Gen. James H. Lane and his Kansas privateers sacking and looting yet another country town in western Missouri.
“Scattered to the Four Winds: General Order No. 11 and Martial Law in Jackson County, Missouri, 1863.” (2013) by Ralph A. Monaco II. Hereinafter “Martial Law.”
I will introduce this review just as Monaco introduced the book itself. But I will preface even that by cautioning against too much of a lean into reading the Introduction as a paean to compare the milieu around General Order No. 11, 1863–64, with America as America finds itself very precisely now. This book was written in 2013. After 9-11, the Patriot Act, the Iraq War, some of the worst at Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. But before Trump. Before today exactly.
His Introduction began “[c]ertain contemporary issues had relevance during the American Civil War that were directly or indirectly debated then as they are today:
“Is the use of psychological measures proper to elicit information or a confession? What if they are implemented to curb terrorism or rebellion?
”Should modern technology, including drones, be employed against American non-combatants? What about citizens known to be criminals, insurrectionists or terrorists?
“Do surveillances such as wire-tapping require court-ordered search warrants when the nation’s security is at risk? Has the Patriot Act enacted since 9-11 gone too far or should its scope be expanded?
“Can an arrest be made on mere suspicion and not upon probable cause when national security is at issue? Are military detainees entitled to the writ of habeas corpus?
”When is it justified to seize private property without due process? Do such seizures apply in emergency or other exigent circumstance?
”Why should social profiling not be authorized when it is designed to protect American borders? What about profiling with respect to known or suspected criminals or enemies of the state?
“Does the right to bear under arms under the Second Amendment include assault rifles or other similar weapons? What about mandating national background checks on purchases of firearms?
”Is the U.S. government empowered to subjugate the rights of states? What about citizens of those states?
“Who could possibly oppose trying terrorists in military tribunals? Should civilian terrorists be tried in military or criminal courts?
”Are the civil liberties of American citizens subordinate to national security? Does military necessity or exigent circumstances override civil liberties?
”Should the government be allowed to banish citizens from their property during exigent periods of time? What if it is to quash a riot, rebellion or unrest?
”Are secret wiretaps issued under sealed court orders justified? Does the government have the right to subpoena cell or text phone numbers from cell phone companies?”
Martial Law.
——————
Quantrill’s August 21, 1863, Raid was the most horrible wrath and destructive force ever waged or unloosed upon an American civilian population during the Civil War. Martial Law.
Four days later Thomas Ewing Jr., Commanding General of the Army of the Border, ordered all residents of Jackson, Cass, Bates, and northern Vernon Counties to evacuate their property within fifteen days and report to the provost marshal at a military post —General Order No. 11 (1863). The lifetime of General Order No. 11 (1863) is depicted in George Caleb Bingham’s important painting.
General Order No. 11 (1863)
George Caleb Bingham
Thus Ewing quite effectively declared total war on the civilian population of approximately 40,000 people in Jackson, Cass, Bates, and northern Vernon Counties. His was a deep-seated belief that these citizens were disloyal. As a practical
matter his was very much a war on women, small children, the quite aged, and the disabled. For the men were at war (some were guerrillas) or were war dead. So…
• 25,000 persons “displaced” by war’s end.
• Substantially all of their assets were forfeited.
• No hearings. No trials. Just a forced walk to the county line and often to the state line. Often with nothing. Usually barefoot.
Ewing’s decision was based upon his deep-seeded belief that these citizens were disloyal.
General Order No. 11 (1863) wrought consequences more exacting and terrifying than had ever been considered, prosecuted or implemented in American history to that date. Horrifying, appalling, shocking, unsettling, and sickening. Martial Law.
George Caleb Bingham was the Unionist Missouri State Treasurer, a former Whig state legislator, a Jackson Countian, and already by then a famous painter. Whigs opposed slavery. It is definitional that Unionists opposed secession.
George Caleb Bingham on Martial Law (his painting).
