Col. James Ford, regimental commander of the Second Cavalry. Image is courtesy of History Colorado.

Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 42 (Winter 2019–2020), 242–255

242 History The Second Colorado Cavalry and the Conquest of the Central Plains by Christopher M. Rein

ecent scholarship on the Civil War era emphasizes the connections between the sectional conflict and the larger Reconstruction that followed, especially in the Trans- West.1 While the Trans-Mississippi theater had a minimal impact on the course and conduct of the Civil War, the war profoundly influenced events on the CentralR Plains. Historians have long acknowledged the central role played by questions about the expansion of slavery in both the Purchase and the Mexican cession in fomenting the Civil War, not least in “,” where sectional violence fla ed first. However, accounts after 1861 shift the focus to the narrow corridor between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, where Union and Confederate armies clashed in the largest and best- known battles of the war. Some historians have tried to refocus attention on the western theater between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River, but events west of the river have long escaped scholarly attention.2 More recently, historians of the Civil War have made limited forays onto the Plains, staking out territory that defines events in the Trans-Mississippi West, though studies of guerrilla violence in and the international and borderlands aspects of warfare in the American Southwest currently dominate the field 3 Since the publication in 1998 of Elliott West’s magisterial and award- winning The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, scholars have largely steered clear of the Central Plains during the Civil War, perhaps believing that West has already said everything that needs to be said. However, more recent examinations have revealed holes in the literature and flawed interpretations of the “settler colonialism” that transformed the region, arguably more than any other event in the natural or recorded history of the Great Plains. Older histories of western settlement characterize the dispossession and repeopling of the Great Plains as a “natural” event that fits neatly within the broader sweep from the Atlantic to the Pacific. However, “locking the frame” on the region brings the enormity of change into sharper focus. Euro-Americans used force to displace indigenous inhabitants, supplanted unbroken pasturage with gridded farms, and replaced buffalo with cattle, all within a relatively

Christopher M. Rein is the managing editor at Air University Press at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. He is the author of three books: The North African Air Campaign (University Press of Kansas, 2012); Alabamians in Blue: Freedmen, Unionists, and the Civil War in the Cotton State (LSU Press, 2019); and the forthcoming The Second Colorado Cavalry: A Civil War Regiment on the Great Plains (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020), from which this article is excerpted. He earned his doctorate in history at the University of Kansas in 2011 and served as an associate professor of history at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he taught courses on the Civil War and the American West.

1.In the Trans-Mississippi West, the Civil War was both a continuation of the struggle for the conquest of the continent and a setting for sectional healing and reconciliation, largely, as David Blight has argued, over visions of white supremacy shared by northerners and southerners alike. See, especially, Heather Cox Richardson, West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007); Elliott West, The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009); and Pekka Hamalainen, “Reconstructing the Great Plains: The Long Struggle for Sovereignty and Dominance in the Heart of the Continent,” Journal of the Civil War Era 6 (December 2016), 481–509. 2. Earl J. Hess, The Civil War in the West: Victory and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi (Chapel Hill: University of Press, 2012). 3. See Thomas Cutrer, Theater of a Separate War: The Civil War West of the Mississippi River, 1861–1865 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017); Andrew E. Masich, Civil War in the Southwest Borderlands, 1861–1867 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017); Janne Lahti, Wars for Empire: Apaches, the , and the Southwest Borderlands (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017); Matthew M. Stith, Extreme Civil War:

The Second Colorado Cavalry 243 This map of Kansas and the central plains, including portions of , , and the territories of Colorado and , was created by the Engineer Bureau of the War Department in 1867. Its geographic references and location of Indian nations would have been familiar to the Second Colorado Cavalry. short period spanning perhaps a quarter of a century. This working years just as the hit. Many of the was far from a “natural” process or a peaceful settlement. future troopers could not find employment or survive Change occurred because men and women willed it to the economic downturn in the small towns that dotted occur and devoted substantial energy and resources the Old Northwest (today’s Midwest) and responded to to making it happen. Among them were the soldiers of the news of gold strikes in the Colorado foothills in 1858. the Second Colorado Cavalry Regiment, a Civil War These “’59ers” made up the rush to Colorado that, as West volunteer unit initially raised to protect the new Colorado has detailed, placed unsustainable demands on limited Territory against Confederate incursions into New Mexico environments, leading almost directly to conflict with the but whose service typifies the blending of the Civil War indigenous , , Kiowa and Comanche and Indian Wars periods into a single act of conquest, peoples and eventually to the Sand Creek Massacre, one especially in the strip of land between the Platte and of the worst atrocities in the history of western settlement. River valleys that is now part of the states of When the Civil War began in early 1861, many who Kansas and Colorado. had still not recovered from the economic downturn, as The soldiers of the Second Colorado were not all, William Marvel has recently argued, became some of as one author has suggested, “hunters, trappers, and “Lincoln’s mercenaries” who responded to calls for troops Indian fighters. 4 They were mostly farmers and men in order to improve their condition.5 Ovando Hollister, a of skilled trades unlucky enough to begin their prime miner on South Clear Creek, recalled, “Judging from the

Guerrilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans-Mississippi Frontier Household in Civil War Missouri (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2016). 2016), 183. 4. Joseph Beilein Jr., : Guerrilla Warfare, Manhood, and the 5. William Marvel, Lincoln’s Mercenaries: Economic Motivation among

