William Clark Quantrill of Quantrill's Raiders
William Clarke Quantrill (July 31 1837 –
June 6 1865), was a Confederate guerrilla leader during the
American Civil War.
Early life
Quantrill, the oldest of 8 children, was born at Canal Dover (now just Dover), Ohio, on
July 31, 1837. His father was Thomas 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. Thomas
Quantrill died December 7, 1854, apparently of tuberculosis.
[1].
Little is known of Quantrill’s early years in Dover, though it appears that he was raised by his mother in a Unionist family and initially espoused Free-Soil
beliefs. After several years working as a school teacher, Quantrill traveled to Utah with
the Federal Army as a teamster in 1858, but left the
army there to try his hand at professional gambling. In 1859, he
moved to Lawrence, Kansas, and again taught school. When charges were brought against him for murder and horse theft, he fled to
Missouri.
Guerrilla leader
When the Civil War began in 1861, Quantrill claimed
he was a native of Maryland and may have joined the Missouri State Guard. However,
his dislike of army discipline led him to form an independent guerrilla band by the end of that year. This bushwhacker company began as a force of no more than a dozen men who staged raids into Kansas, harassed
Union soldiers, raided pro-Union towns, robbed mail coaches, and attacked Unionist civilians. At times they skirmished with the
Jayhawkers, undisciplined Union militia from Kansas who raided into Missouri. The Union
commanders declared him to be an outlaw, even though Quantrill apparently did secure a
Confederate commission as a captain of partisan rangers. When the Union Army ordered
all captured guerrillas to be shot, Quantrill ceased taking prisoners and started doing the same. He quickly became known to his
opponents as a feared Rebel raider, and to his supporters as a dashing, free-spirited hero.
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 rabid anti-slavery views and also a leader of the Jayhawkers. These people
had plundered Missourian for years prior to the war, and Lawrence, the center of their operations, was reputed to contain all the
goods looted from Missouri during those years. 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 slain 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, however, believe that Quantrill had actually planned to raid
Lawrence in advance of the building's collapse, in retaliation for earlier Jayhawker attacks[2] 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 killed about 200
men and boys, dragging many from their homes to execute them before their families. 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." However, 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 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 1864 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, and received a gunshot wound to the chest. He died from
it on June 6 at the age of 27.[1]
As is often the case with famous figures, fanciful stories of his survival spread. One apocryphal story from British Columbia in Canada involves a recluse living in an isolated
cabin on Quatsino Sound on northern Vancouver Island late in the 19th Century.
Inquiries after the recluse allegedly were made in Victoria by unidentified
Americans. The men claimed the recluse was Quantrill and later said they had killed him to avenge the deaths of fellow Union
soldiers.
Marriage
During the war, Quantrill met fourteen-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.[3]
Legacy
Quantrill’s actions remain controversial to this day. Some historians view him as an opportunistic, bloodthirsty outlaw, while
others 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 in 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.
Major League Baseball relief pitcher Paul Quantrill is a distant relative of
William.[citation needed]
According to Lost Treasure and similar related (and not very accurate)
magazines, Quantrill allegedly cached treasure worth millions of U.S. dollars all over the area he operated in. Just where he is
supposed to have obtained this fortune is never made clear.
In fiction
- 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.
- 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. Ironically, in the movie
True Grit (1969), it is strongly implied that Wayne's character Rooster Cogburn rode with Quantrill during the Civil War.
- 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.
- 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".
- The Legend of the Golden Gun
(1979), in which two men attempt to track down and kill Quantrill.
- Lawrence: Free State Fortress
(1998), depicts the attack on Lawrence.
- Ride with the Devil (1999) stars Tobey Maguire and includes Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, KS.
- 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 reenactment 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.
- Quantrill's Lawrence Massacre of 1863 is depicted in Spielberg's mini-series "Into the West" (2005)
Notes
- ^ William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas, Miami County Part 2
- ^ Paul Wellman, A Dynasty of Western Outlaws, 1961
- ^ Sarah King Head at Find a Grave
External links
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