Bloody Bill Anderson

by Albert Castel

  Suddenly Anderson leaped onto a horse and galloped through the camp, screaming hideously, firing his revolvers in wild abandon, his face glowing red in the light of the campfires.

  Goodman trembled in terror. Not only was he in Hell, but his life was in the hands of its reigning devil.

  Eventually, one by one, the guerrillas sunk to the ground in sodden slumber, oblivious to the falling rain. Although Goodman now wore a cast-off shirt along with pants that had been given him during the morning, he again could not sleep. It occurred to him that it would be both easy and safe to simply get up and walk away—walk away to freedom and life. And he would have done it had it not been for his two guards. They never drank! Often they had saved his life. Now, thanks to their sobriety, they prevented his escape. His world remained upside down.

  Morning finally came and the rain ceased. The men moved about in the mud, sorting equipment, drying blankets, and currying their horses. Anderson, Todd, Thrailkill, and Poole discussed the future. Clearly, they would have to split up. Their plan to draw thousands of Federals north of the river and keep them there had worked, if anything, too well. As their narrow escape yesterday had shown, it was too risky to remain together. So they agreed to scatter into squads and “bush-range” for a week, then rejoin near the river and cross it together. The wounded would remain behind until they were able to ride, and the wagons filled with rifles captured at Centralia would be cached until the day Price required them for the recruits he expected to gather. With everyone in accord, the council broke up and the various squads departed. At length, Anderson and Todd, along with a score of men, all dressed in blue, saddled and struck off as well.

  Goodman accompanied this group. Although he was hungry and gaunt, he no longer was starving, having been given some “grub” the night before. In addition to shirt and pants, he now wore a black coat received from Anderson himself when the chieftain changed to a Federal officer’s jacket. Goodman attributed his better treatment to Anderson’s appreciation of his good job of horse currying. Furthermore, following his conversation with Anderson, his two guards, Hiram Litton and Richard Ellington, had become friendlier, and the guerrillas in general had stopped glaring at him with murderous eyes. In fact, they increasingly paid little or no attention to him at all. That suited the sergeant fine. The less they noticed him, the better his chance of escape.

  All day their party traveled at a rapid pace, slipping up back roads, dodging down lanes, skirting villages and farms. Near sunset, and not far from Columbia, it halted beside a large white church. Here Anderson ordered Goodman’s guards to lead him down the road a short distance, and once more the sergeant feared his time had come. But after a wait of a half hour Anderson reappeared, and the column continued on as before. The church, Goodman surmised, probably served as a hiding place for plunder.

  Just before dark the column halted again, and Anderson directed his men to take supper at the farms in the area. As luck would have it, Goodman’s group went to a house occupied by one of the few Unionists left in that region. Learning that Goodman was a Federal soldier, the owner, a woman, did everything in her power to make sure that he got his fill. After supper the bushwhackers bivouacked nearby, and that night, for the first time in what seemed like eternity, Goodman lay down both warm and fed. Instantly, like a great, soothing wave, merciful, healing sleep rolled over him. For some hours he found peace.

  At sunup the march resumed, passing close to Rocheport. A short distance from that village Anderson paused at a farmhouse and spoke with two women. Apparently learning something of importance, he summoned Todd and conversed with him for a while. Then Todd sent a man to fetch a handsome mare from the adjoining pasture, and when it was saddled and bridled, Anderson mounted it and rode off, leaving behind his own horse in exchange.

  The march continued at a leisurely pace until noon, when it halted at yet another farmhouse. A woman and an old man came out to meet the riders. The worried expressions on their faces immediately changed to ones of relief and joy when they discovered that the blue-clad horsemen were bushwhackers, not Federals. The old man quickly went back to the house and after a few minutes reappeared with a Confederate officer who had hidden himself at the approach of what he too thought was a Union cavalry patrol. Anderson and the officer—a Texan who was a recruiter for Price’s army—moved off a short distance and talked at length, after which the officer mounted up and joined the guerrilla party to return to Texas; his recruiting efforts in Missouri had evidently not proved fruitful. Before departing, Anderson pulled two beautiful shawls from a saddlebag and presented one each to the girls of the family.

