The Kansas soldiers had their wish.  They marched through Missouri.  Those who had taken part in the outrages upon Kansas, five years earlier, were made to feel the hand of retribution.  If they had burned the buildings of free-State settlers in ’56, they found their own houses destroyed in ’62.  In the old troubles they contended for their right to make whatever warfare they chose, but were astounded and horrified in the latter days, when the tables were turned against them by those they had wronged.

Along the frontier of Missouri the old system of warfare was revived.  Guerrilla bands were formed, of which Quantrel and similar men were the leaders.  Various incursions were made into Kansas by these marauders, and the depredations were worse than ever.

They culminated in the burning of Lawrence and the massacre of its inhabitants.

To break up these guerrilla bands, it became necessary to depopulate the western tier of counties in Missouri, from the Missouri River down to the thirty-eighth parallel of latitude.  The most wealthy of these was Jackson County.  Before the war it had a slave population of not far from four thousand, and its fields were highly productive.  Two years after the war broke out it contained less than three hundred slaves, and its wealth had diminished in almost as great proportion.  This was before any freedom had been officially declared to the slaves in the Border States.  The order of depopulation had the desired effect.  It brought peace to the border, though at a terrible cost.  Missouri suffered greatly, and so did Kansas.

The most prominent officer that Kansas furnished during the Rebellion, was Brigadier-General Blunt.  At the beginning of the war he enlisted as a private soldier, but did not remain long in the ranks.  His reputation in the field was that of a brave and reckless officer, who had little regard to military forms.  His successes were due to audacity and daring, rather than to skill in handling troops, or a knowledge of scientific warfare.

The battle of Cane Hill is said to have commenced by General Blunt and his orderlies attacking a Rebel picket.  The general was surveying the country with his orderlies and a company of cavalry, not suspecting the enemy was as near as he proved to be.

At the moment Blunt came upon the picket, the cavalry was looking in another direction.  Firing began, and the picket was driven in and fell back to a piece of artillery, which had an infantry support.  Blunt was joined by his cavalry, and the gun was taken by a vigorous charge and turned upon the Rebels.  The latter were kept at bay until the main force was brought up and joined in the conflict.  The Rebels believed we had a much larger number than we really possessed, else our first assault might have proved a sudden repulse.  The same daring was kept up throughout the battle, and gave us the victory.