https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Jennison
Charles Rainsford Jennison also known as "Doc" Jennison (June 6, 1834 – June 21, 1884) was a member of the anti-slavery faction during Bleeding Kansas, a famous Jayhawker, and a member of the Kansas State Senate in the 1870s. He later served as a Union colonel and as a leader of Jayhawker militias during the American Civil War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Kansas_Cavalry_Regiment
Commanders
Colonel Charles R. Jennison
Colonel Albert Lindley Lee
Colonel Thomas P. Herrick
Lieutenant Colonel Daniel R. Anthony – arrested and relieved of command for issuing an order that prevented Tennessee slave catchers from entering the regiment's camp looking for escaped slaves
Captain John Brown Jr., Company K – Son of abolitionist John Brown
The 7th Kansas Cavalry was organized at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on October 28, 1861. It mustered in for three years under the command of Colonel Charles R. Jennison.
Moved to Humboldt, Kansas, January 31, and duty there until March 25. Moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, March 25; then to Columbus, Kentucky, May 18-June 2, and to Corinth, Mississippi, June 7, escorting working parties on Mobile & Ohio Railroad and arriving at Corinth July 10; then moved to Jacinto and Rienzi, Mississippi, July 18–28.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayhawker
The meaning of the jayhawker term evolved in the opening year of the American Civil War. When Charles Jennison, one of the territorial-era jayhawkers, was authorized to raise a regiment of cavalry to serve in the Union army, he characterized the unit as the "Independent Kansas Jay-Hawkers" on a recruiting poster. The regiment was officially termed the 7th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, but was popularly known as Jennison's Jayhawkers.[29][30] Thus, the term became associated with Union troops from Kansas.
The Jayhawker term was applied not only to Jennison and his command, but to any Kansas troops engaged in punitive operations against the civilian population of western Missouri, in which the plundering and arson that characterized the territorial struggles were repeated, but on a much larger scale. For example, the term "Jayhawkers" also encompassed Senator Jim Lane and his Kansas Brigade, which sacked and burned Osceola, Missouri, in the opening months of the war after their defeat by Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard in the Battle of Dry Wood Creek.[
Jayhawking was a prominent aspect of Union military operations in western Missouri during the first year of the war. In addition to Osceola, the smaller Missouri towns of Morristown, Papinsvile, Butler, Dayton, and Columbus and large numbers of rural homes were also pillaged by Kansas troops led by James Lane, Charles R. Jennison, Daniel Read Anthony, and James Montgomery, among others.[34] Scores if not hundreds of Missouri families were burned out of their homes in the middle of the winter of 1862.
https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/jennison-charles-r
Jennison, Charles R.
By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati
Charles R. Jennison, jayhawker and colonel of the 7th Kansas Volunteer Infantry. Photograph courtesy of the Kansas Historical Society.
Charles R. Jennison, jayhawker and colonel of the 7th Kansas Volunteer Infantry. Photograph courtesy of the Kansas Historical Society.
Biographical information:
Date of birth: June 6, 1834
Place of birth: Antwerp, New York
Claim to fame: Colonel of Jennison's Jayhawkers (7th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry) and 15th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, 1861-1864; fought in Price's Raid; served in Kansas House of Representatives, 1865-1869, and Kansas State Senate, 1872-1876
Political affiliations: Republican Party
Nickname: "Doc" Jennison
Date of death: June 21, 1884
Place of death: Leavenworth, Kansas
Cause of death: Illness (Unknown)
Final resting place: Greenwood Cemetery, Leavenworth, Kansas
Charles R. Jennison, abolitionist and federal cavalry colonel, was born on June 6, 1834, in Antwerp, in upstate New York's famed "Burned-Over District," so named for its fervid evangelical religious revivals that were foundational to Northern antislavery reform. In 1846, his family moved to Albany, in southern Wisconsin, where he studied and briefly practiced medicine. With an enclave of New Englanders and New Yorkers, the village was a hotbed of abolitionism. After a short stint in southwestern Minnesota, he moved his young family in 1857 to Osawatomie, Kansas, perhaps not coincidentally the home of John Brown, whose by then notorious radical politics Jennison would soon emulate.
Jennison frequently acted as a vigilante, including harassing a district court judge at Fort Scott for what he considered biased proslavery rulings.
Jennison moved to Mound City in 1857, where he affiliated with James Montgomery and participated in his jayhawking forays against proslavery residents in Kansas and Missouri. Jennison frequently acted as a vigilante, including harassing a district court judge at Fort Scott for what he considered biased proslavery rulings. But he did far more. On at least two different occasions, Jennison ordered proslavery men hanged under his direct leadership. The more widely known incident occurred on November 12, 1860, when Jennison's posse "tried" and lynched Russell Hinds for capturing and returning escaped slaves to Missouri and accepting a small reimbursement.
In February 1861, Jennison was appointed captain of a local militia unit, the Mound City Guards, which was active patrolling the border counties south of Kansas City in the first months of the war. In late October 1861, with authorization from Governor Charles Robinson, Jennison mustered and organized the 7th Kansas Cavalry and commanded it as a newly commissioned lieutenant colonel. Owing to its hard-line tactics toward civilians in western Missouri, this regiment, which was soon known as "Jennison's Jayhawkers," would earn a reputation as perhaps the most extreme of those operating in the entire Trans-Mississippi theater.
"Jennison's Jayhawkers" would earn a reputation as perhaps the most extreme of those operating in the entire Trans-Mississippi theater.
Jennison soon exceeded his authority to defend the Kansas border counties against General Sterling Price's army, then positioned in central Missouri after the Battle of Lexington. Henry W. Halleck, the new commander of the Department of the Missouri, criticized Jennison for "cross[ing] the line, [to] rob, steal, plunder, and burn whatever they can lay their hands upon." At Independence, Jennison arrested every adult male, admonished accused secessionists for their depredations against Unionists, and then after releasing them, kept the secessionists' possessions, including slaves. He was soon accused of similarly plundering Missouri's proslavery Unionists.
In April 1862, while stationed at Lawrence, Jennison learned that he and his controversial regiment had been ordered to New Mexico, an obvious ploy by the War Department to move them far away from Missouri slaveholders. Furious about this, as well as the perceived slight when James G. Blunt was promoted over Jennison to Kansas's second brigadier-generalship, he resigned his army commission, and accused the Lincoln government of supporting slavery. Jennison was briefly arrested for encouraging his men to desert. For the next year and a half, he led a "red leg" militia unit.
In August 1863, William Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas, prompted calls for retaliatory warfare against guerrillas and the civilians who supported them. Jennison's hard-line reputation prompted Kansas Governor Thomas Carney to commission him a colonel in the state militia. This authorized Jennison to raise a regiment of cavalry, which he would lead for the next year, largely in the border district he now commanded.
During Price's Raid in the fall of 1864, Jennison commanded a Kansas militia brigade that saw action at Little Blue, Independence, Westport, Marais des Cygnes, Mine Creek, and Newtonia. (Jennison's former regiment, the 7th Kansas, had also returned to Missouri and fought against Price.) In December, after Price's forces had retreated from Missouri, Jennison was again arrested for renewed jayhawking there. He was court-martialed, found guilty, and dismissed on June 23, 1865.
The triumphant postwar political climate in Kansas quickly revived Jennison's sullied reputation. Having moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1865, he served in the city council and as ex officio mayor. Later that year, he was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives and was reelected in 1867. In 1871, he was elected for one term to the Kansas Senate. He died at Leavenworth on June 21, 1884.
Suggested Reading:
Castel, Albert E. A Frontier State at War: Kansas 1861-1865. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958.
Starr, Stephen Z. Jennison's Jayhawkers: A Civil War Cavalry Regiment and Its Commander. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973.
Cite This Page:
Phillips, Christopher. "Jennison, Charles R." Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865. The Kansas City Public Library. Accessed Thursday, July 29, 2021 - 07:52 at https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/jennison-charles-r
https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/sacking-osceola
Sacking of Osceola
By Scharla Paryzek, Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence, Kansas
James Henry Lane served as a lieutenant governor, congressman, senator, and Union general. Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress.
James Henry Lane served as a lieutenant governor, congressman, senator, and Union general. Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Event Summary:
Date: September 22-23, 1861
Location: St. Clair County, Osceola, Missouri
Adversaries: Brigadier General and U.S. Senator James Henry Lane with the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Kansas Volunteers vs. Missouri State Guard Captain John M. Weidemeyer and local militia and civilians of Osceola, Missouri
Casualties and damages: At least 10 casualties (including nine executions after the raid ended) and approximately $1 million in building and property damage
Result: The city of Osceola was left in ruins; Missouri bushwhackers sought retribution in the form of Quantrill's Raid on August 21, 1863
The sacking of Osceola was a significant military engagement that took place during the early stages of the Civil War in Missouri. After losing the Battle of Dry Wood Creek near Fort Scott, Kansas, the Free-State leader, U.S. Senator and Brigadier General James Henry Lane guided his 3rd, 4th, and 5th Kansas Volunteers in the looting and sacking of Osceola, Missouri. A proud "jayhawker" and fierce antislavery supporter, Lane used his military status to impede the Confederate war effort in the border state.