  During the afternoon the bushwhackers circled slowly back in the direction they had come from until dusk found them on the bluffs overlooking Rocheport. That night Anderson had a front-row seat for watching the destruction of his “capital.” On September 26 Gen. Clinton B. Fisk had, with special reference to Rocheport, instructed the Federal commander at Macon City to “let the rebels in that region to understand that there is something besides Bill Anderson power in North Missouri,” whereupon troops had occupied the village and levied crushing fines on its inhabitants for harboring guerrillas. Now, prior to evacuating it, the troops set it afire. Plainly visible in the light of their torches, they moved from house to house and building to building, obeying their orders with ruthless precision. When they rode away, flames engulfed all of Rocheport. The fire, reported Fisk on October 3, was “accidental.”4

  The next morning the bushwhackers struck west over the river bluffs. Throughout the day they maintained a tortuous up-and-down march, holding to forest trails and back paths. In the evening they camped near a run-down cabin deep in the timber. Here a strange, solitary figure—an evil-looking man, thought Goodman—tended a herd of fine horses, providing further proof that the vast woodlands of central Missouri were in effect guerrilla territory. Indeed, the bushwhackers seemed to be at home in these great, brooding forests where the sun seldom shone and the wind never blew. As he ranged through them, Goodman saw sights and heard sounds he had never dreamed existed. By day the partisans “spoke” to one another with strange hand signals and waves; at night they uttered uncanny, lifelike cries of the crow, owl, and wild denizens of the dark. Sometimes they baffled would-be pursuers by spreading blankets over roads and small clearings, then crossing them without leaving a hoofprint, or else by riding along rocky creekbeds. When clouds covered the sun or the night was moonless, they determined directions via the moss growing on the north side of trees.5 And they were adept at caring for the wounded when circumstances made that necessary. Thus shortly after Centralia, one of Anderson’s men, his hand horribly swollen and crawling with maggots as a consequence of it being struck by a .577-caliber lead slug, appeared to be a sure candidate for amputation. Instead, his comrades poured oil of turpentine on the wound, and a few days later Goodman was astonished to see that the man had fully recovered. Viewing the guerrillas with the eyes of a sergeant and veteran, Goodman was also surprised to find that they possessed more in the way of military order and discipline than he had expected. To be sure, they engaged in no saluting or other “spit-and-polish” practices, and even on the march the men were free to come and go as they pleased. But if a fight was in the offing, all were expected to be on hand, and for anyone failing to show up the punishment was swift and of but one kind: death. Many, if not most, of the men, so Goodman gathered, were deserters from Price’s army, former Paw Paw militia, or refugees from what they described as Unionist persecution and violence. How Anderson managed to control so wild and turbulent a bunch puzzled Goodman, for he never saw the chieftain commit an act of brutality against his followers, and (other than the drunken spree in the Perche Hills camp) he always conducted himself in a calm, quiet manner. A strange man, this Bill Anderson.

  The prisoner also discovered that almost wherever he went, citizens were vehemently, indeed violently, secesh. With rare exceptions they welcomed the guerrillas with warm smiles and words, whereas on l
earning who and what Goodman was, they looked at him with hard faces and called him harder names. Many of the women and children were refugees from the devastated western border counties and told tales of murdered husbands, sons, and brothers, or burned homes and fields, and of wandering about hungry and cold. If half of what they said was true, it was no wonder they hated “damnyankees” (one word to them), and it also helped explain Anderson’s leadership: He embodied this hatred.

  After a few such encounters, Goodman realized that if he ever managed to escape, he would be doing so in enemy country. There would be no one to turn to, no one to help him. He would be on his own.

