Lawrence, Kansas Massacre
New York Times Article August 27, 1863
Instead of the reports of QUANTRELL's massacre at Lawrence growing less as the truth in regard to it reaches us, they grow greater and more horrible. The details which we publish this morning make the blood run cold; and, alas! they can no longer be discredited -- they cannot be characterized as exaggerations. Two hundred citizens, some say 300 -- nearly all the more respectable people of the place -- butchered at their own hearthstones in the early dawn of the morning. Two hundred houses -- nearly all the better houses of the town -- fired and reduced to ruins. Nearly a hundred wives made widows in an hour, and two hundred and fifty children made orphans forever. Most of these are now houseless, penniless and friendless, mourning for their dead amid the ruins of their homes, far out on the wild plains west of the Missouri. It is a case for our deepest sympathy, for our promptest charity.
During the last year we have made urgent appeals in the TIMES to the liberal-souled merchants of New-York for aid and relief to the starved operatives of Lancashire, to our sick and suffering soldiers in hospitals and in the field, to the persecuted blacks of this City; and all of these appeals have been met by responses so munificent as to reflect everlasting glory upon New-York. The case of the widows and orphans of Lawrence is another case which merits instant attention. There is not as much required as in the case of Lancashire, or of our army, or of the negroes; but money is wanted to furnish shelter for the houseless, clothing for the naked, food for the penniless, life to the orphans. Leavenworth has sent a little temporary relief, but this is alogether inadequate to the appalling emergency. Will not some of the noble-hearted gentlemen of New-York, whose ears are ever open to the cry of distress, and who are always prompt to take the lead in labors of charity, take up the case of these our heart-stricken countrymen in the Far West, and send at least such relief as will provide shelter, clothing and comfort for the widows and orphans? The suffering of soul which overwhelms Lawrence should not be aggravated by the tortures of bodily want, if it be in our power to prevent or alleviate it.