The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 49

Ma agisters eazme ounaay AUGUST SO, 19:5 PAOB HI) PI OWAC 1AG MED BY ONE SEEN TIE! racy iiJiy luiiw MO. 14--FT. MADISON "DIGGING nobody's pardon Walter Depew, Sunday Register staff ar- Fort Madison, the first fortification in Iowa, ivas built in 1809 near son famous ohc "state," the other fountain. Walter says that some tftsf, submits his imaginary sketch of Fort Madison, another the site of the present city. That's in the histories.

Nowadays Maj. time he may go to Fort Madison. It would be so nice to know that your city he's never visitea-even for a short term. Althovgh Depew hasn't jm n0owcu holds the fort. Dcpew has been told that newcomers "time" was your own.

Next in The Sunday Register's series of myth-been there he's heard a lot about it It's the place where the canaries hffme he place th rcmain therp kal trarcls will be his cartoon of Newton. Watch for next and bloodhounds thrive and hfe is real; life is earnest unless you can manage to get it commuted. the pteture above you can see the two pens that made fort Sunday. and second of the trio are known as "Charlev Quantrell" and These "Bloody Bill" Anderson the guerrilla chieftains were war-time tutors of the two Quant'in became active again late In 1864, gnthered about him thirty-three of his old followers and invaded Kentucky. His band crossed the Mississippi river on New Year's day, .1865, at a point north of Memphis aptly named Devil Elbow.

Of the future border bandits, Frank James and Jim Younger In the expedition to entucky. Members of this final and fatal Quuntrlllian expedition supplied two explanations of the movement. Some of them averred that Quantrill hoped to make his way Into Virginia, where he expected to join Gen. Robert E. Lee's army anil enjoy the general Immunity at the forthcoming Inevitable surrender.

He knew that If he surrendered or was captured in Missouri he would be hanged. Other guerrillas who went to Kentucky said in later years that Quantrlll's purpose was to drive his flying wedge through to Washington, assassinate President. Lincoln and thus become, as bo fancied, the supreme "hero" of the war. Quantrill was asleep In a hayloft on a farm In Spencer county, Kentucky, when the federal guerrilla outfit of ('apt. Ed Terrill, a boy of 19, with a record remarkably bad for one of his youthfulness, rodo down upon him and his.

The battle was swift and decisive. Quantrill received a wound which paralyzed his lower body. Twenty-seven days later hn died in a hospital at Louisville. Before his death he mentioned his mother and his sister, up In Ohio, as those to whom he wished to leave a considerable sum of cash which he had accumulated. But later he thought of Kate Clarke, a girl he had Induced to ride away with him from her home in Jackson county, Missouri, and with whom he had lived In Howard county, most of the summer of 1864..

Quantrill forgot mother and sister and bequeathed his money to his mistress, and she opened In St. Lou la a bouse of 111 repute which was notorious for Borne years follow, ing the end of the war. Of Bill Anderson our sunrrrlna friend, Jim Cummins. haB this to sa "My first idea of this man was that ho was the most desperate man I ever saw, and I've never had any reason to change my opinion of him." Copyrlffct 1025 RobMtt lv. broad grin, "I'm mighty glad I wasn't.

Mister." Gravedlgger No. 2 expressed, in five short words and two engaging errors of grammar, the settled conviction of hundreds of citizens of what we may term the James-Younger country, otherwise the Missouri counties of Clay and Jackson. It is a conviction based partly upon tradition and partly upon close personal acquaintance with the Younger family in Jackson or the James family in Clay. Whether "they was drove to it," or rode to it when they might have ridden in any other direction, will develop as this narrative proceeds upon Its gnnpowdcry and gory route, conclusions being left strictly to the reader. As a fact matter, the sorry old tale never has been told.

Parts of it have been told truly, parts tragically mistold. Until now, no writer ever has tried to tell the tale with measurable completeness, which task involves at least a running analysis of motives and of emotions, with a halt here and there for more intensive scrutiny or a detour now and then off the main road Into the byways of history. That it is written by native Missourian of many years' training in American journalism, including several years in th3 heart of the James-Younger country, bespeak for this effort toward truth-telling the attention of readers who like to "read after" a writer who likes to write the truth. Partly to account for Jesse James and Y.s outlaw career and associates. Is necessary to delve Into history and excavate certain crimson characters whose names still flash fierlly from the otherwise dusty archives of the civil war on the Missouri-Kansas border.

