Montgomery, James

Life Span
to
    Full name
    James Montgomery
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Free State
    No. of Spouses
    2
    Occupation
    Military
    Farmer or Planter
    Clergy
    Educator
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Church or Religious Denomination
    Other
    Other Religion
    Campbellite
    Other Affiliations
    Abolitionists (Anti-Slavery Society)
    Military
    Union Army

    James Montgomery (Dirck, 2004)

    Scholarship
    One incident in particular marks [James] Montgomery's rise as a border raider to be reckoned with. In December 1858 he led a large expedition of sixty to one hundred armed freesoilers from Linn, Osage, and Bourbon Counties into Fort Scott, long hated as the “bastile of the proslavery party” in southern Kansas. Their goal was the liberation of Benjamin Rice, one of Montgomery's close comrades, who had been imprisoned for deeds committed prior to a general amnesty issued by Governor James W. Denver. Montgomery and other freesoilers believed the amnesty should have absolved Rice of past wrongdoing, and they saw his arrest as an act of had faith. They accordingly rode into Fort Scott at dawn with guns drawn, and during the ensuing firefight proslavery man John Little took a bullet in his forehead as he was wiping dust from a window pane to shoot at the raiders. Montgomery and his men freed Rice and beat a hasty retreat out of town, but not before pilfering some money and other items. Little was “a very fine young man” from a good Southern family according to proslavery Kansans, and his death caused a sensation in their ranks.
    Brian R. Dirck, “By the Hand of God: James Montgomery and Redemptive Violence,” Kansas History 27, no. 1-2 (2004): 107.
    Chicago Style Entry Link
    Dirck, Brian R. “By the Hand of God: James Montgomery and Redemptive Violence.” Kansas History 27, no. 1-2 (2004): 100-115. view record
    How to Cite This Page: "Montgomery, James," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/23309.