Site of Barracks - Lawrence, Ks
Posted by: 
iconions
N 38° 57.397 W 095° 14.605
15S E 305609 N 4314355
This very simple granite marker is located near "The Pioneer" sculpture south of Fraser Hall on the University of Kansas campus.
Waymark Code: WMGEN7
Location: Kansas, United States
Date Posted: 02/23/2013
Views: 6
As a student of Kansas history, and of the Lawrence Massacre and its aftermath in particular, I knew that Mt Oread was used as an outpost and a observation point before and during the Civil War. Quantrill sent men up here to watch for Federal troops while he burned the town of Lawrence below. I did not know that there was a marker, although simple, about trenches and barracks put up here after the raid. Any remaining structures of the barracks and trenches are long gone. The marker is located along a sidewalk south of Fraser Hall and just to the north of "The Pioneer" sculpture.
The marker reads:
"Site of Barracks and Trenches 1863"
From Kansas Forts during the Civil War by William C. Pollard, Jr. :
(
visit link)
"CAMP EWING/CAMP LOOKOUT/FORT ULYSSES COMPLEX
Lawrence was not well defended in the early part of the Civil War. The August 21, 1863, raid by William Clarke Quantrill, which left much destruction and about 180 Lawrence boys and men dead, changed that.
By early 1864 soldiers were permanently camped on the top and slopes of Mount Oread, to Lawrence's southwest. It seems the camp was originally named Camp Ewing.
Soon a battery of cannon was placed at the top of Mount Oread and this was named Camp Lookout. In the spring of 1864 many of the soldiers in the camps were ill. They were kept at the German Methodist church in Lawrence, which for a time was used as a hospital.
About August 1864 construction of a fort on top of Mount Oread was begun. Sometimes this fort was called Fort Ulysses. As of December 1864 this fort remained only partially built, although it contained some government storehouses. It is not known whether the fort was completed. The garrison there was probably removed at the end of the Civil War or soon thereafter."