Here you go laughing lady.
(Three Year with Quantrill, Universtiy of Oklahoma Press) "In September [August], 1863, Captain Bill Anderson and his company joined us. At this time, the outrages committed by the Federal troops, which consisted mostly of Home Guards and Kansas Redlegs and Jayhawkers, beggars description. At this late day, it seems impossible that human beings could have been guilty of such merciless outrages as these men committed. Among the leaders of these bands were Jenninson, Jim Lane and a Captain Mead and I will only attempt to give a few of their acts as an illustration of their brutality and to further impress upon the minds of my readers why we acted as we did....a neighbor, who had known these two girls and reported to the authorities that these two women were rebels and were buying flour to feed the bushwhackers. They were immediately arrested and placed in jail with some other girsl, who had been arrested and sentenced to be banished and here I copy the following descriptin of what occurred as give by Mrs. Flora Stevens , as she stood at the grave of Josephine Anderson and published in the Kansas City Post, under date of May 2, 1912.
"There were nine of these girls in the prison at 1409 Grand Avenue, when it fell. One of these was Josepohine Anderson. Her two sisters, Mollie, aged sixteen, and Janie, ten years old were also prisoners with her, and it was these three especially that the Union soldiers wanted to kill because they were sisters of Bill Anderson, the guerilla....
"When the soldiers heard that Bill Anderson's sisters were in their power, they determined to kill them. The first inkling of the plot was when Mrs. B.F. Duke, who now lives at 1717 Wabash avenue, but who then had a boarding house at Independence Avenue and Oak Street, heard some of the soldiers...speak of the progress they were making in tearing down a wall. Mrs Duke was a cousin of Bill Anderson, but the soldiers did not know it and told her of their scheme, and how they had removed a large section of the foundation wall of the woman's prison....The building did not fall the first day, some more of the wall was removed and it was at this time that Mrs. Duke learned of it.
"She was beside herself with rage and ordered all the soldiers from the house. With a number of friends she hurried to the military headquarters and begged that the girls be taken from the building before they were killed. Their pleadings were in vain and an hour later the building fell."
(continued in next post)
Quantrill