Stark Mad Abolitionists

by Robert K. Sutton

  “Bloody Bill” Anderson shortly after he was killed. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

  The losses of Todd and Anderson within a week of each other were devastating to the Confederate guerrillas and a cause for jubilation on the Union side. To make matters even worse for the Confederates, on October 23, right between these two deaths, Price was dealt a stunning defeat at Westport, Missouri, that nearly annihilated his army. Faced by federals, led by Major General Samuel R. Curtis in his front, and dogged from behind with the Union cavalry led by Major General Alfred Pleasanton, Price was in a fix. He could have attempted a retreat to the south, but he instead decided to attempt to attack one enemy force at a time. He attacked Curtis’s Army of the Border first, throwing attack after attack at his position. Curtis’s men held firm. Understanding that he quickly would be caught in a vise—as Pleasanton came up toward his rear—he retreated south. For all intents and purposes, his campaign was over, thus ending any Confederate threat to Missouri. There was one more battle, the Battle of Mine Creek in Kansas on October 25, which had the distinction of being one of the largest cavalry battles in the war. For James Montgomery, the Battle of Mine Creek brought the border conflict to a fitting conclusion. He had earlier resigned his commission due to poor health, but when he found that Price was headed in his direction, he rejoined. The Battle of Mine Creek, in which Montgomery and his son participated, was fought, as he later wrote, “in sight of my place,” near Mound City. Price’s army was nearly destroyed, and with the defeat, the Confederate menace in Missouri and Kansas was over.

  As Price’s army moved west, the people of Lawrence again were fearful that they were the target. But with troops permanently stationed there for protection, and with the Confederates on the run, they finally felt secure. They and most Kansas residents still very much supported the war effort, but as 1864 progressed, many other northerners were growing tired of the war that seemed to have no end. When the offensives in the East and the South seemed to be going nowhere, the frustration with the war effort increased. The Army of the Potomac, now under the command of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, was unable to defeat Confederate General Robert E. Lee in the Overland Campaign in Virginia. Major General William T. Sherman, leading the Union’s Military Division of the Mississippi, was making progress through Georgia, but like Grant, his army was not able to score a knockout blow to the Confederates. By late summer, it was becoming clear to President Lincoln that there was a strong, almost inevitable probability that he would not be reelected in November.

  Circumstances changed dramatically when Sherman captured the major Confederate railroad hub city of Atlanta on September 2, 1864. Public opinion in the North started to swing back in favor of Lincoln, and victory now seemed to be within reach. Further, to boost the chances for reelection, many Union soldiers were furloughed and allowed to return to their homes, with the not-too-subtle purpose of allowing them to vote in the upcoming election. They had fought to secure a clear victory, and they did not want their efforts wasted. In fact, the twenty-two soldiers killed by “Bloody Bill” Anderson in Centralia were heading home ostensibly to vote in the November election.

  Kansas probably would have voted to reelect Lincoln no matter what. But with the local Union forces finally running the Confederates out of the area, with the death of “Bloody Bill” Anderson, with Quantrill out of the picture, and with the news that Sherman had taken Atlanta, there was no question who Kansans would vote for the first time they could vote in a Presidential election. Not surprisingly, President Lincoln won by seventeen thousand to four thousand votes. Republicans also overwhelmingly won the state legislature, electing eighty-five of the one hundred seats. This was also good news for James Lane. At the time, the state legislature elected US senators, and the new legislature convened on January 10, 1865. Three days later it elected Lane to a second term as a US senator from Kansas by an overwhelming margin.302

  For all intents and purposes, the war ended for Kansans when Price’s Confederate Army was driven from the border area. But the war continued in the South and the East. President Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated for his second term on March 4, 1865. Less than a month later, on April 2, the Union Army broke through the Confederate lines near Petersburg, Virginia, which spelled the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Two days later, President Lincoln and his young son Tad toured the smoldering ruins of Richmond, Virginia, just vacated by the Confederate government. Then on April 9, General Lee surrendered to Lieutenant General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, ending the war. The people of Lawrence rejoiced when news arrived that the Civil War was over. Their joy quickly changed to sadness when just days later they learned that President Lincoln had been assassinated.

  The war ended, but the pride of soldiers’ service from Lawrence and the rest of Kansas continued. Many Kansas veterans joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a social, economic, and political advocacy group established shortly after the war ended. At its peak in 1890, the GAR counted nearly five hundred thousand members nationwide. Kansas had more than eighteen thousand members in 478 posts, which was larger, per capita, than in any state in the Union.

  Most local GAR posts built their own halls, which often functioned as local community centers. Members also pooled their resources—in many cases matched with federal funds—to provide homes and funds for the widows and orphans of Civil War soldiers, as well as to care for disabled or elderly veterans, and bury and mark the graves of their members. They also leveraged federal Civil War claim funds and raised additional money to build the Memorial Building in Topeka, completed in 1911. The building housed the GAR’s state headquarters as well as the Kansas State Historical Society.

