Battle of Mine Creek

With the light drizzle of early morning came the Confederate Army of Sterling Price rumbling through Mine Creek. Barbara Jane Palmer Dolson, with her infant daughter, was staying with her mother and two sisters while her husband and father marched off with the militia to defend the state from invasion. Now, suddenly, that army of invasion was passing in full view of their farm, pillaging and looting as it went. She could only hope that the federal pursuit was close behind. Within a few hours a battle would be fought on this very spot, and unlike her husband and father who were well in the rear and would miss the battle, Dolson would witness the only major Civil War battle fought on Kansas soil.

The first Confederate soldiers reached the Palmer house just as breakfast was being served. Uninvited, the soldiers entered the house, sat down, and helped themselves to a meal. They were soon followed by others, who, not finding food, took whatever they could lay their hands on. From underneath her bed, one soldier pulled out a box that contained the clothes of her young daughter. Her pleading to leave the clothes alone fell on deaf ears until a Confederate officer appeared and ordered the man to put them back where he had found them. Taking a bed sheet from another soldier, the officer wrapped it around the shoulders of Barbara Jane, explaining that she might keep it as a shawl.

A harsh-looking man, dressing his wounded foot nearby, grew upset by the officer's manners. "I would kill all the women and children I could get my hands on if I had my way." Dolson later recalled the man saying. The officer quickly reprimanded the insolent soldier but was interrupted by someone shouting that there was going to be a battle. Dolson never saw the kind officer again as he rushed out of the house to prepare for battle. She would forever remember him as "my rebel officer."

The battle lines quickly formed as Dolson stood at the north door of the house, watching. The cannons belched their smoke and flames as the onward rush of men collided. Soon she could hear nothing but the rattle of musketry. Then men came over the creek in what seemed a massive flood of humanity; the Confederates racing southward with Union troops in hot pursuit.

In long minutes it was over. Dolson and her mother and ventured outside to aid the wounded. Men had fallen all about the house and crawled to the protection of fence corners and brush so as not to be trampled by the pursuing mounted troops.

Gathering the wounded, they were taken to a vacant cabin north of the creek. Here, in this field hospital, Dolson continued to help the wounded. As she remembered in later life, "Here . . . was a sickening scene. . . . Some were bearing their pain without a murmur, some groaning, some crying, some praying, and some dying. I often wonder how I could bear to look on such a fearful scene, much less to try to care for the poor fellows. I certainly have no desire ever to see such a sight again."

Approximately 400-500 people were killed that day at the Battle of Mine Creek, October 25, 1864; most were Confederate soldiers. The Union army victory at Mine Creek marked the end of the war on the western front. Today the grounds are preserved and the story is told at Mine Creek Battlefield State Historic Site, near Pleasanton.