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. Dishonorable men, clothing themselves with the contentions
of patriotic citizens, crossed the State line from both sides and committed crimes of every kind
from larceny to murder. While Kansas may have ‘bled’, Missouri hemorrhaged.
When the War started, some of the best men of Missouri, such as Generals Frost and Bowen
and Colonel Upton Hays (who participated in the Battle of Lone Jack), were standing guard
with armed forces to prevent incursions of Kansas marauders. The guerrillas of Missouri
undertook to stop these marauders and to retaliated upon Kansas for the misdeeds in
Missouri of such men as Pennook, Lane, and others. Jennison destroyed Osceola, Missouri,
and Quantrell burned Lawrence, Kansas.
Order #11 was the most heinous order ever issued during the Civil War. It depopulated
Jackson, Cass, Bates, & part of Vernon Counties and reduced this area to ashes. It was the
first time in America’s history that a United States president endorsed such a violent act
against citizens within his own country.
This order was issued, not in retaliation of Quantrill’s burning of Lawrence as so many
believe, but to quell a rebellion within the state that was gaining momentum, one that the
Federal Government was powerless to control.
What many also do not realize is that it was being discussed months before Quantrill’s
untimely raid on Lawrence. Brig. Gen. Thomas Ewing, Jr. Commander of the Border wrote
to Lt Col. CW Marsh, Assistant Adjutant-General, Dept of Missouri. In his letter he
stated:
"About two-thirds of the families on the occupied farms of that region are of kin to the
guerrillas, and are actively and heartily engaged in feeding, clothing, and sustaining them.
The presence of these families is the cause of the presence there of the guerrillas. I can see no
prospect of an early and complete end to the war on the border, without a great increase of
troops, so long as those families remain there….I think that the families of several hundred of
the worst of these men should be sent, with their clothes and bedding, to some rebel district
south. About one-half of them could take with them no provision or money of any
consequence, and would have to be temporarily supplied by Government."
Little did anyone realize what horrendous consequences this letter would have.
While there is some conflict on who actually drafted Order #11, it is believed to have been
written by Brig Gen. John M. Schofield, Commander of the Army of the Frontier, and it was
Schofield who commanded that Thomas Ewing Jr. disseminate it to the public on August 25,
1863.
When it was issued, it was done so with the knowledge and approval of President Lincoln.
In a letter written to General Schofield, Lincoln writes:
“With the matter of removing the inhabitants of certain counties en masse; and of removing
certain individuals from time to time, who are supposed to be mischievous, I am not now
interfering, but am leaving to your own discretion.”
He goes on to say…
“So far as practicable you will, by means of your military force, expel guerrillas, marauders,
and murderers, and all who are known to harbor, aid, or abet them. But, in like manner, you
will repress assumptions of unauthorized individuals to perform the same service; because
under pretence of doing this, they become marauders and murderers themselves. To now
restore peace, let the military obey orders; and those not of the military, leave one another
each other alone; thus not breaking the peace themselves."
Washington, D. C. Oct 1. 1863
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 immune
against the Missouri guerrillas if the border counties of Missouri were depopulated. He
contended 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.
George Caleb Bingham, a staunch Unionist who vehemently opposed Order No. 11, said in
a letter written in response to one Gen Schofield wrote in an attempt to exonerate himself for
the creation and subsequent devastation that followed the issuance of Order #11. Both of
which were published in the Missouri Republican in Feb 1877. It reads in part:
"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.
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."
The horrors visited upon the innocent citizens of western Missouri were beyond description.
Burning, murder, and stealing from a people who had very little left to take, occurred on a
daily basis. To be in Missouri during this time was to live in constant fear for your life and
the lives of your loved ones.
The most innocent victims of this dreadful order were the women, children & the elderly.
The men of the families were either in the army or in hiding. Being an adult white male, they
lived in mortal danger everyday. The women were forced to leave their homes and trek many,
many miles to find shelter for their children, alone with nothing but what they could carry.
When asked by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to write of her experiences during
the War, Frances Fristoe Twyman – wife of a prominent Jackson County doctor wrote:
"Many years have come and gone since the war closed. My mind wanders back tonight to the
commencement of the so-called Civil war, but to me it was a most cruel and unjust war, a war
in which innocent women and children suffered most. Our homes were invaded and ransacked
by the Federal soldiers and women and children were dragged off to prison. Not content with
all of this, Tom Ewing issued that terrible Order No. 11. I try to forgive, but I cannot-no,
cannot-forget. If Tom Ewing is in heaven today his inner life must have been greatly changed.
