SB Nation User Blog: MizzouFan

The Origins of the MU-KU Rivalry - Concluding Thoughts

MizzouFan — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:26:59 -0000

Ed. Note - Bumped from FanPosts

One man that rode with Quantrill in his youth wrote the following later in life, well after the war, “We are all now under one flag and have clasped hands with all true and honest men who opposed us in the unequal contest. We are wiling to let bygones be bygones and remain as such. I entertain a sacred respect for those that were honest in their convictions, but we still hold and will die with a death grip of hatred for the men who shed innocent blood and destroyed the home of my sainted father.”[1]

Just in case there was any doubt, this quote confirms that hate has been part of the Missouri-Kansas rivalry. During the original Border War conflicts, innocents on both sides suffered unwarranted brutality and the death of loved ones, and viewed the perpetrators as evil. While the series of articles I wrote focused on the jayhawkers (which seemed fair since they are the ones with a college team named after them), their Missouri bushwhacker counterparts committed their share of equally reprehensible acts.

But, if there ever was a legitimate time for hate between Kansans and Missourians over the tragedies of the Border War era, it has passed. The generations with first-hand experience of the suffering of that era have long ago passed away. The animosity of Missourians toward Kansans should be tempered by the fact that the Civil War in Missouri would have been hell anyway, even had not a single Kansan crossed the state line. Perhaps the bitterness of Kansans toward Missourians should be mollified by the fact that, over the course of the era and even considering the Lawrence Raid, the Kansans did unto the Missourians at least as much as the Missourians did unto them.

Thankfully, the hate has largely subsided. Today, Missourians and Kansas stand together as fellow citizens of America’s Heartland, blessed by the nation’s bounty, and living together in peace (for the most part). We are much more alike than different. I consider Kansans to be among America’s finest, and I count KU fans among my friends. Yet, relatively subtle differences between at least some segments of the MU and KU fan bases persist, and those differences help to sustain a spirited edge to the rivalry. Nowhere are those differences more evident than in the views of the opposing fans on the rivalry’s historical basis.

Erik Ashel is the producer of the television documentary "Border War", which details the historic roots of the Kansas-Missouri rivalry. Ashel writes, “This project has also opened my eyes to the viewpoints held by those east of the state line…Maybe it isn’t exactly the same history I learned at KU, but that doesn’t mean it’s not valid. Sometimes history is more about what you believe to have happened, and how it affects you, than it is about what actually did happen.”[2]

It is easy to understand why some KU fans would prefer “what you believe” over “what actually did happen”. The myths (or at least select truths) behind the jayhawkers and redlegs are things Kansans and KU fans can feel good about. The complete truth, well…not so much. That is why, for as long as KU athletic teams are called the Jayhawks, there will likely always be some tension between MU and KU fans over the historical basis of the rivalry. Some KU fans will continue to embrace the myth of the jayhawkers as noble freedom fighters. MU fans will not forget the truth of the jayhawkers’ crimes against Missouri civilians.

The rivalry lives on!

Keith Piontek

November 2008

[1] Kimberlin, J.N. The Kimberlins in the Sixties. Confederate Veteran, Twentieth Year, Eleventh Number. November, 1912. Copy available at: http://www.bourlandcivilwar.com/Kimberlin.htm.

[2] Ashel, Erik. Producer’s Comments on the documentary “Border War, The Rivalry Between Kansas & Missouri”. http://www.kcondemand.com/IntouchNews-BorderWar.aspx

Part 4: KU Adopts the Jayhawker Moniker

MizzouFan — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:13:40 -0000

{Editor's note: In preparation for this year's Border War, RMN reader Keith Piontek has authored a four-part series on the origins of the Missouri/Kansas rivalry. Today, we wrap up the series with part four.}

"When KU football players first took the field in 1890,
it seemed only natural to call them Jayhawkers."

(Official KU web site, Traditions at the University, The Jayhawk.)[1]

Given the odious nature of the original Kansas jayhawkers, how did the jayhawker term come to be embraced by Kansans, and later by KU? Does the legacy of the original jayhawkers endure?

[1] http://www.ku.edu/about/traditions/jayhawk.shtml

What Was a Jayhawker?

First, the meaning of the jayhawker term during the Kansas territorial period and the Civil War will be reviewed.

KU professor Spring, who wrote his 1896 Kansas history based on extensive first hand accounts, had the following description of the original jayhawkers, men from southeast Kansas during the territorial period, "Confederated at first for defense against pro-slavery outrages, but ultimately falling more or less completely into the vocation of robbers and assassins, they have received the name --- whatever its origin may be -- of jayhawkers." [1]

The term came into wider use during the Civil War. In 1861, A Kansas judge offered the following definition. "I feel it to be my duty, Gentlemen of the Jury, to call your attention especially to a form of lawlessness commonly denominated "jayhawking." It seems to be a word sufficiently comprehensive to embrace in its signification three of the worst crimes known to criminal jurisprudence, namely, murder, robbery and larceny. It is a monster of Western birth; and its defenders claim that Kansas has the honor of the birth-place. Insidious in its presentiments, it assumes to aid in the suppression of rebellion and the punishment of treason; and it thus endeavors to insinuate itself into the tolerance of loyal citizens by pretending to be clothed in the garb of patriotism." [2] Using the term in a similar manner, the Union command in Kansas issued an 1862 proclamation ordering the arrest of "armed bands of men, commonly known as "Jayhawkers" that "continue to infest the country, committing depredations and outrages on peaceable citizens". [3]

The jayhawker term did not have a more favorable connotation north of Kansas. In 1862, the Governor of Nebraska Territory was compelled to issue a "cease and desist" proclamation concerning the "lawless bands of armed men, styling themselves Jayhawkers" that were "committing depredations in the Southern portion of the Territory – stealing horses, robbing stores and houses, and threatening the lives of many of the citizens" [4] Earlier, Nebraska residents had believed the propaganda attempting to cloak the actions of the jayhawkers as retaliatory and/or directed solely toward secessionists. However, over time, "it became apparent to all that the true definition of jayhawking signified a thief, and that the prime object of the jayhawkers was robbery."[5]

The jayhawker term did not have a more favorable connotation southeast of Kansas. In Arkansas during the Civil War, the term jayhawker was a derogatory term for any troops from Kansas. "However, so notorious did the destructive behavior of the Kansans become that Confederate Arkansans also used the name as an epithet for any marauder, robber, or thief…Jayhawkers would always be linked to Kansas, but so notorious had the violence perpetrated by early Kansas raiders become that the nature of the deed, rather than any geographical place, came to define the (jayhawker) name.[6]

It is doubtful that the jayhawker term had a more honorable meaning south of Kansas in the Indian Territories, where "bands of guerillas called Kansas Jay Hawkers" pillaged and burned the homes of the "Civilized Tribes" that had aligned with the Confederacy, and where approximately 300,000 head of cattle were rustled from Native Americans (irregardless of their Confederate or Union affiliation) by unprincipled men operating out of Kansas.[7], [8]

Perhaps with this backdrop of what the term meant in Kansas and among its non-Missouri neighbors, the reader will not so readily dismiss the following definition of jayhawkers by an admittedly biased Missourian of the era. "The original Jayhawker was a growth indigenous to the soil of Kansas...In some respects a mountebank, in others a scoundrel, and in all a thief - he was a character eminently adapted for civil war which produces more adventurers than heroes… The type was all of a kind. The mouth generally wore a calculating smile - the only distinguishable gift remaining of a Puritan ancestry - but when he felt that he was looked at the calculating smile became sanctimonious. Slavery concerned him only as the slaveholder was supposed to be rich...Born to nothing, and eternally out at the elbows, what else could he do but laugh and be glad when chance kicked a country into war and gave purple and fine linen to a whole lot of bummers and beggars?"[9]

Kansas Embraces the Jayhawker Moniker

Given the unsavory connotations of the jayhawker term during the Civil War, it is a wonder that the sobriquet came to be embraced by Kansans. Writing in the early 1900’s, a Kansan pondered this development. "Kansas aspires to be called the "Jayhawker State". Our most illustrious citizens hail the name as a badge of honor. Our great university perpetuates the name in its war cry that celebrates victory or shouts defiance after stubborn defeat. How came dishonor to be purified?... How…was the miracle accomplished?" [10]

Indeed, how was the miracle accomplished? Unfortunately, the author that posed this question did not provide a very definitive answer. The author made a case that it was the Seventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry (also known as Jennison’s Jayhawkers), through their honorable service to the Union once free of the corrupting influences of Jennison and Hoyt, which caused Kansans to embrace the term. Several factors suggest this is not the whole story. First, the article was written by a member of the Seventh Kansas (a clearly biased source). Second, it is hard to believe the actions of a single regiment of less than 1,000 men serving in the relatively obscure campaigns of the western theatre, hundreds of miles from Kansas, had such a profound impact on the people of Kansas. Third, a similar article, written by a member of the Fifteenth Kansas, makes a case that is was the actions of their unit, in this case acting under the superb leadership of Jennison and Hoyt, that "converted the appellation of 'jayhawkers' into one of honor and fame."[11] So, which is to be believed, was the miracle accomplished by the Seventh once it was free of the odious Jennison, or by the Fifteenth under the command of the noble Jennison? Together, these articles may it clear the jayhawker term and Jennison were most definitely associated, but they fail to provide a convincing explanation of why Kansans embraced the term.

