America’s Civil War: Guerrilla Leader William Clarke Quantrill’s Last Raid in Kentucky

America's Civil War  | 0 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

In July 1857, William Clarke Quantrill wrote to his mother back home in Ohio. ‘I have but one wish, and that is that you were here,’ he told her, ‘for I cannot be happy here all alone; & it seems that I am the only person or thing that is not happy along this beautiful stream.’ Eight years later this apparently tender, lonely young man would die in a Louisville, Kentucky, prison, notorious for being one of the most vicious butchers in the Civil War.

Quantrill was born at Canal Dover, Ohio, on July 31, 1837, the oldest of 12 children. Even as a child, he evinced a twisted, cruel nature. He nailed snakes to trees, shot pigs through the ears to hear them squeal, and tied cats together by their tails and watched them claw each other to death. Walking through fields, he would stab horses and slice open cows.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Quantrill began teaching school at age 16. Not content to tutor others, in 1857 the restless young man moved to Kansas in search of his fortune.

Standing 5 feet 9 inches tall, young Quantrill had a slight frame, reddish hair and cold, steel-blue eyes. One historian described him as ‘bold and physically courageous [but] a sham and almost completely amoral.’ Quantrill honed his violent nature while living with thieves, murderers and brigands in Kansas. When the Civil War erupted, Quantrill–who had already committed several brutal murders–eagerly fought with the Confederate army at Wilson’s Creek and Lexington, Mo. By Christmas 1861, however, the 24-year-old Quantrill had organized a small band of pro-Confederate guerrillas to fight and kill Union soldiers and pro-Northern civilians whenever and wherever the opportunity arose.

As the guerrilla band gained notoriety, the group expanded in number. Quantrill, who was rapidly becoming infamous for murder, robbery and the mutilation of the dead, masterminded the August 21, 1863, massacre at Lawrence, Kan., in which 150 men and boys were brutally slain. Two weeks later, the band perpetrated another slaughter at Baxter Springs, Kan., where the bushwhackers attacked a Union headquarters train. The merciless guerrillas killed 98 Federals and lost only six of their own men. It was later reported that the guerrillas had mutilated the dead bluecoats.

Despite his often demonstrated adeptness at killing, Quantrill’s band grew annoyed with their leader’s frequent absences and attempts to secure a high Confederate rank, and soon dissolved into rival factions. Although his personal popularity waned, Quantrill still kept many well-known guerrillas in his service, including Jim Younger and his cousin, Frank James.

In October 1864, Confederate Maj. Gen. Sterling Price was defeated at Westport, Mo., and Mine Creek, Kan. As Southern hopes for a Confederate-controlled Missouri plummeted, Quantrill’s guerrilla band faced imminent destruction. Fearing capture and execution by Union authorities in Missouri, Quantrill gathered approximately 40 bushwhackers in mid-December and headed east, forever turning his back on Missouri.

Crossing the Mississippi River above Memphis on New Year’s Day, the guerrillas, wearing captured Federal uniforms, assumed the identity of the nonexistent U.S. 4th Missouri Cavalry. Posing as ‘Captain Clarke,’ Quantrill informed his men that they would enter Kentucky and ride to Washington, D.C., where the guerrilla chieftain planned to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Quantrill may have made the statement in jest, for many in his command later scoffed at this claim. Others vowed that their commander did plan to kill the Union commander in chief. Conversely, Quantrill, knowing that the war would soon end, may have planned to go to Virginia to surrender his band with Robert E. Lee’s army, believing his men would get a reprieve in Virginia. In Missouri they faced certain execution.

It is equally likely that Quantrill entered Kentucky simply because it had become an Eden for bushwhackers. Killers claiming Southern or Union ties roamed freely in the Bluegrass State, robbing and murdering at will. Dire deeds went unpunished. As Union military control tightened in Missouri, Quantrill sought a land where he could terrorize with impunity. In his search, he found Kentucky. There he would also find his death.

