Bloody Bill Anderson

by Albert Castel

  8. 41 OR 1: 632–33, 656–67, 681–82.

  9. St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat, November 12, 1864. This contains the most detailed and accurate account of what happened to Lewis on the night of October 21, 1864, and is obviously based on the testimony of eyewitnesses.

  10. 41 OR 4: 471; St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat, November 12, 1864; History of Howard and Chariton Counties (St. Louis: National Historical Company, 1883), pp. 288–89.

  11. St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat, November 12, 1864.

  12. 41 OR 1: 438–39, 444–45, 888; ibid., 3: 893; St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat, October 20–22, 1864.

  13. St Louis Daily Missouri Democrat, November 12, 1864; Gallatin North Missourian, November 3, 1864.

  14. Genealogy of Benjamin Whitehead Lewis, Missouri Historical Society, Jefferson Memorial Library, St. Louis, Missouri.

  Chapter Ten: Good Morning, Captain Anderson

  1. 41 OR 4: 241, 255–56; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, p. 228; interview with B. F. Meunkers, July 7, 1910, Box 13, William E. Connelley Collection, Kansas State Historical Society; History of Carroll County, pp. 362–64. For death of Todd and defeat of Price, see respectively Castel, Quantrill, pp. 197–98 and Castel, Price, pp. 228–36.

  2. 41 OR 1: 442; ibid., 2: 362, 376; ibid., 4: 726–27; Kansas City Star, August 16, 1913 (obituary of Cox); Howard C. Grisham, Centralia and Bill Anderson (Jefferson City: Howard C. Grisham, 1964), pp. 12–13 (sketch of Cox’s life).

  3. 41 OR 1: 442 (Cox’s report); Diary of Lieutenant Thomas Hankins, in Richmond Missourian, June 6, 1938; Report on Centralia battle by anonymous officer dated “Headquarters 33rd Regiment Enrolled Missouri Militia, Hamilton, Missouri, October 31, 1864,” and addressed to “General Craig,” in Richmond (Mo.) Daily News, December 19, 1986 (hereinafter cited as Anonymous Officer’s Report); Kingston, Mo. Caldwell Banner of Liberty, November 18, 1864; Liberty Tribune, November 11, 1864; Kansas City Weekly Journal, November 5, 1864. Cox’s report, as published in the Official Records, is dated Richmond, Missouri, October 27, 1864, and in it he refers to the encounter with Anderson as occurring “yesterday” (i.e., October 26). Either the October 27 date is a typographical error (rare in the Official Records but they do exist) or he misdated the report or (another possibility) wrote it so late on the night of October 27 that he thought of the fight as having taken place “yesterday.” All other accounts, and in particular the Anonymous Officer’s Report, state that the fight took place on October 27.

  4. 41 OR 1: 442., ibid., 4: 334, 354, 726–27, 734; Anonymous Officer’s Report (which contains the most detailed account of what was found on Anderson’s body); statement by Adolph Vogel, Moberly (Mo.) Evening Democrat, August 15, 1924, quoted in Hale, Bloody Bill, p. 78.

  5. Statement by Vogel in Hale, Bloody Bill, p. 79; statement by James S. Hackley, quoted in ibid; Liberty Tribune, November 4, 1864; Wiley Britton, The Civil War on the Border (2 vols; New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1898), 2: 545; Richmond Missourian, June 17, 1938.

  6. Liberty Tribune, November 4, November 11, 1864; Kansas City Weekly Journal, November 5, 1864; Kingston, Mo. Caldwell Banner of Liberty, November 18, 1864; The Richmond Missourian, June 27, July 4, 1938.

  Epilogue: The Spirit of Bill Anderson Yet Lives

  1. 421 OR 4: 317. A Union officer stationed at Waynesville claimed on September 20, 1864, to have killed Anderson. Ibid., 1: 850.

  2. St. Joseph Morning Herald, October 29, 1864; Kansas City Weekly Journal, November 12, 1864.

  3. History of Carroll County, pp. 363–64; St. Louis Daily Democrat, November 12, November 16, 1864.

  4. St. Louis Daily Democrat, October 28, 1864; Liberty Tribune, October 28, 1864.

  5. History of Carroll County, p. 364.

  6. Castel, Quantrill, pp. 201–207.

  7. Kansas City Daily Journal, May 10, May 11, 1865; Castel, Quantrill, pp. 217–18.

  8. Kansas City Daily Journal, May 10, May 11, 1865.

  9. Ibid., May 10, 1865.

  10. 48 OR 2: 349,. 351–53; Kansas City Weekly Journal, May 13, May 20, 1864.

