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Title: Petition of Sundry Citizens of Pottawatomie Creek
Description: This petition, dated September 19, 1856, is addressed to Kansas Gov. John W. Geary and is signed by 32 Kansas citizens living near the Pottawatomie, Sugar, and Middle Creeks and the Osage River. The petitioners describe several recent guerrilla attacks in their region, including the Battle of Osawatomie, and ask for Geary to take action. They complain that the attacks, launched by Missourians and “guided by a few desperate men in our midst,” have succeeded in “sacking and burning houses and in robbing and plundering and menacing the lives of our citizens.”
Object Type: Petition
Date: September 19, 1856

Title: William T. Anderson
Description: Portrait of William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson
Object Type: Image
Date: 1864

Title: Unidentified Man
Description: Charcoal portrait of unidentified man with suit coat, vest, shirt, and tie. Drawing is signed by the artist with "93" immediately below the signature.
Object Type: Image
Date: 1893

Title: William T. Anderson
Description: A photograph of William "Bloody Bill" T. Anderson that appears in the 1914 publication of "Three years with Quantrell; a true story".
Object Type: Image
Date: 1864

Title: Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence
Description: This print, originally published in Harper's Weekly on September 5, 1863, shows Quantrill and his rebel guerrillas killing the citizens of Lawrence, Kansas, and setting fire to the buildings.
Object Type: Image
Date: September 5, 1863

Title: From G.W. Veale to George W. Dietzler
Description: On October 30, 1864, this dispatch was sent by Col. G.W. Veale at Headquarters, 2nd Regiment, Kansas State Militia in Topeka, Kansas, to Maj. Gen. Dietzler, Comm. Kansas State Militia. Veale reports on a recent campaign in which his regiment moved from Topeka to Shawneetown in Johnson County, Kansas, to Jackson County, Missouri, where it fought in the Battle of the Blue on October 22, 1864. Veale states that his regiment lost 44 killed and wounded, with 68 men taken prisoner after fighting “a force six times our number for three quarters of an hour.” The dispatch includes a list of the soldiers killed and wounded in the battle.
Date: October 30, 1864

Title: Unidentified Civil War Soldiers or Guerrillas
Description: Charcoal portrait of two men dressed in cloaks, uniforms, and hats with plumes and holding pistols. Drawing is signed by the artist with "93" immediately below the signature. Each of these has his own portrait (taken from this one) in this same collection by the same artist (MVO-99F and MVO-100F).
Object Type: Image
Date: 1893

Title: Quantrill's Raid
Description: An illustration entitled, "The War in Kansas-Fearful Massacre at Lawrence by Quantrell's Guerillas", originally published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.
Object Type: Image
Date: September 12, 1863

Title: Edward Payson Fitch, Jr.
Description: This black and white photograph, taken circa 1890, depicts Edward Payson Fitch, Jr., son of Edward and Sarah Fitch. He was born in Lawrence, Kansas in 1863. As a baby, he survived Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, but his family’s house was burned down and his father was killed in the attack.
Object Type: Image

Title: From John A. Bushnell to Eugenia Bronaugh
Description: This May 26, 1864 letter is from John A. Bushnell of Clinton, Missouri to Eugenia Bronaugh. He tells Eugenia that he avoids going out much of the time because he is afraid of being attacked by bushwhackers. He also tells her that, according to newspaper reports, Joseph Orville Shelby recently crossed the Arkansas River with 2,000 troops. He voices frustration with news sources, which he describes as “stirring” but “confused and contradictory.”
Date: May 26, 1864

Title: Fletcher Taylor with Frank and Jesse James
Description: Charcoal drawing of three of Quantrill's guerrillas: Fletcher Taylor (left), Frank James (sitting), and Jesse James (right). Fletch and Jesse are dressed in suits and hats; Frank is hatless and in uniform.
Object Type: Image
Date: 1893

Title: Unidentified Civil War Soldier or Guerrilla
Description: Charcoal portrait of unidentified person in cloak, shirt, and hat with plume andfive stars on the hatband. Drawing is signed by the artist with "93" immediately below the signature. Person in this drawing is taken from another drawing (MVO-101F).
Object Type: Image
Date: 1893

