Posted on 02/15/2005 10:05:11 PM PST by SAMWolf
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![]() are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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One of the most feared of all Missouri guerillas was William T Anderson who actually considered himself a Kansan. It was said that he carried a silk cord on which knots were tied for every Yankee killed and that he sometimes frothed at the mouth during battle. His was also known to scalp his Federal victims, which is probably one reason why he received the name of "Bloody Bill." Bill was described as being tall, sinewy and lithe with long black hair that curled and fell to his shoulders. He had prominent cheekbones and small angry eyes. ![]() William "Bloody Bill" Anderson William was born in Randolph County, Missouri in 1840. His parents were William and Martha (Thomason) Anderson. Bill was one of six children who included Ellis, James, Mary C, Josephine and Martha. Also living with them were his grandparents, William and Martha Thomason. His father was a hatter and the family moved from Palmyra, Missouri to Huntsville, Missouri between 1847-1848. In 1850, the father went to California to join the gold rush leaving the family in Huntsville. During this time, Bill and his brothers were the heads of the family and their relationship with their sisters were both brotherly and fatherly. The father returned in 1854 and the family relocated to Breckinridge Co, Kansas (which is now Lyon County) in 1857. In March of 1862, his father was murdered while Bill and his brother, Jim were on a trip to Fort Leavenworth. The murders were either Pro-Northern neighbors or a squad of Union soldiers. There are several accounts of the murder. One account claims that Union soldiers hanged him because his name appeared on a list of southern sympathizers. Another account says that a neighbor who accused him of horse theft murdered him. Bloody Bill later killed this same neighbor. ![]() When Bill and his brother returned home that evening and found their father dead, his campaign of revenge began that same evening when he sneaked up behind a Union picket and broke his neck. The next night he killed another Union soldier and was almost caught by a federal calvaryman and had to shoot him in order to escape. He left that same night for the Missouri border and joined up with Quantrill. In August of 1863, Federals arrested his three sisters along with other some other women in an attempt to draw out the guerilla soldiers. They imprisoned the women in a makeshift prison located in a building in Kansas City. Mysteriously, this building collapsed killing his sister Josephine and maiming Mary for life. This event was the reason cited behind the attack on Lawrence and intensified Bills hatred of the Federals. Bill was content to ride with Quantrill, being a follower instead of a leader until a quarrel with Quantrill in 1864 caused him to form his own band of guerillas. This band included 16 year old Jesse James and they became the most feared band of all guerillas. Bloody Bill showed no mercy to Union soldiers and killed them on sight. He showed no sympathy to Pro-northerners and raided their homes and stores, murdering those that offered resistance. There is only one known case of when he spared the life of a union officer and he did so because he admired his bravery. There are other accounts of his band robbing southern sympathizers and returning the loot with apologies when their loyalties were revealed. ![]() On March 2, 1864, Bloody Bill married Bush Smith, a young girl from Sherman, Texas but this did nothing to curtail his taste for blood and his need for revenge. They moved to a small farmhouse in Ray County, Missouri. In a letter sent to a local newspaper, Bloody Bill wrote, "I have chosen guerilla warfare to revenge myself for the wrongs that I could not honorably avenge otherwise. I lived in Kansas when the war commenced. Because I would not fight the people of Missouri, my native state, the Yankees sought my life but failed to get me. Revenged themselves by murdering my father, destroying all my property, murdered one of my sisters and have kept the other two in jail for 12 months. But I have fully glutted my vengeance. I have killed many, I am a guerilla. I have never belonged to the Confederate Army, nor do my men." On Oct 26, 1864, just south of Richmond in Ray County, Missouri, Bill and his guerilla band was ambushed by Captain Samuel P Cox and his union troops. They were caught completely unaware. A skirmish ensued and it is said that Bill and another of his men rode right through the Federal line. When his comrade was shot from his horse, Bill turned around to assist him and it was at this time that he was riddled with bullets and killed. Upon examining the personal items found on his body, he had seven pistols, $600 in cash and 2 watches. Private papers found in his saddlebags from General Price identified him as William T Anderson. ![]() Partisan Ranger Memorial in Albany, Missouri (North of Orrick) Bills body was taken to Richmond, Missouri where it was propped up in a chair and a pistol was placed in the dead mans hand for photographs. A short time later, the Union troopers decapitated him and placed his head on a telegraph pole at the entrance to the town. His torso was roped and tied to a horse where it was dragged through the streets of Richmond before being buried in an unmarked grave outside of town. Years later, Cole Younger visited the site of Bloody Bills grave and requested that a funeral procession be held for him, in which is was. His grave was marked years later. As with the other legendary guerillas, it is claimed that another man who resembled Bloody Bill was riding Bills horse on that fateful night near Richmond and that he was the one whom they identified as "Bloody Bill." One claim is that Bill Anderson changed his name and escaped to Erin Springs, Oklahoma where he ran a saloon. Another report was that Bill settled in Salt Creek, Brown County, Texas where he lived for about sixty years under an assumed name. There may be some truth to this last report as a man resembling "Bloody Bill" died there on November 2, 1927 and found on his bedside table was a photograph of three young women who were later identified as the sisters of William T "Bloody Bill" Anderson. ![]()
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I disagree with this. Most of what you say is right about the whole thing being very sordid. I may be reading the post wrong - you may be speaking about the feelings at the time of the Civil War.