Never can I forget the many scenes of misery and distress I saw on the road when people
were ordered to leave their homes on a few days' notice. The road from Independence to
Lexington was crowded with women and children, women walking with their babies in their
arms, packs on their back, and four or five children following after them-some crying for bread,
some crying to be taken back to their homes. Alas! They knew not that their once happy
homes were gone. The torch had been applied-nothing left to tell the tale of carnage but the
chimneys. O, how sad! I saw one woman who had two cows hitched to a wagon; and a little
boy was leading them. There were some boughs on the wagon, and old-time coverlid
stretched over them; inside the wagon was a very sick child. The wagon halted, the mother
got out with her sick babe in her arms and seated herself under the friendly shade of a tree. It
was apparent to all that the child was dying. There sat the mother with her child dying in her
lap; her husband had been killed, she was forced to leave her home, driven out into the cold
world with her little children. O, the anguish of that broken-hearted mother as she sat there,
with tears streaming down her pale cheeks, knowing she was powerless to save her child.
Some kind-hearted people of the neighborhood came to her assistance. The crowd surged on,
women and children dragging their weary limbs through the dust and heat.
Some of the people who lived on the road we were traveling, seeing such a dusty, dirty,
woebegone crowd approaching would say, "There come the refugees, take in your clothes," as
though we would steal; too much southern blood in us for that.
I was arrested several times and came near being shot twice; our horses were taken from us.
But alas! Our worst troubles were yet to come. Our daughter, just budding into womanhood,
was taken sick and died. She was as lovely as the morning, beautiful as the evening, fair as
the silver queen of night. Sixteen summers had kissed her cheeks and fanned her brow; she
was as good as beautiful, kind and affectionate, beloved by all who knew her. I looked upon
her face in my young motherhood. O, it was happiness for me to know and feel that she was
my own, my first-born darling. None ever had a lovelier child."
This order affected everyone, regardless of their allegiance. Most of the union sympathizer
made the inhospitable march with their southern sympathizing neighbors for the fear of
retaliation should they make their allegiance known.
Martin Rice was a well known and well respected member of the Lone Jack Community.
While the majority of the residents of Lone Jack were of southern sympathies, he was a
known Union sympathizer. Of the horrors of Order #11, he wrote in part:
"For several weeks during the summer of 1863, rumors were prevalent and common in the
country that such an order was in contemplation. Scouting parties of Union soldiers declared
that, unless the bushwhackers ceased from their system of guerrilla warfare, and the citizens
ceased from harboring, aiding, and protecting them, an order would be made to depopulate the
country infested by them.
That which gave more color to the rumor, and more alarmed the citizens than the threats of
the common soldier, was the fact that the Union men who had taken refuge in Kansas City
and Independence notified their friends in the country to hold themselves in readiness to obey
the order when it came; that unless a change for the better was made in regard to guerrilla
warfare, such an order would most surely be issued.
The Sni Hills in Jackson County had the name of being the principal rendezvous of those
guerrillas, and threats of vengeance were more frequently made against that part of the
country than any other.
On Tuesday, the 25th of August, General Ewing issued his celebrated order from Kansas
City, and rumor, with her thousand tongues, soon spread it over the ill-fated territory.
I thought I had witnessed and felt the hardships and privations of civil war and martial law
before, but it was reserved for this, the last week in August and the first ones in September,
1863, to teach me and others how much the human body and mind can bear up under and still
survive.
Previous to this, if one were brought into a strait, or got into trouble or difficulty, he could
appeal to some friend or neighbor for help, and the appeal was seldom made in vain. But now
all were in the same strait; the same weight of sorrow and distress was pressing upon all;
there was no exception, and none in our part of the district were exempt from the general
hardship.
