William Quantrill

William Clarke Quantrill
Born	July 31, 1837(1837-07-31) Canal Dover (now Dover), Ohio
Died	June 6, 1865(1865-06-06) (aged 27) Louisville, Kentucky
Buried at	St. John's Catholic Cemetery Louisville Kentucky
Allegiance	United States of America Confederate States of America
Service/branch	Confederate States Army guerrilla
Years of service	1861-1865
Rank	Captain
Battles/wars	American Civil War Lawrence, Kansas

William Clarke Quantrill (July 31, 1837 – June 6, 1865) was a Confederate guerrilla leader during the American Civil War. After leading a Confederate bushwhacker unit along the Missouri-Kansas border in the early 1860s, which included the infamous raid and sacking of Lawrence, Kansas in 1863, Quantrill eventually ended up in Kentucky where he was mortally wounded in a Union ambush in May 1865, aged 27.

Early life

Quantrill was the oldest of 12 children, four of which did not make it past infancy.. He was born at Canal Dover (now just Dover), Ohio, on July 31, 1837. His father was Thomas Henry Quantrill, formerly of Hagerstown, Maryland. His mother, Caroline Cornelia Clark, was a native of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. They were married on October 11, 1836, and moved to Canal Dover the following December.

William was well educated and followed in his father’s footsteps and became a school teacher at the age of sixteen. In 1854 his abusive father died of tuberculosis. His father left his family with a huge financial debt and his mother had to turn her home into a boarding house in order to survive. William helped support the family working as a school teacher but left home a year later and headed to Mendota, Illinois.. In Illinois William continued his career as a teacher but soon moved again to Indiana. While in Indiana William worked as a bookkeeper for a lumberyard in Fort Wayne, as well as working as a school teacher all in order to try and support his family. However, unable to earn a decent wage, he quickly took up gambling and moved out to Salt Lake City, Utah. It was during this time that he learned how to use the bowie knife, Sharps rifle and the Colt revolver. At the age of 19 he moved to Missouri at the urging of his friends and his mother. She was able to find a family friend that would take William with him to Missouri..

Henry Torrey and Harmon Beeson were traveling to Missouri to become farmers and offered to pay for William’s land if he would work for them until the age of twenty-one. They settled at Marcais des Cygnes, MO but things did not go as well as planned. After about a year, William became restless and wanted to sell his claim. A dispute arose over the claim and he went to court with Torrey and Beeson. The court awarded the men what was owed to them but William only paid half of what the court had mandated. His relationship with Beeson was never the same but he remained friends with Torrey. After his split with Torrey and Beeson William joined a group of Missouri ruffians and became somewhat of a drifter. The group helped protect Missouri farmers from the Jayhawkers for pay and slept wherever someone would let them stay. Then William traveled back to Utah and then to Colorado but returned in less than a year to Lawrence, Kansas in 1859. It was at this time that William’s political views started to take shape and his attitudes towards the slavery issue started.

Before 1860 William Quantrill’s political view appeared to be in support of the anti-slavery side. He wrote to his good friend W.W. Scott in January 1858 that the Lecompton Constitution was a “swindle” and that James H. Lane; a Northern sympathizer, as “a good man as we have here.” 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.”. One year later in 1859 he was back in Lawrence, Kansas where he taught school until it closed in 1860. He then took up with brigands and turned to cattle rustling and anything else that could earn him a dollar. He also learned the profitability of capturing runaway slaves, where he devised treacherous plans to set up free black men to be used as bait for runaway slaves so that he could capture them and return them to their masters in exchange for the reward money. His new lifestyle may have been the reason for his change of political views. In February of 1860 William wrote a letter to his mother expressing his views on the anti-slavery supporters. He told her that the pro-slavery movement was right and that he now detested Jim Lane. He said that the hanging of John Brown had been too good for him and that, “the devil has got unlimited sway over this territory, and will hold it until we have a better set of man and society generally..

