Altered Destinies: Quantrill's Guerrillas and the Civil War in Western Missouri Terry G. Foster Department of History Submitted in partial fdfirllment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Faculty of Graduate Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario September, 1999 o Terry G. Foster 1999 National Library Bibliithkque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington OttawaON KIAW OttawaON KlAOCVlC Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde me licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive pennettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliotheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, preter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriete du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial extracts from it Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent Stre imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract William Clarke QuantriU9sRaiders cannot be simply defined as guerrillas. Quantrill's command consisted primarily of members of the dominant class. They fought not to overthrow the existing social order and effect a revolution, but to preserve the existing hierarchical social structure and distribution of power which had given Corm to their aspirations and expectations. They were defenders of privilege and fought to protect the elite status their families had earned within the antebelturn western Missourian social stratum. They reacted to perceived and actual threats posed by the Union army to themselves, their families and their way of We. Their exploits ensured both their infamy and folk hero status. In the context of the Civil War in western Missouri, therefore, William Clarke Quantrill and his guerrilla band were counterrevolutionary social bandits. iii Acknowledgements This is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Sharon Foster- I would like to express my sincere gratitude and indebtedness to my thesis advisor Dr. Margaret Kellow. Without her sole and unwavering encouragement, support and insight, this project would never have been completed. Table of Contents .. Certificate of examination U Abstract iii Acknowledgements iv Table of contents v List of maps vi a, Missouri vi-a b. Boonslick Region vi-b c. Western Missouri vi-c d. The Western Border vi-d Introduction 1 . Tumult and Turmoil: From Border War to Civil War 2. 'What One Desperate, Fearless Man Can Do": William Clarke Quantrill Comes to Missouri 3- "Shot down like dogs": Guerrilla War in Western Missouri 4. "You deserve a better fate": The Death of Quantrill and the Experience of Reconstruction in Missouri Conclusion Bibliography Vita List of Maps a, Missouri vi-a b. Boonslick Region vi-b c. Western Missouri vi-c d. The Western Border vi-d Missouri Boonslick Region Western Missouri1 OSAGE ! INDIAN I 05- RESERVE - i [B I Thomas Goodrich, Black Fkg: Guerril& Warfare on the Western Border, 123614862. (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995): 3. The Western order' I Thomas Goodrich, Black Flag: Guernllu Warjiare on the Wcstent Border. 1861-1865-(Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995): 2, Introduction Che Guevara envisioned the essence of a guerrilla band to be a group which, acting on its own initiative, bears arms against the existing government, is "rural in character, and economically based on the desire to hold land."' In the 1950s, Guevara, an Argentinean-born revolutionary, fought in Cuba for a people to whom he did not belong. Nearly one hundred years earlier, so too had the enigmatic and elusive 'Guerrilla QuantreIl" in Civil War Missouri. The Confederate guerrilla Leader William Clarke Quantrill led an equally determined but completely different class of people, the armed nucleus of the western Missourian slaveholding minority, throughout the course of the Civil War. This minority had ruled the state relatively unopposed until the outbreak of war. However, by 1861 changing demographics within Missouri and the national secession crisis threatened their hegemony. Quantrillians, as the guerrillas were known, were young men of slaveholding farming families who lived in the western border counties of Missouri and thus resemble many aspects of Guevara's bouerrilla band. Unlike Guevara's forces, though, Quantrill's guerrillas were members of the dominant class. They fought not to overthrow the existing social order and effect a revolution, but to preserve their place in the existing hierarchical social structure and the distribution of power which had given form to their 1 Che Guevara, On Guerrilla Warjiiare, (NewYork: Frederick A, Praeger Publishers, 196 1), 7. aspirations and expectations? They were defenders of privilege and fought to protect the elite status their families had earned within antebellum western Missouri society. The war record of Quantrill's band earned them the reputation of having been one of the most ferocious