On October 11, Anderson’s Bushwhackers sacked Boonville, while their leader joined Quantrill to capture Glasgow. Todd, riding with Jo Shelby’s cavalry division, was killed in battle near Independence on October 21, and Anderson fell five days later in a skirmish near Orrick.

Everywhere, Bushwhacker leaders were dying. On January 10, 1863, Joe Porter had been killed in a skirmish with Federal troops near Marshfield. Quantrill fled to Kentucky with a few loyal followers. On May 10, 1865, they were surprised by Federal rangers in Spencer County. Quantrill was shot in the back and lay in agony for nearly a month, paralyzed, before he died.

Archie Clement surrendered to Federal authorities at the end of the war, but he was shot from his horse in Lexington on December 13, 1866, while attempting to flee arrest by state militiamen. Jim Lane, too, died a violent death. Despondent over his failing political fortunes, Lane shot himself while in Lawrence on July 1, 1866, dying 10 days later.

Jesse James lasted longer–he was murdered in 1882, shot down in his own home by ‘the dirty little coward’ Robert Ford, who was himself killed by a James supporter a few years later.

The Jayhawkers and Bushwhackers died off, some violently, some in the peace and prosperity of old age. But the wounds of the bitter struggles in Kansas and Missouri, which presaged the Civil War and epitomized its brutality, lasted. Understandably, the first years after the war saw emotions still running high on both sides, and a number of acts of violence and revenge, some by individuals, others by groups, continued to darken the public mind.

In one typical postwar incident, in the western hamlet of Haynesville, Mo., a pro-Union townsman named Loft Easton drank heavily and accused a former guerrilla captain named Jim Green (whom he had run into at a local grocery store) of being part of a company of Bushwhackers that had burned out Easton’s father during the war. Green attempted to reason with Easton, pleading with him ‘not to get in a fuss,’ but the drunken man continued berating Green and all other Southern guerrillas he could bring to mind. Green, to his credit, attempted to walk away from the fight, pulling a pistol and telling Easton not to follow him. Easton kept coming, however, and a grocery clerk, perhaps attempting to keep the peace–or else a fellow Union sympathizer of Easton’s–tried to knock Green’s gun out of his hand. Instead, for his troubles, the clerk found himself on the fatal end of a stray shot from Easton.

Green dove for his pistol while Easton continued firing wildly. Getting up, he shot his assailant once, knocking him over, then coolly walked up and killed Easton with two more shots to the head. A local diarist, Sarah Harlan, herself a pro-Union resident of Haynesville, noted fairly, ‘I believe that everybody that seen it justifies Jim.’ Green surrendered to the local sheriff and was placed on bond awaiting trial; he eventually was exonerated of all charges against him.

Another, less lethal, encounter between old enemies took place in Chariton County in October 1866. As noted by Southern sympathizer William Hill, the fight consisted in its entirety of the following exchange: ‘Old Dave came down here last week & told Jube West he came down to straighten out the damn Rebels. Jube immediately knocked him down twice & beat him vere [sic] severly [sic] in the face. Dave left immediately on the stage. Everyone was glad and said it was the best thing ever happened here.’

Not even ministers were exempt from the postwar violence. Unionists still nursed a grudge against Baptist and Methodist ministers who had supported the South during the war–or, on some occasions, had merely counseled Christian charity to a defeated foe. One such victim was a Reverend Hadlee of Webster County, in south central Missouri. Reputed to have been a ‘bitter Rebel’ by the pro-Union sheriff at Springfield, Hadlee had fled the state during the war and had only recently returned. One Sabbath day in August 1866, Hadlee attempted to resume preaching at his old church, but he was refused entry by Union loyalists who told him that he was ‘obnoxious’ and that because of his ‘rebellious acts’ they did not want him to preach to or teach them.

Enraged, Hadlee pulled down the American flag flying outside the church and started down the road toward his own land, where he intended to preach to a group of pro-Southern followers. He did not make it that far. A conveniently unidentified gunman rode alongside the minister and shot him dead; no one was willing to identify the killer, either from fear of reprisal or in support of his decidedly unchristian act.

Such acts, whether comparatively harmless fisticuffs or coldblooded murder, were the natural fruit of a decade-long planting of bitter, mean-spirited seeds. For everyone in the war-torn states of Missouri and Kansas, the scars of both civil war and Civil War were a long time in healing. Talk to many residents of the area today, and you will find that they have never totally healed, even now.

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This article was written by Bowen Kerrihard and originally appeared in the March 1999 issue of America’s Civil War.

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