uniform of Federal majors—a supply of which Quantrell kept always on hand, even in a day so early in the war as this—Quantrell and Todd rode into Hamilton, a little town on the Hannibal & St. Louis Railroad, and remained for the night at the principal hotel. A Federal garrison was there—two companies of Iowa infantry—and the captain commanding took a great fancy to Todd, insisting that he should leave the hotel for his quarters and share his blankets with him. Two days were spent in Hannibal, where an entire Feneral regiment was stationed. Here Quantrell was more circumspect. When asked to give an account of himself and his companion, he replied promptly that Todd was a major of the Sixth Missouri Cavalry and himself the major of the Ninth. Unacquainted with either organization, the commander at Hannibal had no reason to believe otherwise. Then he asked about that special cut-throat Quantrell. Was it true that he fought under a black flag? Had he ever really belonged to the Jayhawkers? How much truth was there in the stories of the newspapers about his operations and prowess? Quantrell became voluble. In rapid yet picturesque language he painted a perfect picture of the war along the border. He told of Todd, Jarrette, Blunt, Younger, Haller, Poole, Shepherd,69 Gregg, Little, the Cogers, and all of his best men just as they were, and himself also just as he was, and closed the conversation emphatically by remarking: “If you were here, Colonel, surrounded as you are by a thousand soldiers, and they wanted you, they would come and get you.” From Hannibal—after buying quietly and at various times and in various places fifty thousand revolver caps—Quantrell and Todd went boldly into St. Joseph. This city was full of soldiers. Colonel Harrison B. Branch was there in command of a regiment of militia—a brave, conservative, right-thinking soldier—and Quantrell introduced himself to Branch as Major Henderson of the Sixth Missouri. Todd, by this time, had put on, in lieu of a major’s epaulettes, with its distinguishing leaf, the barred ones of a captain. “Too many majors traveling together,” quaintly remarked Todd, “are like too many roses in a boquet: the other flowers don’t have a chance. Let me be a captain for the balance of the trip.” Colonel Branch made himself very agreeable to Major Henderson and Captain Gordon, and asked Todd if he were a relative of the somewhat notorious Si Gordon of Platte, relating at the same time an interesting adventure he once had with him. En route from St. Louis, in 1861, to the headquarters of his regiment, Colonel Branch, with one hundred and thirty thousand dollars on his person, found that he would have to remain70 in Weston over night and the better part of the next day. Before he got out of the town Gordon took it, and with it he took Colonel Branch. Many of Gordon’s men were known to him, and it was eminently to his interest just then to renew old acquaintanceship and be extremely complaisant to the new. Wherever he could find the largest number of Guerrillas there he was among them, calling for whiskey every now and then, incessantly telling some agreeable story or amusing anecdote. Thus he got through with what seemed to him an interminably long day. Not a dollar of his money was touched, Gordon releasing him unconditionally when the town was abandoned and bidding him make haste to get out lest the next lot of raiders made it the worse for him. For three days, off and on, Quantrell was either with Branch at his quarters or in company with him about town. Todd, elsewhere and indefatigable, was rapidly buying caps and revolvers. Branch introduced Quantrell to General Ben Loan, discussed Penick with him and Penick’s regiment—a St. Joseph officer destined in the near future to give Quantrell some stubborn fighting—passed in review the military situation, incidently referred to the Guerrillas of Jackson County and the savage nature of the warfare going on there, predicted the absolute destruction of African slavery, and assisted Quantrell in many ways in making his mission thoroughly successful. For the first and last71 time in his life Colonel Branch was disloyal to the government and the flag—he gave undoubted aid and encouragement during those three days to about as uncompromising an enemy as either ever had. From St. Joseph Quantrell and Todd came to Kansas City in a hired hack, first sending into Jackson County a man unquestionably devoted to the South with the whole amount of purchases made in both Hannibal and St. Joseph.