The origin of the "jayhawk" moniker was addressed by Dr. Blackmar, the first dean of KU’s graduate school, in a 1926 radio address. Blackmar acknowledged that "jayhawking" had become a general term to express marauding or plundering, theorized that the popular nickname of the Seventh Kansas Cavalry may have been a factor, but stated "it is not known how the name gradually became applied to all residents of Kansas." [12]

Is it really such as mystery? The contemporaneous opinions of Kansans on the practice of jayhawking itself offer clues. After a thorough survey of the Kansas press of the period and of other contemporary records, one noted Civil War historian concluded, "Kansans generally approved the forays of the jayhawkers through the border counties of Missouri (in 1861-62). Their growing antislavery fervor caused them to applaud the slave-liberating aspect of these operations, especially since the freed Negroes relieved the labor shortage in Kansas. True, exaggerated, and false reports of outrages suffered by Kansans and Missouri Unionists at the hands of Missouri secessionists seemed to warrant retaliation in kind. In addition, the people of Kansas had a distorted concept of the object and nature of the activities of Lane, Jennison, Anthony, and James H. Lane. They believed that their campaigns and raids were designed to put down "treason" and guard against invasion, while the newspaper correspondents who accompanied Lane's brigade and the Seventh Kansas wrote up the supposedly heroic exploits of these commands and either ignored or glossed over the looting and killing. Finally, there was a rather sizeable element in Kansas which out of economic and moral poverty was quite willing to advocate and practice the plundering of the farmers of western Missouri, who had "a dangerous reputation for wealth."[13]

Thus, we see that while jayhawking was an activity that encompassed despicable crimes, Kansans generally approved the forays of the jayhawkers. Why? There were a variety of reasons that included ignorance of what the jayhawkers were truly up to, economic and moral poverty, and an attitude that the "Missourians deserved it". The lack of sympathy for the Missouri victims was undoubtedly and understandably exacerbated in the wake of Quantrill’s raid. One newspaper that had voiced opposition to the jayhawkers now called for punishing western Missouri. "These marauders from Missouri have set "mischief afloat," and woe betide their sympathizers all along the border. Their acts of vandalism, of fiendish barbarism, have knit the hearts of our people into one. They must be punished and exterminated wherever found. The sword of vengeance is unsheathed; let it not rest or be stayed from its fearful mission, until it has purchased at the cost of much blood, perfect immunity from such terrible calamities as have befallen our State in the burning of Lawrence."[14] Never mind that Quantrill and his raiders believed they themselves had been on a mission of justice and vengeance against the earlier depredations of the jayhawkers and redlegs. In the downward spiral into total way, perspective and sympathy for the innocent go by the wayside. Apparently, Kansans had become blinded to the outrages committed by their own.

Certainly, after the conclusion of the Civil War, Kansans were justifiably proud of the state’s contributions to the preservation of the Union and the end of slavery. But why embrace the jayhawker term, a word with such unsavory connotations? Part of the Jayhawk mythology propagated by KU is as follows: "During the Civil War the word Jayhawk became associated with the spirit of comradeship associated with efforts to keep Kansas a free state. And following the war most Kansans were proud to be called Jayhawkers."[15] Based on the information presented in this series of articles, there are at least two explanations for the first sentence in this particular KU claim: 1) it is more or less a complete fabrication and a whitewash of the ugly historical reality, and 2) the virtuous meaning was generally limited to only those living within the Kansas borders. Because the definition of the jayhawker term has varied in space and time, it is hard to pin down exactly what was meant by the term to whom, and when. However, it is pretty clear that in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, not many (if any) outside the state of Kansas associated the term with anything as laudable as comradeship.

Perhaps the most likely explanation is that as "jayhawkers" began to come into use as a derogatory term for all Kansan troops, some Kansans with knowledge of the term’s true meaning embraced the term out of a sanctimonious or mean-spirited pride, while the term was embraced by other Kansans with a pride that was ignorant of or blinded to the ugly reality. In defense of Kansans of the era, the latter group probably outnumbered the former.

One would suspect the KU administration was comprised of men with enough education to have knowledge of the jayhawkers’ considerable dark side. Why would KU embrace the name? Perhaps they were sanctimonious enough to believe that the activities of the jayhawkers, no matter how despicable, were justified by their alignment, no matter how loose, with the causes of Union and Abolition. Perhaps they believed the reality of the jayhawkers could be whitewashed through the mythology that was being written as history by the Civil War victors. This theory is supported by the KU administration’s demonstrated willingness to deliberately distort early Kansas history (albeit, in what was perhaps an isolated case).[16] Perhaps the KU administration felt it was a "plus" to pick a name that would rankle the Missourians.

Regardless of the reason(s), the KU decision to select the jayhawker moniker was a key milestone in the spirited rivalry with MU that lives on to this day.

The Jayhawker Legacy

For as long as the KU athletic teams are named the Jayhawks, the legacy of the original jayhawkers will live on in one very obvious way. Are there other ways in which the jayhawker legacy lives on?

Periodically, the KU football team will don red socks. The fact that the red socks are often worn only for the annual game with MU suggests this is not merely a KU attempt to be fashionable.[17] During the Civil War, the Kansas Red Legs were a particularly nasty variant of the jayhawkers. Before Lawrence, Kansas became home to KU, it served as a red leg headquarters. One of the early Kansas histories, written in by a KU professor in 1896, stated that the gang of red legs based in Lawrence "contained men of the most desperate and hardened character, and a full recital of their deeds would sound like the biography of devils. Either the people of Lawrence could not drive out the freebooters, or they thought it mattered little what might happen to Missouri disloyalists."[18] It is one thing for KU and/or its fans to sugar-coat the linkage between the despicable deeds of the original jayhawkers and the current KU moniker. It is considerably more difficult to argue that KU donning the red socks for the MU game is anything less than a symbolic "tip of the hat" to the Civil War-era Kansans that donned red leggings for their vicious raids into Missouri.

To find other ways in which the jayhawker legacy lives on, one needs to look beyond the obvious. Let us examine the culture engendered by the original jayhawkers. A supporter of the jayhawkers wrote back in 1861, "Jayhawking was got up in Kansas. It's one of our things. It works well; we believe in it, we are going to have it. It don't make any difference whether the authorities, civil or military, believe in it or not. Kansas don't care much for authorities; never did, never will."[19] The early history of Kansas was marked by extreme lawlessness that had created a group of men (i.e., the jayhawkers) with a "brazen disregard for law and order".[20] These jayhawkers were not only tolerated, they were ultimately embraced by Kansans. Once established, such a culture of lawlessness and disregard for authority, and the tolerance of these behaviors, is hard to change.

Did this culture (albeit a watered down version) live on in the annals of the KU athletic program? The reader may be familiar with the fact that KU is among the nation’s leaders in the number of times it has been placed on probation by the NCAA for major rules infractions, but the reader may not be aware that the KU cheating pre-dates the NCAA and has been going on since the earliest years of KU athletics.

KU’s undefeated football season in 1899 was aided by the appearance of a mammoth tackle named Rollo Krebs for the final games of the season. In the season finale against Missouri, two Missouri lineman who had attempted to stop Krebs were carried from the field on stretchers, and KU prevailed by the score of 34 – 6. KU students planned a celebration in Krebs’ honor, but he had mysteriously disappeared. The mystery of the "phantom tackle" was solved several decades later when Krebs returned to Lawrence as a guest of honor the day before the 1934 Missouri game. Krebs admitted that prior to his brief stint with the jayhawkers, he had played five years of varsity football for the University of West Virginia and had also spent a year in the professional ranks. The KU staff had essentially imported a mercenary to help beat Missouri. [21]

KU won an upset victory over the Tigers in 1927 aided by Tiger play charts that had been provided to the KU staff. This was in violation of a league agreement to not scout opposing teams, and led to the resignation of KU’s head coach.

Many Tiger fans are aware of the 1960 season finale between MU and KU, the KU upset that gave the Tigers their only loss of the season and prevented the Tigers from being named national champions, and the subsequent KU forfeit of the contest for their use of a player (Bert Coan) that had been illegally recruited by KU off another college campus. Most MU fans are unaware that it wasn’t the first time KU had pulled the stunt.

