For years Kansas had been inflicted with raids by the "Poor White Trash," "Border Ruffians," and "Bald Knobbers," who had, beside committing other outrages, carried off into Missouri horses, cattle, furniture, farm implements, and other portable property.
The Kansans held all Missourians responsible for these crimes by the worser element, and the war seemed a chance to get even. When opportunity offered, Kansas parties invaded Missouri, bringing back with them everything which they could load on wagons or drive along the road.
The great mass of the Missourians still held aloof from both sides, remaining as neutral as they would be allowed. Douglas Democrats, Bell-and-Everett Old-Line Whigs, two-thirds of the entire population, were yet halting between their attachment for the Union and their political and social affiliations. It was all-important that they should be kept loyal, or at least out of the Confederate camps, hence the stringency of Halleck's orders against any spoliations or depredations by Union troops, and hence his orders that the negroes should be kept out of the camps, and their ownership settled by the civil courts. Every offense by Union soldiers was made the most of by Price's recruiting agents to bring into their ranks the young men for the "defense of the State."
At the head of the vengeful Kansas element was the meteoric James H. Lane, who had for years ridden the whirlwind in the agitation following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and the rush of settlers into those Territories. Volumes have been written about "Jim Lane," but the last definitive word as to his character is yet to be uttered. Arch demagogue he certainly was, but demagogues have their great uses in periods of storm and stress. We usually term "demagogues" those men active against us, while those who are rousing the people on our own side are "patriotic leaders." No man had more enemies nor more enthusiastic friends than "Jim Lane."
As with all real leaders of men, the source of his power was a mystery. Tall, thin, bent, with red hair, a rugged countenance and rasping voice, he had little oratorical attractiveness, and what he said never read convincingly in print. No man, however, ever excelled him before an audience, and he swayed men as the winds do the sea.