Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence and the Rise of the Jayhawks

One hundred fifty years ago yesterday (August 21, 1863), William Quantrill and "Bloody" Bill Anderson led their Missouri Bushwhackers (or Ruffians) on a raid of Lawrence, Kansas, which to this day remains one of the most defining events of this region.  At dawn that morning, the Missourians swooped down into town from Mount Oread (pronounced OR ee ad), murdered 183 boys and men (they killed no women or children), robbed the banks and taverns, and left the town in flames then beat a hasty retreat back to Missouri.  All this was done by 9am. 

 

During the Civil War, Lawrence was known as the base of operations for a group of anti-slavery guerillas known as Jayhawkers.  The Jayhawkers instigated some of the fiercest fighting along the Kansas-Missouri border, most notably the burning of the town of Osceola, Missouri.  The Jayhawkers were notably led by Senator Charles Lane, who was very vocal in his anti-slavery sentiments.  It was Lane who ordered relatives of "Bloody" Bill Anderson to be jailed in 1863.  On August 14, 1863, the jail in Kansas City, Missouri that housed three of Anderson's relatives collapsed, killing one of his sisters and permanently paralyzing another.  Many believe this is what led the raid on Lawrence.  There was no doubt that Senator Lane was the primary target of the Missouri raiders.  Lane escaped, wearing his nightshirt, into the cornfields that surrounded Lawrence at the time.  As a result of the raid on Lawrence, General Ewing issued an edict ordering a depopulation of three and a half counties in Missouri, along the Kansas border.  Once the citizens had been removed from their homes, Union troops came through and torched their houses and cornfields and shot the livestock. 

 

The legacy that came through this raid, and the general fighting along the Kansas-Missouri border remains very much a part of the landscape today, particularly in Kansas City.  People in Missouri still regard Quantrill as a hero while those in Kansas still regard him as nothing more than a bloodthirsty murderer.  As the saying goes, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.  Anderson was ultimately killed a year later while Quantrill died in June 1865 in Kentucky.  Even former Missouri Tiger basketball coach Norm Stewart once quipped that Quantrill "did good work" in Lawrence.  Three years after this raid, a small college was founded on Mount Oread in Lawrence, which we now know as the University of Kansas.  Appropriately enough, they took on the nickname, "Jayhawks". 

A Dad's Horrifying Realization

I do not know when exactly that moment arrives when your son is no longer a boy and is now all man.  Not sure that we ever truly lose the little boy inside us, we just play with bigger toys.  For me, as a Dad, I realized about three years ago that I was at one of those points of no return with my son.  As he was headed into high school, the school held a pep rally just for the freshman in which the incoming freshman are taught the school song and the fight song along with some information about the first day of school.  Parents are encouraged to attend, so I attended the pep rally that night myself.  Just for the record I did not sit with my son, as he deemed this to be a major inconvenience for him. 

 

So, the pep rally starts, and they bring out the varsity cheerleaders to teach these impressionable freshman the school song.  And that's when it hits me:  Brent is now going to a school, for the first time in his life, where all the girls have boobs!  Yikes!  While I am sure this is quite a little thrill for a teenage boy, it is horrifying to his Dad.  And not necessarily for the reason(s) you might think.  I am not sure why I even had that thought, but it sure hit me like a ton of bricks.  I do not know what the "Mom perspective" would be to her (especially her oldest) son going to school with that in mind, but I know what the "Dad perspective" is.  This thought made me realize that my son was now "all in" on his stupid years.  Somehow, I was going to have to keep his mind full of common sense and focus in an era where he was going to now be using his "second brain" to do his thinking for him.  For now, this was the era where racing from one stop light to the next would now be considered a good idea without any thought to any negative consequences.  Yep, my son would now become bulletproof and realize that he knew more about life than his stuck in the mud Dad.  I know, just how many teenage boys have ever had that thought, right?

 

Well, I saw a Facebook post from one of my neighbors that the Lancer Launch was tonight, so another class of freshman will be taught the school song and fight song.  And another group of boys goes past that point of no return and officially enters their "stupid years."  Yet in spite of all that, my son has turned out well and for a teenage boy, has used a surprising amount of common sense.  He has made mistakes, but then again the only people who never make mistakes are the ones that do not try.  I am proud of the young man he has become.  Even though we have still have plenty of stupid years to deal with.  But my son is not the only to go through this phase (or is it the parents who go through a phase?) and yet they somehow turn out alright.  I just need to continue to bang some common sense and life's wisdom into him, pray for God to watch over my son, and leave it to the Good Lord to know that it will all turn out ok.  And it usually does.

What Greater Gift Than Love?

"Love is what you've been through with somebody"  James Thurber

Who knows where these thoughts come from.  My mind must think too much, to look past my own troubles and see a better place.  A better place full of harmony and full of love.  This morning, I was thinking of an elderly couple that used to live across the street from (both have passed away).  The incident that I have on my mind occurred in the Fall 2002.  I was walking both my boys to school on a beautiful September morning; Brent was in second grade and Jeff was in kindergarten, and we were walking up our street on our way to Somerset Elementary School.  As we were walking, we saw our neighbors, Joe and Ellen Falk, coming towards us and they were doing a most unusual thing.  They were kicking a rock back and forth between themselves.  They were laughing and giggling and having a most wonderful time.  It all looked so innocent and yet a bit out of place for a couple that had been married for more than fifty years.  And yet what a glorious sight it was!  Here we are nearly eleven years later, and I have never forgotten it.  In my mind, I am sure they had been through fights galore, had there share of hell in raising three children, stressed over money and wondered just how were we going to pay for that car repair and still pay the power bill?  But what I saw that morning were two people who had been through all those wars and battles.  And they had emerged, more than 50 years later, with an unbreakable bond.  They were committed to each other, and to their marriage.  And they could still laugh and giggle like innocent children, and do something so simple as kick a rock back and forth down the street.  And it occurs to me, that is what love looks like, and it is an absolutely beautiful thing when done right.

For those of you that have a marriage like that...where you can still giggle and laugh and remember why you fell in love with your spouse in the first place, I congratulate you.  Never lose that.  What you have is truly special and not to be taken for granted.  I always thought that the best short essay on love was in the Bible, I Corinthians, chapter 13.  What that chapter tells us is that love is everything and that without love, everything else is nothing.  And I look back on Mr and Mrs Falk and I saw the face of love.  Yes it was old and wrinkled.  And it was a bit goofy and not the least bit ashamed of any of it.  And it was truly unbreakable.  What they went through together was love.

In the end Mr. Falk passed away in early 2004, and Mrs Falk passed away about a year later.  She was lost without him and probably died of a broken heart.  And as Edgar Allen Poe wrote in his poem, Annabel Lee, "but we loved with a love that was more than love..." (thank you Mrs. Willingham - my 7th grade English teacher).  That is the most extraordinary life of all..