KU’s outstanding 1930 team was paced by star halfback "Jarring Jim" Bausch (an exceptional all-around athlete that later won a gold medal in the 1932 Olympic decathlon). Midway through the season, charges surfaced that Bausch was receiving a monthly check from a booster, thus explaining his questionable transfer to KU from Wichita University (later, Wichita State). After KU refused to declare Bausch ineligible, the other members of the Bix Six conference notified KU that, "In view of the practices at the University of Kansas in violating the rules of this conference relating to recruiting and subsidizing athletes, the other five members of this conference decline to schedule any athletic games, not now under contract, with the University of Kansas…"[22] In essence, KU was being kicked out of the conference for their cheating. In response, KU announced they would conduct an investigation, but as they considered the current evidence inadequate, they would allow Bausch to continue his play. Only after KU had their first Big 6 conference title safely tucked away did KU declare Bausch ineligible. One writer commented, "Kansas put up a big front at the start of the mess but every front has a back and that back was a streak of yellow." [23]

In his 1926 radio address on the Jayhawk moniker, KU’s Dean Blackmar had stated, "The Jayhawk myth has become a spirit of progress and power. Gone is the spirit of robber birds; gone the reckless spirit of the law and disorder bands of the stress and storm period."[24] Based on the 1927 and 1930 cheating incidents described above, it appears that in his 1926 address, Blackmar had prematurely declared the demise of the original jayhawkers’ culture. After the NCAA was given the authority to enforce its rules in 1952, KU was found guilty by the NCAA of major rule violations in 1957, 1960, 1972, 1983, 1988, and 2006.

Just as the original jayhawkers ignored the rule of law, the KU athletic programs have a long track record of ignoring the rules of fair play. When the NCAA cited KU in 2006 for "lack of institutional control" that had led to dozens of violations in the KU athletic programs, was that evidence that KU still "don’t care much for authorities"? Even without the Jayhawk moniker and the periodic donning of red leggings, one could make a case the jayhawker legacy has indeed lived on!

_____________________________

In the last section of this article, where the long and storied tradition of KU cheating is discussed, I have gone beyond a presentation of history (albeit from a Missouri perspective) and into the realm of partisan trash-talking. If any KU fans happen across this, I hope they accept my remarks about the jayhawkers’ enduring legacy in the not-entirely-serious spirit they are offered. As long as KU has that Jayhawk moniker, Border War history will be an unavoidable part of the rivalry banter. It is time to move past the hate, so hopefully not too many are offended at this attempt to end on a historical perspective that is somewhat lighter than the mayhem of the original jayhawkers and bushwhackers.

Keith Piontek
November 2008

[1] Spring, Leverett Wilson. Kansas, The Prelude to the War for the Union. New York: Boston Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1896.

[2] Daily Times [Leavenworth, KS], November 5, 1861, p. 2, c. 3.

[3] Order of Brigadier General Denver, Headquarters, District of Kansas, April 6, 1862, Published in the New York Times, April 27, 1862.

[4] Proclamation of Alvin Sanders, Governor of Nebraska Territory, January 2, 1862. Published in the New York Times, January 19, 1862.

[5] Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska (1882) - Nemaha County. Part 2.

[6] Daniel E. Sutherland. Jayhawkers and Bushwackers. The Encylcopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net

[7] Moore, Jesse Randolph. The Five Great Indian Nations. The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Volume 29, No. 3, pages 333-334. 1951.

[9] John N. Edwards. "Noted Guerrillas - Or The Warfare Of The Border." 1877. From Chapter 5 - "Quantrell And The Kansas Jayhawkers."

[10] Fox, S.M. The Early History of the Seventh Kansas Cavalry. Kansas State Historical Society, Volume XI, 19093-1911.

[11] Museum of the Kansas National Guard, Historic Units, The 15th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry. http://www.kansasguardmuseum.org/15ksvls.html

[12] Blackmar, F.W. Origin of the Jayhawk. Delivered on the Annual KU Radio Nite Program, December, 1926. Transcribed on the official KU web site: KU History and Traditions, The Legend of the Jayhawk. http://www.union.ku.edu/legend.shtml

[13] Castel, Albert. Kansas Jayhawking Raids Into Western Missouri in 1861. Missouri Historical Review 54/1. October 1959.

[14] Daily Times [Leavenworth, KS], August 22, 1863, p. 2, c. 1

[15] History of the Jayhawk. As reported in the 1995-96 KU Basketball Media Guide. http://www.rockchalk.com/john/john/jhwk.html

[16] Griffin, C.S. The University of Kansas and the Sack of Lawrence: A Problem of Intellectual Honesty. Kansas Historical Quarterly, Winter, 1968 (Vol. XXXIV. No. 4), pages 409 to 426.

[17] Kealing, Jonathan. Anatomy of a rivalry, Border hostilities run deep. Lawrence Journal-World. Friday, November 23, 2007. http://www2.kusports.com/news/2007/nov/23/anatomy_rivalry/?print

[18] Spring, Leverett Wilson. Kansas, The Prelude to the War for the Union. New York: Boston Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1896.

[19] Conservative [Leavenworth, KS], September 20, 1861

[20] Donald L. Gilmore. Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border. Pelican Publishing Company, 2006. page 162.

[21] Evans, Harold C. College Football in Kansas. Kansas Historical Quarterly, August 1940 (Volume 9, No. 3), pages 285-311.

[22] Bob Broeg. Ol’ Mizzou, A Story of Missouri Football. The Strode Publishers, 1974. page 102.

[23] Schmidt, Ray. Some 1920s Disputes. College Football Historical Society Newsletter. Vol. XIV, Issue II, Pages 9-12.

[24] Blackmar, Dr. F.W. Origin of the Jayhawk. Delivered on the Annual KU Radio Nite Program, December, 1926. As transcribed on the KU website: www.union.ku.edu/legend.

Part 3: The Lawrence Raid

MizzouFan — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:37:22 -0000

{Editor's note: In preparation for this year's Border War, RMN reader Keith Piontek has authored a four-part series on the origins of the Missouri/Kansas rivalry. Today, we have part three.}

No event in the real Border War is more infamous than Quantrill’s raid on Lawence, Kansas. The raid is often described as an unprovoked attack on the innocent citizens of Lawrence, having no legitimate military objectives, comprised of heinous crimes without precedent, and on a scale far surpassing the outrages that precipitated it. This article provides a foundation of facts upon which the fairness of these characterizations can be assessed. This article does not attempt to justify the raid; there is no justification for the horrors perpetrated during the raid. However, this article does attempt to establish that, in the context of what had preceded the raid, the events of August 21, 1863 are understandable, and were predictable.

The origin of the Missouri-Kansas conflict during the Civil War lay in Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and the ensuing struggle between abolitionist and pro-slavery forces for victory in the Kansas statehood elections. Both sides demonstrated they would engage in nearly any means (legal, extra-legal, or illegal) to win the elections. After John Brown (of later Harpers Ferry infamy) brutally hacked to death a number of pro-slavery Kansas settlers in 1856, the struggle turned increasingly brutal and bloody. Ruffians on both sides engaged in theft, murder and various other forms of mayhem. The border ruffians on the pro-slavery side came to be known as jayhawkers, while those on the pro-slavery side were called bushwhackers. Free-state forces eventually prevailed, and Kansas joined the United States in 1861. In looking back on the territorial period, neither side in the conflict could claim innocence in the lawless struggle. However, an early historian of that era (of New England stock and a KU professor at the time of his writing) observed, “…in comparison with the Missourians, whose sins were black enough, jayhawkers were the superior devils.”

In the early years of the Civil War, the “deviltry” turned into hell for many Missourians. After the election of Lincoln, the firing on Fort Sumter, and the outbreak of open hostilities between North and South, a variety of unprincipled opportunists from Kansas declared total war on western Missouri. Some Kansans who enlisted with the Union forces undoubtedly were motivated by noble virtues of freedom and equality. However, many who joined the armed camps springing up in Kansas had more dubious motives. One of their leaders was Jim Lane, an unprincipled demagogue who was driven much more by ambition than by abolition. When his career as a politician in Indiana began to falter, Lane immigrated to Kansas looking for opportunity. Lane admitted that “if Kansas had been a good hemp and tobacco state, I would have favored slavery.” After gauging the political winds in Kansas, Lane abandoned his Democratic Party background for radical Republicanism, stoked the fires of animosity against Missourians into conflict, and rode the ensuing maelstrom to political power. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Lane wheedled a military commission from the Lincoln administration, and proceeded to raise an army.

The promise of plunder helped to fill the ranks of the forces being raised by Lane and his cohorts. The hardships of life on the Kansas prairies had resulted in a steady stream of former settlers heading back east throughout the territorial period. The Panic of 1857 resulted in a dramatic drop in land values, and many of those that had settled Kansas to speculate in land were reduced to paupers. Then, in 1860 a great drought began. For more than a year little or no rain fell, and crops failed. It has been estimated that up to approximately one-third of the population of Kansas Territory, facing economic ruin and possible starvation, pulled up stakes and left, with another one-third rendered completely destitute, too poor to move, and dependent on charity. Because of its older and more robust socio-economy, Missouri remained a land of relative riches. With the outbreak of war, many impoverished Kansans jumped at the chance to improve their economic status at the expense of the Missourians.

One of the first groups to take advantage were the Southern Kansas Jay-Hawkers (later the Seventh Kansas Cavalry), under the command of the notorious Charles Jennison. As the Civil War unfolded, the term Jayhawker became synonymous with Kansans who used the causes of anti-slavery and Unionism as cover for criminal and predatory activities. As an Illinois newspaper editor reported, “A Jayhawker is a Unionist who professes to rob, burn out, and murder only rebels in arms against the government…They are all lawless and indiscriminate in their inequities.”

