150th Anniversary: Assault of Millionaire Benjamin Lewis

Tumbleweed

Sergeant
Joined
Mar 14, 2013
Location
Southern WI
Late in the evening William T. (Bloody Bill) Anderson forced his way into the mansion of prominent tobacco grower and Union loyalist, Benjamin Lewis. According to some reports, Lewis had put a $6000 dead or alive reward on Anderson's head and the guerrilla decided to collect it personally. Anderson and his accomplice so savagely beat and tortured the fifty-two year old that he never fully recovered from the ordeal and died sixteen months later.

This account of the abuse was printed in the New York Times a few weeks later.
 
  • Late in the evening William T. (Bloody Bill) Anderson forced his way into the mansion of prominent tobacco grower and Union loyalist, Benjamin Lewis. According to some reports, Lewis had put a $6000 dead or alive reward on Anderson's head and the guerrilla decided to collect it personally. Anderson and his accomplice so savagely beat and tortured the fifty-two year old that he never fully recovered from the ordeal and died sixteen months later.

    This account of the abuse was printed in the New York Times a few weeks later.

  • War certainly brings out the best in people, doesn't it?
 
Some people just seem to thrive in war. Anderson was a piece of work to be sure but after reading the article I can't help but wonder if the author didn't just decide to up the ante on sensationalism just to see what he could get away with. Perhaps he was earnest and those who recalled the incident embellished the events of that night. Either way I'm having trouble taking all that is written at face value.

That two men spent "several hours" torturing Mr. Lewis while family members, household servants and hired men failed to intervene or at least run for help is almost beyond believable. Anderson was so drunk he was hiccuping yet he kept everyone paralyzed with fear and even took time out during the beating to rape a servant girl? And rode a horse he'd taught to do tricks and stomp people? I was unaware he'd been a part-time circus performer.

Missouri resident and CWT member Borderruffian wrote that when studying Missouri, "everything needs to be viewed with a jaundiced eye and taken with a grain of salt."

I try to keep that quote in mind whenever I come across such articles like the one I've linked to. Oh, the incident happened, no doubt, but whether it happened as the author states will never be known.
 
Hey, Tumbleweed, you are exactly on top of things with this thread. To see a little bit about circumstances leading up to it, see my thread "Price Moves On, Anderson Comes Back." Anderson is a hard person to understand. We think we do, but we probably don't. He might have been a whacko all along. If not, then I believe he became whacko after his little sister was killed in the Kansas City jail collapse. In any event, it seems unarguable to me that he was consumed by hatred of anything or anyone union.

This week in history, even George Todd and the other bands had gone west and were scouting for Price or harassing the union units chasing him. But not Anderson. Anderson might have technically carried out his orders from Price but he didn't persevere as far east as Price hoped. He came back to Glasgow and enjoyed a little personal revenge or exploitation of someone with whom he must have had a grudge. There is no explaining Anderson. We can only draw our personal assumptions about him. He would not live long beyond this date in history, and he would die by being lured into the kind of ambush that he normally used to such advantage against the militias who chased him.
 
I just read your latest post, Patrick. I had assumed you wouldn't let this incident pass without comment but when you hadn't posted anything by nine PM Tuesday I went ahead and did. Concerning George Todd, one of my books says he was killed by a sniper October 21. The incident is also recorded in Three Years with Quantrill but the exact date isn't given. What's unsettling is that Captain Todd told his men that he knew he would be killed and to make sure he was given a decent burial.

What historians think of William Anderson's mental status is of little value from my perspective. It's what his contemporaries thought of him that I go by and I can find no one who even insinuated that he was insane. Desperate, cruel, a devil, consumed with revenge, etc., but wouldn't those adjectives describe a majority of players on the guerrilla side of the war? However, if Bill Anderson did molest a twelve year old girl, fiend and wretch aren't descriptive enough.

Another book I have says that the true horror of the war in Missouri was that the citizens "inflicted incredible savagery upon each other, then returned to being law abiding citizens." Truly, war does bring out the best and worst in people.
 
I just read your latest post, Patrick. I had assumed you wouldn't let this incident pass without comment but when you hadn't posted anything by nine PM Tuesday I went ahead and did. Concerning George Todd, one of my books says he was killed by a sniper October 21. The incident is also recorded in Three Years with Quantrill but the exact date isn't given. What's unsettling is that Captain Todd told his men that he knew he would be killed and to make sure he was given a decent burial.

