side, which I did for quite a distance. I heard Mr. Winn say to General Lane that the war was not to free the negroes and that he desired an order to take those negro boys back to their owner. Lane agreed with him, and gave the order, but after several hours' search of the great camp we could not find the negro boys. I remember, among many others, a ludicrous circumstance. I had driven the buggy for my mother, who had come to Kansas City, twenty-five miles away, to buy goods. She had $186.00 in large bills, a good part of it belonging to neighbors for whom she was to make purchases. When she had completed her purchases at Shannon's store, on the levy, she could not find her money. She stoutly contended that she had it when she entered the store, and there was a hubbub among the clerks, one of them sweeping the floor and behind the counters in the search. Finally she had me drive the buggy up, got in, and said she was going; that she was ashamed of herself for having intimated that some one had taken the money. She said she had hidden it in her hair to keep the soldiers from stealing it and had forgotten where she had put it. I persuaded her to pay for her purchases. I remember going with one lady to see her husband in Southwest Missouri. We found our way a good part of the distance by following the solitary chimneys of burned houses along the line of march of a body of troops, which a man told us would lead us to our destination. I recall, too, that I was frequently sent to stay all night as a kind of protection to women and little children when the man of the house was called away. My most trying ordeal was when I was asked for and sent to a home where they had smallpox. My mother gave me a blanket, with instructions to wrap up in it as I slept, which I did, and escaped catching the disease. But to return hastily and more logically to the thread of my story. I shall never forget one thrilling tragedy connected with the ushering in of the Border Warfare in Western Missouri. Charles Quantrell, a Marylander, along with his brother, was freighting across the Plains, as the country between Kansas City and Denver was then called. A band of free-booters, known as the "Kansas Jayhawkers," for which I presume no party or section was responsible, attacked them and sacked their train. Quantrell's brother was killed, and he himself wounded and left for dead. He recovered, however, and to be revenged joined the band, of course not divulging his identity. He induced the three men who had killed his brother and shot him to come down to the farm of old Morgan Walker, a wealthy farmer who lived about nine miles from my father's, the object being to steal his money and his mules and horses. They secreted themselves in the woods until nightfall. Quantrell had gone to the house to see that the way was clear. But he was leading them into ambush, and when the three robbers stepped upon the front porch Quantrell, Morgan Walker and others fired upon them. One was killed dead. The other two escaped, one of them badly wounded. They tracked him by the blood, but the trail was lost. A few days afterward a negro, going with an ox team for wood, saw a camp fire and a man lying on the ground while another attended him. He turned back and told what he saw. Quantrell, Morgan Walker and others went to the scene. When the well robber ran Walker, who was a dead shot, shot him through the head with his squirrel rifle. Quantrell went up and shot the wounded man. I can distinctly recall now how, midst the excitement of the on-coming war, my heart beat faster as I listened to the story of this tragedy, not only in the house but out among the negroes. Quantrell remained in the neighborhood and, though a total stranger, organized what was afterwards known throughout the Union as "Quantrell's Band of Guerrillas," and whose deeds of daring are almost without a parallel in history. This band fought as Guerrillas for two years, mainly in Jackson County. The black flag was carried in the Border Warfare, that is, no prisoners were taken. All captured were shot. Early in the struggle the Federal troops secured and held all the principal towns, Kansas City, Independence, Westport, Pleasant Hill and Harrisonville. They sent their squads of soldiers throughout the country, and they and the Guerrillas were continually fighting. As an errand boy I was frequently in the camps of both sides, and as I traveled about I met small companies hundreds of times. I sometimes helped feed the horses of the Federals at my father's in the forenoon and then helped feed the horses of the Querrillas in the afternoon. As the tragic days rolled away and conditions grew worse and worse no pen can describe the awful scene. One day a band of soldiers under Captain Pardee, belonging to the Kansas Regiment of Colonel Jennison, came to my father's. They sacked our home, taking everything of value which could be carried, clothing, blankets, quilts, silverware, bridles, saddles, harness. One of the negroes, Alfred, went with them. The other negroes, under the advice of Marshall, who was ever true to us and who stayed with us until he was forced into the Federal army, refused to go, although Big John and George left shortly afterwards. Five of the best horses were taken that day. A circumstance occurred at this time which demonstrates the power of God's Word connected with prayer. Two of Captain Pardee's men stayed at our house the night before. When my father had family worship that night-he never missed, morning or nightone of the soldiers knelt down readily at the end of the chapter. The other soldier twisted about for quite a while, but finally came down on his knees, his saber ringing on the floor as he did so. Those two men took none of our property, and tried to dissuade the others. Another circumstance on that eventful day is branded forever in my memory. My father was sitting on the front porch. A soldier cocked his pistol and gave him three minutes to get a gold watch which he had been told my mother had in bed with her, for she was sick. I felt sure he would shoot. My father, without so much as rising from his seat, said without a tremor in his voice, "You can shoot on. The watch is my wife's, and I will never ask her to give it up." I saw him afterwards when his life was threatened and actual violence was resorted to, and he was just as cool. I do not believe that during his pilgrimage of eighty-three years he was ever frightened. But "He feared God and kept His commandments." The Border Warfare was now fully on, and for two long years the land was ablaze with horrors. No pen can depict it, no picture. fully portray it. Bands of soldiers were ever shooting across the prairies, their guns and sabers glistening in the sunlight. Solitary horsemen were ever dashing to or from this scene or that. Little battles were being fought on all sides. I can see myself now sitting on a rail fence listening to the roar of the cannon at Lone Jack-said to be the bloodiest battle of the war in proportion to the number of men engaged in it. The tragic story of one scene was hardly told until another was going the rounds. Citizens were arrested and lodged in jail, and women and children left alone and defenseless. The day of vengeance came. Men were hung to trees or in their barns, or called from their homes in the night time and shot. Meantime the torch was vying with the sword. A burning house could be seen across the prairies in the night time at a distance of at least twenty-five miles. One night I looked out of a second story window and counted twenty-two houses on |