With many able-bodied Missouri men away in either Confederate or Union arms, jayhawkers under the command of men such as Lane and Jennison had free play among the women, children, and old men who remained across the border. The Jayhawkers had taken to heart the years of anti-Missouri propaganda. In the words of one Kansas abolitionist, “When I deal with men made in God’s image, I will never shoot them; but these pro-slavery Missourians are demons from the bottomless pit and may be shot with impunity.”

The jayhawkers swept through western Missouri in a campaign of theft, arson, torture, and murder. Between September 1861 and the February 1862, a whole string of Missouri towns were plundered and burned. Osceola (about the same size as Lawrence, Kansas) was completely burned to the ground, and effectively wiped from the Missouri map. Among the other population centers reduced to ashes were Morristown, Papinsville, Butler, Dayton, and Columbus. Additionally, hundreds of families were burned out of their homes in the farmlands around Pleasant Hill, Rose Hill, Kingsville, and Lexington. In their predations, the jayhawkers made little effort to distinguish between Union and Secessionist among the Missouri residents.

By the spring of 1862, less than a year after the opening salvos of the Civil War had been fired at Fort Sumter, much of the wealth of western Missouri had been stripped off by the marauding Kansans. Millions of dollars in property were stolen or destroyed. Wagon trains of booty and herds of stolen livestock were taken into Lawrence and other bases of jayhawking operations. Hundreds of Missourians were dead. Sometimes the lucky ones were the men that were shot, hung, or burned. Thousands of wives and children were now without husband and father, without home, and completely dispossessed. One illustration of the human suffering caused by the raids comes from a Jayhawker sergeant’s report: “…we saw a woman approaching from down the dreary, uninhabited roadway. She was on foot and was carrying a baby hugged to her breast, with four little children also walking…All were in their nightclothes and all wet to the skin; children crying from cold and hunger. The babe was dead…the mother died from exposure within 36 hours. The four children were sent to four different homes.”

The criminal nature and motivation of the Jayhawkers was amply documented in contemporary reports and correspondence. During the summer of 1861, the surgeon in Montgomery’s Jayhawker command described most in his regiments as “villains who joined the force for protection in their plundering operations.” Lieutenant Colonel Daniel R. Anthony, a senior officer in Jennison‘s Southern Kansas Jay-Hawkers, wrote his brother-in-law back east about the benefits of jayhawking, “Don’t you want a captaincy or a majorship in the army - or don’t you want to come out here and speculate in cattle - horses and mules - there is a good chance to buy cheap - and stock a farm here at little expense - I would advise you to come out and try it.”

At the outbreak of the war, most Missourians had remained Unionist. Fewer than 5,000 had responded to the initial call of Missouri secessionists to join the Confederate armies. However, with the Jayhawkers operating under the flag of the Union, many Missourians came to view the war as nothing more than a federally sanctioned invasion of hearth and home. At the outset of his jayhawking expedition into Missouri, perhaps as justification for the indiscriminate looting that was to ensue, Jennison had proclaimed, “…neutrality is ended. If you are patriots you must fight (for the Union), if you are traitors you must be punished.” Forced to choose, Missourians now flocked to the flag of the Confederacy.

Too late, high-ranking Union leaders realized the damage that the Jayhawkers had wrought. General Henry Halleck, Commander of the Department of the West, wrote of the Jayhawkers: “They are no better than a band of robbers; they cross the line, rob, steal, plunder, and burn whatever they can lay their hands upon. They disgrace the name and uniform of American soldiers. The course pursued by those under Lane and Jennison, has turned against us many thousands who were formerly Union men.”

Some in the federal command sought to curtail the criminal actions of the jayhawkers, but the genie was already out of the bottle. Because the conventional Confederate forces in the region were forced to stay south of the Missouri-Arkansas border after their defeat at the battle of Pea Ridge, the young men and boys of Missouri who wished to protect their homes and oppose the jayhawkers had only one choice, to join the irregular Confederate forces. Some joined the Missouri Partisan Rangers to resist the jayhawkers and oppose the Union army of occupation. Other Missourians conducted their own raids into Kansas and against pro-Union Missourians. Some sought the return of stolen goods, some sought revenge for murdered friends and family, others were simply the Missouri bushwhacker version of the low-life jayhawkers. The violence continued to spiral downward. Unable or unwilling to differentiate between the legitimate activities of Missouri Partisan Rangers and the bushwhackers, Union forces adopted severe policies against all in arms against the Union. One such policy was execution of captured Missouri guerillas. This only steepened the descent into the horrors of total war. An inspector general of the Union army, tasked with reporting on the impact of the no-prisoners policy in Missouri, wrote “The existing practice enables evil-disposed soldiers to rob and murder loyal and inoffensive citizens under the cover that they were acting as bushwhackers.” In retaliation, Union soldiers captured by Missouri Partisan Rangers and guerillas, formerly paroled, were now also summarily executed.

Another Union policy unleashed in western Missouri was the imprisonment of female relatives of known and suspected Missouri guerillas. In the summer of 1863, the collapse of a Union jail for women in Kansas City killed five of these young women, and crippled several more for life. Many believed the collapse was intentional (it is notable that no Union soldiers or guards were injured or killed in the event.)

Within a week of the jail collapse, a force of several hundred revenge-minded Missourians was on its way to Lawrence, Kansas and the history books. Lawrence was the home of the detested Senator Jim Lane, was a center of jayhawking operations, and was a veritable warehouse of goods stolen from Missouri. The gang of redlegs (a variant of the jayhawkers) based in Lawrence “contained men of the most desperate and hardened character, and a full recital of their deeds would sound like the biography of devils. Either the people of Lawrence could not drive out the freebooters, or they thought it mattered little what might happen to Missouri disloyalists.”

Aristotle observed, "Men regard it as their right to return evil for evil – and, if they cannot, feel they have lost their liberty." Shakespeare wrote, “If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” But perhaps no-one stated the motivation of Quantrill more eloquently than a subordinate who described his commander as, “favoring the old dispensation to the new, that is, the gospel of Moses to that of Jesus Christ.” Quantrill decided that it would an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

The guerillas were hardened by the nature of the attack on their homes and families, and by the “extreme measures” used against them by Union forces. Bill Anderson, soon to be known as “Bloody Bill”, lost a sister in the jail collapse. Cole Younger’s father, a staunch Union man, had been murdered. The four Kimberlin brothers, including 12-year-old Julian, fought under Quantrill after their father was hung from the rafter of his own barn and their home burned. One Quantrill man’s 13-year-old brother was shot on charges he helped feed the guerillas. In the words of a guerilla biographer,

“Almost from the first a large majority of Quantrill’s original command had over them the shadow of some terrible crime. This one recalled a father murdered, this one a brother waylaid and shot, this one a house pillaged and burnt, this one a relative assassinated, this one a grievous insult while at peace at home, this one a robbery of all his earthly possessions, this one the force which compelled him to witness the brutal treatment of a mother or sister, this one was driven away from his own life a thief in the night, this one was threatened with death for opinion's sake, this one was proscribed at the instance of some designing neighbor, this one was arrested wantonly and forced to do the degrading work of a menial; while all had more or less of wrath laid up against the day when they were to meet face to face and hand to hand those whom they had good cause to regard as the living embodiment of unnumbered wrongs.”

Yes, the revenge of the guerillas riding under Quantrill would be severe.

Prior to the jayhawking expeditions of Lane and Jennison in 1861-1862, Governor Robinson of Kansas had tried to stop Lane and his ilk, stating there was little for Kansans to fear from secessionist forces in Missouri, but warning “…what we do have to fear…is that Lane’s brigade will get up a war by going over the line, committing depredations, and then returning into our State.” That warning went unheeded, and on August 21, 1863, the people of Lawrence would pay the price.

Quantrill failed in a primary objective of the Lawrence raid, the capture of Senator Jim Lane. Furthermore, many of the red legs headquartered in Lawrence were gone that day. However, Quantrill and his men were not to be denied their revenge. It would be as lawless and brutal as the months of depredations wreaked on Missourians by the jayhawkers, and it would be compressed into a single day. Quantrill’s men gunned down and killed approximately 150 male residents of Lawrence (from a total population of slightly over 2,000). Approximately one-quarter of the buildings in Lawrence were put to the torch.

The retaliatory nature of the attack on Lawrence was confirmed by the survivors. “The universal testimony of all the ladies and others who talked with the butchers of the 21st ult. Is that these demons claimed there were here to revenge the wrongs done their families by our men under Lane, Jennison, Anthony and Co.”

In response came one of the final escalations of the conflict. Union General Thomas Ewing had already been frustrated by the inability of his forces to defeat the Partisan Rangers operating out of western Missouri, and in the wake of the Lawrence raid he was under intense political pressure to act. Jayhawker leader Jim Lane was calling for the men of Kansas to assemble on the border for the purpose of marching into Missouri and carrying out a campaign of “devastation and extermination.” Four days after the Lawrence raid, General Ewing issued General Order No. 11, which called for the immediate and forced depopulation of several counties along Missouri’s western border. Most of the soldiers that enforced the order were Kansans who welcomed such a splendid opportunity to once again punish and prey upon the Missourians. A high ranking official in Missouri’s Union state government described how under the Order men “were shot down in the very act of obeying the order, and their wagons and effects seized by their murderers.”

