Quantrill continued his career as a teacher, moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in February 1856. After Union troops removed the supports for the buildings central girder on the main floor, leading to the buildings collapse and the death of four women, including one of Andersons sisters. In the spring of 1865, now leading only a few dozen pro-confederates, Quantrill staged a series of raids in western Kentucky. This is the truth behind the man and the soldier. Duffy said that Sharp admitted he was Quantrill and discussed in detail raids in Kansas and elsewhere. Mayes was a half Scots-Irish and half Cherokee Confederate sympathizer and a war chief of the Cherokee Nations in Texas. Angered by incidents of scalping by Kansas Jayhawkers, the guerrillas took it up themselves in the summer of 1864. As Quantrills band maneuvered through Kentucky dressed in federal uniforms, the men passed themselves off openly as members of the nonexistent US 4th Missouri Cavalry. A Union patrol caught up to a group of seven of Andersons men, killed them, and scalped them. A further order forcing the conscription of all able-bodied men into Union militias convinced many young men in Missouri to join the guerrillas instead. He told her that slavery was right and that he now detested Jim Lane. Quantrill's father earned a living as a coppersmith. Despite their gain in notoriety and expansion in numbers, accompanied by increasing expertise in the American Indian style of guerrilla fighting, the group was considered undisciplined and dangerous. According to Connelley in Quantrill and the Border Wars, The men of Captain Terrell went briskly up the lane, and, rising the swell, charged down upon the barn, unslinging carbines and getting pistols in hand. The general and governor both erupted with rage at the display and told Anderson the CSA would have nothing to do with his band until all scalps disappeared. After being repelled, Quantrill surprised and destroyed a Union relief column under General James G. Blunt, who escaped, but almost 100 Union soldiers were killed. Instant PDF downloads. John Langford rests in peace near his Missouri farm and friends in a beautiful country cemetery south of Albany. I suggest you fortify yours if you hope to be of any use to us. By July 1863 Anderson had entered the historical record of the war as the commander of a group of 30 to 40 guerrillas. He also called the Democrats "the worst men we have for they are all rascals, for no one can be a democrat here without being one". A school teacher from Ohio, Quantrill became one of the most notorious figures of the US Civil War. Bill Anderson arrived in Kansas as a child in 1857 along with his Southern parents, two brothers, and three sisters. Listen carefully to instructions and never expect to be told anything a second time. After killing their captives execution-style but shots to the head, the guerrillas brought out their Bowie knives and tomahawks and spent the coming hours in what a witness described as a carnival of blood, dismembering, scalping, mutilating and decapitating their near-naked victims. The guerrillas did not have access to Confederate uniforms, but in any case preferred to wear captured Union uniforms, which allowed them to confuse Union pickets and get close to their enemy, where their rapid-firing revolvers made the difference against muzzle-loading rifled muskets. The rest of his body was dragged through the streets. General Jo Shelby, a Missourian and one of the Confederacys best fighting generals, held a low opinion of the guerrillas: They are Confederate soldiers in nothing save the name No organization, no concentration, no discipline, no law, no anything. Bloody Bill even denied the name part, stating: I am a guerrilla. The True Grit quotes below are all either spoken by William Quantrill or refer to William Quantrill. Dupuy, Trevor N., Johnson, Curt, and Bongard, David L.. Crouch, Barry A. William Clarke Quantrill was a Civil War guerrilla leader along the western border of Missouri and Kansas. During the weeks immediately preceding the raid, Union General Thomas Ewing, Jr., had ordered the detention of any civilians giving aid to Quantrill's Raiders. Kansas Raiders is a 1950 Technicolor Western film distributed by Universal-International, directed by Ray Enright, and stars Audie Murphy, Brian Donlevy, Marguerite Chapman, and Scott Brady. Most of the bands now consisted of reckless and ruthless teenagers with lots of violent energy but little judgment. This left the field open to independent guerrilla commanders who took little if any direction from Confederate authorities. He served the Confederacy and perhaps hoped to secure high rank and recognition from its leaders. It would forever alter the destiny of William C. Quantrill and his infamous Raiders. Duffy claimed to recognize the man, living under the name of John Sharp, as Quantrill. He eventually died leading a charge while attached to General Prices forces in 1864. Todd was born in Montreal and was probably the only Canadian amongst the guerrillas. In late 1862, the Union ordered the imprisonment of all women known to be related to the guerrillas. 