Frank James went to the door and called in Parmer, Ross and Hulse. Quantrell recognized them all in his old, calm, quiet fashion, and bade them wipe away their tears, for they were crying visibly.
Then Frank James, joined in his entreaties by the entreaties of his comrades, pleaded with Quantrell for permission to carry him away to the mountains of Nelson County by slow and easy stages, each swearing to guard him hour by hour until he recovered or died over his body, defending it to the last. He knew that every pledge made by them would be kept to the death. He felt that every word spoken was a golden word and meant absolute devotion. His faith in their affection was as steadfast and abiding as of old. He listened until they had done talking, with the old staid courtesy of victorious Guerrilla days, and then he silenced them with an answer which, from its resoluteness, they knew to be unalterable.
“I cannot live. I have run a long time; I have come out unhurt from many desperate places; I have fought to kill and I have killed; I regret nothing. The end is close at hand. I am resting easy here and will die so. You do not know how your devotion has touched my heart, nor can you understand how grateful I am for the love you have shown me. Try and get back to your homes, and avoid if you can the perils that beset you.”
Until 10 o’clock the next day these men remained with Quantrell. He talked with them very freely of the past, but never of the earlier life in Kansas. Many messages were sent to absent friends, and much good advice was given touching the surrender of the remnant of the band. Again and again he returned to the earlier struggles in Missouri and dwelt long over the recollections and the reminiscences of the first two years of Guerrilla warfare.
Finally the parting came, and those who looked last upon Quantrell’s face that morning as they stooped to tell him goodbye, looked their last upon it forever.
Terrill had promised Quantrell positively that he should not be removed from Wakefield’s house, but in three days he had either forgotten his promise or had deliberately broken his pledge. He informed General Palmer, commanding the department of Kentucky, of the facts of the fight, and of the desperate character of the wounded officer left paralyzed behind him, suggesting at the same time the advisability of having him removed to a place of safety.
General Palmer sent an ambulance under a heavy escort to Wakefield’s house and Quantrell, suffering greatly and scarcely more alive than dead, was hauled to the military hospital in Louisville and deposited there.
Until the question of recovery had been absolutely decided against him, but few friends were permitted into his presence. If any one conversed with him at all, the conversation of necessity was required to be carried on in the presence of an official. Mrs. Ross visited him thus—Christian woman, devoted to the South, and of active and practical patriotism—and took some dying messages to loved and true ones in Missouri.
Mrs. Ross left him at one o’clock in the afternoon and at four the next afternoon the great Guerrilla died.
His passing away, after a life so singularly fitful and tempestuous, was as the passing of a summer cloud. He had been asleep, and as he awoke he called for water. A Sister of Charity at the bedside put a glass of water to his lips, but he did not drink. She heard him murmur once audibly—“Boys, get ready.” Then a long pause, then one word more—“Steady!” and then when she drew back from bending over the murmuring man, she fell upon her knees and prayed. Quantrell was dead.