GUERRILLAS AND PARTISANSreprisals against civilians who had
cooperated with Union forces. Union
officers in parts of Virginia, Tennessee,
and Mississippi especially struggled as
they occupied, evacuated, and then
reoccupied locales after major
Confederate incursions. As General
Benjamin Butler said in 1862, “It is cruel
to take possession of any point unless
we continue to hold it with an armed
force, because when we take possession
of any place those well disposed will
show us kindness and good wishes; the
moment we leave, a few ruffians come
in and maltreat every person who has
not scowled at the Yankees.”
Bloody Missouri
This problem was most manifest in
the border state of Missouri, which
had a mix of extreme secessionist
enclaves and pro-Union communities
supported by loyal Kansas militias and
occupying Federal troops. A miniature
civil war broke out in the absence of
formal military operations, and the
barbarities committed by both sides
were extreme.
When some sisters and wives of
men in the band of notorious guerrilla
leader William C. Quantrill died while
incarcerated by Union authorities, the
enraged Quantrill brought together
every Confederate guerrilla group in
Missouri he could find and led 450
men on a raid of revenge against the
Free-Soil town of Lawrence, Kansas. On
August 21, 1863, Quantrill and his men
reached the unprotected hamlet, deep in
Union territory. He ordered, “Kill every
male and burn every house.” Three
hours later, 182 men and
boys lay dead and 185
buildings had burned to the
ground. Union reprisals failed
to track down many of those
responsible, but succeeded in
killing and burning out even
more civilians. In Missouri,
the Civil War was also a war
on civilians.
Because of the escalating
difficulties in dealing with
Confederate guerrillas,
Union officers began to take
matters more and more into their own
hands. Guerrillas caught destroying
Federal property were frequently shot
on sight, and captured irregulars were
often killed “while trying to escape.”
Disloyal civilians were blacklisted and
had their freedoms curtailed.
Increasingly, the treatment of
Southern civilians and irregular fighters
depended on the judgment of the
local Union commander. The War
Department began to follow their
lead in late 1862, calling all Southern
guerrillas “the common enemies of
mankind [to be] hunted and shot
without challenge wherever found.”The Lieber Code
Two consequences emanated from
the hardening Northern measures: a
Federal code of conduct and a new,
hybrid Confederate formation. The
first, entitled the Lieber Code after its
author, legal expert Francis Lieber, was
transformed into Union army doctrine
as General Orders 100. It classified
Southern irregulars into four distinctcategories—partisan rangers, guerrillas,
“war rebels,” and bushwhackers—and
suggested courses of action on how to
deal with each. Lieber advised that
rangers and guerrillas should generally
be treated as prisoners of war, but for
the other two groups, which, he said,
ignored the rules of war and failed to
wear uniforms, harsh treatment was
permitted. These official guidelines
sanctioned local Union officers’
counterinsurgency efforts, and marked
the first time that a government had
issued a document that regulated
military conduct toward irregulars
and enemy civilians.
The second consequence was the
formal creation, in the spring of 1862,
of Confederate partisan ranger units.
Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee
recognized the value of quasi-military
units working independently behind
enemy lines and answering to formal
military authority. The most famous
of these units was Colonel John S.
Mosby’s battalion of Virginia Partisan
Rangers, which so terrorized Union
authorities in northern Virginia that
the area was referred to as “Mosby’s
Confederacy.” Mosby repeatedly
raided the B&O Railroad, attacked
Union wagon trains, and tied
down thousands of Union troops
in garrison duty. Ulysses S. Grant
was so bothered by Mosby’s activities
that in 1864, he ordered all captured
Mosby partisans to “hang without
trial,” thereby violating the spirit of
the Lieber Code.The number of Union
troops said to have been
captured, killed, or wounded by John
Mosby’s partisan rangers by late 1864,
although there were never more than
400 men in his command.1,200
“Irrepressible Mosby is again in
the saddle carrying destruction
and consternation in his path.”
RICHMOND WHIG, OCTOBER 18, 1864CONFEDERATE CAVALRY OFFICER (1833–1916)JOHN S. MOSBY
Tough Union antiguerrilla actions mirrored
Grant’s and Sherman’s ruthless operations.
In some areas, these combined to leave a
legacy of hatred and lawlessness.GUERRILLAS INTO OUTLAWS
When the Confederate armies surrendered,
many guerrilla fighters, such as the James
brothers and Cole Younger, turned to crime;
others joined the Ku Klux Klan 340–41 ❯❯.LONG-LIVED ANIMOSITIES
Long after the Civil War, many Southern
communities harbored a bitter animosity
against Yankees. Wherever the irregular war
had been most intense, this animosity persisted
the longest and hampered reconciliation.AFTER
COLE YOUNGER, TRAIN ROBBERThe Sack of Lawrence
In the raid on Lawrence of 1863, Quantrill’s
men not only burned most of the town
and killed the men, they also robbed
the bank. Among the raiders were future
outlaws Cole Younger and Frank James.A conventional cavalryman and aide to Jeb
Stuart early in the war, Mosby quickly made
a name for himself as a canny intelligence-
gatherer and impressed Robert E. Lee so
much that he was given command of the
43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry, soon known
as “Mosby’s Rangers.” A skillful tactician
who knew every byway and hideout in
northern Virginia, Mosby was beloved
by his men and local civilians alike,
who suffered Union reprisals because
of his activities. His most daring exploit
was the capture of Union general Edwin
Stoughton in his bed, roused with a slap to
his rear. Mosby survived the war, became a
Republican, and befriended Ulysses S. Grant.