  11. Kansas City Weekly Journal, April 15, 1865, quoting the Columbia Missouri Statesman, n.d.

  12. 48 OR 2: 371; Castel, Quantrill, p. 218.

  13. Castel, Quantrill, pp. 216, 220–21.

  14. 48 OR 2: 528–29

  15. History of Ray County, Missouri (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Company, 1881), p. 304; 48 OR 2: 599.

  16. 48 OR 2: 410, 785, 872; The Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of Missouri 4 (19 vols.; Columbia: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1922–61): 280–81. Interestingly, the proclamation announcing the reward for Clements describes him as “almost twenty-eight” and “about five feet eight inches high.” He was at most twenty-one, and had he been five feet eight he would not have been called Little Archie because that was the average height of men then.

  17. Castel, Quantrill, pp. 207–13. Quantrill was wounded and captured on May 10, 1865, and died in a Louisville prison on June 6, 1865.

  18. 48 OR 2: 573, 609, 634, 797–98, 837, 1001; History of Carroll County, p. 364; James M. Jacks, “A Brush with Bushwhackers,” Washington (D.C.) National Tribune, September 29, 1910, p. 7; Kansas City Daily Journal, April 14, 1866; William A. Settle Jr., Jesse James Was His Name (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1966), pp. 30–34; Hale, Bloody Bill, pp. 101–102.

  19. Hale, Bloody Bill, pp. 105; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, 242.

  20. Hale, Bloody Bill, pp. 105–106; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, 242–43.

  21. Hale, Bloody Bill, pp. 106–107.

  22. Ibid., pp. 107–10.

  23. Settle, Jesse James, pp. 30–40; Hale, Bloody Bill, pp. 110–11.

  24. Settle, Jesse James, pp. 39–40.

  25. Jefferson City Missouri State Times, May 10, 1867, quoting the Glasgow Times, n.d., in Hale, Bloody Bill, p. 106; Donald R. Hale to Albert Castel, January 7, 1998, stating that a source in his possession but which he had misplaced “said that George Shepherd cut [Jim] Anderson’s throat on the courthouse lawn in Sherman, Texas, about September of 1868.”

  26. Hale to Castel, January 7, 1998.

  27. It could be argued that since Frank and Jesse, just two men, robbed the Gallatin bank, and Jesse killed Sheets almost immediately after entering the bank, their purpose was not so much robbery as it was to murder Sheets, and they were motivated in doing so by a desire to avenge Bill Anderson’s death. But why slay Sheets, who had nothing to do with Anderson’s death? And if vengeance was their motive, why did Frank and Jesse not attempt to waylay and kill Cox? A more likely explanation of their conduct is that they were drunk, a surmise supported by Jesse’s inability to mount his horse.

  28. This book’s account of the outlaw careers of Frank and Jesse James and the fame that they achieved is based on the relevant sections of Settle’s Jesse James Was His Name. This work, which began as an master’s thesis at the University of Missouri, was the first scholarly examination of its subject, and at the time of the writing of this book it remained the only published one. For a more detailed yet short account of the Jameses, see Albert Castel, “Men Behind the Masks: The James Brothers,” American History Illustrated (Summer 1982): 10–18, an article also based mainly on Settle’s book.

  29. The account of Goodman’s life and death, 1864 to 1886, is based on his service record (microfilm, State Historical Society of Missouri), U.S. Census records, and above all on reminiscences, documents, and photographs supplied by Betty M. Pierce, a descendant of Goodman, and on documents and data provided by Lorlei K. Metke, a professional historical and genealogical researcher, between 1989 and 1992 to Thomas Goodrich. The information about Goodman retaining the coat given him by Bill Anderson comes from a notation made by Thomas R. Hooper, who edited and published the 1960 facsimile edition of Goodman’s A Thrilling Record, in a January 8, 1983, letter to him by Thomas Goodrich.

  30. Columbia (Mo.) Daily Times, n.d., Centralia Massacre Clippings, Folder #2, State Historical Society of Missouri.
See also Richmond Missourian, July 4, 1938.

  31. Anderson’s present tombstone was placed on his grave by Donald R. Hale and his father, Lester C. Hale, in April 1969. They obtained it, somewhat ironically, from the United States government, which provides such markers for the grave of any person proved to have served either the Union or the Confederacy in a military capacity. See Hale, Bloody Bill, pp. 114–15.