Union General John C. Frémont originally ordered Lane and his men to cut off Confederate General Sterling Price and the secessionist Missouri State Guard north of Fort Scott, Kansas. Rather than personally pursuing Price and his Confederate troops after the Battle of Dry Wood Creek, Lane delegated Colonel Charles R. Jennison and some of his men to follow the Confederate general into western Missouri. Meanwhile Lane led his jayhawkers toward Osceola with intentions of raiding strong proslavery communities in the state.
Osceola's Board of Aldermen resolved in 2011 to request that the University of Kansas cease using the Jayhawk mascot and to use the lower-case to spell "kansas" and "ku," because "neither is a proper name or a proper place."
Lane's precise motivations for attacking Osceola are unclear. Local Osceola historian Richard Sunderwirth claims Lane targeted it because it was the home of one of his Confederate political foes, Missouri Senator Waldo P. Johnson. Other scholars, including Jay Monaghan, acknowledge the Johnson-Lane rivalry, but they assert that Lane's chief purpose was to liberate African American slaves and squelch proslavery Missourians' plans of secession from the Union. Indeed, before the sacking of Osceola, Lane stated, "Everything disloyal from a Durham cow to a Shanghai chicken must be cleaned out."
Lane and approximately 2,000 of his troops arrived in Osceola, a port town on the Osage River, on September 22, 1861. In the early morning hours of September 23, Lane and his troops violently descended on the community. The so-called "Kansas Brigade" looted valuable goods and supplies from private homes, stores, the bank, and other businesses throughout the city, burning houses and buildings as they went. Lane and his men also "succeeded in capturing a heavy train of supplies destined for the armies of Generals [Gabriel J.] Rains and Price, together with $100,000 in money." When the raid began, Missouri State Guard Captain John M. Weidemeyer and 200 Missouri militiamen fired their rifles and cannons at Lane and his men in an effort to protect the town and its citizens. Severely outnumbered and outmatched, however, the Missouri troops were soon forced to retreat to safety.
Brigadier General Lane and his troops left Osceola on September 23, many of them in a drunken state. Having plundered and burned almost everything in sight, including all but three of the town's 800 buildings, the unauthorized jayhawker attack left Osceola in ruins. The October 11, 1861 edition of The Newark Advocate reported, "With his immense train of supplies, three hundred and fifty horses and mules, four hundred head of Price's cattle, large droves of sheep and swine, with as many 'contrabands' [200 slaves] as he could employ, he [Lane] made his way to West Point [Missouri] unpursued."Additionally, Lane stole 3,000 sacks of flour, 500 pounds of sugar and molasses, 50 pounds of coffee, and even the country records from the local courthouse. At least one of Captain Wiedemeyer's men was killed during the raid and Lane executed nine other Osceola residents after giving them a hurried mass hearing.
From History to Pop Culture: In the novel True Grit, and in two movies of the same name, the character Rooster Cogburn was a native of Osceola, who joined up with Quantrill's Raiders after Jim Lane's Sacking of Osceola. The 1969 film featured John Wayne in the role, for which he won an Academy Award.
As the citizens of Osceola took stock of the extensive damage the Kansas Brigade had inflicted, many immediately called for revenge. John W. Fisher stated that the damage was "enough to make a man's blood boil. . . . Men are anxious to go to Kansas and retaliate, [and] if we are permitted to go the retribution will be awful. Lane's men were the destroyers and there will be no mercy shown them if we ever get a hold of them." The formerly thriving port town never fully recovered from the attack.
The long-term consequences of the Kansas Brigade's sacking of Osceola became evident two years later. On August 21, 1863, a group of 400 Missouri bushwhackers raided Lawrence, Kansas, killing between 160 and 190 men and boys and looting and burning much of the town. Commanded by William Clarke Quantrill, a proslavery guerrilla, the bushwhackers cited the sacking of Osceola as one of the primary justifications for their surprise attack on Lawrence. Brigadier General Lane was in Lawrence at the time of Quantrill's bloody raid, and he narrowly avoided the wrath of the bushwhackers by running into a cornfield clothed only in his nightshirt.
Name: Charles R Jennison
Residence: Kansas
Rank at enlistment: Colonel
State Served: Kansas
Survived the War?: Yes
Service Record: Commissioned an officer in Company S, Kansas 7th Cavalry Regiment on 28 Oct 1861. Mustered out on 01 May 1862.
Sources: Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kansas
Name: Charles R Jennison
Residence: Kansas
Rank at enlistment: Colonel
State Served: Kansas
Survived the War?: Yes
Service Record: Commissioned an officer in Company S, Kansas 15th Cavalry Regiment on 17 Oct 1863. Mustered out on 23 Jun 1865.
Sources: Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kansas
One of the worst Kansas Jayhawkers during the Civil War, known as "Doc" Jennison he was considered the most brutal and unscrupulous of the Jayhawkers, his blatant plunder for personal gain, he "tried" and hanged Russell Hinds near the state line at Mine Creek for the offense of helping to return a fugitive slave to his master in Missouri, which was not illegal at the time.
Colonel Jennison; Kansas; Leavenworth, Kan.; Indianopolis, Ind.; Jennison]
Date: Thursday, May 22, 1873
Paper: Argus and Patriot (Montpelier, VT)
Volume: XXIII
Issue: 23
Page: 1
Colonel Jennison, a noted Kansas Jayhawker, was arrested at Leavenworth, Kan., Monday of late week, for attempting to defraud the Government out of $52,000, in what is known as the Moss claim for hardware stolen at Indianapolis, Ind. during the war. There is also a charge of perjury against Jennison for swearing to a fraudulent claim.
In about 1856, Sydney's husband Albert L. Jennison left for the gold rush in Australia. She received a letter from him upon his arrival there. After not hearing from him for 7 years, Sydney had him declared dead in the Circuit Court in Green County. Her reason was she needed closure with Albert to let her daughter Florence inherit her property.
Albert left his family in Wisconsin in about 1856 to travel to a gold rush in Australia. In 1858 he married Anne Geddes in Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia. He was recorded as Albert L. Janison. His death was recorded in the Australia death Index in 1889. It gave the his father's name as Roderick and his mother's as Bessy. He was recorded as Albert L. Jennison.
1850 Mount Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
Rodrick Jennison M 54 Vermont
Nancy Jennison F 43 Pennsylvania
Charles Jenison M 15 New York
Albert L Jenison M 21 New York
Sydney Jenison F 22 Pennsylvania
1860 Mount Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
R R Jennison 64 VT
Nancy Jennison 53 PA
Sidney Jennison 33 female PA
Florence Jennison 8 Wisc
1870 MT Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
S Jennison 43 female Pa
Nancy Jennison 63 Pa
Florance Jennison 18 Wisc
1880 MT Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
Sidney Jennison 53 widowed
Wisconsin marriages
Name: Charles R. Jennison
Birthplace: New York
Spouse's Name: Mary Hopkins
Event Date: 26 Feb 1854
Event Place: Albany, Green, Wisconsin
Father's Name: Roderick R. Jennison
Mother's Name: Betsy Jennison
Spouse's Father's Name: Samuel Hopkins
Spouse's Mother's Name: Jane Hopkins
Race: White
1860 Mound City, Linn Co. Kansas Territory, 30 July
E R Jannisen 27 physician real estate 4150 personal $1000 NY
Mary Jannisen 27 Canada
Sophia Jannisen 6 Wisconsin
Elizabeth Jannisen 20 Missouri
24 Jun 1865 Leavenworth Ward 3, Leavenworth, Kansas, hh 251
C R Jennison 30 Colonel real estate value $6000 personal $1000 NY
Mrs Jennison 30 Wisconsin
Sophia Jennison 10 Wisconsin
Ellen Maxwell 22 Indiana
1870 Delaware twp, Leavenworth Co KS Leavenworth PO
Charly R Jennison M 35 New York
Mary Jennison F 34 Canada
Sophia Jennison F 15 Wisconsin
1 Mar 1875 - Delaware, Leavenworth, Kansas hh 88
C R Jennison 40 Ny real estate 5,000 1500
Mary 40 Canada
hh 89
J M Patton 29 clerk OH
Sophia 20 Wisc
1880 - Sacramento, Sacramento, California
Jasper Patton 35 insurance agt OH parents OH
Sophia Patton 25 wife Wisconsin
Mary Jennison 44 mother Canada
Charles (Patton) 5 son Kansas
Name: Jasper N Patton
State Filed: California
Widow: Sophia Patton
Roll number: T288_364
Co G 1 Ohio Inf
widow pension filed Dec 19 1900 app no 732118, cert no 813207 filed Calif
----------------
See his final resting place here.