According to a postwar memoir written by Quantrill scout John McCorkle, the blue uniforms and the Captain Clarke alias easily hoodwinked Federal troops. While riding through Tennessee, the guerrillas were joined by a local Union soldier. As the Federal rode with the men, he pointed out the homes of various Southern sympathizers and jauntily detailed those who should be killed for their disloyalty. Upon reaching one stately home, the soldier pointed and said: ‘That Rebel that lives there ought not be permitted to live another day. He is rich and the worst Rebel in this country and has done more to aid the damned Rebels than any man in the country.’ Hearing the tale, Quantrill turned to guerrilla John Barker and told him to go with the Federal to dispose of the Rebel. McCorkle relates: ‘John left with our informant and in an hour returned alone, and the rebel who lived on the hill was not molested;…the [Federal] who talked about him never talked about his neighbors anymore.’

The Missourians entered Kentucky in mid-January 1865 near Canton and moved east. On their ride they frequently encountered Northern soldiers. Passing themselves off as Missouri Federals, the guerrillas talked and joked with their enemies. At one point, however, the jovial encounters ended. The bushwhackers met a Union captain who was forming a company of black troops. The captain, who boasted openly about what his men would do to the Rebels, was summarily killed by Quantrill’s cohorts.

In one exaggerated tale spun by McCorkle, the guerrillas supposedly stopped at a private residence for breakfast. After the group dined with the family, McCorkle claimed that the host’s two daughters sensed the guerrillas’ Southern sympathies despite their blue uniforms. Upon leaving the house, he said, the two girls approached the guerrillas and said, ‘Gentlemen, from your manners we take you to be Southern men, and while I do not know who you are, if you are Southern soldiers I wish you all the happiness and success that could possibly come to anyone, but if you are Federals, my heartfelt wish is that you all will be in hell before night.’ McCorkle said the men let out a cheer, but were sternly silenced by their commander for losing their 4th Missouri Cavalry persona. It is probable that the years added hyperbole to McCorkle’s memory, for it is unlikely that a Kentucky belle living in the war-torn state would make such a rash statement to blue-clad troopers. A handful of Kentucky women had already been jailed for revealing their Southern leanings.

As Quantrill’s raiders maneuvered into central Kentucky, their guise continued to deceive Federal troops. A Union dispatch related that on January 22 the bushwhackers had arrived in Hartford. Telling Union authorities that they were the 4th Missouri Cavalry ‘detached to hunt guerrillas,’ Quantrill requested ‘a guide to conduct him toward the Ohio River, where the guerrillas most abound.’ A Federal lieutenant named Barnett, ‘who was in the neighborhood as a recruiting officer of the One hundred and twenty-fifth Colored Infantry,’ an Indiana trooper named W.B. Lawton, and W. Lownsley of the 3rd Kentucky Cavalry all volunteered to show ‘Captain Clarke’ the way. The dispatch continued: ‘About three miles from Hartford, near the Hawesville road, they hung Lownsley, it is supposed. He was found in the woods near a week afterward. They shot Lawton after traveling with him about twelve miles, and shot Barnett about sixteen miles from here. Their bodies were all found.’

Following the murders, the guerrillas made their way to Hustonville. Eyeing some fresh horses, the band prepared to make off with several of them. As guerrilla Allen Parmer pulled himself onto one of the animals, the Federal lieutenant who owned the horse rushed out. Pointing at Parmer, the lieutenant said the horses would be taken ‘over his dead body.’ Parmer growled, ‘That is a damned easy job,’ pulled his pistol and shot the lieutenant in the face. The bullet traveled through the lieutenant’s head and broke his neck, killing him instantly. Hurrying from town, the bushwhackers turned their horses toward Danville, the geographic center of Kentucky.

In Danville, the veil protecting Captain Clarke was violently lifted. On January 29, U.S. Captain William L. Gross, assistant quartermaster and assistant superintendent of the U.S. military telegraph in Danville, sent a disheartened message to his superiors. Gross informed them that ‘thirty-five guerrillas, under Captain Clarke, all dressed in Federal uniform, entered Danville this morning. They robbed some of the citizens and one boot store and left on the Perryville pike at 11:15 a.m. They claimed, at first, to be Federal troops, Fourth Missouri Cavalry, but there is no doubt they are guerrillas in disguise. They gutted my office pretty effectually.’

Purifying the story of the Danville raid, John McCorkle said that Quantrill merely ‘told the soldiers and men to all go home and let him alone, that he intended to hurt no one.’ After the war, McCorkle became a respected citizen of Glasgow, Mo., and became known as ‘a Christian gentleman of strong character and a tender heart.’ He probably failed to mention the plundering to sanitize his role in the incident.

Tags: 19th Century, America's Civil War, American Civil War, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.