  As a national organization, the GAR welcomed African American veterans. By 1894, a total of 167 Kansas black members joined GAR posts in Atchison, Fort Scott, Kansas City, Lawrence, Leavenworth, and Topeka. The Lawrence branch was named the Samuel Walker Post in honor of the man who fought in battles during “Bleeding Kansas,” the Civil War, and who for a number of years was the Douglas County Sheriff and the City Marshal of Lawrence.303

  The year the GAR Memorial Building was completed in 1911 was significant for another reason: the grande dame of Kansas, Sara Robinson, died at age eighty-four. After the war, she recorded her recollections of Quantrill’s Raid and the Civil War in Kansas. She had outlived most of her contemporary free-state pioneers. She observed firsthand the trials, tribulations, and triumphs in Lawrence. She was jubilant when Kansas became a free state, electing her husband as its first governor. Looking back, she rejoiced that her home and her nation had “a peace that would be lasting, that would come when it should be heralded; … that the whole nation was free—slavery being abolished.”304

  Epilogue: From Ashes to Immortality

  LOOKING BACK ON THE EARLY years of Lawrence, Rev. Cordley recalled that in the spring of 1865, with the Confederate Army’s surrender, “after ten years of disturbance in one form or another, we were to enjoy what Governor Geary was fond of calling, ‘the benign influences of peace.’” He continued, writing that “it was so comfortable to feel that we could retire at night without fear of alarm, and work by day without fear of attack. We need no longer start at every unusual sound, nor scan with care every unusual sight. This was a luxury we had not enjoyed since the beginning of the settlement ten years before. One hardly needs to say that we enjoyed it as few people enjoy peace and quiet.”305

  Peace also brought prosperity. On the heels of Quantrill’s Raid, three transportation improvements dramatically changed Lawrence’s economic trajectory. Since its founding, the Kansas River never was a reliable transportation route. Plans were in the works for years to build a bridge, and during the Civil War, investors—including Josiah Miller, the former editor of one of Lawrence’s first newspapers—pulled together the necessary funds to begin construction. The project was nearing completion when Quantrill and his men came to town. Seven workers and a subcontractor were killed in the massacre, and
the principal investors lost almost everything, but they quickly regrouped, resumed construction, finished, and opened the bridge for business in December 1863.

  Lawrence Bridge 1863. Public domain.

  The bridge was a major improvement, but the real prize—or actually real prizes—came when the Kansas Pacific Railroad made Lawrence a major stop in 1864,306 and the Leavenworth, Lawrence, and Galveston Railroad included Lawrence on its route in 1867. The railroads provided more reliable and efficient transportation; they also provided jobs. The official census for Lawrence in 1860 counted 1,645 inhabitants. By 1870, the population had exploded to 8,320. A large majority of the new residents arrived in the second half of the decade, changing the community’s demographic and geographical makeup. New England residents, who dominated the population earlier, were now only a little more than 20 percent of the total population. Residents from the Upper Midwest and the Upper South made up about 30 percent each, and about 20 percent came from Europe. German immigrants made up the majority of the latter group, establishing an enclave of residences and businesses in East Lawrence. African Americans still composed a sizable part of the population.307

  New houses and new business buildings sprang up all over town, mostly replacing those lost in the raid. With the new bridge, the area north of the Kansas River started growing as well. One of the few buildings to survive was one of the oldest and most prominent buildings in town—the Plymouth Congregational Church. It was a symbol of the old, established New England abolitionists who had first settled Lawrence. The church continued to grow during the war, so that by 1864, the congregation started exploring the possibility of constructing a new edifice on a location closer to the center of town. Momentum and enthusiasm for a new house of worship grew, and shortly after the war, the church board directed the newly established Society of the Plymouth Congregational Church to find a building site, hire an architect, and raise $15,000 for the new building.

  The Society hired John G. Haskell as its architect. Haskell was the perfect choice. He was quickly developing the reputation as the finest, most creative architect in the state—he was hired to design the new state capitol building in Topeka. His father, Franklin Haskell, was a charter member of the church. And, with the design commissions he had accepted to this point in his career, this was his first church.

  Many church members were more interested in cost and function rather than in style, but Haskell responded with what would become his motto, that “beauty costs no more than ugliness.” He created an edifice with “angles, projections, and towers,” incorporating elements of the Gothic and Renaissance Revival styles in his exterior treatment. The front featured four brick-engaged columns, with spires extending about ten feet above the façade, stained glass windows, and an elaborate pipe organ. The church was dedicated in May 1870, and the other churches in town dismissed their congregations to allow their parishioners to attend the event. Haskell’s church still stands, and over the years, ancillary structures have been added to meet the needs of the growing congregation.308

  Plymouth Congregational Church, Lawrence, Kansas. Photo by Bhall87, placed in public domain in Wikimedia Commons.