244 Kansas History appearance of the country and people, mining at that time allace’s words say much about how the men was not exceedingly inviting or profitable.” He reported viewed themselves and why they believed that to the organizers of his company, “the idea of taking they were fighting. Though many soldiers advantage of the patriotic uprising of the nation’s heart highlightedW their attachment to the Union and opposition and of the hard times in the mines, to raise a company to the disloyal insurrectionists, many of whom shared of volunteers for the war, thus securing commissions for their mining camps, practical considerations were never themselves, struck them as being a lode, which, once open, far below the surface. In addition to the food, clothing, and might be worked with ease and profit. 6 shelter the army promised, the men undoubtedly felt that The soldiers, like their comrades to the east, also the Union program of “free soil, free labor, and free men” expressed ideological motivations for their service. In a offe ed the best prospects for personal success, preventing letter begging his department commander to reassign his competition with slave owners and their cheaper labor on regiment to a more active theater, Private Oliver Wallace, the open plains and removing indigenous peoples from who later edited the regimental newspaper, the Soldier’s the region, thus opening more land to settlement.8 Letter, argued, Not surprisingly, the new state of Kansas figu ed The Reg’t to which I belong was raised in the prominently in the regiment’s composition and service. Rocky Mountains and is formed almost entirely Many men had been “freestaters” before the war and of men who have been accustomed to severe were involved in the struggle against proslavery forces in hardships, toils, and privations from one to three the territory. Irving Stanton later recalled that in 1855 he years, laboring men, frequently packing their had travelled to Pawnee City, just outside and provisions and bedding for hundreds of miles, over site of the first territorial legislature, because he “wanted to become a pioneer settler and assist to make Kansas a the rugged mountains, toiling through snowdrifts, 9 storms of rain and snow, with no other guide save free State.” But others did more than just settle. Writing the sun, and the surrounding cliffs, sleeping on the from his retirement home in Santa Ana, , in 1909, ground, with no other covering, save a blanket, and Pvt. George Havens recalled for readers of the National the sky above them, and no earthly guard, save their Tribune how he had participated in the Battle of Black Jack trusty rifle, and faithful Bowie knife, or, wielding under the leadership of John Brown against a proslavery the pick and shovel, through wet and cold, often company led by Henry Pate. Havens was then a member night and day, winter and summer, with but the of the “Ottawa Rangers a Free State company which was organized on Ottawa Creek about six miles from the commonest articles of food, and these sometimes 10 sparsely distributed: of such a class of men is our battlefield of Black Jack.” The discovery of gold, just five Reg’t formed. Loyal in the full sense of the term. hundred miles across the easily traversed Plains, was an They left lucrative businesses and all that was dear often unacknowledged factor in tamping down much of to them at the call of their country to assist in putting the violence along the border as footloose partisans from down this accursed Rebellion and more firmly both sides left their sectional animosities behind in their establishing the best of all Governments; and what rush to make their mark in the gold fields. more forcibly exhibits their patriotism and zeal in Kansas also became the scene of some of the regiment’s the cause, they enlisted with the assurance that they most important service. It spent part of 1863 at Fort Larned were not to remain in the Mountains where there and Fort Riley and traversing the state to support campaigns was little or no need for them, or to be idle, guarding into the Indian Territory; most of 1864 guarding Kansas’s some post, but that they should march to the States eastern border from both bushwhackers and Price’s raid; and share the glorious privilege of cooperating with and 1865 at Forts Larned, Riley, Ellsworth, and Zarah, our comrades in striking at the strongholds of our protecting commerce on the . The regiment enemies and engaging in vigilant, unceasing, active helped establish new posts, including Camps Dodge and service, until this Rebellion should be entirely Fletcher, and the new cities Dodge City and Hays, which crushed out and the Purity and perfection of the Republican Form of Government and Republican 7 institutions fully substantiated. Group 94, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office National Archives, Washington, DC. Union Soldiers during the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State 8. Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican University Press, 2018) Party before the Civil War (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1995). 6. Ovando James Hollister, Colorado Volunteers in New Mexico, 1862 9. Irving W. Stanton, Sixty Years in Colorado: Reminiscences and (Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1962), 4. Reflections of a Pioneer of 1860 (Denver, CO: Thomas F. Dawson, 1922), 43. 7, Wallace to Schofield, July 15, 1863, Oliver Wallace Compiled 10. “The Sacking of Lawrence,” National Tribune (Washington, DC), Military Service Record (CMSR), Second Colorado Cavalry, Record June 24, 1909.

The Second Colorado Cavalry 245 Among the Kansas forts where the Second Colorado encamped during the 1860s was Fort Larned. Shown here are the block house and parade ground circa 1860 to 1878. eventually grew around them. Officer of the regiment Territory, which stretched as far west as the continental even left their names on two of Kansas’s new counties. divide, accounting for the mountains that grace both the Maj. J. Nelson Smith, one of the regiment’s most effective state seal and the of Kansas. But not all of the officers was a prewar resident of Elwood, just across the settlers supported the “free state’s” politics, and territorial Missouri River from St. Joseph, and is immortalized in governor William Gilpin harbored concerns about the the names of Smith Center and Smith County, far up the new territory’s security. To the south, in New Mexico, a Solomon River. The regiment’s commander, Col. James column of Confederates arrived in Franklin (modern El Ford, is the namesake of Ford County, the site of Dodge Paso) and Mesilla, drove off Union forces, and proclaimed City. a new Confederate territory of “Arizona” south of the As settlers and gold seekers poured into Colorado in the 34th parallel. The federal office responsible for the summer of 1859, the sectional strife seemed far away from defense of New Mexico, Col. Edward Canby, solicited the booming gold camps and the growing towns along the Gilpin for volunteer troops to replace the regular troops Front Range. Settlers named the new city established to in garrisoning the forts in Colorado, which included supply the gold fields after Kansas’s territorial governor, Fort Garland in the San Luis Valley and Fort Wise, later James Denver, as the region was then part of the Kansas renamed Fort Lyon, along the Arkansas River, protecting

246 Kansas History the residents of the were much displeased and dissatisfied with the course of the Federal Government in removing the U.S. troops from the western frontier, whereby great dangers are apprehended from Indians and the serious interruption of their trade and commercial intercourse. One-third of the population sympathizes with your government . . . a large number of the soldiers would immediately enlist in the services of the Confederate States, and the officer are daily resigning to join the Southern Army.

