Wholesale Killing
It is related that at one time Quantrell’s company, after an encounter with a party of jayhawkers, found fifteen prisoners on their hands. As was the custom, arrangements were speedily made to put them to death. Among the arms captured was an Enfield rifle, and as none of the guerillas had ever seen one before, it was decided to test its merits, as they had heard that its force was terrible. The poor prisoners were placed in a row one behind the other, and Cole Younger, claiming that the weapon ought to kill ten men at a shot, deliberately fired at fifteen paces. The rifle disappointed the bloody executioner, as it killed but the first three men. Seven shots were fired by the cruel marksman before the fifteen were disposed of.