My own reason, as well as the suggestions of friends, convinced me that my life was now in
more danger than it had yet been. The country was full of bushwhackers, some of them
personal friends of the men who had been killed in the morning; I had been taken with them,
my life had been spared because I was a Union man, theirs had been taken because they were
not, and retaliation was common on each side. It was plain that I must go as my friends and
neighbors did, or not go at all. I felt assured that if I abandoned them and sought a place of
shelter and security, by taking some other road, my life would pay the forfeit, nor did I wish to
abandon them, so long as I could be of service to those who were now so much in need of help.
I saw much of the incidents and fruits of Order No. 11. Before and behind was seen the long,
moving train of sorrowing exiles, wagons and vehicles of every shape and size and of all
kinds, drawn by teams of every sort, except good ones, a cloud of dust rising from the road.
The further we proceeded, the greater became the moving column of wretched fugitives.
On every road that led eastward from the county of Jackson came the moving mass of
humanity, seeking an asylum they knew not where; some driving their flocks and herds along
with them, others again as I was with nothing but a make-shift wagon and team—some not
even that. Women were seen walking the crowded and dusty road, carrying in a little bundle
their all, or at least all that they could carry. Others, again, driving or leading a cow or a
skeleton horse, with a bundle or pack fastened upon it, or a pack-horse on which the feebler
members of the family rode by turns.
The number, which crossed at Lexington – great as that number was – was but a small part of
those who, under the operations of that Order No. 11, were made homeless and scattered as
it were to the four winds."
Not only did the people of southern sympathies realize how desperate the situation in
Missouri was, the Union Provisional Governor, Hamilton Gamble, appointed to the office of
governor by Union delegates to the succession convention in July 1861, was crying foul also.
They were suffering the same outrages as their southern counterparts. In a letter written to
President Lincoln, Governor Gamble makes clear his intentions should Missouri be invaded
by the radical citizens of Kansas.
Mr President
Several citizens of border counties of this State will forward to you by mail their
representation of the condition of affairs in adjoining portions of Kansas, and the expression
of their apprehension of an invasion of this State from the State of Kansas.
They will also state to you the fact, that organizations of negroes are forming in Kansas
armed and equipped as soldiers of the United States, for the purpose of entering this state
and committing depredations here.
The purpose of Lane and Jennison as I understand it now to be avowed, is, to raise a force
composed in part at least of negroes and enter Missouri to carry out their own ideas of
supporting the Union.
I owe it to you Mr. President (from whom I have received nothing but kindness) to say, that if
such invasion is made I will resist it with all the force I can command, and I beg you to
believe, that it will be with the deepest regret that I shall find myself obliged to give to the
people of Kansas a taste of the evils of war in their own territory. We have endured injuries so
long that the villainous Kansas leaders have apparently arrived at the conclusion that our
patience is inexhaustible. They are mistaken.-- It is completely exhausted.
It is within your power to prevent the troubles that will certainly arise from the entrance of
Kansas troops into this State upon marauding expeditions.
I call your attention to the fact, that beside the guerrilla bands with which we have to
contend, there is now assembling in Arkansas a very large force for the purpose of invading
this State. It is to be composed of troops from Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, and has been
estimated as high as 70,000 men. I am enrolling the whole of the military power of my State
and drilling them for actual service.
I hope to have a force that will be sufficient to keep down internal enemies, and give material
aid in repelling this southern invasion.
I appeal to you to save me from the necessity of diverting a portion of my force from this
necessary object to the slaying of negro invaders and their associates.
If you will either forbid any troops in the service of the United States from coming into
Missouri without my request or that of Genl Schofield commanding in the State, the end will
be accomplished, for if any organization shall then invade us their blood be on their own
heads.
Very Respectfully
Your Obt Servt
Hamilton R. Gamble
********************************
Order #11 was the singular act of the Civil War that effectively destroyed life as those in
Jackson had known it prior to its issuance. Jackson County became what was known as the
‘Burnt District’ or ‘the land of the chimneys’. Many families never returned to their homes
and the majority of those that did, came back to find the homes they had worked so hard to
build were gone.
Lone Jack, once a thriving community larger than Kansas City, never recovered.
Sources: Library of Congress – Lincoln Papers; Official Records of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 13; Mid-Missouri
Civil War Round Table- http://www.mmcwrt.org/2001/default0103.htm; Reminiscences of the Women of Missouri
During the Sixties - Missouri Division, United Daughters of the Confederacy.
squatter sovereignty originated with these two when, as territories, they advanced
respectively toward Statehood. Dishonorable men, clothing themselves with the contentions
of patriotic citizens, crossed the State line from both sides and committed crimes of every kind
from larceny to murder. While Kansas may have ‘bled’, Missouri hemorrhaged.
