James H. Lane (Senator)
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| James Henry Lane | |
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| Born | June 22, 1814 Lawrenceburg, Indiana, USA |
| Died | July 11, 1866 Crawfordsville, Indiana, USA |
James Henry Lane AKA Jim Lane (June 22, 1814 – July 11, 1866) was a United States Senator and Union partisan. Lane was born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where he practiced law when he was admitted to the bar in 1840. He moved to the Kansas Territory in 1855. He immediately became involved in the abolitionist movement in Kansas. He was often called the leader of "Jayhawkers" abolitionist movement in Kansas.
He was a U.S. congressman from Indiana (1853-1855) where he voted for the Kansas-Nebraska Act. But he abandoned that stance when he moved to the Kansas Territory in 1855. He was elected to the Senate from the state of Kansas in 1861, and reelected in 1865. During that time he presided over the Topeka convention.
Lane was to lead Jayhawkers in a battle against pro-Southern general Sterling Price in the Battle of Dry Wood Creek as Price began an offensive to clear out abolitionists in Kansas at the beginning of the Civil War. Lane lost the battle but stayed behind and attacked pro-South pockets in Missouri behind Price. Lane's raids culminated in the Sacking of Osceola, in which Lane's forces murdered at least nine men, then pillaged, looted, and then burned the town; events which inspired the 1976 Clint Eastwood movie The Outlaw Josey Wales.
During the Civil War, he also led the "Kansas brigade" in western Missouri and raised one of the first black regiments in the Union Army.
In a bid to put down the Confederate raiders operating in Kansas, General Thomas Ewing, Jr. issued General Order No. 11 (1863), ordering the arrest of anyone giving aid or comfort to Quantrill's Raiders. This meant chiefly women and children. Ewing confined those arrested in a make-shift prison in Kansas City. This building collapsed, killing four women. There was debate as to the nature of this collapse, with some claiming it was a deliberate attack on women and children, and others claiming it was merely a tragic accident. These deaths enraged some Missourians, resulting in the August 21, 1863 Lawrence Massacre, also known as Quantrill's Raid, in Kansas, which Lane managed to escape by racing through a cornfield in his nightshirt.
Lane had survived many hardships in his life, he even battled in the Mexican-American War and the Civil War. But Lane shot himself on July 1st, 1866 in Leavenworth, Kansas. He was deranged, depressed, and had been charged with abandoning his fellow Radical Republicans and financial irregularities. He died 10 days later as a result of the self-inflicted shot.
[edit] Places Named after James H. Lane
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| Preceded by: Samuel W. Parker |
U.S. Representative from Indiana, 4th district 1853–1855 |
Succeeded by: William Cumback |
| Preceded by: — |
U.S. Senator from Kansas 1861–1866 |
Succeeded by: Edmund G. Ross |
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