before Kansas statehood they took wives as hostages

[donsu]

http://www.buzzflash.com/mailbag/06/02/mai06041.html

-snip-

Subject: Iraqi Hostage Wives

Hi, Buzz!!

The fact that the U.S. is now taking insurgents' wives hostage in Iraq is yet another proof that our so-called "leaders" don't know their history. Our army has done that before; it didn't work then, and it won't work now.

Before Kansas statehood (when the territory was so inflamed with terrorism that it was called "bleeding Kansas"), the army decided to arrest and hold female relatives of the guerrillas operating here, to force them to change their wicked ways. I can't imagine why anyone thought we could reform people like William Clarke Quantrill, but they tried. Initially, the hostage-taking had no effect whatsoever on guerrilla activities, but then the building the women were held in collapsed. Some of the hostages were killed outright, others were maimed, and some were injured less seriously. The guerrillas went ballistic, and burned the city of Lawrence (now home to the University of Kansas). So much for hostage-taking as a means of calming people down.

Of course, taking noncombatants hostage is immoral. But, on a practical level, it simply doesn't work, and can actually make matters worse. Why don't Bush's people ever think about the consequences of what they do? Are they twelve years old? Have they all fried their brains with some drug or other and lost the ability to consider their actions?

Or do they just have no plan at all, and are therefore grasping at any straw that comes by on the wind?

Bush needs to be impeached, the sooner the better.

Jane Hawes
Emporia, KS (red-state Democrat)

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the nipple full of milk is valuable property

men seem to think it belongs to them

[NanceGreggs]

1. grasping at any straw ...

It's quickly becoming the mantra of this Administration when it comes to defending their actions in Iraq, and elsewhere:

"We will leave no straw, however flimsy, ungrasped."

[formercia]

2. The British also held the families of the Boers in South Africa

and thus the term 'Concentration Camp' was born.

[formercia]

6. prior to that the term was usually

Reservation.

[China_cat]

3. Insanity is

repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome.

[Skidmore]

4. The bloodlust of men is always taken out on women, children,

the aged, and the poor.

[donsu]

5. is there a way for men to be untaught bloodlust? deprogrammed?

like Sheri Tepper's Woman's Country

(I think I have the right one of her books.)

(aside: if the movie industry wanted to make more money then Potter they should look into her Mavis the ShapeChnger books. a special effects heaven.

[Scout1071]

7. I'm a KU alum and I currently work in Kansas and I've never heard

this account. My understanding was that Quantrill's Raid was a retaliatory raid.

" Throughout the period of Free State-Proslavery extremism, beginning in 1855-1856, Lawrence citizens had known that their town, as the headquarters of Free-State sympathizers, was a prime target. Later, and particularly after "General" James H. Lane had sacked and burned Osceola, Mo., in 1861, they were aware that Lawrence, as the home of Lane, could expect a retaliatory raid. On August 6, 1863, the Lawrence Kansas State Journal carried a long article calling attention to rumors of an impending raid and of the need to prepare the town's defenses. "

http://www.kshs.org/publicat/khq/1968/68_2_williams.htm

Having said that - Rock Chalk Jayhawk.

PS - We still hate those Mizzou bastards.

[Mabus]

8. Found some references that will change your mind

On an early September day of 1862 after delievering a wagon load of produce from Grain Valley to Kansas City, Susan Vandever, her sister Armenia Selvey and Armenia's nine year old son Jeptha Selvey, were, upon returning by way of Independence to their home near Blue Springs, Missouri, captured by Union Forces and imprisoned for aiding and abetting enemy forces; or, in other words, bringing medicine and other necessaries to Confederate guerrillas. Actually, these three and others, as shown, were imprisoned, without charges against them, in the hope that their confinement would regulate the conduct of their husbands, brothers and others who were Missouri Confederate guerrillas. Notes on Colonel Penick

Originally neutralist, the Crawfords and many farm families like them who resided along Missouri's Western border with Kansas, were merely surviving the Civil War day-by-day, not taking sides-intensely aware that speaking what someone would take as a disloyal word could bring them death and utter ruin to their families. The following account of William Gregg from his manuscript, "A Little Dab of History Without Embellishment", was a common rehearsal for the repeated genocide practiced by Union Forces in this area and it is, without doubt, what drove many Missouri farm boy to join up with Quantrell and other guerrilla leaders in order to avenge this type of treatment.
***

A Cry for Revenge

Although the Civil War was raging throughout the land, August 13, 1863 began in Kansas City as it was typically expected, hot and humid with the essence for survival making the necessity to provide for oneself the usual priority. But by days end an event was to unfold that was to become one of the most fascinating and mysterious events of the Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas border. On that August day, a building being used as a temporary prison to house female prisoners who were relatives of Confederate guerrillas and imprisoned on suspicion of aiding and abetting the Confederate cause, had collapsed into a heap of brick, mortar and bodies. Of those killed, one was my great great grandmother, Susan Crawford Vandever. Thought to be a deliberate act of murder, it sealed the fate of many Union soldiers and sympathizers. Coming at a most opportune time in his career, it was most certainly the spark that beckoned the revenge which set forth Quantrell's rampage through the streets of Lawrence, Kansas just eight days later.

http://members.tripod.com/~Penningtons/scv1-2.htm

Here's more:

The most unfortunate event in the administration of General Ewing was the Lawrence Massacre. An incident which was responsible for many of the barbarities committed in the sacking of that defenseless town was the collapse at Kansas City of the military prison for women. It was made the excuse for many inhuman crimes later committed by the guerrillas.

In the midst of such conditions as existed in the District of the Border it was inevitable that women should become spies for the bushwhackers and commit other violations of military regulations. Women had been arrested before General Ewing's arrival. On the 26th of June, 1863; a number of prisoners were sent from Fort Leavenworth to Kansas City, among them ten women, two of whom were sisters of Jim Vaughan, the outlaw executed May 29th. These women were treated with great consideration, being quartered at the Union Hotel under guard.

***

On the day of the collapse of this building Lieutenant John M. Singer, Company H, Ninth Kansas, was Captain of the Provost Guard. Early in the day the Captain of the Guard at the building sent a request to Singer to examine it, saying that he feared it was no longer safe. Singer found the walls cracked and mortar-dust on the ground. He reported to General Ewing, who sent his Adjutant to examine the building. The Adjutant believed the building safe, but the Captain of the Guard was uneasy. When the prisoners had been given their dinner he requested Thomas Barber, a member of his company, to examine the prison. Barber's recollection is that there were prisoners on both the second and third floors, and that he and Parker went to the third floor. He saw the walls slowly separating from the ceiling, and advised Parker to get the women out of the building with all haste. Parker shouted: "Get out of here! This building is going to fall!" Barber, some of the women, and one or two guards ran down the stairs, and as they reached the ground the building collapsed, falling inward.

***
The charge that this prison was undermined was taken up by the guerrillas all along the border. Revenge was the cry. Retaliation was demanded. Quantrill, planning, threatening, cajoling, persuading, never could have induced the guerrillas to undertake the raid on Lawrence but for the collapse of this building. It came at an opportune time in his career and he made the most of it. http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1918ks/v2/ch43p1.html

on edit: Damn right Rock! Chalk! Jayhawk! KU!


And double ditto on the Mizzou comment.