The old Colonel, as they called him, arose, and, walking to the door, asked: "Sergeant, where are those guns?"
"In a box in that wagon by the door," came the answer.
"Have the box put on the sidewalk here and opened," which was done, and found to contain just what Emerson had told them.
The Colonel came close to where we were sitting and asked where we came from, and being answered, he asked to what particular part of Kansas we were going to. Emerson said we were going to Lawrence, but as the Shawnee Indians could now sell their lands we expected to purchase land of them in Johnson county.
"Sergeant," said the Colonel, "see that these boys are safely conducted outside of our lines on the road to Kansas City," and said to us, "That is all."
We went to the wagon, my brother driving the team and I bringing up the rear on "Charlie."
Coming around a bend and seeing our flag floating over Kansas City, I hurrahed, when my brother stopped me and made me tie the horse to the wagon and get up on the seat beside him. He said to me very sharply: "Young man, wait until you are out of the woods before you crow. Wait until we get to Lawrence—then we will be all right."
Poor boy! little did I think then what was in store for our country and him, and that he would be the sacrifice our father and mother had laid upon their country's altar. He barely escaped with his life at the sacking of Olathe, to be finally wholly deceived, surprised and shot down by a volley from Quantrill's bushwhackers at Baxter Springs, Oct. 6, 1863,—twenty-seven bullets crashing through his body. Of this, more extended mention will be made hereafter.
We drove that afternoon and evening through Kansas City and Westport, and arrived at the old Shawnee Mission late in the evening, having crossed the Missouri border in the evening twilight, and were once again on Kansas soil, whose eighty thousand and odd square miles of territory had given, would yet, and did give more lives for liberty and Union than any other State in the Union according to her population.
The next day in the afternoon we drove up Massachusetts street, in Lawrence. We noticed the absence of the circular rifle-pits—one at the south end of the street, the other near the Eldridge House; but we noticed the presence of men in blue uniforms. Then we noticed our father, and in a few moments our family were united. Father and mother had been very solicitous about us. Such men as E. R. Falley, S. N. Wood and others telling father that if we ever got through Missouri at all it would be a miracle, on account of the blockade. All Lawrence was up and preparing to answer back the fatal shot that Beauregard had fired. And the flag we already loved so well took on a new meaning to me.