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Civil War Overview:
Dispatch of Clark to Ewing
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| Order No. 11 by G.
C. Bingham - note "Red-legs" |
ORDER No. 11.*
If tell'st this heavy story right,
upon my soul the hearers will shed tears;
Yea, even my foes will shed fast-falling tears,
And say,--Alas! it was a piteous deed.
-Shakespeare
History is a voice sounding up from the
past with no whisper of the future. History repeats itself in nothing save
in teaching over and over the doctrine of the old Hebrew prophets, that a
moral force and a divine purpose govern the affairs of men. One writer
defines history as an "epic conceived in the spirit of God."
Another writer says: "All history is an imprisoned epic--nay, an
imprisoned psalm and prophecy." But the historian's task may well
cease when he has presented the facts in their proper relation to each
other. Such is the limit here assigned to the treatment of Order No. 11.
On the 19th of August, 1863, Quantrell
and his men broke camp on the Blackwater in Johnson County, Mo., and
marched into Kansas; two days later, they made the famous raid on
Lawrence, the home of Jim Lane. On August 25th the famous Order No. 11 was
issued. Order No. 11 was issued avowedly on account of the Lawrence raid.
Kansas and Missouri had been at war
along the border since 1854. Slavery extension and squatter sovereignty originated with
these two when, as territories, they advanced respectively toward
Statehood. Bad men, clothing themselves with the contentions of patriotic
citizens, crossed the boundary line from either State to the 'other and
committed crimes of every kind from petit larceny to foul murder.
Professor Spring, of the Kansas University, says that while the
Missourians committed crimes black enough, the "Jay-hawkers"
were the superior devils. When the war came up, some of the best men of
Missouri, such as Generals Frost and Bowen and Colonel Up. Hays, were
standing guard with armed forces to prevent incursions of Kansas
marauders. After the great Civil War was well on, the guerrillas of
Missouri undertook to checkmate these marauders and to retaliate upon
Kansas for the misdeeds in Missouri of such men as Pennook, Jennison, and
others. Jim Lane burned Neosho, Missouri, and Quantrell burned Lawrence,
Kansas.
General Schofield, who, with
headquarters at St. Louis, commanded the Army of the Frontier from April
1 to September 20, 1863, held that the border counties of Kansas could be
immuned against the Missouri guerrillas if the border counties of Missouri
were depopulated, tie explained that the guerrillas would quietly assemble
at a point agreed upon, then boldly ride over the country, harassing
Union men, attacking detachments of Federal troops and occasionally making
forays into Kansas. If chased by superior forces, they dispersed and scattered in the border
counties of Missouri and were reabsorbed by the peaceable portion of the
community or were safely harbored by non-combatants, from whom they
became indistinguishable: General Schofield determined, therefore, to
remove all the inhabitants, loyal and disloyal alike, from certain
counties, and to seize all the provisions and provender which the Citizens
in departing might be forced to abandon.
"General Order No. 11.
"Headquarters
District of the Border,
"Kansas City, August 25, 1863.
"1. All persons living in Jackson, Cass, and Bates counties,
Missouri, and in that part of Vernon included in this district, except
those living within one mile of the limits of Independence, Hickman's
Mills, Pleasant Hill, and Harrisonville, and except those in that part of
Kaw Township, Jackson County, north of Brush Creek and west of Big Blue,
are hereby ordered to remove from their present places of residence within
fifteen days from the date hereof.
"Those who
within that time establish their loyalty to the satisfaction of the
commanding officer of the military station near their present place of
residence will receive from him a certificate stating the fact of their
loyalty, and the names of the witnesses by whom it can be shown. All who
receive such certificates will be permitted to remove to any military
station in this district, or to any part of the State of Kansas, except the
counties of the eastern border of the State. All others shall remove out
of the district. Officers commanding companies and detachments serving in
the counties named will see that this paragraph is promptly obeyed.
"2. All
grain and hay in the field or under shelter, in the district from which
inhabitants 'ire required to remove, within reach of military stations
after the 9th day of September next, will be taken to such stations and
turned over to the proper officers there and report of the amount so
turned over made to district headquarters, specifying the names of all
loyal owners and amount of such product taken from them. All grain and hay
found in such district after the 9th day of September next, not convenient
to such stations, will be destroyed.