When the War started, some of the best men of Missouri, such as Generals Frost and Bowen
and Colonel Upton Hays (who participated in the Battle of Lone Jack), were standing guard
with armed forces to prevent incursions of Kansas marauders. The guerrillas of Missouri
undertook to stop these marauders and to retaliated upon Kansas for the misdeeds in
Missouri of such men as Pennook, Lane, and others. Jennison destroyed Osceola, Missouri,
and Quantrell burned Lawrence, Kansas.
Order #11 was the most heinous order ever issued during the Civil War. It depopulated
Jackson, Cass, Bates, & part of Vernon Counties and reduced this area to ashes. It was the
first time in America’s history that a United States president endorsed such a violent act
against citizens within his own country.
This order was issued, not in retaliation of Quantrill’s burning of Lawrence as so many
believe, but to quell a rebellion within the state that was gaining momentum, one that the
Federal Government was powerless to control.
What many also do not realize is that it was being discussed months before Quantrill’s
untimely raid on Lawrence. Brig. Gen. Thomas Ewing, Jr. Commander of the Border wrote
to Lt Col. CW Marsh, Assistant Adjutant-General, Dept of Missouri. In his letter he
stated:
"About two-thirds of the families on the occupied farms of that region are of kin to the
guerrillas, and are actively and heartily engaged in feeding, clothing, and sustaining them.
The presence of these families is the cause of the presence there of the guerrillas. I can see no
prospect of an early and complete end to the war on the border, without a great increase of
troops, so long as those families remain there….I think that the families of several hundred of
the worst of these men should be sent, with their clothes and bedding, to some rebel district
south. About one-half of them could take with them no provision or money of any
consequence, and would have to be temporarily supplied by Government."
Little did anyone realize what horrendous consequences this letter would have.
While there is some conflict on who actually drafted Order #11, it is believed to have been
written by Brig Gen. John M. Schofield, Commander of the Army of the Frontier, and it was
Schofield who commanded that Thomas Ewing Jr. disseminate it to the public on August 25,
1863.
When it was issued, it was done so with the knowledge and approval of President Lincoln.
In a letter written to General Schofield, Lincoln writes:
“With the matter of removing the inhabitants of certain counties en masse; and of removing
certain individuals from time to time, who are supposed to be mischievous, I am not now
interfering, but am leaving to your own discretion.”
He goes on to say…
“So far as practicable you will, by means of your military force, expel guerrillas, marauders,
and murderers, and all who are known to harbor, aid, or abet them. But, in like manner, you
will repress assumptions of unauthorized individuals to perform the same service; because
under pretence of doing this, they become marauders and murderers themselves. To now
restore peace, let the military obey orders; and those not of the military, leave one another
each other alone; thus not breaking the peace themselves."
Washington, D. C. Oct 1. 1863
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 immune
against the Missouri guerrillas if the border counties of Missouri were depopulated. He
contended 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.
George Caleb Bingham, a staunch Unionist who vehemently opposed Order No. 11, said in
a letter written in response to one Gen Schofield wrote in an attempt to exonerate himself for
the creation and subsequent devastation that followed the issuance of Order #11. Both of
which were published in the Missouri Republican in Feb 1877. It reads in part:
"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.
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."
The horrors visited upon the innocent citizens of western Missouri were beyond description.
Burning, murder, and stealing from a people who had very little left to take, occurred on a
daily basis. To be in Missouri during this time was to live in constant fear for your life and
the lives of your loved ones.
The most innocent victims of this dreadful order were the women, children & the elderly.
The men of the families were either in the army or in hiding. Being an adult white male, they
lived in mortal danger everyday. The women were forced to leave their homes and trek many,
many miles to find shelter for their children, alone with nothing but what they could carry.
