Bushwhacker

1 Union and Confederate bushwhackers

For the tool resembling a long-handled billhook and also

referred to as a sling blade, see Kaiser blade. For other
uses, see Bushwhackers (disambiguation).
Bushwhacking was a form of guerrilla warfare common

The term bushwhacker came into wide use during the

American Civil War (1861-1865): it became particularly
associated with the Confederate guerrillas of Missouri,
where such warfare was most intense. Guerrilla warfare
also wracked Kentucky, Tennessee, northern Georgia,
Arkansas, and northern Virginia, among other locations.
Two bands operated in California in 1864.
Pro-Union guerilla ghters in Kansas were called
"Jayhawkers". They used tactics similar to the Confederate bushwhackers but only against the most insidious Missouri rebels. A typical Jayhawker action involved a crossborder raid into Missouri following a killing or killings in
Kansas by Missouri raiders.
In some areas, particularly the Appalachian regions of
Tennessee and North Carolina, the term bushwhackers
was used for Union partisans who attacked Confederate
forces. Residents of southern Alabama used the name in
the same manner.[1]

2 Partisan rangers
In most areas, irregular warfare operated as an adjunct to
conventional military operations. The most famous such
partisan ranger (to use the title adopted by the ConfedConfederate bushwhacker Bloody Bill Anderson
erate government in formally authorizing such insurgents)
was Col. John Singleton Mosby, who carried out raids on
during the American Revolutionary War, American Civil Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley and northern VirWar and other conicts in which there were large areas of ginia. Partisan rangers were also authorized in Arkansas.
contested land and few governmental resources to con- In Missouri, however, secessionist bushwhackers opertrol these tracts. This was particularly prevalent in rural ated outside of the Confederate chain of command. On
areas during the Civil War where there were sharp divi- occasion, a prominent bushwhacker chieftain might resions between those favoring the Union and Confederacy ceive formal Confederate rank (notably William Clarke
in the conict. The perpetrators of the attacks were called Quantrill), or receive written orders from a Confederbushwhackers.
ate general (as Bloody Bill Anderson did in October
Bushwhackers were generally part of the irregular military forces on both sides. While bushwhackers conducted
a few well-organized raids in which they burned cities,
most of the attacks involved ambushes of individuals or
families in rural areas. In areas aected by bushwhacking
the actions were particularly insidious since it amounted
to a ght of neighbor against neighbor. Since the attacks
were non-uniformed, the government response was complicated by trying to decide whether they were legitimate
military attacks or criminal actions.

1864 during a large-scale Confederate incursion into Missouri, or as when Joseph C. Porter was authorized by Gen.
Sterling Price to recruit in northeast Missouri). Missouri guerrillas frequently assisted Confederate recruiters
in Union-held territory. For the most part, however, Missouris bushwhacker squads were self-organized groups
of young men, predominantly from the slave-holding
counties along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, who
took it upon themselves to attack Federal forces and their
Unionist neighbors, both in Kansas and Missouri, the lat1

POPULAR CULTURE

ter in response to what they considered a Federal invasion atrocity by Confederate bushwhackers was the murder
of their home state.
of 22 unarmed Union soldiers pulled from a train in the
Centralia Massacre in retaliation for the earlier execution
of a number of Andersons own men. In an ambush of
pursuing Union forces shortly thereafter, the bushwhack3 Jesse James
ers killed well over 100 Federal troops. In October 1864,
Bloody Bill Anderson was tricked into an ambush and
The guerrilla conict in Missouri was, in many respects, killed by state militiamen under the command of Col.
a civil war within the Civil War. One of the most fa- Samuel P. Cox. Andersons body was displayed and his
mous men who fought as a bushwhacker was Jesse James, head was severed.
who began to ght in 1864. During months of often intense combat, he only battled fellow Missourians, ranging from Missouri regiments of U.S. Volunteer troops
to state militia to unarmed Unionist civilians. The sin- 5 Postwar banditry
gle conrmed instance of his exchanging re with Federal troops from another state occurred a month after After the end of the war, the survivors of Andersons
the 1865 surrender of Confederate General Robert E. band (including the James brothers) remained together
Lee, during a near-fatal encounter with Wisconsin cav- under the leadership of Archie Clement, one of Anderalrymen. In the course of the war, his mother and sister sons lieutenants, and began a series of armed robberies
were arrested, his stepfather tortured, and his family ban- in February 1866. This group became known as the
ished temporarily from Missouri by state militiamen all James-Younger Gang, after the death or capture of the
older outlaws (including Clement) and the addition of forUnionist Missourians.[2]
mer bushwhacker Cole Younger and his brothers. In December 1869, Jesse James became the most famous of
this group when he emerged as the prime suspect in the
4 Atrocities
robbery of the Daviess County Savings Association in
Gallatin, Missouri, and the murder of the cashier, John
The conict with Confederate bushwhackers everywhere W. Sheets. During Jesses ight from the scene, he derapidly escalated into a succession of atrocities commit- clared that he had killed Samuel P. Cox and had taken
ted by both sides. Union troops often executed or tor- revenge for Andersons death. (Cox lived in Gallatin, and
tured suspects without trial and burned the homes of sus- the killer apparently mistook Sheets for the former milipected guerrillas and those suspected of aiding or harbor- tia ocer.) Throughout Jesse James criminal career, he
ing them. Where credentials were suspect, the accused often wrote to the newspapers with pride of his role as
bushwhacker was often executed, as in the case of Lt. a bushwhacker, rallying the support of former ConfederCol. Frisby McCullough after the Battle of Kirksville. ates and other Missourians who were harmed by Federal
Bushwhackers frequently went house to house, executing authorities during the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Unionist farmers.
After the end of the war in 1865, the Mason Henry Gang
One of the most vicious actions during the Civil War by continued as outlaws in Southern California with a price
the bushwhackers was the Lawrence Massacre. William on their heads for the November 1864 Copperhead MurQuantrill led a raid in August 1863 on Lawrence, Kansas, ders of three men they believed to be Republicans, in the
burning the town and murdering some 150 men and boys San Joaquin Valley. Tom McCauley, known as James or
in Lawrence. The raiders justied the raid in retaliation Jim Henry, was killed in a shootout with a posse from San
for the Sacking of Osceola, Missouri two years earlier Bernardino on September 14 of that year, in San Jacinto
(in which the town was set aame and at least nine men Canyon, in what was then San Diego County. John Makilled) and for the deaths of ve female relatives of bush- son was killed by a fellow gang member for the reward in
whackers killed in the collapse of a Kansas City, Mis- April 1866 near Fort Tejon in Kern County.
souri jail. Following the Lawrence raid, the Union disIn 1867, near Nevada, Missouri, a band of bushwhacktrict commander, Thomas Ewing, Jr., ordered the total
ers shot and killed Sheri Joseph Bailey, a former
depopulation (both Unionists and Southern sympathizers
Union brigadier general, who was attempting to arrest
and everyone else) of three and a half Missouri counthem. Among those suspected of his killing was William
ties along the Kansas border from Kansas City, Missouri
McWaters, who once rode with Anderson and Quantrill.
south, under his General Order No. 11. (The MissouriKansas border conict was in many ways a continuation
of Bleeding Kansas violence.) In other areas, individual
families (including that of Jesse and Frank James and the 6 Popular culture
grandparents and mother of future President Harry Truman) were banished from Missouri.
The bushwhackers are a major focus of WildNext to the attack on Lawrence, the most notorious