"3. The
provisions of General Order No. 10 from these headquarters will be at once
vigorously executed by officers commanding in the parts of the district
and at the station not subject to the operations of paragraph 1 of this
order, and especially the towns of Independence, Westport and Kansas City.
"4. Paragraph
3, General Order No. 10 is revoked as to all who have borne arms against,
the Government in the district since the 20th day of August, 1863.
"By order of Brigadier
General Ewing.
"H. Hannahs, Adjt.-Gen'l."
The news of the order quickly reached
the remotest corners of the district affected. In a few days the highways
of the land were rife with fugitives, courageous women and little
children, decrepit old men and young boys. They drove small herds of
cattle, or a few flocks of sheep, belonging to three or four families,
which for mutual assistance usually went together. The household goods
went in rickety wagons drawn by oxen or superannuated horses, exempted
from army service because too feeble to carry a soldier.
The wisdom of Order No. 11 has been very ably attacked
by General Geo. C. Bingham. The necessity and righteousness of the order
has been ably presented by General Schofield. Let these two be heard.
General Bingham was the artist from whose painting our illustration is
taken. He was a Federal officer, but such was his antipathy to the Kansans
that he refused to march to the relief of Mulligan at Lexington, where he
might have to associate with Kansas troops. General Ewing, who was in
command at Kansas City, issued Order No. 11. Upon him fell the bitter
condemnation of General Bingham. When General Ewing was the Democratic
candidate after the war for the governorship of Ohio, General Bingham
visited that State, exhibited his famous painting, made speeches, and with
relentless antagonism contributed to Ewing's defeat General Ewing asked
General Schofield for a letter in defense of Order No. 11. The letter
follows:
"West Point, N. Y., Jan. 25, '77.
"General
Thomas Ewing, Lancaster, O.:
"My dear General,--I avail myself
of the first opportunity that has presented itself to reply in detail to
your letter of the 30th of December last.
"It was in May, 1863, that the
command of the Department of the Missouri devolved upon me, and you were
soon after assigned to command the district which embraced Missouri and
Kansas. The condition of that border at once became the subject of earnest
consideration. The guerrilla warfare, which had been waged in that
district, with only temporary intermissions, for two years, had finally
degenerated, as all such contests are liable to do, into revolting
barbarism. Civilization and humanity demanded its prompt suppression,
whatever might be the means necessary to that end.
"A large
majority of the people had already been driven from their homes, or had
voluntarily left them. None remained beyond the immediate protection of
the military posts, except such as were, whether voluntarily or not,
useful to the guerrillas. Those who remained were simply purveyors for
these border warriors, furnishing them with provisions, forage, and
temporary shelter necessary for their operations.
"There were two, and only two,
possible ways by which this border war could be stopped. The one was to
permanently station in that region troops enough to protect all the
people, drive out all the guerrillas, and prevent their
return. The other was to remove the source from which the guerrillas
obtained their supplies. The latter was proposed by you, and at once
admitted by me as a measure absolutely necessary to be adopted, if the
former was impracticable, but I preferred the former, and hence hesitated
to adopt the latter. But I had the States of Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas,
and Nebraska, and Colorado and the Indian Territory --over four hundred
thousand square miles of distributed territory--to take care of, and
operations against the Confederate Army in Arkansas to be prosecuted. It
was difficult to spare even a small force to guard the border of Kansas
and Missouri. There had already come a demand upon me from Washington to
send all possible reinforcements to General Grant, who was besieging
Vicksburg. To this, all minor considerations had to yield. The
preservation of a few farms, with their crops, in Western Missouri, or
anywhere else, could not be considered for a moment in comparison with the
success of Grant's army in opening the Mississippi to the Gulf. Of course,
I had sent to General Grant all the troops I had in reserve, and had at
that time none left to reinforce you on the borders of Kansas.
