Baxter Springs

Few towms in the Ozarks have a richer history than Baxter Springs. (I consider Baxter Springs in the Ozarks, although admittedly it's right at the western edge.) The town is famous on at least three separate counts.
First it is well known as the site of Quantrill's battle and massacre there in October of 1863. After attacking Fort Blair, which was still under construction at the time, and being repelled, Quantrill attacked and annihilated a Union wagon train under General James Blunt that was on its way into the fort, leaving over ninety bodies strewn about the field.
Baxter is also famous for being the first cow town in Kansas. During the years immediately after the Civil War, before the railroad reached towns farther west like Abilene and Wichita, Baxter Springs was the main destination for herds of longhorns driven through Indian Territory from Texas to Kansas. After the long journey along the Shawnee Trail, the cattle would usually lay over in Baxter before being herded (later shipped) on to their final destination. Part of the reason for Baxter's rise as a cattle town was the fact that Kansas had laws that allowed the Texas longhorns to enter the state only during specified months, and the cattle would lay over in Baxter, which at the time was located south of the state line in the Cherokee Neutral Lands, while awaiting passage. Although Baxter's life as a rowdy cow town was short lived, for a while it roared just as loudly as its successors farther west. Larry O'Neal of the Baxter Springs Heritage Center and Museum told me yesterday that the only thing the other towns had that Baxter lacked was a famous marshal like Wyatt Earp. I reminded him that probably part of the reason Baxter lacked a famous lawman was because two of the town's early marshals were killed in the line of duty. I find it a little ironic that perhaps the only reason they didn't become famous was that they didn't live long enough to embellish their stories the way Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok did.
Baxter declined for a time during the late 1800s after its hurrah as a cow town, but it revived in the early part of the twentieth century during the tri-state district's lead mining days and once again became a booming town for awhile.
Baxter has a few other minor claims to fame, too, such as being the hometown of golfer Hale Irwin, but the first three are the main ones.
By the way, Treble Heart Books has just released my new historical novel, entitled Showdown at Baxter Springs, that is based on the town's heyday as booming cow town. As far as I know, it's the only western ever set in early-day Baxter Springs. For anybody who's interested, you can order the book directly from the publisher at http://www.trebleheartbooks.com/SDLarryWood.html.

Quantrill's Lamar Attacks

There's one other episode pertaining to Quantrill's activities in the Ozarks that I want to mention, and then I'll move on to other topics besides Quantrill. Actually, though, the episode I'm talking about is two related episodes--the guerrilla leader's attacks on Lamar in the fall of 1862 and spring of 1864.
In early November of 1862, after a successful summer of raiding in the Kansas City area, Quantrill and his men were on the march south to spend the winter in Texas when they fell in with Colonel Warner Lewis of the Missouri State Guard. When Lewis proposed a coordinated attack on Lamar, Quantrill agreed and charged into the town, but Lewis failed to appear on schedule, leaving the guerrillas to blast away by themselves at the Federal troops ensconced in the Barton County courthouse. After a heated exchange in which each side lost only a handful of men in killed and injured, Quantrill set fire to the town and rode off in anger and frustration over Warner's failure to appear.
In the May of 1864, after spending the winter in Texas as they had the previous year, Quantrill and his men were headed back to northern Missouri. When they passed through Lamar, Quantrill decided to try to exact some revenge for the failed attack a year and a half earlier. The guerrillas charged the courthouse, which was now just a burned-out shell , but the small detachment of Union militia guarding the fortress repelled the assault with a well-aimed volley of fire. The guerrillas dropped back to regroup and then launched another attack. It, too, was turned away, but Quantrill and his men weren't easily dissuaded. In short order, they launched yet a third assault. When it, too, was repelled, the guerrillas finally gave up and continued their journey north, minus a few men that they had sacrified to their stubbornness.

Quantrill's Richmond Trip

In a couple of my previous posts, I've mentioned Confederate guerrilla leader William Quantrill making a trip to Richmond, Virginia during the winter of 1862-63 in quest of a colonel's commission. There's no written record that he received a colonel's commission in Richmond, but he may have or he may have received a field commission later, because some of Quantrill's men did refer to their leader as "Colonel Quantrill," even after the war.
In the past, there has been some scholarly disagreement on whether Quantrill even made such a journey to Richmond, but this question can be laid to rest. Quantrill's military service file alone provides enough evidence to prove that he did make such a journey, because it shows him, for instance, drawing pay from a Confederate paymaster in Alabama in early March of 1863 (presumably on his way back from Richmond). Also, an item in a Leavenworth newspaper in the spring of 1863, after the guerrilla leader and his men arrived back in their Jackson County stomping grounds, announced that Quantrill had just returned from Richmond.
While Quantrill, accompanied by one or two of his men, made the trip back east, most of the guerrillas attached themselves, under William Gregg, to Shelby's command of Marmaduke's division and fought at Cane Hill, Prairie Grove, Springfield, and Hartville during Marmaduke's winter campaign of 1862-1863.

Baxter Spring Battle and Massacre

William Quantrill is normally not closely associated with the Ozarks, and the Kansas City area was, in fact, his main field of operations. However, the notorious Confederate guerrilla leader did make several excursions through our region. In a previous post, I've already mentioned one such foray, the Cedar County raid in the spring of 1863 as Quantrill was returning from his trip to Richmond. Quantrill's most notable action in this region, however, was the battle and massacre that occurred at the edge of the Ozarks in Baxter Springs, Kansas, on October 6, 1863.
The action is sometimes loosely referred to as the Baxter Springs Massacre, but it actually involved both a battle and a massacre. As Quantrill and his men crossed into Kansas on their way south to spend the winter in Texas, they came upon a Federal fort that was still under construction, and they launched two or three attacks on the rampart before withdrawing to the edge of the Spring River timber north of the fort. Those attacks constituted the battle part of the action.
But even the massacre part of the action started out as a battle. After withdrawing to the edge of the timber, the guerrillas discovered a body of about a hundred Union troops, who later proved to be General James Blunt and his escort, drawn up in a line facing them from across the prairie. Quantrill ordered a charge, and the Federals put up a feckless resistance. Some in Blunt's escort had no arms, and many of those who did prematurely fired out their ammunition, while others turned to run without firing a shot. The guerrillas quickly chased them down, and many of the soldiers were reportedly killed as they tried to surrender, pleading for their lives. The action was therefore dubbed the Baxter Springs Massacre. Only a handful from the Federal detail, including Blunt himself, managed to escape.
Speaking of Quantrill, some readers may not be aware that there is such a thing as the William Clarke Quantrill Society (www.wcqsociety.com) comprised of people who are interested in the Civil War in general, the guerrilla and border warfare in Missouri in particular, and Quantrill and his men even more especially. I'm not a member of the group, but I'm acquainted with a few people who are, including Harold Dellinger, owner and operator of an online bookstore (www.haroldsbookstore.com) that specializes in books about the Civil War in Missouri and Kansas and about the outlaw era after the war. Harold's is one of several online bookstores that carries my books, including my new novel.

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.