while at the house of charles cowherd, a courier came up with the information that independence, which had not been garrisoned for some little time, was again in possession of a company of militia. another attack was resolved upon. on the night of february 20, 1862, quantrell marched to the vicinity of the town and waited there for daylight. the first few faint streaks in the east constituted the signal. there was a dash altogether down south main street, a storm of cheers and bullets, a roar of iron feet on the rocks of the roadway, and the surprise was left to work itself out. it did, and reversely. instead of the one company reported in possession of the town, four were found, numbering three hundred men. they manned the courthouse in a moment, made of its doors an eruption and of its windows a tempest, killed a noble guerrilla, young george, shot quantrell’s horse from under him, held their own everywhere and held the fort. as before, all who were killed among the federals, and they lost seventeen, were those killed in the first few moments of the charge. those who hurried alive into the courthouse were safe. young george, dead in his first battle, had all the promise of a bright career. none rode further nor faster in the charge, and when he fell he fell so close to the fence about the fortified building that it was with difficulty his comrades took40 his body out from under a point blank fire and bore it off in safety.
it was a part of quantrell’s tactics to disband every now and then. “scattered soldiers,” he argued, “make a scattered trail. the regiment that has but one man to hunt can never find him.” the men needed heavier clothing and better horses, and the winter, more than ordinarily severe, was beginning to tell. a heavy federal force was also concentrating in kansas city, ostensibly to do service along the missouri river, but really to drive out of jackson county a guerrilla band that under no circumstances at that time could possibly have numbered over fifty. quantrell, therefore, for an accumulation of reasons, ordered a brief disbandment. it had hardly been accomplished before independence swapped a witch for a devil. burris evacuated the town; jennison occupied it. in his regiment were trappers who trapped for dry goods; fishermen who fished for groceries. at night passers-by were robbed of their pocketbooks; in the morning, market women of their meat baskets. neither wiser, perhaps, nor better than the egyptians, the patient and all-suffering citizens had got rid of the lean kine in order to make room for the lice.
