Women's prison in Kansas City collapses

General Thomas Ewing, Jr.

Thursday, August 13, 1863

A women’s prison in Kansas City, Missouri, collapses, killing five women, including the sister of Missouri guerilla “Bloody” Bill Anderson. The women were jailed due to General Thomas Ewing, Jr.’s order to arrest those thought to give aid to Confederate guerillas.

Citations: 

“General Orders No. 11, Missouri,” in Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War, ed. Patricia Faust (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 302

Jeremy Neely, The Border Between Them: Violence and Reconciliation on the Missouri-Kansas Line, (Columbia: University of Missouri, 2007), 120-21.