What historians think of William Anderson's mental status is of little value from my perspective. It's what his contemporaries thought of him that I go by and I can find no one who even insinuated that he was insane. Desperate, cruel, a devil, consumed with revenge, etc., but wouldn't those adjectives describe a majority of players on the guerrilla side of the war? However, if Bill Anderson did molest a twelve year old girl, fiend and wretch aren't descriptive enough.

Another book I have says that the true horror of the war in Missouri was that the citizens "inflicted incredible savagery upon each other, then returned to being law abiding citizens." Truly, war does bring out the best and worst in people.
Hi, Tumbleweed. I really like your comments here. I've read most or all of the same source material you've referenced and I think it's really fascinating to learn how the various authors reported on events. McCorckle (who I believe was a very effective scout and soldier) seems to have had a brotherly respect and affection for George Todd. Our other readers might be interested to know that Todd confided his premonition of death to McCorckle and a few of the other boys. In his memoir, McCorckle also talks about the first time he ever saw Frank James. I liked that passage in the book. Todd, of course, is a sort of mysterious figure--a Canadian by birth and a bridge mason in his father's company. I've never learned why he would feel a particular allegiance to either side during our war, but something obviously made him choose to join Quantrill. If you have any information on that, I'd be very interested in reading it.

I agree with your thoughts on modern historians and their perspectives, too. They've influenced the "conventional" understanding of these guys and in a lot of cases they've painted them all with the same broad brush stroke, which I believe is a disservice to the historic characters. I'm satisfied those guys had as many individual motivations as any other group of people and they had their individual senses of justice, of right and wrong, etc.

Yes, the citizens out here in Missouri (at least some of them) did some outrageous things to each other from time to time. One of the most common and most destructive was defamation of character. Just accusing a neighbor of disloyalty was sometimes enough to completely ruin the neighbor and cause them to be imprisoned, banished, or deprived of almost everything they owned. Violence was committed, too--especially after one party or another joined a militia unit or a guerrilla band. Then personal scores could be settled in the most savage way. It was a rough place to live in those days, without doubt.

You always write very thought-provoking posts and I hope you keep them coming.
 
I've been out of internet service since late Saturday am so I apologize for taking so long to get back to this thread.

I did have time to do a bit of research on George Todd and in one of my books the author, Evault Boswell, says that according to John Edwards, Todd was born in Scotland but fled to Canada after committing a murder. Boswell then writes, "Like most of the gang, Todd had a story of destruction of home and death of family members to justify his entry into the guerrilla war but verification is lacking."

I wanted to read what Edwards had to say on the subject for myself but the book is 400+ pages and doesn't have a name index so it's quite a hunt through all those pages. I went through Edward Leslie's, The Devil Knows How to Ride but there was little of George Todd's background there.
 
I've been out of internet service since late Saturday am so I apologize for taking so long to get back to this thread.

I did have time to do a bit of research on George Todd and in one of my books the author, Evault Boswell, says that according to John Edwards, Todd was born in Scotland but fled to Canada after committing a murder. Boswell then writes, "Like most of the gang, Todd had a story of destruction of home and death of family members to justify his entry into the guerrilla war but verification is lacking."

I wanted to read what Edwards had to say on the subject for myself but the book is 400+ pages and doesn't have a name index so it's quite a hunt through all those pages. I went through Edward Leslie's, The Devil Knows How to Ride but there was little of George Todd's background there.

Hi, again, Tumbleweed. Thanks for the information about George Todd. I've got the John Edwards book, too, but missed the part about Todd's Scottish birth. It's easy to miss things in Edwards's writing, as you have doubtless discovered many times. His writing is so flowery that it requires more concentration than I can sometimes give it. Even then, I wonder how much of it is fact, how much is based on hearsay and how much he simply fabricated to suit his notion of things. However, I have no trouble accepting that Todd was born in Scotland.

I wonder if Edwards ever actually met and knew Todd. It's possible, as some of the guerrillas briefly operated with Shelby's cavalry (I believe in N.W. Arkansas). It's very likely that Edwards was able to gather some information about various guerrillas from those who survived the war. They might or might not have told accurate stories. Edwards might or might not have been sober when he took notes. Or...he might have just decided that some of those guys needed more daring and dash added to accounts of their actions. The problem with Edwards is that he most likely does give us some accurate history at times, but it's so darned hard to know when he's doing that!

I think Todd will always remain one of the more mysterious characters among all the guerrilla bands. Thanks for your effort to find more about him.
 
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