Marshall enjoyed further delusions of grandeur, proposing,

With six regiments of cavalry from Arkansas and Texas and the forces that can be obtained from the Indian Territory, I can seize and hold Forts Laramie and Wise, and Fort Union, if necessary, and take possession of all military stores and munitions of war at the other forts in Kansas and Colorado, and will destroy what will be of no utility, establish headquarters near the Cheyenne Pass, and with the possession of Forts Laramie and Wise, cut off all communication between the Northern States and the Pacific Coast.11

Davis apparently faced too many other pressing matters to seriously consider this proposal, but its significance lies not in its feasibility but rather in the fear it raised in the minds of those who would suffer most if it were put into effect. Col. Jesse Henry Leavenworth was the son of Brig. Gen. Henry Leaven- Accordingly, Gilpin raised an entire regiment, the worth for whom Fort Leavenworth was named. Skilled as an engineer, the First Colorado, to defend the territory from the twin younger Leavenworth was an office of the Second Colorado and would later also serve as Indian agent. Image is courtesy of History Colorado. threats of enterprising Confederates and Indians who might be stirred to hostility by inducements from Confederate agents. Along with the two future the mountain branch of the Santa Fe Trail. Canby wanted companies of the Second Colorado at Fort Garland, to withdraw the regular garrisons to meet the Texan threat the regiment marched into New Mexico and defeated to New Mexico. As a result, Gilpin raised two companies Confederate forces under Gen. Henry H. Sibley at the from the western gold fields of South Park, initially to battle of Glorieta, preserving the wealth of Colorado’s garrison Fort Garland but eventually to march to New mines for the Union and ending Confederate dreams of Mexico as well. These two companies, under then Capt. an empire in the Southwest. By the end of 1862, Col. Jesse James Ford and Capt. Theodore Dodd, formed the nucleus Henry Leavenworth had recruited eight more companies, of the Second Colorado. primarily in Denver and Central City, which joined the Governor Gilpin’s fears for the territory’s security were not unfounded. On May 20, 1861, F. J. Marshall, a 11. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Officia Records of the proslavery Kansan, provided Confederate President Union and Confederate Armies, series 1, vol. 3, part 1 (Washington, DC: with his assessment of affairs in both Government Printing Office 1880–1901), 578–79 (hereafter OR, all series Kansas and the Colorado territory. He falsely believed that 1 unless otherwise noted).

The Second Colorado Cavalry 247 two Second Colorado companies in New Mexico, filling of 1863–1864. But they could also espouse exterminationist out a full regiment. But with the end of hostilities to the logic against the Indians remaining on the Great Plains. south, Union authorities pulled the new regiment east to After further campaigning at Perryville and Webber’s protect the Santa Fe Trail and to help deal with the growing Falls in the Indian Territory, the combined force captured violence along the Kansas-Missouri border. Fort Smith, Arkansas, securing both the eastern border In March 1863 the Second Colorado left Fort Lyon for of the Indian Territory and, with it, the southern border Fort Larned in route to Forts Riley and Leavenworth. At of Kansas. The result of the year of campaigning was to Larned, new orders directed the regiment to Fort Scott to eliminate another threat to Colorado’s security in the form join a triracial column consisting of the First Kansas Colored of the vulnerable logistics corridor of the Santa Fe Trail, and displaced Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole residents which had been targeted by Kiowa and Comanche raiders of the Indian Territory in escorting a wagon train south and remained vulnerable to combinations of Texans and to Fort Blunt (formerly Fort Gibson). On July 2, at Cabin sympathetic tribes such as those whom Blunt’s column Creek, the First Kansas Colored and Second Colorado, had defeated at Honey Springs. Leavenworth, supported by two Kansas batteries and a mounted force of who had remained behind in command at Fort Larned, loyal Indians, successfully forced a crossing and repelled sent out constant patrols in search of raiders from the an attempt to capture the wagon train by Confederate south, but the threats were more imagined than real. In Gen. Stand Watie’s Cherokees. Later that month the same 1862 Gen. Albert Pike, commanding the Confederate units defeated a second force of Confederate Indians and forces in the Indian Territory, wrote, “I have ordered their Texan allies at Honey Springs, destroying a valuable Lieutenant-colonel Jumper with his Seminoles to march to supply depot. and take Fort Larned, on the Pawnee Fork of the Arkansas, t Honey Springs, as the Union forces advanced where are considerable stores and a little garrison.”14 on the Confederate line, the Second Indian Pike’s orders demonstrate that the persistent rumors of Home Guards, to the right of the First Kansas Confederate-allied Indians striking the Santa Fe Trail had Colored,A moved across the latter’s front, masking their fi e. some basis in fact, even though they remained beyond the Lt. Col John Bowles of the First Kansas ordered the Indians Confederacy’s capabilities. to fall back so that his men could again engage the enemy. In May 1863 a hunting party of Osages encountered Hearing the command, the Texans assumed the Union twenty Confederates crossing their reservation from east forces were quitting the field and charged them. At short to west. The encounter degenerated into violence when range, a devastating volley from the First Kansas Colored one of the Confederates shot and killed an Osage, leading inflicted heavy casualties, breaking the charge and forcing to a pursuit that culminated with the destruction of the the Texans back. At this point the Coloradans found Confederate command on the Verdigris River near present- themselves “hotly pressed, when the First Kansas Colored day Independence, Kansas. The men carried documents came to their aid and delivered a timely volley.” According proving they were Confederate officer ordered to recruit to Irving Stanton, “after this exploit no one could tell the Plains Indians and incite them to attacks on the frontier Second Colorado boys that ‘darkies’ wouldn’t fight. Under settlements in order to draw Union strength away from such circumstances relief is gratefully accepted without Arkansas and Missouri.15 According to George Bent, inquiry as to the color of the skin of those from whom it “When the were given this message the chiefs comes.”12 Mark Lause has characterized the unique nature came to my father [William] and told him all about it; he of the radical white, liberated African American, and Native advised them to have nothing to do with Pike and his American factions unsympathetic to slavery as a triracial ‘Texans’ and the chiefs acted on this advice.”16 But the “mutual interdependence” that “tended to suspend racial Indian threat on the Plains produced an enduring effect on prejudice, at least under the duress of combat.”13 As the principal white force in the territory throughout 1863, the Second Colorado reinforces this description in some ways, 14. OR, 8, 819–23; quoted in Annie Abel, The American Indian in the as over a dozen soldiers later earned positions with the Civil War, 1862–1865 (Cleveland, OH: Arthur H. Clark, 1919), 112. 15. P. P. Elder, the Osage agent at Fort Scott, first reported the incident black regiments recruiting around St. Louis in the winter to General Blunt on May 17 as evidence of the tribe’s “loyalty and good feeling.” OR, 22:2, 286, 849. 16. George E. Hyde, Life of George Bent, Written from His Letters (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), 115–16. Bent claimed that “at this time there was but a handful of union troops at Fort Larned and one company at Fort Lyon, and both posts could have been easily 12. Stanton, Sixty Years in Colorado, 97. taken if the Confederates had made a push at them,” but “Jumper’s 13. Mark A. Lause, Race and Radicalism in the (Urbana: Indians, however, did not have much heart for this adventure, and University of Illinois Press, 2009), 4. before long most of them went home.” Ibid., 116.

