The Quantrill Raid as Seen From the Eldridge House

Article gives an account of Quantrill's raid on Lawrence in August, 1863, as told by R.G. (Robert Gaston) Elliott from his vantage point in the Eldridge House hotel. Account gives an anti-slavery view of the situation in Kansas and the border area previous to the actual massacre. "At the Eldridge House the help were just entering upon their respective duties and the guests were locked in slumber, when only those alert or most easily wakened heard a few desultory shots, fired at a distance, but in a minute followed by volleys much nearer. Then all at once bedlam broke loose, with whooping and yelling, a storm of promiscuous firing, and the clattering of a thousand hoofs on the hard-beaten streets as horsemen dashed through the town, many of them at a mad gait, firing at everyone they saw running and into every window of the hotel where a head was exposed." (Page 184)