“Bingham’s painting of Order No. 11 or ‘Martial Law,’ or ‘The War of Desolation’ was intended for historical presentation and preservation. Bingham did not want the crimes of Ewing, U.S. Senator and Red Leg and Jayhawker instigator Gen. James H. Lane, Jayhawker and Red Leg instigator Col. Charles ‘Doc’ Jennison or other Kansas evildoers to be lost to antiquity. Bingham’s purpose was to provide a ‘due warning to posterity’ and to guarantee that the ‘’Red Legs’ of Kansas and their equally demoniac associates known only as thieves and assassins’ would be criminalized in perpetuity.”
Martial Law.
”In an article written by Bingham after he completed Order No. 11, he outlined the purpose of his work:
”Art being the most efficient hand-maid of history, in its power to perpetuate a record of events with a clearness second only to that which springs from actual observation, I sometime since became impressed with the conviction, that, as one of its professors, I could not find a nobler employment of my pencil, than in giving to the future, through its delineations, truthful representations of extraordinary transactions indicative of the character of military rule which oppressed and impoverished large numbers of the best citizens of our State during our late sectional war.”
George Caleb Bingham
Martial Law.
”Bingham’s painting of Order No. 11 has become an iconic depiction of the ravages of a war along the border of Missouri and Kansas and in particular under ‘martial law.’ Bingham for definitional and posterity purposes provided a full description and meaning of his own painting. Bingham further insisted that the scene in the picture was true and accurate, and his artwork was designed to exhibit the worst of the War and the illegal despotism of those who instigated, promulgated, issued and enforced Order No. 11.
”The noted author and editor of the Kansas City Times John N. Edwards poignantly and prophetically described the future impact of the picture. He proclaimed ‘Bingham’s painting of burning and plundered houses of a sky made awful with mingled flame and smoke, of a long train of helpless fugitives . . . will live longer than the strife.’
“The scene portrayed in the image is illustrative of Bingham’s hatred and resentment of Order No. 11. Bingham himself described the painting. The house on the left of the picture is located about twenty-eight miles west of Lexington in the eastern portion of Jackson County and is being pillaged and ransacked by Red Legs. Bingham affirmed that the family being ejected was loyal Union supporters. The ‘band of scoundrels’ in the picture Bingham insisted were ‘no more the people of Kansas’ than were the Border Ruffians’ representative of the ‘great Commonwealth of the State of Missouri.’ He prominently displayed Ewing perched on his horse—possessing a cavalier, unconcerned, dispassionate demeanor, passively and purposely ignorant of the scene of death, bloodshed and waste. Standing to Ewing’s left and in the center of the painting is Jennison adorned with his red-leathered leggings in the act of either pulling or returning his revolver to his holster. Death had reached the house of the poor victims, as the son of the family’s patriarch lies dead on the ground in the clutched arms of his weeping widow. Bingham’s own words provide the details and meaning of his artwork.”
Martial Law.
“The principal group in the foreground of the picture, chiefly consists of a venerable patriarch and his family, who have just been ejected from their dwelling, which is about to be committed to the flames.
“A daughter clings to the defiant old man, imploring him to temper his language so as not to incur the vengeance of the brutal assassin, who, in the act of drawing a pistol, threatens him in front. Another daughter is on her knees before the wretch vainly endeavoring to awaken some emotion of humanity in his callous breast. A married son lies weltering in his blood, his young wife bending in agony over his lifeless body. His murderer is seen in the scowling ruffian nearby with a discharged pistol in his hand. The aged mother has fallen in a swoon, and is supported in the arms of a faithful negro woman. A negro man retires weeping from the scene, accompanied by a negro lad, whose face bears the unmistakable marks of fright and horror.
“Immediately in the rear of the outraged family the myrmidons of Kansas, aided by their criminal allies in Federal uniform, are busily engaged in the work of pillage. Some of them, on horseback, have already encumbered themselves with spoil. Wearing apparel, household furniture, and everything portable is being placed in wagons, a long train of which, well freighted with plunder, is seen in the distance, wending its way westward, while a melancholy procession of dejected and impoverished refugees, fleeing from their desolated homes, file off to the right in an opposite direction.”
George Caleb Bingham
Martial Law.
“The backdrop of the painting consists of smoke rising into the sky as caravans of refugees are shown aimlessly marching from their burned out homes to destinations of which they are uncertain.”
Martial Law.
