thwest. There he halted and hastily erected breastworks of a
certain sort[105]. Meanwhile, the citizens of Fort Scott, finding
themselves left in the lurch, vacated their homes and followed in the
wake of the army[106]. Then came a period, luckily short, of direful
confusion. Home guards were drafted in and other preparations made to
meet the emergency of Price's coming. Humboldt was now suggested as
suitable and safe headquarters for the Neosho Agency[107]; but, most
opportunely, as the narrative will soon show, the change had to wait
upon the approval of the Indian Office, which could not be had for
some days and, in the meantime, events proved that Price was not the
menace and Fort Scott not the target.

It soon transpired that Price had no immediate intention of invading
Kansas[108]. For the present, it was

[Footnote 105: In ridicule of Lane's fortifications, see Spring,
_Kansas_, 275.]

[Footnote 106: As soon as the citizens, panic-stricken, were gone, the
detachment which Lane had left in charge, under Colonel C.R. Jennison,
commenced pillaging their homes [Britton, _Civil War on the
Border_, vol. i, 130.]]

[Footnote 107: H.C. Whitney to Mix, September 6, 1861, Indian Office
Consolidated Files, _Neosho_, W 455 of 1861.]

[Footnote 108: By the fifth of September, Lane had credible
information that Price had broken camp at Dry Wood and was moving
towards Lexington [Britton, _Civil War on the Border_, vol. i,
144].]

enough for his purpose to have struck terror into the hearts of the
people of Union sentiments inhabiting the Cherokee Neutral Lands,
where, indeed, intense excitement continued to prevail until there was
no longer any room to doubt that Price was really gone from the near
vicinity and was heading for the Missouri River. Yet his departure was
far from meaning the complete removal of all cause for anxiety, since
marauding bands infested the country roundabout and were constantly
setting forth, from some well concealed lair, on expeditions of
robbery, devastation, and murder. It was one of those marauding bands
that in this same month of September, 1861, sacked and in part burnt
Humboldt, for which dastardly and quite unwarrantable deed, James G.
Blunt, acting under orders from Lane, took speedy vengeance; and the
world was soon well rid of the instigator and leader of the outrage,
the desperado, John Matthews.[109]

[Footnote 109: (a)

FT. LINCOLN, SOUTHERN KANSAS.
Sept. 25, 1861.

HON. WM