248 Kansas History died of disease, a rarity for Civil War units. Once equipped, the men rode the rails of the new Missouri & Pacific as far west as Sedalia before continuing the march to Kansas City. The regiment saw its most significant and severe service in 1864, when it garrisoned the “Burned District.” The three Missouri counties along the border south of Kansas City had been the source of support for many of the guerrillas who had sacked Lawrence in August 1863 and were therefore subject to Gen. Thomas Ewing’s “Order No. 11” to depopulate the region of disloyal residents. In 1864, after Union authorities rescinded the order and guerrilla bands under , George Todd, and William “Bloody Bill” Anderson returned from their winter quarters in Texas, the region again exploded in violence, and the Second Colorado engaged almost daily in patrols, skirmishes, ambushes, and reprisals against bushwhackers in which quarter was neither asked nor given, giving the regiment a fearsome reputation among the bushwhackers. he Second Colorado’s selection for garrison duty in the troubled region stemmed largely from a desire by Union commanders to have a “neutral” forceT in the border region that could suppress hostilities by bushwhackers and the destabilizing reprisals by Kansas jayhawkers known as “Redlegs,” who were equally adept at both killing guerrillas and creating new ones with their wanton destruction. To patrol the newly created “no-man’s-land,” Gen. Samuel Curtis in Kansas and Gen. John Schofield in Missouri wanted a “neutral” Confederate loyalist William Clarke Quantrill led guerilla bonds organization, ideally separated from the region’s brutal against Union sympathizers in Lawrence and the border counties dur- history, that could keep lawless Kansans and Missourians ing the Civil War era. In 1864 in particular, Quantrill and his men separated and suppress violence on both sides. Thus, the kept the Second Colorado on their toes. Image is courtesy of Library of Congress. Second Colorado became a forerunner to modern United Nations “peacekeepers” and was charged with patrolling the region, keeping out bushwhackers and jayhawkers the citizens of the Colorado Territory. According to Bent, alike in a revival of a long-standing role for the antebellum “From this time on the men of Colorado began to speak army.18 But “peacekeeping” usually involved hunting of the Cheyennes and other Indians as ‘Red Rebels’ and and suppressing guerrillas so that they could not raid into to look upon them as hostile,” and the suspected league Kansas from their secure hideouts in the Sni Hills along of guerrillas and Indians was a contributing factor in the violence that fla ed in the Colorado Territory in 1864, the border between Jackson and Lafayette Counties. culminating in the Sand Creek Massacre.17 In June 1864 the Second Colorado collaborated The enhanced security of the Indian Territory made the with Kansas troopers in a joint operation to disperse Second Colorado and another partially recruited regiment, bushwhackers gathering in the region. After receiving a the Third Colorado Infantry, available for consolidation as report of over five hundred guerrillas concentrating in the a cavalry regiment. At the end of 1863 both units traveled Sni Hills and anxious to neutralize this threat to his side to St. Louis to obtain their mounts and new arms and begin of the border, Gen. Samuel R. Curtis at Fort Leavenworth learning how to use them on the battlefield. The winter in St. Louis led to widespread sickness, but, remarkably, 18. Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerilla Conflictin Missouri during more soldiers of the regiment were killed in combat than the (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1989), 213– 14. Schofield had long advocated for such a policy of “neutral” troops; ibid., 90. See also Tony Mullis, Peacekeeping on the Plains: Army Operations 17. Ibid., 117. in Bleeding Kansas (Columbia: Press, 2004).