“The scene in the picture is but one of hundreds of similar character and the charred remains of broken walls and solitary chimneys yet to be seen all over the fearfully desolated region attest the truth of my delineations, and would cause any other than the art critic of the Democrat to blush in attempting to discredit them.
”To classify the brutal actors in such scenes as ‘Union military men’ is an insult to every honest soldier who periled his life in defense of his flag. They were the ’Red Legs’ of Kansas, and their equally demoniac associates known only as thieves and assassins, in whose judgment all men owning property were sufficiently rebels to be robbed and murdered.”
George Caleb Bingham
Martial Law.
A few snippets from Martial Law.
”The victims of Order No. 11 had become fugitives in flight. Confederate troops encountered many traveling through Arkansas. They were described as women and children and old men, in rickety wagons, drawn by teams too shabby for army service. The late summer of 1863 in Jackson County was ‘truly awful.’ Loyal, disloyal and neutral citizens experienced the wrath and vengeance from Missouri Militia, Kansas Red Legs, Jayhawkers and rebel guerrillas.”
Martial Law.
Mrs. Emily Steele in a September 20, 1863, letter to her son:
“I think my troubles are more than I can bear — our family is scattered to the four winds . . . [E]verybody, man, woman and child had to leave the border counties. Those counties are entirely depopulated except for Bushwhackers and Scouts of Federal Troops and Kansas Jayhawkers driving off stock and hauling off grain which the citizens had not time to get away and dare not go back for. We got away some few head of horses and beds and some of our best furniture, we have it in Lexington. Your Pa is trying to sell the stock, but prices are low.”
Ephemeral suspicion, deep-seated belief, reasonable suspicion, probable cause … proof.
“We learn that quite a number of individuals and some entire families, popularly known as ‘sympathizers,’ have been ordered
to leave this District. We do not understand that these parties are accused of aiding or abetting the guerrilla movements, hereabouts, but that they are removed in accordance with the same policy which has induced the Commanding General to order ALL of the inhabitants out of certain portions of the District. We are informed that the Commanding General has ordered away such parties only as, upon the best evidence he could find, were publicly regarded either as positively disloyal in speech or sentiment, or as in sympathy with the rebellion. He regards the presence of such individuals as highly prejudicial to the peace of the border, and as liable to result in extending of aid and comfort to the guerrillas whom he is endeavoring to exterminate.”
Martial Law, citing Eakin and Hale, 54, quoting, Daily Journal of Commerce, 1 Sept. 1863.
The extermination was described as a “devastating sight.” Broken wagons, lame horses and hordes of long-trains of families were seen for miles and miles. Martial Law.
”The people are crazy from fear and terror with which their lives are filled . . . weeping and wailing like children.” Abram Comingo, Provost Marshal Captain of the 6th Congressional District of Missouri, in an August 30, 1863, letter to State Provost Marshal General James O. Broadhurst. Comingo saw citizens crowded into “dilapidated outhouses,” tents or in huts “constructed from the boughs of tree” and “huddled together in the little villages in which posts have been established and are suffering from the want of food and other necessities of life.”
On September 10, 1863, Missouri State Militia Lt. Colonel Bazel F. Lazear wrote his wife:
”[T]here is hundreds of people leaving their homes from this country, and God knows what it to become of them. It is heart sickening to see what I have seen since I have been back here. A desolated country and women & children, some of them almost naked. Some on foot and some in old wagons. Oh, God. What a sight to see in this once happy hoppy peaceable county.”
”For miles there could be seen long, moving trains led by sorrowful exiles. Teams of every sort, except good ones, drew wagons and vehicles of every shape, size and all other types. Some could be seen driving their “flocks and herd or leading a cow or a skeleton horse, with a bundle or pack fastened upon it, or a packhorse, on which the feebler members of the family rode by turns.” One solitary woman was seen leading a team of oxen while her three children rode inside the cart. Another lady was observed having two cows hitched to a wagon with her little boy leading the team. The majority was only able to remove provisions they could carry or pack into their makeshift wagon or wheel barrels. Most of the victims were women and children who were “bare-footed and bareheaded . . . stripped of every article of clothing except a scant covering for their bodies” who were “exposed to the heat of an August sun” and compelled to march quietly and dejectedly “through the dust on foot” carrying in their arms little bundles or their children. Clouds of smoke encircled the sky from the multitude
of fires emitting from the burning buildings, and dust that filtered into the air from the dirt roads that were stirred by the the column of wretched
fugitives departing from Jackson County. The day and night blended together.
