In the confusion that followed, Quantrill’s raiders disbanded and formed smaller guerilla units in Texas and Oklahoma. Union forces responded by burning four nearby Missouri counties and driving the citizens off their land. In one of the war’s great atrocities, Quantrill and his men burned the town and executed some 200 men. Quantrill’s most brutal attack came in 1863 when he led 450 guerillas on a raid on the Union stronghold of Lawrence, Kansas.
The tactics they learned from guerilla warfare-including raiding, robbery and evading capture-would later prove invaluable to these men during their outlaw careers. Bank robbers like Jesse James, Frank James and Cole Younger got their taste for violence while riding with Confederate raider William Quantrill, and outlaw organizations like the Mason Henry Gang first sprang up in California as Confederate bushwhacker groups. His exploits earned him the rank of captain from the Confederate Army, but he was also labeled an outlaw by the Union, which viewed his unconventional tactics as illegal and even murderous.ĭid you know? Many infamous outlaws of the American West started out as members of guerilla units during the Civil War. Shortly after war broke out, Quantrill assembled a ragtag band of guerillas and began harassing and killing Union forces and sympathizers along the Missouri- Kansas border. One of the Civil War’s most infamous figures, William Quantrill spent most of his early life as a schoolteacher and gambler.
0 kommentar(er)