The Second Colorado Cavalry 249 offe ed the services of his command in cooperation way in which we were treated. Their desire is to co- with Colonel Ford’s troopers. On June 16 Col. Thomas operate heartily with us in the border troubles.” Hoyt had Moonlight, a native of Scotland and a prewar regular a similar experience, writing, “ Pritchard and his who was a longtime Kansan before serving as territorial officer received my command with the utmost cordiality” governor of , brought four companies of his and that Pritchard’s “manly and earnest cooperation Eleventh Kansas Cavalry to Pleasant Hill to cooperate . . . was heartily seconded . . . by Captains Greene and with the Second Colorado in a raid through the Sni Hills. Wagoner.” Moonlight appreciated the Coloradans’ efforts At the same time a second column of four companies under but remained concerned that a concentration of guerrillas Lt. Col. George Hoyt of the Fifteenth Kansas Cavalry was at the head of Blackwater River could make a nighttime “scouring the timber” of the Grand River basin before passage unobserved by Ford’s troopers between reporting to Maj. Jesse Pritchard’s command at Raytown. Harrisonville and Pleasant Hill and raid into Kansas. This Together the combined groups of Kansans and Coloradans was not the last cooperation between the Second Colorado patrolled the Sni Hills but found few bands of guerrillas, and Colonel Moonlight, and the goodwill established in and none that wanted to test the superior force. Ford June paid dividends during the effort to repel Price’s raid 19 estimated that his command marched 130 miles through in October. Lone Jack, the Sni Hills and Independence to Kansas City n mid-July 1864 Colonel Ford’s regiment again before returning via Raytown to Pleasant Hill. cooperated with Kansas troops at Fort Leavenworth Satisfied that the border district was clear, Moonlight in responding to an uprising just across the and Hoyt returned with their commands to Kansas, but MissouriI River in Platte and Clay Counties in Missouri. not before Moonlight wrote that “Colonel Ford, Second Platte County, long a hotbed of secessionist sentiment, Colorado Cavalry, and his officer are not only entitled was the epicenter as episodes in Parkville, Platte City, and to our thanks but gratitude for the soldierly and manly especially Camden Point brought troopers of the Second Colorado away from their usual haunts. On July 1 Ford received word from General Curtis at Fort Leavenworth that six hundred guerrillas under Col. John Calhoun “Coon” Thornton were in Platte City and had compelled three of the “Paw Paw” companies there to join them in an attack on Weston.20 On July 12 Brigadier General Fisk reported that “the Confederate flag has been waving over Platte City for two days, protected by men who for many months have worn our uniforms and carried under the stars and stripes the guns they now turn against us. I hope our troops will take no prisoners.” In her brief history of the regiment, compiled largely from the pages of the Soldier’s Letter, Company A’s laundress, Ellen Williams, reported that the regiment’s constant patrols south of the river “had the desired effect of driving the marauders from that portion of the country to seek a safer and more congenial latitude.”21 At 2 a.m. on July 13, “in the midst of a heavy rain storm,”

19. OR, 34:1, 1018–24, 1033. 20. The “Paw Paws” were members of the Enrolled Missouri Militia who were suspected of secessionist sympathies but who maintained the peace in their counties. The name came from an edible fruit that grew in the brushy bottoms the guerrillas used for sanctuary. OR, 41:2, 11, 158; “Parkville Sacked by Bushwhackers,” Liberty (MO) Tribune, July 15, 1864, p. 1. 21. Ellen Williams, Three Years and a Half in the Army, or, History of the Second (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1885), 54. For more on This Confederate flag was captured by the Second Colorado Cavalry the regimental newspaper, the Soldier’s Letter, see Chandra Miller, “‘A Perfect Institution Belonging to the Regiment’: The Soldier’s Letter and Volunteers at Camden Point, Missouri, on July 17, 1864. Image is American Identity among Civil War Soldiers in Kansas,” Kansas History: courtesy of History Colorado. A Journal of the Central Plains 22 (Winter 1999 – 2000), 284–297.

