Fight at Independence
Quantrell had great admiration for Independence; his men adored it. Burris’ regiment was still there—fortified in the courthouse—and one day in February, 1862, the Guerrillas charged the town. It was a desperate assault. Quantrell and Poole dashed down one street. Cole Younger and Todd down another, Gregg and Shepherd down a third, Haller, Coger, Burns, Walker and others down the balance of the approaches to the square. Behind heavy brick walls the militia, of course, fought and fought, besides, at a great advantage. Save seven surprised in the first moments of the rapid onset and shot down, none others were killed, and Quantrell was forced to retire from the town, taking some necessary ordnance, quartermaster and commissary supplies from the stores under the very guns of the courthouse. None of his men were killed, though as many as eleven were wounded. This was the initiation of Independence into the mysteries as well as the miseries of border warfare, and thereafter and without a month of cessation, it was to get darker and darker for the beautiful town.
Swinging back past Independence from the east the day after it had been charged, Quantrell moved up in the neighborhood of Westport and put scouts upon the roads leading to Kansas City. Two officers belonging to Jennison’s regiment were picked up—a lieutenant, who was young, and a captain, who was of middle age. They had only time to pray. Quantrell always gave time for this, and had always performed to the letter the last commissions left by those who were doomed. The lieutenant did not want to pray. “It could do no good,” he said. “God knew about as much concerning the disposition it was intended to be made of his soul as he could suggest to him.” The captain took a quarter of an hour to make his peace. Both were shot. Men commonly die at God’s appointed time, beset by Guerrillas, suddenly and unawares. Another of the horrible surprises of Civil War.
At first, and because of Quantrell’s presence, Kansas City swarmed like an ant hill during a rainstorm; afterwards, and when the dead officers were carried in, like a firebrand had been cast thereon.
Second Fight at Independence
While at the house of Charles Cowherd, a courier came up with the information that Independence, which had not been garrisoned for some little time, was again in possession of a company of militia. Another attack was resolved upon. On the night of February 20, 1862, Quantrell marched to the vicinity of the town and waited there for daylight. The first few faint streaks in the East constituted the signal. There was a dash altogether down South Main Street, a storm of cheers and bullets, a roar of iron feet on the rocks of the roadway, and the surprise was left to work itself out. It did, and reversely. Instead of the one company reported in possession of the town, four were found, numbering three hundred men. They manned the courthouse in a moment, made of its doors an eruption and of its windows a tempest, killed a noble Guerrilla, young George, shot Quantrell’s horse from under him, held their own everywhere and held the fort. As before, all who were killed among the Federals, and they lost seventeen, were those killed in the first few moments of the charge. Those who hurried alive into the courthouse were safe. Young George, dead in his first battle, had all the promise of a bright career. None rode further nor faster in the charge, and when he fell he fell so close to the fence about the fortified building that it was with difficulty his comrades took his body out from under a point blank fire and bore it off in safety.
It was a part of Quantrell’s tactics to disband every now and then. “Scattered soldiers,” he argued, “make a scattered trail. The regiment that has but one man to hunt can never find him.” The men needed heavier clothing and better horses, and the winter, more than ordinarily severe, was beginning to tell. A heavy Federal force was also concentrating in Kansas City, ostensibly to do service along the Missouri River, but really to drive out of Jackson County a Guerrilla band that under no circumstances at that time could possibly have numbered over fifty. Quantrell, therefore, for an accumulation of reasons, ordered a brief disbandment. It had hardly been accomplished before Independence swapped a witch for a devil. Burris evacuated the town; Jennison occupied it. In his regiment were trappers who trapped for dry goods; fishermen who fished for groceries. At night passers-by were robbed of their pocketbooks; in the morning, market women of their meat baskets. Neither wiser, perhaps, nor better than the Egyptians, the patient and all-suffering citizens had got rid of the lean kine in order to make room for the lice.