Charles Rainsford Jennison also known as "Doc" Jennison (June 6, 1834 – June 21, 1884) was a member of the anti-slavery faction during Bleeding Kansas, a famous Jayhawker, and a member of the Kansas State Senate in the 1870s. He later served as a Union colonel and as a leader of Jayhawker militias during the American Civil War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Kansas_Cavalry_Regiment
Commanders
Colonel Charles R. Jennison
Colonel Albert Lindley Lee
Colonel Thomas P. Herrick
Lieutenant Colonel Daniel R. Anthony – arrested and relieved of command for issuing an order that prevented Tennessee slave catchers from entering the regiment's camp looking for escaped slaves
Captain John Brown Jr., Company K – Son of abolitionist John Brown
The 7th Kansas Cavalry was organized at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on October 28, 1861. It mustered in for three years under the command of Colonel Charles R. Jennison.
Moved to Humboldt, Kansas, January 31, and duty there until March 25. Moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, March 25; then to Columbus, Kentucky, May 18-June 2, and to Corinth, Mississippi, June 7, escorting working parties on Mobile & Ohio Railroad and arriving at Corinth July 10; then moved to Jacinto and Rienzi, Mississippi, July 18–28.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayhawker
The meaning of the jayhawker term evolved in the opening year of the American Civil War. When Charles Jennison, one of the territorial-era jayhawkers, was authorized to raise a regiment of cavalry to serve in the Union army, he characterized the unit as the "Independent Kansas Jay-Hawkers" on a recruiting poster. The regiment was officially termed the 7th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, but was popularly known as Jennison's Jayhawkers.[29][30] Thus, the term became associated with Union troops from Kansas.
The Jayhawker term was applied not only to Jennison and his command, but to any Kansas troops engaged in punitive operations against the civilian population of western Missouri, in which the plundering and arson that characterized the territorial struggles were repeated, but on a much larger scale. For example, the term "Jayhawkers" also encompassed Senator Jim Lane and his Kansas Brigade, which sacked and burned Osceola, Missouri, in the opening months of the war after their defeat by Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard in the Battle of Dry Wood Creek.[
Jayhawking was a prominent aspect of Union military operations in western Missouri during the first year of the war. In addition to Osceola, the smaller Missouri towns of Morristown, Papinsvile, Butler, Dayton, and Columbus and large numbers of rural homes were also pillaged by Kansas troops led by James Lane, Charles R. Jennison, Daniel Read Anthony, and James Montgomery, among others.[34] Scores if not hundreds of Missouri families were burned out of their homes in the middle of the winter of 1862.
https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/jennison-charles-r
Jennison, Charles R.
By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati
Charles R. Jennison, jayhawker and colonel of the 7th Kansas Volunteer Infantry. Photograph courtesy of the Kansas Historical Society.
Charles R. Jennison, jayhawker and colonel of the 7th Kansas Volunteer Infantry. Photograph courtesy of the Kansas Historical Society.
Biographical information:
Date of birth: June 6, 1834
Place of birth: Antwerp, New York
Claim to fame: Colonel of Jennison's Jayhawkers (7th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry) and 15th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, 1861-1864; fought in Price's Raid; served in Kansas House of Representatives, 1865-1869, and Kansas State Senate, 1872-1876
Political affiliations: Republican Party
Nickname: "Doc" Jennison
Date of death: June 21, 1884
Place of death: Leavenworth, Kansas
Cause of death: Illness (Unknown)
Final resting place: Greenwood Cemetery, Leavenworth, Kansas
Charles R. Jennison, abolitionist and federal cavalry colonel, was born on June 6, 1834, in Antwerp, in upstate New York's famed "Burned-Over District," so named for its fervid evangelical religious revivals that were foundational to Northern antislavery reform. In 1846, his family moved to Albany, in southern Wisconsin, where he studied and briefly practiced medicine. With an enclave of New Englanders and New Yorkers, the village was a hotbed of abolitionism. After a short stint in southwestern Minnesota, he moved his young family in 1857 to Osawatomie, Kansas, perhaps not coincidentally the home of John Brown, whose by then notorious radical politics Jennison would soon emulate.
Jennison frequently acted as a vigilante, including harassing a district court judge at Fort Scott for what he considered biased proslavery rulings.
Jennison moved to Mound City in 1857, where he affiliated with James Montgomery and participated in his jayhawking forays against proslavery residents in Kansas and Missouri. Jennison frequently acted as a vigilante, including harassing a district court judge at Fort Scott for what he considered biased proslavery rulings. But he did far more. On at least two different occasions, Jennison ordered proslavery men hanged under his direct leadership. The more widely known incident occurred on November 12, 1860, when Jennison's posse "tried" and lynched Russell Hinds for capturing and returning escaped slaves to Missouri and accepting a small reimbursement.
In February 1861, Jennison was appointed captain of a local militia unit, the Mound City Guards, which was active patrolling the border counties south of Kansas City in the first months of the war. In late October 1861, with authorization from Governor Charles Robinson, Jennison mustered and organized the 7th Kansas Cavalry and commanded it as a newly commissioned lieutenant colonel. Owing to its hard-line tactics toward civilians in western Missouri, this regiment, which was soon known as "Jennison's Jayhawkers," would earn a reputation as perhaps the most extreme of those operating in the entire Trans-Mississippi theater.
"Jennison's Jayhawkers" would earn a reputation as perhaps the most extreme of those operating in the entire Trans-Mississippi theater.
Jennison soon exceeded his authority to defend the Kansas border counties against General Sterling Price's army, then positioned in central Missouri after the Battle of Lexington. Henry W. Halleck, the new commander of the Department of the Missouri, criticized Jennison for "cross[ing] the line, [to] rob, steal, plunder, and burn whatever they can lay their hands upon." At Independence, Jennison arrested every adult male, admonished accused secessionists for their depredations against Unionists, and then after releasing them, kept the secessionists' possessions, including slaves. He was soon accused of similarly plundering Missouri's proslavery Unionists.
In April 1862, while stationed at Lawrence, Jennison learned that he and his controversial regiment had been ordered to New Mexico, an obvious ploy by the War Department to move them far away from Missouri slaveholders. Furious about this, as well as the perceived slight when James G. Blunt was promoted over Jennison to Kansas's second brigadier-generalship, he resigned his army commission, and accused the Lincoln government of supporting slavery. Jennison was briefly arrested for encouraging his men to desert. For the next year and a half, he led a "red leg" militia unit.
In August 1863, William Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas, prompted calls for retaliatory warfare against guerrillas and the civilians who supported them. Jennison's hard-line reputation prompted Kansas Governor Thomas Carney to commission him a colonel in the state militia. This authorized Jennison to raise a regiment of cavalry, which he would lead for the next year, largely in the border district he now commanded.
During Price's Raid in the fall of 1864, Jennison commanded a Kansas militia brigade that saw action at Little Blue, Independence, Westport, Marais des Cygnes, Mine Creek, and Newtonia. (Jennison's former regiment, the 7th Kansas, had also returned to Missouri and fought against Price.) In December, after Price's forces had retreated from Missouri, Jennison was again arrested for renewed jayhawking there. He was court-martialed, found guilty, and dismissed on June 23, 1865.
The triumphant postwar political climate in Kansas quickly revived Jennison's sullied reputation. Having moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1865, he served in the city council and as ex officio mayor. Later that year, he was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives and was reelected in 1867. In 1871, he was elected for one term to the Kansas Senate. He died at Leavenworth on June 21, 1884.
Suggested Reading:
Castel, Albert E. A Frontier State at War: Kansas 1861-1865. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958.
Starr, Stephen Z. Jennison's Jayhawkers: A Civil War Cavalry Regiment and Its Commander. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973.
Cite This Page:
Phillips, Christopher. "Jennison, Charles R." Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865. The Kansas City Public Library. Accessed Thursday, July 29, 2021 - 07:52 at https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/jennison-charles-r
https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/sacking-osceola
Sacking of Osceola
By Scharla Paryzek, Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence, Kansas
James Henry Lane served as a lieutenant governor, congressman, senator, and Union general. Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress.
James Henry Lane served as a lieutenant governor, congressman, senator, and Union general. Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Event Summary:
Date: September 22-23, 1861
Location: St. Clair County, Osceola, Missouri
Adversaries: Brigadier General and U.S. Senator James Henry Lane with the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Kansas Volunteers vs. Missouri State Guard Captain John M. Weidemeyer and local militia and civilians of Osceola, Missouri
Casualties and damages: At least 10 casualties (including nine executions after the raid ended) and approximately $1 million in building and property damage
Result: The city of Osceola was left in ruins; Missouri bushwhackers sought retribution in the form of Quantrill's Raid on August 21, 1863
The sacking of Osceola was a significant military engagement that took place during the early stages of the Civil War in Missouri. After losing the Battle of Dry Wood Creek near Fort Scott, Kansas, the Free-State leader, U.S. Senator and Brigadier General James Henry Lane guided his 3rd, 4th, and 5th Kansas Volunteers in the looting and sacking of Osceola, Missouri. A proud "jayhawker" and fierce antislavery supporter, Lane used his military status to impede the Confederate war effort in the border state.
