Quantrill’s Raiders was a band of Confederate irregulars that employed guerrilla tactics to ambush Union army patrols and terrorize Northern sympathizers, primarily in Kansas during the Civil War. These raiders were the best-known of the pro-Confederate partisan guerrillas, also known as “bushwhackers.” Their leader was William Clark Quantrill, and they included Jesse James and his brother Frank. Its most notable operation was the Lawrence Massacre, a revenge raid on Lawrence, Kansas, in August 1863.

In some respects, the Civil War began in Kansas and Missouri long before it officially erupted at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. Nearly seven years earlier, when President Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act on May 30, 1854, it allowed settlers in the Kansas Territory to decide whether to allow slavery. Sponsored by Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas, he believed that allowing the voters to decide would mend the sectional divide over the extension of slavery. Instead, it fanned the flames when settlers and ruffians on both sides of the issue rushed into Kansas Territory to influence the vote. This resulted in a turmoil and violence-filled era known as Bleeding Kansas.

In February 1861, Missouri voters elected delegates to a statewide convention, which rejected secession by a vote of 89-1.

However, by December 1861, Quantrill deserted the Confederate forces and began assembling a band of irregulars that used guerrilla tactics to ambush Yankee patrols and terrorize Northern sympathizers. Initially, the extra-military irregulars endeavored to support the Confederate regular forces in the field. However, their goals and methods soon embraced lawlessness. The young men who organized the band lived in the Blue Springs neighborhood of Jackson County, Missouri. By 1862, Quantrill’s feared band of followers included infamous figures such as William T. “Bloody Bill” Anderson and the James and Younger brothers, who led notorious gangs of outlaws after the war.

Quantrill was not the only Confederate guerrilla operating in Missouri, but he rapidly gained the greatest notoriety. He and his men ambushed Union patrols and supply convoys, seized the mail, and occasionally struck towns on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri border. Reflecting the destructive nature of the guerrilla conflict in Missouri, Quantrill directed much of his effort against pro-Union civilians by attempting to drive them from the territory in which he operated. Quantrill’s guerrillas attacked Jayhawkers, Missouri State Militia, and Union troops, relying primarily on ambushes and raids.

Under his direction, Confederate guerrillas perfected military tactics such as disguises, coordinated and synchronized attacks, planned dispersal after an attack using preplanned routes and horse relays, and technical methods such as using multiple Colt revolvers for increased firepower and their improved accuracy.

On August 15, 1862, Quantrill was granted a field commission as a captain in the Confederate Army under the Confederate Partisan Ranger Act. The men elected other officers, and Quantrill often referred to himself as a colonel. Despite the legal responsibility assumed by the Confederate government, Quantrill often acted on his own with little concern for his government’s policy or orders. This outraged the Confederate government, which withdrew support for the irregular forces.

As the size of Quantrill’s unit grew, his sorties expanded to include entire communities. Just after midnight on September 7, 1862, Quantrill’s force of roughly 140 men stormed Olathe, Kansas. While holding the citizenry captive, they looted the town’s businesses and homes, after killing six men.

The next month, Quantrill’s Raiders came across a Union supply train near Shawneetown (now Shawnee), Kansas, on October 17. Quietly surrounding the unsuspecting Federals, the guerrillas launched a surprise attack, easily killing 13 soldiers. Quantrill’s men then donned the uniforms of their victims and rode unmolested into Shawneetown, where they murdered several citizens, pillaged and burned the community’s businesses and homes, and then rode out with seven prisoners whom they later executed.

Quantrill’s most significant raid was the Lawrence Massacre that occurred on August 21, 1863, at Lawrence, Kansas, as retribution for a series of events that began earlier in the year. For years, Lawrence was a center of anti-slavery sentiment in Kansas and the historic base of operations for abolitionist and Jayhawker organizations. Pro-slavery forces also operated in the area, as both sides tried to gain power to determine whether Kansas would allow slavery. During the period of border warfare between 1855 and 1861, the region became known as “Bleeding Kansas” in the press.

