[6] Kansas was at the time embroiled in an ideological conflict regarding its admission to the Union as slave or free, and both pro-slavery activists and abolitionists had moved there in attempts to influence its ultimate status. A lack of Confederate military presence in Missouri led Southern sympathizers to form guerrilla groups to harass Union soldiers and pro-Union citizens. He was killed in a Union ambush near Richmond, MO. Bloody Bill Anderson got little respect in death. Bloody Bill Anderson Also included in the list was Cole Younger, whose father was killed by the Kansans, and his mother made homeless after watching their house burn to the ground. The Myth that Bloody Bill Anderson had survived the war and was living in Brownwood Texas originated in 1924, after a young Brownwood reporter named Henry Clay Fuller spent several hours talking . Bloody Bill's Guns Bill Langley had used a number of different guns during his career as a killer. As soon as the company attains the strength required by law it will proceed to elect the other officers to which it is entitled. The guerrillas blocked the railroad, forcing the train to stop. Raised by a family of Southerners in Kansas, Anderson began to support himself by stealing and selling horses in 1862. Anderson planned to destroy railroad infrastructure in Centralia, Missouri. Its frame and grip initially matched the Navy in size, but Colt later lengthened the grip to absorb. Location. The Texas Gun Collector article suggested the family had indicated John Shanton owned a farm in Missouri where Frank and Jesse James would hide out. Marker is on Thornton Street north of Main Street (State Highway 10), on the left when traveling north. By Glynda July 23, 2006 at 03:01:32. The argument is not that some of the members carried multiple sidearms but certainly not every member did. As far as the partisans carrying extra cylinders, that is possibly a misnomer unless, they cannibalize other pistols just for the cylinders & that wouldn't make sense. You certainly wouldn't do that aboard a horse. Location: Missouri, United States. [68] The letters were given to Union generals and were not published for 20 years. [60] Sutherland described Anderson's betrayal of Quantrill as a "Judas" turn. The Bushwhacker in Missouri. Notorious Confederate bushwhacker Bloody Bill Anderson Three bushwackers; Arch Clements, Dave Pool, and Bill Hendricks. They buried him in an unmarked grave in Richmond's Pioneer Cemetery. The reason for the bloody raid that left nearly two hundred men dead and caused between $1 million and $1.5 million in damage (in 1863 dollars) is still the subject of speculation. The Missouri Partisan Ranger Act , On July 17, 1862, Confederate Gen. Thomas Hindman issued the Missouri Partisan Ranger Act. [9][d] On June 28, 1860, William's mother, Martha Anderson, died after being struck by lightning. Anderson remained in Agnes City until he learned that Baker would not be charged, as the judge's claim of self-defense had been accepted by legal authorities. Two hesitated coming down the steps. Bloody Bill was played by John Russell who played Marshall Stockburn in Pale Rider. Plot [ edit] Cocaine dealer, Darrell, leads a cop on a chase through the desert. 4. [94], On September 26, Anderson and his men reached Monroe County, Missouri,[95] and traveled towards Paris, but learned of other nearby guerrillas and rendezvoused with them near Audrain County. 11, but guerrilla activity continued throughout the war in other regions of the state. Even before Union forces finally shot him down in his final gunfight, the man called Bloody Bill had become equal parts legend and infamous nightmare. [104] Anderson forced the captured Union soldiers to form a line and announced that he would keep one for a prisoner exchange but would execute the rest. Residents resented seizure of supplies and the increasingly harsh measures to control them. The Dalton gang, cousins of the Younger brothers and imitators of the James gang, met their end at a bloody dual bank robbery in this Kansas town. Not long after her driver left to find help, three rambunctious New Jersey cavalrymen, all white, approached Brooks, demanding her money. "The war brought on hate and strife and killing around here. [21][f] William Quantrill, a Confederate guerrilla leader, later claimed to have encountered Reed's company in July and rebuked them for robbing Confederate sympathizers;[22] in their biography of Anderson, Albert Castel and Tom Goodrich speculate that this rebuke may have resulted in a deep resentment of Quantrill by Anderson. Erected by Missouri State Parks. [131] Price instructed Anderson to travel to the Missouri railroad and disrupt rail traffic,[129] making Anderson a de facto Confederate captain. III. He visited the house of a well-known Union sympathizer, the wealthiest resident of the town, brutally beat him, and raped his 12- or 13-year-old black servant. The Federal command in St. Louis, Mo. Anderson subsequently returned to Missouri as the leader of his own group of raiders and became the