2. Initially, before 1860, Quantrill appeared to oppose slavery. General Sterling Price led the last Confederate attempt to secure Missouri in September 1864. Their favorite long-arm was the breech-loading 1859 Sharps rifle, easy to handle on horseback, especially in its carbine version. Here we can see posters from some of these highly fictional films, Quantrills Raiders, Kansas Raiders, The Bushwackers, and The Outlaw Josey Wales, in which the 24-year-old Anderson was played by the 55-year-old John Russell. Both photos show that his left ring finger has been cut off, likely to retrieve his ring. Poole propped the bodies up and instructed them at the chalkboard for an hour before complimenting them on their close attention. Unknown to the twenty-seven-year-old chieftain of Quantrills Raiders, the final hour was near. Largely relieved from having to pursue guerrillas by Prices choice to attach them to his force, Union troops were able to concentrate in a force much stronger than Prices at Westport. Terrells band consisted of about twenty men, and was organized for the express purpose of driving Quantrill from Kentucky. His letter also confirms Terrells reputation. Complete your free account to access notes and highlights. Upon reaching adulthood, Quantrill briefly taught school in Ohio. Those acquainted with him will understand why he has never been given prominence by the press for the act. After the Civil War, he drifted to Illinois and on to southwest Iowa. Quantrill was born in Ohio on July 31, 1837. Battles Beginning with a small group of men fighting the pre-war Kansas Jayhawkers, Quantrill eventually came to lead hundreds of guerrillas. You cannot escape." Counter-Measures Union counter-measures included the death penalty for interfering with the railroads. Cox put Bloody Bills body on display in Richmond Missouri. Pre-loaded six-shot cylinders were carried in the pockets of their guerrilla shirts, allowing the guerrillas to quickly reload their weapons by swapping out the empty cylinders for full ones. He spent most of his youth in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. . William Quantrill was born at Canal Dover, Ohio, on July 31, 1837. A reconnaissance of the town was done by John Noland, a black Confederate and one of Quantrills most trusted scouts. While in Texas, Quantrill and his 400 men quarreled. That eyewitness to history was a young soldier named John Langford. (including. Clements opened fire on them and the rest of the bushwackers joined in. He was killed either by Dave Pooles brother William or by guerrilla George Shepherd, who was reported to have cut Jim Andersons throat on the courthouse lawn in Sherman Texas. The nonfictional leader of a pro-Confederate group of men who tore through Kansas and Missouri fighting Union soldiers and sympathizers. Loved and respected by his men; hated and feared by his enemies; adored by the young Southern women who he met, and befriended by those who sought justice and protection: this was William Clarke Quantrill. Although they mistrusted the 19-year-old William, his mother's pleadings persuaded them to let her son accompany them in an effort to get him to turn his life around. Quantrills last battle occurred in a pasture and wooded draw and barn lot near Taylorville in Spencer County, Kentucky, on May 10, 1865. This poster (Generale Quantrill: The Human Beast) is actually for an American movie called Dark Command, with Walter Pigeon playing William Cantrell. The films Italian distributors apparently felt Quantrill was more marketable, restoring his real name, making it the title, and promoting him to General in the process. Others, like the James brothers, the Younger brothers, and the Shepherd brothers, found the transition into peacetime difficult, both because they enjoyed the bushwacking life, but also because they were forced to live in constant fear of arrest or lynching by vigilantes. Pursuit by guerrilla-hunting units became ruthless. At a very young age, he had joined the Kentucky Confederate troops. On June 6, 1865, some twenty-seven days after he was wounded, Quantrill died. [25], Another legend that has circulated claims that Quantrill may have escaped custody and fled to Arkansas, where he lived under the name of L.J. