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Two revolvers from the Civil War

Before Lawrence: Why Was it Written

Posted on August 15, 2024May 9, 2025 by Eric Niewoehner

The Forward: Why was Before Lawrence written

One of the darkest days of the Civil War was on August 21, 1863. Riding into the town of Lawrence, Kansas were a ruthless band of pro-Southern guerrilla fighters led by William Quantrill. Within hours, 150 men and boys would be executed and a quarter of the town consumed in flames. Only two businesses survived, leaving most of the town’s 2700 citizens homeless.

As a youngster growing up in Columbia, Missouri, I was fortunate to enjoy the good-hearted rivalry between the Kansas Jayhawks and the Missouri Tigers. The rivalry had its birth in the Border Wars of the 1850’s and 60’s, chief of which was the burning of Lawrence. It is a testament of our American history that such bitterness could be buried, replacing hatred with football and basketball games. About the only act of violence I participated in was targeting the giant Jayhawk that had been placed 150 yards out at the driving range. As a grain trader I worked side-by-side with graduates of Kansas and Kansas State. Academically, the three universities worked together on numerous projects.

Yet the legend persisted. Even in central Missouri, about the only thing you would hear about was the burning of Lawrence by William Quantrill. It would only be recently, as a much older adult, that I would learn that there was another tragedy before Lawrence. The bad guys in this case would be the Jayhawk “Red Legs”, a band of federal troops who assaulted the river port town of Osceola, Missouri. That fateful day was September 23, 1861. By days end, at least nine citizens would be executed. Yet the looting and pillaging cleaned out the entire town of 2700 citizens, burning all but two structures. Osceola would never recover.

It is said that history is written by the winners. It is also determined by the lack of interest of the losers. I would not learn until I was a middle-aged adult that almost the entirety of Boone County, Missouri was slave-holding plantations. Best not said, I suppose. About that time I would learn of the last lynching in 1927 near where the University power station currently resides. And, strangely, the details about Osceola went unnoticed. With the same discretion little was said about Bill Anderson’s slaughter of over a hundred Union soldiers in Centralia, a mere twenty miles north of Columbia. No, people went on with life. No one had time to look into the past nor found any benefit in doing so.

According to Wikipedia, the burning of Lawrence was referred to eight times in film and literature. Osceola? None. There is a locally published book on the subject, Osceola, Missouri: The Burning of 1861, by Richard F. Sunderwirth. That was it. I hope my humble effort will bring to life the town of Osceola in 1861.


Before Lawrence is being published using a technique that is both new and old. For the past few centuries, novels have been published in serial form. Purchasing a book has, historically, been beyond the reach of many readers. But a magazine or pamphlet is more affordable. It is also more “digestible,” taking less time to read a segment. And it is also more mobile, enabling readers to easily share the contents with others. Before the days of the Internet, this would have taken the form of reading stories to one another in the living room or parlor.

It is also a new thing, at least for the author. For the past few years, publishing an entire book of stories has been considered. But it was cumbersome. All publishing agents care about are reading the entire book, and that gets expensive and it is time-consuming. Self-publishing has been considered, but it is again quite expensive. Kindle, on the other hand, is substantially less expensive. It can produce immediate results with little cost. But it is also bulky. Something is lost in the process.

Using a serial format, however, has several advantages. First, you as the reader are not having to decide to read hundreds of pages of a story that may or may not entertain you. Serial formats can also be published free to the customer. Finally, you have the opportunity to participate in the completion of the story. You can comment on the stories or send a private message to the author.

So the strategy is to release Before Lawrence one chapter at a time. Publishing dates will roughly follow that of actual events as they unfolded. The platform will be Substack which is more ideally suited to this format and has a better commenting feature. Your comments may be used to adjust the story. Once the story is completed, it will be consolidated and posted on Kindle. If there is interest and funding, the story may be printed.

Alongside the story will be a roll-out of photos and other features that may provide added insight into the story. These will be made available through the EricN Publications web site.

Read Before Lawrence

Home » Fiction » Missouri Chronicles » Before Lawrence » Before Lawrence: Why Was it Written

Before Lawrence, Border War, Civil War, Eric Niewoehner, EricN, EricN Publicaions, Missouri Chronicles, Osceola Missouri, Sacking of Osceola
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