The U.S. Government provided a veteran's tombstone for Anderson's grave in 1967. . [106] Although he was alerted to the congressman's presence in the town, he opted not to search for him. [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. [76] Anderson was selective, turning away all but the fiercest applicants, as he sought fighters similar to himself. and also on the Agnes City Census of Kansas in 1850. The .500 Bushwhacker is the biggest, baddest handgun cartridge in the world right now. 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. [101] Anderson's men quickly took control of the train, which included 23 off-duty, unarmed Union soldiers as passengers. Bloody Bill Anderson - Etsy Check out our bloody bill anderson selection for the very best in unique or custom, handmade pieces from our shops. [66][67] In the letters, Anderson took an arrogant and threatening yet playful tone, boasting of his attacks. Born about 1839 in Kentucky, the family early moved to Missouri, where William grew up near the town of Huntsville in Randolph County. [63], Anderson and his men rested in Texas for several months before returning to Missouri. In 1976, the book was adapted into a film, The Outlaw Josey Wales, which portrays a man who joins Anderson's gang after his wife is killed by Union-backed raiders. On the other hand, the use of tactics like arson, robbery and murder seemed beyond the bounds of honorable combat. They buried him in an unmarked grave in Richmond's Pioneer Cemetery. They claimed to be fighting for the Confederacy, but in fact, their murdering and looting benefited only their pocketbooks. Their move to Kansas was likely for economic rather than political reasons. [32], Quantrill's Raiders had an extensive support network in Missouri that provided them with numerous hiding places. Concluding that eliminating the bushw[h]acker's support network would. 11. After Bill Anderson's death in Richmond, Missouri on October 27, 1864 his brother Jim Anderson gathered together their surviving sisters, Mollie and Mattie and took them to Sherman, Texas. (, At the time, some U.S. states allowed slavery, primarily those in the south, and some explicitly forbade it, primarily those in the north; whether newly created states would be "slave states" was a contentious and hotly debated issue. [158] He was later discussed in biographies of Quantrill, which typically cast Anderson as an inveterate murderer. [120][121] Anderson evaded the pursuit, leading his men into ravines the Union troops would not enter for fear of ambush. 2, in March 1862, allowed Union troops in Missouri to hang guerillas as robbers and murder[er]s. Future orders followed the same tone. At least 40 members of the 17th Illinois Cavalry and the Missouri State Militia were in town and took shelter in a fort. One way he sought to prove that loyalty was by severing his ties with Anderson's sister Mary, his former lover. He protested the execution of guerrillas and their sympathizers, and threatened to attack Lexington, Missouri. . From the town, they saw a group of about 120 guerrillas and pursued them. Smaller bands avoided fights with larger detachments of Union soldiers, preferring to ambush stragglers or loot Union supporters and their property. 3916.725N, 9358.603W. Marker is in Richmond, Missouri, in Ray County. 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. You may have your own list of heartless maniacal killers. 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. Cox stated that he went out & took one of Anderson's pistols along with money & a gold watch. Rains, charged fearlessly through our lines and were both unhorsed close in our rear. If they were caught, Federals considered them criminals not prisoners of war. The two were prominent Unionists and hid their identities from the guerrillas. [35] In the aftermath, rumors that the building had been intentionally sabotaged by Union soldiers spread quickly;[36] Anderson was convinced it had been a deliberate act. Bloody Bill dead. Union troops used horses to drag Anderson's body through the streets around the Ray County Courthouse. ), Bite-Size Bits of Local, National, and Global History, Photographed By William Fischer, Jr., September 17, 2020. [23], Missouri had a large Union presence throughout the Civil War, but was also inhabited by many civilians whose sympathies lay with the Confederacy. 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. Operating against Unionists in the midst of the guerrilla war in Missouri and Kansas, he was a leading figure in the infamous Lawrence Massacre and the Centralia Massacre, gaining the nickname "Bloody Bill" for the perceived savagery of his exploits. 