Quantrill's Raiders Books

I am a history fanatic and I loved this book. It is about a time of which I did not have a lot of knowledge and this was so well done.
I am sorry Mr. Leslie doesn't have more books as he is an excellant story teller.

As little as I heard about William Qunatrell and as much as I wanted to know about him, I found this book sadly lacking in any depth or insight. Even though the author writes an introduction about knowing a sociopath who massacred a dozen people in a McDonald's and how this led him to be interested in serial killers and the like, he falls back on narrative devices of the Gone with the Wind cliche.

Whilst there is a fascinating story buried in this narrative about a man who took up guerrilla warfare and how he scared the hell out of Kansas and Missouri, the retelling sucks the life out of it. The author relies too heavily on the original histories and reports some of the hokiness bits of dialogue and fictions without comment. Sure, the guerrila bands MIGHT have been avenging their sisters and the good southern women, or that might have just been the melodramatic recreation. Sure, a man might have said "D-mn them. They are desecrating the flag" upon seeing a Lawrence raider dragging an American flag on horseback. Or he might have just been running for his life and thought up the story later on.

Sadly, this is considered the classic of the historical accounts. So it will be many more years before a better book comes along - one that actually attempts psychological insight and historical accuracy and actually discusses the original texts instead of swallowing every bit of romanticized twaddle without question.

....and Colonel William Clarke Quantrill called in the debt. He sure as hell did. Hart was an assumed name that Quantrill used as a young man when he went west from Ohio seeking fame and fortune, or at least a living. Problem was, he landed right in the middle of the "Bleeding Kansas" mess that was especially hot along the Missouri-Kansas border. Quantrill worked as a teacher, and is said to have been a good one, but trouble was brewing...Charles Jennison and his Jayhawkers, John Brown and his murders of innocent whites....more than enough motivation for a young man to follow the South when war came.

Missouri was even more deeply divided than the rest of the country; it really was brother against brother. The Confederate commander in Missouri was Major General Sterling Price, a fine and decent man, but not our best General. Initially, Quantrill served in the regular Confederate Army, but gradually broke away, with a band of followers, to form The Missouri Partisan Rangers, forerunner of the modern Special Forces, complete with proper Confederate commissions. At first, they played by regular rules...taking prisoners, giving paroles, etc. But when Jim Lane wantonly burned Osceola, and murdered civilians, the black flag came out...

Quantrill's followers are the stuff of Legend...Captain Bloody Bill Anderson...Captain George Todd, who eventually supplanted Quantrill [I am married to a direct descendent of Captain Todd; our son will gladly tell you about it]...Archie Clement...Bill Gregg...Cole Younger...Frank James...Jesse James. Some died in the cause; others went on to fame after the war.

Quantrill's Raiders lived off the countryside, and made things hot for the Yankees wherever they went. They even fought, and won, regular battles, like Baxter Springs. Finally, the Yankees imprisoned female relatives of the Raiders in a structurally unsafe jail in Kansas City...when it collapsed, five innocent girls, including Bill Anderson's sister and Cole Younger's cousin died...enough was enough, the bill was due, and Lawrence paid. When Ewing issued his infamous Order #11, clearing northwest Missouri of Southern civilians, resolve hardened.

Eventually, Todd and Anderson were killed, and the war ended. Quantrill was mortally wounded in Kentucky in 1865. Or was he? He was seen alive as late as 1915...the ultimate legendary status...seen alive after death, joining such company as Jesse James [seen as late as 1951], Houdini, Elvis, and JFK. His skull was used as a prop in a college fraternity initiation for years; he finally received a military funeral, and Christian burial, in 1992. Surviving Raiders held reunions from 1898 till 1929; interestingly, there were two black Raiders at the reunions, though no one knows much about them.

This is a well researched account of a little known aspect of our Civil War. "Quantrill's War" by Duane Schultz is more academic, but this is more readable...both get five stars.

With nealy 620,000 combat deaths, the American Civil War has proven the single bloodiest conflict ever engaged in by U.S. forces. Names like Antietam, Gettysburg, and Appomattox still make many Americans cringe with thoughts of bullets, sabres, and grape shot tearing through ranks of steadily marching countrymen.

However, there was another smaller, beastly war occuring along the contested boarder region between Missouri and Kansas. Rarely was there a conflict between the massive armies of the C.S.A. and U.S.A. Rather it was a war of attrition waged by roving bands of maruaders who were less interested in ideology and more concerned with loot and plunder. Indeed, along the border raged a savage guerrilla war.

With the State of Kansas predomintly in support of the Federal Union, and the Missourians leaning towards Jeff Davis' Confederate States, the border was a tinderbox, and sparks were everywhere. Incidents of violence were common, and reprisal raids were bloody.

Leslie provides an excellent and informative book regarding not only the Missouri-Kansas border war, but one of the principal guerrila chieftains, William Clarke Quantrill. Q's band of raiders, which included such infamous names as Jesse and Frank James, Cole Younger, and the notorious "Bloody" Bill Anderson waged a war with few if any rules. Prisoners were executed with out remorse, cities and towns were burned to the ground, and civilians attempting the least resistance were gunned down, usually with one pistol ball to the head. Rather than being a rarity, Q's band was one of many roaming the countyside. The Unionists also maintained their guerrila fighters under the name of Jayhawkers who were equally ruthless as Quantrill; the difference being they were partial to the execution of Southern sympathizers.

Leslie follows the story of Q and the Kansas-Missouri war from its inception to its conclusion. He keeps his observations objective and provides a clear picture of both the C.S.A. and the U.S.A. His work is well researched and readable, and certainly leads readers to discover more about this unique, although bloody Americans.

I went to KU in Lawrence so I was well aware of Quantrill's raid but that was about all that I was aware of. (Pioneer Cemetery with headstone inscriptions bearing witness to that raid is just across I70 from KU on Mount Oread.) When studying the American Civil War in school one learns about Gettysburg, Antietam, Petersburg and the fighting in the Shenandoah of Virginia. Some passing mention might be made of the war in the west, usually a reference to Grant and Vicksburg. There is hardly if ever any mention of the 'border war' in eastern Kansas and western Missouri. The border war is still alive in that part of the nation; the massacre at Baxter Springs and General Order Number 11 that emptied a number of counties of citizens in western Missouri to combat bands of guerillas is still in the memory of many. Not all of the fighting was in the east and Edward Leslie does a fine job of bringing to life a bit of the war in the west. It was as nasty if not nastier than anything in the east.