Quantrill wasn't from Boone County.

Posted on: October 13, 2017 at 15:18:28 CT

He was from Kansas. And it was a rumored raid by Bloody Bill Anderson (Bates County) that really kicked the formation, as loose as it was, into high gear. Anderson had already hit Union Troops near Rocheport and in Centralia - i.e. the Centralia Massacre. Anderson and his Bushwhackers were raiding into Howard and Boone counties at the behest of the Confederacy, trying to draw federal troops away from St. Louis in order to leave the armory and barracks exposed. Quantrill was still hoping for a full confederate commission and was riding south hoping to hook up with Price. While Boone County was heavily pro-slavery, Columbia itself was suspiciously viewed by the rest of Little Dixie enlight of its liberal pro-Union politics.

In further display of historical ignorance, kU takes its "jayhawk" mascot name from the bands of marauding plunderers who rode through eastern Kansas and Western Missouri under the guise of "abolition" but freely killing slaves and whites alike. Their goal - in addition to murder and plunder - was to keep Kansas "Free" of blacks altogether, hence the origin of the original "Free State" moniker. Why the little mythical bird with red leggings? Because they raided and stole, like jays, and their leggings were red with the blood of their victims.