Title: Diary Entries
Description: These unsigned diary entries discuss the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the election of the Bogus Legislature and subsequent protests, the arrest of John Brown, and violent Bushwhacker raids. The author describes the “tragic + bloody + exciting scenes” of life on the border of Kansas and Missouri.
Object Type: Diary
Date: 1854-1855

Title: From F.R. Newell to Rev. H.D. Fisher
Description: This letter, dated August 30, 1863, was written by F.R. Newell in St. Louis, to Rev. H.D. Fisher. Newell offers sympathy to Fisher and his family in the wake of Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, Kansas, declaring, “God grant that the raid of Lawrence may be for the healing of the nation, even as his tender compassion alone, can bind up the hearts that are broken!" Newell states that he has plenty to do in St. Louis after the recent arrival of "contrabands."
Date: August 30, 1863

Title: Peyton Long
Description: Charcoal portrait of Peyton Long in suit coat, vest, shirt, and tie. Peyton Long enlisted May 1861 in Captain Tom McCarty's company of John T. Hughes regiment, of the Confederacy, but in January 1862, he joined Silas Gordon and in the summer of 1863, Quantrill. It's reported that Long killed more men during the Lawrence, Kansas, massacre on August 21, 1863, than any other raider. Long was killed in Meade County, Kentucky, during a skirmish around April 30, 1864. The "Liberty Tribune" (June 21, 1901) said he was killed in 1865.
Object Type: Image
Date: 1893

Title: From Elias Stover to William Sayer Blakely
Description: Elias Stover writes a letter from Camp Blair, Kansas on March 25, 1862 to his friend William Sayer Blakely. Three days prior, Stover says, he marched into Missouri along with Maj. Pomeroy and 70 other men from the 2nd Kansas Cavalry Regiment. They ambushed a house where William Quantrill and his men were staying; they killed eight people, took six prisoner, stole horses and arms, and burned down the house, but Quantrill escaped.
Date: March 25, 1862

Title: From John M. Schofield to Thomas Carney
Description: This letter, written on the letterhead of Headquarters, Department of the Missouri and dated August 29, 1863, was sent by John M. Schofield in St. Louis to Kansas Governor Thomas Carney in Topeka, Kansas. Writing in the aftermath of Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, Kansas, Major General Schofield states his hope that President Lincoln will appoint a Court of Inquiry to investigate the raid. Schofield refers to a meeting proposed for September 8, 1863 in Paola, Kansas, in which participants plan to enter Missouri “to recover their stolen property.” Schofield emphasizes the need to preempt this potentially violent meeting.
Date: August 29, 1863

Title: The Ruins of Lawrence, Kansas
Description: An illustration of the ruins of Lawrence, Kansas after Quantrill's Raid on August 21, 1863, originally published in Harper's Weekly.
Object Type: Image
Date: September 19, 1863

Title: From Hamilton R. Gamble to Abraham Lincoln
Description: On May 2, 1863, Missouri Gov. Hamilton R. Gamble writes from St. Louis to President Lincoln. Gamble informs Lincoln about "the perpetration of murders and arsons and other outrages committed by persons connected with the Army…and whose crimes you have the power to restrain." He asks Lincoln to put a stop to the "butcheries" occurring in Missouri's western counties, and suggests that Lincoln replace Gen. Curtis as commander of the district in favor of someone who is "too brave to be cruel."
Object Type: Government Document
Date: May 2, 1863

Title: Diary of Dr. J.H.P. Baker
Description: This is an excerpt from the diary of Dr. J.H.P. Baker, an army doctor working under the command of Gen. Joseph O. Shelby. The entries included here are from October 10-27, 1864. Baker discusses conscription, bushwhackers, travelling across Missouri, and marching to Price’s headquarters. He mentions the Battle of Boonville, the Second Battle of Lexington, the Battle of the Big Blue, the Second Battle of Independence, the Battle of Westport, and the Battle of Cedar Creek.
Object Type: Diary
Date: October 10, 1864-October 27, 1864

Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865

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