The Sacking of Lawrence

The “official war” was in 1861 but violence started before that, “Bleeding kansas”.

Do you know about the sacking of Lawrence? If not this will inform you about when, where, and why it all happened . The Sacking of Lawrence was an attack led by a group under command of William Quantrill out of Missouri against the inhabitants of Lawrence, KS on May 21, 1856.

Quantrill’s raid ultimately caused 160-190 male casualties, and left 85 women widowed. It all started because Kansas was a free state, and Missouri was a pro slavery state. During the time the country was trying to balance the number of free and slave states. William Quantrill, the leader of the raid, gathered about 400 people to fight with him. Some people joined to get revenge or retaliation on people and others joined because they thought Quantrill was a “fighting genius”. Before the attack he had “spies” go into the town days before to find the locations of the most important people in Lawrence.

According to eyewitness on eyewitness to history.com people say “It was early in the morning when families were still asleep but the people woke up when they heard the sound of gunshots. They ran to hide their children in hiding places before going out to see what's going on.” “There were already people laying on the ground who were out doing morning chores. Then people running out to see if that family member was alive were shot down. The men didn’t care who they killed they shot whoever was standing there.”

After the raid, only a third of the town was left. William Quantrill left town to seek safety because a group of Lawrence men passed into Missouri to find him. This raid was a big contributing factor to the war that happened between the Northern and Southern states from 1861-1865. William Quantrill ultimately died in 1865 because Union soldiers shot him down. Some people today think Quantrill is a terrorist but some think he is a “War Genius” because they knew this would cause a lot of damage and fights. To find more information you can go to the Kansas history society center.