Quantrill assembled his gang about noon the day before the raid, starting toward Kansas about 2 o'clock. With Bill Anderson, and 450 men (including Frank James) into Lawrence at 7 a.m. on August 21. They carried lists of specific targets but were also, in Quantrill's words, to "kill every man big enough to carry a gun." The attack was perfectly planned and every man knew his place. Almost every house was visited and robbed. Many townspeople stayed and were slain because they did not expect to be murdered. The black people fared better because they ran out of town at the first alarm. The cornfield west of town, the river bank, and the ravine which ran through the center of town were filled with refugees. 2 hours later, the Bushwhackers rode out, their saddlebags laden with booty, and many of them swaying from the effects of newly liberated spirits. In 120 minutes, they had devastated the dusty town of 2,000 inhabitants and killed 150 of its male citizens. Many were gunned down before their wives and children, and others died trapped in their flaming homes. The raiders left about 80 widows and 250 orphans as they torched the entire community, burning $2 million worth of property, and escaped into the Missouri hills.
At this time Bill and Quantrill were not getting along very well and Bill forms his own group of Raiders and soon is back at his old way of killing and robbing. The orders are out for the federal forces to take No Quarter if Anderson is found and Bloody Bill feel's the same way.
Bill Anderson had grown up in Huntsville, and on July 15th, paid his old home town a visit, robbing merchants and a bank of $45,000, then shooting down a passerby imprudent enough to try to stop him. Two days later, he led 35 followers into nearby Rocheport, ravaging the town and terrifying its inhabitants. On July 23rd, 100 of his raiders gutted the railroad station in Renick. The next day, the Bushwhackers ambushed and dispersed a pursuing company of the 17th Illinois Cavalry. Two slain Federals were found scalped. Following the engagement, Anderson's men moved north where they destroyed the Salt River railroad bridge and torched depots at Shelbina and Lakenan. Then in August Anderson attacked the riverboat Omaha near Glasgow and raided Rocheport again, shooting up more boats and snarling all river traffic. During the same month, Anderson's men robbed 13 stagecoaches in Howard County. On September 23, 300 guerrillas then wiped out a Federal wagon train train near Rocheport, capturing a large ammount of ammunition and killing 15 Union troops. The force was briefly joined by Quantrill, then attacked Fayette, where Federal soldiers barricaded in the courthouse repulsed them.
Andersonīs greatest fame came as a result of a massacre and battle with Union soldiers in and around the central Missouri town of Centralia. On September 27th, 1863, Anderson and his men rode into Centralia, Missouri, looted the town, blocked the rail tracks, and waited for the afternoon train. When it came, it was carrying 23 Union soldiers, all said to have been unarmed and furloughed. They were taken, lined up, and shot. The guerrillas then hid and waited for the relief column they knew would come. When the union column did show, the guerrillas killed them all. This "massacre" insured Anderson was to be a hunted man for the rest of his life. It put him on the top of the Union's "most wanted list."
Oct. the 12th, Anderson ambushed a patrol from the Second Colorado Cavalry led by Captain Colley. In the fight, Colley and about six of his men were killed, his command was routed from the field. It was reported, in the Richmond Missourian by Captain Clayton Tifflin, that Colley's scalp was taken by Anderson. The Union reported killing about twelve guerrillas.
A few days later, on the 26th of October, Anderson and his men were camped near the town of Albany, Anderson took breakfast that morning at a home near Albany, then rode back to move his troops out. The 51st and 53rd Enrolled Missouri Militia, a pro-Union militia unit, had been alerted to the guerrillas' presence in Ray County and had, that morning, been warned of their presence by a lady from Albany. The remnant of the 51st and 53rd Militia present laid an ambush south of the town and waited for the guerrillas to pass through it.
The guerrillas fell into the trap easily and were quickly opened fire on as they passed the ambush point. The guerrillas, knowing they were had, quickly dispersed into the surrounding woods. A few men charged into the union ambush to delay the troopers and allow their comrades to get away. Anderson was among them. Accounts say he rode headlong into the blue line, two pistols blazing. Here Anderson met his maker. He died from a .36 caliber ball which entered the back of his head and exited through his skull. Its said that quite a few of Anderson's men died trying to retrieve his body but could not do so with the heavy fire they were facing.
The federal troops took Anderson's body to Richmond where a series of ghoulish photographs were taken. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Richmond and in the evening federal troops were said to have been seen urinating on his grave. |