However, as a person from MO and have travelled quite a bit throughout the state, I have found that the people who care about this stuff today are still angry. Many are bigots, pure and simple. These same people vote democrat and live in rural areas of MO.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
This passage is taken from the beginning of the book Noted Guerrillas published in 1877 by John Newman Edwards, Gen. Shelby's adjutant during the Civil War. After the war he was a journalist and an ardent defender of those who served the lost Southern cause in Missouri, especially his friend Shelby and the guerrillas. It is typical of Edwards' florid prose style.
"They had passwords that only the initiated understood, and signals which meant everything or nothing. A night bird was a messenger; a day bird a courier.... They knew the names or the numbers of the pursuing regiments from the shoes of their horses, and told the nationality of troops by the manner in which twigs were broken along the line of march. They could see in the night like other beasts of prey, and hunted most when it was darkest. No matter for a road so only there was a trail, and no matter for a trail so only there was a direction. When there was no wind, and when the clouds hid the sun or the stars, they traveled by the moss on the trees. In the day time they looked for this moss with their eyes, in the night time with their hands. Living much in fastnesses, they were rarely surprised, while solitude developed and made more acute every instinct of self-preservation. By degrees a caste began to be established.... Free to come and go; bound by no enlistment and dependent upon no bounty; hunted by one nation and apologized for by the other;... merciful rarely and merciless often; loving liberty in a blind, idolatrous fashion, half reality and half superstition; holding no crime as bad as that of cowardice; courteous to women amid all the wild license of pillage and slaughter; steadfast as faith to comradeship or friend; too serious for boastfulness and too near the unknown to deceive themselves with vanity;...starved to-day and feasted tomorrow; victorious in this combat or decimated in that; receiving no quarter and giving none; astonishing pursuers by the swiftness of a retreat, or shocking humanity by the completeness of a massacre; a sable fringe on the blood-red garments of civil war, or a perpetual cut-throat in ambush in the midst of contending Christians, is it any wonder that in time the Guerrilla organization came to have captains, and leaders, and discipline and a language, and fastnesses, and hiding places, and a terrible banner unknown to the winds?"
I'm of the opinion that men such as Anderson, Clement and Pool were the exception in their terrible ferocity and lust for yankee blood. They were driven by vengence and the horror of murdered friends and family. They wern't born that way they were made to be that way. Capt. Anderson and the others were either your best friend or your worst nightmare.
there are 2 sides to every story.
as my mother (the family genealogist) says, "Little Thunder" was either a dashing southron partisan freedom-fighter & HERO OR a damned rebel & bloody-handed outlaw. it just depends on which side you favor.
free dixie,sw
see #45 too.
i revere the memory of my G-G-grandfather, as one of dixie AND our tribe's heroes. may his memory live forever, as he fought the GOOD fight for LIBERTY.
free dixie,sw
A mean assed war I am talking about here.
nonetheless he was a self-taught GENIUS at finding & exploiting the enemies weaknesses. MORE dixie leaders should have copied his style, imVho.
the WBTS, was LOCICALLY, a massive guerrilla war with a FEW set-piece battles. (GEN Jackson's Valley Campaign & Chicuamauga come to mind)
at all costs, fights like Gettysburg & Franklin should have been avoided like the plague!
otherwise, GEN Lee & a number of the other senior officers should have been directing the overall war, rather than being field generals.
since our war for independence was essentially a "peasant revolt", use those strengths = control the NIGHTS, damage/sabotage the union's rolling stock,assassinate senior yankee officers whenever possible,burn the northern cities, use ambuscade & deceit to the maximum, etc. AND avoid doing things that the "peasants" could NOT do successfully, without massive amounts of military training, infrastructure & supplies.
could that have meant a longer, meaner war? YES, but we could have WON that sort of war (maybe by the election of '64!). we southrons had NO chance to win the other kind.
free dixie,sw
University of Kansas cheer: "Rock chalk Jayhawk, Kaaayyy U!" We were about as fond of bushwhackers on our side of the border as they were of jayhawkers.
Today's read was somewhat brutal. It's certainly a part of history that merits study and comment. I'm at a loss for words . . . but I7 provides a noteworthy summary . . .
The sort of violence done in Missouri, and in other places, is very much par for the human course.
To borrow a line from the movie "Cold Mountain", "there will be a reckoning."
On the lighter side, this one's for you Snip & Sam . . .
LOL. It's perfect. We need seed money, too!
Hiya ct. All is well in Oregon. We are anxiously awaiting longer days of sunshine so we can sell some product!
Rest assured, Anderson did not have any "imbedded" reporters with him.
Afternoon SZonian. Not exactly a part of our history worth bragging about.
Have to admit nylons are a lot sexier than poantyhose.
I've seen "Ride with the Devil" and thought it a pretty good movie about this time period.
Afternoon Snippy.
Oops! That's Feather.
Hi PE.
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