390 | iii. | Johnny FRY was born in 1840. He died on 6 October 1863 at the age of 23 in Baxter Springs, Cherokee County, Kansas. Pony Express Rider - the first official rider.
Fry was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky to John Fry and Mary Fry. Mary moved with her son and new husband Benjamin Wells to Rushville, Missouri around 1857.
Fry, who weighed less than 120 pounds, was assigned to the first leg of the westbound route of the Pony Express delivering it from the stables in St. Joseph, Missouri a few blocks to a ferry across the Missouri River before carrying it on to Seneca, Kansas. Ads for the Pony Express said, "Wirey young men, preferably orphans to ride 20 miles..." Fry worked for the Pony Express, not only as a rider, but also as a dispatcher until the telegraph line construction was completed ending the Pony Express service in October 1861. Afterwards, he was recruited by Union Army General James G. Blunt to serve as a messenger rider and scout. On October 6, 1863, while on his way from Fort Gibson, Oklahoma to Fort Scott, Kansas with an important message, he was attacked by Confederate guerrillas under the leadership of the famed William Quantrill. In a hand-to-hand fight with the Confederates, Fry killed five of his assailants before falling mortally wounded.
He is buried in the Baxter Springs Cemetery in Baxter Springs, Kansas.
Red Legs originally referred to a specific paramilitary outfit that organized in Kansas at the height of the Civil War. Union Generals Thomas Ewing, James Blunt, and Senator James H. Lane were all supporters of the group, and Kansas Governor Thomas Carney personally financed it for service. The Red Legs first joined together near Atchison, Kansas, under the command of Charles R. “Doc” Jennison and Captain George H. Hoyt, a Massachusetts lawyer who defended John Brown at his trial after the Harpers Ferry Raid. The men who joined the group called themselves the Red Legged Scouts and their stated purpose was to serve as scouts and spies for the Union Army. The Red Legs were never officially mustered into the Union Army and there are no formal unit histories; however, their deeds along the border became notorious among Missourians and notable among Kansans. There are several versions of the story of how they earned the name and their reputations along the Missouri-Kansas border. One account of the legend claims that the men chose to wear tan or red colored yarn leggings to both distinguish themselves as a unit and to protect their legs while riding and marching through thick brush. Two stories from the Missouri side of the state line claim that in 1861, when Jennison and Hoyt led these men into Independence, Missouri, declared martial law, and forced the citizens to swear loyalty oaths, they also raided a local store and stole rolls of red carpet that they cut into strips to make a covering for their legs. Some Missourians claim the Red Legs stole red draperies and bolts of cloth from people’s homes and used that material to make their distinctive red leggings. In another tale, the men stole from a cobbler’s shop a supply of sheep hides that had been dyed red and precut to make boot tops. There is likely a grain of truth in all of these origination tales. Over the course of the war other groups of anonymous brigands from Kansas also wore red leggings on their raids into Missouri, much to the chagrin of a succession of Union Army commanders, who were charged with keeping peace and order along the border. |