William Quantrill

William Quantrill (1837-1865), American Confederate guerrilla commander. William Clarke Quantrill was born in Canal Dover (now Dover), Ohio. Before the American Civil War he was a gambler and, occasionally, a schoolteacher in the West and Midwest. Warrants for his arrest were issued several times on charges of murder, theft, and horse thievery. When the Civil War began in 1861, Quantrill, aided by the notorious outlaw Frank James, headed a band of Confederate guerrillas in Missouri and Kansas, raiding farms and communities sympathetic to the Union. In 1862 he was commissioned a captain in the Confederate army; that same year he was declared an outlaw by Union authorities. On August 21, 1863, he led his guerrillas on their most infamous exploit when they burned and pillaged the town of Lawrence, Kansas, killing more than 150 unarmed inhabitants. In October, they killed about 100 Union soldiers at Baxter Springs, Kansas. Two years later the guerrillas were looting in Kentucky when a small force of Union soldiers surprised them and fatally wounded Quantrill.