Portrait of an American Terrorist

William Quantrill, the infamous raider and terrorist of the Civil War, invented guerrilla warfare tactics that would be used by famous outlaws of the old west who rode in his gang. His hit and run tactics received fame when, on August 21, 1863, he led 450 raiders into Lawrence, Kansas to murder and plunder innocent civilians. 183 men and boys were pulled from their homes and brutally murdered, sometimes in front of their families, and many homes and businesses were burned to the ground. After the Lawrence Massacre, Quantrill became a folk hero to many Missouri Confederate sympathizers. But to the north, he became a symbol of the tyranny of warfare.


Quantrill was born in Dover, Ohio in 1837. His father, who was a tin smith and petty criminal abused his wife and children He died when Quantrill was a teenager. Quantrill taught school to earn money and moved to Utah.


Finding that teaching didn’t pay much, Quantrill took up gambling under the alias, Charles Hart. In 1858, he moved to Lawrence and taught school. While there, he learned the profit of returning escaped slaves to their masters for the reward. During one incident, Quantrill pretended to join forces with four jayhawkers in freeing captured slaves. But for a price, Quantrill warned the slave owners the jayhawkers were coming. Three of the four men were killed. When it was discovered Quantrill was wanted for murder in Utah, he escaped to Missouri.


Quantrill moved to Texas when the Civil War broke out and joined the Confederate Army. But he soon left the organized army to start his own band of raiders in Missouri. He only accepted men in his band who were bent on revenge against the jayhawkers.


After assisting Confederate soldiers by ambushing Union forces, Quantrill was commission as a captain by the south and declared an outlaw by the north. Quantrill fed his men’s thirst for revenge by telling stories of jayhawkers killing his brother, something that never happened.


In 1863, an incident happened that fueled the raiders’ hatred. Four women were captured by jayhawkers, including Senator Jim Lane from Lawrence, for helping Quantrill’s raiders. The women were held in a make-shift jail that collapsed and killed them. Quantrill accused the jayhawkers of purposely sabotaging the jail’s structure.


When Quantrill’s raiders rode into Lawrence, the mayhem that followed sickened even some of the raiders. Most of the men and boys killed were civilians. Quantrill and his men didn’t wear uniforms that night. Many of the men killed were gunned down after surrendering.


Quantrill forever sealed his reputation as a terrorist. Many throughout history have followed in his footsteps. There were atrocities committed by both sides. But no atrocity excuses the murder of innocent civilians.


In 1864, Quantrill and his raiders fought in the battle of Westport. When the Confederates lost the battle, the raiders disbanded. A Union terrorist, Terrell, was hired to track down Quantrill. On May 12, 1865, Terrell trapped Quantrill and twenty-one of his raiders in a barn outside of Wakefield, Kentucky. Quantrill and some of the raiders were killed that day ending his reign of terror. But some of his band, including Frank and Jessie James and Cole and Jim Younger were just beginning their careers of terror and bloodshed.