250 Kansas History Ford took over 350 of his own men and one section of Independence and Lexington well, and Gen. James G. artillery from the Missouri State Militia and moved up the Blunt took advantage of this knowledge by sending the Missouri River on the Fanny Ogden and Emilie to Weston, Second Colorado east to make contact with Price’s army. where they united with troops of the Fifteenth Kansas Here the regiment reaped the first fruits of its lengthy Cavalry from Fort Leavenworth and then “made a gallant summer campaign against the guerrillas, as it could neither dash on a rebel camp” at Camden Point, “completely have concentrated to meet Price’s army nor communicated 22 routing and scattering the rebels.” According to Ellen effectively by telegraph if the bushwhackers had remained Williams, active in the area. Fortunately, those who had not been driven out gravitated to Price’s command as it approached. Captain West instantly ordered a charge, and the On October 16 Ford reported that he had received word that rebel ranks were broken and scattered by the fie ce the van of the Confederate troops had arrived in Lexington onset of our troops; who bore down on the foe like on October 14, but the main body was still at Boonville, an avalanche, sweeping all before them, amid the and Ford’s scouts had not yet made contact.24 On October smoke and din of battle, and the wild, deafening 17 Maj. J. Nelson Smith took three hundred troopers from cheers of our men, that rang out loud and clear upon the Second Colorado and Sixteenth Kansas Cavalry into the air, and was echoed and re-echoed through Lexington but found the town deserted. Determined the surrounding forest, the rebel forces, after to contact Price’s van, he proceeded southeast six miles exchanging a few volleys, fled in every direction until he reached the Confederate army’s pickets, which he in the wildest confusion, in many instances leaving attacked, killing two. Smith pulled back and relayed this their horses and equipments, and quite a number intelligence to Curtis, who learned of Price’s dispositions throwing down their arms, taking to the brush on October 18. Curtis recognized Smith, who had but a pursued closely by our troops, who having become few days left to live, as a “gallant soldier whose character exasperated by their former fiendishness, shot them is displayed in this daring advanced movement.”25 down like so many dogs without mercy. The main Blunt fell back from Lexington to Independence late portion fled on the road leading east of the town, on October 19 but early on the 20th left an important and were hotly pursued for nearly five miles, but blocking force, consisting of Colonel Moonlight’s small being mounted on fresh horses they finally escaped brigade, at the Little Blue River. Here an expert delaying and our troops returned and camped on the same action on October 21 bought critical time for Curtis and ground occupied previously by their forces. Our loss Blunt to concentrate their forces and prepare stronger was one man killed (Private Charles Flannegan) and defenses on the Big Blue River and for Gen. William S. one wounded (Sgt. Luther Crane), both of Company Rosecrans’s pursuit, especially his cavalry under Gen. F; that of the rebels was twenty-one killed, if any Alfred Pleasonton, which had arrived at Lexington that were wounded they made their escape. morning, to close up on Price’s rear, placing him in a vise.26 At the Little Blue, Blunt advanced with Col. Charles At a loss of one man killed, the patrol reported that it Jennison’s First Brigade, consisting of his Fifteenth Kansas had killed only fifteen rebels but captured a number of and the Third Wisconsin Cavalry, and Ford’s Fourth weapons and supplies, including ten kegs of gunpowder, Brigade, consisting of 384 men of the Second Colorado, while Corp. Martin Wilder of Company F had seized the a 400-man battalion of the Sixteenth Kansas Cavalry, and Confederate flag that locals had presented to Thornton for the 116 artillerists of Capt. William McLain’s Colorado his new unit.23 The flag returned to Denver as a trophy, where it remains today, preserved by the Colorado Historical Society (see image). Throughout the summer Ford’s spies in Kansas City detected rumors of a Confederate offensive in the fall, 24. OR, 41:4, 145. ostensibly to reclaim Missouri for the Confederacy 25. OR, 41:1, 474. but more likely to strip the state of produce at harvest 26. Albert E. Castel and Thomas Goodrich, Bloody Bill Anderson: The time and possibly to influence the November elections, Short, Savage Life of a Civil War Guerrilla (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1998), 126; OR, 41:1, 474–75; Dale Davis, “Guerrilla Operations alongside offensives in Tennessee and the Shenandoah in the Civil War: Assessing Compound Warfare during Price’s Raid” Valley. Colonel Ford’s command knew the area between (master’s thesis, Command and General StaffCollege, Fort Leavenworth, KS, 2004); Williams, The Second Colorados, 92; John McCorkle and O. S. Barton, with notes by Albert E. Castel, Three Years with Quantrill: A True Story Told by His Scout John McCorkle (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), 106; Harrison Trow and John P. Burch, Charles W. Quantrell: 22. Soldier’s Letter, January 9, 1865. A True History of His Guerrilla Warfare on the Missouri and Kansas Border 23. Martin Wilder CMSR. during the Civil War of 1861–1865 (Vega, TX: J. P. Burch, 1923), 213–14.

The Second Colorado Cavalry 251 battery of five three-inch rifles and one mountain howitzer. Blunt expected to meet Moonlight’s Second Brigade falling back but instead found it well posted on a hill near the Salem Church and thus deployed the combined force to continue the delaying action. During this action Major Smith

was struck by a minnie [sic] ball that pierced his left lung and, falling from his horse, never spoke again. . . . At the announcement of his death, the men, who almost worshipped him, sent up a savage yell of revenge and under the command of the brave Capt. Green, the next office in charge, they stood there, almost completely unsheltered, and delivered a volley that sent a storm of leaden hail into the enemy’s ranks, causing many of them to bite the dust, among whom was the notorious Todd, who was pierced by several ball and fell dead from his horse.27

Including Major Smith, the regiment lost six men killed and ten more wounded in the sharp engagement, the heaviest toll yet on its manpower.28 Blunt wrote that “to Colonel Ford and his command is due great credit for their coolness and gallantry” in forming the center of the position between Moonlight’s and Jennison’s brigades. Price’s vanguard wasted most of October 21 deploying and attempting to flank the Union advanced guard before finally pushing it to and through Independence, but by that time the rest of Curtis’s force was strongly posted behind the Big Blue River with the left flank anchored on the Missouri River, protecting Kansas City. After falling back from the Little Blue, the Second Colorado Maj. J. Nelson Smith, one of the Second Colorado’s most effective officers and McLain’s battery occupied several delaying was the namesake of Smith County, Kansas. He was killed at the Battle of positions, including a final one in Independence Little Blue River in Missouri on October 21, 1864. Image is courtesy of itself. Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield After Confederates forced a crossing of the Big Blue River at Byram’s Ford, the Second Colorado fell Confederate gun and wreaked havoc among the attackers. back to Westport, anchoring the left of the Union line. Caleb Burdsal Jr. of the battery wrote, Here they remained engaged throughout the battle, After silencing the rebel battery we commenced supporting McLain’s battery, which dismounted a firing up the lane at a large column crossing and marching on our right. We were doing such execution 27. Soldier’s Letter, April 8, 1865. Smith was eulogized on November that they made a desperate charge on us. I had but 4, 1864, in the Leavenworth Conservative, which noted that he had lived briefly in Elwood, Kansas, and had a brother who had served as the time to give them one round of canister when I was surgeon of the First Kansas. ordered to fall back. As I was limbering, our cavalry, 28. Compiled from each soldier’s CMSR. In addition, Sgt. Frank the 15th Kansas and 2nd Colorado, met their charge Gould, a recently discharged veteran of the Second Colorado serving with the home guard in Kansas City, rode into battle with his old regiment and suffe ed a grievous wound that later proved fatal when a 29. Caleb S. Burdsal Jr. to Dr. Caleb S. Burdsal Sr., Fort Scott, KS, shell ripped off his arm. Soldier’s Letter, June 3, 1865. October 29, 1864, reprinted in the Rocky Mountain News, November 30, 1864. Caleb Burdsal Jr. was the brother of Second Colorado Cavalry

