The Death of Bill Anderson

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I have already stipulated that the Union COIN war in Missouri was not fought on a textbook perfect level. Yes armed teenagers fought on both sides. On the other hand as I have shown the Bushwackers did kill unarmed young boys including civilian boys .
We don't know what Anderson and Quantrill thought about possible repercussions from the raid. Logic dictates that after a brutal action such as Lawrence the Union especially the Kansas Union troops would seek out some kind of revenge.
Considering the brutality of the Lawrence Massacre the Union reprisals such has Order # 11 were comparatively mild. The Kansas troops did not shoot down every man and boy over 13 in the Burnt district. Missourians in the Burnt District would loose their homes but not their menfolk. Therefore they suffered less then the womenfolk of Lawrence.
Leftyhunter

So bacically what your saying is that families who could not prove to the satisfaction of the CG district of the border (Ewing, a former Kansas SC justice) their loyalty to the Union had it a comin to em cause they was Missourians? regardless OF THEIR ACTUAL LOYALTIES?
Yeah the women and kids and elderly got of really easy banished from their homes unable to take all their possessions banished from the district by Ewing under political threats by Lane, oh and plenty of men and boys were lost during the carrying out of this order , that effected far more people than Lawrence, pray tell why do you think it was called the Burnt District ?

Try as you will the order and the things it caused can no be absolved than the Lawrence Raid accesses both were beyond the pale and both were how the war in Missouri and Kansas was.
 
They weren't soldiers as a fact, but they were uniformed and drilling as future recruits

Trying to get an idea of the numbers. There were 180-190 men killed in the Lawrence Massacre. How many of those were "drilling as future recruits" and what source explains that?

Lawrence had long been the subject of attacks and there was anticipation of a coming attack before the Massacre. Were some of those drilling in expectation that their community would be attacked?
 
of it


So bacically what your saying is that families who could not prove to the satisfaction of the CG district of the border (Ewing, a former Kansas SC justice) their loyalty to the Union had it a comin to em cause they was Missourians? regardless OF THEIR ACTUAL LOYALTIES?
Yeah the women and kids and elderly got of really easy banished from their homes unable to take all their possessions banished from the district by Ewing under political threats by Lane, oh and plenty of men and boys were lost during the carrying out of this order , that effected far more people than Lawrence, pray tell why do you think it was called the Burnt District ?

Try as you will the order and the things it caused can no be absolved than the Lawrence Raid accesses both were beyond the pale and both were how the war in Missouri and Kansas was.
If you can document that Union forces executed as many unarmed boys and men as did the Confederates at Lawrence then that would prove both sides are evil.
Again what did Quantrill think what would happan to Missourians post Lawrence? Did they think that the Kansans would just laugh off the raid or cower in fear?
For a free fire zone to wprk it needs to be free of people.
Has bad as the Burnt District actions where it pales tin comparison to how U.S. troops and othets would deal with civilians in future COIN conflicts.I have some sources quoted in my Vietnam moderated thread about that.
Leftyhunter
 
Trying to get an idea of the numbers. There were 180-190 men killed in the Lawrence Massacre. How many of those were "drilling as future recruits" and what source explains that?

Lawrence had long been the subject of attacks and there was anticipation of a coming attack before the Massacre. Were some of those drilling in expectation that their community would be attacked?
From what I have read from various books on the subject their was no expectation of an attack on Lawrence.
Quantrill's men were actually spoted crosing into Kansas but the Union commander thought to warn towns only north and south not further east as was Lawrence.
Leftyhunter
 
He's one of the chillier figures of the war, that's for sure! I think circumstances in Missouri in particular did seem to trigger things inside some heads that would not have been triggered otherwise. Anderson might have gone on his way being a farmer, nobody the wiser about any loose screws he might have had.
I believe it was Michael Fellman (in his book Inside War) who wrote about how the Civil War in Missouri caused personalities to "disintegrate." Some people became criminally insane, and others just went pathologically numb from all the shock and horror. And then, after the war, people who had been "good, churchgoing people" before the war went right back to being "good, churchgoing people" after the war. Missouri gives me nightmares.
 
Leftyhunter and others: I REFUSE to get into a body count sort of score keeping thing here on my thread. I launched this thread to document the death anniversary of a man I consider to be one of the WORST players in the entire war. Some of you have spun this into your own arguments. It was ALL appalling. I advise all of you to accept that fact and quit trying to justify atrocities of the two sides against each other. That's where the original boys went wrong...don't you see? They imagined they were keeping score. Let's don't do that here. Or....if we do, let's launch a thread specifically for score keeping.

See what I mean?
 
I believe it was Michael Fellman (in his book Inside War) who wrote about how the Civil War in Missouri caused personalities to "disintegrate." Some people became criminally insane, and others just went pathologically numb from all the shock and horror. And then, after the war, people who had been "good, churchgoing people" before the war went right back to being "good, churchgoing people" after the war. Missouri gives me nightmares.
Freestater, my excellent friend, it continues to give MANY people nightmares! You are not alone. I find it endlessly fascinating until I stop to ponder the sheer human cost of certain events. Then I just sort of freak out for a little while!
 
Every violent aggressor has a grievance. Back at Woodlawn Junior High School in 1967, the bullies used to say " You lookin at me?" before they punched the smaller kids.
Criminal gangs from the Plug Uglies to the Black Panthers align themselves with a political cause for cover and then the true believers excuse, explain, defend, glorify, and finally mythologize their vicious exploits.
Wars present a great opportunity for bloodthirsty psychopaths. A chip off his tombstone indeed.
THANK YOU, Pvt. Shattuck, for expressing my own thoughts perfectly. I have read that 3 to 4 percent of the population is sociopaths. Sociopaths typically ruin the lives of the people closest to them, but the scale of damage they can do during normal times may be kept in check by social expectations and by law (the fear of getting caught). That is one of the great beauties of civil order, and is why people who start riots and such are playing with fire. In time of civic breakdown, and especially in war, sociopaths have free rein.

