Bloody Dawn (12 page)

Sallie Young and her two companions came into Lawrence quite some distance before they realized their mistake. Warning her friends to stay calm, the three quietly turned and rode slowly from
town. When the outskirts were reached and a Rebel picket sighted them, the two boys set spurs and were off south. Sallie rode back into town.
¹⁴

Soon, Quantrill entered the hotel. Stepping into the packed lobby he met a number of old faces, whereupon he shook hands and spoke briefly. He assured them of their safety. The guerrilla chief then climbed a flight of stairs and strode to the landing where he looked over the crowd and watched while his men went about their work. Everyone below seemed stunned. Terrified, most expected the leader to be the essence of his men; wild, vulgar, and snarling. On this score, however, they were gratefully surprised. Although he gripped a big pistol, with another in his belt, there was a pleasant, calm, even benign look spread over his boyish face and clear blue eyes. His gray hunting shirt was open at the chest and he wore a low-crowned Spanish hat with gold neck cord and little tassels dangling around the brim. A fine-looking man, mused a captive.

Some in the crowd attempted to humor and flatter, grinning sheepishly, reminding him of old times in the territory and congratulating him on his brilliant success in capturing Lawrence. Unmoved, Quantrill received the tribute with “marked complacency,” simply adding that yes, it was by far his greatest exploit. Another ventured to ask why he hadn't come during the full moon as he had threatened.

“You were expecting me then,” he smiled.

Then, after once more vouching for their safety, Quantrill asked if Governor Carney was in town. He was not, someone answered. Again he queried if anyone knew where Jim Lane lived. Arthur Spicer “volunteered.” After ordering the captives across the street and assigning several men to guard them, Quantrill detailed a squad to follow Spicer to Lane's house: if he misled them, the saloonkeeper was to be shot on the spot; otherwise Spicer was to be returned alive as there was an old score yet to settle.

As they were being herded across the street, a number of bushwhackers cast crude remarks and curses at the captives. Already some raiders were glutted with liquor. One angry guerrilla, clamoring to murder the hostages, rode up, called a man a Red Leg, then aimed and fired. Although the shot missed, a guard threatened to kill the drunk should he fire again. This was seconded by Quantrill, who came out after hearing the disturbance. Quickly, he ordered the prisoners to the City Hotel near the river where they would remain safe.
At this, the terror-stricken men and women sprang headlong for the refuge, Quantrill escorting a short distance behind.

Reaching the hotel, the Rebel warmly greeted Nathan Stone and his beautiful daughter, Lydia, and shouted to the raiders nearby that the Stones were his friends and that neither they, the hostages, nor the building was to be touched. He then turned to leave. Before he left, however, Quantrill once more reminded the captives that Stone's hotel was their haven: “Stay in it.… Don't attempt to go into the streets.”
¹⁵

Although no Red Legs were there this morning, the Rebels didn't know it, and thus the three-story Johnson House was quickly surrounded by a large band. Unlike the Eldridge, however, the score of people inside refused to come out. Consequently, the bushwhackers began sniping at the windows, mixing the gunfire with calls to surrender. “All we want is for the men to give themselves up,” they yelled, “and we will spare them and burn the house.”
¹⁶

Two doors down, in a home of screaming children, Getta Dix was doing everything in her power to get her husband to move. Earlier, while Ralph was still in bed, Getta had looked up the street and watched in disbelief while “half-wit” Jo was shot off the Eldridge fence; now with more shooting at the Johnson House the street was full of men. Again she pleaded—the raiders were too busy at the hotel—there was still a chance. But Ralph, his brother Steve, and several employees seemed frozen, uncertain, feebly reassuring one another that it was only a matter of time before help arrived.

Again the woman begged. But nothing. Putting her children in the arms of the men, she then ran down the flight of stairs to the side of the house and struggled to carry a heavy ladder up to a window. As she was coming back, however, Getta happened to look over toward the Johnson House, and there to her horror she saw several men leaping from windows only to be shot upon landing. Running back into the home, the woman barred the doors and told her husband what she had seen, warning the rest to stay inside. This and the fear of fire jolted the men. Together, despite his wife's pleas, Dix and the others decided that their only hope now rested behind the stone walls of the Johnson House. Thus after climbing out a window and crawling over the roof of the adjoining barber shop, every man did eventually reach the hotel.