Union General John C. Frémont originally ordered Lane and his men to cut off Confederate General Sterling Price and the secessionist Missouri State Guard north of Fort Scott, Kansas. Rather than personally pursuing Price and his Confederate troops after the Battle of Dry Wood Creek, Lane delegated Colonel Charles R. Jennison and some of his men to follow the Confederate general into western Missouri. Meanwhile Lane led his jayhawkers toward Osceola with intentions of raiding strong proslavery communities in the state.
Osceola's Board of Aldermen resolved in 2011 to request that the University of Kansas cease using the Jayhawk mascot and to use the lower-case to spell "kansas" and "ku," because "neither is a proper name or a proper place."
Lane's precise motivations for attacking Osceola are unclear. Local Osceola historian Richard Sunderwirth claims Lane targeted it because it was the home of one of his Confederate political foes, Missouri Senator Waldo P. Johnson. Other scholars, including Jay Monaghan, acknowledge the Johnson-Lane rivalry, but they assert that Lane's chief purpose was to liberate African American slaves and squelch proslavery Missourians' plans of secession from the Union. Indeed, before the sacking of Osceola, Lane stated, "Everything disloyal from a Durham cow to a Shanghai chicken must be cleaned out."
Lane and approximately 2,000 of his troops arrived in Osceola, a port town on the Osage River, on September 22, 1861. In the early morning hours of September 23, Lane and his troops violently descended on the community. The so-called "Kansas Brigade" looted valuable goods and supplies from private homes, stores, the bank, and other businesses throughout the city, burning houses and buildings as they went. Lane and his men also "succeeded in capturing a heavy train of supplies destined for the armies of Generals [Gabriel J.] Rains and Price, together with $100,000 in money." When the raid began, Missouri State Guard Captain John M. Weidemeyer and 200 Missouri militiamen fired their rifles and cannons at Lane and his men in an effort to protect the town and its citizens. Severely outnumbered and outmatched, however, the Missouri troops were soon forced to retreat to safety.
Brigadier General Lane and his troops left Osceola on September 23, many of them in a drunken state. Having plundered and burned almost everything in sight, including all but three of the town's 800 buildings, the unauthorized jayhawker attack left Osceola in ruins. The October 11, 1861 edition of The Newark Advocate reported, "With his immense train of supplies, three hundred and fifty horses and mules, four hundred head of Price's cattle, large droves of sheep and swine, with as many 'contrabands' [200 slaves] as he could employ, he [Lane] made his way to West Point [Missouri] unpursued."Additionally, Lane stole 3,000 sacks of flour, 500 pounds of sugar and molasses, 50 pounds of coffee, and even the country records from the local courthouse. At least one of Captain Wiedemeyer's men was killed during the raid and Lane executed nine other Osceola residents after giving them a hurried mass hearing.
From History to Pop Culture: In the novel True Grit, and in two movies of the same name, the character Rooster Cogburn was a native of Osceola, who joined up with Quantrill's Raiders after Jim Lane's Sacking of Osceola. The 1969 film featured John Wayne in the role, for which he won an Academy Award.
As the citizens of Osceola took stock of the extensive damage the Kansas Brigade had inflicted, many immediately called for revenge. John W. Fisher stated that the damage was "enough to make a man's blood boil. . . . Men are anxious to go to Kansas and retaliate, [and] if we are permitted to go the retribution will be awful. Lane's men were the destroyers and there will be no mercy shown them if we ever get a hold of them." The formerly thriving port town never fully recovered from the attack.
The long-term consequences of the Kansas Brigade's sacking of Osceola became evident two years later. On August 21, 1863, a group of 400 Missouri bushwhackers raided Lawrence, Kansas, killing between 160 and 190 men and boys and looting and burning much of the town. Commanded by William Clarke Quantrill, a proslavery guerrilla, the bushwhackers cited the sacking of Osceola as one of the primary justifications for their surprise attack on Lawrence. Brigadier General Lane was in Lawrence at the time of Quantrill's bloody raid, and he narrowly avoided the wrath of the bushwhackers by running into a cornfield clothed only in his nightshirt.
Name: Charles R Jennison
Residence: Kansas
Rank at enlistment: Colonel
State Served: Kansas
Survived the War?: Yes
Service Record: Commissioned an officer in Company S, Kansas 7th Cavalry Regiment on 28 Oct 1861. Mustered out on 01 May 1862.
Sources: Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kansas
Name: Charles R Jennison
Residence: Kansas
Rank at enlistment: Colonel
State Served: Kansas
Survived the War?: Yes
Service Record: Commissioned an officer in Company S, Kansas 15th Cavalry Regiment on 17 Oct 1863. Mustered out on 23 Jun 1865.
Sources: Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kansas
One of the worst Kansas Jayhawkers during the Civil War, known as "Doc" Jennison he was considered the most brutal and unscrupulous of the Jayhawkers, his blatant plunder for personal gain, he "tried" and hanged Russell Hinds near the state line at Mine Creek for the offense of helping to return a fugitive slave to his master in Missouri, which was not illegal at the time.
Colonel Jennison; Kansas; Leavenworth, Kan.; Indianopolis, Ind.; Jennison]
Date: Thursday, May 22, 1873
Paper: Argus and Patriot (Montpelier, VT)
Volume: XXIII
Issue: 23
Page: 1
Colonel Jennison, a noted Kansas Jayhawker, was arrested at Leavenworth, Kan., Monday of late week, for attempting to defraud the Government out of $52,000, in what is known as the Moss claim for hardware stolen at Indianapolis, Ind. during the war. There is also a charge of perjury against Jennison for swearing to a fraudulent claim.
In about 1856, Sydney's husband Albert L. Jennison left for the gold rush in Australia. She received a letter from him upon his arrival there. After not hearing from him for 7 years, Sydney had him declared dead in the Circuit Court in Green County. Her reason was she needed closure with Albert to let her daughter Florence inherit her property.
Albert left his family in Wisconsin in about 1856 to travel to a gold rush in Australia. In 1858 he married Anne Geddes in Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia. He was recorded as Albert L. Janison. His death was recorded in the Australia death Index in 1889. It gave the his father's name as Roderick and his mother's as Bessy. He was recorded as Albert L. Jennison.
1850 Mount Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
Rodrick Jennison M 54 Vermont
Nancy Jennison F 43 Pennsylvania
Charles Jenison M 15 New York
Albert L Jenison M 21 New York
Sydney Jenison F 22 Pennsylvania
1860 Mount Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
R R Jennison 64 VT
Nancy Jennison 53 PA
Sidney Jennison 33 female PA
Florence Jennison 8 Wisc
1870 MT Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
S Jennison 43 female Pa
Nancy Jennison 63 Pa
Florance Jennison 18 Wisc
1880 MT Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
Sidney Jennison 53 widowed
Wisconsin marriages
Name: Charles R. Jennison
Birthplace: New York
Spouse's Name: Mary Hopkins
Event Date: 26 Feb 1854
Event Place: Albany, Green, Wisconsin
Father's Name: Roderick R. Jennison
Mother's Name: Betsy Jennison
Spouse's Father's Name: Samuel Hopkins
Spouse's Mother's Name: Jane Hopkins
Race: White
1860 Mound City, Linn Co. Kansas Territory, 30 July
E R Jannisen 27 physician real estate 4150 personal $1000 NY
Mary Jannisen 27 Canada
Sophia Jannisen 6 Wisconsin
Elizabeth Jannisen 20 Missouri
24 Jun 1865 Leavenworth Ward 3, Leavenworth, Kansas, hh 251
C R Jennison 30 Colonel real estate value $6000 personal $1000 NY
Mrs Jennison 30 Wisconsin
Sophia Jennison 10 Wisconsin
Ellen Maxwell 22 Indiana
1870 Delaware twp, Leavenworth Co KS Leavenworth PO
Charly R Jennison M 35 New York
Mary Jennison F 34 Canada
Sophia Jennison F 15 Wisconsin
1 Mar 1875 - Delaware, Leavenworth, Kansas hh 88
C R Jennison 40 Ny real estate 5,000 1500
Mary 40 Canada
hh 89
J M Patton 29 clerk OH
Sophia 20 Wisc
1880 - Sacramento, Sacramento, California
Jasper Patton 35 insurance agt OH parents OH
Sophia Patton 25 wife Wisconsin
Mary Jennison 44 mother Canada
Charles (Patton) 5 son Kansas
Name: Jasper N Patton
State Filed: California
Widow: Sophia Patton
Roll number: T288_364
Co G 1 Ohio Inf
widow pension filed Dec 19 1900 app no 732118, cert no 813207 filed Calif
----------------
See his final resting place here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Jennison
Charles Rainsford Jennison also known as "Doc" Jennison (June 6, 1834 – June 21, 1884) was a member of the anti-slavery faction during Bleeding Kansas, a famous Jayhawker, and a member of the Kansas State Senate in the 1870s. He later served as a Union colonel and as a leader of Jayhawker militias during the American Civil War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Kansas_Cavalry_Regiment
Commanders
Colonel Charles R. Jennison
Colonel Albert Lindley Lee
Colonel Thomas P. Herrick
Lieutenant Colonel Daniel R. Anthony – arrested and relieved of command for issuing an order that prevented Tennessee slave catchers from entering the regiment's camp looking for escaped slaves
Captain John Brown Jr., Company K – Son of abolitionist John Brown
The 7th Kansas Cavalry was organized at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on October 28, 1861. It mustered in for three years under the command of Colonel Charles R. Jennison.
