Quantrill's Raiders

[CSA Today]

What is not to like about "Spoons?"

Old Spoons did prove useful when he managed to get his army get bottled up and tightly corked at Bermuda Hundred.

 

[Allie]

Old Spoons did prove useful when he managed to get his army get bottled up and tightly corked at Bermuda Hundred.

My husband was asking if Ben Butler was at the battle of Five Forks so everyone could have a full set of silverware.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

My husband was asking if Ben Butler was at the battle of Five Forks so everyone could have a full set of silverware.

 

[Lost Cause]

Getting back to the OP, "Black Flag: Guerrilla Warfare on the Western Border, 1861-1865" IMO is a good and objective read on that particular theater of operations.

 

[Littlestown]

I wonder what it was like to have been one of Quantrill's students back when he was a school teacher in Ohio.

Less than 15 miles from where I live. Tuscarawas County Historical Society has little to say about Quantrill. There is a replica Quantrill head though.

 

[rhettbutler1865]

Getting back to the OP, "Black Flag: Guerrilla Warfare on the Western Border, 1861-1865" IMO is a good and objective read on that particular theater of operations.

Thank you-my Amazon book purchases are beginning to break the bank!

 

[Lost Cause]

Thank you-my Amazon book purchases are beginning to break the bank!

The retribution style of warfare tends to be mind numbing when attempting to follow the back and forth events in that region.

 

[rhettbutler1865]

They sure were "back and forth"...and when watching the movie last night, I forgot Quantrill called himself a colonel, and wore the 3 stars on his coat (like the ever-gentile R>E>Lee did)--but he was commissioned a captain! What an ego, eh?

 

[hanna260]

Ugh. Quantrill. I can see how like Patrick H said; how each of his raiders probably had different sorts of morality- and how that can be fascinating (nothing like peering at an outlaw with standards), but Quantrill... was a complete thug, and I just don't see too many admirable qualities about him. So, mark me down with Ole and Rhett for the spitting.

 

[rhettbutler1865]

I agree, Hanna--I spit too (at him).

 

[Lost Cause]

Ugh. Quantrill. I can see how like Patrick H said; how each of his raiders probably had different sorts of morality- and how that can be fascinating (nothing like peering at an outlaw with standards), but Quantrill... was a complete thug, and I just don't see too many admirable qualities about him. So, mark me down for the spitting.

If you have not already, you might look into James H. Lane and Charles R. Jennison

 

[rhettbutler1865]

Would you please enlighten me--tell me of a "standard" that Quantrill had...That's, IMO. like saying Jesse James stole from the rich and gave to the poor...

 

[hanna260]

Would you please enlighten me--tell me of a "standard" that Quantrill had...That's, IMO. like saying Jesse James stole from the rich and gave to the poor...

Oh, I don't think anyone of us meant that Quantrill had standards. Just that some of his raiders may have. I think Lost Cause was recommending me some. (I think).

 

[rhettbutler1865]

OK--I'm quite sure there were men riding with him that were good at heart, and felt their cause was a necessary one..

 

[Lost Cause]

To clarify, Lane was a Brigadier General and a US Senator from Kansas. Jennison commanded the 7th Kansas Cavalry and then later the 15 Kansas Cavalry.

http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder.org/content/jayhawkers

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2011/10/26/james-lanes-revenge/

http://www.civilwarmo.org/educators/resources/info-sheets/thomas-ewing-jrs-general-order-no-11

 

[Patrick H]

Quantrill is an enigma to me. I used to toss him off as among the worst of the worst. Later, I began to see him as a leader with a very peculiar sort of duality in his behavior. There are numerous examples of this and sometimes they catch you by surprise as you read about him. For example, he approached Lawrence by a route that was unfamiliar to him, so he kidnapped a series of local guides along the way. When a guide got to the limit of his own familiar territory, he'd be murdered and a fresh guide would be kidnapped. I believe seven guides were "used and disposed of" in this way. However, the last guide was released. Why? I have no answer.

