William Clarke Quantrill came to Kansas as a young man in 1858. Two years later he acheived a measure of notoriety by engineering a scheme with four free-state men to liberate the slaves of a Missouri farmer; however, Quantrill warned the farmer before the raid occurred, and three of the Kansas men were killed in the ambush.
In 1861, Quantrill decided he would start up his own band of bushwhackers (also known as Confederate guerrillas.) To start out with, the gang originally had ten men, but it grew quite rapidly.Quantrill adapted well to the ruthless chaos that Civil War brought to the Southwest, and until 1864 was the most popular and powerful leader of the various bands of Border Ruffians that pillaged the area. While he and the men who followed him had more in common with the Confederate than the Union cause, they were by no means enlisted soldiers. This of course is a false hood in that most of the following did serve in the CSA and most had fought at the Battle of Wilson's Creek. They were considered by many Kansans (including citizens of Lawrence) to be one of the best drilled and most competent cavalry units along the border. All of Quantrill's forays into Kansas were in retaliation for perceived wrongs done to them by Kansas Jayhawkers or the Federal Authorities in Leavenworth or Kansas City. The Kansas Jayhawkers and Redlegs were far more bloodthirsty than the vast majority of Quantrill's command In addition, the innumerable atrocities committed on both sides made the guerilla armies convenient vehicles to carry out personal vengeance. Throughout 1862, Quantrill and his guerrillas, now a hundred-plus men, went on a raiding spree. They robbed Union mail, ambushed federal patrols, and attacked boats on the Missouri River. On October 17, 1862, Quantrill and his men decided that they would take a trip to Shawnee town, Kansas. As they grew closer to their destination, they came across a Federal supply train. They encircled the train and killed fifteen of the drivers and some members of a Union escort. Then, finally, the arrived in Shawnee town, but that wasn't exactly a good thing. They caused mass destruction. They not only killed many men, but they burned the entire town to the ground. In May of that year, Quantrill had moved to the banks of the Osage River (which was known as bushwhacker country). Brigadier General Thomas Ewing Jr. from Kansas was commander of the district boarder, which was the Kansas-Missouri boarder. Ewing learned of Quantrill's return to the Missouri boarder and was not happy. General Thomas wanted to drive Quantrill and his gang of guerrillas away from the Missouri-Kansas boarder, but he didn't have enough troops to do so. Then he came up with a risky idea. First of all, he knew that if Quantrill and his men had no one to give them food and shelter, or to dress their wounds, etc., they would most likely have to leave. So his idea was to sweep the area clean of the friends and and family that aided the guerrillas, which were mainly women. To try and pull this crazy plan off, he immediately issued General Orders Number Ten. This stated that any woman or child who was directly involved with aiding a band of guerrillas was to be moved to a district out of Missouri. If they did not do so willingly, they would be sent to Kansas City to be shipped farther south. Ewing decided to keep the women and children in a three-story brick building. The building was in terrible condition. The foundation was very weak, and plaster was falling from the walls and the ceilings. The building was so weak it would occasionally shake, as if it were going to fall down right then and there. On August 14, a terrible disaster occurred. One of the guards who was watching over the women looked up at the ceiling and saw that it was beginning to separate from the walls. He told everyone to jump, but not soon enough. A few seconds later, the walls of the building collapsed inward onto all of the people inside. There were survivors, but there were also a few deaths. The women who died were Josephine Anderson, Bloody Bill Anderson's sister, Cole Yonger's cousin, and three other unnamed women. (The men named were some of the more notorious guerrilla leaders of the bunch). This terrible event gave Quantrill a reason to revolt against the town in Kansas that had embarrassed him by trying to arrest him right before the Civil War, which he was hoping to fight in. The sack of Lawrence in 1863 by Quantrill's Bushwackers is one occasion in which revenge and avarice produced a bloodbath. Prior to this attack the pro-slavery farmers of Missouri had been continuously antagonized by the marrauding forces of Jim Lane and "Doc" Jennison's Jayhawkers; due to their obvious position as abolitionist headquarters in Kansas, the citizens of Lawerence were frequently sent into hysterics when rumors of an attack from Missouri gained creedence. Nevertheless, security around the city was usually lax, and on August 21 the populace was jarred awake by the sounds of Quantrill's men invading the town. |
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Lawrence Massacre In a supposed retaliation for a Union raid on Osceola, Missouri, Lt. Col. William C. Quantrill led a force of about 300 to 400 partisans in an attack on the city of Lawrence, Kansas. His men killed civilians—men and boys—and destroyed many of the buildings. He held the town several hours and then withdrew. The "Lawrence Massacre" was, perhaps, the extreme example of the vicious Kansas-Missouri border warfare. Result(s): Confederate victory