"Soon after, the guerrilla
operations culminated in the fiendish massacre of the defenseless people
of Lawrence. There was no longer any question what must be done, and you
promptly issued the order, which had before been considered and discussed. A few days thereafter, I
visited you at Kansas City and went to Independence. I spent several days
in investigating the subject and conversing with the people who had left
their homes in obedience to your order. There was left no room for doubt
of the necessity of the measure that had been adopted; hence, after a
comparatively unimportant modification, I approved your order and thus
assumed the whole, or at least my full share, of the responsibility for
it. Upon returning to St. Louis, I made a full report of the matter to
President Lincoln, explaining the necessity of what had been done and
assuming the responsibility therefor. Neither that humane President nor
any other officer of the Government ever uttered one word dissent as to
the wisdom, justice, or humanity of that policy, and I now repeat that the
responsibility for the policy was fairly shared with you by the President
and by me in proportion to our respective rank and authority.
"You understand that I have no
desire in this to throw responsibility on President Lincoln, nor to defend
myself. I have never regarded that act as requiring exculpation. On the
contrary, it was an act of wisdom, courage, and humanity, by which the
lives of hundreds of innocent people were saved and a disgraceful conflict
brought to a summary close. Not a life was sacrificed, nor any great
discomfort inflicted in carrying out the order. The necessities of all the
poor people were provided for and none was permitted to suffer.
"A few
unthinking people have no doubt supposed that the order was an act of
retaliation for the massacre at Lawrence. Nothing could be more absurd.
The farmers of western Missouri were not regarded in anywise responsible
for Quantrell's acts. Whether they were willing or not made no difference.
If they raised crops, his men lived upon them, as did also our troops
when they had occasion. A large proportion of these citizens who were in good circumstances had voluntarily ceased this unprofitable purveying and
had gone elsewhere. It was simply an act of dispassionate wisdom and
humanity to stop it altogether. To call our order an act of inhumanity
or of retaliation upon the people of Missouri is like accusing the Russian
commander of similar crimes against the people of Moscow when he ordered
the destruction of that city to prevent its occupation as winter quarters
by the army of Napoleon.
"For my own part I have been and am
still entirely content to leave to impartial history the approval or
condemnation of each of my official acts during the late war. But it is
simply justice that you, who have been censured by some for your
celebrated order, have this statement of the facts in regard to it, for
such use as your just vindication may require.
"I am,
General, very truly your friend and obedient servant,
J.M.
Schofield,
"Major-General."
"Jefferson City, Feb. 22, 1877. "Editor
Republican :
"Dear Sir,--We, the undersigned
members of the Missouri Legislature, representing counties embraced in the
desolating order of General Thomas Ewing issued in 1863, in justice to our
constituents who were sufferers therefrom respectfully request that the
enclosed communication from General Bingham, in reply to the recent letter from General
Schofield vindicating said order, may be given a
place in your paper.
"G. N. Nolan, Jackson
County.
"Henry H. Craig, Jackson County.
"B. F. Wallace, ackson County.
"Stephen P. Twiss, Jackson County.
"Senator G. T. Ballingal, Jackson County.
"Wm. Hall, Vernon County.
"John H. Sullens, Bates County.
"J.F. Brookbart, Cass County.
"Editor Republican :
"My
attention has been
called to a letter which appeared in your paper yesterday, written by
Major-General Schofield, now in charge of the Military Academy at. West
Point, and addressed to General Thomas Ewing, of Lancaster, Ohio, for the
purpose of relieving that gentleman from the odium which he has justly
incurred by the well-known and infamous military order issued by him in
1863, in the enforcement of which a large and populous district of our
State, embracing several counties bordering on the State of Kansas, was utterly desolated--its inhabitants
driven from their homes, their dwellings committed to the flames, and
their farms laid waste.
"The general has exercised a
caution, characteristic of all great military commanders, in allowing
nearly fourteen years to transpire before venturing upon the defense of a
measure which for heartless atrocity has no parallel in modern annals. He
will be apt to discover, however, that there are those yet surviving who
will be able to confront him in this prudently delayed effort to
subordinate history to the service of tyranny.
