I Was a Revolutionary Read Free

a minute, runs a slow hand through her mane, then imagines the people in Lawrence, and so he pats her head, whispering a few final words in her ear, before unsheathing his bowie knife and pricking her shoulder with it. The horse whinnies and rears as Pelathe rubs gunpowder into the wounds, and before he can get his feet back in the irons, the sorrel mare takes off again. By means of this sacrifice he’s able to get a few more miles out of her before she expires, collapsing, Pelathe tumbling forward over her. He must keep going, though, he tells himself, and begins to run until his own legs give out at the Delaware Indian tribe’s camp near the outskirts of Lawrence. He tells them what is happening, of the urgency, that they must rush to town, and with fresh horses they head out, thundering through the purple of early morning. But when they get to the ferry landing on the Kaw River they see it is too late, the horror has already begun. Quantrill has beaten them to town.
(7) Seeds
    A few points of interest:
    â€¢        A previous raid on Lawrence occurred May 21, 1856, nearly five years before Kansas became the thirty-fourth star on the flag, and seven before Quantrill’s Raid. Led by former Senate president David Atchison, a large group of Missourians stormed into town, firing cannons at the Free State Hotel and printing press and looting most of the stores.
    â€¢        Following Atchison’s raid, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts delivered an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, lasting two entire days, called “The Crime Against Kansas.” A few days later, so upset by the rhetoric of the speech and the blame assigned to Southern states, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina calmly walked up to Sumner and began clubbing him with his golden-knobbed cane for several uninterrupted minutes, until the cane broke, upon which time he attempted to stab Sumner with the splintered end, giving the senator a beating from which he would not recover for three years.
    â€¢        When news of the caning reached Kansas, John Brown demanded retribution. With his company of Free State Volunteers, he set out for Pottawatomie Creek, calling for the lives of five pro-slavery men. This, he said, was what God had told him he must do. First he directed the group to the Doyle family’s cabin and led two of Mr. Doyle’s sons outside, where they were stabbed, dismembered, and pierced in their sides in front of their father and mother. Then Brown produced a pistol and shot Mr. Doyle in the head. After two more stops of a similar fashion, Brown had his five.
    â€¢        And so it went, back and forth like this for the next several years, raids perpetrated by both sides with the innocent often paying the price. Like the women who were rounded up in Missouri by federal soldiers and taken to Kansas City and placed in a dilapidated jail cell on suspicion of aiding the rebel bushwhackers. Some of these women were in fact the wives, mothers, and sisters of Quantrill’s men. So when the jail collapsed, killing a number of them, one knew there would be consequences. Eight days later, Quantrill was leading his men into Lawrence.
(8) Forever the South
    The first to die are the young boys from the Fourteenth Kansas Regiment, encamped on the edge of town, training to join up with the Union Army. Quantrill’s men cut right through them, picking the thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds off as they sleep, or as they wander out of their tents, scratching their heads and balls, rubbing their eyes, wondering what the hell all the racket is, then boom : they’re dead. They are unarmed and defenseless thanks to a recent city ordinance forwarded by Mayor Collamore decreeing all weapons in Lawrence be kept locked inside the armory as a safety measure—all those reliably accurate Sharps rifles sent by train to Lawrence from eastern