252 Kansas History with a countercharge and drove them back.29 en raised in mining camps on the Colorado frontier, without a well-established criminal After Price’s force broke and retreated southwest, justice system, often resorted to vigilantism toward Kansas, Colonel Ford wrote, “Everyone advanced in orderM to maintain law and order. For some this habit was as speedily as possible, continuing the pursuit until dark, hard to break, even after entering federal service. According Colonel Jennison, with portions of the Fifteenth and to Irving Stanton, in the mining camps in Colorado, “the Sixteenth Kansas Cavalry and Second Colorado Cavalry, rough element before mentioned was held in check by the in the extreme advance.”30 After inflicting a crushing fear of speedy punishment for crime by the People’s or defeat on Price’s command at the Battle of Mine Creek, Miners’ courts,” and this vigilantism followed the men the pursuing column again caught the retreating rebels into the ranks. On December 12, 1864, while en route from at Newtonia, where General Blunt led a combined charge Fort Leavenworth to Lawrence, Pvt. Charles Lockman consisting only of Jennison’s and Ford’s depleted brigades murdered Pvt. John Groce in a grove of trees roughly eight against Price’s entire army, resulting in a check that caused miles southwest of the fort. Military regulations required heavy losses among the Kansas and Colorado troopers. that the soldier be arrested and returned to the fort for But Colonel Moonlight later noted his appreciation of trial, but the men were apparently indignant at the cold- their contribution, recalling, “The salvation of Kansas blooded act and insisted on a swift distribution of justice. is due to the patriotism, gallantry, and true courage of They hastily organized a trial, presided over by Lt. William her own soldiers, along with those of Colorado.31 Upon Wise, and when the detail resumed its march, Lockman their return from the pursuit of Price, the Leavenworth had been hung from one of the trees in the grove.33 But this Conservative reported: was not a mining camp, and the breakdown in discipline had repercussions. When word of the lynching, however They marched through the streets of our city, a justified, reached authorities, Lieutenant Wise was court- pageant more imposing to the thoughtful observer martialed in April 1865, fined, and ordered dismissed from than if, in all the fresh pomp and brightness of the the service. But the reviewing authority concurred with camp or rendezvous, they were starting fresh for the the court’s recommendation of a remitted sentence, and field of duty. Weapons soiled and battered, garments Wise resumed his duties and later earned an honorable stained and torn, horses broken down and lean; discharge.34 A character witness for Wise, Lt. Robert with their guidons ragged, rent and stained; not Rizer, testified in dishonor, but proudly bringing in their tattered folds the scars of triumphal contest. . . . The Second The murder of Private John Gross was one of the Colorado Cavalry has from the first been in the front most premeditated and cold-blooded on record, and borne the brunt of the fight. . . . We welcome the men of the command at once became terribly them to our city, scarred and battle-worn heroes, as incensed, and demanded that he [Lockman] suffer they are. the penalty of his crime at once, Lt. Wise exercised his authority to the best of his ability to have the The reporter added, “Our border has been kept free from prisoner sent to Fort Leavenworth for trial, the men marauders by its activity and valor, while the murderous opposed him and almost became mutinous; it was at bush whackers have had abundant reason to dread the this point that he then took a vote as to the disposition Second Colorado.”32 of the prisoner, the result of which you are already knowing to; the prisoner before dying confessed to having killed ten men and said he was content to die. This man having been executed, although without a formal investigation, was undoubtedly his just trooper Charles W. Burdsal. See also Bryce A. Suderow, ed., “McLain’s dues and I think the exigencies of the case would Battery and Price’s 1864 Invasion: A Letter from Lt. Caleb S. Burdsal, Jr.,” exculpate Lt Wise from any blame. . . . Lt Rafferty Kansas History 6 (Spring 1983); 29–45. 30. OR, 41:1, 486, 488. 31. Quoted in Kip Lindberg, Matt Matthews, and Thomas Moonlight, “‘The Eagle of the 11th Kansas’: Wartime Reminiscences of Colonel Thomas Moonlight,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 62 (Spring 2003), 1–41. 33. Charles Lockman CMSR; John Groce CMSR; Marshall Sprague, 32. OR, 41:1, 509, 518–22, 529; OR, 41:2, 1040; Albert Castel, General Colorado: A Bicentennial History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976), 29. and the Civil War in the West (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State 34. William Wise CMSR; John M. Hutchins, The General Court Martial University Press, 1968), 250–52; Williams, The Second Colorados, 127–30, of First Lieutenant William Wise, Second Colorado Cavalry, 6 April 1865 155–57, 160. (Lakewood, CO: Avrooman-Apfelwald, 2008).