"He ventures
to assert that 'the order was an act of wisdom, courage, and humanity, by
which the lives of hundreds of innocent people were saved and a
disgraceful conflict brought to a summary close.' That 'not a life was
sacrificed, nor any great discomfort inflicted in carrying out the order,'
and that 'the necessities of the poor people were provided for and none
were permitted to suffer.' Never did an equal number of words embody a
greater amount of error. The order was, soon after it was issued,
denounced by the late Gen. Blair, as an act of imbecility. Upon the
supposition that it was intended to aid the cause of the Union and weaken
the Rebellion, his denunciation was certainly just In view, however, of
its purpose as revealed by its actual results, in the ruin of thousands of
our citizens and the speedy transfer of their movable wealth to their
dishonest neighbors in Kansas, it must be confessed that it exhibited the consummate wisdom of the serpent. Never
was a robbery so stupendous more cunningly devised or successfully
accomplished, with less personal risk to the robbers. As an act of purely
arbitrary power, directed against a disarmed and defenseless population,
it was an exhibition of cowardice in its most odious and repulsive form.
As outraging every principle of justice and doing violence to every
generous and manly sentiment of the human heart, its title to be regarded
as an act of humanity can only be recognized by wretches destitute of
every quality usually embraced under that appellation. It did not bring 'a
disgraceful conflict to a summary close.' It, indeed, put an end to
predatory raids of Kansas 'Red-Legs and Jayhawkers,' by surrendering to
them all they coveted, leaving nothing that could further excite their
cupidity; but it gave up the country to the bushwhackers, who, until the
close of the war, continued to stop the stages and rob the mails and
passengers, and no one wearing the Federal uniform dared to risk his life
within the desolated district.
"I was
present in Kansas City when the order was being enforced, having been
drawn thither by the hope that I would be able to have it rescinded, or at
least modified, and can affirm, from painful personal observation, that
the sufferings of the unfortunate victims were in many instances such as
should have elicited sympathy even from hearts of stone. Bare-footed and
bare-headed women and children, stripped of every article of clothing except a scant covering for their
bodies, were exposed to the heat of an August sun and compelled to
struggle through the dust on foot. All their means of transportation had
been seized by their spoilers, except an occasional dilapidated cart, or
an old and superannuated horse, which were necessarily appropriated to the
use of the aged and infirm.
"It is
well-known that men were shot down in the very act of obeying the order,
and their wagons and effects seized by their murderers. Large trains of
wagons, extending over the prairies for miles in length, and moving
Kansasward, were freighted with every description of household furniture
and wearing apparel belonging to the exiled inhabitants. Dense columns of
smoke arising in every direction marked the conflagrations of dwellings,
many of the evidences of which are yet to be seen in the remains of seared
and blackened chimneys, standing as melancholy monuments of a ruthless
military despotism which spared neither age, sex, character, nor
condition. There was neither aid nor protection afforded to the banished
inhabitants by the heartless authority which expelled them from their
rightful possessions. They crowded by hundreds upon the banks of the
Missouri River, and were indebted to the charity of benevolent steamboat
conductors for transportation to places of safety where friendly aid could
be extended to them without danger to those who ventured to contribute it.
General Schofield represents the counties embraced in the order
as having been nearly depopulated by 'a savage guerrilla warfare,' which
for two years had been waged therein, thus attempting to make it appear
that the order operated only on a few remaining farmers, who, 'whether
they sympathized with the guerrillas or not, were mere furnishers of
supplies to these outlaws.'
"It is true that such warfare had
been waged, but the largest portion of the guerrillas engaged in this
warfare were the well-known 'Jayhawkers and Red-Legs' of Kansas, acting
under the authority of no law, military or civil, yet carrying on their
nefarious operations under the protection and patronage of General Ewing
and his predecessors from the State of Kansas. The others,
constituting the more determined and desperate class, were chiefly
outlawed Missourians, known as bushwhackers, and claiming to act
under Confederate authority. Their members, however, were at all times
insignificant in comparison with the Federal troops stationed in these
counties.
"As the
inhabitants had all been disarmed by Federal authority, they were
powerless to resist these outlaws, and, as General Schofield admits, were
compelled to yield to their demands, whether willingly or unwillingly.
