Bushwhackers, Jayhawkers – 1860s a bloody, violent time in

The Excelsior Springs Standard • Tuesday, May 3, 2011 • 5
Bushwhackers, Jayhawkers – 1860s a bloody, violent time in Missouri
A
By Liz Johnson
Staff Writer
s one drives through the counties of Lafayette, Ray and
Clay, you can almost hear the thundering hooves of the
guerrillas’ horses, imagine the men hiding in a grove of
thick trees and brush during the winter months and the families fearing
for their lives, farms and livelihoods to just survive another day during
the war-torn 1860s in Missouri.
As I have been researching local outlaws Frank and Jesse James
for a series of articles, I became interested in learning more about the
Missouri bushwhackers who were such a big part of the Civil War in
Missouri and Kansas. They hid out in the counties of Clay, Ray and
Lafayette – places near and dear to the readers of today.
This group looted, murdered, plundered and burned out friends,
family, neighbors and strangers – what drove them? What brought
out the savagery?
Bushwhacking is a form of guerrilla warfare. Bushwhackers don’t
operate within the army faction or follow a military code of ethics.
These groups hid in the brush and ambushed their enemies versus the
“common during the war” mode of attack – soldiers line up facing
each other in a big field and gun each other down.
Bushwhackers were greatly feared and understandably so. They
often lured the enemy into difficult terrain, snuck into enemy camps,
dressed in enemy clothing (Union) for the element of surprise and
when killing – they were merciless, cruel and vile.
“Bloody” Bill Anderson is an example of such a character. He was
reputed to scalp many of his victims, sometimes beheading them, and
was so unstable that in a letter to the two Lexington, Mo., newspapers
written the summer of 1864, he rambles and is often deranged in his
diatribe.
“I have killed many. I am a guerrilla. I have never belonged to the
Confederate Army, nor do my men…take up arms against me and you
are Federals…and I will kill you for being fools…Be careful how you
act, for my eyes are upon you.”
Despite not working in conjunction with the army, bushwhackers
sided with the Confederacy during the war. At times, the Confederate army did authorize the guerillas by giving them commissions as
“partisan rangers.”
By contrast, Kansas had their own guerrillas known as “jayhawkers.” Jayhawkers were the Union equivalent of a bushwhacker and
used similar guerrilla tactics.
In many cases during the war as fought in Missouri, fathers fought
against sons, brothers against brothers and neighbors against neighbors.
Union army units came to Missouri already looking upon the
citizens of this state as southerners and the enemy. When guerrilla
units were captured by Union militia, there were no rules to follow.
The guerrillas were summarily executed – usually without trial. The
guerrillas adopted the same policy resulting in the war within Missouri
becoming a civil bloodbath.
William Clarke Quantrill, famous for leading the 1863 assault on
Lawrence, Kan., was known as a Confederate guerrilla, but didn’t
begin his illustrious career that way.
Quantrill was but 19 years old when he arrived in Kansas to make
his fortune. He hailed from Ohio and had left his widowed mother
and siblings and headed for the new territory hoping to provide better
support for them.
The year was 1857 and Kansas was a nest of problems. Civil War
was coming and southern supporters raced to Kansas during this time
hoping to create another slave state and thus strengthen the balance of
slave versus abolitionist states. Instead, it created more problems.
The two factions fought each other, raiding settlements, killing,
looting and burning homes.
At first, Quantrill was too busy trying to earn a living to get involved.
However, he became involved with the southerners on a federal
military expedition to suppress the polygamous Mormons. He was
sickened by the federal government’s willingness to slay its own
citizens and was easily converted to the southern sympathies.
Quantrill came to Missouri and joined the Confederate Army and
did fight in several battles. He then left the army and formed his own
group – a guerrilla band also known as bushwhackers.
He chose his recruits with specifics in mind – showing he wasn’t
much different from any other military strategist. Quantrill seemed
to prize young recruits – teenagers – who were single, passionate and
motivated by revenge they wanted to exact on the enemy who had
plundered their families and farms. The young men of these ages were
easily led and easily persuaded to commit the terrible acts asked of
them – their ages, inexperience and immaturity just fueled the fire. It
was as if Quantrill was creating his own group of sociopaths – those
without conscience.
Included in his group were future outlaws Frank and Jesse James
and Cole Younger, as well as “Bloody” Bill Anderson. Though, in the
beginning, Jesse was only 14 and did not join up with Quantrill until
he was a few years older.
This group of guerrillas was pumped up by a desire to defend their
homes, their families and their state against the hated Jayhawkers
(Kansas’ version of Union guerrillas), the Union troops and what they
believed to be a tyrannical federal government.
At first Quantrill was admirable. He accepted surrenders and paroled
prisoners. However, after the federal military, which occupied Missouri
at that time, began executing captured guerrillas, including some of
Quantrill’s own men, he stated he was “forced” into a “no quarter”
ABOVE: A Harper’s
Weekly drawing
depicting the violence
of the Lawrence, Kan.
raid on Aug. 21, 1863.
