Entitled: "The destruction of the city of Lawrence, Kansas, and the massacre of its inhabitants by the Rebel guerrillas, August 21, 1863." Engraving appeared in Harper's Weekly, September 5, 1863. William Quantrill's raid on the free-state town of Lawrenc
Entitled: "The destruction of the city of Lawrence, Kansas, and the massacre of its inhabitants by the Rebel guerrillas, August 21, 1863." Engraving appeared in Harper's Weekly, September 5, 1863. William Quantrill's raid on the free-state town of Lawrence, Kansas (also known as the Lawrence Massacre) was a defining moment in the border conflict. The attack was the product of careful planning. Quantrill had been able to gain the confidence of many of the leaders of independent Bushwhacker groups, and chose the day and time of the attack well in advance. At dawn on August 21, 1863, with revenge a principal motive, a group of roughly 400 Confederate guerrillas entered the sleeping town with lists of men to be killed and buildings to be burned. The raiders pillaged and set fire to the town and killed most of its male population. Quantrill's men burned to the ground a quarter of the buildings in Lawrence, including all but two businesses. They looted most of the banks and stores and killed between 185 and 200 men and boys. While many of the victims of the raid had been specifically targeted beforehand, executions were more indiscriminate among segments of the raiders. Survivors reported that one man was shot while in the arms of his pleading wife, that another was killed with a toddler in his arms, that a group of men who had surrendered under assurances of safety were then gunned down, and that a pair of men were bound and forced into a burning building where they died in horrible agony. The Lawrence Massacre was one of the bloodiest events in the whole history of Kansas.
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