  Bibliographical Essay

  Perhaps there are fields or types of history wherein the sources are so ample in quantity and so reliable in quality that the historians employing them are able to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth with absolute certainty that it is the truth. Were such a situation to exist (which is doubtful), it would be a enviable one, and few historians would envy it more than those who write what might be termed bushwhacker history. Their circumstances, when it comes to source material, borders on the direct opposite to the ideal state of affairs described above, especially if their subject happens to be a particular bushwhacker named William T. Anderson.

  For all historians the most prized source materials are diaries, letters, and reports providing firsthand accounts of events by participants soon after they occurred. Unfortunately but understandably bushwhackers did not keep diaries, and while it is possible that some of them sometimes wrote letters, none to my knowledge survive. Likewise, with a single exception, guerrilla leaders never filed reports. The exception was William Clarke Quantrill, who in October 1863 sent a brief account of his victory at Baxter Springs to Gen. Sterling Price. Uniqueness, though, is its sole virtue, for it conceals more than it reveals, and from the standpoint of historical research it is of little value. Concerning Bill Anderson, it is of no value at all, because it does not mention him.

  The lack of bushwhacker diaries, letters, and reports forces the historian to make all possible use of Federal sources of the same type. But even here there is a shortage of diaries and letters—a shortage so great that one is tempted to conclude that Union soldiers serving in Missouri and Kansas were not, by and large, of a literary bent. That is why it was a sheer delight to obtain from the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis a photocopy of Lt. S. S. Eaton’s September 26, 1864, letter to his father describing the bushwhacker attack on Fayette, Missouri, where he commanded the garrison. By the same token, it was a joy to locate in the Richmond Missourian of June 6, 1938, an excerpt from the diary of Lt. Thomas Hankins recounting the fight with Anderson’s band near Albany, Missouri, on October 17, 1864, and to find in the St. Louis Missouri Democrat of October 10, 1864, the statement by Richard Overall, conductor of the train that Anderson’s men waylaid at Centralia on September 27, 1864. If only there were more such historical gems! As it was, heavy reliance for primary source material had to be placed on the Union military reports and correspondence gathered in the pertinent volumes of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. These contain much valuable, indeed indispensable, information. Generally they are reliable with respect to such things as Federal troop movements and casualties, and they provide insights into the attitudes, plans, and reactions of the Union commanders engaged in combating the guerrillas. Yet they need to be used with care and discernment. They almost always exaggerate bushwhacker numbers and losses, tend (as do all military reports) to minimize failures and defeats, and sometimes are hilariously inaccurate when locating and identifying guerrilla bands. Finally, by their very nature they present a biased, one-sided view of the bushwhackers and their operations that, in the interest of accuracy and fairness, calls for consulting the best available substitute for guerrilla diaries, letters, and reports—namely, guerrilla memoirs.

  Sad to say, they are small in number, for the most part low in quality, and in some cases of dubious authenticity. Moreover, the two best ones are unpublished, and in the case of one of the two, unobtainable. They are, respectively, William H. Gregg’s manuscript, “A Little Dab of History Without Embelishment [sic],” in the Joint Collection of the State Historical Society of Missouri and the Western Historical Manuscript Collection, Columbia, Missouri; and an untitled manuscript by Frank Smith, which is available solely in the form of notes and extracts made in 1958 by Albert Castel and in his private collection. Gregg was an early member of Quantrill’s band, and his memoirs are the best source on that band’s history until he left it in the winter of 1863–64. It contains little about Anderson, however, and most of that little is strongly biased against him. Smith, on the other hand, did not join Quantrill until 1863, when he became seventeen, and he served under him and George Todd until the Price raid in the autumn of 1864, at which point his narrative ends. He offers important information, not to be found in any other source, about Anderson and his quarrel with Quantrill in Texas during the winter of 1863–64, but after that his only contact with Anderson occurred at Fayette and Centralia, concerning which his accounts are brief and of little value.

  The best of the published bushwhacker memoirs is John McCorkle’s Three Years with Quantrell [sic], first printed in 1914 and most recently republished, with notes by Albert Castel and commentary by Herman Hattaway, by the University of Oklahoma Press (hardbound edition, 1992; paperback edition, 1998). Actually written by a Missouri lawyer named Oswald S. Barton “as told” to him by McCorkle, this book provides an “insider’s view” of the Quantrill–Todd band by McCorkle, who joined it in 1862 and remained with it until late 1864, when he accompanied Quantrill to Kentucky. It offers data and details unavailable elsewhere but magnifies the prowess of the bushwhackers, ignores or glosses over such things as Todd’s supplanting of Quantrill as chieftain, and is more critical than informative regarding Anderson.

