The massacre of six men, aged 17 to 75, that took place on the Roupe
farm at Lone Jack, Missouri in September of 1863, is an event whose
importance comes not from its tragedy, which time has erased and is one
of many thousands of the Civil War, but from the attention it draws to
the people, places, and events which both led to the massacre and resulted
from it.
The years leading up to the Civil War were preceded by violence along the Kansas-Missouri border in the form of a seven-year Border War between abolitionist and anti-abolitionist elements on both sides. Most of the residents were peaceful farmers, but radical groups, rabble-rousers, and ruffians conducted raids on farms and towns to the extent that it was difficult, if not imprudent, to maintain neutrality. Most Missourians were against slavery; fewer than two percent owned slaves, and Missouri never joined the Confederacy. However, many viewed the radical abolitionist movement as a threat to their safety, property, and sovereignty.
During the Border War, Missouri was already a state, admitted in 1821 as a slave state under the Missouri Compromise. Kansas was not yet a state, but was to resolve its status through a referendum in accordance with the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act. Virtually no one in the sparsely-settled Kansas frontier owned slaves, and the territory was being rapidly settled by abolitionist "Free-Soilers" from Eastern states and Germany. On the Missouri side, most of the slaveowners lived in the eastern half of the state along the Mississippi River, but some lived near Kansas City and and adjacent counties along the Kansas frontier.
This was an explosive mixture. First, radical abolitionists from Kansas raided Missouri farms to liberate slaves they found there. Finding few slaves to liberate, they looted as necessary so as not to return home empty-handed. In response, Missourians raided Kansas to recapture their property. Finally, where there are armed gangs, there is also marauding and plundering.
The Federal Army was sent in to quell the activities of the ruffians, but this action exacerbated the situation. First, the Missourians viewed the Federals as an occupying army, but most importantly, the soldiers in the militia were Kansas volunteers, many of whom were ruffians, but now in blue uniforms. Two of the most famous ruffian bands were the "Jayhawkers" (named for a mythical Irish bird) and the "Redlegs" (named for their maroon leggings). The founder of the Jayhawkers, C.R. "Doc" Jennison, once declared an outlaw by the federal government, was commissioned to command the Seventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. Many Redlegs became part of the Ninth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry Regiment.
The most infamous ruffian on the Missouri side was William Clarke Quantrill. His method of fighting led to the application of the moniker "Bushwhackers" to his band. Romanticized by Missouri legend, historical records reveal Quantrill as a bloodthirsty anti-union zealot, even though (or perhaps because) he was the son of Ohio abolitionists. Quantrill was once a schoolteacher in Lawrence, Kansas, and had served in a Mormon batallion in Utah where he fell in with a group of anti-abolitionists.
Quantrill
hated the Jayhawkers, and especially Senator James Henry Lane, the
radical free-soiler and former marauder. In an attempt to put Jim Lane and his ruffians
out of action, Quantrill and his gang raided Lawrence, Kansas,
Lane's home town, in August of 1863, brazenly avoiding the encampment of the defending
Ninth Kansas. Jim Lane escaped, but the bushwhackers killed over 150 men and boys and
burned most of the town to the ground. Afterwards, Quantrill was commissioned
into the Confederate Army but continued to operate independently as a guerrilla.
The Union Army was so enraged and embarrassed by Quantrill's raid that Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, Commander of the Kansas Department, issued Order Number 11, which was a general evacuation order for three Missouri border counties. While seen as an act of retaliation, the actual intent of the order was to deny the support Quantrill and his gang were receiving from border residents. The way the order was carried out by the Redlegs, however, was retaliatory in nature.
The Redlegs, under the command of Lt. Col. Charles S. Clark, entered Jackson County, Missouri to enforce the evacuation order and to engage and capture Quantrill. Quantrill, however, predictably kept to his guerrilla tactics and avoided the Federals. In frustration, Clark elected to "execute" Missourians whom his intelligence had identified as having aided Quantrill in any way. Among these executions was a group of six men, aged 17 to 75. Clark reported his victims as "bushwhackers" to Gen. Ewing.
This atrocity is known to my family as the "Lone Jack Massacre:"
The Lone Jack Historical Society has published an account by Martin Rice, "What I Saw of Order Number Eleven."
On 6 September 1863, during the dark days of the Civil War, six local men were executed without trial by Union troops near Lone Jack, Missouri. The men were related either by bloodline or marriage, and all were simple farmers and neighbors; none were active combatants, and none were known to have borne arms at any time during the conflict.
Included among the dead were my great-great-grandfather John S. Cave, two great-great-granduncles, a first cousin three times removed, and another cousin of indeterminate degree. The sixth man was related to me only through marriage.
Our family tradition has always referred to this event as the Lone Jack Massacre. I well remember the incident being discussed when I was a small child in Missouri during the early 1940s, and I grew up knowing the story by heart. Even then, over eighty years after the occurrence, there was still a deep feeling of outrage within the family.
The local Union Commander, Brig. General Thomas Ewing, knew that a large number of citizens in Jackson county were sympathetic to the Southern cause. He had reason to believe that many were helping the Confederate guerrilla forces in the area. He issued the infamous Order Number 11 which directed that all persons in most of the county, and several others nearby, were to be exiled to the counties toward the east for the duration of the war. He hoped that this would put an end to local support for his guerrilla enemy.
The Order was issued on 25 August 1863 and set a 15-day deadline for the residents to evacuate their homes. The expiration date was 9 September 1863. The six men were executed three days before the deadline, and this has always been our main point of bitterness toward the Union troops.
We have always believed that the troops were under such pressure to clear the area that they acted in haste to set an example so the others would get moving. Thus was born the idea that the incident was an unprovoked atrocity committed against totally innocent men.
Some recent research, however, has provided a slightly different view of the event, but does not remove it from being a tragic episode of a tragic war.
-Larry Sullivan