Moved to Humboldt, Kansas, January 31, and duty there until March 25. Moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, March 25; then to Columbus, Kentucky, May 18-June 2, and to Corinth, Mississippi, June 7, escorting working parties on Mobile & Ohio Railroad and arriving at Corinth July 10; then moved to Jacinto and Rienzi, Mississippi, July 18–28.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayhawker
The meaning of the jayhawker term evolved in the opening year of the American Civil War. When Charles Jennison, one of the territorial-era jayhawkers, was authorized to raise a regiment of cavalry to serve in the Union army, he characterized the unit as the "Independent Kansas Jay-Hawkers" on a recruiting poster. The regiment was officially termed the 7th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, but was popularly known as Jennison's Jayhawkers.[29][30] Thus, the term became associated with Union troops from Kansas.
The Jayhawker term was applied not only to Jennison and his command, but to any Kansas troops engaged in punitive operations against the civilian population of western Missouri, in which the plundering and arson that characterized the territorial struggles were repeated, but on a much larger scale. For example, the term "Jayhawkers" also encompassed Senator Jim Lane and his Kansas Brigade, which sacked and burned Osceola, Missouri, in the opening months of the war after their defeat by Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard in the Battle of Dry Wood Creek.[
Jayhawking was a prominent aspect of Union military operations in western Missouri during the first year of the war. In addition to Osceola, the smaller Missouri towns of Morristown, Papinsvile, Butler, Dayton, and Columbus and large numbers of rural homes were also pillaged by Kansas troops led by James Lane, Charles R. Jennison, Daniel Read Anthony, and James Montgomery, among others.[34] Scores if not hundreds of Missouri families were burned out of their homes in the middle of the winter of 1862.
https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/jennison-charles-r
Jennison, Charles R.
By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati
Charles R. Jennison, jayhawker and colonel of the 7th Kansas Volunteer Infantry. Photograph courtesy of the Kansas Historical Society.
Charles R. Jennison, jayhawker and colonel of the 7th Kansas Volunteer Infantry. Photograph courtesy of the Kansas Historical Society.
Biographical information:
Date of birth: June 6, 1834
Place of birth: Antwerp, New York
Claim to fame: Colonel of Jennison's Jayhawkers (7th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry) and 15th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, 1861-1864; fought in Price's Raid; served in Kansas House of Representatives, 1865-1869, and Kansas State Senate, 1872-1876
Political affiliations: Republican Party
Nickname: "Doc" Jennison
Date of death: June 21, 1884
Place of death: Leavenworth, Kansas
Cause of death: Illness (Unknown)
Final resting place: Greenwood Cemetery, Leavenworth, Kansas
Charles R. Jennison, abolitionist and federal cavalry colonel, was born on June 6, 1834, in Antwerp, in upstate New York's famed "Burned-Over District," so named for its fervid evangelical religious revivals that were foundational to Northern antislavery reform. In 1846, his family moved to Albany, in southern Wisconsin, where he studied and briefly practiced medicine. With an enclave of New Englanders and New Yorkers, the village was a hotbed of abolitionism. After a short stint in southwestern Minnesota, he moved his young family in 1857 to Osawatomie, Kansas, perhaps not coincidentally the home of John Brown, whose by then notorious radical politics Jennison would soon emulate.
Jennison frequently acted as a vigilante, including harassing a district court judge at Fort Scott for what he considered biased proslavery rulings.
Jennison moved to Mound City in 1857, where he affiliated with James Montgomery and participated in his jayhawking forays against proslavery residents in Kansas and Missouri. Jennison frequently acted as a vigilante, including harassing a district court judge at Fort Scott for what he considered biased proslavery rulings. But he did far more. On at least two different occasions, Jennison ordered proslavery men hanged under his direct leadership. The more widely known incident occurred on November 12, 1860, when Jennison's posse "tried" and lynched Russell Hinds for capturing and returning escaped slaves to Missouri and accepting a small reimbursement.
In February 1861, Jennison was appointed captain of a local militia unit, the Mound City Guards, which was active patrolling the border counties south of Kansas City in the first months of the war. In late October 1861, with authorization from Governor Charles Robinson, Jennison mustered and organized the 7th Kansas Cavalry and commanded it as a newly commissioned lieutenant colonel. Owing to its hard-line tactics toward civilians in western Missouri, this regiment, which was soon known as "Jennison's Jayhawkers," would earn a reputation as perhaps the most extreme of those operating in the entire Trans-Mississippi theater.
"Jennison's Jayhawkers" would earn a reputation as perhaps the most extreme of those operating in the entire Trans-Mississippi theater.
Jennison soon exceeded his authority to defend the Kansas border counties against General Sterling Price's army, then positioned in central Missouri after the Battle of Lexington. Henry W. Halleck, the new commander of the Department of the Missouri, criticized Jennison for "cross[ing] the line, [to] rob, steal, plunder, and burn whatever they can lay their hands upon." At Independence, Jennison arrested every adult male, admonished accused secessionists for their depredations against Unionists, and then after releasing them, kept the secessionists' possessions, including slaves. He was soon accused of similarly plundering Missouri's proslavery Unionists.
In April 1862, while stationed at Lawrence, Jennison learned that he and his controversial regiment had been ordered to New Mexico, an obvious ploy by the War Department to move them far away from Missouri slaveholders. Furious about this, as well as the perceived slight when James G. Blunt was promoted over Jennison to Kansas's second brigadier-generalship, he resigned his army commission, and accused the Lincoln government of supporting slavery. Jennison was briefly arrested for encouraging his men to desert. For the next year and a half, he led a "red leg" militia unit.
In August 1863, William Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas, prompted calls for retaliatory warfare against guerrillas and the civilians who supported them. Jennison's hard-line reputation prompted Kansas Governor Thomas Carney to commission him a colonel in the state militia. This authorized Jennison to raise a regiment of cavalry, which he would lead for the next year, largely in the border district he now commanded.
During Price's Raid in the fall of 1864, Jennison commanded a Kansas militia brigade that saw action at Little Blue, Independence, Westport, Marais des Cygnes, Mine Creek, and Newtonia. (Jennison's former regiment, the 7th Kansas, had also returned to Missouri and fought against Price.) In December, after Price's forces had retreated from Missouri, Jennison was again arrested for renewed jayhawking there. He was court-martialed, found guilty, and dismissed on June 23, 1865.
The triumphant postwar political climate in Kansas quickly revived Jennison's sullied reputation. Having moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1865, he served in the city council and as ex officio mayor. Later that year, he was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives and was reelected in 1867. In 1871, he was elected for one term to the Kansas Senate. He died at Leavenworth on June 21, 1884.
Suggested Reading:
Castel, Albert E. A Frontier State at War: Kansas 1861-1865. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958.
Starr, Stephen Z. Jennison's Jayhawkers: A Civil War Cavalry Regiment and Its Commander. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973.
Cite This Page:
Phillips, Christopher. "Jennison, Charles R." Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865. The Kansas City Public Library. Accessed Thursday, July 29, 2021 - 07:52 at https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/jennison-charles-r
https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/sacking-osceola
Sacking of Osceola
By Scharla Paryzek, Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence, Kansas
James Henry Lane served as a lieutenant governor, congressman, senator, and Union general. Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress.
James Henry Lane served as a lieutenant governor, congressman, senator, and Union general. Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Event Summary:
Date: September 22-23, 1861
Location: St. Clair County, Osceola, Missouri
Adversaries: Brigadier General and U.S. Senator James Henry Lane with the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Kansas Volunteers vs. Missouri State Guard Captain John M. Weidemeyer and local militia and civilians of Osceola, Missouri
Casualties and damages: At least 10 casualties (including nine executions after the raid ended) and approximately $1 million in building and property damage
Result: The city of Osceola was left in ruins; Missouri bushwhackers sought retribution in the form of Quantrill's Raid on August 21, 1863
The sacking of Osceola was a significant military engagement that took place during the early stages of the Civil War in Missouri. After losing the Battle of Dry Wood Creek near Fort Scott, Kansas, the Free-State leader, U.S. Senator and Brigadier General James Henry Lane guided his 3rd, 4th, and 5th Kansas Volunteers in the looting and sacking of Osceola, Missouri. A proud "jayhawker" and fierce antislavery supporter, Lane used his military status to impede the Confederate war effort in the border state.
