Lyr Req: Quantrell: 'He came to burn Lawrence...'

Subject: He came to burn Lawrence
From:
Date: 30 Jul 01 - 01:59 PM

The only bit I can remember is "He came to burn Lawrence just over the line"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: He came to burn Lawrence
From: guest
Date: 30 Jul 01 - 02:00 PM

It's already in the DT under the name 'Quantrell' Click here

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: He came to burn Lawrence
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Jul 01 - 09:57 AM

And I thought this was a reference to grilling, silly me!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: He came to burn Lawrence
From: Jim Krause
Date: 31 Jul 01 - 10:41 AM

"Quantrill" is the name of the song. It was recorded in about 1960 or so by the late Joan O'Bryant on a Folkways recording. I wonder if the old recording is still available and in print.
Jim

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: He came to burn Lawrence
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Jul 01 - 02:42 PM

I knew Joan O'Bryant and a guy who adopted the song after hearing her do it.....(in fact,*grin*..I once kissed Joan O'Bryant at a New Years party..)...and the song became quite popular in our 'local' group in Wichita in 1962-1964 or so....I believe you can still order a tape of anything on Folkways from the Smithsonian-Folkways catalogue...there is some amazing stuff buried there.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: He came to burn Lawrence
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 31 Jul 01 - 03:09 PM

I believe Cathy Barton and Dave Para have also recorded in more recently on their CD "Johnny Whistletrigger."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: He came to burn Lawrence
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 31 Jul 01 - 10:00 PM

Yes that song is on Whistle Trigger.

An interesting re-creation of the raid (done as vengance for the deaths of bushwacker women held in the Kansas City Jail, which collapsed) is to be seen in the sleeper of 2000 called "Ride with the Devil" which features Jewel

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: He came to burn Lawrence
From: Jim Cheydi
Date: 01 Aug 01 - 12:48 PM

Hope it was Lenny Lawrence he burnt.

Subject: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 12:55 AM

Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry on the song:

Quantrell

DESCRIPTION: "Come all you bold robbers and open your ears, Of QuantrelI the lion-heart you quickly will hear." Quantrell raids and burns Lawrence, Kansas, but allegedly he supports to the poor, and "a brave man or woman he'll never annoy."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE:
KEYWORDS: outlaw
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Aug 21, 1863 - Quantrill's Raiders destroy Lawrence, Kansas, killing about 150 men.
May 10, 1865 - Quantrill is mortally wounded on his way to Washington (where he hoped to stir up trouble by assassination). He dies 20 days later.
FOUND IN: US(Ro)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 132-133, "Quantrell" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, QUANTRLL*
Roud #4094
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Charlie Quantrell" (subject)
cf. "The Call of Quantrell" (subject)
Notes: As is so often the case with outlaw ballads, this paints much too pretty a picture.
William Clarke Quantrill (this is the spelling used in the official records) was a pro-Confederate terrorist (having fought at Wilson's Creek, he was commissioned Captain C.S.A. in August 1862) whose raiders brought fear and pillage to Nebraska and any other Union area that looked vulnerable. After the war was over, a number of Quantrill's followers (including the James Brothers) took off on their own -- but in fact used the techniques they learned from Quantrill.
To tell this song from other Quantrell pieces, consider this first stanza:
Come all you bold robbers and open your ears
Of QuantrelI the lion-heart you quickly will hear

With his band of bold raiders in double-quick time
He came to burn Lawrence just over the line.
This song is item dE33 in Laws's Appendix II. - RBW
File: LoA132

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Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Instructions

The Ballad Index Copyright 2006 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.

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The Version in the Digital Tradition is a pretty good transcription of the song in Lomax, American Ballads and Folk Songs, which is "from the singing of R.R. Critchlow (Slim Slocum), radio broadcasting station KSL, Salt Lake City, Utah."
The only difference I noted in the Lomax book was in the first two lines:

"Come all ye bold robbers and open your ears,
Of QuantrelI the lion-heart you quickly shall hear."

No big difference, I'd say.

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There are a few entries to explore in Roud.
One is the 1938 edition of Cowboy Songs by Lomax, which I don't have - and it isn't in the 1916 edition. The version in Lingenfelter & Dwyer's Songs of the American West is taken from Finger, Frontier Ballads (1927) - it's almost word-for-word the same as the Lomax version, so I won't post it. According to Roud, there are different versions in Isern & Weeks: Mid-America Folklore, but I don't have access to Isern & Weeks.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 11:23 AM

I despise the romanticizing of criminals like Quantrell. Here's a quotation from a witness of the time:

"With demoniac yells the scoundrels flew hither and yon, wherever a man was to be seen, shooting him down like a dog. Men were called from their beds and murdered before the eyes of wives and children on their doorsteps."

Quantrell doesn't sound like a friend of the poor to me!

Subject: RE: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 12:59 PM

He wasn't...he was a zealot and a murderer- but even these have their followers....write a song and he gets publicity. I guess someone ought to write a song from the viewpoint of citizens of Lawerence. (I lived there for 2 years...there were no monuments to Quantrell)

Subject: RE: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: Amos
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 02:44 PM

Reminds me of Bushwah.


A

Subject: RE: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 03:02 PM

EVERYTHING naughty reminds you of Bushwah, Amos...*grin*...like the old Rorschach joke.."...but doctor, you're the one with the dirty pictures!"