Martial Law.
The refugees were filled with great confusion on where to relocate. Some sought comfort with families inside Missouri or somewhere else far removed from the state. Others who made their departure had no idea where to seek an asylum. Many were barred from resettling some places by strict military prohibitions.
Martial Law.
More Bingham.
Years after the war, Bingham described what he saw from the ravages that had been rout upon Jackson County by the Order:
”Families were peremptorily ejected from their dwellings. Robbery and murder sought no concealment. Men were halted in thoroughfares and compelled to surrender their purses regardless of the presence of spectators. Large sums of money were extorted from the wealthy to glut the avarice or support the profligacy of officers. Stores were entered and the goods of the proprietors taken from the shelves, boxed up and shipped in Government wagons to the State of Kansas, and there sold for the benefit of the plunderers. Carriages, buggies, wagons and horses were alike unscrupulously appropriated. Citizens were incarcerated in dungeons, and there held until they made to their persecutors a bill of sale of the property, as the price of their release. Many were arrested and executed
without a hearing or a trial, and their sad fate made known to their friends only by the discovery of their lifeless bodies suspended from the limbs of trees by the wayside.”
George Caleb Bingham
Martial Law.
Detailed Family Accounts.
Monaco wrote with more specificity about what had happened to a handful of families. He wrote that he selected these stories to represent the experiences of thousands of victims of General Order No. 11 (1863). Out of respect for my readers, I will spare you a few pages he wrote about my own family, five not resisting members of which were abruptly and summarily shot dead by a squad of Kansas 9th Volunteers. Not resisting and working diligently to comply with General Order No. 11 (1863). Not knowing of Quantrill’s planned attack on Lawrence, the family had fed his 300 men, while Quantrill ate supper with the family patriarch in his house.
And Monaco did not describe the United States Army’s attack on my great great grandparents’ farm (killing them), or I almost certainly would have included it. My great great grandparents secreted hay for Quantrill’s horses in their persimmon grove.
But here is Monaco’s relatively benign account of another family. Someone else’s family.
The Harry Truman Family.
Impact Upon the Family of a Future President.
“The political make-up of the household of Solomon Young and his wife Harriet ‘Louisa’ (Gregg) paralleled many other residents in Jackson County at the outbreak of the rebellion—one of divided loyalties. Solomon, whose grandfather had served in the American Revolution, was firmly an avowed Union man; his wife’s family, the Gregg’s was southern sympathizers. The Young’s eldest son William had enlisted in General Sterling Price’s Missouri State Guard in 1861, and their third child Sarah Ann was married to the notorious guerrilla Jim ‘Crow’ Chiles. Solomon and Louisa were natives of Shelby County, Kentucky, he was born there on April 24, 1815, and Louisa (Gregg) on October 15, 1818. The couple was married in their county of nativity on January 11, 1838, and three years later moved to Jackson County.
“By 1861, the Young’s lived on about 2,000 acres along the Blue Ridge in Washington Township in the southern part of Jackson County. Seven children, Susan M., William A., Sarah Ann, Harrison, Laura, Martha, Ellen, and Ada and their slaves made up the household. Solomon and his sons engaged in farming and stock dealing, including twenty year history of conducting cattle drives and leading wagon trains out west. When the Civil War erupted, Solomon was once again on one of his numerous western business ventures.
“The Young family would experience the horrific drama that played out along the border of Missouri throughout the war. Their first personal encounter came during the first year when Solomon was in the west and son William was serving under General Sterling Price. As Jim Lane and his Jayhawkers were raiding through Jackson County whether in route to ransack, pillage and burn the town of Osceola in St. Clair County or for some other despicable purpose, he and his men paid an uninvited and unwelcome visit to the Young farm. According to family accounts, Lane and his cohorts entered their property and proceeded to kill four hundred head of Hampshire hogs while the family matriarch was ordered to bake biscuits to fill the mouths of the hungry troops. Lane, being aware that William Young was fighting for the south, directed his men to ascertain the whereabouts of Solomon and William. They seized Harrison Young and tightened a noose securely around his neck. Harrison was repeatedly strung-up but each time he insisted he did not know the whereabouts of his father or brother. Eventually, Harrison was released, but it did not end Lane’s reign of terror on the Young Farm.