Like all the members of the postwar bandit crew save Jim Cummins, "their bullets and their hones are cold." But they survive In the nightmare memories of old men and women who in childhood or youth bad high and horrid reason to shudder when their names were spoken. Chief amongst these men of blood and horror t. nose records we are briefly to examine were William C. Quantrill, William F. Anderson and George To most of those who are awara that such men once existed, the first effort, a tally of all but two of the marauding band, each victim being shot exactly In the center of the forehead.

Thirty to one! Many of the guerrillas conceived themselves to be fighting for venfrennre. Relatives of many of them had been murdered or mistreated otherwise In the border warfars over the free soil problem. They accepted Quantrlll's lale gladly, as partial Justification for their own courxe in fighting under such a bloodthirsty leader Quantrill. being the eldest child, never had an elder brother. Hn was born not in Maryland but at Canal Hover, Ohio, where he prow up under abolitionist influences.

When about 20 years old he emigrated to Kansas territory, where he taught one term of school. Those who would Justify Quantrill In slightest degree by reason of any wrongs he ever suffered have not a scant spadeful of ground upon which to stand. Hero was a northern man leading a body of southerners; an aboll-tlonlst-reared Ohioan pretending to serve the fiiuse of the south because he hated abolitionists; a fairly well-educated young man who, before the south seceded, became an associate and accomplice of tho most iforant and vulgar and vicious of the Kansas pioneer flotsam; and who, after the war began, kept nP his pretense of being a southerner and actually caused his followers to believe him such. Quantrill entered guer-rlllalsm as an avenue of escape from the conMQuences of his own prewar crimes. Renegade is one term which partly describes the man Quantrill.

Galloping In'" Lawrence early on the morning of Aug. 21, 1 at the head of "bout 450 men. by far the largest force ever under big command. Quantrill ordered every main citizen shot to death and the housei of the people put to the torch. Hs order was carried out so far as possible in a day's bulletin md burning.

Tho guerrillas murdered 182 men that day. Tart of this tally went to the plstoli of Cole Younger and Frank James, and not an insignificant rart of it. to Bill Gregg's six-shooters. Jesse James was not at la fence; he never served directly under Quantrill. Jim Cuminlw not at Lawrence.

John Robert Younger CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE. These freebootlng fellows were not happy In their business. They did not lead comfortable lives. Thely lines were cast In most unpleasant places. It as an organized band or as Individuals they menaced society, as Indubitably they did, also were they themselves menaced constantly by a thousand devils of danger.

During all the years of their outlawry they lived most uneasily as to personal environment, or much of the time they existed precariously as to financial security for themselves and their families. Grim prison doors yawned for them Just ahead on every road they traveled. Always In the shadows at the roadside lurked grimmer death. In the midst of life they courted death every day and every night Outlaws, It is to be held 1n mind, also are outcasts. Not longgo I visited revisited, to be accurate the beautiful little cemetery at Lee's Summit, Missouri, where lie buried all 1n a row the one-time outlaws Cole.

James and Robert Younger and their excellent and unhappy mother. Not far from the Younger family lot were three gravedig-gers. working at their trade. "What do you people livln? here in the old home town of the Younger brothers think about them?" I inquired of Gravedlgger No. 1, who was old and worn.

"Jest what we think about other good families around here. Sir; them Youngers was all good people." Gravedlgger No. 1 turned up another spadeful of damp earth, wjected some tobacco juice to dampen It further, and said no more. "Ar.d what do you say?" this of Gravedlgger No. 2, a middle-aged man.

"What about their outlawry?" "They was drove to It." averred No. 2. Gravedlgger No. 3 was a youngster. "What is your view of the Youngers and the James boys, 'too.

for that matter?" "Well. I reckon, from all I've heard, they wasn't so bad as they been painted. Don't know but I might did the same if I'd been In their places; but," with a those years, beginning with his arrival In Kansas territory in 1857, he wrote poetic letters to his mother and his sister, back In Ohio, In a chirography as symmetrical and delicate as that of a cultured woman. In those letters he pretended to be striving hard to earn money so that he might help the bometolks, who were struggling In poverty. His mother was a widow with several children, one son being a cripple; William C.

was the eldest child. That he never sent home a dollar Is proved conclusively by Mr. Connelley. Before the war began, Quantrill Invented a sensational tale nf which he made much use during the rest of his life, which ended violently when he was two months under the age of 28 years. All of the literary bandits who have written about Quantrill have made much use of It.

Quantrill told the men in hh guerrilla outfit, sometimes called the Black Flag brigade, that he was fighting for vengeance. He claimed to be a southerner, a native of Hagerstown, Maryland. His elder brother, he. represented, lived In Kansas some years he-fore the beginning of the war. I'he brother wished to go to California and Invited William or "Charley" to come out to Kansas and go with him.

