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Charles W. Quantrell

Chapter 3: THE AUTHOR
By Harrison Trow
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About This Book

A firsthand account by a veteran follower describes guerrilla warfare along the Missouri–Kansas border during the Civil War, chronicling raids, ambushes, and pitched engagements led by Charles Quantrell. It traces his rise from early life through violent campaigns, including major assaults, reprisals such as the Lawrence raid, contentious encounters with militia and Jayhawkers, and retaliatory measures like forced depopulation. The narrative records recruits who would later gain notoriety, battlefield tactics, narrow escapes, captures, surrender, and the leader's death, and concludes with the postwar trajectories of companions, blending battle reports, personal reminiscence, and local perspective on a turbulent border conflict.

THE AUTHOR

Captain Harrison Trow was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 16, 1843, moved to Illinois in 1848, and thence to Missouri in 1850, and went to Hereford, Texas, in 1901, where he now resides. At the age of nine years, he, having one of the nicest, neatest and sweetest stepmothers (as they all are), and things not being as pleasant at home as they should be (which is often the case where there is a stepmother), and getting all the peach tree sprouts for the whole family used on him, he decided the world was too large for him to take such treatment, and one day he proceeded to give the stepmother a good flogging, such as he had been getting, and left for brighter fields.

In a few days he made his way to Independence, Missouri, got into a game of marbles, playing keeps, in front of a blacksmith shop, and won seventy-five cents. Then and there Uncle George Hudsbath rode up and wanted to hire a hand. Young Trow jumped at the job and talked to Mr. Hudsbath a few minutes and soon was up behind him and riding away to his new home. Young Trow proved to be the lad Uncle George was looking for and stayed with him until the war broke out.