  Only two members of Anderson’s band left memoirs: Hamp B. Watts, The Babe of the Company (Fayette, Missouri: The Democratic Leader Press, 1913), and Jim Cummins, Jim Cummins’s Book Written By Himself (Denver: Reed Publishing Company, 1903; various reprints, some with title of Jim Cummins, Guerrilla). Watts’s book was very useful on events leading up to the attack on Fayette and for the attack itself (which, oddly, he misdates despite Fayette being his hometown!) but provided little of value on Centralia and virtually nothing about events following that affair. Cummins’s book, which despite its title was probably not written by him, mainly relates his putative postwar exploits as an outlaw and furnished only a quotation.

  Thus, ironically, the most important memoir pertaining to Anderson comes from a Federal sergeant. It is, of course, Thomas M. Goodman’s A Thrilling Record (Des Moines, Iowa: Mills & Company Steam Book & Job Printing House, 1868; facsimile edition, with introduction, notes, and appendix by Thomas R. Hooper, Marysville, Missouri: Rush Printing Company, 1960). Although written for Goodman, who lacked the education required to do it himself, by “Captain Harry A. Houston,” it is an authentic account of what he witnessed and experienced while he was Anderson’s captive and as such provides the most revealing view of Bloody Bill and his followers that exists. Both the text and the endnotes of this book testify to its great—indeed, unique—value.

  Owing to the absence of bushwhacker diaries and letters, the inadequacies of guerrilla memoirs, and the inherent limitations of the Official Records, the most useful and therefore most used sources were contemporary newspapers and local Missouri histories. The former contain interviews, or accounts based on interviews, with participants and eyewitnesses that offer much vital information that can be found nowhere else and is on the whole highly reliable. In particular, reports in the Emporia News, Council Grove Press, Leavenworth Daily Times, and Lexington Weekly Union shed light on Anderson’s hitherto obscure career prior to his emergence as a guerrilla chieftain in the summer of 1863. For what he did during the summer and fall of 1864, the most informative newspaper sources were the St. Louis Missouri Democrat, the St. Louis Missouri Republican, the St. Joseph Morning Herald, and the Kansas City Daily Journal (which published a weekly edition).

  Like the newspapers, certain local histories contained important data derived from the testimony of people wh
o took part in or beheld the events described. Chief among them were Thomas Fyfer, History of Boone County, Missouri (St. Louis: Western Historical Company, 1882); the anonymously authored History of Carroll County, Missouri (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Company, 1881); and Edgar T. Rodemyre, History of Centralia, Missouri (Centralia: Fireside Guard, 1936). All are, to be sure, pro-Union in viewpoint, yet there is no reason to doubt the essential accuracy of their narratives when describing personal experiences.

  As for secondary sources, John N. Edwards’s Noted Guerrillas, or, The Warfare of the Border (1877; reprint, Dayton, Ohio: Press of the Morningside Bookshop, 1976) could have been the bedrock history of its subject, for Edwards was an ex-Confederate major who possessed the friendship and trust of many former bushwhackers, notably Frank and Jesse James, and therefore had access to information that only they could have supplied. But he was not interested in writing a history; instead, he sought to create a legend. Consequently, to quote from B. James George Sr.’s 1958 letter to Richard Brownlee, he “saw Quantrill and his men through the mist of partisan comradeship, and in poetic prose magnified their victories, tossed aside their defeats, and over-excused their shortcomings.” As a result, his book, although fascinating reading, is a mixture of fiction and fact—and not to be relied on for the latter.

  William E. Connelley’s Quantrill and the Border Wars (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The Torch Press, 1910; many reprints) is as intensely biased on the pro-Union side as Edwards’s Noted Guerrillas is on the Confederate, but it does contain an immense amount of documentary material from which much valid information about the bushwhackers can be extracted. Little of this material, however, relates to Anderson. Connelley planned to write a book about him, and although he never did so, in July 1910 he interviewed several men who had known Anderson and his family when they resided near Council Grove, Kansas, during the late 1850s and the early 1860s. The record of these interviews, neatly typed and preserved in the William E. Connelley Collection at the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka, constitutes, despite some vagueness and vagaries in the testimony of the interviewees, the best source of information about what in certain respects was the most decisive phase of Anderson’s life.