#lawrence massacre

[morning-glory215]

“Survivors of the Lawrence Massacre” taken 1913 (51 years after the Massacre)

Population of Lawrence was probably around 1,700 or 1,800, in 1863? Census reports from 1860, six years after it was formally founded, state that the population was about 1,645 people. The city really bounced back following the massacre though (probably only made sentiment grow in favor of the city lol).

[askthesunflowerstate]

((Some pictures from my Quantrill's Raid-themed walking tour of downtown Lawrence last Saturday. I already knew most of what the tour guide talked about but it helped put places to events, even if most of the places don't exist anymore and are most likely parking garages.

We started out in the Japanese friendship garden by the Watkins Museum to listen to some reenactors describe firsthand accounts of what happened and then read a list of the victims' names. 

Then we set out on the tour. Our tour guide (was actually really cute; I might have had a little crush) had the best pin. I really wanted one, lol. The first place we stopped was on Vermont Street by a parking garage. That was the site of the white Union army camp. (There were both black and white regiments in town at the time but they were segregated. Guess which one got a historical marker.) The black recruit camp was located about a block and a half away just west of Massachusetts Street, near what used to be a deep ravine (the seventh pic shows the general location). When Quantrill came, the ravine is where they and many civilians took shelter under brush and grass, knowing that they'd be shot on the spot. 

The next pic is the Eldridge Hotel. It was burned and destroyed twice, the second time in 1863 during the raid. 

After that is the House Building, which is one of the only buildings in the city to have survived the raid without being burned. It was remodeled drastically in the 1920s so it looks much different than it did in 1863. 

And lastly, a storefront that put out many paintings and prints depicting various aspects of Quantrill's Raid and its aftermath, including Order 11. 

[richardbillies-blog]

'Bloody Bill' Anderson and his Missouri Bushwhackers

‘Bloody Bill’ Anderson and his Missouri Bushwhackers

No account of the Civil War in Missouri would be complete without an account of the life of ‘Bloody Bill’ Anderson. He actions as a guerrilla and bushwhacker in Kansas and Missouri are legendary.

William T. Anderson was born in Kentucky in 1840 and moved with his family to Missouri as a child. As a teenager he moved with his family across the border to Kansas. It was during this time that the…

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[tauycreek]

I participated in a commemoration of Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence, Kansas. The main feature of the commemoration was regular people assuming identities of people involved in the Raid and tweeting as them using the hashtag #QR1863.

I played the character of Cosma Torrienta "C.T." Colman who was only a lad of 18 when Quantrill rode through town. 

[uiswepner-blog]

The Civil War in Missouri and Kansas

Last week, the New York Times' Disunion blog touched on the 150th anniversary of the Lawrence Massacre. While many think of battlefields like Gettysburg and Antietam when they think of the Civil War, it played out differently in Missouri and Kansas. 

Both states saw extreme levels of violence among their populations. Missouri faced its own civil war, as it was split between Union loyalists and Confederate sympathizers, but remained under federal control for the duration of the conflict.

Two years ago, the Wepner Symposium featured a couple talks on these states and how they were affected by the Civil War and Lincoln's actions as president. Doug Nehring touched on how Lincoln handled the secession crisis in Missouri, while Richard Lawrence Miller looked at the use of mercenaries in Kansas. (Unfortunately, we only have a digital copy of Nehring's paper in our archives.)

For more on the Lawrence Massacre, here is an article from a 1968 issue of the Kansas Historical Quarterly.

[asktheshowmestate]

Reenactors live tweeting Quantrill's Raid at 1863.lawrence.com

[ashestoimmortality]

After 150 years, the emotions and opinions are still raw.

The attack on Lawrence, said Kansas historian Thomas Goodrich, was “Kansas’ 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. It was the singular event in Kansas history known for its startling savagery and black drama. Nothing even comes close to it.”

“This is a story of how the state’s second-largest city was wiped off the earth and a black mushroom cloud that rose up like Hiroshima from all the burning buildings could be seen in seven counties around Lawrence. Nearly 200 of the state’s most prominent citizens were murdered that day,” Goodrich said.

Quantrill’s attack on Lawrence, which had about 3,000 residents at the time, helped define and shape not only Lawrence but also Kansas as well, historians say.

“It’s the kind of event that makes a mark on the identity of a community,” said Steve Novak, director of the Watkins Community Museum of History in Lawrence. “We defined ourselves based on the resilience it took to overcome the raid. There was a determination to keep the downtown a vital community center.”

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2013/08/17/2948867/150-years-later-quantrills-raid.html#storylink=cpy