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N0KFQ > TODAY 06.10.13 17:14l 51 Lines 2273 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 5602_KB0WSA
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Subj: Today in History - Oct 6
Path: IZ3LSV<IK2XDE<DB0RES<ON0AR<F1OYP<N9PMO<CX2SA<LW6EVE<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 131006/1435Z 5602@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.55
Oct 6, 1863:
Confederate guerillas attack Baxter Springs, Kansas
On this day in 1863, Confederate guerilla leader William Clarke
Quantrill continues his bloody rampage through Kansas when he
attacks Baxter Springs. Although he failed to capture the Union
stronghold, his men massacred a Federal detachment that happened
to be traveling nearby.
Some of the bloodiest chapters of the Civil War were written in
Kansas and Missouri, where irregular combatants fought. In August
1863, Quantrill and 450 Confederate partisans sacked the
abolitionist town of Lawrence, Kansas. They murdered 150 men and
set the town on fire before escaping the pursuing Union cavalry.
After destroying Lawrence, Quantrill and his men noticed that the
area around northwestern Missouri and northeastern Kansas was
becoming more crowded with Yankee troops. Quantrill started to
drift south, intent on wintering within the friendly confines of
Confederate Texas.
On October 6, Quantrill and his men happened upon a Federal post
at Baxter Springs, near the Missouri and Indiana Territory
borders. Defending the post were parts of the 3rd Wisconsin
Cavalry and the 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry. Quantrill attacked
suddenly, surprising the Yankees, who suffered heavy casualties
before barricading themselves inside the earth-and-timber
fortress. While Quantrill's men debated the merits of another
attack on the post, a Union force appeared from the north. It was
General James G. Blunt, commander of the forces in Kansas, who
was in the process of moving his headquarters from Fort Scott,
Kansas, to Fort Smith, Arkansas. Blunt spotted Quantrill's men
but mistook them for Union troops because many were dressed in
captured Yankee uniforms. A large portion of Blunt's 100 men
were clerks and office staffers. Quantrill attacked, and the
scene turned into a massacre. The Yankees quickly scattered, and
Quantrill's partisans hunted them down.
Seventy Union troops were killed, but Blunt escaped to the safety
of Fort Smith. He was removed from command shortly thereafter.
Quantrill and his men continued south to Texas, raiding
homesteads and attacking Native American communities along the
way.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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