Slavery was an evil that needed to be ended; unfortunately, the war that ultimately ended slavery in the United States was used as cover for criminals such as the Jayhawkers to achieve their own evil ends. The war in Missouri was particularly brutal. In a post-war speech, Union Brigadier General John B. Sanborn stated “There exists in the breasts of the people of educated and Christian communities wild and ferocious passions…(which when loosed in a guerilla war) become more cruel and destructive than any that live in the breasts of savage and barbarous nations.”

Those passions, and the cruel and destructive behavior, occurred in people on both sides of the conflict. Did one side in the conflict take particular pride in it? The University of Kansas decided in 1890 to call their new football team the Jayhawkers, and later made the Jayhawk the official mascot of the KU athletic teams. At that time, many Missourians who had lost family, friends, and home in the jayhawking reign of terror during the Civil War were still alive. Students of the University of Missouri in 1891 were removed from that terror by only a single generation. Imagine their reaction when “Go Jayhawkers” was chanted at the inaugural MU-KU football game played that year. If the animosity between Kansans and Missourians had previously started to subside, it was certainly rekindled and stoked at that moment. The rivalry between Missourians and Kansans would live on, with the battles to be fought on the gridiron and hardwood. It would come to be known as The Border War.

Keith Piontek
November 2008

Principal References

Brownlee, Richard S. Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy, Guerilla Warfare in the West, 1861-1865. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1958.

Castel, Albert . Civil War Kansas. University Press of Kansas. 1997.

Castel, Albert. Order No. 11 and the Civil War on the Border. Missouri Historical Review 57: 357-68, July 1963.

Cutler, William G. History of the State of Kansas. A. T. Andreas, Chicago, IL. 1883.

Fellman, Michael. Inside War: The Guerilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Goodrich, Thomas. War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854-1861. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1998. 320p.

Goodrich, Thomas. Black Flag: Guerilla Warfare on the Western Border, 1861-1865. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995.

Leslie, Edward E. The Devil Knows How to Ride: The True Story of William Clarke Quantrill and His Confederate Raiders. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998.

Edwards, John N. Noted Guerrillas or the Warfare of the Border. 1877

Spring, Leverett Wilson. Kansas, The Prelude to the War for the Union. New York: Boston Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1896.

Peterson, Paul L. Quantrill of Missouri. Cumberland House Publishing, Inc. 2003.

Traditions, The Jayhawk. University of Kansas web site. http://www.ku.edu/about/traditions/jayhawk.shtml

Part 2: Jennison the Jayhawker

MizzouFan — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:54:26 -0000

{Editor's note: In preparation for this year's Border War, RMN reader Keith Piontek has authored a four-part series on the origins of the Missouri/Kansas rivalry. Today, we have part two.}

One of the more hotly debated topics regarding the origins of the MU-KU rivalry is KU’s selection of “Jayhawks” as their athletic team moniker. It is unlikely the KU athletic teams would have this name if not for one man, Charles R. “Doc” Jennison. More than any other individual, Jennison gave the term “jayhawkers” a lasting place in the lexicon of Kansas and the surrounding region. To understand Jennison is to understand the original meaning of the jayhawker term, and the jayhawkers’ place in Border War history.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 turned Kansas Territory into a battleground between those that would extend and those that would exclude slavery from what would be become, in 1861, the new state of Kansas. After pro-slavery forces dominated initial territorial government elections, aided by a campaign of Election Day intimidation and ballot box stuffing on the part of Missouri “border ruffians”, free-state forces formed a competing territorial government. With two competing governments in place, there was really no government at all, at least not any unbiased law enforcement, and a period of lawlessness descended upon the territory. In the spring of 1856, when John Brown and his band pulled five pro-slavery settlers from their homes along Pottawatomie Creek in the middle of the night and brutally hacked them to death, the struggle turned increasingly violent and bloody. In the words of an early Kansas historian, “…the Pottawatomie massacre at once fomented and embittered the struggle. A period of lawlessness and marauding now set in that left stains on both parties as inevitably as the snail slimes its track.”[1]

During this period, many Kansans undoubtedly acted with noble motives: to stop slavery expansion, to uphold free and fair elections, and to resist the armed incursions of the border ruffians. However, some of the free-state armed bands quickly “deteriorated into freebooters”.[2] “They gave themselves up to plundering, robbing and stealing from everybody and anybody. They pretended to be Free-State men – called themselves so – but any man who had a little property was a Pro-Slavery man in their eyes, and ‘all horses were Pro-Slavery’”.[3] After immigrating to Kansas Territory in 1856, Charles R. Jennison became a leader among these plunderers.

Jennison was a diminutive man. It is said that very little of Jennison was visible above his boot tops, and he often wore a tall, brimless fur cap to give the appearance of greater stature.[4] His attire led some to describe him as a “dandy”. In fact, one theory held that the term “jayhawker” was a derivation of “Gay Yorker”, and referred to Jennison, a New York native.[5] It would be a mistake, however, to conclude Jennison’s chief attribute was gaiety. His character was perhaps more aptly described by the person who, upon seeing Jennison doff his cap and display his disheveled hair, remarked that he looked like an “enraged porcupine”.[6]

The conflicts of the “Bleeding Kansas” period were largely confined to the area within a 30 mile radius of Lawrence, and were largely over by the end of 1858 when the Kansas statehood issue had essentially been decided in favor of the Free State party. However, in the southeast Kansas counties of Linn, Bourbon, and Miami, the violence continued on into the Civil War. Here, pro-slavery settlers had arrived first, and had staked claims to the best land, those with timber and water. Here, the conflict evolved into an offensive by militant free-state forces that drove pro-slavery settlers from Kansas Territory, followed by raids into Missouri. It was here in southeast Kansas that the term “jayhawker” emerged, and where Jennison initially made his mark. Jennison excelled at turning the turmoil into personal gain. When Free State forces raided Fort Scott in November of 1858 to free a compatriot jailed on murder charges, Jennison led the assault on a general store and its stockpile of women’s saddles.[7], [8] Later that same month, when John Brown led a raid into Missouri to free slaves, Jennison helped liberate 1,500 pounds of ham and bacon.[9]

As an accomplished plunderer, Jennison attracted men of dubious character to his band. One of them was Pat Devlin, also referred to as “Pat with a devil in him”, a man “no more or less than a dangerous thief”.[10] When Devlin was seen entering a Kansas border village with a horse almost hidden from view by the various goods it was packing and was asked what he had been up to, Pat replied he’d been out jayhawking. And when asked to explain what that term meant, Devlin stated, “I have been foraging off the enemy (pro-slavery settlers), and while riding home on me beast, I bethought me of the bird we have in Ireland, we call the jayhawk, which takes delight in worryin’ its prey before devouring it and I thought ‘jayhawking’ a good name for the business I was in meself.”[11] By 1858 and 1859, the term “jayhawker” began appearing in letters and other documentation referring to Jennison and other militant free-state Kansan bands.[12]

If it was just the plundering, Jennison’s name would be mo more noteworthy than the names of the other thieves he ran with, names that have generally been relegated to the dust bins of history. It was Jennison’s viciousness, disregard for human life, and flair for the dramatic that set him apart. Jennison’s notoriety spread like prairie fire when Jennison took a trip through Linn County, Kansas in November of 1860 and left a string of dead men in his wake. On three consecutive days, Jennison first hung “old man Scott” in his own door yard, then hung Russ Hines, and finally broke into L.D. Moore’s home during the night and shot him in his bed. One story is that the first two were killed because they had participated in enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law which, while still federal law, was anathema to majority of the free state settlers. However, another theory is that Jennison’s true motive was to terrorize pro-slavery settlers into permanently abandoning their valuable land claims. Jennison’s justification for the murder of Moore was different. Moore had been a member of a vigilante committee attempting to stop the rampant horse theft in the area. When Moore and his fellow vigilantes lynched a horse thief, it apparently hit too close to home for Jennison. When asked why he killed Moore, Jennison stated he was “a little too ______ conservative”. After Moore’s murder, Jennison illustrated his cold-blooded nature when he and his band “went to the house of M. E. Hudson, whose wife was a relative of L. D. Moore….Jennison informed Mrs. Hudson of what he had done, and, while she was weeping, ordered her to provide breakfast for his party." [13]

The Governor of Kansas Territory issued a warrant for Jennison’s arrest and offered a $1,000 reward for his capture, but Jennison eluded the authorities. Less than 15 months later, after Kansas had gained statehood and the nation fell into civil war, Jennison standing with the government made a dramatic turnaround. Not only was the warrant for Jennison’s arrest dropped, Kansas Governor Charles Robinson appointed Jennison a Colonel and head of a cavalry unit, which became the Seventh Kansas Cavalry. “Robinson hoped, fatuously, that if Jennison was given a legitimate outlet for his warlike propensities he would cease his marauding and be of service to the state and the Union.”[14] Proud of his jayhawking past and not intending to deviate from that mode of “military action” in the future, Jennison called his cavalry unit the “Independent Kansas Jay-Hawkers”, which became shortened in popular usage to “Jennison’s Jayhawkers”.

