The Confederate Quantrill
178 years ago today, the highly controversial Confederate Captain William Clarke Quantrill was born. Intelligent, Quantrill became a schoolteacher, like his father, at the age of sixteen. He got into trouble though; killing a man in the middle of the night, welching on debts, committing a little burglary on the side. When he learned the profitability of catching escaped slaves, Quantrill made a career change.
When war broke out, Quantrill enlisted in the 1st Cherokee Regiment in the Confederate's States Army (CSA), and began to learn the tactics that would make him both famous and hated during the Civil War. Native American members of his unit taught Quantrill their ambush and camouflage methods; introducing him to the ways of guerrilla warfare. He then deserted, and began his own "Army" to support the Confederacy. In 1863, Quantrill led a raid (or a massacre, really) on Lawrence, KS; allegedly in retaliation for the deaths of several of his men's female relations when the jail where they were being held collapsed.
By this point, Quantrill had over 400 men at his command. They fled to Texas, and broke off into smaller groups. By 1865, Quantrill had only a few dozen left in his band, and following Lee's surrender at Appomattox, they were trapped on a farm in Kentucky in a Union ambush. Quantrill was shot and eventually died from these wounds; although rumors of his survival persisted for many years. In 1907, an article was published claiming Quantrill was alive and living on Vancouver Island, up in British Columbia, under the name of John Sharp. A few weeks later a man named John Sharp, who did actually live on the island, was found murdered. The killers were never identified.
Today, William Quantrill is most often associated with the men he commanded; both real and fictional. Jesse and Frank James got a taste for the outlaw life in Quantrill's band, and Rooster Cogburn, the gruff US Marshal from True Grit and other epic westerns, lost his eye with the Captain in Charles Portis's novels.