Before Lawrence: Introduction
Something more tragic happened before Lawrence, Kansas was raided on August 21, 1863.
Introduction
Before Lawrence is part of The Missouri Chronicles, written by Eric Niewoehner. Feel free to visit the website and view other stories.
Forward
One of the darkest days of the Civil War was on August 21, 1863. Riding into the town of Lawrence, Kansas was a ruthless band of pro-Southern guerrilla fighters led by William Quantrill. Within hours, 150 men and boys would be executed and a quarter of the town consumed in flames. Only two businesses survived, leaving most of the town’s 2700 citizens homeless.
As a youngster growing up in Columbia, Missouri, I was fortunate to enjoy the good-hearted rivalry between the Kansas Jayhawks and the Missouri Tigers. The rivalry had its birth in the Border Wars of the 1850’s and 60’s, chief of which was the burning of Lawrence. It is a testament of our American history that such bitterness could be buried, replacing hatred with football and basketball games. About the only act of violence I participated in was targeting the giant Jayhawk that had been placed 150 yards out at the driving range. As a grain trader I worked side-by-side with graduates of Kansas and Kansas State. Academically, the three universities worked together on numerous projects.
Yet the legend persisted. Even in central Missouri, about the only thing you would hear about was the burning of Lawrence by William Quantrill. It would only be recently, as a much older adult, that I would learn that there was another tragedy before Lawrence. The bad guys in this case would be the Jayhawk “Red Legs”, a band of federal troops who assaulted the river port town of Osceola, Missouri. That fateful day was September 23, 1861. By days end, at least nine citizens would be executed.1 Yet the looting and pillaging cleaned out the entire town of 2700 citizens, burning all but two structures. Osceola would never recover.
It is said that history is written by the winners. It is also determined by the lack of interest of the losers. I would not learn until I was a middle-aged adult that almost the entirety of Boone County, Missouri was slave-holding plantations. Best not said, I suppose. About that time I would learn of the last lynching2 in 1923 near where the University power station currently resides. And, strangely, the details about Osceola went unnoticed. With the same discretion little was said about Bill Anderson’s slaughter of over a hundred Union soldiers in Centralia, a mere twenty miles north of Columbia. No, people went on with life. No one had time to look into the past nor found any benefit in doing so.
According to Wikipedia, the burning of Lawrence was referred to eight times in film and literature. Osceola? None. There is a locally published book on the subject, Osceola, Missouri: The Burning of 1861, by Richard F. Sunderwirth. That was it. I hope my humble effort will bring to life the town of Osceola in 1861.
© Copyright 2024 to Eric Niewoehner
Next Chapter: Antebellum.
Some sources state eleven men were executed.
"The Lynching of James T. Scott,” Missouri Encyclopedia, by Doug Hunt, December 12, 2022