General Order Number 11

From Order No. 11:
"All persons living in Jackson, Cass, and Bates counties, Missouri, and in that part of Vernon included in this district, except those living within one mile of the limits of Independence, Hickman's Mills, Pleasant Hill, and Harrisonville, and except those in that part of Kaw Township, Jackson County, north of Brush Creek and west of Big Blue, are hereby ordered to remove from their present places of residence within fifteen days . . ." 

 Missouri artist and Union officer George Caleb Bingham immortalized Order No. 11 in his painting, Martial Law (or Order No. 11). Courtesy of State Historical Society of Missouri - Columbia.

In 1863, the Union Army found itself unable to control the Confederate guerrilla activity in western Missouri. In a controversial attempt to quell this warfare along the Missouri-Kansas border, General Order No. 11 marked the culmination of the army’s long struggle along the Missouri-Kansas border. 

The pro-Confederate guerrillas, the “bushwhackers,” had been receiving food, clothing, horses, and shelter from Southern sympathizers. Some Missouri women had also aided the cause as spies. By late summer, Union officers concluded that order could not be restored without removing the families who sustained the guerrilla resistance.

Union General Thomas Ewing, commander of the District of the Border, issued General Order No. 11 exiling several thousand people from their homes in western Missouri. Exemptions to the policy were limited to the inhabitants of Kansas City, Westport, and Independence, where Union forces maintained greater control. Also spared were those who could prove their Unionist loyalties. 

This was not Gen Ewing’s first response to the violence for which some feel he should bear some of the blame.  In early August, he ordered the arrest, detention, and removal of female relatives of known guerrillas. They were sent to a jail in Kansas City that collapsed and killed 5 of the women held there. Among those killed were the sisters of the guerrilla William “Bloody Bill” Anderson. Six days later, Anderson’s fellow bushwhacker, William Clarke Quantrill, led a band of more than 400 guerrillas in a surprise attack on Lawrence, Kansas, which resulted in the murder of between 160 and 190 men and boys. Fearing further attacks against civilians in Missouri, he issued his General Order No. 11, the depopulation order.

To prevent guerrilla bands from foraging throughout the vacant countryside, the order gave federal troops the right to seize all grain and hay crops of the displaced families. Soldiers and roaming gangs, alike, plundered abandoned properties and set many buildings afire. It didn’t take long for the flames to spread to the tall grass prairies, resulting in Cass and Bates Counties in Missouri being called the “Burnt District.”

The entire population of Bates County (Butler MO) was banished.  Official county business was not conducted again until 1866.  Only about one third of the residents returned.  Awaiting them was not only total devastation, but tax bills for 3 years property taxes.  The land of those who did not return was forfeited and sold to new settlers, many being from northern states.  The area was changed forever.