Quantrill's Raiders

Origins

The Missouri-Kansas border area was fertile ground for the outbreak of guerrilla warfare when the Civil War erupted in 1861. Historian Albert Castel wrote:

For over six years, ever since Kansas was opened up as a territory by Stephen A. Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854, its prairies had been the stage for an almost incessant series of political conventions, raids, massacres, pitched battles, and atrocities, all part of a fierce conflict between the Free State and proslavery forces that had come to Kansas to settle and to battle.

In February 1861 Missouri voters elected delegates to a statewide convention, which rejected secession by a vote of 89-1. Unionists, led by regular U.S. Army commander Nathaniel Lyon and Frank Blair of the politically powerful Blair family, and increasingly pro-secessionist forces, led by Gov. Claiborne Jackson and future Confederate Gen. Sterling Price, fought for political and military control of the state. By June there was open warfare between Union forces and troops supporting the Confederacy. Guerrilla warfare immediately erupted throughout the state and intensified in August after the Union defeat at the Battle of Wilson's Creek.

By August 1862, with the Union victory at the Battle of Pea Ridge, the state was free of significant regular Confederate troops, but the violence in Missouri continued. One historical work describes the situation in the state after Wilson's Creek:

Unlike other border areas in Maryland and Kentucky, local conflicts, bushwhacking, sniping, and guerrilla fighting marked this period of Missouri history. "When regular troops were absent, the improvised war often assumed a deadly guerrilla nature as local citizens took up arms spontaneously against their neighbors. This was a war of stealth and raid without a front, without formal organization, and with almost no division between the civilian and the warrior."

The most notorious of these guerrilla forces was led by William Clarke Quantrill.

Methods and legal status

Quantrill was not the only Confederate guerrilla operating in Missouri, but he rapidly gained the greatest notoriety. He and his men ambushed Union patrols and supply convoys, seized the mail and occasionally struck towns on either side of the Kansas-Missouri border. Reflecting the internecine nature of the guerrilla conflict in Missouri, Quantrill directed much of his effort against pro-Union civilians, attempting to drive them from the territory where he operated. Quantrill's guerrillas attacked Jayhawkers, Union militia and U.S. forces relying primarily on ambush and raids.

Under his direction Confederate guerrillas perfected military tactics such as disguises, coordinated and synchronized attacks, planned dispersal after an attack using pre-planned routes and relays of horses and technical methods, including the use of multiple .36-cal. Colt revolvers for increased firepower and their improved accuracy over the .44-cal.

Confederate induction

On 15 August 1862 Quantrill was granted a field commission as a captain in the Confederate army under the Confederate Partisan Ranger Act. Other officers were elected by the men. Quantrill often referred to himself as a colonel. Despite the legal responsibility assumed by the Confederate government, Quantrill often acted on his own with little concern for his government's policy or orders. His most notable operation was the Lawrence Massacre, a revenge raid on Lawrence, Kansas, in August 1863.

Lawrence Massacre

Lawrence had historically been the base of operations for abolitionist and jayhawker organizations. During the period of border warfare (1855-61), known as "Bleeding Kansas" in the press, and during the Civil War irregular raids into Missouri by abolitionists, redlegs and jayhawkers and Union soldiers resulted in robberies, theft, arson and the murder of citizens.

In August 1863 Union authorities assigned to the border were frustrated by the hit-and-run tactics of Quantrill's guerrillas and particularly the aid provided by Confederate sympathizers in Western Missouri. Authorities began imprisoning the female family members of the known guerrillas, with the intent of banishing them. These females, some teenagers, were jailed in Kansas City, Missouri, in George Caleb Bingham's house, on Grand Street. Alterations in an adjoining structure plus an extra story that had been added by Bingham resulted in the collapse of the structure. Several women were maimed and killed. The deaths of female non-combatants caused outrage among the guerrillas.

Calling for revenge, Quantrill organized a unified partisan raid on Lawrence. Coordinating across vast distances, small bands of partisans rode across 50 miles of open prairie to rendezvous on Mount Oread in the early morning hours before the raid. Quantrill's men burned a quarter of the town's buildings and killed at least 150 men and boys.

One of the main targets of the raid, abolitionist U.S. Sen. Jim Lane, escaped by fleeing into corn fields. The Lawrence raid was the most deadly and infamous operation of Missouri's Confederate guerrillas.

Confederate reaction

The Confederate leadership was appalled by the raid and withdrew even tacit support from the "bushwhackers". Following the raid, in the winter of 1863-64, Quantrill led his men behind Confederate lines into Texas where their often lawless presence proved an embarrassment to the Confederate command.

Some Confederate officers appreciated the effectiveness of these irregulars against Union forces, which rarely gained the upper hand over them, especially Quantrill. Among these was Gen. Joseph O. Shelby, who rode south into Mexico with his troops rather than surrender at the end of the war and whose command was remembered as "The Undefeated". Their exploits are also immortalized in a later addition to the post-war ballad, "The Unreconstructed Rebel":

"I won't be reconstructed– I'm better now than then.And for that Carpetbagger I do not care a damn.So it's forward to the Frontier soon as I can go.I'll fix me up a weapon and start for Mexico."