In the summer of 1863 residents of Lawrence relaxed in the knowledge that the guerrilla raids so common on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri border seemed under control. This feeling changed in early August when Mayor George W. Cullamore warned of information received that Quantrill and his raiders were planning a raid on Lawrence. Cullamore activated the militia, posted guards, readied cannon for action and sent to Fort Leavenworth for additional troops and cannon. These were ordered back to the fort and the people of Lawrence had the impression that the military did not consider them to be at risk of an attack. On the evening of August 20 residents felt secure enough to attend a band concert and then return home and settle in for the night. But to the south, Quantrill and between two and three hundred raiders entered Kansas from Missouri, passed a Union cavalry camp without incident, passed through towns, rested along the way, and then rode into Lawrence in the early morning of August 21 . R. G. Elliott: On last Friday morning (the 21st inst.) at 5 o'clock in the morning we were attacked by Quantrill and his gang, some 300 or 400 in number. We had not a moment's warning. The people were awakened from their slumber by the crackling of pistols and the tramping of horses, and as they ran out to form companies or to find a place of security , they were shot down in cold blood. Hiram Towne: I could see them riding into town as fast as their horses could run and yelling like savages ... Hiram Towne: They came into town at five o'clock in the morning, and we had no notice of their coming till they commenced shooting every one they saw and setting fire to the buildings. Richard Cordley: They said their orders were "to kill every man and burn every house" ... Some reveled in the work they were doing, some recoiled from it and some were touched with pity ... O. W. McAlaster: By this time the invaders were separating. The larger number ... rode rapidly down Massachusetts street to the Eldridge House, shooting all men and boys as fast as they appeared in sight, ... R. G. Elliott: Such an appalling sight I hope never again to witness -- to see unarmed people who had surrendered and given up every dollar they had and treated them with every civility in hopes of saving their lives, shot down and killed -- often they were wounded -- to hear the shrieks and piteous entreaties of women and children -- to see wounded men lying helpless and dying -- their wives throwing themselves upon them to save them -- shot again through the folds of their wives dresses -- burns out every feeling of humanity for these demons. Judge Bailey: The Eldridge House was in ruins as also was the county building and nearly everything on both sides of the street. Passing around to Vermont Street I found the Johnson House burnt and half a dozen corpses lying just north of it, and near by a crowd of homeless women and children with the few articles they had been able to snatch from their burning houses, piled upon the ground. R. G. Elliott: The number of those massacred we have not exactly determined, as many remains of charred bodies are found in the ruins of burned buildings. We have been engaged ever since in burying the dead. I believe there have been over 120 houses burned. All the business part of town is in ashes, except 3 stores. Sophia L. Bissell: Of course it was a very sad time, everybody was poor together, but it was wonderful how we all came up and helped each other. O. W. McAlaster: Business of every kind was literally obliterated, but many people were determined to stay and rebuild the town, while others, having lost everything, became discouraged, and decided to seek their fortunes in some less dangerous quarter. On May 10, 1865, Quantrill and about twelve of his men were staying at a farm in Kentucky. During the night, Terril and his men showed up and surrounded the barn. Terril's soldiers and the twelve guerrillas began throwing corncobs back and forth at each other. This was all happening while Quantrill was asleep in the barn. Then Terril's men began to shoot. Quantrill's men became scared and forgot that they even had guns. They fled to their horses and rode away, forgetting all about Quantrill. Soon Quantrill ran out of the barn frantically after his men, yelling for them to wait for him. Two of his men heard him and turned around to get him. While Quantrill was running to them he was shot in the back, directly in the spinal cord. Quantrill died at 4:00 P.M. on June 6, 1865, a long two months after he had been shot in the back. William Clarke Quantrill was a man who was one of a kind, at least we hope so. He did all of the horrible things that he wanted to, and managed to get away with them for quite some time. Quantrill was a man who lived a dangerous life and in the end had a long, painful death.
Even after his death, Quantrill and his followers remained almost folk heroes to their supporters in Missouri, and something of this celebrity later rubbed off on several ex-Raiders -- the James brothers, Frank and Jesse, and the Younger brothers, Cole and Jim -- who went on in the late 1860's to apply Quantrill's hit-and-run tactics to bank and train robbery, building on his legacy of bloodshed a mythology of the Western outlaw that remains fixed in the popular imagination.
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