THE LAST BATTLE

475

Terrill began to plunder the house, when Wakefield took him and his lieutenant aside, giving the captain $20 and the lieutenant $10, which, supplemented with a jug of whiskey, saved further depredations, and the hopeful command departed. It had performed a righteous and valuable service to the country. Through Captain Terrill's Federal guerrillas many a foul murder, many a crime cruel and inhuman to the last degree, many a sacked town blazing black in smoke and sunshine or rolling red against the midnight sky, the cries of many an orphan, the shrieks and wails of widows innumerable along the border found vengeance, satisfaction, something of restitution.

Captain Terrill and his desperate company gone, the family physician was summoned to the Wakefield home     a Doctor McClasky. He looked and felt and probed as is the wont of his kind. Then straightening the patient to as much comfort as a death-stricken man may have, he said to him that his hurt was mortal and of hope there was none     all of which Quantrill knew before his arrival.

Time for reflection had come for Quantrill. He stood on the shores of the dark river. What phantoms stood before him we may not know. The world was rolled back for him. He spoke of his mother and sister, saying that a Mrs. Olivia D. Cooper had of his $500 in gold which he hoped they might have. But ruling passions became strong in death. This request was broken. From his disordered mind mother and sister were banished. Kate Clarke     the kidnapped girl who had assumed his name without marriage     stood in their place and seized the gold.   The priest that shrived him never heard their names.3

3 In the Collection of the author are many clippings from newspapers detailing at length the last battle of Quantrill and his band. Some facts are found in them. W. W. Scott interviewed Wakefield, and that interview lies before the author as he writes. Wakefield, a kindly, truthful man, wrote Scott June 13, 1888, giving a commplete account of this affair, and the letter is set out here at length:

Wakefield, June 13th, 188S.

Mr. Scott:    

In answer to your letter asking me to tell you all I know about Captain Quantrill's stay in Kentucky and his being fatally shot, I will say this: , , ,

In the spring of 1865, in March, I think, a man who went by the name of Captain Clarke, came to my place with a squad of men.   I had