The Seventh’s nickname and esprit de corps was provided in large part by Company H, a group of Kansans already well versed in the practice of jayhawking. Their leader, an escaped convict named Marshall Cleveland, was commissioned Captain. George Hoyt was also made an officer in Jennison’s regiment. This was the start of an alliance between Jennison and Hoyt that would last throughout the war. Hoyt first came to public notice as defense counsel at John Brown’s treason trial (following Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry and failed slave insurrection). Hoyt’s primary duty as Brown’s counsel was apparently to help plan an escape attempt.[15] Together, Jennison and Hoyt would become a scourge to Missourians along the Kansas border.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, most Missourians along the western border were neutral. They wanted nothing to do with either the radical abolitionists in Kansas or the secessionist element in Missouri. However, these people were not going to be allowed to stay out of the conflict. At the outset of his jayhawking expedition into Missouri, Jennison issued the following proclamation, perhaps to justify the wide-spread looting that followed: “..neutrality is impossible; if you are patriots you must fight; if your are traitors, you will be punished...Traitors will everywhere be treated as outlaws; enemies of God and man, too base to hold any description of property, and having no rights which loyal men are bound to respect.”[16] By the terms Jennison thereby set forth, any families attempting to stay neutral were fair game for his marauders.

Between Jenison’s forces and the troops under the command of Senator Jim Lane, the Kansas troops descended upon the border counties of western Missouri in a campaign of theft, arson, and murder. A whole sting of towns, as wells as large swaths of the western Missouri countryside, were pillaged and put to the torch. The largest of these towns, Osceola, with a population of approximately 3,000 (roughly the same size as Lawrence, Kansas), was sacked and burned in December 1861. Men across western Missouri forfeited not only their wealth, but their lives. Hundreds of families were burned out of their homes during the middle of winter, with nothing but the clothes on their back.

General Henry H. Halleck, Union Commander of the Department of the West, belatedly moved to stop the predations of the Kansas troops. In the spring of 1862, he characterized the forces of Lane and Jennison as “worse than useless, for they compel me to keep troops from other States on the Missouri border to prevent these Kansas troops from committing murders and robberies.”[17] Halleck ordered the Seventh Kansas to the interior of Kansas, and plans were developed to use the Seventh Kansas Cavalry in an expedition to New Mexico. It has been theorized that Halleck was thinking, “the Seventh have made themselves obnoxious with their jayhawking; very well, let them try it with the Mescalero Apaches.” [18]

With Halleck asserting control over his command, the Independent Kansas Jay-Hawkers were no longer as independent as Jennison preferred, and to make matters worse the Seventh was now stationed outside striking distance of the Missouri border. Also upset over having been passed over for promotion, Jennison resigned his command in April 1862. George Hoyt’s resignation soon followed. A member of the Seventh Kansas who later wrote a regimental history, commented that , “Colonel Jennison performed some acts worthy of commendation, conspicuous among which was his resignation…Captain George H. Hoyt was combination of ambition and cruelty…The company and regiment were well rid of him when he resigned.”[19]

Jennison did not resign quietly. A number of his troops interpreted his inflammatory farewell address as an invitation to desert. When Jennison interfered with efforts to return these deserters to their units, Jennison was arrested and sent to St. Louis with this warning from his commanding officer, “I send Col. Jennison of the Seventh Kansas Volunteers to St. Louis, in order that he may be placed in such close custody as will place his escape beyond the pale of possibility…He is charged with very grave offences, such as disorganizing his regiment, and inducing his men to desert so that he can place themselves at their head…and become the leader of a band of outlaws whose object is to be plunder.”[20] However, Jennison had powerful friends among abolitionist politicians, and they succeeded in having Jennison released before formal charges were brought against him.

The Seventh was rid of Jennison, but not of the bad reputation they had acquired under his leadership. A solider in the Seventh Kansas who rose to the rank of Adjutant wrote, “The name of ‘jayhawker’ was not an asset at first to be highly valued…When, in the spring of 1862, the regiment was ordered down to the Army of the Tennessee, where real war was on tap, the name suggested a scapegoat, and every regiment in the army corps began systematically to lay their depredations on the shoulders of the Seventh Kansas.”[21]

Meanwhile, back in Kansas, it appears that Jennison fulfilled the prediction that he intended to resume his plundering as leader of an outlaw gang. General Blunt assumed command of the Department of Kansas in 1862, and declared upon taking command that “An organization had sprung into existence known as “Red Legs”…A reign of terror was inaugurated, and no man’s property was safe, nor was his life worth much if he opposed them in their schemes of plunder and robbery.”[22] The term “Red Legs” came to be used to describe three different (but overlapping) elements: 1) rogues devoted entirely to plundering, regardless of the political caste of their victims, 2) men nominally associated with Union forces but primarily engaged in profitable criminal activity, and 3) those who served alongside regular federal forces as scouts and in a counter-insurgency role, who occasionally lapsed into criminal activity.[23]

The shadowy connection between the redlegs and regular Union forces was illustrated in the following order from General Blunt. “All operations against rebels must be directed by the legal military authorities. This injunction is to apply especially to an organization known as the Redlegs, which is an organized band of thieves and violators of law and good order…And as there is reason to believe that officers in the military service are implicated , directly or indirectly, in the offenses committed by Redlegs and lawless bands, therefore upon the evidence that any officer has failed or neglected to carry out the foregoing instructions in reference to such offenders, they will be dishonorably dismissed from the service of the United States.”[24]

Both Jennison and Hoyt figured prominently in the redlegs’ operations. Lawrence, Kansas was a redleg headquarters. Here, the livery stables were filled with stolen horses, and stolen goods were brazenly auctioned. “Red-legs were accustomed to brag in Lawrence," says one who was familiar with their movements, "that nobody dared to interfere with them. They did not hesitate to shoot inquisitive and troublesome people… I once saw Hoyt, the leader, without a word of explanation or warning, open fire upon a stranger quietly riding down Massachusetts Street. He was a Missourian whom Hoyt had recently robbed."[25]

Jennison worked behind the scenes in a freighting business that he started after his resignation from the army, where he would have ready use for jayhawked livestock. In the words of a Jennison biographer, “It was a foregone conclusion that Jennison, once he was free of his ties with the army, would become involved in some manner with the Red Legs. They were only practicing what he had advocated from the start as the proper method of dealing with the rebels. If in the process non-rebels and even anti-rebels and Kansans suffered the same treatment, Jennison was not the man to boggle over technicalities.”[26] Jennison’s brother was implicated in an associated scheme of seizing livestock and other property from recently freed slaves that could not prove ownership.[27]

The activities of Jennison and Hoyt were common knowledge in Kansas. Just weeks before Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, a correspondent for a Kansas newspaper wrote a tongue-in-cheek dispatch from Lawrence concerning the city’s efforts to establish a defense, “These formidable defenses were made for two reasons: First, to save us from surprise from Quantrill. Second, to prevent Jennison and Hoyt from coming to our rescue…It was decided that although great danger to the city still existed, still, a just regard to the insecurity of property, especially stock, demanded that Jennison and Hoyt be excluded.”[28]

While this illustrates the ill repute that Jennison had among some Kansans, Jennison was embraced to a greater degree after Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence. One newspaper wrote, “We do not endorse Jennison in some respects. He is too wild and reckless. But one thing is certain; when Jennison was in Missouri, we did not have rebel raids into this state. He generally made enough work for them at home, to keep them there.”[29] This newspaperman apparently failed to recognize or acknowledge that it was men like Jennison and their predations in the early months of the war that had helped to unleash the horrors of total war in the region, and that had precipitated the retaliatory raid on Lawrence.

At about the time of Quantrill’s raid, the Governor of Kansas called upon Jennison to raise and lead a regiment of cavalry (the Fifteenth Kansas) to defend the eastern counties of Kansas from the incursions of Missouri guerillas. The Jennison-Hoyt connection continued, with Hoyt commissioned as Captain and second-in-command. Jennison, true to earlier form, parlayed animosity against Missourians into recruits, announcing in a recruiting poster, “No Quarter for Bushwackers! Desolation Shall Follow Treason Wherever This Regiment Marches!” However, the Union military command, recalling the campaign of terror perpetrated by Kansas troops in 1861/1862, had previously decided the Fifteenth was to be used solely for the protection of Kansas within that state and would not be permitted to cross the border into Missouri.[30]

While Missouri was not subjected to the additional round of plundering, arson, and murder that had been threatened by Jennison, Arkansas was not so lucky. After Price’s Raid into Missouri and his defeat at the battle of Westport in the final months of the war, Jennison led the Fifteenth Kansas in its pursuit of Price into Arkansas. On the return trip through northern Arkansas, reports began to filter in that the Fifteenth had fallen into the same pattern of criminal activity that had earlier characterized Jennison’s Seventh Kansas. A correspondent with the Fifteenth Kansas boasted that “Arkansas guerilla mothers and sisters use the name of (Jennison) to frighten unruly children, and by the light of burning houses, and beside the blackening timers of their homes, wish perhaps that Dad hadn’t gone off with (Confederate General) Prices or into the brush (to fight guerilla style).”[31]

