Bloody Bill Anderson

William Quantrill, Santa Fe Trail, bushwhackers, Lawrence massacre

 

 

 

 

Bloody Bill Anderson William T. Anderson (1840-1864), later known as Bloody Bill Anderson who was thought to be the merciless killer of William Quantrill’s raiders in the 1850s, was born in Kentucky and grew up as a nice, well-behaved young boy. His family moved to just outside Council Grove, Kan. via the Santa Fe Trail in 1857 and that’s where Anderson’s trouble started. After the death of mother, who apparently died of a lightning strike, and after his father fled for north after murdering a man, Anderson turned to selling stolen horses to make a living. Thus, his downward spiral into living a lawless life began and soon he would earn his horrible nickname as “Bloody” Bill. Anderson soon joined the pro-confederate, murderous gang of William Quantrill. In 1863, Anderson, along with other Missourian bushwhackers, lead several raids in Wesport in Kansas City that killed several Union soldiers. That same year, Anderson took park in the infamous Lawrence Massacre in August after his sister was wrongfully imprisoned and killed in Kansas City. Anderson stayed true to his bloody name and brutally murdered 14 people that day.  After another year of raids and killings, Anderson finally got what was coming to him. He died in battle on October 26, 1864 at the hands of a Union solider, the very group Anderson fought against. He left a legacy of being a mentally ill, sadistic, almost satanic, murderer who would forever be in history books along side Quantrill.