Quantrill's Raid

Time-Crossed Wedding, the second in the series Guardians of the Stones, finds Ashley and Robert in Lawrence, Kansas, just before Quantrill's Raid on August 21, 1863. In preparation for writing this section of my novel, my husband and I traveled to Lawrence and visited the museum there documenting the disastrous raid. It is one of those Civil War stories that gets told time and again because it is such a bizarre series of events. What could go wrong, did go wrong for the citizens of the town.

I did my best to recreate the town to make it as physically correct as I could, using the proper street names along with many of the names of actual townspeople. Since the real events are stranger than fiction, it wasn't difficult to incorporate them. Ashley and her mother stay in the house pictured below.

Lawrence House is still there, having been altered only slightly since 1863. The raid left 85 widows and 250 fatherless children when nearly 200 men were killed that morning. The raiders surprised the town in the early morning hours getting many out of bed. Where were their weapons? All locked up in the local armory, leaving most citizens defenseless. The community was relatively new and survived despite the fact that as many as 185 homes were destroyed. Shocking to think of, isn't it?