Anderson is a classic psychopathic murderer.To reason that he was effected by his sister's death or by the war is poor.Considering the fact that men who fought in the same area that he did and yet returned to civil life would tend to mute this.There were those who fought in the theater who where to become infamous after the war but none followed in his path.
"Anderson is a classic psychopathic murderer."
It's pretty hard to look at someone who died 150+ years ago and decide what motivated them, but if one were to look at the characteristics of a psychopath, Anderson could be the 1860's Psyco poster boy. His actions, beginning in 1863, exhibits most of characteristics that psychiatrists note for psychopathy.
"To reason that he was effected by his sister's death or by the war is poor."
No, it's not, although I'll grant that your are entitled to your opinion.
In the 1860 census, 21 year old William Anderson jointly owned a Kansas farm with is father which was valued at $1000, so by the standards of the time, they were not wealthy by any means, but were better off than most of the recent settlers. In 1859, his older brother killed an Indian, fled to Iowa, and was later killed there. In 1860 his mother was stuck by lightening and killed. In 1862, his father was killed, perhaps in an "Affair of Honor" with a neighbor regarding Anderson's 15 year old sister. Anderson, now being the oldest male of his family along his younger brother Jim later killed the neighbor, and then took his sisters to Missouri where he took up what Anderson called "bushwhacking," but not for ideological reasons, but as a way to support his family by horse stealing and reselling them; the common term for this activity at the time was "Jay hawking." Prior to all of the above happenings, there was nothing remarkable the way William acted. It was said of him that he was "a good boy, as steady as a clock." While the family had moved to Kansas from Missouri in 1856-7, they took no part in the border troubles. But as the war broke out, and family misfortunes mounted "Bloody Bill" used his courage, and his diminishing lack of scruples to try and improve he and his family's economic situation. A he supposedly told a friend that he was trying to recruit into his band early in the war, "I don't care any more than you for the South, Strieby, but there is a lot of money in this business." So Anderson went from a common criminal, taking advantage of the chaos the war caused on the border, to that of a guerrilla leader.
Prior to the August 1863 jail collapse that killed his sister, Anderson had been a minor guerrilla leader, who's activities was first mentioned in a dispatch by Union authorities in July of 1863, when he and David Poole raided a German settlement in Lafayette County, (for some reason, Poole hated Germans). Poole was also a guerilla leader under Quantrill. The dispatch shows us that Anderson had joined his band with that of Poole's so he had recently placed himself under the loose authority of Quantrill. A month later, Bill's sister, Josephine Anderson, 14, was killed in the jail collapse. Her 16 year old sister, Mary Ellen, was crippled and disfigured for life, and her 10 year old little sister, Janie, had two broken legs, an injured back and lacerated face. Three other young women were also killed, all of them related to Quantrill's men. According to men that knew Anderson, (this comes primarily from fellow guerrilla William Greg), when Anderson heard about the collapse and the death of his sister, something snapped within him. Authors Albert Castel and Tom Goodrich in their book, "Bloody Bill Anderson," note the change that the occurred in Anderson, (pg. 27). "Now though, killing-especially killing enemy soldiers-became an end to itself, one driven by a bloodlust so strong that sometime Anderson would foam at the mouth and sob because he could not continue pumping bullets into more blue-clad uniformed victims." " Out of the wreckage of the building on Kansas City's Grand Avenue came not only the mangled bodies of young women. It also sparked the emergence of "Bloody Bill" Anderson, a man who lived for death and who shortly before he himself died declared: "I have killed Union soldiers until I have got sick of killing them." Slightly over a week after the jail collapse, Quantrill lead the retaliatory raid on Lawrence, KS. Anderson is credited with killing 14 men in that raid. As he departed the town, he supposedly told a Lawrence woman, "I'm here for revenge and I have got it." Hopefully you can see there was a progression here in Anderson. Oh, and after Anderson became "Bloody Bill," after the jail collapse, whenever he went into battle and was doing his killing, he called out the name "Josephine."
"Considering the fact that men who fought in the same area that he did and yet returned to civil life would tend to mute this. There were those who fought in the theater who where to become infamous after the war but none followed in his path."