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. His dark good looks brought him to the attention . It could be interpreted that the bugler picked up a total of 6 pistols that belonged, possibly to the other men that fell with Anderson. Anderson led a band that targeted Union loyalists and Federal soldiers in Missouri and Kansas. [123] They burned Rocheport to the ground on October 2; the town was under close scrutiny by Union forces, owing to the number of Confederate sympathizers there, but General Fisk maintained that the fire was accidental. [28] Castel and Goodrich speculated that this raid may have given Quantrill the idea of launching an attack deep in Kansas, as it demonstrated that the state's border was poorly defended and that guerrillas could travel deep into the state's interior before Union forces were alerted. [10], In the late 1850s, Ellis Anderson fled to Iowa after killing a native American. Only advantage would have been if you were behind a barrier, in a gun battle. On October 2, a group of 450 guerrillas under Quantrill's leadership met at Blackwater River in Jackson County and left for Texas. John Russell. [70] On July 15, Anderson and his men entered Huntsville, Missouri and occupied the town's business district. Its frame and grip initially matched the Navy in size, but Colt later lengthened the grip to absorb. They will receive pay and allowance for subsistence and forage for the time actually in the field, as established by the affadavits of their captains. View character biography, pictures and memorable quotes. Bloody Bill Anderson was a character played by John Russell in the 1976 film 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' directed by Clint Eastwood. Gen. Thomas Ewing issued General Orders No. After selecting a sergeant for a potential prisoner swap, Anderson's men shot the rest. A Note on Sources In late 1863, while Quantrill's Raiders spent the winter in Sherman, Texas, animosity developed between Anderson and Quantrill. Although Union supporters viewed him as incorrigibly evil, Confederate supporters in Missouri saw his actions as justifiable. [49], Four days after the Lawrence Massacre, on August 25, 1863, General Ewing retaliated against the Confederate guerrillas by issuing General Order No. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [144] Four other guerrillas were killed in the attack. Then I noticed Bloody Bill Anderson and he has a very small existence in Josey Wales. [41], Arriving in Lawrence on August 21, the guerrillas immediately killed a number of Union Army recruits and one of Anderson's men took their flag. (, 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. [48] After a dead raider was scalped by a Union-allied Lenape Indian during the pursuit, one guerrilla leader pledged to adopt the practice of scalping. Copyright20062023,Somerightsreserved. CPT William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson Famous memorial Birth 1839. Again, were those 2 pistols found on the horse or were there more as Cox's statement was in the plural. One dating device is the guns; they are all germane to the late 1860s and early 1870s at the . . [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. The Tactical Genius of Bloody Bill Anderson by Sean McLachlan 2/13/2018 His ruthless nature earned his moniker and obscured a flair for strategy. They had sworn to be revenged for the death of their father, and made their troubles an excuse for the career of bushwhacking in which they engaged with the Quantrill gang. so there couldn't have been that many to obtain from citizens. Plot [ edit] Cocaine dealer, Darrell, leads a cop on a chase through the desert. [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. Stories about Anderson's brutality during the War were legion. In early 1863 he joined Quantrill's Raiders, a group of Confederate guerrillas which operated along the KansasMissouri border. 1840-1864. 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. They chased the men who had attacked them, killing one and mutilating his body. And that is the terrible truth of the story of Bloody Bill Anderson. It is said that "Bloody Bill" Anderson carried six to eight revolvers with him at any point. Touch for directions. In what became known as the Centralia Massacre, Anderson's bushwhackers killed 24 unarmed Union soldiers on the train and set an ambush later that day which killed over a hundred Union militiamen. (, Although Wood states that Baker's group sought to join the Confederate army, Castel and Goodrich write that the group planned to conduct ", In his 2003 history of Civil War Missouri, Bruce Nichols stated that Reed led the gang until mid-July 1863. [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. "An unusual event made a guerrilla out of William Anderson. Even then, reloading the powder & ball would have been almost as fast as changing out the cylinder. They were still suffering from the wounds inflicted by Jayhawkers in their attempt to murder them while being held as prisoners during the summer of 1863. The Guerrilla Lifestyle Baker, a local judge who was a Confederate sympathizer. