The fighting 2 51day. Union artillery silenced Confederate
guns, and a Federal assault swept the field.
Had the Union authorities only
confronted organized armies in Missouri,
they would probably have eliminated the
threat in 1863. But longstanding tensions,
ideological differences over slavery, and the
conduct of Union troops stirred up a
hornets' nest of trouble from guerrilla bands.
Although many Rebel guerrillas there had
strong ties to slavery, quite a few others
exhibited a passion for violence and
destruction that may have been pathological.
Helping to ignite this tinderbox were
Kansans who combined fervent abolitionism
with a passion for plundering.
During the Missouri campaign of 1861,
there were pockets of fighting in which
neither side gave quarter. Yet raids from
Kansas fueled the violence when they
extended from confiscation of slaves and
livestock to arson, robbery, and murder.
These Kansans insisted they were merely
retaliating for the slaughter of seven of their
people by guerrillas a few days earlier, but
acts of savagery begat more acts of savagery,
and soon the entire region was ablaze in
deeds of violence or brutal reprisals.
In an effort to check the acts of partisans,
Union occupation troops under
Major-General David Hunter and John
Schofieid nearly ruined their careers with
repeated failures. They tried building forts in
guerrilla-infested areas, but local partisans
blended into the community and struck
when they discovered soldiers at a
disadvantage. Next, they experimented with
population removal. Because guerrillas drew
from friends and families for support,
Brigadier-General Thomas Ewing had
arrested the wives and family members of
notorious guerrillas as leverage against them.
Not long afterward, in August 1863, Ewing
announced he would transport those under
arrest as well as the families and other
supporters of the Confederacy to Arkansas.
Before he could do that, though, the rickety
building where he housed some of the
women collapsed, killing five and crippling
another. Two victims were sisters of William
A West Point graduate and a former Republican
congressman from Iowa, Samuel R. Curtis led a
successful operation into southwest Missouri and
northern Arkansas, and defeated Confederates at Pea
Ridge. After heading the Departments of Missouri and
Kansas, Curtis led Union forces that helped to defeat
Price's Missouri Raid in 1864. (Library of Congress)Anderson, already known for his violence.
He now vowed to kill every Yankee he could
find, and it was not long before he earned
the nickname 'Bloody Bill,'
In retaliation, Quantrill led his party of
450 on a raid against Lawrence, Kansas, a
hotbed of abolitionism. En route, they forced
Kansas farmers to act as guides and then
executed them. On 21 August, they slipped
into town and disposed of the small number
of soldiers there. The town soon surrendered,
but those words meant nothing to Quantrill
and his followers. All told, they murdered
150 males, wounded 30 more and torched
185 buildings.
Federals responded to the raid by ordering
all western Missourians who did not live in
certain cities to migrate. Those who pledged
loyalty to the Union could settle around
forts, and all others would have to abandon
the area. Union authorities hoped to deprive
guerrillas of local support and establish
free-fire zones in the area, thereby