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!, This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. Here they are: 1. Be the first to contribute! 11 (not to be confused with General Ulysses S. Grant's order of the same name). But more than likely, Quantrill planned to link up with General Robert E. Lees army, believing that the men would be considered Southern soldiers and would be pardoned with the coming end of the war in Virginia. The party of three departed in late February 1857. Clements, however, returned to town to have a drink with a friend. While it is possible that at least half the Missouri population were against secession, repressive measures by out-of-state Union forces turned many into reluctant supporters of the Southern cause. He was wounded nine times before his death and was described as a maniac in battle. Todd wrested control of Quantrills band in the spring of 1864 before allying himself with Anderson. Anderson kept his Confederate battle flag carefully folded amongst his personal effects, like a memory of an earlier time and purpose. Quantrill joined the Confederate army and fought in the Battle of Wilsons Creek near Springfield in 1861, the first major battle of the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the Civil War. Some, like the veterans attending the bushwacker reunions under Quantrills vacant gaze, managed to adjust to post-war life. After Anderson left the town, he was pursued by a Union major, AVE Johnston, and 240 men of the 39th Missouri mounted infantry, a force roughly equal to the guerrillas. The general was chased into Indian Territory, and by the time he returned to Arkansas he had only half the 12,000 men he had started with. Genre: Western. The local dentist, who doubled as the town photographer, was summoned to take two shots of Andersons corpse propped up in a chair. His guerrillas certainly did not operate in the same way as the commands of partisan rangers such as John Singleton Mosby and John Hunt Morgan, which were much more tightly integrated with the CSA. These rarely agree in detail and are usually colored by the perceived legal, political, or personal need for the veteran to present his story in a certain fashion, resulting in a variety of contradictory accounts. As a joke, Clements, Poole and 25 heavily-armed former bushwackers rode into Lexington in military formation to report for militia duty. And the ramifications would echo into the next century in a small town in northwest Missouri. After the photo-op, Anderson was decapitated and his head stuck on a telegraph pole. The Guerrilla shirt could be read by anyone familiar with the code of different flowers, their arrangement, and the color thread used for ornamentation. Nevertheless, the police strongly urged him to leave Mendota. ): A Thrilling Record, Founded on Facts and Observations Obtained During Ten Days Experience with Colonel William T. Anderson (the Notorious Guerrilla Chieftain), Des Moines, Iowa, 1868, Goodrich, Thomas: Black Flag: Guerrilla Warfare on the Western Border, 1861-1865, Indiana University Press, Bloomington Ill., 1995, Leslie, Edward E.: The Devil Knows How to Ride: The True Story of William Quantrill and His Confederate Raiders, New York, 1998, McLachlan, Sean: American Civil War Guerrilla Tactics, Oxford, 2009, Oates, Stephen B.: Confederate Cavalry West of the River, Austin (3rd ed. [1] Quantrill's famous or infamous raid upon the sleeping town of Lawrence in the predawn hours of August 21, 1863, has been the subject of endless discourse and debate. As a result, there are grave markers for Quantrill in Louisville, Dover, and Higginsville.[24]. "I have lapped filthy water from a hoofprint and was glad to have it," he brags, and Rooster makes fun of him for the comment, saying that all Texans claim they've drunk from a hoofprint. According to Langfords letter, as the Terrell scouting party approached the Wakefield farm that May day in 1865, the Quantrill gang stampeded just as the scouts reached the fence around the barn. The Kansas City Journal proposed that the bushwackers should be decently treated, decently tried, decently convicted and decently hung.. Complete your free account to request a guide. If the South had won the war there would have been statues erected in his memory and countless mothers would have named their children after him. Crocker until his death in 1917. Halleck issued an order in March 1862 that declared the Confederate guerrillas to be outlaws subject to summary execution. [14], On October 5, 1862, Quantrill attacked and destroyed Shawneetown, Kansas, and Bill Anderson soon revisited and torched the rebuilding