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman was the head of the Confederate Army's Trans Mississippi Department in Little Rock, Ark. The most infamous order came in response to a brutal guerilla attack on Lawrence, Kan. Carrying multiple loaded guns gave them an edge against soldiers equipped with a single-shot, muzzle-loading musket. Serving in the US Marine Corps in WW II, he earned a battlefield commission and decorations for valor at Guadalcanal. [16] In May 1862, Judge Baker issued an arrest warrant for Griffith, whom Anderson helped hide. [5] The Anderson family supported slavery, though they did not own slaves. The Missouri Partisan Ranger Act , On July 17, 1862, Confederate Gen. Thomas Hindman issued the Missouri Partisan Ranger Act. A State Divided: The Civil War in Missouri. Gen. Henry Halleck. [8] After settling there, the Anderson family became friends with A.I. [46] They left town at 9:00am after a company of Union soldiers approached the town. [87] Although they forced the Union soldiers to flee, Anderson and Jesse James were injured in the encounter and the guerrillas retired to Boone County to rest. [136][137] Anderson indicated that he was particularly angry that the man had freed his slaves, then trampled him with a specially trained horse. [162] He also appears as a character in several films about Jesse James. Anderson was told to recapture him and gave chase, but he was unable to locate his former commander and stopped at a creek. III. Missouri - A State Divided: The Civil War in Missouri, Partisan Warfare in the American Civil War, Forces of Change and the Enduring Ozark Frontier: The Civil War. "Bloody Bill" redirects here. [74] By August, the St. Joseph Herald, a Missouri newspaper, was describing him as "the Devil". The Confederate guerilla died in battle on October 26, 1864. 1. Bloody Bill Anderson - Lies and Sensationalism. 2. [117][118] Sutherland saw the massacre as the last battle in the worst phase of the war in Missouri,[119] and Castel and Goodrich described the slaughter as the Civil War's "epitome of savagery". The rapid rate of fire made the revolver perfect for the quick attacks executed by these men. William T. Anderson was one of the most notorious Confederate guerrillas of the Civil War. The act sanctioned guerrilla activities against the Union army while attempting to gain some measure of control over the guerrillas. Doing some quick math on the number of men who rode with Quantrill, numbers around 700 ( those who can be named), maybe more. I have also read it was several Cavalry troopers, but that is another story. That being said,if you multiply 700 troops times 6 revolvers each, that comes to 4200 pistols. Richeson, Richerson, Richardson originally from Taylor County, Kentucky. Often group sizes fluctuated as they came together for larger raids and then broke apart after the raid. Maupin, pictured above. There is a new generation of Westerns, typified by the work of writer/actor/producer Taylor Sheridan in the prequel to his hit show Yellowstone (2018), titled 1883 (2022). [135] After Confederate forces under General Joseph O. Shelby conquered Glasgow, Anderson traveled to the city to loot. William Thomas Anderson was born in Randolph County, Missouri in 1837, the exact date and location of his birth, remain uncertain. [122] In the aftermath of the massacre, Union soldiers committed several revenge killings of Confederate-sympathizing civilians. The next day, the 4th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry pursued them, but Anderson launched an ambush that killed seven Union soldiers. If you're a fan of games like Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption or Gameloft's Six-Guns: Gang Showdown, The Wild West is definitely worth checking out. A short time later, another six of Anderson's men were ambushed and killed by Union troops;[90] after learning of these events, Anderson was outraged and left the area to seek revenge. Marshal, but spoke amicably with an acquaintance he found there. He concluded the letters by describing himself as the commander of "Kansas First Guerrillas" and requesting that local newspapers publish his replies. "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.". 4. Anyway, as Baker had achieved his mission & as Anderson & his troops entered the ambush. [29], In early summer 1863, Anderson was made a lieutenant, serving in a unit led by George M. Todd. [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. Eventually, the six-shot revolver became the weapon of choice for the bushwhacker because it was considered better for firing from horseback. [31] By late July, Anderson led groups of guerrillas on raids and was often pursued by Union volunteer cavalry. The most infamous order came in response to a brutal guerilla attack on Lawrence, Kan. William "Bloody Bill" Anderson . William Anderson was initially given a chilly reception from other raiders, who perceived him to be brash and overconfident.
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