Fried Chicken, Jayhawkers, and the Civil War
By Anne Mallinson
The Sunday of my childhood found four generations gathered in the dining room to break bread, a ritual that grew to mean more than the sharing of fried chicken and Grandma’s hot rolls. Children were to be seen and not heard, but we youngsters heard plenty between the blessing and dessert, and we heard more in the kitchen as women gathered for the wash-up. My numerous aunties reached into the past to recite a litany of favorite family stories. Because it was their parents’ era, the frequent topic rested on how the family fared during the long years of border warfare and reconstruction. It became a ritual that instilled in me a lifelong interest in history and anchored a sense of time and place that revealed the Civil War as a turbulent link in the evolution of democracy.
Aunt Mary, Aunt Irene, and Aunt Anna told us how their grandfather James slept in a cane field during the nights so raiders would not catch and kill him. Their uncle Willie, at age seven, went out every morning to walk a six mile circle in search of men who might be encamped in the area. If waylaid, his story was that he was looking for his mama’s milk cow. If he found no men in the area, he swung by the cane field to let his father and any other men sleeping there know that it was safe to come out. If he found an encampment—regardless of which uniform they wore—he did not go near the cane field and so the men spent the day in hiding.
We children heard of the burning of Lawrence and the hardships of Order #11. We touched the pass issued to James so that he could travel in the area during the months that order was in effect. Grandfather loaded us in the pick-up and showed us the Wayne City ruins where his Uncle James served in the Wayne City Citizens’ Guard.
We learned that during the Civil War, if a group of men wearing Union uniforms approached and asked your loyalty, you did not answer. They could be guerillas with stolen uniforms. They could be Confederate soldiers with uniforms taken in battle, or they could really be Union soldiers. They could be Union soldiers in Confederate or guerilla clothing trying to find guerillas. You did not answer.
As an immigrant from England who had taken the loyalty oath and was trying to raise his children in peace, James Mallinson experienced danger while farming near Independence. With so many raiders in the area, he realized that the safest place for his oldest son Abraham was in the army. James took Abe to Fort Leavenworth and signed for him to enlist in the Sixth Kansas Cavalry. (Here's a picture of Abe in later years.)
One day guerillas came to the house to steal food while the men hid in the cane. James’ German wife, Caroline, quickly spread her skirts over the full barrel of flour that had just been brought from the mill. In her broken English, she pretended to be a poor widow woman with many children to feed. The guerillas chided her for trying to fool them. They called her by name. They knew who she was and that her men folk were hiding. They took what food they could carry, along with another barrel only half-full of flour. They did not harm anyone but they missed the hidden, full barrel of flour over which Caroline stood.
As a child, I often rode with my father or grandfather on farm errands. When we delivered milk around Independence, they showed me sites where skirmishes had taken place, where homes had been burned, where homes had been spared to be used as hospital during battles. Dad showed me where his grandfather was plowing a field when the first battle of Independence took place. Abe had tied up the oxen and gone to town to watch. Abe was disciplined for leaving the oxen alone where they could have been stolen. I wondered whether James was more worried about the oxen or his son catching a stray bullet during the battle.
My father and grandfather pointed to areas where guerillas hid, most specifically where now sits the new Bass Pro complex south of Independence and in the Courtney Bend area. We went to the Napoleon Bottoms where guerillas gathered after raids and to the cemetery at Lone Jack. We learned that the road dividing Missouri from Kansas was called ‘Three Nail Road’ because guerillas could not afford the four nails on each side of their horseshoes.
Grandpa John told me of his father’s lifelong friend, Quit Burns, a guerilla who even after the war lived on the fringe of legality. Folks in the area did not understand the bond between Abe, who had been in the Union Army and whose family was loyal to the Union, and John Tyler (Quit) Burns, a contemporary who had been with Quantrill at Lawrence and who was friends with the James family. In later life, Quit told Abe’s wife (Effie Alice), "If it hadn’t been for me, you’d had no husband." We could only guess at the circumstance of that mystery. Had Quit saved Abe from being ambushed?
On several occasions, unfamiliar men came to the family farm with a map and a primitive metal detector. They claimed to be looking for gold Jessie buried. Grandfather gave them permission to search but all they ever found were broken plowshares and the odd horseshoe. Eventually interest faded. A new generation did not pursue the rumors.
The family attended Watson Memorial Methodist Church, where “northern” families worshiped. I learned to play Great-Uncle Willie’s fiddle and now use that instrument when I play Civil War events. The third floor attic of the family home houses archives dating back to the 1850’s.
During my childhood, my family did not go to Kansas. Ever. Kansas was the home of the terrible Jayhawkers. To this day I do not know whether my father forbade us to go into Kansas because of the legacy of violence or because he wanted to keep his teenage offspring from buying 3.2 beer. I cannot speak for my siblings but I did not cross the border into Kansas until I was an adult—and that was on my way to Colorado.
The Civil War era left a lasting impression. The dinner table is now lined with younger faces and Grandpa John and his sisters have passed, yet their voices echo in my head as the stories carry forward to another generation.