“Lane ordered the Young hay burned and their silver and
feather beds seized. This proved not to be the first or last time in which Kansas troops inflicted their wrath on the Young’s. On separate occasions Jayhawkers returned to confiscate horses, hogs, wagons, corn, hay and countless other items, including large sums of gold that Solomon had earned out west.
”The trauma felt by the Young’s during the first couple of years of the war paled in comparison to their plight after the issuance of Order No. 11. Of their family possessions, they were only able to remove that which could be loaded into one wagon. Little Martha Ellen would later recall how she had trudged behind their rickety wagon and travelled northward down a hot, humid and dust-filled road. The exile from their family home while not forever, would prove to be irreparable. Solomon led his family to Kansas City where they remained until they were authorized to return to their property.
“When the Young’s returned to their farm, they rebuilt and re-established their former holdings, but the war’s pain never subsided. Mrs. Young’s bitterness towards Kansas Jayhawkers and Red Legs even extended to the color blue, as it had been the dye of the Union uniforms—a coloring that had persecuted and accosted her family throughout those four-long suffering years on the border of western Missouri.
“For years Solomon pursued federal claims of compensation for the property damage and losses the Young’s had suffered during the War. Mrs. Young persisted in pursuing restitution even after her husband’s death. She reportedly submitted her final application in 1902. In all, the Young’s sought damages in excess of twenty thousand dollars (into the millions today).
“Around 1904, Mrs. Young and her daughter Mattie were visiting one evening at their Grandview farmhouse. They were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Mattie’s 21-year-old son. The young man had grown up working on the farm of his maternal grandparents. The boy’s parents and even his paternal grandfather had all resided together in the Solomon household. Growing up, he had been a faithful farmhand—his late grandfather Solomon just adored the boy.
“When Solomon’s favorite grandson entered the residence that evening, his maternal grandmother and mother were engaged in conversation. He had recently enlisted as a private in the Light Artillery Battery B, First Brigade of the Missouri National Guard, and his new uniform was blue with red striped trousers and piping red cuffs. The young man was so excited to model-off his military dress-blues. Almost instantly upon having entered the room, he realized something was dreadfully wrong. The colors he wore conjured in the mind of his aged grandmother those hateful memories dating back well over forty years. She loathed the thought her grandson could be wearing those colors. Outraged, she promptly objected to his clothing and ordered them instantly removed. Certainly, she reminded him of those haunting days of
the Civil War, and in particular the forcible removal from their property under Order No. 11. The lad’s impression of his grandmother’s reaction followed him the rest of his life, and even into the White House. Harry S. Truman of Jackson County, Missouri, would never forget!”
Martial Law
If the foregoing hasn’t made it obvious, the notorious Quantrill guerrilla “Jim Crow” Chiles was Harry Truman’s uncle.
Conclusion.
In the end, Monaco offered his own summary answer to the questions he started us off with. He concluded that General Order No. 11 (1863) was “the only action in which guerrillas and bushwhackers had been successfully thwarted.” As such, he held that General Order No. 11 (1863) was justified under the doctrine of exigent circumstances, sometimes labeled the doctrine of military necessity. Essentially the same reasoning Lincoln used to suspend habeas corpus. The same legal reasoning the Trump Administration offers up today.
My take on it is that of course those doctrines exist. Had Lincoln not suspended habeas corpus when he suspended habeas corpus, the Republic would have broken up. And broken up with the Republic would have been the right of habeas corpus and every other right guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
By comparison, can it really be said that General Order No. 11 (1863) had any effect whatsoever on the successful conclusion of the Civil War? I believe that essentially nobody back east even knew it happened. As such the very, very high bar Lincoln set in suspending habeas corpus was not approached on the border.
And Trump… what do you think?
