Lawrence Massacre
The Lawrence massacre (also: "Quantrill's Raid") took place during the American Civil War on August 21, 1863 and was an attack by Confederate guerrillas under William Clark Quantrill on the city of Lawrence , Kansas .
prehistory
In the late 1850s, as the Kansas Territory was about to become part of the United States , a violent conflict arose in the state over whether or not Kansas should be admitted to the Union. The US Congress had decided that the people of the Kansas and Nebraska Territories should decide on the slave question themselves (see Kansas-Nebraska Act ), whereupon numerous radical opponents and supporters of slavery flocked to Kansas to influence the vote in their favor . The clashes soon broke out into armed unrest and the army had to maintain order (see Bleeding Kansas ).
When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Kansas and neighboring Missouri were once again divided territories. Confederate and Union troops engaged in a protracted, bloody guerrilla war in which numerous gangs of outlaws on both sides committed their crimes under the pretext of military action.
One of the most notorious Confederate partisans was William Clark Quantrill . To withdraw his support, General Thomas Ewing, Jr. arrested anyone he believed was helping Quantrill (especially relatives of partisans) and sent them, mostly women and children, to improvised prisons in Kansas City . One of the buildings collapsed, killing five women. Quantrill and his partisans suspected the deliberate murder of their families, in any event they blamed the Union for the death and swore revenge. In addition, the place Osceola , Missouri was attacked by guerrillas of the Jayhawkers under the leadership of James Henry Lane , who in turn burned the place and killed a number of residents. According to many historians, the attack on Lawrence should therefore also be interpreted as a reprisal.
The attack on Lawrence
The raid began when Quantrill, coming from Mount Oread in the early morning of August 21, 1863, attacked the town of Lawrence with several hundred men. One of the main targets of the attack was the capture (or killing) of Senator James Henry Lane . But he escaped because, surprised by the attack, he was able to flee into a cornfield in a nightgown. Around 200 men and boys were killed, many in front of their family members. When Quantrill and his followers left the scene of the massacre around nine in the morning, most of the city's buildings were on fire. They also looted and robbed everything they could get hold of. The local bank was also robbed and almost all businesses and businesses were devastated. The attack on Lawrence would be remembered in the north as one of the worst acts of violence of the war.
On August 25, four days after the attack on the city, General Ewing gave his General Order No. 11 , in which he ordered the evacuation of four counties in Missouri along the Kansas border. Only a few places in these areas were exempted from this forced displacement of tens of thousands of civilians within two weeks. Union troops followed the displaced people on the heels and burned down buildings and infrastructure, destroyed the cultivated fields and killed all cattle they got hold of in order to make it difficult for the guerrilla fighters to get food. The areas devastated in this way became known as the "Burnt District". Quantrill and his men soon went to Texas, where they spent the winter with other Confederate troops. It is unclear whether this happened as a direct consequence of this campaign.
reception
The 1999 massacre of Lawrence was filmed in the US film Who rides with the devil (original title: Ride with the Devil ) by director Ang Lee .
Raoul Walsh used the Lawrence massacre as a backdrop for his 1940 western Black Command ( Dark Command ) starring John Wayne .
literature
- James M. McPherson: Die for Freedom. The history of the American Civil War . 6th edition. List, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-471-78178-1 , pp. 773-774.
Individual evidence
- ↑ James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom , Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 786
- ↑ Profile: Thomas Ewing, Jr in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved January 7, 2015.
- ↑ cf. Biography of General Thomas Ewing