Union General John C. Frémont originally ordered Lane and his men to cut off Confederate General Sterling Price and the secessionist Missouri State Guard north of Fort Scott, Kansas. Rather than personally pursuing Price and his Confederate troops after the Battle of Dry Wood Creek, Lane delegated Colonel Charles R. Jennison and some of his men to follow the Confederate general into western Missouri. Meanwhile Lane led his jayhawkers toward Osceola with intentions of raiding strong proslavery communities in the state.
Osceola's Board of Aldermen resolved in 2011 to request that the University of Kansas cease using the Jayhawk mascot and to use the lower-case to spell "kansas" and "ku," because "neither is a proper name or a proper place."
Lane's precise motivations for attacking Osceola are unclear. Local Osceola historian Richard Sunderwirth claims Lane targeted it because it was the home of one of his Confederate political foes, Missouri Senator Waldo P. Johnson. Other scholars, including Jay Monaghan, acknowledge the Johnson-Lane rivalry, but they assert that Lane's chief purpose was to liberate African American slaves and squelch proslavery Missourians' plans of secession from the Union. Indeed, before the sacking of Osceola, Lane stated, "Everything disloyal from a Durham cow to a Shanghai chicken must be cleaned out."
Lane and approximately 2,000 of his troops arrived in Osceola, a port town on the Osage River, on September 22, 1861. In the early morning hours of September 23, Lane and his troops violently descended on the community. The so-called "Kansas Brigade" looted valuable goods and supplies from private homes, stores, the bank, and other businesses throughout the city, burning houses and buildings as they went. Lane and his men also "succeeded in capturing a heavy train of supplies destined for the armies of Generals [Gabriel J.] Rains and Price, together with $100,000 in money." When the raid began, Missouri State Guard Captain John M. Weidemeyer and 200 Missouri militiamen fired their rifles and cannons at Lane and his men in an effort to protect the town and its citizens. Severely outnumbered and outmatched, however, the Missouri troops were soon forced to retreat to safety.
Brigadier General Lane and his troops left Osceola on September 23, many of them in a drunken state. Having plundered and burned almost everything in sight, including all but three of the town's 800 buildings, the unauthorized jayhawker attack left Osceola in ruins. The October 11, 1861 edition of The Newark Advocate reported, "With his immense train of supplies, three hundred and fifty horses and mules, four hundred head of Price's cattle, large droves of sheep and swine, with as many 'contrabands' [200 slaves] as he could employ, he [Lane] made his way to West Point [Missouri] unpursued."Additionally, Lane stole 3,000 sacks of flour, 500 pounds of sugar and molasses, 50 pounds of coffee, and even the country records from the local courthouse. At least one of Captain Wiedemeyer's men was killed during the raid and Lane executed nine other Osceola residents after giving them a hurried mass hearing.
From History to Pop Culture: In the novel True Grit, and in two movies of the same name, the character Rooster Cogburn was a native of Osceola, who joined up with Quantrill's Raiders after Jim Lane's Sacking of Osceola. The 1969 film featured John Wayne in the role, for which he won an Academy Award.
As the citizens of Osceola took stock of the extensive damage the Kansas Brigade had inflicted, many immediately called for revenge. John W. Fisher stated that the damage was "enough to make a man's blood boil. . . . Men are anxious to go to Kansas and retaliate, [and] if we are permitted to go the retribution will be awful. Lane's men were the destroyers and there will be no mercy shown them if we ever get a hold of them." The formerly thriving port town never fully recovered from the attack.
The long-term consequences of the Kansas Brigade's sacking of Osceola became evident two years later. On August 21, 1863, a group of 400 Missouri bushwhackers raided Lawrence, Kansas, killing between 160 and 190 men and boys and looting and burning much of the town. Commanded by William Clarke Quantrill, a proslavery guerrilla, the bushwhackers cited the sacking of Osceola as one of the primary justifications for their surprise attack on Lawrence. Brigadier General Lane was in Lawrence at the time of Quantrill's bloody raid, and he narrowly avoided the wrath of the bushwhackers by running into a cornfield clothed only in his nightshirt.
Name: Charles R Jennison
Residence: Kansas
Rank at enlistment: Colonel
State Served: Kansas
Survived the War?: Yes
Service Record: Commissioned an officer in Company S, Kansas 7th Cavalry Regiment on 28 Oct 1861. Mustered out on 01 May 1862.
Sources: Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kansas
Name: Charles R Jennison
Residence: Kansas
Rank at enlistment: Colonel
State Served: Kansas
Survived the War?: Yes
Service Record: Commissioned an officer in Company S, Kansas 15th Cavalry Regiment on 17 Oct 1863. Mustered out on 23 Jun 1865.
Sources: Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kansas
One of the worst Kansas Jayhawkers during the Civil War, known as "Doc" Jennison he was considered the most brutal and unscrupulous of the Jayhawkers, his blatant plunder for personal gain, he "tried" and hanged Russell Hinds near the state line at Mine Creek for the offense of helping to return a fugitive slave to his master in Missouri, which was not illegal at the time.
Colonel Jennison; Kansas; Leavenworth, Kan.; Indianopolis, Ind.; Jennison]
Date: Thursday, May 22, 1873
Paper: Argus and Patriot (Montpelier, VT)
Volume: XXIII
Issue: 23
Page: 1
Colonel Jennison, a noted Kansas Jayhawker, was arrested at Leavenworth, Kan., Monday of late week, for attempting to defraud the Government out of $52,000, in what is known as the Moss claim for hardware stolen at Indianapolis, Ind. during the war. There is also a charge of perjury against Jennison for swearing to a fraudulent claim.
In about 1856, Sydney's husband Albert L. Jennison left for the gold rush in Australia. She received a letter from him upon his arrival there. After not hearing from him for 7 years, Sydney had him declared dead in the Circuit Court in Green County. Her reason was she needed closure with Albert to let her daughter Florence inherit her property.
Albert left his family in Wisconsin in about 1856 to travel to a gold rush in Australia. In 1858 he married Anne Geddes in Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia. He was recorded as Albert L. Janison. His death was recorded in the Australia death Index in 1889. It gave the his father's name as Roderick and his mother's as Bessy. He was recorded as Albert L. Jennison.
1850 Mount Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
Rodrick Jennison M 54 Vermont
Nancy Jennison F 43 Pennsylvania
Charles Jenison M 15 New York
Albert L Jenison M 21 New York
Sydney Jenison F 22 Pennsylvania
1860 Mount Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
R R Jennison 64 VT
Nancy Jennison 53 PA
Sidney Jennison 33 female PA
Florence Jennison 8 Wisc
1870 MT Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
S Jennison 43 female Pa
Nancy Jennison 63 Pa
Florance Jennison 18 Wisc
1880 MT Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
Sidney Jennison 53 widowed
Wisconsin marriages
Name: Charles R. Jennison
Birthplace: New York
Spouse's Name: Mary Hopkins
Event Date: 26 Feb 1854
Event Place: Albany, Green, Wisconsin
Father's Name: Roderick R. Jennison
Mother's Name: Betsy Jennison
Spouse's Father's Name: Samuel Hopkins
Spouse's Mother's Name: Jane Hopkins
Race: White
1860 Mound City, Linn Co. Kansas Territory, 30 July
E R Jannisen 27 physician real estate 4150 personal $1000 NY
Mary Jannisen 27 Canada
Sophia Jannisen 6 Wisconsin
Elizabeth Jannisen 20 Missouri
24 Jun 1865 Leavenworth Ward 3, Leavenworth, Kansas, hh 251
C R Jennison 30 Colonel real estate value $6000 personal $1000 NY
Mrs Jennison 30 Wisconsin
Sophia Jennison 10 Wisconsin
Ellen Maxwell 22 Indiana
1870 Delaware twp, Leavenworth Co KS Leavenworth PO
Charly R Jennison M 35 New York
Mary Jennison F 34 Canada
Sophia Jennison F 15 Wisconsin
1 Mar 1875 - Delaware, Leavenworth, Kansas hh 88
C R Jennison 40 Ny real estate 5,000 1500
Mary 40 Canada
hh 89
J M Patton 29 clerk OH
Sophia 20 Wisc
1880 - Sacramento, Sacramento, California
Jasper Patton 35 insurance agt OH parents OH
Sophia Patton 25 wife Wisconsin
Mary Jennison 44 mother Canada
Charles (Patton) 5 son Kansas
Name: Jasper N Patton
State Filed: California
Widow: Sophia Patton
Roll number: T288_364
Co G 1 Ohio Inf
widow pension filed Dec 19 1900 app no 732118, cert no 813207 filed Calif
----------------
See his final resting place here.
