Quantrill’s War: The Life and Times of William Clarke Quantrill, 1837-1865
St. Martin’s Press, 1996
For career criminal William Clarke Quantrill, the American Civil War was an opportunity to practice legitimately what he loved most: theft, destruction, and murder. He rampaged freely as a military hero, slaughtering hundreds, fighting under the flag of the Confederate Army. Few people realized that Quantrill had no personal convictions. He stood for no principles and believed no more in the Southern ideal than in the Union. He simply lived to kill.
Quantrill’s War recounts the guerrilla raids he carried out with dash and daring, the lightning ambushes he led on horseback, reins in his teeth, Navy Colt revolvers blazing in each hand. Union forces struggled to track him without success. He attracted a following of more than 300 men including Frank James, whose younger brother Jesse later joined them, Cole Younger, and Bloody Bill Anderson. The climax of this disturbing story is Quantrill’s bloodiest battle, the 4-hour sacking of Lawrence, Kansas, where he ordered the massacre of 185 men and boys, killing “every man big enough to carry a gun.” Thoroughly researched and documented, this is a riveting story of murder and revenge.
Reviews
A salute to turn-of-the-century wisdom and psychohistorical analysis
Schultz extends his catalog of richly detailed, well-written histories with this life of Quantrill, who emerges less as a psychopath than as a soldier bent on bringing total destruction to his enemy
Schultz retells Quantrill’s life with dramatic flourish. His re-creation of the Lawrence, Kansas, massacre is particularly exciting. Readers interested in the dark side of the Civil War will find much to ponder
More Civil War Books by Duane Schultz
Glory Enough for All: The Battle of the Crater: A Novel of the Civil War
St. Martin’s Press, 1993
Month of the Freezing Moon: The Sand Creek Massacre, November 1864
St. Martin’s Press, 1990
Over the Earth I Come: The Great Sioux Uprising of 1862
St. Martin’s Press, 1992
The Dahlgren Affair: Terror and Conspiracy in the Civil War
W. W. Norton, 1998
The Most Glorious Fourth: Vicksburg and Gettysburg, July 4th, 1863
W. W. Norton, 2002
George Armstrong Custer
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
The Fate of War: Fredericksburg, 1862
Westholme Publishing
