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September 4, 2012

By Evan Andrews

During the Civil War, groups of so-called partisan rangers engaged in bloodycampaigns of guerrilla attacks, raiding and psychological warfare against rival militaryunits and civilians. These units had tenuous ties to the regular Confederate and UnionArmies and were led by men who often operated outside the recognized rules ofwarfare. Meet six guerrilla leaders whose unconventionaland often barbarictacticsplayed a major role in the Civil War.

One of the Civil Wars most infamous figures, William Quantrill spent most of his early life as a schoolteacherand gambler. Shortly after war broke out, Quantrill assembled a ragtag band of guerrillas and began harassingand killing Union forces and sympathizers along the Missouri-Kansas border. His exploits earned him the rank ofcaptain from the Confederate Army, but he was also labeled an outlaw by the Union, which viewed hisunconventional tactics as illegal and even murderous.

Quantrills most brutal attack came in 1863 when he led 450 guerrillas on a raid on the Union stronghold ofLawrence, Kansas. In one of the wars great atrocities, Quantrill and his men burned the town and executedsome 200 men. Union forces responded by burning four nearby Missouri counties and driving the citizens offtheir land. In the confusion that followed, Quantrills raiders disbanded and formed smaller guerrilla units in Texasand Oklahoma. His forces now weakened, Quantrill continued to operate outside of the Confederate Army, whichhad withdrawn support following his attack on Lawrence. In 1864 Quantrill briefly assembled a band of soldierswith the intention of riding east and assassinating President Abraham Lincoln, but he abandoned the idea afterrecognizing the strength of Union defenses. Undeterred, Quantrill continued his bloody raids against Uniontroops well into 1865, when he was killed in Kentucky after suffering a gunshot wound to the chest.

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Later known as Bloody Bill because of his cold-blooded acts against Union soldiers, William T. Andersonentered the Civil War with a well-established outlaw reputation, having already murdered a judge who had killedhis father over accusations of horse theft. Known for his brash behavior and piercing eyes, Anderson took upwith William Quantrills raiders in 1863 and soon began leading attacks against Union forces. When one of hissisters was captured by U.S. soldiers and then killed in an accidental building collapse, Andersons dislike for theUnion intensified into pathological hatred. He is known to have personally executed several people duringWilliam Quantrills raid on Lawrence, Kansas, and his units savage tactics reportedly included cutting offenemies ears, decapitation and scalping.

In 1864 Andersons bandwhich included famed outlaw Jesse Jamesattacked a train in Centralia, Missouri,and butchered 22 unarmed Union soldiers. When Union troops were sent in pursuit, Andersons outfitdressedin stolen Federal uniformsambushed them and slaughtered another 120 men. Desperate to put a stop toAndersons bloodshed, the Union Army eventually raised a small militia to hunt him down. In October of 1864,Andersons unit was trapped and outnumbered in Missouri, and Bloody Bill was killed when he tried to chargethe Union troops.

James Lane was one of the most famous members of the Jayhawkers, a group of pro-Union partisans whooperated in Kansas before and during the Civil War. A career politician, Lane was elected as one of Kansas firstU.S. senators in 1861, but he quickly left the safety of Washington, D.C., and returned to the field. There, heorganized fighting units to help combat Confederate bushwhackers who were terrorizing the Missouri-Kansasborder.

Known as the Grim Chieftain, Lane was as calculating a military leader as he was a politician. In 1861 heorchestrated the sacking of Osceola, Missouri, in which the town was burned and nine residents were executed.The attackwhich was not authorized by the Uniondrew the ire of Confederate guerrilla leaders like WilliamQuantrill, who began to target Lane in raids on Union positions. Worried that Lanes activities were only servingto galvanize the opposition, in 1862 the Union cancelled his command. Lane continued to play a vital role in thewar effort and later made history when he independently organized the 1st Kansas Volunteer Infantry, the firstunit of black soldiers to serve in combat during the Civil War.

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One of the Civil Wars legendary figures, John Mosby was a Confederate colonel whose hit and run style ofwarfare earned him the nickname the Gray Ghost. Mosby first entered the war as a private and soonimpressed his superiors with his skill at gathering intelligence on Union troop movements. In 1863 J.E.B. Stuartand Robert E. Lee gave Mosby command of a small cavalry unit and unleashed him in central Virginia, where hebegan tormenting Union positions. A true guerrilla force, Mosbys small posse was known for carrying outblistering attacks on Union outfits and destroying rail lines and bridges before scattering into the woods andblending with the civilian population.

Rather than meeting its enemies in open battle, Mosbys unit would often slip behind Union lines under cover ofdarkness and capture soldiers and supplies. In one infamous raid in Fairfax County, Virginia, Mosbys Rangerscrept around Union defenses and proceeded to capture 30 soldiers, 50 horses and several officers without everfiring a shot. According to his memoirs, Mosby personally captured General Edwin H. Stoughton by waking himfrom his bed with a slap to the back. Mosby continued to operate with impunity in Virginia until the end of thewar; the regions he haunted became known as Mosbys Confederacy. When Robert E. Lee surrendered in1865, Mosby disbanded his unit and returned to civilian life. In a startling move that proved controversial in theSouth, he went on to join Lincolns Republican party and serve in Ulysses S. Grants presidential administrationas the United States consul to Hong Kong.

An ardent abolitionist, Charles Jennison first gained notoriety in the late 1850s as a prominent Jayhawkerthemoniker assigned to a collection of militant antislavery guerrillas in Kansas. At the outset of the Civil War,Jennison organized a small Union force and began waging war on Confederate bushwhackers in Missouri. Asruthless as he was principled, Jennison adopted a scorched earth policy of warfare that included razing andlooting homesteads that appeared to support Confederate guerrillas.

By 1862 Jennisons attacks had become increasingly indiscriminatehis men were known to rob and gun downUnion as well as Confederate sympathizersand martial law was declared in Kansas. Jennison briefly retiredafter this controversial period, but he would return to the war in 1863 following William Quantrills raid onLawrence, Kansas. He served until the end of the conflict, at which point he was court-martialed for plunderingand discharged from the army. He left military service with a polarizing reputation but went on to serve forseveral years in the Kansas state legislature.


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Did You Know?

Many infamous outlaws of the American Weststarted out as members of guerrilla units during theCivil War. Bank robbers like Jesse James, FrankJames and Cole Younger got their taste for violencewhile riding with Confederate raider William Quantrill,and outlaw organizations like the Mason Henry Gangfirst sprang up in California as Confederatebushwhacker groups. The tactics they learned fromguerrilla warfareincluding raiding, robbery andevading capturewould later prove invaluable tothese men during their outlaw careers.

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Along with John Mosby, John McNeill was one of the most effective Confederate guerrillas on the Civil Warseastern front. A native of modern-day West Virginia, he was the leader of McNeills Rangers, a small force ofroughly 200 men that used guerrilla tactics to wreak havoc on Union operations in western Virginia.

McNeill made effective use of his small fighting force by screening Confederate troop movements andscavenging supplies. He also proved a thorn in the side of the Union Army with his constant raids on wagontrains and railroads. His most famous exploit involved the disruption of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, a keyUnion supply line running through western Virginia. The Rangers successfully burned B&O machine shops inPiedmont, West Virginia, and even destroyed a bridge, forcing the Union to divert almost 25,000 troops toprotect the railroad from McNeills handful of men. McNeill was killed in 1864 after a raid on Union troops, but hisRangers continued to operate until the end of the war, and even made an excursion into Maryland to captureUnion officers.

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