Charles Rainsford Jennison also known as "Doc" Jennison (June 6, 1834 – June 21, 1884) was a member of the anti-slavery faction during Bleeding Kansas, a famous Jayhawker, and a member of the Kansas State Senate in the 1870s. He later served as a Union colonel and as a leader of Jayhawker militias during the American Civil War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Kansas_Cavalry_Regiment
Commanders
Colonel Charles R. Jennison
Colonel Albert Lindley Lee
Colonel Thomas P. Herrick
Lieutenant Colonel Daniel R. Anthony – arrested and relieved of command for issuing an order that prevented Tennessee slave catchers from entering the regiment's camp looking for escaped slaves
Captain John Brown Jr., Company K – Son of abolitionist John Brown
The 7th Kansas Cavalry was organized at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on October 28, 1861. It mustered in for three years under the command of Colonel Charles R. Jennison.
Moved to Humboldt, Kansas, January 31, and duty there until March 25. Moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, March 25; then to Columbus, Kentucky, May 18-June 2, and to Corinth, Mississippi, June 7, escorting working parties on Mobile & Ohio Railroad and arriving at Corinth July 10; then moved to Jacinto and Rienzi, Mississippi, July 18–28.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayhawker
The meaning of the jayhawker term evolved in the opening year of the American Civil War. When Charles Jennison, one of the territorial-era jayhawkers, was authorized to raise a regiment of cavalry to serve in the Union army, he characterized the unit as the "Independent Kansas Jay-Hawkers" on a recruiting poster. The regiment was officially termed the 7th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, but was popularly known as Jennison's Jayhawkers.[29][30] Thus, the term became associated with Union troops from Kansas.
The Jayhawker term was applied not only to Jennison and his command, but to any Kansas troops engaged in punitive operations against the civilian population of western Missouri, in which the plundering and arson that characterized the territorial struggles were repeated, but on a much larger scale. For example, the term "Jayhawkers" also encompassed Senator Jim Lane and his Kansas Brigade, which sacked and burned Osceola, Missouri, in the opening months of the war after their defeat by Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard in the Battle of Dry Wood Creek.[
Jayhawking was a prominent aspect of Union military operations in western Missouri during the first year of the war. In addition to Osceola, the smaller Missouri towns of Morristown, Papinsvile, Butler, Dayton, and Columbus and large numbers of rural homes were also pillaged by Kansas troops led by James Lane, Charles R. Jennison, Daniel Read Anthony, and James Montgomery, among others.[34] Scores if not hundreds of Missouri families were burned out of their homes in the middle of the winter of 1862.
https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/jennison-charles-r
Jennison, Charles R.
By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati
Charles R. Jennison, jayhawker and colonel of the 7th Kansas Volunteer Infantry. Photograph courtesy of the Kansas Historical Society.
Charles R. Jennison, jayhawker and colonel of the 7th Kansas Volunteer Infantry. Photograph courtesy of the Kansas Historical Society.
Biographical information:
Date of birth: June 6, 1834
Place of birth: Antwerp, New York
Claim to fame: Colonel of Jennison's Jayhawkers (7th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry) and 15th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, 1861-1864; fought in Price's Raid; served in Kansas House of Representatives, 1865-1869, and Kansas State Senate, 1872-1876
Political affiliations: Republican Party
Nickname: "Doc" Jennison
Date of death: June 21, 1884
Place of death: Leavenworth, Kansas
Cause of death: Illness (Unknown)
Final resting place: Greenwood Cemetery, Leavenworth, Kansas
Charles R. Jennison, abolitionist and federal cavalry colonel, was born on June 6, 1834, in Antwerp, in upstate New York's famed "Burned-Over District," so named for its fervid evangelical religious revivals that were foundational to Northern antislavery reform. In 1846, his family moved to Albany, in southern Wisconsin, where he studied and briefly practiced medicine. With an enclave of New Englanders and New Yorkers, the village was a hotbed of abolitionism. After a short stint in southwestern Minnesota, he moved his young family in 1857 to Osawatomie, Kansas, perhaps not coincidentally the home of John Brown, whose by then notorious radical politics Jennison would soon emulate.
Jennison frequently acted as a vigilante, including harassing a district court judge at Fort Scott for what he considered biased proslavery rulings.
Jennison moved to Mound City in 1857, where he affiliated with James Montgomery and participated in his jayhawking forays against proslavery residents in Kansas and Missouri. Jennison frequently acted as a vigilante, including harassing a district court judge at Fort Scott for what he considered biased proslavery rulings. But he did far more. On at least two different occasions, Jennison ordered proslavery men hanged under his direct leadership. The more widely known incident occurred on November 12, 1860, when Jennison's posse "tried" and lynched Russell Hinds for capturing and returning escaped slaves to Missouri and accepting a small reimbursement.
In February 1861, Jennison was appointed captain of a local militia unit, the Mound City Guards, which was active patrolling the border counties south of Kansas City in the first months of the war. In late October 1861, with authorization from Governor Charles Robinson, Jennison mustered and organized the 7th Kansas Cavalry and commanded it as a newly commissioned lieutenant colonel. Owing to its hard-line tactics toward civilians in western Missouri, this regiment, which was soon known as "Jennison's Jayhawkers," would earn a reputation as perhaps the most extreme of those operating in the entire Trans-Mississippi theater.
"Jennison's Jayhawkers" would earn a reputation as perhaps the most extreme of those operating in the entire Trans-Mississippi theater.
Jennison soon exceeded his authority to defend the Kansas border counties against General Sterling Price's army, then positioned in central Missouri after the Battle of Lexington. Henry W. Halleck, the new commander of the Department of the Missouri, criticized Jennison for "cross[ing] the line, [to] rob, steal, plunder, and burn whatever they can lay their hands upon." At Independence, Jennison arrested every adult male, admonished accused secessionists for their depredations against Unionists, and then after releasing them, kept the secessionists' possessions, including slaves. He was soon accused of similarly plundering Missouri's proslavery Unionists.
In April 1862, while stationed at Lawrence, Jennison learned that he and his controversial regiment had been ordered to New Mexico, an obvious ploy by the War Department to move them far away from Missouri slaveholders. Furious about this, as well as the perceived slight when James G. Blunt was promoted over Jennison to Kansas's second brigadier-generalship, he resigned his army commission, and accused the Lincoln government of supporting slavery. Jennison was briefly arrested for encouraging his men to desert. For the next year and a half, he led a "red leg" militia unit.
In August 1863, William Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas, prompted calls for retaliatory warfare against guerrillas and the civilians who supported them. Jennison's hard-line reputation prompted Kansas Governor Thomas Carney to commission him a colonel in the state militia. This authorized Jennison to raise a regiment of cavalry, which he would lead for the next year, largely in the border district he now commanded.
During Price's Raid in the fall of 1864, Jennison commanded a Kansas militia brigade that saw action at Little Blue, Independence, Westport, Marais des Cygnes, Mine Creek, and Newtonia. (Jennison's former regiment, the 7th Kansas, had also returned to Missouri and fought against Price.) In December, after Price's forces had retreated from Missouri, Jennison was again arrested for renewed jayhawking there. He was court-martialed, found guilty, and dismissed on June 23, 1865.
The triumphant postwar political climate in Kansas quickly revived Jennison's sullied reputation. Having moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1865, he served in the city council and as ex officio mayor. Later that year, he was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives and was reelected in 1867. In 1871, he was elected for one term to the Kansas Senate. He died at Leavenworth on June 21, 1884.
Suggested Reading:
Castel, Albert E. A Frontier State at War: Kansas 1861-1865. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958.
Starr, Stephen Z. Jennison's Jayhawkers: A Civil War Cavalry Regiment and Its Commander. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973.
Cite This Page:
Phillips, Christopher. "Jennison, Charles R." Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865. The Kansas City Public Library. Accessed Thursday, July 29, 2021 - 07:52 at https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/jennison-charles-r
https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/sacking-osceola
Sacking of Osceola
By Scharla Paryzek, Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence, Kansas
James Henry Lane served as a lieutenant governor, congressman, senator, and Union general. Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress.
James Henry Lane served as a lieutenant governor, congressman, senator, and Union general. Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Event Summary:
Date: September 22-23, 1861
Location: St. Clair County, Osceola, Missouri
Adversaries: Brigadier General and U.S. Senator James Henry Lane with the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Kansas Volunteers vs. Missouri State Guard Captain John M. Weidemeyer and local militia and civilians of Osceola, Missouri
Casualties and damages: At least 10 casualties (including nine executions after the raid ended) and approximately $1 million in building and property damage
Result: The city of Osceola was left in ruins; Missouri bushwhackers sought retribution in the form of Quantrill's Raid on August 21, 1863
The sacking of Osceola was a significant military engagement that took place during the early stages of the Civil War in Missouri. After losing the Battle of Dry Wood Creek near Fort Scott, Kansas, the Free-State leader, U.S. Senator and Brigadier General James Henry Lane guided his 3rd, 4th, and 5th Kansas Volunteers in the looting and sacking of Osceola, Missouri. A proud "jayhawker" and fierce antislavery supporter, Lane used his military status to impede the Confederate war effort in the border state.