General Blunt ordered an investigation, and charges were brought against Jennison and others under his command. Charges against Jennison included burning defenseless women and children out of their homes, entering private residences with his troops and robbing the occupants of personal effects, hanging three men professing to be loyal to the Union, and permitting his troops to “engage in an indiscriminate system of destruction and pillaging of property from loyal as well as disloyal citizens”. At the ensuing court martial, Jennison was not held personally responsible on some of the more odious charges brought against him, but he was convicted on several others and was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army.[32]

Jennison retired to a life of ranching and politics. During the Civil War, in acknowledgement of Jennison’s prolific horse thievery, the pedigree of good horseflesh in the region came to be described as, “out of Missouri, by Jennison”. Jennison’s ranch was known for its thoroughbred racehorses and trotters. Kansas thought it natural that Jennison should become involved in the breeding of racehorses, because “for some five or six years the Colonel enjoyed unusual facilities for selecting fast horses from numerous stables”.[33]

Over his military career, Jennison accomplished some good. Most notably, he and his forces freed many slaves. Some claim Jennison was an ardent abolitionist with a hatred of slavery that was as great as his love of plunder. However, the good done by Jennison in freeing slaves was offset (at a minimum) by the vicious tactics he employed against the civilian population of surrounding states. One noted Border War historian concluded Jennison’s chief attributes were “brutality, unscrupulousness, and opportunism”, and that for Jennison, “fighting against slavery was mainly an excuse for banditry”.[34]

When confronted with the historical reality of the original jayhawkers as thieves and plunderers, many KU fans state that the jayhawker term had acquired a different meaning by the time it was embraced by Kansans (and later by KU). However, it is perhaps noteworthy that in the years following the Civil War, Kansans seem to have embraced not only the term, but the jayhawkers themselves. Charles R. Jennison, who did more than anyone to bring “jayhawker” into the nation’s language as a term denoting thief and plunderer, was elected to the Kansas State House of Representatives in 1865 and again in 1867, and to the State Senate in 1871. Perhaps even more illuminating, “Chief Redleg” George Hoyt was elected by Kansans to the top law enforcement position in the state, that of Attorney General, in 1867.

Keith Piontek
November 2008

[1] Spring, Leverett Wilson. Kansas: The Prelude to the War for the Union. Houghton, Mifflin, and Company. 1896. p 176.

[2] Bondi, August. Excerpts from the Autobiography of August Bondi (1833-1907). Yearbook for German-American Studies 40(2005): 87-159.

[3] T.F. Robley. History of Bourbon County, Kansas: to the close of 1865. Fort Scott, Kansas. Press of the Monitor Book & Print. Co., 1894. http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/bourbon/history/1894/

[4] Starr, Stephen Z. Jennison’s Jayhawkers, A Civil War Cavalry Regiment and Its Commander. Louisiana State University Press. 1973. p 32.

[5] Spring, Kansas: The Prelude to the War for the Union, p 256.

[6] Daily Times [Leavenworth, KS], September 6, 1864, p. 3, c. 1

[7] Robley. History of Bourbon County, Chapter XVIII.

[8] Cutler, William G. History of the State of Kansas. Bourbon County, Part 4, Border Troubles. www.kancoll.org/books/cutler

[9] Welch, G. Murlin. Border Warfare in Southeast Kansas: 1856-1859. Linn County Publishing Co., Inc. 1977.

[10] The Kansas War, The Distrubances in Southern Kansas – Brown and Montgomery. New York Times, January 28, 1859.

[11] Cutler, History of Kansas; Miami County, Part 2. www.kancoll.org/books/cutler

[12] Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, etc. Standard Publishing Company, Chicago. 1912. http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1912]

[13] Robley. History of Bourbon County, Chapter XXI.

[14] Castel, Albert. Kansas Jayhawking Raids Into Western Missouri in 1861. Missouri Historical Review 54/1. October 1959.

[15] Thomas J. Fleming. Verdicts of History III: The Trial of John Brown. American Heritage. August 1967. Volume 18, Issue 5.

[16] New York Times. November 16, 1861. Extracts from proclamation issued by Jennison to the people of six Missouri counties along the Kansas border.

[17] General Henry H. Halleck. Letter to E.M. Stanton, Secretary of War. March 8, 1862.

[18] Starr, Jennison’s Jayhawkers, p 133.

[19] Fox, S.M. The Story of the Seventh Kansas. Kansas State Historical Society, Volume VIII, 1903-1904.

[20] Starr, Jennison’s Jayhawkers, p 143.

[21] Fox, S.M. The Early History of the Seventh Kansas Cavalry. Kansas State Historical Society, Volume XI, 19093-1911.

[22] General Blunt’s Account of His Civil War Experiences. Kansas Historical Quarterly 1 (May 1932): 211.

[23] Matt Matthews and Kip Lindberg. “Better Off in Hell”,The Evolution of the Kansas Redlegs. North and South, May 2002, Vol. 5 No. 4.

[24] General Blunt, Headquarters District of Kansas, Fort Leavenworth, April 16, 1863. Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Part II, pp 222 and 223.

[25] Spring, Kansas, The Prelude to the War for the Union, p 286.

[26] Starr, Jennison’s Jayhawkers, p 215.

[27] Matthews and Lindberg, “Better Off in Hell”.

[28] Leavenworth Conservative, August 4, 1863.

[29] Starr, Jennison’s Jayhawkers, p 258.

[30] Ibid, p 258.

[31] Correspondent writing under the name of “Occasional”. Letter to the Daily Times 9Leavenworth, Kansas), November 24, 1864.

[32] Starr, Jennison’s Jayhawkers, p 367.

[33] Starr, Jennison’s Jayhawkers, p 382.

[34] Castel, Albert. Civil War Kansas. University Press of Kansas. 1997. Page 43.

Part 1: Kansas Mythology

MizzouFan — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:00:21 -0000

{Editor's note: In preparation for this year's Border War, RMN reader Keith Piontek has authored a four-part series on the origins of the Missouri/Kansas rivalry. In Part 1, he examines the mythology commonly associated with Kansas.}

Most passionate fans of the University of Missouri and University of Kansas know that the rivalry between the schools is rooted in the Civil War. This rather unique basis for a college sports rivalry has led to a rather unique form of trash talking between the rival fans. Almost inevitably, the rivalry banter turns to bushwhackers and jayhawkers, Quantrill and the burning of Lawrence, the depredations of the Kansas troops in Missouri, etc.

Forgive me if I paint KU fandom with too broad a brush, but the version of Civil War era history that many KU fans seem to have is not much deeper than the following: it was "Missouri versus Kansas", with "Missouri = slavers", "Kansans = noble abolitionists", and "noble abolitionists in Kansas = jayhawkers." This is the first in a series of four articles that attempts to sort the true history of the rivalry’s origins from the mythology that tends to be cited by KU fans.

Missouri versus Kansas

The origins of the conflict between Missourians and Kansans lie in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and the resulting struggles between those that would expand slavery into and those that would exclude slavery from what would become the new state of Kansas. Certainly, this included conflict between a pro-slavery element in Missouri and what became a majority of the new settlers of Kansas Territory. Without a doubt, the resulting animosity between Missourians and Kansans from the Territorial period spilled over into the Civil War. However, “Missouri versus Kansas” is an overly simplistic summary of the nature of the conflict. In the case of these conflicts, the devil was truly in the details.

First, a large number of the settlers in Kansas Territory were transplanted Missourians. By 1860, slightly over 10 percent of the Kansas population was comprised of settlers from Missouri (versus only 4 percent comprised of the “Yankee abolitionist” emigrants from the New England states). [1] A substantial number of these settlers from Missourians joined the Kansas free-state party (i.e., those that opposed the expansion of slavery into Kansas). Second, not all of those who attempted to expand slavery into Kansas were from Missouri. Just as the Kansas-Nebraska Act spurred immigration of abolitionists from the northeast, so it spurred immigration of slavery expansionists from the Deep South. The infamous Marais des Cygnes Massacre of Bleeding Kansas lore is often attributed to the “dastardly Missourians”, but the truth of the matter is that this crime was planned and led by a Georgian that had attempted to settle in Kansas Territory but had been driven from his claim by free-state militants.

Similarly, while the Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border certainly had Missouri versus Kansas attributes, the conflict was far more complex. Missouri was a border state, and Missouri residents exhibited a broad spectrum of sentiment on matters such as Union, states rights, and slavery. It is ludicrous to characterize all Missourians as being on one particular side, or having one particular stand on the key issues of that era. The Civil War in Missouri was just as much (or more) about “Missouri versus Missouri” than it was “Kansas versus Missouri”, although the latter generated many of the most infamous incidents along the border. While understandable to an extent given the nature of the warfare that erupted in Missouri, some Kansans are surprised to learn that the Union (and Kansas as a Union state) was never at a formal state of war with Missouri. Missouri retained a pro-Union government throughout the war, and the United States government never classified Missouri as being in a state of rebellion.

Missouri = Slavers

"Missouri = slavers" is KU trash-talking shorthand for the notions that Missourians of that era can generally be classified as slave-owning advocates of slavery expansion into Kansas, and/or were among those who fought in the Civil War to save slavery. This characterization is so overly simplistic and inaccurate as to be almost laughable if it wasn't so widely believed in KU fandom.

