Quantrill goes to Richmond

   In the 1860s, with a war going on, the theater of operation for William Quantrill was a long way from the Confederate capitol in Richmond. Some might even say they were worlds apart. Yet the famed Confederate leader took that long trip in January 1863.

   The war waged beyond the Mississippi was brutal, spanning back a decade prior to April 1861. “Bleeding Kansas” had spilled over into the surrounding areas between 1854 and 1859. There were instances of electoral fraud, raids, and violent clashes carried out. The violence continued into the 1860s, spreading over the entire country. William C. Quantrill arrived in Kansas in 1857, and in 1858, joined an army expedition headed to Utah. Quantrill served as a teamster, and most of the group died during the trip. Quantrill returned to Kansas, associated with the Free-Staters, then the proslavery group. At the start of the war, Kansas Jawhawkers, described as “antislavery Unionists,” crossed over into Missouri “to burn and plunder.” Quantrill and others in Missouri organized guerrilla bands to fight against the plunderers.[1] 

William Quantrill (LOC)

   Quantrill served in different groups at the beginning of the war, including Mayes’s 1^st Cherokee Regiment and then Sterling Price’s Missouri State Guard, fighting with the latter at Wilson’s Creek. When Quantrill’s enlistment expired, he was allowed to go home to wage war locally, including cutting telegraph lines, attacking foraging parties, Union garrisons, and disrupting Union activities whenever possible. He returned to Blue Springs, recruited ten men, and joined with others in an attempt to root out Federal forces from their home counties. Quantrill was commissioned a captain in Confederate service.[2]

   In the winter of 1862-1863, with his men in winter quarters, Quantrill set out to visit Richmond and Jefferson Davis, lobbying the Confederate president for a colonel’s commission. It was Quantrill’s argument that he was already commanding enough men to warrant the promotion. Quantrill made his way to Little Rock, catching a train toward Memphis. He was traveling with two fellow soldiers. Memphis was in Federal hands, and at some point, Quantrill moved overland to a train that took him to Jackson, Mississippi. Another train took him to Atlanta, then Columbia, South Carolina. Quantrill then entered North Carolina, passed through Petersburg, and eventually reached Richmond. (It is unclear why Quantrill followed this route, rather than the closer route through Knoxville and Bristol.)[3]

   Jefferson Davis was not in Richmond. He had left Richmond on December 9, reaching Chattanooga on December 11. He visited Murfreesboro, Atlanta, Montgomery, Vicksburg, Augusta, Charlotte, and Raleigh. Davis did not return to Richmond until January 4, 1863.[4]

   Outside of “Christmas time,” it is unclear just when Quantrill arrived. Davis was not present, and Quantrill met with Secretary of War James A. Seddon. There is no really good account of the meeting, but one biographer reported that Quantrill asked Seddon for a colonel’s commission under the Partisan Ranger Act. A much later account had Quantrill stating that he would “cover the armies of the Confederacy all over with blood. I would invade. I would reward audacity. I would exterminate. I would break up foreign enlistments [in indiscriminate massacre. I would win the independence of my people or I would find them graves.” When it came to prisoners, Quantrill stated that he would take no prisoners. “Do they take prisoners from me?” he reportedly questioned Seddon.[5]

   Quantrill was soon on his way back to his command in the Trans-Mississippi department. There is no documentation that the Confederate War Department ever promoted Quantrill to the rank of colonel. However, as Petersen pointed out, several of Quantrill’s men affirmed he was promoted to colonel, something that Quantrill’s commander, Sterling Price, had the authority to do.[6]

   For the next couple of years, Quantrill fought his war. Neither side in the Missouri – Indian Territory-Texas theater took many prisoners. Accounts paint a picture of some of the most vicious violence of the conflict. Quantrill met his end in Kentucky in June 1865, attempting to reach Confederate lines. His trip to Richmond in December 1862 to meet with Jefferson Davis is little documented, both then and today.

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[1] Fellman, “William Clarke Quantrill,” Encyclopedia of the Confederacy, 3:1289.

[2] Peterson, Quantrill in Texas, 49, 52; William E. C. Quantrill, CMSR, NA.

[3] Paterson, Quantrill in Texas, 72-75.

[4] Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, 417-18.

[5] Schultz, Quantrill’s War, 130-31.

[6] Petersen, Quantrill in Texas, 74-77.