Cedar County Raid

In my previous post, I mentioned that Jasper County guerrilla leader Thomas Livingston was killed at Stockton, the seat of Cedar County, while leading a charge on the courthouse there in July of 1863. Another interesting incident of the Civil War that occurred in Cedar County was William Quantrill's raid through the county in April of 1863. Quantrill had recently made a trek to Richmond, Virginia, seeking a commission as a colonel in the Confederate army, and he and his men were on their way back to their Jackson County stomping grounds around Independence. During their foray through Cedar County, the gang killed seven members of the Eighth Missouri State Militia Cavalry, who were on their way home from Springfield, and at least four civilians, including Baptist minister and state representative Obadiah Smith, a Union sympathizer who incurred the guerrillas' special ire because of his friendship with hated Kansas Senator Jim Lane. For a more complete account of Quantrill's Cedar County raid, see my article on the topic in the April/May 2002 issue of The Ozarks Mountaineer.