most feared guerrilla in the state, robbing and killing a large number of Union soldiers and civilian sympathizers. You may have your own list of heartless maniacal killers. The muzzle-loaders required no special ammunition or training and were effective out to about seventy-five or one hundred yards. On October 2, a group of 450 guerrillas under Quantrill's leadership met at Blackwater River in Jackson County and left for Texas. He favored swift execution of captured guerrillas. Around the same time, William T. Anderson fatally shot a member of the Kaw tribe outside Council Grove; he claimed that the man had tried to rob him. Depending on which side you asked, these bushwhackers were either heroes or criminals. [33] In August 1863, however, Union General Thomas Ewing, Jr. attempted to thwart the guerrillas by arresting their female relatives,[34] and Anderson's sisters were confined in a three-story building on Grand Avenue in Kansas City with a number of other girls. Jesse James. While they were confined, the building collapsed, killing one of Anderson's sisters. And that is the terrible truth of the story of Bloody Bill Anderson. Bushwhackers were involved in Price's 1864 Raid, the last official Confederate campaign in Missouri. A Note on Sources The cashier pulled a gun on him and James killed him in self-defence. Bloody Bill Anderson - Lies and Sensationalism. Confederate leaders were unsure about guerrillas. They attacked the fort on October 6, but the 90 Union troops there quickly took refuge inside, suffering minimal losses. [18], On July 2, 1862, William and Jim Anderson returned to Council Grove and sent an accomplice to Baker's house claiming to be a traveler seeking supplies. In late 1863, while Quantrill's Raiders spent the winter in Sherman, Texas, animosity developed between Anderson and Quantrill. [19] Baker and his brother-in-law brought the man to a store, where they were ambushed by the Anderson brothers. [108] Anderson's band then rode back to their camp, taking a large amount of looted goods. 17 reviews The first-ever biography of the perpetrator of the Centralia and Baxter Springs Massacres, as well as innumerable atrocities during the Civil War in the West. Touch for map. [96] Although a large group of guerrillas was assembled, their leaders felt there were no promising targets to attack because all of the large towns nearby were heavily guarded. Official Records of the American Civil War, "Sideshow no longer: A historiographical review of the guerrilla war", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_T._Anderson&oldid=1137633714, People of Missouri in the American Civil War, People with sadistic personality disorder, Confederate States of America military personnel killed in the American Civil War, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Use shortened footnotes from November 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 5 February 2023, at 17:50. The attacks prompted the Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce to declare that rebels had taken over the area. A significant historical year for this entry is 1913. Fueling this conflict was a dispute over whether Kansas should be a slave-holding state or not. [88] On August 27, Union soldiers killed at least three of Anderson's men in an engagement near Rocheport. [51] The guerrillas charged the Union forces, killing about 100. Powered by Tetra-WebBBS 6.21 / TetraBB PRO 0.30 2006-2012 tetrabb.com. All such organizations will be reported to their headquarters as soon as practicable. After a building collapse in the makeshift jail in Kansas City, Missouri, left one of them dead in custody and the other permanently maimed, Anderson devoted himself to revenge. [159] Three biographies of Anderson were written after 1975. [10], After the Civil War began in 1861, the demand for horses increased and Anderson transitioned from trading horses to stealing them, reselling them as far away as New Mexico. After a brief gunfight, Baker and his brother-in-law fled into the store's basement. Even then, reloading the powder & ball would have been almost as fast as changing out the cylinder. [115], By the end of the day, Anderson's men had killed 22 soldiers from the train and 125 soldiers in the ensuing battle in one of the most decisive guerrilla victories of the entire war. Born in Kentucky in 1839 before moving to Missouri and eventually living in Kansas when the Civil War started, Bill Anderson soon earned the nom de plume "Bloody Bill." An unusual event made a guerrilla out of William Anderson. He was the son of a hatter who an enthusiastic pro-slavery man would often abandon his family for long periods to go gold prospecting. My 1888 Luscomb #b. [32], Quantrill's Raiders had an extensive support network in Missouri that provided them with numerous hiding places. One way he sought to prove that loyalty was by severing his ties with Anderson's sister Mary, his former lover. Cox's bugler gathered up 6 pistols around the body. In early 1863 he joined Quantrill's Raiders, a group of Confederate guerrillas