In the weeks immediately preceding the raid, Union General Thomas Ewing, Jr., frustrated by the hit-and-run tactics of Quantrill’s guerrillas, commanded Federal troops to round up civilians who were aiding guerrillas operating within the District of the Border. Among those arrested were several female relatives and friends of Quantrill’s band. The Federals detained the women in makeshift jails in Kansas City, Missouri, including the house on Grand Street. Union soldiers enlarged the space on the first floor by removing supporting beams. On August 13, 1863, the building collapsed, killing four of the prisoners, including the sister of William T. “Bloody Bill” Anderson. A few days later, a fifth girl died from her injuries. Quantrill’s supporters alleged the collapse was a deliberate attack, fanning their fury.

Calling for revenge, Quantrill organized a unified partisan raid on Lawrence, although evidence suggests the raid had been planned before the collapse. Coordinating across vast distances, small bands of partisans rode 50 miles across open prairie to rendezvous on Mount Oread in the early morning hours before the raid. During the predawn hours of August 21, 1863, about 450 of Quantrill’s Raiders rode into Lawrence as most of the town’s unsuspecting residents slept. They murdered between 160 and 190 men and boys, many of whom were unarmed. After occupying the Eldridge Hotel, they broke into small groups and plundered the town for the next four hours. By the time the pillagers rode out, they had burned nearly one-quarter of the town’s buildings, robbed the bank, and looted every home. Afterward, the Leavenworth Daily Conservative’s account of the raid, published two days later, estimated that financial losses exceeded $2,000,000 (in 1863 currency). Home of free-state U.S. Senator James H. Lane, who was in town when the assault began, escaped by hiding in a nearby cornfield. The Lawrence raid was the most deadly and infamous operation of Missouri’s Confederate guerrillas, and one of the most vicious atrocities of the Civil War.

Quantrill then split his force and attacked Fort Blair from two directions. At about noon, the Rebels charged the garrison’s 90 soldiers as they sat down for lunch outside the fort. Amidst a hail of gunfire, the startled Federals fled for the safety of the fort. Once safely behind the breastworks, the outnumbered but better-disciplined Union soldiers stymied the guerrilla attack. After losing the element of surprise, along with about ten of his men, Quantrill suspended the assault.

Afterward, Quantrill reassembled the Raiders north of the fort, where he spotted a wagon train approaching. Deprived of his initial objective, he opted to pursue a consolation prize. Led by Major General James G. Blunt, the convoy comprised Blunt’s headquarters staff and a military band accompanied by a few cavalrymen on their way to Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Upon arriving in Texas, Quantrill’s outlaws soon began targeting pro-Confederate residents of the Lone Star State. Their presence reached its rock bottom on March 28, 1864, when authorities arrested Quantrill for murdering a Confederate officer. Before being tried, Quantrill escaped into Indian Territory (Oklahoma).

In May 1864, two of Quantrill’s Raiders, the Calhoun Brothers, were killed in a gunfight with Collin County, Texas Sheriff Captain James L. Read. Read was able to escape Quantrill’s rage after he went into hiding, but was lynched by Quantrill’s supporters in Tyler, Texas, on May 18, 1864. In the meantime, most of Quantrill’s men had dispersed into splinter gangs led by George Todd and “Bloody” Bill Anderson.

By 1865, William Quantrill, leading only a few dozen men, staged a series of raids into Kentucky. On May 10, 1865, Quantrill was trapped in a barn on the James H. Wakefield farm in Spencer County, Kentucky, by Edward Terrell and his cavalry detachment of hired assassins. While attempting to escape on horseback, he was struck by two Spencer balls, one in the hand, the other paralyzing him from the waist down. He was then transferred to a hospital in Louisville, where he died a few weeks later on June 6, 1865, at the age of 27.

Several of Quantrill’s Raiders eluded capture in Kentucky and returned to Kansas or Missouri. Following the war, authorities captured, imprisoned, and later pardoned some of Quantrill’s followers.