It is a fact not generally known that no complete account of this massacre has ever been published. The letter furnished by Rev. R. Cordley to the "Congressional Record" a few days after the event and before all the facts and incidents had become known, and which was republished in Boughton & McAllister's Directory of Lawrence 1865, is about all the literature we can find in regard to it. Mr. Cordley's letter is made the basis of this history, to which is added the personal experience and observations of a number of residents who providentially escaped the general slaughter and who now recall the terrible events of those few hours as though they occurred yesterday.
We would like to give the personal experience of every one of the survivors and especially record in detail the deeds of heroism enacted by the brave women of Lawrence who in that fearful hour saved many a precious life, and extinguished the flames in nearly a hundred burning dwellings. But volumes would be required for such an undertaking.
Read Full Article »