  As Plymouth Church was under construction, one of the town’s newest congregations, made up of many of the town’s newest residents, decided to build a new church as well. The English Lutheran Church—whose members, ironically, were mostly Swedish and German—wanted to integrate into the community and learn to speak English as quickly as possible. Organized in 1867, the congregation was small and not well-off financially, but it wanted Haskell to design the new building. Haskell agreed and graciously donated plans for a simple, but elegant, Gothic Revival structure. The exterior was built with rough-cut stone; lancet windows and a larger lancet entrance were the primary Gothic Revival features. The entrance at the right side of the church was topped by a simple steeple with lancet windows that mimicked the main windows. The church was quietly dedicated on December 18, 1870, and became a symbol of the new Lawrence.309

  Old English Lutheran Church, Lawrence, Kansas. Photograph by CP&Associates, Architects and Planners.

  Panorama titled “Bird’s Eye View of the City of Lawrence, Kansas 1869.” Library of Congress.

  Once Kansas became a state, the establishment of institutions of higher education became a top priority. Lawrence placed itself in a position as the potential home of one of these colleges. Almost simultaneous with the first shovels turning over the soil in Lawrence, the people planned to eventually build a college on Mount Oread in the center of town.

  In 1863, as the legislature was poised to select a site for the state university, Lawrence positioned itself as one of three possible locations, in competition with Manhattan and Emporia. At the outset, Manhattan seemed the most desirable location. The town’s leaders offered Bluemont Central College, with its stone building, a one-thousand-volume library, science facilities and equipment, along with its 120 surrounding acres, to the state as its contribution. Lawrence offered $15,000 in cash for the new university. Emporia offered forty acres but no cash. Manhattan appeared to be in the driver’s seat.310

  Just before the state legislature was poised to vote on the location of the university, the Lawrence supporters mounted a huge lobbying effort, and on February 20, 1863, Governor Carney signed the law giving the university to Lawrence. Later, William Miller reported that his brother, Josiah—the same Josiah who helped build the bridge and edit one the town’s first newspapers—who at the time also was Lawrence’s postmaster, engineered the “vote getting” effort, bribing the legislators with $5 each. Just before the vote, Josiah noticed that he had missed two prospective members, and he slipped them $4 apiece to ensure a favorable vote. While Manhattan and Emporia lost out on the state university, Manhattan received the state agricultural and mechanics college, and Emporia was awarded the state teacher’s college.311

  So the people of Lawrence bribed the state legislature, promising $15,000 in cash—which it did not have—to locate the state university in their town. Now they had to deliver. The legislation required the city to come up with the full amount by November 1, 1863.312

  Of course, no one counted on the horrific catastrophe of Quantrill’s massacre in August, which made the prospect of raising the necessary funds by the deadline seem impossible. But not long after the raid, Charles Robinson contacted Amos Lawrence and asked if he would give the city the full $15,000 in cash to meet the deadline. Lawrence agreed to give $10,000, and Kansas Governor Thomas Carney agreed to loan the remainder from his personal account, paving the way for the University of Kansas to open on September 12, 1866.313

  John Fraser, Chancellor, University of Kansas, 1867–1874. Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.

  For its first couple of years, the university struggled. There were plenty of students, but nearly all were in the preparatory program and were not ready for college. Money was tight, and to make matters worse, the legislature cut its funding. In 1868, just when the situation seemed bleakest, the board of regents hired John Fraser as its new chancellor. Chancellor Fraser and the regents convinced the City of Lawrence to float bonds for $100,000 for new buildings. Lawrence was well on its way toward recovery from Quantrill’s Raid, and the town’s leaders quickly grasped that in addition to railroads and industries, keeping up with the expansion of its university was a wise investment.

  Fraser brought in new faculty and exerted his considerable energy to build the University of Kansas into a real university, moving away from being a preparatory school. On June 11, 1873, the university held its first commencement in the newly completed University Building—which was designed by John Haskell—graduating four students. With its emphasis on admitting women as well as men, Flora Ellen Richardson was a member of the first graduating class, as well as the class valedictorian.314

  University Hall (later Fraser Hall) 1882, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.

  Just as the university and the town of Lawre
nce were truly beginning to prosper, the nationwide Panic of 1873 dealt the town and the college a severe blow. Lawrence was down, but it was not out. With the two railroads and the means to ship and receive goods, the fledgling manufacturing sector grew. It received a big boost when several entrepreneurs raised the capital to build a dam on the Kansas River to provide power. Floods, ice, and bankruptcy delayed the project, but in 1879 the dam was completed, providing power to several factories. Using a cable transfer system that produced 1,500 horsepower with the capability to power multiple factories five miles away, Lawrence became a manufacturing center.315

  Lumber-, paper-, and gristmills dominated the manufacturing industry, but with the new power source, Lawrence quickly became one of the major manufacturing centers for barbed wire. The Consolidated Barb Wire Company—which combined three factories into one—produced most of the barbed wire for Kansas and was a major supplier for the western United States. Another industry that thrived with the building of the dam was the Wilder Brothers Shirt Factory.316