Guerrilla leader

In 1861 William went to Texas with a slaveholder named Marcus Gill. There he met Joel B. Mayes and joined the Cherokee Nations. Joel B. Mayes was a confederate sympathizer and a war chief of the Cherokee Nations in Texas. Mayes was half Scot-Irish half Cherokee Indian and had moved from Georgia to the old Indian Territory in 1838. Joel B. Mayes enlisted and served as a private in Company A of the 1st Cherokee Regiment in the Confederate army. It was Mayes that taught William guerrilla warfare tactics. He would learn the ambush fighting tactics used by the Native Americans as well as sneak attacks and camouflage. Quantrill, in the company of Mayes and the Cherokee Nations joined with General Price and fought at the battle of Wilson’s Creek and Lexington in August and September of 1861.

William deserted General Price’s army and went to Blue Springs, MO to form his own ‘Army’ of loyal men who had great belief in him and the Confederates cause. By Christmas of 1861 he had 10 men that would follow him full-time into his pro-Confederate guerilla organization.. These men where: William Haller, George Todd, Joseph Gilcrist, Perry Hoy, John Little, James Little, Joseph Baughan, William H. Gregg, James A. Hendricks, and John W. Koger. Later in 1862 the Younger brothers as well as ‘Bloody Bill’ Anderson and the James brothers would join Quantrill’s army..

Lawrence Massacre

Main article: Lawrence Massacre

The most significant event in Quantrill's guerrilla career took place on August 21, 1863. Lawrence had been seen for years as the stronghold of the anti-slavery forces in Kansas and as a base of operation for incursions into Missouri by Jayhawkers and pro-Union forces. It was also the home of James H. Lane, a Senator infamous in Missouri for his staunch anti-slavery views and also a leader of the Jayhawkers. Moreover, 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. Several female relatives of the guerrillas were imprisoned in a makeshift jail in Kansas City, Missouri. On August 14, the building collapsed, killing four young women and seriously injuring others. Among the casualties was Josephine Anderson, sister of one of Quantrill's key guerrilla allies, William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson. Another of Anderson's sisters, Mary, was permanently crippled in the collapse. Quantrill's men believed the collapse was deliberate, and the event fanned them into a fury.

Many historians believe that Quantrill had actually planned to raid Lawrence in advance of the building's collapse, in retaliation for earlier Jayhawker attacks as well as the burning of Osceola, Missouri.

Early on 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 guerrillas. Senator Lane, a prime target of the raid, managed to escape through a cornfield in his nightshirt, but the bushwhackers, on Quantrill's orders, killed 183 men and boys "old enough to carry a rifle", Quantrill, known to be armed with several French pinfire revolvers, his favorite weapon of choice, carried out several personally, dragging many from their homes to execute them before their families. The ages of those killed ranged from as young as 14 all the way up to 90.^{[citation needed]} When Quantrill's men rode out at 9 a.m., most of Lawrence's buildings were burning, including all but two businesses. His raiders looted indiscriminately and robbed the town's bank.

On August 25, in retaliation for the raid, General Ewing authorized General Order No. 11 (not to be confused with General Ulysses S. Grant's General Order of the same name). The edict ordered the depopulation of three-and-a-half Missouri counties along the Kansas border (with the exception of a few designated towns), forcing tens of thousands of civilians to abandon their homes. Union troops marched through behind them, burning buildings, torching planted fields and shooting down livestock to deprive the guerrillas of food, fodder, and support. The area was so thoroughly devastated that it became known thereafter as the "Burnt District". Quantrill and his men rode south to Texas, where they passed the winter with the Confederate forces.

Last years

Grave of Capt. William Quantrill in Fourth Street Cemetery, Dover, Ohio

Grave of Capt. William Quantrill in Higginsville, Missouri

While in Texas, Quantrill and his 400 men quarreled. His once-large band broke up into several smaller guerrilla companies. One was led by his notable lieutenant, William "Bloody Bill" Anderson, whose men came to be known for tying the scalps of slain unionists to the saddles and bridles of their horses. Quantrill joined them briefly in the fall of 1863 during fighting north of the Missouri River.

In the spring of 1865, now leading only a few dozen men, Quantrill staged a series of raids in western Kentucky. He rode into a Union ambush on May 10 near Taylorsville, Kentucky, armed with several French pinfires which bore his name, and received a gunshot wound to the chest. He was brought by wagon to Louisville, Kentucky and taken to the military prison hospital, located on the north side of Broadway at 10th Street. He died from his wounds on June 6, 1865 at the age of 27.

