Why People from Kansas Don't Like People from Missouri

This story never fails to amaze me.

The Lawrence Massacre, also known as Quantrill's Raid, was a rebel guerrilla attack during the U.S. Civil War by Quantrill's Raiders, led by William Clarke Quantrill, on the pro-Union town of Lawrence, Kansas.

The attack on August 21, 1863, targeted Lawrence due to the town's long support of abolition and its reputation as a center for Redlegs and Jayhawkers, which were free-state militia and vigilante groups known for attacking and destroying farms and plantations in Missouri's pro-slavery western counties.

The attack was the product of careful planning. Quantrill had been able to gain the confidence of many of the leaders of independent Bushwhackergroups, and chose the day and time of the attack well in advance. The different groups of Missouri riders approached Lawrence from the east in several independent columns, and converged with well-timed precision in the final miles before Lawrence during the pre-dawn hours of the chosen day.

Many of the men had been riding for over 24 hours to make the rendezvous and had lashed themselves to their saddles to keep riding if they fell asleep. They were almost all armed with multiple, long-barreled, cap-and-ball revolvers, shoved crossways into their double-breasted shirt-fronts so they would not have to reload in the heat of a fight, pistoleering tactics also used after the war by western gunfighters.

Arriving at the summit of Mount Oreadand leading between three and four hundred riders, Quantrill descended on Lawrence in a fury. Over four hours, they pillaged and set fire to the town and murdered most of its male population. Quantrill's men burned to the ground one in four buildings in Lawrence, including all but two businesses. They looted most of the banks and stores, as well. Finally, they killed between 185 and 200 men and boys. According to an 1897 account, among the dead were 18 out of 23 unmustered army recruits.  By 9 a.m., the raiders were on their way out of town, evading the few units that came in pursuit, and splitting up so as to avoid Union pursuit of a unified column.

The real target of the raid, Jayhawking Senator James H. Lane, who had been responsible for the raid in Osceola, Missouri, two years earlier, managed to escape death by racing through a cornfield in his nightshirt. Three years later he committed suicide.