"Charley" went; the brothers outfitted and started westward by way of tho Old Santa Fe trail. Each had a four-mule team and wagon, loaded with supplies. A free Negro lad was taken along as cook and hostler. One night when the caravan was camped beside the Cottonwood river a band of thirty-two Kansas Jayhawkers came along, killed Quantrill's brother, shot "Charley" in leg and breast, robbed him and the body of the lain man. stole all the mules, wagons and supplies, and carried nff the Negro.

The Jayhawkers. Quantrill said, "left him for dead." Quantrill, so his story ran. vowed eternal vengeance against the Kansas He Joined the company of Jayhawkers that had murdered his brother. From time to time he managed to get one or another of the men separated from the rest. Bang! a bullet entered the exact center of tho unsuspecting fellow's forehead.

In this manner Quantrill ran up, after several years of untiring were boys at home, too young to be In the wn. Jesse James, Jim Younger and Jim Cummins snrved tinder Anderson and Todd. Bill Anderson possessed a cutthroat personality If ever any man has been so furnished. Ho was one of the earliest of the border gurrlllaa and one of the fiercest. Before the war ho was a rattle thief In Kansas.

UN men did more kllllnp; at Lawrence than did the squad of any other nf Quantrlll's lieutenants. A year or so later "Bloody Bill" was operating more or lens independently In Missouri, chiefly north of tho Missouri river. In his guerrilla band were Jesse James. Frank James. Jim Younger.

Jim Cummins and some others who became outlaws after the war closed. In the September of 1 864 occurred ihe incident known as "the Centralla massacre." Bill Anderson, with 84 men. attacked a railroad train which hail slopped at the town of Centralla. Mo. He found aboard 26 federal soldiers, captured them, lined them up along the track and bhot them to death.

That happened about noon. Late In the afternoon of the same day, not fnr from Centralla. Anderson and George Todd joined forces and wiped out the federal command of Maj. H. J.

Johnson, who had 2H' raw recruits known as mounted infantry. They necame dismounted Infantry when they faced an almost equal number of veteran guerrillas; their commander actually bad them dismount to fight tho most skillful and desperate cavalry outfit then operating upon American soil! Some of the men detailed lo hold the horses buck of the line, escaped. All the rest of the command, more than 200. including Major Johnson, were shot to death within a few minutes. The two Jameses and the two Jims, Younger and Cummins, were, quick and accurate marksmen in the Centralla affair.

Jim Cummins still shudders when recalls that holocaust of human extermination. It was war- of sort. Not long after the Centralla slaughter Bill Anderson was killed In battle. George Todd, an Illiterate man from Canada win was a bricklayer In Kansas City before the war, succeeded to the command of Quantrlll's force when the latter lost his hold. Jameses, two of the four Youngers, Jim Cummins and several of the other young men of western Missouri who became outlaws on the border shortly after the war was ended for the rest of Its millions of partcipants.

Let us take up first the man Quantrill, whose name sixty years after his death from wounds inflicted by federal Ruerrillas in Kentucky, still i misspelled "Quantrell" In most of the newspapers that give him occasional mention and in all of the lurid fictions published between covers and purporting each to be the true story of the terrible rough rider from Kansas. There never was a Charles W. Quantrell. There was a William Clarke Quantrill. who wrote his name In blood upon the maps of several states.

His only authentic biographer is William Elsey Con-nelley, secretarv of the Kansas State Historical society. In the preface to his "Quantrill and the Border Wars" Mr. Cnnneiley calls Quantrill "the bloodiest man known to the annals of America." On the closing pages of his valuable volume the Kansas historian writ's of Quantrill: "Of the civil war In America he was the bloodiest, man. Of the border he was the scourge and terror. Idolized for hls ferocious blood-madness, forgot his mother.

Emharkd In savagery, he forswore his native land. Professing allegiance to an alien cause, he brought upon a fair land fire and sword, desolation and woe. To manifest a zeal he did not feel, he had recourse to slander, betrayed his companions and aided in their murder. With red hands he gave fair cities to torch and pillage, and reveled In the groans and cries helpless and innocent iotinis of his ruthless and Inhuman crimes." Even the men who fought under Quantrill did not know his real name. To them he was "Charley The misspelling of his surname probably was not at his own Instance, but he professed to be one Charles, Quantrill.

In Kansas, before the civil war. he operated as a imei and murderer under the alias of In tnariejr Hart. At intervals.