The Sacking Of Osceola

 

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The Sacking Of Osceola

A Brief Account

 

The Sacking of Osceola

Kansas General James H. Lane organized 1,500 troops to resist the Price invasion into Kansas. Price defeated Lane in the Battle of Dry Wood Creek near Fort Scott, Kansas. Lane retreated and Price continued his offensive further into Missouri to the Siege of Lexington.
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While Price moved his army North, Lane launched an attack on civilians behind him. After crossing the Missouri border at Trading Post, Kansas on September 10, Lane began an offensive moving East on Butler, Harrisonville, Osceola, and Clinton, Missouri, destroying everything in his path.
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Former U.S. Sen. Jim Lane of Kansas and 1,500 Union soldiers hit Osceola at 2 a.m. on Sept. 22, 1861. Two hundred men led by Missouri State Guard Capt. John Weidemeyer met them with rifle and shotgun fire at Cemetery Ridge southwest of town, but the Kansas Brigade's four cannons and numerical superiority scattered the opposition. An artillery battery under Capt. Thomas Moonlight with his 1st Independent Battery, Kansas Light Artillery shelled the St. Clair County courthouse.
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Motivated by rival Sen. Waldo Johnson's having lived there, Lane had been trying to go there for a long time because he wanted to sack Waldo Johnson's town. Johnson was one of  Jefferson Davis' advisors and had done much to stop the war. Osceola had no one left but old men, old women and children. Most of the men had gone with Gen. Sterling Price to fight in the Battle of Lexington.
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General Lane ordered his men to pillage and burn the entire town.  The courthouse was ransacked and county records destroyed.  Stores, homes, churches, all buildings were bombarded with cannon balls and set on fire.
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Disappointed that there was little money in the bank safe, only legal papers, they began to enter citizen's homes to search for hidden money.  Sentries were posted at each end of town in order to stop anyone from approaching.  Anyone who challenged the sentries was immediately fired upon.
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A dozen armed men had taken refuge in the bank, from which more than $100,000 in deposits had already been moved and hidden. The men were convicted of being traitors, lined up, and executed in the town square. Three lived by feigning death. Nine died. All but three of the town's 800 buildings were burned. The town never fully recovered.
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When Lane passed through Osceola, he burned the beautiful residence of Confederate Captain Vaughn to the ground, then followed the family to a log house in the country where they had fled, and there, upon the information of a slave, dug up $8,000, which they had buried, sacked the house, taking seven silk dresses and all the valuables belonging to Mrs. Vaughn, and then left. He even took the clothing of their grandchildren.
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Lane left Osceola with over 200 slaves, many of whom were later sold in Louisiana, and a wagon train loaded with boots, shoes, clothing, tons of lead, powder kegs, percussion caps, 3,000 sacks of flour, bacon slabs, sugar, molasses, furniture, 350 horses and 400 head of cattle. Many of the Jayhawkers were so intoxicated that, unable to ride their horses, they left in stolen wagons.
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Lane, who had been appointed a brigadier general by Abraham Lincoln, also performed similar atrocities at Morristown, where he made seven Confederates dig their own graves, and then again at Papinsville."
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Osceola was one of the main reasons for the raid on Lawrence, Kansas.
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"Bloody Jim" Lane was insane. Many people said his rambling speeches were so garbled they couldn't understand him. The Kansans reelected him to the Senate after the war but soon after the election, he commited suicide.

 
 
 
 
 
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James R. Baker Jr.
 
 
 
 
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