The Second Colorado Cavalry 253 Among the Kansas forts where the Second Colorado encamped during the 1860s was Fort Riley. Shown here are the block house and parade ground circa 1860 to 1878.

placed the soldiers (specified in orders) under arrest justice system, arguing, after reporting the lynching of an which they immediately obeyed cheerfully and will innocent man in Montana, that “lynch law isn’t the best start for Leavenworth early tomorrow.35 kind.”36 But the regiment’s most important service to Kansas Overall, six soldiers of the regiment died at the hands of came, as William Unrau has argued, in the spring and their fellow soldiers in acts described as “murder,” though summer of 1865, when the regiment garrisoned frontier one particular instance, that of Pvt. John Lonnegan, posts at Forts Riley, Ellsworth, Zarah, and Larned and killed by Pvt. William Self at Harrisonville on May 10, helped found new posts at what are now Hays and Dodge 1864, appears to have been a case of self-defense, as a City.37 Here the regiment applied what it had learned witness testified that “Lonnegan is known to have been in battles against bushwhackers in 1864 against hostile a dangerous bad man.” A court-martial convicted Self Kiowa, Comanche, and Cheyenne, justifiably enraged of manslaughter, resulting in a dishonorable discharge by the twin attacks at Sand Creek and at Adobe Walls in and five years of confinement at hard labor. Even the the Texas Panhandle. The regiment provided a “show of Soldier’s Letter eventually came around to the military force” that enabled Jesse Leavenworth, now an Indian

36. Courts-martial transcripts, Lonnegan CMSR and Self CMSR; Soldier’s Letter, May 27, 1865, and November 11, 1865. 37. See William Unrau, “Indian Agent vs. the Army: Some 35. Lt. Robert Rizer to Maj. Heath, Provost Marshal, Dept. of Kansas, Background Notes on the Kiowa-Comanche Treaty of 1865,” Kansas November 15, 1864, Wise CMSR. Historical Quarterly 30 (Summer 1964), 129–52.

254 Kansas History agent, to broker a truce, consummated with the Treaty of his mustering out at Fort Riley on June 16, 1865, Rizer and the Little Arkansas in October 1865, that largely quelled his new bride, the former Mary Keith of Boston, chose to the violence in southern Kansas. Though this treaty, like settle at Junction City because, according to Mary Rizer, many others, proved to be not worth the paper it was “there was no regiment to take them either way,” and they written on, it did tamp down hostilities long enough for judged the travel too hazardous without an escort.40 Rizer the state to witness an explosion of settlement, marking found employment as a bookkeeper for local merchants the beginning of the most intensive period of biological Streeter and Strickler, who had won an army contract to shift on the Central Plains. Within two decades the bison haul freight to Forts Larned and Dodge, and in two years were nearly extinct, the virgin prairie had been broken and accumulated enough capital to cofound the banking firm plowed, and the original inhabitants had been removed to known as James Streeter and Company, later the First reservations in the Indian Territory. This did not happen National Bank of Junction City, with his former employer. naturally; it was an act of conquest perpetrated by “agents After participating in the Medicine Lodge council that of empire.” resulting in the signing of that treaty in 1867, he went on he Second Colorado’s Civil War service therefore to serve first as city clerk and then “three terms as mayor marks a significant episode in the ongoing and two as county treasurer,” as commander of the local Grand Army of the Republic post, and as a pension claims conquest of the Great Plains. The regiment 41 leveragedT resources freed up by the sectional crisis to attorney to assist his fellow veterans. The Rizers built a accelerate the conquest of the Central Plains and trained a home on Sixth Street, raised five daughters, and were on very friendly terms with their neighbor and former Union large group of men who devoted their postmilitary careers 42 to furthering development. A number of these men settled scout James B. “Wild Bill” Hickok. They entertained the Russian Grand Duke Alexis at their home when he came around Fort Riley, becoming some of the leading citizens 43 of Junction City. In his study of the post’s economic west on his famed “safari” in 1872. impact on the surrounding community, William Dobak The soldiers of the Second Colorado Cavalry occupied found that, unlike most veterans of the Kansas regiments, a transitional space between the Civil War and the who scattered across the state, “discharged soldiers of conquest of the Great Plains that followed. Rather than the Second Colorado Cavalry, which served at Fort Riley constituting two distinct periods, the Civil War and Indian and other Kansas posts from the fall of 1864 through the Wars blurred together for the men of this regiment. After summer of 1865, were an exception. More than a dozen rushing west in 1859 to participate in the gold strikes, of them settled near the fort. Most of the Coloradans who hard-luck miners enlisted out of need and patriotism to stayed took up farming. In addition to their commercial help defend their adopted territory against both guerrillas ventures, three of them entered politics.”38 and Indians and occasionally even battled Confederate In addition to making the area around the post their regulars in New Mexico and Missouri. Commanders often home, veterans became avid supporters and boosters of employed tactics learned in suppressing bushwhackers the community. According to Dobak, “From November against indigenous peoples in the Indian Wars campaigns 1865, when John K. Wright was elected probate judge that followed and developed a reliance on mobile cavalry of Davis [later Geary] County, there was hardly a year forces that proved essential in that period. These “agents of the next fifteen when Wright or his fellow veterans of empire,” with all of their faults, leveraged military Robert O. Rizer and William Lockstone did not hold offic resources made available by the sectional crisis to largely as a state legislator; county commissioner, treasurer or complete the conquest of the Central Plains well before the probate judge; or mayor of Junction City.”39 Rizer was Civil War had ended. born in Philadelphia in 1840 and traveled west to earn his fortune but instead earned a commission as a in the Second Colorado on May 10, 1862. After

38. William A. Dobak, Fort Riley and Its Neighbors: Military Money and Economic Growth, 1853–1895 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 40. “Captain Rizer and His Bride Wed Day of Lee’s Surrender,” 1998), 65. Junction City Union, April 29, 1955; Robert Rizer Diary, Denver Public 39. Ibid., 65. Jefferson Davis County, named for the secretary of war Library, Denver, CO (hereafter Rizer Diary); Rizer CMSR. who established the post, changed its name to Geary County in 1888 41. Dobak, Fort Riley and Its Neighbors, 65–66; Biography, Rizer Diary. in honor of John Geary, territorial governor and Union general in the 42. Dobak, Fort Riley and Its Neighbors, 65 Civil War, after the original namesake dishonored himself by leading an 43. Ibid.; Dan Flores, American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the armed insurrection against his native country. Great Plains (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2016); Rizer Diary.

The Second Colorado Cavalry 255