Harper’s Weekly was
the most widely read
publication at the
time. This photo ran
in the Sept. 5, 1863
edition.
FAR LEFT: William
Clarke Quantrill at
about the age he was
during the war.
LEFT: Bloody Bill
Anderson, one of the
most pyschotic killers
of the war. He was
ambushed and killed
in Ray County in Octo
ber of 1864.
type of warfare. The gloves were off.
Interestingly, the guerrillas were unable to fight during the winter,
due to their horses’ hooves leaving tracks in the snow so they could be
followed. So they would disband into smaller groups and hibernate in
camps deep in the forests and ridges throughout this area of Missouri
as well as further south.
Through 1862, the group had a few skirmishes with Union troops
here and there, raided some towns and waylaid the mail – but their
shenanigans were not as violent as they were to become in the following years.
On Aug. 13, 1863, a building on Grand Avenue in Kansas City,
used as by the federals as a prison for southern girls suspected of
aiding guerrillas, collapsed, killing five and seriously injuring others.
One of the women killed and another who was badly maimed were
“Bloody” Bill Anderson’s sisters. The incident fueled the imaginations
of the guerrillas and was one of the motivating factors for the raid on
Lawrence eight days later, which was the headquarters for jayhawking
bands, the residence of U.S. Senator and general, James H. Lane – a
man greatly despised by southerners. Quantrill wanted Lane badly.
At dawn on the morning of Aug. 21, 1863, Quantrill led 450
guerrillas comprised of his own group and others into a four-hour
bloodbath on Lawrence. Despite a previous warning of a possible
raid, the soldiers, Jayhawkers and citizens thought they were safe.
But Quantrill had the element of surprise by the early-warning raid
and for the most part – showed no mercy that day – slaughtering approximately 180 men and boys as young as 14. Most of the victims
were unarmed and still in their beds when the slaughter began – their
womenfolk pleading for their lives.
Indeed, it was the Lawrence women that showed an incredible
amount of fortitude, strength and courage that day. Many stood up
to the bloodthirsty raiders, threw themselves on their injured men in
order to protect them from further shots and dared the raiders to do
further damage.
Upon Quantrill’s directive prior to the raid, no women or children
were to be raped or killed that day. And Quantrill himself killed no one
that day – interesting how he led the bloodthirsty raid and managed
to not hurt anyone himself.
The massacre on Lawrence is considered one of the worst atrocities
of the Civil War.
At the time of the raid, Quantrill was heard to say he had lost
control of his men because they had gotten drunk on looted liquor. It
was something that was to become the norm for most of the raiders
and consequently, the group degenerated even further in the following months – drinking, pillaging and plundering with no conscience
– extreme violence the order of the day.
Anderson finally met his end when Major Samuel P. Cox, a native of
Gallatin, decided to track down Bloody Bill with a detachment drawn
up of members of the First Missouri State Militia Cavalry as well as
portions of the 33rd and 51st Enrolled Missouri Militia.
The group – at least 300 strong – was not well armed so Cox decided
to give Anderson a dose of his own medicine and set up a guerrillastyle ambush for Anderson in Orrick.
Cox set up most of his men in the woods on each side of a road with
a bridge over a ravine at their rear. He set a decoy of 30 men on horses
to lure Anderson and about 20 of his men through to the ambush by
mimicking a retreat.
Anderson and two of his men followed the disguised Federals. The
hidden men started shooting, killing Anderson and one of the two men
with him – the other having turned back quickly.
Bloody Bill’s corpse was taken to Richmond and photographed – as
was the order of the day. His head was later cut off and mounted on a
telegraph pole while the remainder of the corpse was dragged through
the streets. A fitting end to the reign of terror Anderson exacted. Anderson was believed to be 26 years old at the time of his death.
William Clarke Quantrill ended up dying June 6, 1865, in Louisville,
Ky., after a calvary detachment of assassins trapped him in a barn and
shot him on May 10, 1865. Quantrill was struck by two Spencer balls,
one in the hand and the other paralyzing him from the waist down – he
ended up in a Catholic hospital in Louisville where he died nearly a
month later. Quantrill was buried in Louisville until his mother brought
his bones back to Ohio in 1887. He was only 27 when he died.
Some of Quantrill’s skeleton was stolen by the man paid to exhume
him in Kentucky and turned up in the possession of a Kansas collector. Eventually, Quantrill’s remains were finally laid to rest at the
Confederate Cemetery in Higginsville.
History depicts this bloody time in American history as not much
worse than the terrorism that abounds around the world today. The
bushwhackers and Jayhawkers took no prisoners, showed no mercy,
killed without remorse and in cold blood, psychotic in their zest for
more bloodshed. Not much has changed in 150 years.