settlement. As mounted fighters, the guerrillas shared General John Hunt Morgans opinion that sabers were as useless as a fence post. The guerillas weapon of choice was the Colt Navy .36 cal., either in the 1851 or 1861 pattern. At the other end of the clearing were Andersons men, waiting by their horses. It would be this group of "scouts," under the command of a young officer of the worst imaginable reputation, that would hunt down William Quantrill and end his life. In the Fall of 1862, Bill and Jim ran afoul of guerrilla leader William Quantrill, who took their horses as punishment for robbing Southern sympathizers as well as pro-Unionists. During this time, Quantrill helped support the family by continuing to work as a schoolteacher, but he left home a year later and headed to Mendota, Illinois. Price sought to incorporate most of them into his column rather than dispersing them throughout the state to draw off Union troops. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Early in the morning of August 21, Quantrill descended from Mount Oread and attacked Lawrence at the head of a combined force of as many as 450 guerrilla fighters. During the caravan, Quantrill was heavily guarded but treated with respect. Jennisons Jayhawkers later became enraged when they saw his grave in Richmond covered in flowers. It was Mayes who taught Quantrill guerrilla warfare tactics, the ambush fighting tactics used by the Native Americans, as well as camouflage and the tactic of the sneak attack. The Union responded to the Lawrence massacre by driving away from the population of three Missouri counties and allowing Jennisons Redlegs to torch everything left. It is set during the American Civil War and involves Jesse more . Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. As Sterling Price began his last attempt to Retake Missouri in September 1864, he encouraged the guerrillas to mount attacks on garrisons and disrupt communications. The James Brothers, needless to say, used the skills they acquired as bushwackers to become two of the most famous American outlaws in the post-war period. [27] The historian Matthew Christopher Hulbert argues that Quantrill "ruled the bushwhacker pantheon" established by ex-Confederate officer and propagandist John Newman Edwards in the 1870s to provide Missouri with its own "irregular Lost Cause". Struggling with distance learning? Chapter 7 Quotes Battles & Tribes, American Revolution One night while working the late shift, he killed a man. However, most of the soldiers fighting the guerrillas were young, inexperienced conscripts of the Missouri militia. Unknown to Johnston, many more guerrillas lay in wait in the woods. It would be this group of scouts, under the command of a young officer of the worst imaginable reputation, that would hunt down William Quantrill and end his life. Dave Poole was one of Quantrills lieutenants and seems to have thought of himself as quite witty. HE RODE WITH, Would not have made it through AP Literature without the printable PDFs. Lacking any real authority from the Confederate Army, Bushwacker chieftains relied on respect, charisma, courage, and ferocity to hold their commands. Among the dead was Josephine Anderson, the sister of one of Quantrill's key guerrilla allies, Bill Anderson. Quantrill supposedly informed his men that they would enter Kentucky and work their way to Washington, DC, where they would assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. When Quantrill executed one of Andersons men for robbing and murdering a farmer, that was the last straw for Bloody Bill. At least one source claims the second shot was from Captain Terrells Colt revolver. Frank James was an early member of Quantrills band. I will hunt you down like wolves and murder you. Fueling this conflict was a dispute over whether Kansas should be a slave-holding state or not. However, neighbors soon began to notice Quantrill stealing goods out of other people's cabins and so they banished him from the community in January 1858. Born in Canal Dover (today, simply called Dover), Ohio, on July 31, 1837, Quantrill was a bright but troubled young man. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class., Requesting a new guide requires a free LitCharts account. [28] Some of Quantrill's celebrity later rubbed off on other ex-Raiders, like John Jarrett, George and Oliver Shepherd, Jesse and Frank James, and Cole Younger, who went on after the war to apply Quantrill's hit-and-run tactics to bank and train robbery. On the other hand, Frank would later claim that he wasnt there, admit that he was there, or say he was there but missed the events that followed as he was busy pursuing fleeing Union troops.