Quantrell's Raid: Hon. Sidney F. Clarke Tells of Lawrence Massacre

Sidney F. Clarke was living in Oklahoma City when a Kansas City Journal correspondent contacted him and asked him for his statement or account of Quantrill's Lawrence Massacre in 1863. In doing so Clarke gives an account of William Quantrill as well as his account of how Jim Lane escaped as well as himself. How Clarke Escaped.My own escape was not unlike that of others. I was living on the west side of Tennessee street, immediately under the hill on which the old university building stands. At the first alarm I went to the front door of the house and witnessed the rush of the guerrillas, shooting all citizens who made their appearance. I saw eighteen men killed before I closed the door. I retreated behind a honey-locust hedge back of the house. By this time not less than twenty of the desperadoes were in the street in front of the house, shooting and shouting at a furious rate. Back of the university hill General Lane had an extensive cornfield. Others were behind the hedge and we determined to try and reach there. In running over the hill I was more fortunate than the rest. None excaped but myself. Not less than 500 shots were fired. The upper part of the field overlooked the main part of the town. There were three or four hundred men, women and children in the tall corn and were not disturbed, though we were inside of the pickets stationed on the bluff west of us. Looking into the town I saw not less than fifty men hunted out of their homes and killed. A majority were shot many times after life was extinct. So brutal was the vengeance of Quantrell's men. Not a dozen wounded were left when the carnage ceased.When the pickets were drawn in I obtained a farmer's horse and rode rapidly into town to find that all myself and family possessed had gone up in the flames, but my wife and two children were safe. My neighbors and friends were lying dead in all directions. Some disfigured by the fire, and some of the bodies nearly consumed. Within half an hour Lane came in with the armed farmers he had gathered up and commenced the pursuit. At his request I remained and as fast as people came in from the surrounding country and had any guns I sent them south to join Lane.