Thanks for your comments and kind words. I try with all my might to keep my historical writing free from bias.

Let me just make a few observations on your observations....

You're absolutely right that Senator James H. Lane was at the very top of the "hit list" that the partisan rangers had at Lawrence. Killing him would have made them Confederate heroes for all time. But aside from specific, individual targets such as Lane, it is clear that the "Red Legs" group was the leader of all the Union organizations that the raiders would have liked to have destroyed.

I agree that the Lawrence claims of innocence regarding the confiscation/stealing of property in Missouri and it turning up in private hands in Kansas is--for the most part--too convenient for the true facts. Lawrence (and the rest of Kansas) benefited from stolen property as much as Missouri benefited from property stolen by Confederates and taken home. I don't believe in offsetting crimes...stealing is stealing, period!

Simpson's claim that "Lawrence has never been the special haunt of red legs," is true. During their official "unofficial" period of existence (summer 1862-spring 1863), the "Red Legs" were principally connected with Leavenworth. Secondary places were Kansas City and the "Six-Mile House" near Wyandotte, Kansas. That the group brought "contrabands" to Lawrence is nothing more and nothing less than what other groups did during the same time. The people of Lawrence had a legitimate complaint that they were being punished for what the "Red Legs" did in Missouri when they had very little actual connection to the deeds of that specific group.

There has always been a great deal of confusion over who and what the "Red Legs" were. They were not the generic, all-purpose title for Kansas terrorists that the term became. The "Red Legs" were a specific body of men led by George H. Hoyt, organized with the cooperation of the Leavenworth Provost Marshal Capt. Nathan L. Stout (3rd Wis. Cav.) I found a reference to the removal of Stout as provost marshal at Leavenworth, and the ordering of the "Red Legs" to disband (although they did not do so at that time): "Besides the 'mix' in regard to the colored regiment [1st Regt. of Kansas Colored Troops] there seems to be an upsetting of all previous arrangements made by Capt. Stout as Provost Marshal. Our Provost guard in this County, which has done excellent service, has been disbanded, or at least suspended, and the detective and scouting force organized under Capt. Hoyt (each man of whom is worth a dozen Major Weeds, although as a body characterized by that chivalrous (?) officer as the 'forty thieves,') has been ordered to disperse."--WYANDOTTE COMMERCIAL GAZETTE (Wyandotte, KS), 15 November 1862. [Note: The first reported action of the Wyandotte County home guards--noted above--was to cross into Jackson County and steal horses. They were forced to return them to their Missouri owners.] I have too many items to provide here, but there is absolutely no question that the "Red Legs" more or less broke-up in the spring of 1863. But as Hoyt took several of them into the detective service of Gen. Thomas Ewing, Jr., that summer, it can be argued that Ewing's detective force under Hoyt was an abreviated continuation of the "Red Legs." ["DEATH OF J[ohn]. WESLEY JOHNSON.--Wesley Johnson, who will be well remembered as a prominent member of Capt. Hoyt's Red Leg Scouts, and more recently as a detective of this Military District, was killed in a skirmish with guerrillas in Jackson Co., Mo., on Saturday...."--WYANDOTTE COMMERCIAL GAZETTE, 15 August 1863.]

William Sloan Tough's "Buckskin Scouts" organized at about the same time as Hoyt's "Red Legs." But the "Buckskin Scouts" WERE NOT "Red Legs."

Charles R. (Doc) Jennison was the spiritual mentor of Hoyt and his "Red Legs." But no evidence has come to light that shows that Jennison had any actual connection to the group. Jennison was indeed a criminal. He used his freighting line to move property stolen in Missouri throughout Kansas. His dismissal from the 15th Kansas Cavalry (as it was from the 7th Kansas Cavalry) lay in the fact that Jennison believed that the only thing to be done with Confederates was to kill them. And "He practiced what he preached."

Regards,
JAMES D. DREES