Subject: RE: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 06:00 PM

Quantrill had a party of about 400 when he made his raid on Lawrence, in the heart of Jayhawker country.
There are several eyewitness reports, the following is an excerpt from Edward P. Farren, whose family lived in the Stone house at the time. These personal family websites can disappear at any time. Of course, it only deals with those events which were witnessed by the observer.
Quantrill had taught school in Lawrence, and had contracted typhoid fever there. He had been taken care of by the Stone's at their house. Quantrill assured all in the house that they would be safe.
The raiders were taking prisoners to the City Hotel. A party of sharpshooters, formed in the weeks before the raid, were shooting at the raiders.
Prisoners were brought to the house.
Quantrill and a lot of his raiders were at the house at the time, and they said to the people there, "If you can't stop those fellows shooting over the River, they will kill everybody." Some of the women went upstairs and waved sheets...for them to stop.
Lydia Stone came in and ran upstairs . Two rebels came to the door asking "Where is she?"
[During the raid, many of the raiders had become drunk and were stealing and shooting at will].
They could not find her, and demanded that everyone there come outside. Earlier, they had taken her diamond ring, and she had complained to Quantrill, who made them give it back. Now they wanted to get even. The raiders lined everyone up on the veranda, men, women and children. They asked the man on the end where he was from. He gave answer and they shot him. .... Several others were shot .... Mr. Stone came up and said "Look here, I have been guaranteed protection..." They shot him.
Those at the house made a break and ran towards the ferry. They managed to get on, with others who had been hiding, and escaped to North Lawrence.
http://personal.riverusers.com/~jdf/civilwar/quantrell.html

Re comments about the popularization of Quantrill, John Newman Edwards wrote in the Kansas City Times, 1872:

"It is useless to declare that these kind of characters do not attract. All Paris came to see Cartouche hung, and yet Cartouche was only a robber. But then his little child was suspended on the same scaffold. In the Arsenel at Jefferson City is a picture of Bill Anderson, taken after death.... For hours women gather about this picture and babble of balls and revels and dances and battles, and ever and ever come back...."
"No nation equals the individuality of the American. Her people possess all the elements to make the finest soldiers on earth. Keen. desperate, enduring, insatiate for the excitement of active conflict, and readily hardened into reckless butchers, they make conscience subsidiary to slaughter, and accept the fortunes of a struggle with a fatalism that is Oriental. As a perfect type of this, Quantrill will live as a model Sooner or later he knew death would come, and so he forgot him. Meanwhile his killing went on, and his exploits filled a historic page of the gigantic contest."
http://www.civilwarstlouis.com/History2/edwardsquantrill.htm

Subject: RE: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Aug 06 - 11:58 PM

I don't think this link will disappear anytime soon. I had put it in a thread which I just updated the other day about the Civil War and KS. Anyway, there is a vivid description of the Massacre, written at the time at this site.

I think Amos is spot on. Some of what has been quoted above, esp. Q's last paragraph, certainly seems apropos in light of the the American soldiers who have raped and murdered and are now blaming it on the stress of battle. The world never seems to lack for the Quantrells, does it?

Subject: RE: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 12:58 AM

The "Gun and the Gospel," by Fisher, has been reprinted and is reaily available. It much simplifies the tensions and deadly raids that took place between the Missourians and the abolitionist Kansans, or Jayhawkers as they were known, and as often happens, conflicts in marginal areas, with volunteer and irregular units not under regular Confederate or Union command, were often filled with strong elements of revenge. Atrocities abounded on both sides.

Fisher presents his version of the Raid without indicating that he was an actual eye-witness. Of course no single person could see more than the part of the raid directly affecting himself. Another witness to a small part of the action was O. W. Mcallaster, whose account is here: http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/shawnee/library/KSHSvol12/lawrenceraid.txt
There are others, many in the Truman Library, assembled by the historian Connelley, and I believe searchable, here. http://library.truman.edu/manuscripts/connelley.htm

Subject: RE: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 11:58 PM

Everything I learned about Quantrell, and all I need to know, came from the movie, "The Dark Command", but here he was called Cantrell. He was ashamed of his mother, he loved the same woman that John Wayne did (and won her), by day he was a mild-mannered school pa, but when the moon was full he was a border raider masquerading as a soldier. Roy Rogers, as his brother-in-law, is killed (probably the only flick in which he died, but he wasn't playing Roy Rogers) trying to help John Wayne escape. Cantrell attacks Lawrence, KS, but Wayne has prepared the town and the raiders are repulsed. Cantrell is killed by his own mother, or kills her...I forget which; at least we know now why he was ashamed of her.

Subject: RE: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 07:57 AM

Good old Holywood, muddling up history as per usual, this movie could come under,best comedy film,.

Subject: RE: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 01:52 PM

There is another Quantrill song, very muddled history, as Guest remarks about the movie.

Anon.- "Charlie Quantrell, Oh."

Raymond Sanders collected this song "from a fellow he worked with in the woods of Stone County, cutting white oak bolts for whiskey-barrell staves." The fellow was fascinated by Quantrill. Not only the name is wrong but the details of the song are muddled.

Glenn Ohrlin, 1973, "The Hell-Bound Train," A cowboy songbook, No. 26, pp. 67-68, with music (essentially "Brennan on the Moor"). University of Illinois Press.

I will post lyrics later.

Subject: RE: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 03:35 PM

Alan Lomax has his version of the Brennan-based song in "Folk Songs of North America."

Subject: RE: Origins: He came to burn Lawrence - Quantrell
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 04:46 PM

Thanks, Lighter, for calling my attention to the Lomax volume. The versions are different. The Lomax version first appeared in 1938, in "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads."
Ohrlin gives no date for his collection (He sings his version on the Max Hunter website). Laws apparently mentioned the 'Brennan' version in 1957, but I don't have the reference.

It has little relation to the bloody Missouri-Kansas feuds and guerrilla campaigns of the Civil War period. Posts here show that to Union supporters Quantrill was a killer. To Southerners he was a hero and patriot.

'Charlie Quantrell' was just a highwayman of English style.