William Quantrill

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 twelve children, four of whom died in 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.

Quantrill was well educated and followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a school teacher at the age of sixteen. In 1854, his abusive father died of tuberculosis, leaving the family with a huge financial debt. Quantrill's mother had to turn her home into a boarding house in order to survive. He helped support the family working as a school teacher, but left home a year later and headed to Mendota, Illinois. Here, Quantrill took up a job in the lumberyards, unloading timber from rail cars. One night while working the late shift, he shot a man to death. Authorities briefly arrested Quantrill, who claimed self-defense. Since there were no eye-witnesses and the victim was a stranger who knew no one in town, William was set free. But police strongly urged him to leave Mendota. Quantrill continued his career as a teacher, moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana in February of 1856. And although the district was impressed with Quantrill's teaching abilities, the wages remained meager. Bill journeyed back home to Canal Dover that fall, with no more money in his pockets than when he had left.

Quantrill spent the winter in his family's dumpy shack in the impoverished town, growing restless. It was around this time that many of Ohioans began to migrate to Kansas Territory in search of cheap land and opportunity. This included Henry Torrey and Harmon Beeson, two local men hoping to build a large farm for their families out west. Although they didn't trust the 19-year old William, Bill's mother's pleadings persuaded them to let her son accompany them to Kansas in an effort to get him to turn his life around. The party of three departed in late February 1857. Torrey and Beeson agreed to pay for Quantrill's land in exchange for a couple months worth of work. They settled at Marais des Cygnes, but things did not go as well as planned. After about two months, Quantrill began to slack off when it came to working the land and he spent most days wandering aimlessly about the wilderness with a rifle. 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 Quantrill only paid half of what the court had mandated. His relationship with Beeson was never the same, but he remained friends with Torrey.

Shortly afterwards, Quantrill accompanied a large group of hometown friends in their quest of starting a settlement on Tuscarora Lake. But soon neighbors began to notice Bill stealing goods out of other people's cabins, so they banished him from the community in January 1858.

He signed on as a teamster with the US Army expedition heading to Salt Lake City, Utah in the spring. Little is known of Quantrill's journey out west, except that he excelled at the game of poker. He racked up piles of winnings by playing the game against his fellow comrades at Fort Bridger, but flushed it all on one hand the next day, leaving him dead broke.

Quantrill then 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 they could find lodging. Quantrill 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 his political views started to take shape, and his attitude towards the slavery issue began to form.

Before 1860, 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, was “as good a 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 and devised treacherous plans to use free black men as bait for runaway slaves, whom he captured and returned to their masters in exchange for reward money. His new lifestyle may have been the reason for his change of political views. In February 1860, Quantrill 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, Quantrill 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 Scotch-Irish, half Cherokee Indian and had moved from Georgia to the old Indian Territory in 1838. Mayes enlisted and served as a private in Company A of the 1st Cherokee Regiment in the Confederate army. It was Mayes who taught Quantrill 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 Sterling Price and fought at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek and Lexington in August and September 1861.

Quantrill deserted General Price’s army and went to Blue Springs, Missouri to form his own ‘Army’ of loyal men who had great belief in him and the Confederates cause. By Christmas of 1861, he had ten men who would follow him full-time into his pro-Confederate guerrilla organization. These men were: 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 William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson and the James brothers would join Quantrill’s army.

Lawrence Massacre
The most significant event in Quantrill's guerrilla career took place on August 23, 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 had been 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, "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.

Historians have suggested 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 guerrillas, 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. 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
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 lieutenant, "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, Texas. 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 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." 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. Walter Pidgeon portrays "Cantrell"/Quantrill.
 * Quantrell's Flag (1940), by Frank Gruber, for Adventure Magazine (March through May, 1940), first book publication, as Quantrell's Raiders Ace Original, 954366 bound with Rebel Road.
 * 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.
 * Kansas Pacific (1953) Quantrill is the antagonist to Sterling Hayden's Federal character but is portrayed as trying to delay the building of the Railroad before the war breaks out and is only captured at the end. The film has a decidedly neutral slant.
 * The actor Bruce Bennett played Quantrill in a 1954 episode of the syndicated television series Stories of the Century, starring Jim Davis as the railroad detective and narrator, Matt Clark.
 * 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, who was one of Quantrill's Raiders. Shand hails from Lawrence, Kansas, and has an old score to settle.
 * 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.

Historiography

 * Crouch, Barry A. "A 'Fiend in Human Shape?' William Clarke Quantrill and his Biographers," Kansas History (1999) 22#2 pp 142–156 analyzes the highly polarized historiography