Yet they were not, as General Schofield's affirms, mere furnishers of
supplies to these outlaws. On the contrary, it may be safely asserted that
the supplies furnished by them to the Federal forces, if properly
estimated, would reach twenty times, if not fifty times,
the amount forced from them by bushwhackers. These desperate characters
could at any time have been exterminated or driven from the country had
there been an earnest purpose on the part of the Federal forces in that
direction, properly braced by a willingness to incur such personal risks
as become the profession of a soldier.
"But the
guerrilla warfare in these counties had not, at the date of this order,
nearly depopulated them, as alleged by General Schofield. The inhabitants
possessed fertile and valuable lands. Many of them had become wealthy, and
all possessed comfortable homes, from which neither the tyranny of their
military rulers nor the frequent depreciations of Kansas 'Red-Legs' and
Confederate bushwhackers had succeeded in expelling them. The sweeping
and indiscriminate order, therefore, operated in all its diabolical and
ruinous force upon a population quite as numerous as then inhabited an
equal number of any other border counties of our State. I was present when
an officer reported to General Ewing that several hundred citizens, in
obedience to the order, had reported to the military post at
Harrisonville, Cass County, had proved their loyalty to the
satisfaction of the officers in command there, and earnestly requested
that they might be armed in order to defend themselves and their property.
This reasonable request was refused, it being doubtless intended that their property should supply
other wants than those of its owners.
"If it shall become necessary, I
feel confident that it can be easily shown that not a reason given by
General Schofield in justification of this crime against humanity has any
just basis in fact relating thereto. His efforts to make it appear as the
result of a necessity analogous to that which warranted the conflagration
of Moscow is sufficient to excite the risibility of any one familiar with
the two cases. Napoleon was entering Moscow with a victorious and
overwhelming force in the midst of a Russian winter, during which his only
reliance for subsistence would have been upon the supplies stored within
the limits of the city. The destruction, therefore, of these was the
salvation of the Russian empire. In the case of the measure which he
undertakes to defend the overwhelming force was with General Ewing, whose
duty it was to protect the people and expel the bushwhackers who infested
their country. In doing this, however, he would necessarily have exposed
himself and command to a few casualties incidental to war. He therefore
adopted the policy, safest to himself, of expelling the disarmed and
defenseless people, leaving the country in possession of their enemies,
who had no difficulty in procuring all the supplies they needed in the
counties immediately adjoining.
"Such an order could scarcely be
justified as directed against communities on a level in depravity with the ancient denizens of Sodom
and Gomorrah. Yet those whom it embraced in its ruinous swoop, in all
the virtues which characterized a Christian community, would not have
suffered in comparison with any other rural population. Their political
character may best be determined by a few facts of their history. In the
election for members of our State Convention early in 1861, in which the
question of secession was distinctly involved, not a single vote in the
entire district desolated by this order was cast for a secession
candidate, and those charged with being inclined in that direction were
defeated by overwhelming majorities. During the entire period of the war,
outraged and oppressed as they were, they furnished, at every call for
troops to replenish the forces of the Union their full quota by
volunteers,
thus responding to the necessities of their Government without the
compulsion of a draft.
"General Schofield ungenerously
attempts to make President Lincoln jointly responsible with himself and
General Ewing for the execution of this order. It is evident, however,
that the assent and approbation of the President were predicated solely on
the representations of his general, and not upon the actual facts relating
to the matter, of which he could have had no personal knowledge. It can be
proved that he went up to Kansas City from his headquarters in St. Louis
for the purpose of rescinding this order, from the execution of which
purpose in harmony with the noble instincts of humanity, he was likely deterred by
the same commanding influence which has induced him to attempt its
defense.
"General Ewing has doubtless
discovered that this, his crowning military achievement of 1863, was not
of a nature as well calculated to secure the favor of the Democracy with
whom he is now associated, as it was to win to his support the
'Jay-hawkers' and corrupt rabble of Kansas, through whose aid, there is
reason to believe, he then looked for political preferment, and thence his
effort arising from necessities of his shifted aspirations, to secure for
it a gloss, which his associate in responsibility therefor has endeavored
to put upon it, at the sacrifice alike of justice and truth.
"G.C. Bingham.
"Jefferson City, Feb. 22."
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