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The Lawrence Raid Sesquicentennial - Politically Correct

When an interested historian, attorney Zachary Cartwright of Kansas City, proposed a sesquicentennial remembrance of Colonel William Clarke Quantrill's light cavalry raid on Lawrence Kansas at his place of business, The Black and Gold Tavern, 3740 Broadway, Kansas City, Missouri, on August 21, 2013, as a simple toast to Southern patriotism and a stunning military victory over the Kansas Jayhawkers who had for years devastated the Missouri countryside with their rape, house burnings, murder and pillaging, it didn't take long for the liberal press to swarm his establishment accusing him about his politically incorrect sentiments. 
When interviewed on TV by a local Channel 41 news reporter Cartwright was castigated for not accepting the past 150 years of Yankee revisionist history and especially the accounting of Quantrill's Lawrence raid. He was challenged by his belief in a recent well-documented book that sheds an enlightened view of what happened during the raid and why for the first time. This new comprehensive volume is included in the book, Quantrill at Lawrence - The Untold Story by Paul R. Petersen, published by Pelican Publishing Company. 
Also challenging Cartwright's politically incorrect sentiments was Kansas of University Professor Jonathan Earle, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., who blasted Cartwright by describing his event as being in "poor taste" and displaying a "willful ignorance" about the Lawrence raid. Professor Earle joins a long list of Kansans who have received their revisionist history of the Lawrence raid in the city once popularly known as "The Citadel of Stolen Goods" and whose citizens were affectionately labeled as "pirates of the prairies." But this is the norm for someone educated in the Yankee bastion of Princeton University and is "willfully ignorant" of the facts in the conflict known as the Missouri-Kansas border wars. Professor Earle is listed on the university's website as presently teaching an undergraduate course on the history of conspiracies and paranoia in the United States. Professor Earle would do well to free himself from the ignorance about the conspiracy of collusion following the Lawrence raid by the citizens of Lawrence, Kansas, where their lies, untruths and sensationalized accounts have all been exposed in the book Quantrill at Lawrence. 
Kansans are still paranoid and angry by those honoring the truth of the Lawrence raid for denying them their own celebration of victimhood. Eighty-six buildings were destroyed during the Lawrence raid compared to over 2,200 documented homes destroyed by Jayhawkers in Missouri along the border. No women or children were harmed during the Lawrence raid while in Missouri 80 year old elderly citizens were gunned down for their Southern sympathies and boys as young as 10 years old were torn from their mother's arms and murdered in cold blood because one of their relatives rode with Quantrill. 
It appears strong feelings about the Civil War and William Quantrill can still emotionally charge many. Mr. Cartwright has received numerous negative comments, apparently from those who choose not to illuminate themselves about what actually transpired during the Missouri-Kansas border wars, on his business's Face Book page: blackgoldkc.com. Such severe and inappropriate comments from Kansas supporters have forced many of their postings to be removed. One such posting that shows that the age old Yankee lies about the raid are still being perpetuated is evidenced by the following: On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Victoria Richter at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. wrote: I had relatives killed in that massacre. I can't believe you would gloat over that event in which not only men, but many children were killed. Shame on you. 
Apparently Ms. Richter hasn't read Quantrill at Lawrence to discover that the town of Lawrence was an armed camp. Almost every man in town was in the Lawrence militia and owned a Sharps carbine, the most effective and deadly weapon of its day. The town was protected by thirteen companies of soldiers constantly patrolling its streets and the town was defended by five forts manned with cannon located along the likely avenues of approach. Over 1,000 soldiers intended to man these forts in case of emergency. The list of killed reveal that over 40% of the victims were in the Federal army while the remainder was in the local militia. Factual evidence shows that the collusion of Yankee lies saying that the town was unarmed and defenseless and its citizens were innocent and peaceful are the stuff of tabloid sensationalism, the kind we have come to expect from the politically correct state run media.
 Thank you Zachary Cartwright and all those who consider themselves lovers of liberty and truth, and thank you William Clarke Quantrill for cleaning out that den of thieves, at least for a short while.                         
 
Paul R. Petersen 2013 © quantrillsguerrillas.com. Permission should be requested and agreed to before using this or copyrighted essay or image.

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