KATE'S SONG

So much has been written about the controversial guerrilla chief William Clarke Quantrill and his bushwhacking activities along the Kansas and Missouri border during the Civil War, it is surprising how little has been written about his young Jackson County wife, Kate King, who took Quantrill's middle name and called herself Kate Clarke during and after the war. What information exists about this intriguing character is often contradictory, and much of it is of dubious value.
Some sources tell us she was kidnapped by Quantrill and coerced into being his mistress; she herself told newspaper reporters in her later years that she fell in love at first sight with Quantrill when she was not quite thirteen years old. Because of Kate's age, her parents strongly disapproved of their romance and tried to put an end to it, but Kate persisted in seeing him in secret. An experienced horsewoman, she frequently rode through the Jackson County countryside with her lover.
When she was thirteen the two eloped and were supposedly married in a church not far from her parents' Blue Springs farm.
There are accounts of how Kate rode right along with the guerrillas after her marriage, some even saying she dressed in men's clothing. She may, indeed, have ridden with the men as they changed camps, but she almost certainly did not fight alongside the guerrillas or dress like a man. Women were generally not harmed by the soldiers of either side during the war, so Kate would have been far safer dressed like a woman.
Some commentators insist Kate became a madam of a famous bawdy house in St. Louis after Quantrill was killed in Kentucky in April 1865, using money and jewels that Quantrill left to her. But others say she ran a small boarding house, not a bawdy house, in St. Louis, and later returned to the Kansas City area where she was twice re-married before her death at the age of 82 in 1930 at the Jackson County Home for the Aged.
In her later years Kate insisted she never truly loved any man but Quantrill. She remembered him to be handsome, polite and debonair, and inclined to “josh” her. This description provides an interesting contrast to the usual descriptions one reads of William Quantrill as evil personified.
In writing this song, Cathy Barton has formed her own conclusions about Kate based on information gleaned from Donald Hale's We Rode With Quantrill and materials gathered by Bob Dyer. Whatever facts one chooses to accept about Kate, she is a fascinating character deserving far more attention than she has yet received. Much information exists about the guerrillas, almost all of it from a male point of view; a study of Kate King would provide a valuable woman's perspective.