Claim of post-1865 survival

In August, 1907, news articles appeared in Canada and the United States claiming that J.E. Duffy, a member of a Michigan cavalry troop that dealt with Quantrill's raiders during the Civil War, had met Quantrill at Quatsino Sound, on northern Vancouver Island while investigating timber rights in the area. Duffy claimed to recognize the man, living under the name of John Sharp, as Quantrill. Duffy said that Sharp admitted he was Quantrill and discussed in detail raids in Kansas and elsewhere. Sharp claimed that he had survived the ambush in Kentucky, though receiving a bayonet and bullet wound, making his way to South America where he lived some years in Chile. He returned to the United States, working as a cattleman in Fort Worth, Tex. He then moved to Oregon, acting as a cowpuncher and drover, before reaching British Columbia in the 1890s, where he worked in logging, trapping and finally as a mine caretaker at Coal Harbour at Quatsino.

Within some weeks after the news stories were published two men, came to British Columbia, travelling to Quatsino from Victoria, leaving Quatsino on a return voyage of a coastal steamer the next day. On that day Sharp was found severely beaten, dying several hours later without giving information about his attackers. The police were unable to solve the murder.

Marriage

During the war, Quantrill met thirteen-year-old Sarah Katherine King at her parents' farm in Blue Springs, Missouri. They married and she lived in camp with Quantrill and his men. At the time of his death, she was seventeen.

Reputation and legacy

Quantrill's Raiders reunion circa 1875

Quantrill's actions remain controversial to this day. Some historians view him as an opportunistic, bloodthirsty outlaw; James M. McPherson, one of America's most prominent experts on the Civil War today, calls him and Anderson "pathological killers" who "murdered and burned out Missouri Unionists." Others, such as Missouri biographer Paul R. Petersen, continue to regard him as a daring horse soldier and a local folk hero. Some of Quantrill's celebrity later rubbed off on other ex-Raiders – Jesse and Frank James, and Cole and Jim Younger – who went on after the war to apply Quantrill's hit-and-run tactics to bank and train robbery. The William Clarke Quantrill Society continues to research and celebrate his life and deeds.

In fiction

• Dark Command (1940), in which John Wayne opposes former schoolteacher turned guerrilla fighter "William Cantrell" in the early days of the Civil War. William Cantrell is a thinly veiled portrayal of William Quantrill.
• Renegade Girl (1946) deals with tension between Unionists and Confederates in Missouri.
• Kansas Raiders (1950), in which Jesse James (played by Audie Murphy) falls under the influence of Quantrill.
• Woman They Almost Lynched (1953), featuring Quantrill's wife Kate as a female gunslinger.
• The Stranger Wore a Gun (1953), in which a former Quantrill Raider becomes bank robber until his old comrades catch up with him.
• Gunsmoke 's first television season episode Reunion '78 features a showdown between cowboy Jerry Shand, who has just arrived in Dodge City, and long-time resident Andy Cully, hardware dealer (a one-time character.) Cully turns out to have been one of Quantrill's Raiders, and Shand, hailing from Lawrence, Kansas, has an old score to settle with him.
• Quantrill's Raiders (1958), focusing on the raid on Lawrence.
• A 1959 episode of the TV show The Rough Riders entitled "The Plot to Assassinate President Johnson", as the title suggests, involves Quantrill in a plot to assassinate President Andrew Johnson.
• Young Jesse James (1960), also depicts Quantrill's influence on Jesse James.
• Arizona Raiders (1965), in which Audie Murphy plays an ex-Quantrill Raider who is assigned the task of tracking down his former comrades.
• The TV series Hondo featured both Quantrill and Jesse James in the 1967 episode "Hondo and the Judas".
• In 1968's Bandolero!, Dean Martin plays Dee Bishop, a former Quantrill Raider who admits to participating in the attack on Lawrence. His brother Mace, played by James Stewart, was a member of the Union Army under General William Tecumseh Sherman.
• The Legend of the Golden Gun (1979), in which two men attempt to track down and kill Quantrill.
• A Belgian comic series, Les Tuniques Bleues ("The Blue Coats") depicts Quantrill as twisted, even psychotic.
• Lawrence: Free State Fortress (1998), depicts the attack on Lawrence.
• The 2000 episode entitled "The Ballad of Steeley Joe" on the series The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne depicted both Jesse James and William Quantrill.
• The USA Network's television show Psych, in an episode entitled "Weekend Warriors", featured a Civil War re-enactment that included William Quantrill. The episode spoke about Quantrill's actions in Lawrence, but the reenactment featured his death at the hands of a fictional nurse Jenny Winslow, whose family was killed at Lawrence.
• In the novel Gone to Texas, by Asa (aka Forrest) Carter, Josey Wales is a former member of a Confederate Raiding Party led by "Bloody Bill" Anderson, Quantrill's Lieutenant. The book is the basis of the Clint Eastwood film The Outlaw Josey Wales.
• Quantrill's Lawrence Massacre of 1863 is depicted in Spielberg's mini-series Into the West (2005)
• Depicted in Robert Schenkkan's play The Kentucky Cycle.
• The novel Woe To Live On (1987) by Daniel Woodrell was filmed as Ride With The Devil (1999) by Ang Lee. The film features a harrowing recreation of the Lawrence massacre and is notable for its overall authenticity. Quantrill, played by John Ales, makes brief appearances.
• In the novel True Grit by Charles Portis, and the 1969 and 2010 film versions thereof, Rooster Cogburn boasts of being a former member of Quantrill's Raiders, and LaBoeuf excoriates him for being part of the "border gang" that murdered men, women, and children alike during the raid on Lawrence, Kansas.
• In Bradley Denton's alternate history tale "The Territory", Samuel Clemens joins Quantrill's Raiders and is with them when they attack Lawrence, Kansas. It was nominated for a Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award for best novella.