I don't think that this statement helps to prove your point. I will agree than many of the guerrillas retuned to civilian life and lead decent lives. I have a data base of nearly 800 names of guerrilla men who rode with Quantrill and his successors. I started this after reading "Bushwhackers; Guerrilla Warfare, Manhood and the Household in Civil War Missouri," by Joseph Beilein, (highly recommended), and became interested, (perhaps obsessed) with the blood relationship among Quantrill's men. Nearly 40% of the men were blood related, a much higher rate than any other guerrilla group that I am aware of. And if they weren't blood related, the were friends and neighbors. In my data base, I not only note the blood relationship, but any other data if find in my readings, such if they survived the war, etc. Of those who did survive, I note that 3 or 4 became doctors, two became politicians, about a half dozen became lawmen, a couple became Judges while most returned to their farms, and a few, like David Poole became wealthy cattlemen. Many of the men left the state, perhaps they were forced out, or thought that starting over in a new state where they were not known was the better idea. And many of the names have no after war notation at all: their after war history is lost. But what is clear is that their participation as guerrillas effected all of these men in different ways. Some were able to adapt to the Radicle Republican control that disenfranchised any Southern man of Missouri for years. However, some could not, and they became outlaws, robbing trains, banks, and dyeing violent deaths. And perhaps it's just a coincidence, but overwhelmingly, the men who took an outlaw path had ridden with Anderson during the war. (btw, due to my genealogy-based research on Quantrill's men, I found that I'm very distantly related to the James boys who, of course, rode with Bill Anderson).
T. J. Stiles points this out in his book, "Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War" in referring to the 1866 daylight robbery of the Clay County Savings Association, (owned by Radical Republicans), at least 9 men were soon named as committing the robbery. After Stiles names the men, he goes on to say, "These men were the surviving core of Bill Anderson's terrorist gang, who had followed Poole, Clement, and Jim Anderson back from Texas in early 1865. Rumors and hard evidence would soon point to (Jim) Anderson and particularly Clement as the leaders of the raid." Clement, who was Bill Anderson's second in charge and took over Anderson guerrilla band after Anderson was killed was himself later killed in December of 1866. Jim Anderson (Bill's little brother), killed Ike Flannery in 1867 over a dispute about money, but was himself killed in 1868 by Ike's uncle, George Sheppard. George Sheppard, and his brother Oliver, in addition to being suspects in the 1866 Clay County bank robbery, robbed the Russelville, KY bank in 1868. Because of this, Oliver was later gunned down by police and George spent time in a KY prison. It's debated if Jesse and Frank James had anything to do with the Clay County bank robbery, but after Clement and Anderson died, the gang the James formed included many of the men suspected in the Clay County robbery. Other former Anderson guerrilla's who became members of the James-Younger gang were: Jim Cummins, (whos sister married William H. Ford, his nephew, Robert Ford, killed Jesse James). J.F. Edmunson, Wood Hite, (who was a cousin to the James Brothers and was killed Charles Ford and Dick Liddil over money taken in the Blue Cut train robbery. Thomas Liddils brother, Thomas, himself a bank robber, was hung by a mob for this activity.), Arthur McCoy, James Reed, John VanMeter, brothers John and James White, "Clell" Miller, and Jim and Cole Younger. I don't think Cole Younger rode with Anderson, but I'm not sure about his brother Jim.
Other bank robbers, but not part of the James-Younger gang include: Sam Bass, James Berry, Richard Burton, James Dever, and Andy McGuire who were all caught and hung for their bank robbing activity, and all of them rode with Anderson. Payne Jones was also a bank robber but was killed by "Jim Crow" Childs, (who was an uncle by marriage to President Truman), "Jim Crow" Chiles was later killed by the Marshall of Independence MO. Jim's son was also killed by the Marshall's son in the same shoot out. Jim Crow also ran a saloon in Texas during part of the war. One of the girls who worked for him married Bill Anderson during the 1863-64 winter. And "Jim Crow" rode with Anderson
Two Anderson men who turned train robbers after the war were brothers Hilary and Levi Farrington. They were hung in 1870.
And I don't know the particulars of this incident, but former Anderson guerrilla Jim Hedges, was killed in a gunfight in 1901.
Another book that sheds some light on Missouri guerrillas who couldn't seem to adjust to a civil life after the war is Mathew Hulbert's book, "The Ghost of Guerrilla Memory: How Civil War Bushwhackers Became Gunslingers in the American West." The tit;e give you a good idea of what the book is about.
There could very well be more Anderson men who went afoul of the law after the war, but we'll leave the list as it is. The point being that many of these men "apprenticed" their outlaw tactics while riding with Anderson, so in that sense, they most assuredly "followed Anderson's path."
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