Destruction of Lawrence, Kansas

"THE RUINS OF LAWRENCE, KANSAS.—SKETCHED BY A CORRESPONDENT."

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In addition to this drawing, Harper's Weekly featured a story on the "Destruction of Lawrence, Kansas" in its September 19th, 1863 issue. Keep in mind the article includes nineteenth-century language and concepts.

"WE illustrate on page 604 the RUINS of the once flourishing city of Lawrence, Kansas, which was destroyed a fortnight since by Quantrill and his fellow-brigands. The attack on the place and the massacre of the citizens is unparalleled in history, and even casts into the shade the famous massacre of Cawnpore. We condense from the Herald the following account of the outrage:

"The massacre took place at the noon of night, and the startled peaceful citizens were sent to their last account by the bullets of murderers in the glare of their burning houses, and in the agonized embraces of their wives and children. One hundred and eighty persons are said to have fallen victims. These comprise the principal citizens, with the Mayor and his son at the head of the list.

"There does not appear to have been any resistance whatever offered. It was a sudden incursion of fiendish guerrillas—a repetition of the scenes that used to be enacted on our borders by the savage Indians, when villages were given to the flames by some Monster Brandt, With all his howling, desolating band.

"One incident is related of twelve men having been driven into a building and there shot, and the house burned over them.

"Another is reported where twenty-five negro recruits were shot dead.

"The bodies of the murdered people were thrown into wells and cisterns.

"There was but one hotel left standing, which was spared by Quantrell because he had been entertained there some years ago without expense. Its proprietor, however, was shot.

"The principal part of the city has been reduced to ashes, the loss being set down roughly at two millions of dollars. Two banks were robbed, and the third only escaped because the safes could not be forced quick enough.

"Of course, whatever valuables the guerrillas could lay their hands on they carried off, and it is supposed that they are now safe with their plunder in their Missouri homes, where they assume the character of Union men, and whence they will be ready to start on a new marauding and murdering expedition whenever they are called upon by their leader.

"Next to Leavenworth, Lawrence was the most thriving town between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains. It is situated about thirty miles west from Leavenworth, on the right or western bank of the Kansas River, which is here about eighty yards wide. The ford has been known as the Delaware crossing.

"The river is crossed by of a large, flat-bottomed ferry-boat, operated by ropes that are suspended between the bluffs on each side. A substantial stone bridge was being built at this point, and a railroad was also in course of construction between Leavenworth and Lawrence—the first link of the Pacific road."