Quantrill went to Lawrence with a death list, but then protected a number of citizens while there. Why? I have no answer.

Quantrill occasionally paroled captives. Other times, they were shot. The most interesting story about a parole can be found in McCorckle's memoir. A union officer was captured during one of their fights and Quantrill hoped to exchange him for one of his own men being held prisoner by the feds and sentenced to hang on a certain date. That, in itself, was unusual because most of the guerrillas were summarily executed if captured. This next part is astonishing. The union officer struck a deal with Quantrill, promising to go into the garrison and persuade the commander there to make the exchange. He promised to come back if he was unable to persuade the commander. I doubt that Quantrill expected the man to return. I think it was more a matter of proving to the union garrison that he (Quantrill) was willing to parole and exchange prisoners. McCorckle says the attempt was unsuccessful, the bushwhacker was hung and the officer came back to Quantrill and brought the bad news. Quantrill thought it over and said words to the effect: "Boys, this man is too brave and honorable to kill" and he released the officer. Now, we only have McCorckle's eyewitness account for that story, so you'll all have to decide for yourselves whether McCorckle was fabricating the whole story decades later. I accept it as the truth.

 

[rhettbutler1865]

Quantrill is an enigma to me. I used to toss him off as among the worst of the worst. Later, I began to see him as a leader with a very peculiar sort of duality in his behavior. There are numerous examples of this and sometimes they catch you by surprise as you read about him. For example, he approached Lawrence by a route that was unfamiliar to him, so he kidnapped a series of local guides along the way. When a guide got to the limit of his own familiar territory, he'd be murdered and a fresh guide would be kidnapped. I believe seven guides were "used and disposed of" in this way. However, the last guide was released. Why? I have no answer.

Quantrill went to Lawrence with a death list, but then protected a number of citizens while there. Why? I have no answer.

Quantrill occasionally paroled captives. Other times, they were shot. The most interesting story about a parole can be found in McCorckle's memoir. A union officer was captured during one of their fights and Quantrill hoped to exchange him for one of his own men being held prisoner by the feds and sentenced to hang on a certain date. That, in itself, was unusual because most of the guerrillas were summarily executed if captured. This next part is astonishing. The union officer struck a deal with Quantrill, promising to go into the garrison and persuade the commander there to make the exchange. He promised to come back if he was unable to persuade the commander. I doubt that Quantrill expected the man to return. I think it was more a matter of proving to the union garrison that he (Quantrill) was willing to parole and exchange prisoners. McCorckle says the attempt was unsuccessful, the bushwhacker was hung and the officer came back to Quantrill and brought the bad news. Quantrill thought it over and said words to the effect: "Boys, this man is too brave and honorable to kill" and he released the officer. Now, we only have McCorckle's eyewitness account for that story, so you'll all have to decide for yourselves whether McCorckle was fabricating the whole story decades later. I accept it as the truth.

Nice post...Thank you!

 

[Patrick H]

Lane and Jennison were bad guys, too. Lane raided and burned towns in Missouri long before Lawrence. He was on Quantrill's death list, but he escaped. And even William Elsey Connelley (the Kansas historian who really demonized Quantrill in QUANTRILL AND THE BORDER WARS) said, in the very same book, that Jennison probably should have been hung. There were some very bad guys on the loose on both sides of the MO /Kansas border in those days.

 

[rhettbutler1865]

Lane and Jennison were bad guys, too. Lane raided and burned towns in Missouri long before Lawrence. He was on Quantrill's death list, but he escaped. And even William Elsey Connelley (the Kansas historian who really demonized Quantrill in QUANTRILL AND THE BORDER WARS) said, in the very same book, that Jennison probably should have been hung. There were some very bad guys on the loose on both sides of the MO /Kansas border in those days.

Yes, indeed...we only hear about the bushwhackers, it seems...

 

[Lost Cause]

Some became a product of the environment they were in, which led to the style of war in which they fought. Families being murdered and farms being burned often brings out the worst in people. For others, the war brought about an internal desire to kill and destroy.