  By now the appointed date for the rendezvous of the bushwhacker bands for crossing to the other side of the Missouri had drawn near. Hence, Anderson and Todd’s party rode to an encampment at Maxwell’s Mill in western Boone County, not far from Rocheport (or what had been Rocheport). Unlike previous forest haunts—gloomy, sinister affairs—this one was situated in a beautiful sunlit glade with a cold, sweet spring. Hundreds of guerrillas were already present, and more of them, along with recruits for Sterling Price, came in hourly. From time to time a flurry of gunshots echoed through the surrounding woods as butternut- and gray-clad arrivals mistook blue-coated bushwhackers for Federals and so engaged them in brief but, fortunately for the former, bloodless skirmishes. The camp soon took on an almost holiday air, with planters from the region visiting it to tender their thanks and wish everyone well in future operations.

  It was no holiday, though, for Goodman, who once more became the center of unwelcomed attention. Young recruits and fledgling guerrillas, eager to shoot their first Yankee, took delight in aiming their weapons at the prisoner. Sometimes he found himself encircled by more than a dozen pistols pointed at various parts of his anatomy. Throughout it all—the threats, the curses, the cocking of revolvers—he remained as silent and still as a stone.

  On the morning of October 5 the bushwhackers left the camp and marched south toward a place called Harker’s, about four miles northeast of Rocheport. Along the way, Anderson’s party stopped at a magnificent mansion. To Goodman’s surprise, Anderson and his men went inside, leaving him alone and mounted at the gate. Nothing like this had happened before, and he immediately suspected that a trap had been set. Then a well-dressed man came out of the mansion and strolled across the yard to the gate. Something about his manner put Goodman on guard.

  “Do you belong to Anderson’s or Todd’s company, my friend?” asked the stranger.

  “I am a prisoner, sir.”

  “What! A prisoner—and left unguarded?”

  “As you see—”

  “Ah!” the man interrupted. “Then you don’t think Anderson the bloody, cruel wretch they would have us all to believe. He certainly shows that he treats his prisoners with much confidence.”

  “Yes, I have reason to be thankful. He has spared my life.”

  For a moment the man remained silent. Then he both made an assertion and posed a question: “These guerrillas, as they call themselves, are a careless, happy set—they are brave, too, and fight well, I suppose?”

  Goodman did not answer, whereupon there was another question:

  “How do you like Anderson?”

  “He has treated me as well as I could reasonably expect. I have no fault to find.”

  “You would not like to join his band—you would prefer liberty? Do you know you are near to your friends; the Federals are at Fayette, and it is not far from here.”

  Goodman said nothing. He dared not say anything. The man’s words had caused his heart to bound with hope. If he spoke, he knew that his voice would reveal his joy at learning that Union troops were in the near vicinity. That could be fatal—or at the very least ruin any chance of doing what he now was resolved to do: Attempt to escape on reaching the river.

  Some of the guerrillas appeared at the door of the mansion, and the man without further ado walked away. Had he been sincere in his questions, or was he playing some sort of joke? Fifteen minutes later a guerrilla beckoned Goodman into the house, where a group of women gathered about him, laughing at and deriding his bedraggled appearance. Their conduct, which the blacksmith sergeant believed belied their claim to being “ladies,” answered the question.

  After awhile the march to Harker’s resumed. On approaching the place, Anderson’s blue-uniformed men received a volley from another guerrilla band but none were hit before they made their true identity known. Although some of the bushwhackers indisputably were crack shots, most of them, like other mortals employing a handgun, stood little chance of hitting anyone except at close range—especially when being fired at themselves.

  Anderson’s intention was to cross the river that night, but a fierce thunderstorm forced postponement. Yet again Goodman, blanketless and drenched, passed a sleepless night. He was determined that it would be his last such night—at least as a captive.

  The guerrillas spent the morning and afternoon of October 7 at Harker’s. As at the Maxwell Mill’s camp, local Confederate sympathizers flocked in to express their thanks, support, and admiration, with Anderson receiving the lion’s share of the last. Manifestly, to them he was a hero, their champion and avenger. They also paid considerable attention to Goodman, whom the bushwhackers pointed out as being the “sole survivor” among all of the Union troops they had captured. One youth, hardly more than a boy, pleaded to be permitted to kill “the damnyankee” and no doubt was sorely disappointed on being told that he could not, that the prisoner was “reserved.”

