Quantrill and his men fled to north Texas immediately after the raid on Lawrence Kansas. The attacked the Union post at Baxter Springs Kansas and captured Gen. Blunt's Union supply wagon train near Baxter Springs. That is where they secured their Union uniforms.

Quantrill and his men arrived in Texas in October 1863 and spent the winter at a camp on Little Mineral Creek, northwest of Sherman Texas. Most of QQunatrill's raiders were gone fromNorthTexas area by May 1864 but several remained and started a new life. A member of Quantrill's raiders named Frank Parmer, who married Jesse and Frank James sister, Susan,remained in Texas and became a wealthy rancher and started a railroad construction company after the war. Parmer was arrested by Union authorities in 1873 and returned to Missouri to stand trial for murder and he was aquitted.

While in the Fannin and Grayson County area, Quantrill's men became troublesome and Brig. Gen. H.E. McCulloch wanted to get rid of them. However, Gen. Magruder authorized McCulloch to use Quantrill and his men to help arrest diserters, slackers and outlaws in the counties along the Red River. In most cases, rather than arrest the offenders, Quantrill's men robbed and hanged them on the spot. However, there is only one official record made of such activity and it was a deserter they hung who was a member of the prominant Wilmeth family. They hung the deserter near Kentuckytown in Grayson County, which was not far from one of Quantrill's camps.