John Noland

Among Quantrill's men was a freed former slave named John Noland. He was one of Quantrill's scouts, reputed to be his best one. Noland helped to scout Lawrence before the raid by Quantrill's men in 1863. He joined Quantrill's raiders because of the abuse his family suffered at the hands of Kansas jayhawkers. Post-war pictures show him sitting with comrades at reunions of the Raiders. In the 1999 movie Ride with the Devil, depicting a group of fictionalized Missouri bushwhackers similar to those of Quantrill's Raiders as well as the Lawrence raid, the character of Daniel Holt was representative of Quantrill's John Noland.

Dissolution and aftermath

During late winter 1863, Quantrill lost his hold over his men. In early 1864 the guerrillas he had led through the streets of Lawrence returned from Texas to Missouri in separate bands, none led by Quantrill himself.

Deaths

Quantrill's guerrillas, as a group, did not maintain operations in winters along the border. Quantrill would lead his men to Tyler, Texas, over winter and offer his services to the Confederacy. Their assignments included attacking teamsters who supplied the Union, repelling Union and Jayhawker raids into northern Texas, warding off Indian attacks and policing and rounding-up deserters roaming in Texas and Oklahoma. The guerrillas were rowdy, undisciplined and dangerous. Quantrill lost his control of the men in the winter of 1863-64.

The men split into bands and were commanded by lieutenants, "Bloody" Bill Anderson and George Todd. These guerrillas returned to Missouri while Quantrill took several of his loyal troops east towards Kentucky.

Quantrill's group of guerrillas who went to Kentucky were hunted and tracked by pro-Union soldiers and hired killers. Finally his men were cornered in a barn in Kentucky. A shootout resulted in Quantrill being injured in the spine, unable to move. He was arrested, but reportedly died a week later from his wounds.

William Anderson's splinter group of guerrillas was assigned to duty north of the Missouri River, during the Gen. Sterling Price raid, in 1864. His duties included disrupting operations north of the Missouri River, drawing Union troops toward his cavalry command. Anderson was reportedly shot dead north of Orrick. His body was dragged through the streets of Richmond, Missouri. His grave marker is located in the old Mormon Pioneer cemetery, in the extreme southwest corner, behind some pine trees, near the road.

George Todd's splinter group was attached to Maj. Gen. Sterling Price's raid across Missouri, south of the Missouri River. He functioned as a cavalry scout. He was shot out of his saddle by a Union sniper, north of Independence, Missouri, a day before the Battle of Westport.

Some of the guerrillas continued under the leadership of Archie Clement, who kept the Raiders together after the war and harassed the state government of Missouri during the tumultuous year of 1866. In December 1866 state militiamen killed Clement in Lexington, but his men continued on as outlaws, emerging in time as the James-Younger Gang.

Popular culture

Though historically inaccurate, there is a 1958 Warner Brothers B-Western titled Quantrill's Raiders starring Steve Cochran as a fictionalized hero and with Leo Gordon as the title character.

In the films True Grit, protagonist Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne in the original 1969 version and Jeff Bridges in the 2010 version) prides himself on being a part of Quantrill's Raiders during the Civil War while arguing with Texas Ranger LaBoeuf. He also has a cat named General Sterling Price after a famous Confederate general from Missouri.

The main character of the film The Outlaw Josey Wales joins Bloody Bill Anderson's unit after his family is murdered by jayhawkers.

Ride with the Devil starring Tobey Maguire and Jewel depicts Quantrill's Raiders and the Missouri-Kansas conflict.

The Audie Murphy film Arizona Raiders deals with Quantrill's Raiders in the period immediately after the Civil War.

In the film Bandolero!, Mace Bishop (James Stewart) compares his riding with Sherman to his brother Dee Bishop's (Dean Martin) riding with Quantrill as "war versus meanness".

The film The Stranger Wore a Gun (1953) with Randolph Scott playing Jeff Travis, a former spy for Quantrill's Raiders who rides to Arizona to start a new life, but finds that his reputation has preceded him.

The film Dark Command (1940) deals with the fictional William Cantrell's Raiders, also led by a partisan made an officer by the Confederacy.

In the 1978 movie "Goin' South", Jack Nicholson's character, Henry Lloyd Moon, is a former member of Quantrill's Raiders.

Lone Ranger episode "The Twisted Track" is about a member of Quantrill's Raiders ( William Henry) seeking revenge against the Union officer who imprisoned him during the Civil War.

Quantrill's Raiders are a major element in Wildwood Boys (William Morrow, New York; 2000), a biographical novel of "Bloody Bill" Anderson by James Carlos Blake.

The movie The Hateful Eight makes references to the Mannix Marauders, a fictionalized version of Quantrill's Raiders.