When asked by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to write of her experiences during
the War, Frances Fristoe Twyman – wife of a prominent Jackson County doctor wrote:
"Many years have come and gone since the war closed. My mind wanders back tonight to the
commencement of the so-called Civil war, but to me it was a most cruel and unjust war, a war
in which innocent women and children suffered most. Our homes were invaded and ransacked
by the Federal soldiers and women and children were dragged off to prison. Not content with
all of this, Tom Ewing issued that terrible Order No. 11. I try to forgive, but I cannot-no,
cannot-forget. If Tom Ewing is in heaven today his inner life must have been greatly changed.
Never can I forget the many scenes of misery and distress I saw on the road when people
were ordered to leave their homes on a few days' notice. The road from Independence to
Lexington was crowded with women and children, women walking with their babies in their
arms, packs on their back, and four or five children following after them-some crying for bread,
some crying to be taken back to their homes. Alas! They knew not that their once happy
homes were gone. The torch had been applied-nothing left to tell the tale of carnage but the
chimneys. O, how sad! I saw one woman who had two cows hitched to a wagon; and a little
boy was leading them. There were some boughs on the wagon, and old-time coverlid
stretched over them; inside the wagon was a very sick child. The wagon halted, the mother
got out with her sick babe in her arms and seated herself under the friendly shade of a tree. It
was apparent to all that the child was dying. There sat the mother with her child dying in her
lap; her husband had been killed, she was forced to leave her home, driven out into the cold
world with her little children. O, the anguish of that broken-hearted mother as she sat there,
with tears streaming down her pale cheeks, knowing she was powerless to save her child.
Some kind-hearted people of the neighborhood came to her assistance. The crowd surged on,
women and children dragging their weary limbs through the dust and heat.
Some of the people who lived on the road we were traveling, seeing such a dusty, dirty,
woebegone crowd approaching would say, "There come the refugees, take in your clothes," as
though we would steal; too much southern blood in us for that.
I was arrested several times and came near being shot twice; our horses were taken from us.
But alas! Our worst troubles were yet to come. Our daughter, just budding into womanhood,
was taken sick and died. She was as lovely as the morning, beautiful as the evening, fair as
the silver queen of night. Sixteen summers had kissed her cheeks and fanned her brow; she
was as good as beautiful, kind and affectionate, beloved by all who knew her. I looked upon
her face in my young motherhood. O, it was happiness for me to know and feel that she was
my own, my first-born darling. None ever had a lovelier child."
This order affected everyone, regardless of their allegiance. Most of the union sympathizer
made the inhospitable march with their southern sympathizing neighbors for the fear of
retaliation should they make their allegiance known.
Martin Rice was a well known and well respected member of the Lone Jack Community.
While the majority of the residents of Lone Jack were of southern sympathies, he was a
known Union sympathizer. Of the horrors of Order #11, he wrote in part:
"For several weeks during the summer of 1863, rumors were prevalent and common in the
country that such an order was in contemplation. Scouting parties of Union soldiers declared
that, unless the bushwhackers ceased from their system of guerrilla warfare, and the citizens
ceased from harboring, aiding, and protecting them, an order would be made to depopulate the
country infested by them.
That which gave more color to the rumor, and more alarmed the citizens than the threats of
the common soldier, was the fact that the Union men who had taken refuge in Kansas City
and Independence notified their friends in the country to hold themselves in readiness to obey
the order when it came; that unless a change for the better was made in regard to guerrilla
warfare, such an order would most surely be issued.
The Sni Hills in Jackson County had the name of being the principal rendezvous of those
guerrillas, and threats of vengeance were more frequently made against that part of the
country than any other.
On Tuesday, the 25th of August, General Ewing issued his celebrated order from Kansas
City, and rumor, with her thousand tongues, soon spread it over the ill-fated territory.
I thought I had witnessed and felt the hardships and privations of civil war and martial law
before, but it was reserved for this, the last week in August and the first ones in September,
1863, to teach me and others how much the human body and mind can bear up under and still
survive.
Previous to this, if one were brought into a strait, or got into trouble or difficulty, he could
appeal to some friend or neighbor for help, and the appeal was seldom made in vain. But now
all were in the same strait; the same weight of sorrow and distress was pressing upon all;
there was no exception, and none in our part of the district were exempt from the general
hardship.