While Missouri entered the Union as a slave state according to the terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, it was distinct from the slave states of the Deep South. By 1860 slaves accounted for just under 10 percent of Missouri’s residents, the smallest proportion of all slave states save Delaware. Fewer than 1 in 5 Missouri families owned slaves, lowest of any of the slave states save Delaware and a far cry from South Carolina, where more than half of all free white families owned slaves.[2]

Many Missourians were against slavery and/or its expansion. Notable examples include Thomas Hart Benton, the pre-eminent Missouri politician of the pre-war era, whose principled stand against slavery expansion earned him a place in Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize winning book that described eight United States senators of exceptional integrity. Frank Blair of St. Louis was a leader of the Missouri Free Soil Party, helped to save Missouri for the Union, and served as a brigadier general in the Union army. Blair’s brother, St. Louis attorney Montgomery Blair, represented Dred Scott before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued for his freedom. Missourian Edward Bates was one of the leading candidates for the 1860 Republican Party presidential nomination, and later served in Lincoln’s cabinet as Attorney General.

In the years leading to the Civil War, the Missouri state government arguably became increasingly aligned with the radical pro-slavery element of the Deep South. However, secession was overwhelmingly rejected at the state convention called to consider the issue. The voters of Missouri did not elect a single avowed secessionist to the convention.[3]

When war come, many more Missouri men served the Union than the Confederacy (by over a 3:1 margin). Over 14,000 Missouri men died while in Union arms.[4] While many Missourians did fight for the Confederacy, it would be misleading and unfair to characterize the motivations of all or even most of these men as fighting to save slavery. In deciding “which side’, family heritage and nationality tended to be greater influences than opinions on slavery and abolition. “If the family came to Missouri along the southern migration path—Virginia to Tennessee or Kentucky, then on to Missouri—the person usually went with the Confederacy. If the migration path was northerly, through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois into Missouri, the person usually went with the Union. Family allegiance, and social and cultural upbringing, tended to be the influencing factors.”[5]

Many if not most Missourians that suffered at the hands of marauding Kansans during the Civil War wanted nothing to do with either slavery expansion or the secessionist element in Missouri. Many in western Missouri sought to stay out of the war, and many of those that ultimately chose to join the Confederacy and/or to fight the Kansans did so not for any high-minded political or ideological cause, but simply to defend their families and communities from an invading and plundering foe, and for revenge on the outrages perpetrated on their families and communities.

Were there "slavers" in Missouri? Yes. In the Border War era, did "Missourian = slaver"? Absolutely not.

Kansans = Noble Abolitionists

"Kansans = noble abolitionists" is a myth. While there were noble-minded and principled abolitionists that settled in Kansas, they were a decided minority, and the rank and file of the Kansas Territory free-state contingent was comprised of men that "were as much anti-Negro as they were anti-slavery, and they were in a large measure anti-slavery because they were anti-Negro; that is, they feared the social and economic consequences of the introduction of Negro slave labor into the state."[6]

This characterization is supported by the nature of the Topeka Constitution, the state constitution initially developed by Kansas Free-Staters. The Topeka Constitution would have prohibited slavery in Kansas, but it also allowed for the exclusion of free blacks. When the Free-Staters voted to accept the constitution, they voted by a 3:1 margin for the exclusion of free blacks. (The U.S. Congress rejected the Topeka Constitution, in part because its “black law” characteristic was concealed by the Kansans who presented the constitution to Congress.)[7]

(Since some KU fans like to play the racist “slaver” card, it seems fair to point out that Kansas has not exactly been the beacon and bastion of lofty humanitarianism and equality often implied. Most notably, blacks did not gain the right to vote in Kansas until the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and schools in Kansas were not desegregated until the United States Supreme Court’s famous Brown versus Board of Education (of Topeka, KS) decision.)

Militant Wing of Noble Abolitionists = Jayhawkers

The biggest misconception held by many KU fans is that "jayhawkers" was a term used in the Territorial and Civil War eras for the militant wing of the noble abolitionists. While there was a strain of noble and principled abolition in Kansas, it was polluted to an almost overwhelming degree by men that used Union and Abolition as a cover for theft, plunder, and worse. “Jayhawker” was the term that was used in that era for these lawless men.

The emergence of the jayhawker term in the Kansas Territorial Period is described in a 1885 history of Kansas history written by a KU professor. He described the men in southeast Kansas Territory that first acquired the moniker. “Confederated at first for defense against pro-slavery outrages, but ultimately falling more or less completely into the vocation of robbers and assassins, they have received the name --- whatever its origin may be -- of jayhawkers”.[8]

Some KU fans will argue that, while the jayhawker term did describe an unsavory element of the Kansas population, it also encompassed the noble abolitionists that employed force to liberate slaves while the institution was still protected by the United States constitution (men who were therefore doing good although engaged in what technically was a criminal activity). According to some historians, James Montgomery was the epitome such a principled, militant abolitionist. One of Montgomery’s biographers was very careful to differentiate his motives and activities from those of the jayhawkers. "The truth seems to be that while he was the greatest leader of the Jayhawkers, yet he was not himself a Jayhawker. He did not himself believe in nor practice plundering from the Pro-slavery men, merely because they were Pro-slavery men, nor in plundering Missourians merely because they were Missourians... the odium which rightfully should attach to those who were "Jayhawkers" in the odious sense of that term, wrongfully attaches to Montgomery's name."[9]

From these historical tidbits, one can begin to understand the original meaning of the term “jayhawker” in the Territorial Period and Civil War along the Missouri-Kansas border: thieves and plunderers that hid under the cover of abolition and Union to prey on civilians, particularly Missouri civilians. Commenting on Albert Castel’s classic history of the Civil War in Kansas, one reviewer stated that the book, “uncovers villains by the dozen but nary a hero”.[10] To a surprising degree, the history of early Kansas is dominated by an assortment of unsavory rogues. Collectively, there were no categories of Kansas men more unsavory than the jayhawkers and the associated redlegs. One of the most fascinating aspects of the Missouri-Kansas rivalry is how Kansans, and later the University of Kansas, came to embrace the jayhawker term and the redleg symbol.

Summary

The version of Missouri-Kansas Border War history that is often cited by KU fans is more myth than historical fact. This is not surprising when one understands the extent to which mythmaking has permeated the historiography of Territorial Kansas and the subsequent years of Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas border.

As a KU history professor once wrote, “TRUTH, THE adage has it, is stranger than fiction, but stranger than either of them is fiction purveyed as its opposite. For over a century descriptions of territorial Kansas have had an abundance of that peculiar commodity. In the year 1856 much of Kansas was in a turmoil compounded of violence, murder, and outright war. For their own purposes, the men who described the troubled times banished fact and summoned fancy in its place. Within the territory and throughout the nation, politicians, newspapermen, and participants in the events reconstructed the recent history of Kansas at will. For a century afterward the example of the partisans of '56 endured. While Kansans themselves created fables about the territorial days and boasted that because Kansas became a free state the nation was free of slavery, abolitionists generated legends about the valor and humanitarianism of John Brown, and historians nurtured the myth that the strife in Kansas was the Civil War in miniscule. Instead of a historical reality, territorial Kansas was a state of mind.”[11]

In subsequent installments of this series, I will attempt to shed more light on the historical reality at the basis of the Missouri-Kansas rivalry, and the associated KU “state of mind” that continues to influence the emotions and semantics of the rivalry through the present day.

Keith Piontek
November 2008

[1] Territorial Kansas Online 1854-1861, A Virtual Repository for Territorial Kansas History, Immigration and Early Settlement. http://www2.ku.edu/cgiwrap/imlskto/index.php?SCREEN=immigration&option=more

[2] Phillips, Christopher. “The Crime Against Missouri”: slavery, Kansas, and the cant of Southerness in the border West. Civil War History. March 1, 2002.

[3] Evans, Clement A. Missouri in the Civil War. Confederate Military History, Vol. 9, Chapter II. Confederate Publishing Company. 1899.

[4] Missouri State Archives. Soldiers' Records: Abstract of Wars & Military Engagements, War of 1812 through World War I. Missouri Digital Heritage: http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/soldiers/abstract.asp

[5] D. H. Rule. Choosing Sides. Civil War St. Louis web site. http://www.civilwarstlouis.com/Commentaries/choosing.htm

[6] Castel, Albert. Civil War Kansas. University Press of Kansas. 1997. Page 43.

[7] Leverett Wilson Spring. Kansas: The Prelude to the War for the Union. Houghton, Mifflin, and Company. 1896. p 240.

[8] Ibid. pp. 71-78.

[9] Cutler, William G. History of the State of Kansas, Era of Peace, Part 43. http://www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/eraop/era-of-peace-p43.html

[10] Wichita Eagle. Review comment on the dust jacket of Civil War Kansas, University Press of Kansas, 1997.

[11] Griffin, C.S. The University of Kansas and the Sack of Lawrence: A Problem of Intellectual Honesty. Kansas Historical Quarterly: Winter, 1968 (Vol. XXXIV. No. 4), pages 409 to 426.