Footnote 864: [(return)]
Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, 1045.
Footnote 865: [(return)]
McCulloch was being greatly embarrassed by the rapid spread of unionist sentiment and by desertions from his army. The expedient of furloughing was restarted to. To his credit, be it said, that no embarrassments, no dawning of the idea that he was fighting in a failing cause, could make him forget the ordinary dictates of humanity. His scornful repudiation of Quantrill and his methods was characteristic of the man. For that repudiation, see, particularly, McCulloch to Turner, October 22, 1863, ibid., vol. xxvi. part ii, 348.
separation from Arkansas left Indian Territory stranded.
Fort Smith, moreover, was about to become Blunt's headquarters and it was while he was engaged in transferring his effects from Fort Scott to that place that the massacre of Baxter Springs occurred, Blunt arriving upon the scene too late to prevent the murderous surprise having its full effect. The Baxter Springs massacre was another guerrilla outrage, perpetrated by Quantrill and his band[866] who, their bloody work accomplished at the Federal outpost, passed on down through the Cherokee Nation, killing outright whatever Indians or negroes they fell in with. It was their boast that they never burdened themselves with prisoners. The gang crossed the Arkansas about eighteen miles above Fort Gibson[867] and arrived at Cooper's camp on the Canadian, October twelfth.[868]
Scarcely had Blunt established his headquarters at Fort Smith, when political influences long hostile to him, Schofield at their head,[869] had accumulated force
Footnote 866: [(return)]
Quantrill's bold dash from the Missouri to the Canadian had been projected in a spirit of bravado, deviltry, and downright savagery, and had undoubtedly been incited by the execution of Ewing's notorious order, Number Eleven [Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, 473]. That order, as modified by Schofield, had authorized the depopulating of those counties of Missouri, Jackson, Cass, Bates, and a part of Vernon, where the guerrillas were believed to have their chief recruiting stations and where secessionist feeling had always been dominant. It was at once retaliatory and precautionary and on a par with the instructions for the removal of the Acadians on the eve of the breaking out of the French and Indian War. The banished Missourians have, however, as yet found no Longfellow to sentimentalize over them or to idealize, in a story of Evangeline, their misfortunes and their character. History has been spared the consequent and inevitable distortion.
Footnote 867: [(return)]
Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. ii, 224.
Footnote 868: [(return)]
Quantrill to Price, October 13, 1863, Official Records, vol. xxii, part i, 700-701.
Footnote 869: [(return)]
In the matter of domestic politics in Kansas, particularly as they were shaped by the excitement over the guerrilla outrages, Schofield belonged to the party of Moderates, "Paw Paws" as its members were called in derision, (cont.)