Originally aired on November 01, 1996 - In part 114 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson recounts the life and career of Confederate guerilla leader William Clarke Quantrill and the havoc his men wrought on Lawrence, Kansas. He also makes the case that Confederate bushwhackers discredited the Southern cause.
#114 – The Guerilla Quantrill
Obscured by the layers of romanticism affixed to the Civil War history by Hollywood and other manufacturers of charm was an element of atrocity that was both evident and endless. This barbarism existed most in gangs of mounted men variously called partisan rangers, guerrillas, and bushwhackers. They supposedly fought for one side, but they plundered indiscriminately.
The most notorious member of this class was William Clarke Quantrill. He will always be one of history’s strange contradictions: loving son, cold-blooded killer, well-read, narrow-minded, Confederate soldier, unprincipled ruffian, schoolteacher, arsonist. Born in Ohio, Quantrill drifted westward and was looking for a future in Missouri when civil war came. He volunteered as a Confederate largely because in Union-held Missouri he could attack all symbols of authority.
Quantrill soon gathered together a gang containing some of America’s most psychopathic killers. Future gunslingers Jesse James, Frank James, “Wild Bill” Anderson, and the Younger brothers would learn their trade under the tutelage of the slightly built but stern-looking Quantrill.
In August, 1862, this band captured Independence, Missouri, in a raid associated with a larger Confederate offensive into Arkansas. Quantrill won promotion to captain. Thereafter, he insisted on being called “Colonel”.
A year later, Union authorities arrested several wives and sisters of Quantrill raiders. The jail building caught fire, killing five of the women. Quantrill retaliated at once. Fueled by passion, Quantrill and 450 men started for Lawrence, Kansas. It had been a Unionist stronghold for almost a decade. Along the way, Quantrill kidnapped ten Kansas farmers to serve as guides. He executed each after his usefulness was done.
At dawn, August 21, 1863, on the outskirts of Lawrence, Quantrill issued a simple command: “Kill every male and burn every building.” Horsemen galloped into town. The first civilian to die was a clergyman, shot through the head while milking a cow. During the next three hours, Quantrill’s band systematically slaughtered 182 unarmed men and boys. Almost 200 buildings were set afire. The entire downtown was gutted. Without question, the sacking of Lawrence was the worst atrocity of the Civil War.
Quantrill made it back to Missouri. Union guerrilla bands began retaliation. Among the worst of those groups was the 7th Kansas Cavalry, known as “Jennison’s Jayhawkers”. One of the company captains was the son and namesake of John Brown.
Widespread bloodshed over the next year sharply curtailed the strength and activities of guerrillas on both sides. Quantrill soon headed east with the intention of murdering Abraham Lincoln. A federal posse intercepted him in Kentucky. Quantrill was mortally wounded in the action. He died a month later, in a Louisville hospital and in the care of Catholic nuns. Quantrill was twenty-seven years old.
As a bizarre epilogue: Quantrill’s best friend stole his body from the Kentucky grave. Today the bones are buried in three different states, while a wax head of the guerilla leader sits in the refrigerator of a historical society in Ohio.
Guerrilla bands did not prolong the Civil War, as is sometimes asserted. Yet they levied destruction far out of proportion to their numbers, they drained manpower from enemy armies, and they handicapped movements by opponents in every military theatre. Certainly the 10,000 men who served as Southern guerrillas did more damage than an equal number of front-line soldiers ever accomplished.
On the negative side, Confederate bushwhackers severely discredited the Southern cause. They provoked equally vicious reprisals by Northern guerrilla bands. They collective misbehavior by this class over the course of four years fostered hatred, increased violence, and let a host of wartime scars that – in many instances – have not yet healed.