References

• The American West, Vol. 10, American West Pub. Co., 1973, pp. 13 to 17.
• Banasik, Michael E., Cavalires of the bush: Quantrill and his men, Press of the Camp Pope Bookshop, 2003.
• Connelley, William Elsey, Quantrill and the border wars, The Torch Press, 1910 (reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, 2004).
• Dupuy, Trevor N., Johnson, Curt, and Bongard, David L., Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography, Castle Books, 1992, 1st Ed., ISBN 0-7858-0437-4.
• Edwards, John N., Noted Guerillas: The Warfare of the Border, St. Louis: Bryan, Brand, & Company, 1877.
• Eicher, David J., The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War, Simon & Schuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84944-5.
• Gilmore, Donald L., ""Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas border, Pelican Publishing, 2006.
• Leslie, Edward E., The Devil Knows How to Ride: The True Story of William Clarke Quantrill and his Confederate Raiders, Da Capo Press, 1996, ISBN 0-306-80865-X.
• McKelvie, B.A., Magic, Murder & Mystery, Cowichan Leader Ltd. (printer), 1966, pp. 55 to 62
• Mills, Charles, Treasure Legends Of The Civil War, Apple Cheeks Press, 2001, ISBN 1-588-98646-2.
• Peterson, Paul R., Quantrill of Missouri: The Making of a Guerrilla Warrior—The Man, the Myth, the Soldier, Cumberland House Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1-581-82359-2.
• Peterson, Paul R., Quantrill in Texas: The Forgotten Campaign, Cumberland House Publishing, 2007.
• Schultz, Duane, Quantrill's war: the life and times of William Clarke Quantrill, 1837-1865, St. Martin's Press, 1997.
• Wellman, Paul I., A Dynasty of Western Outlaws, University of Nebraska Press, 1986, ISBN 0-8032-9709-2.

Further reading

• Castel, Albert E., William Clarke Quantrill, University of Oklahoma Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8061-3081-4.
• Geiger, Mark W. Financial Fraud and Guerrilla Violence in Missouri's Civil War, 1861-1865, Yale University Press, 2010, ISBN 9780300151510
• Schultz, Duane, Quantrill's War: The Life and Times of William Clarke Quantrill, 1837-1865, Macmillan Publishing, 1997, ISBN 0-312-16972-8.

External links

• William Clark Quantrill Society
• Official website for the Family of Frank & Jesse James: Stray Leaves, A James Family in America Since 1650
• T.J. Stiles, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War
• Guerrilla raiders in an 1862 Harper's Weekly story, with illustration
• Quantrill's Guerrillas Members In The Civil War
• Quantrill flag at Kansas Museum of History
• A comprehensive on-line resource for all things related to William Clarke Quantrill and the men who followed him
• "Guerilla Warfare in Kentucky" — Article by Civil War historian/author Bryan S. Bush