Baxter Springs Massacre

The general who escaped that day was a physician. James G. Blunt, born in Trenton, Maine, in 1826, took his medical degree at Starling Medical College in Columbus, Ohio, practiced at New Madison, Ohio, and came to Kansas Territory in 1856. He sat in the free-state Topeka legislature of 1857, chaired the militia committee at the Wyandotte Convention, and in the Civil War became Kansas' first major general. After practicing in Leavenworth he moved to Washington in 1869, entered a government hospital for the insane in February 1879, and died there on July 25, 1881.

What the plaque says

Baxter Springs Massacre On October 6, 1863, Gen. James Blunt and about 100 men were met near Baxter's springs by William Quantrill and several hundred Confederates masquerading as Union troops. As Blunt's band was preparing a musical salute the enemy fired. This surprise attack prevented organized resistance, and though Blunt escaped nine-tenths of his men were killed. The raiders also attacked Lt. James Pond and 95 men encamped at the springs. This force was likewise caught off guard but resisted until the enemy retired. These battle sites are in present Baxter Springs. Some of the victims are buried in the national cemetery one mile west of town. Baxter Springs was established in 1866 on the Fort Leavenworth-Fort Gibson military road. For several years it was important as a trading center for Texas cattle Erected by Kansas Historical Society and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brush Creek Bridge (Rainbow Bridge) — 2.8 mi
  The last of three Marsh rainbow arch bridges on Kansas's short stretch of Route 66, built in 1923 and kept standing in 1992 when the road association refused to let it go.
• Big Brutus — 20 mi
  A 16-story electric coal shovel parked in 1974 where it stopped digging, among the flooded strip pits and reclaimed grassland of the Cherokee County coal field.