The Ballad of Quantrill's Raiders

Joe Coleman, artist

born 1955

The Ballad of Quantrill's Raiders, 1992

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: hardboard; cloth; acrylic

Dimensions:
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 55.9 x 71.1 cm
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 22 x 28 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 26 x 32 x 2 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Helen Foresman Spencer Art Acquisition Fund

Accession number: 2012.0046

Not on display

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Label texts

This Land

Coleman’s painting features members of William Clark Quantrill’s band of guerilla fighters, known as Border Ruffians or bushwhackers, including William T. “Bloody Bill” Anderson and the James brothers, arrayed in a pattern resembling the Confederate flag. The key events in the four quadrants of the painting include Quantrill’s August 21, 1863 raid on Lawrence (top), an attack which was motivated by retaliation against Jayhawker, or Free State, guerilla activity in Missouri during the Civil War. The attack immediately followed the issuance of General Order 10, which forbade aiding Quantrill or other Border Ruffians. As a result of this decree, female relatives of known Confederate guerrillas were imprisoned in a building in Kansas City, Missouri, which collapsed under suspicious circumstances on August 13, 1863. On the morning of August 21, Quantrill entered Lawrence. He ordered his men to kill any man old enough to wield a gun, but to leave women and children alone. They came especially for noted Jayhawker James Lane, who escaped through a corn field. For four hours the raiders looted and burned the city, killing more than 100 men. The Eldridge Hotel, formerly the Free State Hotel that had been sacked in 1856, was razed again.

Other vignettes in the painting include Anderson’s holdup near Centralia, Missouri, on September 27, 1864 (right). On the train were twenty-four Union soldiers on furlough. The guerillas ordered the unarmed soldiers to strip before they were executed so as not to mar the uniforms with bullet holes. They defeated Major Johnston and his troops from the Missouri Infantry, looted the train and town, and scalped and mutilated the many dead. After this gruesome battle, Anderson’s infamy rivaled and even perhaps surpassed that of Quantrill. The opposite vignette on the left features Quantrill in a domestic interior with Frank and Jesse James, and the bottom vignette shows Quantrill on his deathbed in 1865 after being shot in the back and having his trigger finger shot off by Yankee guerillas.

This Land

Members of the New England Emigrant Aid Company settled Lawrence to ensure that Kansas would enter the Union as an anti-slavery or free state. Their cause was met with violent opposition from settlers who supported slavery in a conflict termed “Bleeding Kansas,” a prelude to the Civil War. Lawrence was sacked by pro-slavery guerrilla forces in 1856, and again, during the war in 1863. As shown in the top portion of Joe Coleman’s 1992 depiction, on the morning of August 21, 1863, William Clark Quantrill entered Lawrence. He ordered his men to kill any man old enough to wield a gun, but leave women and children alone. He came especially for noted Jayhawker James Lane, who escaped through a corn field. For four hours, the raiders looted and burned the city, killing between 150-200 men. Lawrence’s tumultuous history remains inexorably linked to a larger story of American westward expansion and civil conflict.

This Land

Exhibition Label:
"This Land," Mar-2014, Kate Meyer
Members of the New England Emigrant Aid Company settled Lawrence to ensure that Kansas would enter the Union as an anti-slavery or free state. Their cause was met with violent opposition from settlers who supported slavery in a conflict termed “Bleeding Kansas,” a prelude to the Civil War. Lawrence was sacked by pro-slavery guerrilla forces in 1856, and again, during the war in 1863. As shown in the top portion of Joe Coleman’s 1992 depiction, on the morning of August 21, 1863, William Clark Quantrill entered Lawrence. He ordered his men to kill any man old enough to wield a gun, but leave women and children alone. He came especially for noted Jayhawker James Lane, who escaped through a corn field. For four hours, the raiders looted and burned the city, killing between 150-200 men. Lawrence’s tumultuous history remains inexorably linked to a larger story of American westward expansion and civil conflict.

Archive Label:
"A Kansas Art Sampler," 2004, Kate Meyer
Joe Coleman paints obsessive and microscopically detailed images that lay bare the often-grizzly extremes of human thought, history and experience. Coleman, who refers to his own career as his “artistic pathology,” unflinchingly takes on subjects such as his own fear of disease, the relationship between sex violence and death, the outsider painter Henry Darger, and the Catholic notion of the Man of Sorrows. The story of William Clark Quantrill’s bloody attack on the city of Lawrence on August 21, 1863, captivated the artist and provided him with an opportunity to study and paint a thoroughly documented example of violence in U.S. history.