542

QUANTRILL AND THE BORDER WARS

and whipped the horses into a run and pressed them about three miles. Then Mrs. Thomas was put on a horse and taken back to Fort Scott.

In the Gregg Manuscript the escape of this buggy is noted, as is shown in the text, but the woman stood up in the buggy and whipped the horse to his highest speed while the soldier fired back at the guerrillas, and the buggy was drawn by one horse. Not being able to reconcile these accounts the author followed Leland. It may be that there is a confusion of the two accounts, for Davis says he mounted Mrs. Thomas astride a horse when his team stopped, and he mounted another, and they continued to flee.   p. 428.

As to the point where Major Plumb came up with Captain Coleman when following Quantrill's trail, the official reports are indefinite. The guerrilla lookout on Mount Oread saw both bodies of troops approaching and said they united south of the Wakarusa at or near the Blue-Jacket Crossing. The guerrillas then left Lawrence, going south to avoid the troops, hoping to strike the Santa Fe Trail and follow it in escaping from Kansas. A. J. Phillips told the author, at Lawrence, November 10, 1909, that "Plumb came up with Coleman just south of the Blue Mound, which is two miles south and two miles west of the Crossing. Phillips was one of Coleman's force. It may have been scouting parties seen at the Crossing.   p. 398.