which operated along the KansasMissouri border. Marker is on the Ray County Courthouse grounds. arms army asked attack August Baker band began better Bill Anderson Bloody Bill body brother bushwhackers called camp Castel Centralia City Clark close commander Company Confederate. . [Photo captions, clockwise from top left, read] After the war, several guerrillas, such as Frank and Jesse James, continued their violent behaviors, becoming infamous outlaws. [167] He maintains that Anderson's acts were seen as particularly shocking in part because his cruelty was directed towards white Americans of equivalent social standing, rather than targets deemed acceptable by American society, such as Native Americans or foreigners. Add to your list and mine, Bloody Bill Anderson for he was a ruthless, vicious killer. Copyright20062023,Somerightsreserved. Your choice of white or . However, his gun of choice was said to be the Dance .44 caliber cap and ball revolver. Longley's Bloody Bill Anderson Mystery Group on July 13, 2009: " Francis M Richardson was a carpenter as shown in the 1860 Grayson County Texas Census. On October 26, 1864, the notorious Confederate guerrilla leader William "Bloody Bill" Anderson is killed in Missouri in a Union ambush. 100, in April 1863, set a national policy, outlining guerrillas and their treatment. They murdered my family when I was a schoolboy and I was launched into a life of shooting, reprisals and rough-riding." These companies will be governed in all respects by the same regulations as other troops. A lot of the federal troops in Missouri were Infantry & only the officer's would have pistols. Barbed Wire Press. [140][139] He left the area with 150 men. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The Union militias sometimes rode slower horses and may have been intimidated by Anderson's reputation. Marker is at or near this postal address: 100 West Main Street, Richmond MO 64085, United States of America. This would effectively put Bloody Bill on the list of about 450 confederate guerrillas who rode into Lawrence on that fateful day. The guerrillas heard that the cavalry was approaching,[110] and Anderson sent a party to set an ambush. Historians have made disparate appraisals of Anderson; some see him as a sadistic, psychopathic killer, while others put his actions into the perspective of the general desperation and lawlessness of the time and the brutalization effect of war. By the time he turned 21 he was accompanying wagon trains on the Santa Fe Trail, selling stolen horses. Details on John (b. On August 10, while traveling through Clay County, Anderson and his men engaged 25 militia members, killing five of them and forcing the rest to flee. As Quantrill and Todd became less active, "Bloody Bill" Anderson emerged as the best-known, and most feared, Confederate guerrilla in Missouri. William "Bloody Bill" Anderson A sociopath who lived for spilling blood, William Anderson was one of the most fearsome leaders of Confederate guerrillas in Civil War Missouri. Anderson was described as "nearly six feet tall, of rather swarthy complexion and had long, black hair, inclined to curl. Anderson's bushwhacking marked him as a dangerous man and eventually led the Union to imprison his sisters. (, In his biography of Quantrill, historian Duane Schultz counters that General, Some accounts of Anderson's death relate that he was decapitated and his head impaled on a telegraph pole. World War Memorial (here, next to this marker); World War II and Korean War Memorial (a few steps from this marker); Vietnam War Memorial (a few steps from this marker); Richmond (within shouting distance of this marker); Pvt. The Missouri act was an offshoot of the Confederate Partisan Ranger Act instituted by Confederate President Jefferson Davis in April 1862. [91], Anderson met Todd and Quantrill on September 24, 1864; although they had clashed in the past, they agreed to work together again. [152] In 1967, a memorial stone was placed at the grave. [55] Anderson ignored Quantrill's request to wait until after the war and a dispute erupted, which resulted in Anderson separating his men from Quantrill's band. Quantrill expelled him and warned him not to come back, and the man was fatally shot by some of Quantrill's men when he attempted to return. [2] During his childhood, Anderson's family moved to Huntsville, Missouri, where his father found employment on a farm and the family became well-respected. Touch for directions. [74] By August, the St. Joseph Herald, a Missouri newspaper, was describing him as "the Devil". Wood believes that these stories are inaccurate, citing a lack of documentary evidence. [129] Anderson presented him with a gift of fine Union pistols, likely captured at Centralia. [107] The guerrillas set the passenger train on fire and derailed an approaching freight train. [84] The guerrillas quickly forced the attackers to flee, and Anderson shot and injured one woman as she fled the house. . In one of the passenger cars they found 23 unarmed Union soldiers on furlough and headed