July 31, 2018 -- Leader of perhaps the most savage fighting unit in the Civil War, William Quantrill developed a style of guerrilla warfare that terrorized civilians and soldiers alike. By late 1861, he was the leader of Quantrill's Raiders, a small force of no more than a dozen men who harassed Union soldiers and sympathizers along the Kansas-Missouri border and often clashed with Jayhawkers, the pro-Union guerrilla bands that reversed Quantrill's tactics by staging raids from Kansas into Missouri. Union forces soon declared him an outlaw, and the Confederacy officially made him a captain.
The Reader’s Notebook: William Quantrill
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