MEMORIES OF THE BATTLE OF LONE JACK
Jessie M. Cave, 80 years old, has unforgetable memories of the battle of Lone Jack, although he was then only five years old. He was a son of Mr. And Mrs. B.B. Cave, who conducted the Lone Jack Hotel. The father was absent, but Mrs. Cave and the children were asleep in the building when the firing began in the streets nearby about 6 o’clock.
A number of Federal soldiers broke into the hotel, and began firing out of the doors and windows at the Confederates who responded with a terrific assault. While the conflict was raging, the house, a two-story frame, began to burn.Seeing nothing but certain death if they remained inside, Mrs. Cave decided to face the possibility of it in fleeing from the house. She and her children did so, and, unhurt, made their way to a place of comparative safety a short distance west of the hotel, crouching down close to the ground, where they were hidden by tall weeds. One of the children, an infant in arms, clamored to e nursed. Jesse was one of the children huddled around her.
“I remember it all as if it had happened only yesterday.” Jesse Cave remarked to a visitor Tuesday afternoon. “Mother sat up and was reaching for my little sister, when a minie ball struck mother in the breast. As soon as possible she was given treatment, but she never recovered, and three weeks later she died. None of the rest of us were injured. The baby died a few years later. One of the other children, my brother, William Henry Cave, was with us when it happened. He was 10 years old then and is still living at the age of 85, at Everett, Washington.”
Independence Examiner, August 14, 1937