Bloody Bill Anderson — a Confederate “soldier” (really, self-appointed guerilla leader) whose atrocities got him that well-deserved nickname during the American Civil War. Here’s the pertinent facts:
- born 1840, he was raised by a Southern family in Kansas
- Anderson began supporting himself by stealing and selling horses in 1862
- early in 1863, he joined Quantrill’s Raiders, a pro-Confederate group of guerrillas that operated in Missouri
- Anderson became skilled at guerilla warfare and quickly earned the trust of the Raiders’ leaders
- Union authorities arrested all accused of aiding Quantrill’s Raiders, including three of Anderson’s teenaged sisters
- their jail in Lawrence, Kansas, collapsed, killing one sister and crippling another
- in revenge, Anderson helped lead the Lawrence Massacre. Raiders rode in with lists of men to be killed and buildings to be burned, but quickly began indiscriminately killing in one of the worst massacres of the war
- that winter, he got the leader Quantrill arrested for murder by the Confederate authorities (oh, the irony) and took control of the group
- for four months, he led a band of about 50 guerrillas, dressed in Union uniforms, cut a bloody path through Missouri and Kansas
- Bloody Bill Anderson met his end leading five raiders on a suicidal charge at 300 armed Union infantry
- he was 25 years old
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