guerrilla forces ever assembled. Yet Quantrill himself was an unlikely hero, an enigma of his own creation, a confidence man and an ideological chameleon. The truth about QuantriII, incIuding the correct spelling of his name, eluded even those believed to be closest to him.' He was a raised as an abolitionist and trained as a schoolteacher in Canal Dover, Ohio. However, restless and dissatisfied with his life he traveled from place to place in Don R, Bowen, "Guerrilla War in Western Missouri, 1862-1865: Historical Extensions of the Relative Deprivation Thesis," Comparative Studies in Society and History 19, no. L(1977): 33 - There was some confusion regarding the spelling of QuantriLl's name among his contemporaries. He was referred to as the "Guerrilla QuantrelI" or simply "QuantreiY- Quantrill's name was misspe1Ied in this manner whenever it appeared in newspapers durhg the Civil War, whether it was in The New York Times,Louisville Daily Democrat, or Lawrence Daily Kcursas Tribune. An uncommon name, its correct spelling was not we11 known and, therefore, was cnisspelled for many years- It is likely that it was spelled phonetically based upon a Southern pronunciation; thus Quantd sounds like Quantrell. As for any speculation to the contrary, he signed letters to his mother, "Your Son W.C. Quanmll" and to his boyhood friend, W-W-Scott, "Your Obedient S. W.C- Quanuiil", The only report he ever filed during the war, on October 13, I863 to Confederate Major-General Price, was also signed "W.C- Quantrill". (See United States War Department. War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Oflcial Records of the Union arzd Corfederate Army series I, volume XXII, part I(Washington: Government P~tingOffice, 1880- 190 l), 701. Hereafter referred to as OR) The Census of 1850 and family headstones in the Fourth Street Cemetery in Dover, Ohio confirm the spelling of the family name as "Quanmll", (See Skrh Census of the United States, Schedule I-Free In habitants in Dover Township, Ohio (line 7), ISSO). Charley Quantrell, the name many of his foIlowers referred to him as, was an amdgamation of his real name and his alias, Charley Hart. There also is some controversy as to the correct spelling of Caroline Quantrill's maiden and William's middle name, Clarke- Les Williams, former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Dover Historical Society, believes that Quantrill added the "e" to Clarke to make it more distinguished. (See Dover Times Repo~er,Dover, Ohio, October 10, 1992. Quantrill Coliection. Dover Historical Society.) This is unlikely as Mrs. Quantrill, after meeting with former Quantrillians at B Iue Springs, Jackson County, Missouri in 1888, allowed the Louisville Courier-JournaL to publish the names of her children exactly as she had recorded them into her family bible. She spelled Clarke with an "e" when she recorded William's birth in 1837. (See Louisville Courier-Jountal, Louisville, Kentucky May 13, 1888. Quantrill Collection, Dover Historical Society, photocopy.) search of his destiny. Quantrill eventually found it as the 'GuerrUa QuantreLl," champion and defender of the slaveholding elite of western Missouri. In his book Bandits, historian Eric J. Hobsbawm constructs a model of outlawry that is best described as a form of pre-proletarian social protest. Social bandits, as he called them, expressed the collective will of an oppressed people and flourished during periods of crisis which signified a major historical change in their sociew4 Although Hobsbawm only applied his paradigm to pre-industrial European peasant classes, it becomes more fluid and dynamic when used in an American context.' One such instance is western Missouri in the Civil War era, which gave rise to a variant of social banditry previously unrecognized by Hobsbawm; the counterrevolutionary social bandit. William Clarke Quantrill's raiders cannot be defmed simply as guerrillas. however. They were rural agrarian counterrevolutionaries whose primary interest was to preserve the status quo rather than effect revolutionary social reform. Quantrill's command primarily consisted of slaveholders and other members of the dominant class. These social bandits struggled not to overthrow the existing social order and effect a revolution, but to preserve the existing hierarchical social structure and distribution of power which had given form to their aspirations and expectations. --- -- a Eric J. Hobsbawrn, Bandirs. (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd.. 198 1) Historian L. Glenn Seretan's critique of Hobsbawm's paradigm argues that. "'social banditry is more polymorphous and resilient than Hobsbawm supposed and that the vagaries of American historicat evolution [are] quite capable of casting up authentic variants-" See Hobsbawm, Bandits, 15 1- Quantrillians fought in a counterrevolution against the Union army and their civilian suppoaers in western Missouri and Kansas.