But these atrocities were mild compared with the conduct of
Quantrell, who has just headed a Confederate cavalry raid from Missouri into Kansas, and burnt the little town of Lawrence, near, the Missouri border. Quantrell crossed the Missouri into Kansas, near the town of Gardner, with a mounted force, it is said eight hundred strong, reached Law- rence at four a m. on the morning of the 21st August, and posted a guard round the town, so that none might escape, and then fired the town, burning numbers of the inhabitants in their beds, and shooting or driving back those who attempted to escape. One hundred and eighty-seven have, we believe, been buried, and there are numbers more in danger of death. The guerillas, of course, plundered the town' even taking the rings from the fingers of the ladies. One hotel only was left standing, which Quantrell spared because he had lived there some years "without expense," but the proprietor was shot dead. General "Jim .Lane," who was in Lawrence, was one of the very few who escaped, and has organized a force of Kansas farmers, with which he has been hunting down Quantrell's band ever since, naturally without mucb pity. Quautrell, and wretches like him, are not really responsible to any superior, and plunder or murder for the merest private greed and malice. Yet; if they are taken and hanged, the Confederate Government is pleased to treat their ex, et:- lion as a matter for reprisals, and retaliates on regular Federal officers.
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