bloody bill essays

bloody bill essays William Bloody Bill Anderson and his Bushwhackers The Kansas/Missouri border wars resulted in some of the bloodiest and violent conflicts prior to and during the Civil War. These conflicts started far before the beginning of the Civil War with the signing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which entitled the citizens living in Kansas to determine whether or not they would come into the Union as a slave state or a free state. This decision led to a land rush of people who were bitterly opposed in ideals and moralities which eventually led to many small skirmishes and battles that would foreshadow on a smaller scale the carnage and tragedy of the Civil War. Among one of the families to move into Kansas from Missouri was the Andersons, and most notably William Bloody Bill Anderson. He would later become one of the most notorious men in the U.S. when he and his Bushwhackers would commit the horrific atrocity The Centralia Massacre and win lopsidedly The Centralia War. William Anderson was born in February 1840, he and his family moved from Randal County, Missouri to Council Groves, Kansas when he was 14, William moved with his brother, three sisters, mother and father. His brother and father gained notoriety quickly as horse-thieves and bandits, with William following in there foots steps. Bill served in the Missouri State Guard for some time up until their withdrawal from Lexington, at this time he returned home. In March 1862, Bill was drawn into the Border War when his father, an outspoken Southern sympathizer, was shot to death by a Union supporter, either for horse-theft, or for simply having pro-slavery views. Whatever the reason William was forced to leave Kansas by his Union supporting neighbors, and soon he had gathered together his own band Missouri partisan fighters and was bent on revenge for the death of his father and later his sister I have chosen guerrilla warfare to ...