There is a character in Ralph Peters's Cain at Gettysburg who was a sociopath in normal life -- a person who enjoyed being cruel -- and, once the war started, enjoyed the freedom that it gave him to indulge his pleasure in killing people and destroying things. The war may have begun and been prosecuted for noble purposes, but once it's raging, all the rats come out.
 
Another of Missouri's "bad boys" was Sam Hildebrand. He is a lesser known but equally cold hearted killer. If you do a Google search there are links to some good reads about him. Visited his grave site last year, not as an admirer, but learning and tracking down civil war history in my area.View attachment 113624
Ugh. Who on earth decorates these graves?!
 
The best way to discuss the late unpleasantness in Mo if in a layout blind waiting for darn pesky snow geese eating out the poor downtrodden farmers of the great state of Mo during the conservation season. After the hunt it could be discussed over some well aged adult beverage.
Leftyhunter
Wow, that's hardcore. But thanks for the chuckle!
 
Unfortunately the conflict in Missouri didn't end fully after the Civil War. I descend from two ancestors who fought in the Civil War from Missouri. Their descendants, including an ancestor of mine, were part of a post-Civil War vigilante gang in the Missouri Ozarks, The Bald Knobbers. Of course there was a counter group, creatively called the Anti-Bald Knobbers and they clashed multiple decades past the Civil War and their echoes even were still present into the 20th century.
 
Hey, Bee, I just re-read the thread. What a concept you have given me: A "Who's who of guerrillas". I have a problem, though. I would be the most avid reader, but I am probably not qualified to write it. But maybe I can launch a thread and we'll see where it goes.

Sorry to side track, I thought that a 'Who's who of guerrillas" was a great idea, has the thread been created yet only I cant seem to find it. If it hasn't, can we please start one, I reckon it would be a great resource.
 
If you can document that Union forces executed as many unarmed boys and men as did the Confederates at Lawrence then that would prove both sides are evil.
Again what did Quantrill think what would happan to Missourians post Lawrence? Did they think that the Kansans would just laugh off the raid or cower in fear?
For a free fire zone to wprk it needs to be free of people.
Has bad as the Burnt District actions where it pales tin comparison to how U.S. troops and othets would deal with civilians in future COIN conflicts.I have some sources quoted in my Vietnam moderated thread about that.
Leftyhunter
Free Fire Zones are a modern concept, RVN era, Ewing and Lane, probably couldn't wrap their noggins around that concept or the vaunted COIN tactics you are so enamoured of, They were trying to do was depopulate a portion of the state and cut off support for the partisans, it didn't work well and it was brutal towards non-combatants, and yes some were unionists too.

What did WCQ think would happen, golly I don't know but I'm guessin pretty much what had been happening in the border counties for years, though probably not on the scale against civilians that Ewing and Lane initiated.

What happened in future COIN (theres that referance again) is neither here nor there ,
 
Trying to get an idea of the numbers. There were 180-190 men killed in the Lawrence Massacre. How many of those were "drilling as future recruits" and what source explains that?

Lawrence had long been the subject of attacks and there was anticipation of a coming attack before the Massacre. Were some of those drilling in expectation that their community would be attacked?

I've sen different figures for the "recruit" camp" from a couple platoons to a Company +, Schultz, Peterson and some others never really nail down a firm number, but the fact remains they were uniformed, drilling and playing soldier, not a healthy sitution then or now in a partisan war zone, as they found out the hard way.
 
Free Fire Zones are a modern concept, RVN era, Ewing and Lane, probably couldn't wrap their noggins around that concept or the vaunted COIN tactics you are so enamoured of, They were trying to do was depopulate a portion of the state and cut off support for the partisans, it didn't work well and it was brutal towards non-combatants, and yes some were unionists too.

What did WCQ think would happen, golly I don't know but I'm guessin pretty much what had been happening in the border counties for years, though probably not on the scale against civilians that Ewing and Lane initiated.

What happened in future COIN (theres that referance again) is neither here nor there ,
Negative sir. Your first few sentences described a free fire zone. The U.S. first used free fire zones and protected villages in the Civil War not the Vietnam War. I have quoted from the book " A Question of Command Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq" Mark Moyars that Col . Harrison of the 1st Arkansas Cavalry regiment Union used both free fire zones and protected villages in Arkansas. Back in the day Counterinsurgency may not of been called counterinsurgency but it was in fact practiced by both sidrs.
Leftyhunter
 
Free Fire Zones are a modern concept, RVN era, Ewing and Lane, probably couldn't wrap their noggins around that concept or the vaunted COIN tactics you are so enamoured of, They were trying to do was depopulate a portion of the state and cut off support for the partisans, it didn't work well and it was brutal towards non-combatants, and yes some were unionists too.

What did WCQ think would happen, golly I don't know but I'm guessin pretty much what had been happening in the border counties for years, though probably not on the scale against civilians that Ewing and Lane initiated.

What happened in future COIN (theres that referance again) is neither here nor there ,
If WCQ and Anderson didn't think that the folks from Kansas would be slightly upset about Lawrence then they were not guilty of being deep thinkers. Did the good brave men of their bands of merry men think the Kansas folk would just laugh off the raid?
If the roles were reversed would not the Confederates have done the same as Ewing in creating a Burnt District?
Leftyhunter
 
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