I'm probably going to poke a hornet's nest when I post this, but I wonder why this is termed a "massacre" and not a "fight"?
The topic of this thread was actually about the honesty of the media. But since the question of whether this incident is merely a battle or a massacre, I will provide the following first person accounts. The readers can make up their own mind if it was a battle or not.
From the War of Rebellion Series 1 Volume 22 Part 1
"…The graves were, being dug and the dead being carried in for burial I arrived. It was a fearful sight; some 85 bodies, nearly all shot through the head, most of them shot from five to seven times each, horribly mangled, charred and blackened by fire. The wounded, who numbered 6 or 7, were all shot at least six times, and it is a remarkable fact that, with the exception of Bennet, of the Third Wisconsin Cavalry, all who were alive when they were brought in are in a fair way of final recovery……. coming in the direction they did, the general, of course, supposed it was Lieutenant Ponds cavalry, either on drill or coming out to receive them. For safety, however, he formed his little force in line of battle, and sent the wagons, with the band, clerks, orderlies, cooks, and other non-combatants, to the rear, and then rode about 50 paces to the front, accompanied by his staff, to reconnoiter and endeavor to ascertain to a certainty what the approaching force was. Whatever doubts he may have entertained were soon dispelled, for the front line, firing a volley and raising the guerrilla yell, charged forward at full speed. The general, turning in his saddle to order his body guard to advance and fire, saw, with shame and humiliation, the whole of it in disgraceful flight over the prairie. ……. They killed our men as fast as they caught them, sparing none. The members of the band were shot as they sat in the band-wagon, and it was then set on fire. They rifled all the trunks, boxes, & c., in the different wagons, and then set them on fire, with the bodies of the teamsters in them, and all others who happened to be in them when taken. The non-combatants were slaughtered as ruthlessly as the soldiers." …… Report of Lieut. Cot. Charles W. Blair, Fourteenth Kansas Cavalry
…... with these I returned to the brow of the hill in the direction of the first attack, and plainly saw the enemy engaged in sacking the wagons, and while there saw the band brutally murdered. At the time of the attack the band-wagon, containing 14 members of the brigade band, James O Neal, special artist for Frank Leslies pictorial newspaper, one young lad twelve years old (servant of the leader of the band), Henry Pellage, of Madison,Wis., and the driver, had undertaken to escape in a direction a little to the south of west, and made about half a mile. When one of the wheel~of the wagon ran off, and the wagon stopped on the brow of the hill in plain sight of where I stood. As the direction of the wagon was different from that in which most of the troops fled, it had not attracted such speedy attention, and the enemy had just got to it as I returned, giving me an opportunity to see every member of the band, Mr.ONeal, the boy, and the driver shot, and their bodies thrown in or under the wagon and it fired, so that when we went to them, all were more or less burned and the wagon~almost entirely consumed. The drummer-boy, a very interesting and intelligent lad, was shot and thrown under the wagon, and when the fire reached his clothes it must have brought returned consciousness, as he had crawled a distance of 30 yards, marking the course by bits of burning clothes and scorched grass, and was found dead with all his clothes burned off except the portion between his back and the ground as he lay upon his back. A number of the bodies were brutally mutilated and indecently treated…. Other dead, many of them brave and true men, were scattered and strewn over the ground for over a mile or two, most with balls through their heads, showing that they were killed after having surrendered, which the testimony of the wounded . …… Report of Major Benjamin S Henning,Third Wisconsin Cavalry
Report of Quantrill,
"I now formed 250 men of all the companies and ordered a charge. Up to this time not a shot had been fired, nor until we were within 60 yards of them, when they gave us a volley too high to hurt any one, and then fled in the wildest confusion on the prairie. We soon closed up on them, making fearful havoc on every side. We continued the chase about 4miles, when I called the men off, only leaving about 40 of them alive. On returning, we found they had left us 9 six-mule wagons, well loaded, 1 buggy (General Blunts); 1fine ambulance; 1fine brass band and wagon, fully rigged. Among the killed were General Blunt, Majors Curtis, Sinclair, and [B.S.] Henning, Captain Tufft [Tough], and 3 lieutenants of the staff, and about 80 privates of the escort. My loss here was 1 man killed (William Bledsoe) and 1 severely wounded (John Coger) ….. From this place to the Canadian River we caught about 150 Federal Indians and negroes in the Nation gathering ponies. We brought none of them through.”
‘Civil War Guerilla’ by James Simeon Whitesett page 39 chapter titled Baxter Springs Massacre
"The musicians and cavalry escort were not as fortunate. The bandwagon lost a wheel as the band members tried to make their escape. The guerrillas shot them all, even the twelve-year-old drummer boy. They piled the bodies on top of the wagon and set them a fire. The guerrillas ran down most of the cavalry and shot the soldiers when they tried to surrender. Eighty-five of the one hundred died, most by multiple gunshot wounds. Quantrill was beside himself with glee. He had done what Marmaduke and Shelby were unable to do. He had defeated and nearly captured General Blunt, the man responsible for the Union victories at Cane Hill, Prairie Grove and Van Buren – the man who had taken northwestern Arkansas from the Confederates."
(it is interesting he titled this chapter as the Baxter Springs Massacre as his chapter on the Lawrence Massacre was simply titled Lawrence, Kansas)
Did the Baxter Springs Massacre ruin James G Blunt by driving him crazy? Literally!
Link here
Old Thread on this topic
O'Neill and the Band: The Baxter Springs Massacre
Part One /
Part Two
250 men, according to Quantrill killed 81 of Blunt's men and wounded another 8 in a reported 15 minutes
(not including the fort).
At the Battle of Wilson's Creek, 5400 Union soldiers slugged it out with approximately 10,000 Southern forces. After 6 hours Southern casualties ran about 12%, while Union casualties ran nearly 1 in 4.