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

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Terrell, a leader of Federal guerrillas in Spencer County, had a reputation of being a fearsome hunter of Confederate irregulars. Serving the Confederacy early in the war, Terrell changed sides and began a career of plundering, raiding and killing Southern sympathizers. Union authorities had grown tired of dealing with the lawless bands. Following the philosophy of ‘it takes a guerrilla to catch a guerrilla,’ they hired the galvanized bushwhacker to hunt down Quantrill. Terrell would accomplish this task, but, as one of his comrades related: ‘Terrell was a bad man. Perhaps as bad as the man he was hunting down.’ Following the death of Billy Marion, the Unionist bushwhackers turned their sights on Quantrill.

Moving toward the Salt River, Quantrill learned from a local citizen of the Lincoln assassination. His men cheered and broke ranks, riding to the homes of Southern sympathizers, where they celebrated the death of the president. With all good news, however, must come the bad. Returning to Nelson County, the men learned from their leader that Robert E. Lee had surrendered. McCorkle stated: ‘Knowing the war was over, we decided to separate and make the best terms of surrender we could….This was the last time I ever saw Quantrill.’

With a handful of men, the guerrilla chieftain rode toward Spencer County. When they reached the Taylorsville-Bloomfield Pike on May 10, a heavy rain began, driving the remnants of the band into shelter. Entering a barn owned by James H. Wakefield (a sympathizer with whom he had previously stayed), Quan-trill lay down on a pile of hay to rest. His men, bored by confinement in the barn, began pelting each other with corncobs. Guerrilla John Ross received the brunt of the attack, and he ran from the barn to avoid the shower of cobs. Running into the rain, Ross suddenly spied a company of Federal troops. He turned and shouted, ‘Great God, boys, the Federals are right on us!’ Terrell, alerted to the guerrillas’ location by a local blacksmith, had found his quarry.

Quantrill jumped from the hay, shouting commands to his men. Telling them to ‘mount, about face, and charge,’ he grabbed his horse and pulled himself into the saddle. As Quantrill mounted, his stirrup leather broke, throwing him across the back of his horse. Quan-trill’s mount, which was borrowed and gun-shy, immediately panicked and followed the other horses out of the barn. As the frightened beast cleared the barn door, Quantrill was shot in the back. The pistol ball entered near his left shoulder blade and cut downward into his spine. Partially paralyzed, the guerrilla fell from his horse. One of Terrell’s men, watching Quantrill fall face down in the mud, fired again. The pistol ball blew off Quantrill’s right trigger finger.

Jumping off their horses, Terrell’s men quickly stole Quantrill’s boots, pistols and money. Dragging him into Wakefield’s house, the Union bushwhackers began to loot the dwelling, but Wakefield gave them $30 and a jug of whiskey to end their ransacking.

Quantrill mumbled that he was Captain Clarke of the 4th Missouri Cavalry. Terrell’s men, hoodwinked like scores of others, believed the story and left him at Wakefield’s home. They wheeled their mounts away and continued their search for the real Quantrill.

Once the Federals had dispersed, Frank James and four others returned to visit their wounded commander, telling Quantrill that they wanted to take him and hide him in the woods. The guerrilla leader declined, murmuring: ‘Boys, it is impossible for me to get well, the war is over, and I am in reality a dying man, so let me alone. Goodbye.’ Two days later, after learning that the wounded Missourian was indeed Quantrill,Terrell returned, loaded Quantrill’s paralyzed frame onto a wagon and headed for the military prison in Louisville.

During the journey, Quantrill recognized a doctor in Jeffersonville and asked if he had treated him earlier in the raid. The physician answered: ‘I am the man. I have moved here.’ Showing grim humor despite the debilitating wound, Quantrill responded, ‘So have I.’ Later, two young women presented the guerrilla with a bouquet of flowers.

Upon reaching Louisville, Quantrill was placed in the military prison hospital, where he was nursed by a Catholic priest. He made a full confession, converted to Catholicism and took the sacrament of extreme unction. On June 6, following an operation, William Clarke Quantrill died at the age of 27.

The guerrilla leader left behind $800 in gold, a portion of which was earmarked to pay for his tombstone. The remaining funds were given to Kate Clarke, a pseudonym for his mistress, Kate King. Kate, who may have married Quantrill, had on occasion dressed like a man and ridden with the guerrillas. She apparently used her inheritance to start a house of ill repute in St. Louis.

Fearing that Quantrill’s body would be stolen, the priest who converted him buried the guerrilla in an unmarked grave in the Louisville Catholic Cemetery. In 1887, Quantrill’s mother visited the grave with William W. Scott, a boyhood friend of the bushwhacker who informed Mrs. Quantrill that he was planning to write a biography of her son. With her permission, Scott unearthed the chieftain’s body. When he touched the bones, Quantrill’s spinal column and ribs turned to dust. He took the skull to Mrs. Quantrill, who was able to identify the remains as her son’s because of a chipped tooth. Although she wanted the remains moved to Canal Dover, Scott kept the majority of them. A year later he gave a portion of the bones to the Kansas Historical Society, and following his death in 1902 the remainder were given to the same organization.

Quantrill’s bones now rest in three separate locations. The dust of his ribs and spine are in Louisville, an arm and shinbones are buried in Higginsville, Mo., while the rest are buried in Dover, Ohio. Despite the many burial locations, Quantrill’s skull traversed a wide area before reaching a final resting place. At one point a college fraternity acquired it and used it for initiation ceremonies. The grisly artifact then made it into the hands of the Kansas State Historical Society (where a wax copy of Quantrill’s head was made). At some point, the skull was shipped to Dover and eventually buried in 1992.

Many involved in Quantrill’s last ride met violent ends. Terrell, who managed to hunt down the bushwhacker, was killed a few weeks after Quantrill’s death. Terrell and his band were’shooting up’ Shelbyville after its citizens were accused of harboring Confederates. As Terrell was terrorizing the town, an incensed group of townspeople joined together and killed the Union guerrilla. Upon his death, Kentuckians breathed a sigh of relief that their state had been exorcised ‘of a notorious outlaw.’ He was 23 years old.

Captured Confederate bushwhacker Sue Mundy was taken to Louisville and hanged downtown while thousands watched. The guerrillas who had escaped Terrell’s ambush at the Wakefield house surrendered on July 26.

The death of Quantrill was overshadowed by the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. In death, however, myths enveloped the Missouri bushwhacker. To many he became a glorious figure, defending the sons and daughters of the South from the tyrannical North. In truth, Quantrill was a notorious killer, one who, had he survived the war, would doubtless have chalked up further violent escapades. Giving no quarter, Quantrill expected none. From his first murder in Kansas to his last in the Bluegrass State, Quantrill cut a violent swath wherever he went. The sensitive young schoolteacher became one of the most dangerous and despicable figures of the Civil War.

This article was written by Stuart W. Sanders and originally appeared in the March 1999 issue of America’s Civil War magazine.

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

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