After seeing Ralph safely on the other side, and after taking her children to a coal shed out back, Getta desperately searched for her black nurse. The woman was finally discovered locked in a closet,
refusing to come out. Grabbing a meat cleaver from the kitchen, the frantic mother hacked open the door and ordered the frightened nurse toward the shed to mind the children while she herself went to the Johnson House.

No sooner had Getta left than she saw her brother-in-law tumble down the steps at the rear of the hotel. Running to his side, she settled his head into her lap and sought to comfort him. But Steve was dead, and when Getta tried to move, his brain fell into her hands.

Then, as the blood-smeared woman staggered to the front, she could see that the hotel had surrendered. And there, standing among the rest, Getta saw through a rush of pain and tears her husband.

“Oh my God, Ralph,” she screamed. “Why did you do it? I know they will kill you.”

Another prisoner nearby had just handed a pistol to his captor. As soon as the weapon was given up a gun exploded behind the man, blowing out his stomach. Horrified, Dix and the other seven captives screamed for mercy.

“I have killed seven ‘red legs,' ” laughed the head of the gang, “and I'll kill eight more.”

Wildly pleading that it was a mistake, that they weren't Red Legs, the white-eyed, sobbing men knelt and crawled on the ground, reaching up to the guerrillas for life. Although she too was screaming and crying, Dix begged his wife to save him. At length, the prisoners were kicked and punched to their feet and driven by three guards across the street toward the Methodist Church, with Getta clinging to Ralph's arm, beseeching the men at every step not to harm him. Two of the Rebels bent, then broke, making her a promise. But the leader was firm.

“No, I won't let you take your husband away,” he said. “I'm going to kill every damn one of them.”

Hanging desperately on to Ralph, striking at the raider's horse as it tried to nudge her away, the woman walked sideways, never taking her eyes from the leader. Up from the church, in the alley, Getta stumbled over a pile of rocks, breaking her hold, and before she could rise again the guns went off. Somewhere in the swirling blue smoke she saw Ralph go down. As in a dream, she stood while all around her others fell away. Racing down the alley, another group of riders spotted the pile of bodies; without slowing they trampled them hard into the ground.

Getta wandered along Massachusetts Street for some time—to a store where looting guerrillas chased her away, to a figure that was still breathing. But nothing, it seemed, could hold her attention. She
continued to drift aimlessly until at last she found herself again in the alley. Noticing a straw hat laying nearby, Getta picked it up, quietly placed it over her husband's face, then calmly walked back to her burning home.
¹⁷

Although a number of raiders roamed Massachusetts Street, exploring one store after the other, most broke into squads and covered the town. Many, like George Todd and Bill Anderson, rode over the bridges spanning the ravine and paid a visit to affluent West Lawrence. From out of shirt pockets came the lists with the long row of names, and the firing that opened the morning so terrifically now settled into short, methodical bursts from every corner of town. The Missourians had finally gotten among those they hated most, and no power on earth could stop them now.

Panic gripped Mayor Collamore. Springing from window to window, he, his wife Julia, and their Irish servant saw on all sides only nightmarish guerrillas, angry and shouting. There was no way out. Suddenly the desperate man thought of his well and quickly ran for the rear. There, in a wing of the house the tiny mayor dove down the dark hole followed closely by his servant.

At the front door the gang entered, met by Julia and her frightened children. Cursing and yelling fiercely, they demanded her husband. Receiving no reply from the terror-stricken woman, the men crashed through the home, up and down, from one room to the next, madly hunting their prey. Failing in this, it was decided simply to smoke the victim out. Setting the house on fire, the raiders fell back into the street to watch and wait for the mayor's appearance.

Refusing to leave, Julia slipped to the well, and as the flames spread throughout the home, she spoke down to her husband.
¹⁸

By the time George Bell reached the center of town, Lawrence was surrounded. There had been no resistance. Nowhere could Bell hear the distinct crack of a militia rifle, and as far as he could see he was the only citizen shouldering a weapon. His courage dissolved. Bell looked for a way to escape, returning to home and family his sole desire. At last he ducked into the ravine. There, to his surprise, he met many others, just as confused and frightened as he.

