'Vigilantism often may not be "Christian" but personally seems an understandable response to justice otherwise denied.'
Including the murder of children? Sorry, I can't agree in any circumstances. I respect your opinion, however.
The only child killed at Lawrence, to my knowledge, was 14-year-old Bobby Martin, killed as he was trying to leave town through some brush and woods on the town's western side. I'm paraphrasing from Leslie's book,
"The Devil Knows How to Ride" page 226; He (Bobby) was big for his age and unfortunately was wearing the pants from his father's Federal uniform. One of the guerrilla pickets saw him and gave chase and opened fire, the bullet hitting Bobby in the head. There were other young boys in the area, all trying to get out of town. Edmund Fisher (10 years old), was one of them and he said years later that he and another young boy were shot at a number of times as they ran through the heavy undergrowth of the bushes, "the rebels probably mistaking us for men as we flew through the sumac and hazel bushes."
Lawrence was a known depot for the gathering of items stolen out of Missouri. The local warehouses were full of all types of household goods and the barns filled with stolen animals. All these good were gathered here waiting for auctions to take place when the warehouse would be cleared out, only to be filled again with the next Jay hawking raid into Missouri. The money from the sale of the stolen goods would be divided up between the officers and the men of the Jay Hawking units and the Redleg's. Certainly, the citizens of Lawrence were aware of all of this, but no voices were raised to condemn it. With regards to the citizens of Lawence, Albert Castel wrote "The town folk acquiesced in the selling and purchasing the stolen property." The American legal system has always maintained that an accessory to a crime is as culpable as the perpetrators to that crime.
And as horrible as slavery was, I can't condone Lane's activity in freeing those slaves, when that activity involved the murder and arson on those slave's former master at a time when it was legal to own slaves. I'm imagine he thought he was doing God's work: destroying everything the slave owner had worked to build, making his wife a widow and his children orphans because they owned another person. And as long as Lane makes some money from all of this activity, I'm sure he thought that's ok too.
I don't know the name of the youngest boy who rode with the guerrillas, but he was 12 years old and known as "Baby Anderson" as he was a favorite of "Bloody Bill" Anderson. I don't know if he made it through the war or not, I've only seen a reference made about him one time. My favorite young Guerrilla was Riley Crawford. He was 13 when some of Penick's troops out of Independence, Mo during the winter of 1862/3 raided their farm burning it to the ground and killing his father, all of this for the crime of being southerners, No slaves, no sons fighting for the south, the Crawford's just had southern sentiments as did so many of the rural folks of Jackson County. Riley's mother was left destitute with several children and nothing but the clothes on their backs. If neighbors helped her, then they too might get burned out for giving aid and comfort to the "Enemy.'' In the spring of 1863, Quantrill is camped near her farm so she takes Riley and his two older brothers to Quantrill's camp and askes Quantrill to "Make soldiers out of them, so they can avenge their father."
When I first learned about Riley, I couldn't believe the story. What mother would do this with her three sons? Then I began to realize she had no choices. She could place her other children in her friends and relative houses, but not young boys close to or at soldering age. Whoever took these boys in would become a target. Riley's mother's maiden name was Harris, but her mother's maiden name was Fristoe. In the 1820's two Fristoe brothers were among the early settlers of Jackson County, Missouri. They both married and raised large families, but most of their children were females. It's now 1863 and all of the Fristoe girls are grown and married and living throughout Jackson County. Once I knew this story, I realized that Riley's mother did "give up" her sons to be soldiers, she gave them to Quantrill because riding with Quantrill were the only male relatives she and Riley had left. The Younger's, Mccorkle's and Harris's were all first and second cousins to Riley and his brothers. His brothers go on to join the southern army, but Riley, being only 13 or 14 at the time was too young for the army, but he was old enough to become a guerilla.
Riley had two older sisters who were married, and later that summer they were caught by the Federals for possibly giving aid to the guerrillas or that their brothers were in the southern army, and they were imprisoned in Kansas City. Both of them were killed when the jail collapsed, along with the sister of John McCorkle and the eldest sister to William Anderson; his two youngest sisters lived through the collapse but were maimed for life. These four women that were killed were related by blood or marriage to about 35-40% of the men who rode with Quantrill. (The fifth woman killed, a Mrs. Wilson, nothing is known about her). Given the prevailing thinking amount the guerrillas that you don't harm women, and that the rumors were widespread that the collapse was not an accident, the guerrillas had reached their limit-the raid on Lawrence occurred 8 days later.
Riley went on to be a veteran of Lawrence and Baxter Springs. In the early fall of 1864, he was killed in Cooper County Missouri while riding under David Poole's command. Riley was a favorite of Poole and supposedly Poole cried like a child when Riley died. He was buried at night in an unmarked grave in the old Concord Graveyard. To give him a Christian burial would have been against the law. His grave is about 10 miles from where I live.