Union General John C. Frémont originally ordered Lane and his men to cut off Confederate General Sterling Price and the secessionist Missouri State Guard north of Fort Scott, Kansas. Rather than personally pursuing Price and his Confederate troops after the Battle of Dry Wood Creek, Lane delegated Colonel Charles R. Jennison and some of his men to follow the Confederate general into western Missouri. Meanwhile Lane led his jayhawkers toward Osceola with intentions of raiding strong proslavery communities in the state.
Osceola's Board of Aldermen resolved in 2011 to request that the University of Kansas cease using the Jayhawk mascot and to use the lower-case to spell "kansas" and "ku," because "neither is a proper name or a proper place."
Lane's precise motivations for attacking Osceola are unclear. Local Osceola historian Richard Sunderwirth claims Lane targeted it because it was the home of one of his Confederate political foes, Missouri Senator Waldo P. Johnson. Other scholars, including Jay Monaghan, acknowledge the Johnson-Lane rivalry, but they assert that Lane's chief purpose was to liberate African American slaves and squelch proslavery Missourians' plans of secession from the Union. Indeed, before the sacking of Osceola, Lane stated, "Everything disloyal from a Durham cow to a Shanghai chicken must be cleaned out."
Lane and approximately 2,000 of his troops arrived in Osceola, a port town on the Osage River, on September 22, 1861. In the early morning hours of September 23, Lane and his troops violently descended on the community. The so-called "Kansas Brigade" looted valuable goods and supplies from private homes, stores, the bank, and other businesses throughout the city, burning houses and buildings as they went. Lane and his men also "succeeded in capturing a heavy train of supplies destined for the armies of Generals [Gabriel J.] Rains and Price, together with $100,000 in money." When the raid began, Missouri State Guard Captain John M. Weidemeyer and 200 Missouri militiamen fired their rifles and cannons at Lane and his men in an effort to protect the town and its citizens. Severely outnumbered and outmatched, however, the Missouri troops were soon forced to retreat to safety.
Brigadier General Lane and his troops left Osceola on September 23, many of them in a drunken state. Having plundered and burned almost everything in sight, including all but three of the town's 800 buildings, the unauthorized jayhawker attack left Osceola in ruins. The October 11, 1861 edition of The Newark Advocate reported, "With his immense train of supplies, three hundred and fifty horses and mules, four hundred head of Price's cattle, large droves of sheep and swine, with as many 'contrabands' [200 slaves] as he could employ, he [Lane] made his way to West Point [Missouri] unpursued."Additionally, Lane stole 3,000 sacks of flour, 500 pounds of sugar and molasses, 50 pounds of coffee, and even the country records from the local courthouse. At least one of Captain Wiedemeyer's men was killed during the raid and Lane executed nine other Osceola residents after giving them a hurried mass hearing.
From History to Pop Culture: In the novel True Grit, and in two movies of the same name, the character Rooster Cogburn was a native of Osceola, who joined up with Quantrill's Raiders after Jim Lane's Sacking of Osceola. The 1969 film featured John Wayne in the role, for which he won an Academy Award.
As the citizens of Osceola took stock of the extensive damage the Kansas Brigade had inflicted, many immediately called for revenge. John W. Fisher stated that the damage was "enough to make a man's blood boil. . . . Men are anxious to go to Kansas and retaliate, [and] if we are permitted to go the retribution will be awful. Lane's men were the destroyers and there will be no mercy shown them if we ever get a hold of them." The formerly thriving port town never fully recovered from the attack.
The long-term consequences of the Kansas Brigade's sacking of Osceola became evident two years later. On August 21, 1863, a group of 400 Missouri bushwhackers raided Lawrence, Kansas, killing between 160 and 190 men and boys and looting and burning much of the town. Commanded by William Clarke Quantrill, a proslavery guerrilla, the bushwhackers cited the sacking of Osceola as one of the primary justifications for their surprise attack on Lawrence. Brigadier General Lane was in Lawrence at the time of Quantrill's bloody raid, and he narrowly avoided the wrath of the bushwhackers by running into a cornfield clothed only in his nightshirt.
Name: Charles R Jennison
Residence: Kansas
Rank at enlistment: Colonel
State Served: Kansas
Survived the War?: Yes
Service Record: Commissioned an officer in Company S, Kansas 7th Cavalry Regiment on 28 Oct 1861. Mustered out on 01 May 1862.
Sources: Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kansas
Name: Charles R Jennison
Residence: Kansas
Rank at enlistment: Colonel
State Served: Kansas
Survived the War?: Yes
Service Record: Commissioned an officer in Company S, Kansas 15th Cavalry Regiment on 17 Oct 1863. Mustered out on 23 Jun 1865.
Sources: Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kansas
One of the worst Kansas Jayhawkers during the Civil War, known as "Doc" Jennison he was considered the most brutal and unscrupulous of the Jayhawkers, his blatant plunder for personal gain, he "tried" and hanged Russell Hinds near the state line at Mine Creek for the offense of helping to return a fugitive slave to his master in Missouri, which was not illegal at the time.
Colonel Jennison; Kansas; Leavenworth, Kan.; Indianopolis, Ind.; Jennison]
Date: Thursday, May 22, 1873
Paper: Argus and Patriot (Montpelier, VT)
Volume: XXIII
Issue: 23
Page: 1
Colonel Jennison, a noted Kansas Jayhawker, was arrested at Leavenworth, Kan., Monday of late week, for attempting to defraud the Government out of $52,000, in what is known as the Moss claim for hardware stolen at Indianapolis, Ind. during the war. There is also a charge of perjury against Jennison for swearing to a fraudulent claim.
In about 1856, Sydney's husband Albert L. Jennison left for the gold rush in Australia. She received a letter from him upon his arrival there. After not hearing from him for 7 years, Sydney had him declared dead in the Circuit Court in Green County. Her reason was she needed closure with Albert to let her daughter Florence inherit her property.
Albert left his family in Wisconsin in about 1856 to travel to a gold rush in Australia. In 1858 he married Anne Geddes in Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia. He was recorded as Albert L. Janison. His death was recorded in the Australia death Index in 1889. It gave the his father's name as Roderick and his mother's as Bessy. He was recorded as Albert L. Jennison.
1850 Mount Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
Rodrick Jennison M 54 Vermont
Nancy Jennison F 43 Pennsylvania
Charles Jenison M 15 New York
Albert L Jenison M 21 New York
Sydney Jenison F 22 Pennsylvania
1860 Mount Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
R R Jennison 64 VT
Nancy Jennison 53 PA
Sidney Jennison 33 female PA
Florence Jennison 8 Wisc
1870 MT Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
S Jennison 43 female Pa
Nancy Jennison 63 Pa
Florance Jennison 18 Wisc
1880 MT Pleasant, Green, Wisconsin
Sidney Jennison 53 widowed
Wisconsin marriages
Name: Charles R. Jennison
Birthplace: New York
Spouse's Name: Mary Hopkins
Event Date: 26 Feb 1854
Event Place: Albany, Green, Wisconsin
Father's Name: Roderick R. Jennison
Mother's Name: Betsy Jennison
Spouse's Father's Name: Samuel Hopkins
Spouse's Mother's Name: Jane Hopkins
Race: White
1860 Mound City, Linn Co. Kansas Territory, 30 July
E R Jannisen 27 physician real estate 4150 personal $1000 NY
Mary Jannisen 27 Canada
Sophia Jannisen 6 Wisconsin
Elizabeth Jannisen 20 Missouri
24 Jun 1865 Leavenworth Ward 3, Leavenworth, Kansas, hh 251
C R Jennison 30 Colonel real estate value $6000 personal $1000 NY
Mrs Jennison 30 Wisconsin
Sophia Jennison 10 Wisconsin
Ellen Maxwell 22 Indiana
1870 Delaware twp, Leavenworth Co KS Leavenworth PO
Charly R Jennison M 35 New York
Mary Jennison F 34 Canada
Sophia Jennison F 15 Wisconsin
1 Mar 1875 - Delaware, Leavenworth, Kansas hh 88
C R Jennison 40 Ny real estate 5,000 1500
Mary 40 Canada
hh 89
J M Patton 29 clerk OH
Sophia 20 Wisc
1880 - Sacramento, Sacramento, California
Jasper Patton 35 insurance agt OH parents OH
Sophia Patton 25 wife Wisconsin
Mary Jennison 44 mother Canada
Charles (Patton) 5 son Kansas
Name: Jasper N Patton
State Filed: California
Widow: Sophia Patton
Roll number: T288_364
Co G 1 Ohio Inf
widow pension filed Dec 19 1900 app no 732118, cert no 813207 filed Calif
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See his final resting place here.