“Where shall we meet?” he whispered. Aghast at such a notion, those nearby warned that it was pointless to think about a stand any longer; fighting would only get them all killed. A friend urged Bell to throw down his musket and perhaps draw less malice should he be
taken. The sounds of gunfire and pounding hooves were more than enough to convince Bell of the wisdom in this. Dropping the rifle and cartridge box, the county clerk inched his way up the ravine toward home.
¹⁹

When Levi Gates reached West Lawrence from his farm he realized that it was too late. Across the ravine he could plainly see Rebels in the center of town and more to the south, and it was obvious there was little he could do. All of Gates's friends and neighbors who had come on the run had turned back home in dismay. He was about to do the same. But Levi Gates took pride in the fact that he was an excellent shot, and the once-in-a-lifetime chance to try his hand on a human target and bag a Rebel proved irresistible.

Dismounting, the farmer steadied his hunting rifle on a fence, sighted his mark, then squeezed the trigger. Although it was a long shot, a guerrilla in the distance jumped in his saddle. Tempted further, Gates once more loaded and fired, then raced for the wooded ravine. He failed to notice the man closing on his right, however, and after he was brought down and the Rebel had finished with him, Levi Gates lay sprawled in the dust, his head flat and mashed “to a jelly.”
²⁰

The first Jim Lane knew of anything was when a “flying Negro” passed his home and yelled that the bushwhackers were in town. Instantly the mansion became a bedlam, and while the wife and children flashed about in their nightclothes trying to locate two guns stored somewhere, the senator peered out the window watching for the approach of the raiders. The guns could not be found. Grabbing his ceremonial sword as the only recourse, Lane quickly dropped it as the horsemen led by Arthur Spicer drew up at the front gate. Bolting through the house, the jayhawker flew out the back window and ran for a small gully, bobbing and weaving, pausing just long enough to look for Rebel pickets. In a few moments Lane emerged from the gully and went streaking west through his cornfield, nightshirt flapping in the breeze.

Meeting them at the door, Mary Lane politely informed the guerrillas that the senator was not at home. Foiled at not coming face to face with the most famous man in Kansas, the Rebels settled for next best and proceeded to dismantle his home. Pianos, furniture, china—much of it from Missouri—were broken up and strewn about, as were the senator's private papers. The rings worn by Mary and her daughter were snatched from their fingers. Having finally
located one of the shotguns, James, Jr., was warned to give it up. He refused. When a blast smashed into the wall nearby he at last did as he was told. The home was then set ablaze. But the mother and children hurried and put it out. Again a fire was lit in a different spot and again the family rushed and extinguished it. Finally the flames caught and spread in a third area, and the frantic attempts to save the finest home in Lawrence at last ceased.

At that, the gang mounted and rode away. With them not only did they take Lane's “magnificent banner,” presented to his Indiana regiment for duty in the Mexican War, but the “general's” fancy, shining sword as well.

By now Lane himself was almost a mile away, crossing over the California Road, still running.
²¹

One block east of Lane's, another group surrounded the stately home of Jerome Griswold. The swoop completely stunned the four families inside. With loud, ugly shouts the men were ordered to come out. Looking down from the second-floor bedrooms at the terrifying array below, Dr. Griswold, Jo Trask, Harlow Baker, Simeon Thorp, along with their wives turned and spoke excitedly about what they should do. Again the men were demanded; again there was no response. A moment or two passed and then, anxiously, someone in the house called out and asked why the men were wanted.

“The damned sons of bitches must come out of there,” yelled an impatient guerrilla. He was echoed by his companions. No one in the home moved at this awful demand.

Soon another raider, wiser than the first, urged the Kansans to come out, that he would guarantee their safety once they did. No one would be harmed, he insisted, adding that they came only to rob Lawrence, and “if the citizens quietly surrender … it might save the town.” This last approach softened the four men in the home. And besides, there was nothing else they could do. “If it will help to save the town,” Trask advised, “let us go.”