OCTOBER 6, 1863:
The
Battle of Fort Baxter (The Battle of Fort Blair; The Fort Baxter Massacre).
Quantrill’s Raiders, numbering 400, attack the Union outpost of Fort Baxter,
Kansas, and are driven off. While retreating, they fall upon a small Union
column of 150 lightly-armed men who are accompanying Major General James G.
Blunt to his new Kansas command post. Quantrill orders the Union soldiers
butchered. Only a few escape, including Blunt. One of the dead is Johnny Fry,
the original rider of the Pony Express.