home on leave. Brown had devoted significant attention to the border area, Anderson led raids in Cooper County and Johnson County, Missouri, robbing local residents. ; Battle of Lexington State Historic Site in Lexington, Mo. Richeson, Richerson, Richardson originally from Taylor County, Kentucky. After hearing of the engagement, General Fisk commanded a colonel to lead a party with the sole aim of killing Anderson. Gen. John McNeil, the "Butcher of Palmyra." After camping near New Hope Church in Fort Henry about. Anderson was under Quantrill's command, but independently organized some attacks. [125], Anderson visited Confederate sympathizers as he traveled, some of whom viewed him as a hero for fighting the Union, whom they deeply hated. On July 15, 1864 "Bloody Bill" Anderson returned home. From Donald Hale's book " They call him Bloody Bill" it stated that Cox had sent a Lt. Baker to act as bait to lure Bill & his troops into an ambush. The order was intended to undermine the guerrillas' support network in Missouri. Two Confederate soldiers carrying double-barreled shotguns, a favorite weapon early in the Civil War. Bloody Bill was born in either 1838 or 1839 and moved to Kansas in the late 1850s. There were those that came & went and the largest number had to have been the raid on Lawrence. There he met Baker, who temporarily placated him by providing a lawyer. declared martial law in August 1861, giving Union forces broad powers to suppress those who resisted Union control. Anderson was upset by the critical tone of the coverage and sent letters to the publications. William and Jim Anderson then traveled southwest of Kansas City, robbing travelers to support themselves. Now that statement is a little murky. , Cole Younger, 1913. It's either the flesh eating . From famous outlaws like Billy the Kid and Jesse James to lawmen like Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok to trailblazing pioneers and frontiersmen, this podcast tells the true stories of the real-life characters who shaped this iconic period in American history. During the American Civil War, the James family sided with the Confederates, and Frank and Jesse James joined a group of guerrillas, or . [42] The Provost Marshal of Kansas, a Union captain who commanded military police, surrendered to the guerrillas and Anderson took his uniform[43] (guerrillas often wore uniforms stolen from Union soldiers). [25] Quantrill was at the time the most prominent guerrilla leader in the KansasMissouri area. [114] Anderson's men mutilated the bodies of the dead soldiers and tortured some survivors. It was Anderson's greatest victory, surpassing Lawrence and Baxter Springs in brutality and the number of casualties. They had hoped to attack a train, but its conductor learned of their presence and turned back before reaching the town. The act sanctioned guerrilla activities against the Union army while attempting to gain some measure of control over the guerrillas. Casey, you have me at a slight disadvantage at the moment in that I have to rely on my memory from what I have read. Gen. Henry Halleck's General Orders No. William T. Anderson was born around 1840 in Hopkins County, Kentucky, to William C. and Martha Anderson. . William Thomas Anderson was born in Randolph County, Missouri in 1837, the exact date and location of his birth, remain uncertain. They used it to attack other boats, bringing river traffic to a virtual halt. ; and Confederate Memorial State Historic Site in Higginsville, Mo. [13], Upon his return to Kansas, Anderson continued horse trafficking, but ranchers in the area soon became aware of his operations. . On Oct. 27, 1864, about 300 men of the Enrolled Missouri Militia, led by Union Lt. Col. Samuel P. Cox, ambushed Anderson and his guerrilla force in Ray County's Albany, Mo. They later fought under "Bloody Bill" Anderson . [65], On July 6, a Confederate sympathizer brought Anderson newspapers containing articles about him. His dark good looks brought him to the attention . William T. Anderson[a] (c. 1840 October 26, 1864), known by the nickname "Bloody Bill" Anderson, was a soldier who was one of the deadliest and most notorious Confederate guerrilla leaders in the American Civil War. [147] Union soldiers claimed that Anderson was found with a string that had 53 knots, symbolizing each person he had killed. [112] Although five guerrillas were killed by the first volley of Union fire, the Union soldiers were quickly overwhelmed by the well-armed guerrillas, and those who fled were pursued. [166] According to journalist T.J. Stiles, Anderson was not necessarily a "sadistic fiend",[167] but illustrated how young men became part of a "culture of atrocity" during the war. Bloody Bill Anderson - Etsy Check out our bloody bill anderson selection for the very best in unique or custom, handmade pieces from our shops. Again, as I posted earlier, only those that carried the Model 1861 Remington could possibly have availed themselves to this convenience as all the other sidearms took some time to change out the cylinder.