Fights and Skirmishes During Fall and Winter, 1863–1864

  AS the Lawrence raid put the whole Federal forces after us, it was a continuous fight from September 1, 1863, to Price’s raid in August, 1864, but Quantrell held his own. Up to the time of the Lawrence massacre there had been no scalping done; after it a good deal. Abe Haller, brother of Lieutenant William Haller, was wounded and hiding in some timber near Texas Prairie in the eastern edge of Jackson County. Alone, he faced seventy-two men, killing and wounding five of the attacking party, when he fell. His slayers scalped him and cut off his ears. Shortly afterwards Andy Blunt came upon the body, mutilated as it was, and pointed out the marks of the knife to his companions. “We have something to learn yet, boys,” he said, “and we have learned it.” “Scalp for scalp hereafter!” The next day Blunt, Long, Clemens, Bill Anderson and McGuire captured four militiamen from a regiment belonging to North Missouri. Blunt scalped each of the four, leaving their ears intact, however. He said he had no use for them. Fire Prairie The killing went on. Between Fire Prairie and Napoleon Gregg, Taylor, Nolan, Little and Frank James captured six of Pennick’s militiamen. They held over160 them a kind of court martial and killed them all. These were not scalped. Wellington The next day Richard Kenney, John Farretts, Jesse James and Sim Whitsett attacked a picket post of eight men about a mile from Wellington and annihilated it, cutting them off from the town and running them in a contrary direction. Not a man escaped. Lexington Road Two days afterwards Ben Morrow, Pat O’Donald and Frank James ambushed an entire Federal company between Salem church on the Lexington road and Widow Child’s. They fought eighty men for nearly an hour, killing seven and wounding thirteen. O’Donald was wounded three times and James and Morrow each once slightly. Shawnee Town Road Todd gathered together thirty of his old men and, getting a volunteer guide who knew every hog path in the country, went around past Kansas City boldly and took up a position on the Shawnee Town road, looking for a train of wagons bringing infantry into Kansas City. There were twenty wagons with twenty soldiers to the wagon, besides the drivers. Here and there between the wagons intervals of fifty yards had been permitted to grow. Todd waited until all the wagons but161 three had passed by the point of his ambush when he sprang out upon them and poured into them and upon their jammed and crowded freight a deadly rain of bullets. Every shot told. Todd butchered sixty in the three wagons and turned away from his work of death and pursued the balance. Independence Cole Younger, while Todd was operating in Kansas, gathered about him ten men and hid himself as close to Independence as it was possible to get without getting into town. His eyes for some time had been fastened upon a large corral. He sent William Hulse out to reconnoiter the position and bring word of the guard stationed to protect it. Younger avoided the pickets and by eleven o’clock had made the distance, halting at the turning off place on the main road and giving his horses in charge of two of the detachment. With the other eight on foot led by Hulse, he crept close to the reserve post and fired point blank into the sleeping guard, some rolled up in their blankets and some resting at ease about the fire. Choosing his way as well as possible by the uncertain light. Younger escaped unpursued with three excellent horses to the man after killing seventeen Federals in the night attack and wounding many more.