  In the evening Anderson and the majority of the guerrillas set out for the Missouri, leaving behind a force strong enough to keep the Federals in the northern part of the state fully occupied. They reached the river a mile above Rocheport, but for some reason Anderson found this to be an unsatisfactory crossing point and so ordered the march continued downstream. Passing through the burned and ghostly remains of Rocheport, the long column threaded its way through a defile in the sheer-faced cliffs and struck the river again three miles below the village.

  The men immediately set to work removing saddles and preparing lead halters. Goodman dismounted. His opportunity to escape—perhaps the first and last—might come at any moment. As he stood trembling in the dark, he listened closely to the shouts and instructions. The river was low . . . the channel but twenty-five yards wide . . . thirteen skiffs . . . the horses would swim. Goodman’s mind raced. He calculated that at least three trips would be needed to get everyone over. He prayed that he would not be among the first. He trained his eyes to observe what was going on around him in the darkness. He noted especially the movement of his guards, to discover if they were watching him more closely than before. They were, of course; this he knew. And the rest were watching him, too. Indeed, the entire world was watching; watching him slyly out of the corner of its eye. It was all a big trick; of that much he was sure—just as it had been back at the mansion. They were watching and waiting for him to take that first step. Once he took it, they would catch him, then kill him, and the world would have a good round of laughter.

  When he heard that his group would be among the last to cross, joy and terror fought violently with one another and threatened to rip his heart out. He knew what was coming.

  The first group of guerrillas, holding halter straps, boarded the boats while behind them their comrades on shore began to prod the horses into the river. Some animals balked, then shied away. Cursing and shouting, men rushed down the bank to force the frightened beasts into the black water.

  “You watch the prisoner,” said one of the guards as he moved toward the shore. “I want to go and see the start.”

  Goodman’s heart began to pound explosively. His legs weakened. His breath came in short, rapid gasps. Suddenly, there was another commotion by the river. To get a better view, the remaining guard walked off a short distance. And now Goodman was sure of the trick. Everyone was watching and waiting for him to move. And he would move. He knew it. They knew it. The world
knew it. And when he did finally move he would die . . . die there in the dark. He would never see his home again . . . his children . . . his woman. . . .

  His trembling body turned stiffly, and a weakened leg turned with it. A foot slowly raised, then slowly fell. Tom Goodman took his first step. The other wobbly leg dragged forward, and he took another step. And then another. And another. He walked silently into a crowd of men and horses nearby. They knew too, of course. They were part of the game. They were watching him move among them and quietly laughing. Their hands were already on their big guns, and the night was about to explode in flames, and he would fall a bleeding corpse in the weeds. But he did not care now. It did not matter. Let them shoot. Let the world kill him and have its great laugh. It was he who would have the last laugh, for he would escape now in one form or another. They would never get him back. Not now. The world would have to find a new victim to torture because Tom Goodman would be free!

  He kept moving until he emerged near a tangle of driftwood and bushes. He did not pause, but quickly entered the thicket. For two hundred yards or so he walked swiftly and silently. He then stopped. He was sucking air rapidly, and his head and heart were pounding so violently that he became dizzy and felt he would faint. And yet he listened with every nerve. The moments stretched into infinity as his ears strained to catch the first shouts, the first taunts of his pursuers. He heard nothing. Perhaps the game was longer than he thought. Perhaps others were ahead, waiting to grab him.

  He stepped from the trees and onto the narrow trail. Instantly he dived back again. Peering through the branches, he watched four horsemen pass by. After this heart-stopping encounter, the fugitive held hard to the woods and struggled up the steep bluffs with all of the speed and energy he possessed. At the top, across a clearing, was a house. Tied around the yard were several saddled and bridled horses, ready to ride. The thought of taking a mount flickered in his spinning brain, but fear forced him to take a long, sweeping circuit of the house instead.