William T. Anderson

William T. Anderson a.k.a "Bloody Bill" (1839–October 26, 1864) was a pro-Confederate guerrilla leader in the American Civil War, known for his brutality towards Union soldiers and pro-Union civilians in Missouri and Kansas.

Early years

Anderson was raised in Randolph County, Missouri by William Anderson, Sr., a hat maker, and his mother Martha. In 1850, his father travelled to California, leaving Anderson and his two brothers to provide for the family in his absence. After William Anderson Sr. returned from California, the Anderson family moved to Agnes City Township, Kansas, in 1857.

Anderson worked for a time on a wagon train and was suspected of horse theft. He conducted several forays into Missouri, primarily for the purposes of theft. Anderson's father was killed in 1862 by a neighbor over an ongoing dispute. Anderson and his brother Jim later confronted the neighbor, killing him and another man.

In 1924, a Brown County, Texas settler named William C. Anderson was interviewed by Henry C. Fuller who was a staff writer for the Brownwood Banner-Bulletin. William Columbus Anderson admitted to Fuller that he was the real Bloody Bill Anderson and had escaped Missouri, where he was reportly killed, and settled in Brown County, Texas. He lived in a big farmhouse he built at Salt Creek, near Brownwood, until his death at age eighty-seven in 1927.

Anderson as a guerrilla

No later than the spring of 1863, Anderson and his brother Jim became bushwhackers and joined Quantrill's Confederate guerrilla squad. He later became one of Quantrill's lieutenants. The same year, Union authorities, frustrated by their failure to stamp out the bushwhackers, decided to arrest relatives of the leading members of Qauntrill's group. Two of Anderson's sisters, Mary and Josephine, were imprisoned with nine other women, all being accused of assisting Confederate partisans. They were housed in a Kansas City, Missouri, building. The building was made structurally unsound by Union soldiers who, in an effort to make more space in a lower room, removed partitions and posts that supported the second floor. On August 14 of the same year, the building collapsed, killing four of the women, including Josephine, while Mary was severely crippled for the rest of her life. This incident has generally been considered the spark for a virulent new brutality that Anderson demonstrated against Union soldiers and civilians.

On March 2,1863, Anderson married Bush Smith of Sherman, Texas. They later moved to a farm in Ray County, Missouri, but Anderson continued his guerrilla activities.

Raids on Lawrence, Kansas, and Centralia, Missouri

Anderson participated in Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas on August 21, 1863. Around 200 civilian men and boys were reported to have been killed and many homes and buildings were burned to the ground. Soon afterward, Quantrill led his men on a winter retreat to Texas. There he and Anderson quarreled, and Anderson returned to Missouri in March 1864 at the head of his own guerrilla organization.

In 1864, Anderson gained notoriety for his particular savagery against soldiers and civilians alike. He and his men usually shot their prisoners, and often mutilated and scalped the dead. He dictated or perhaps personally wrote letters to newspapers in Lexington, Missouri, promising further violence against pro-Union civilians and threatening to take women of Union families as hostages. That year he was joined by a group of recruits who had briefly fought with Archie Clement, his own lieutenant; those recruits included Frank James, who had been one of Quantrill's Raiders, and the sixteen-year-old Jesse James. During this time, Anderson's men adopted the practice of dangling the bloody scalps of their victims from their horse bridles.

On September 27, 1864, Anderson led fellow bushwhackers in the Centralia massacre (Missouri), looting and burning buildings and terrifying the local populace. They barricaded the tracks of the Northern Missouri Railroad, and forced a train to stop. They robbed the civilian passengers, and murdered 21 Union soldiers who were returning home to Iowa and northwest Missouri on furlough. Anderson left one Union sergeant alive for a possible prisoner exchange; the rest he had stripped, shot, and scalped or otherwise mutilated.

The same day, Union Major A.V.E. Johnston of the 39th Missouri Infantry Volunteers set off with his men to pursue Anderson's band. Anderson, in conjunction with other guerrilla leaders such as George Todd, sent out a detachment that lured Johnston into a trap. After discharging their single-shot rifles with little effect, the Union solders retreated in a panic as the guerrillas cut them down. Those who tried to surrender were executed. Around 120 mounted infantrymen were killed in the ambush and pursuit. Bodies of the soldiers were decapitated and mutilated by some of the guerrillas.

Anderson's death

During the Centralia massacre, the attention of Union commanders in Missouri was drawn south by the incursion of General Sterling Price with 12,000 men. After a costly attack on a federal garrison at Pilot Knob, Missouri, Price turned away from St. Louis and marched west, drawing Union forces south of the Missouri River. Anderson briefly consulted with Price, then returned to the north side of the river, where he faced only local Union militia forces.

Forced to confront Anderson's marauding in north Missouri, the Union headquarters gave Colonel Samuel P. Cox command of a large detachment of Missouri militiamen, with orders to find and destroy the notorious bushwhacker. On October 26 1864, he located Anderson's men near Albany, Missouri.

Cox used one of Anderson's favorite tactics against him. He sent out a mounted detachment to lure the guerrillas into a trap. The trick worked. Anderson led his men on a headlong charge after the retreating Union cavalrymen, straight into a firing line. He was shot twice in the head, and toppled from his horse behind the Union line. Found on Anderson's body after his death was a silken cord with fifty-three knots. It was believed that this was his way of keeping a record of his killings. Human scalps were also found on the bridle. His body was put on public display and photographed.

He was buried in an unmarked grave in Pioneer Cemetery, in Richmond, Missouri. His birth year was incorrectly put as 1840 on a tombstone years after his death.

Sources

Albert E. Castel, Thomas Goodrich, Bloody Bill Anderson: The Short, Savage life of a Civil War Guerilla
Edward E. Leslie,The Devil Knows How to Ride: The True Story of William Clarke Quantrill and His Confederate Raiders
Thomas Goodrich Bloody Dawn: The Story of the Lawrence Massacre
T.J. Stiles, Jesse James : Last Rebel of the Civil War, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002
Jay Longley, Bloody Bill Anderson Mystery group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bloodybillandersonmystery

External links

Official website for the Family of Frank & Jesse James: Stray Leaves, A James Family in America Since 1650: http://www.ericjames.org
Biography of Bloody Bill Anderson
Biography of Bloody Bill Anderson
page about Bloody Bill