wood Boys (William Morrow, New York; 2000),

3
a biographical novel of Bloody Bill Anderson by
James Carlos Blake.
The lms The Outlaw Josey Wales and Ride with the
Devil are both about bushwhackers.
Bushwhackers appear in the side-stories of the HBO
series Deadwood, set in South Dakota
The Bushwhackers were a professional wrestling tag
team that wrestled in the World Wrestling Federation.

See also
Ambush
Border Ruan
Jayhawker
Knights of the Golden Circle
Asymmetric warfare
Irregular warfare
Copperheads (politics)
Francs-tireurs
Partisan (military)
Hajduk
William Quantrill
William T. Anderson
Bald Knobber

References

[1] See, for instance, Battle of Newton (Alabama).

[2] Fellman, Michael (1990). Inside War: The Guerrilla Conict in Missouri onto the American Civil War. Oxford
University Press. pp. 61143. ISBN 0-19-506471-2.

T.J. Stiles: Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War,

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002
Robert R. Mackey, The UnCivil War: Irregular
Warfare in the Upper South, 1861-1865 Norman,
Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004
Geiger, Mark W. Financial Fraud and Guerrilla Violence in Missouris Civil War, 1861-1865, Yale University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-300-15151-0

External links
Centralia Massacre and Battle Reenactment

10

10
10.1

TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

Bushwhacker Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushwhacker?oldid=656568202 Contributors: GABaker, Joy, Stevietheman,

Zeimusu, Antandrus, Kbh3rd, Swid, Iranian86Footballer, Linmhall, Danthemankhan, Tabletop, Stefanomione, Imersion, Scott Mingus,
RussBot, BusterD, Kgwo1972, Bluezy, SmackBot, Burroughsks88, Grazon, Flux.books, Hmains, Rncooper, Moonlight Mile, Ggroschen,
Sadads, Krocker316, The Chef, Paul E Ester, EVula, Bobjuch, Will Beback, Kozeltsov, BranStark, DavidOaks, Civil Engineer III, JForget, Sketch051, Americasroof, CmdrObot, ShelfSkewed, Scromett, Gogo Dodo, DBaba, Asiaticus, Thijs!bot, A Sniper, LactoseTI, Nick
Number, RobotG, North Shoreman, Magioladitis, VoABot II, Nyq, Father Goose, Rivertorch, Twisted86, Shannon.Seath, Mecc6132,
Otterfan, Chelt, R'n'B, 8th Ohio Volunteers, Red Harvest, DidacticRogue, S2grand, Ericnandrea, BaronGrackle, Temporaluser, Maengpong, Deconstructhis, LeadSongDog, Khvalamde, Dawgsb1, Tegrenath, Ecjmartin, ClueBot, Kendo70133, TheOldJacobite, Klenod, PixelBot, WooteleF, Whiterussian1974, Addbot, 5 albert square, AnomieBOT, Materialscientist, Half Sarah, Jfbarlow, Winterst, Pinethicket,
Mwgf79, ZroBot, Donner60, ChuispastonBot, Whoop whoop pull up, ClueBot NG, Jack Greenmaven, Civilwarman97, Captain Bathrobe,
Widr, Zejrus, Chillllls, Helpful Pixie Bot, Williamdeloria, Siricruz, Texterri, Biblioworm, Jackm80, Obrute, TimmBUTTguy and Anonymous: 70

10.2

Images

File:Bloody-bill-anderson.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Bloody-bill-anderson.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: State Historical society item [SHS 023422-1]
http://shs.umsystem.edu/historicmissourians/folklegends/james/jamesbloodybill.html Original artist: Unknown
File:Question_book-new.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Question_book-new.svg License: Cc-by-sa-3.0
Contributors:
Created from scratch in Adobe Illustrator. Based on Image:Question book.png created by User:Equazcion Original artist:
Tkgd2007

10.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0