My own reason, as well as the suggestions of friends, convinced me that my life was now in
more danger than it had yet been. The country was full of bushwhackers, some of them
personal friends of the men who had been killed in the morning; I had been taken with them,
my life had been spared because I was a Union man, theirs had been taken because they were
not, and retaliation was common on each side. It was plain that I must go as my friends and
neighbors did, or not go at all. I felt assured that if I abandoned them and sought a place of
shelter and security, by taking some other road, my life would pay the forfeit, nor did I wish to
abandon them, so long as I could be of service to those who were now so much in need of help.
I saw much of the incidents and fruits of Order No. 11. Before and behind was seen the long,
moving train of sorrowing exiles, wagons and vehicles of every shape and size and of all
kinds, drawn by teams of every sort, except good ones, a cloud of dust rising from the road.
The further we proceeded, the greater became the moving column of wretched fugitives.
On every road that led eastward from the county of Jackson came the moving mass of
humanity, seeking an asylum they knew not where; some driving their flocks and herds along
with them, others again as I was with nothing but a make-shift wagon and team—some not
even that. Women were seen walking the crowded and dusty road, carrying in a little bundle
their all, or at least all that they could carry. Others, again, driving or leading a cow or a
skeleton horse, with a bundle or pack fastened upon it, or a pack-horse on which the feebler
members of the family rode by turns.
The number, which crossed at Lexington – great as that number was – was but a small part of
those who, under the operations of that Order No. 11, were made homeless and scattered as
it were to the four winds."
Not only did the people of southern sympathies realize how desperate the situation in
Missouri was, the Union Provisional Governor, Hamilton Gamble, appointed to the office of
governor by Union delegates to the succession convention in July 1861, was crying foul also.
They were suffering the same outrages as their southern counterparts. In a letter written to
President Lincoln, Governor Gamble makes clear his intentions should Missouri be invaded
by the radical citizens of Kansas.
Mr President
Several citizens of border counties of this State will forward to you by mail their
representation of the condition of affairs in adjoining portions of Kansas, and the expression
of their apprehension of an invasion of this State from the State of Kansas.
They will also state to you the fact, that organizations of negroes are forming in Kansas
armed and equipped as soldiers of the United States, for the purpose of entering this state
and committing depredations here.
The purpose of Lane and Jennison as I understand it now to be avowed, is, to raise a force
composed in part at least of negroes and enter Missouri to carry out their own ideas of
supporting the Union.
I owe it to you Mr. President (from whom I have received nothing but kindness) to say, that if
such invasion is made I will resist it with all the force I can command, and I beg you to
believe, that it will be with the deepest regret that I shall find myself obliged to give to the
people of Kansas a taste of the evils of war in their own territory. We have endured injuries so
long that the villainous Kansas leaders have apparently arrived at the conclusion that our
patience is inexhaustible. They are mistaken.-- It is completely exhausted.
It is within your power to prevent the troubles that will certainly arise from the entrance of
Kansas troops into this State upon marauding expeditions.
I call your attention to the fact, that beside the guerrilla bands with which we have to
contend, there is now assembling in Arkansas a very large force for the purpose of invading
this State. It is to be composed of troops from Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, and has been
estimated as high as 70,000 men. I am enrolling the whole of the military power of my State
and drilling them for actual service.
I hope to have a force that will be sufficient to keep down internal enemies, and give material
aid in repelling this southern invasion.
I appeal to you to save me from the necessity of diverting a portion of my force from this
necessary object to the slaying of negro invaders and their associates.
If you will either forbid any troops in the service of the United States from coming into
Missouri without my request or that of Genl Schofield commanding in the State, the end will
be accomplished, for if any organization shall then invade us their blood be on their own
heads.
Very Respectfully
Your Obt Servt
Hamilton R. Gamble
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Order #11 was the singular act of the Civil War that effectively destroyed life as those in
Jackson had known it prior to its issuance. Jackson County became what was known as the
‘Burnt District’ or ‘the land of the chimneys’. Many families never returned to their homes
and the majority of those that did, came back to find the homes they had worked so hard to
build were gone.
Lone Jack, once a thriving community larger than Kansas City, never recovered.
Sources: Library of Congress – Lincoln Papers; Official Records of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 13; Mid-Missouri
Civil War Round Table- http://www.mmcwrt.org/2001/default0103.htm; Reminiscences of the Women of Missouri
During the Sixties - Missouri Division, United Daughters of the Confederacy.
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| GENERAL ORDER # 11 |
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