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34-476: Bushwhacking was a form of guerrilla warfare during the American Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and American Civil War. Bushwhacker ( s ), Bushwacker ( s ), or Bushwhacking may also refer to: Bushwhacker Bushwhackers were generally part of the irregular military forces on both sides. While bushwhackers conducted well-organized raids against the military, the most dire of

68-547: A bushwhacker — and of persuading parolees to return to Confederate service. A drumhead court-martial was convened on Friday, August 8, by Lt. Col. W.F. Schaffer of Merrill's Horse. McCullough stated that he had been elected second in command of the regiment of Colonel Cyrus Franklin, but had not yet received his commission. He had also previously held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Missouri State Guard , but that commission had long since expired. McCullough

102-504: A band of bushwhackers shot and killed Sheriff Joseph Bailey , a former Union brigadier general, who was attempting to arrest them. Among those suspected of his killing was William McWaters , who once rode with Anderson and Quantrill. Notes Further reading Frisby McCullough Frisby Henderson McCullough (March 8, 1828 – August 8, 1862) was a Confederate army soldier in the American Civil War , executed on

136-569: A house yet standing that it also did not disappear in the general conflagration. Such was the terrible intensity of the recent civil war ... In other areas of Missouri, properties were also pillaged and destroyed by both warring sides since atrocities during the Civil War were in many ways a continuation of Bleeding Kansas violence. Besides the Lawrence Massacre , the most notorious atrocity perpetrated by Confederate bushwhackers

170-399: A month after the 1865 surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee , during a near-fatal encounter with Wisconsin cavalrymen. In the course of the war, James' mother and sister were arrested, his stepfather tortured, and his family banished temporarily from Missouri by state militiamen— all Unionist Missourians. After the end of the war, the survivors of Anderson's band (including

204-486: A principle of right. Aim at the heart. Fire!" Of the first volley, only one shot hit McCullough, and he survived. He requested for his leg, which had been pinned under him, to be straightened, and was then executed via pistol shots. McCullough's final words were "May God forgive you this cold-blooded murder." Union Colonel McNeil wrote: "Col. McCullough was tried […] under order No. 2 of General Halleck and Nos. 8 and 18, of General Schofield . He had no commission except

238-547: A printed paper authorizing 'the bearer' to recruit for the Confederate Army. He was found guilty of bushwhacking, or of being a guerilla. He was a brave fellow, and a splendid specimen of manhood. I would have gladly spared him had my duty permitted. As it was, he suffered the fate that would have fallen to you or to me if we had been found recruiting inside the Confederate lines. He met a soldier's death, as became

272-471: A soldier." The intensely pro-Union Palmyra Courier was restrained in its criticism of McCullough: "We have known him personally since he was a boy. He was ever, as a citizen, a high-toned gentleman – really a noble specimen of a man. Brave as a lion, no danger could intimidate him. We doubt whether the rebel ranks contain a more honorable man than he was. Yet his judgment led him to commit the fatal error of taking up arms against his country. He has been one of

306-473: A succession of atrocities committed in Missouri. Hostage-taking and banishment were employed by local District and Union commanders to punish secessionist sympathizers. Individual families, including that of Jesse and Frank James and the maternal grandparents and mother of future President Harry Truman , were banished from Missouri. Union troops often executed or tortured suspects without trial and burned

340-581: Is colored by the author's Confederate perspective. Prior to the engagement at Kirksville, McCullough again urged Porter to decline battle and send his raw recruits to Arkansas for training and equipping behind Confederate lines. Porter refused and McCullough proposed that Porter at least wait in the cornfields outside of town, instead of fighting in the village itself. Again, his advice was ignored. After Porter's disastrous defeat at Kirksville, McCullough became ill. Declining Porter's offer of escort, he rode alone towards Edina to recover and continue recruiting. He

374-518: The "burnt district". The Missouri–Arkansas border had been desolated as well. The Little Rock Arkansas Gazette wrote in August 1866: Wasted farms, deserted cabins, lone chimneys marking the sites where dwellings have been destroyed by fire, and yards, gardens and fields overgrown with weeds and bushes are everywhere within view. The traveler soon ceases to wonder when he sees the charred remains of burnt buildings, and wonders rather when he beholds

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408-599: The Ashbury Methodist Church South of Steffenville Mo. The church is no longer there but the cemetery still exists today. While there may have been some technicalities as to McCullough's commission, he was in fact wearing a Confederate officer's uniform when captured and was acting under orders from General Price. Reaction to his execution was generally negative. It was viewed by many as neither necessary nor just, and may have done more to galvanize pro-Southern sympathies than to discourage activities of

442-519: The James brothers) remained together under the leadership of Archie Clement , one of Anderson's lieutenants. In February 1866, they began a series of armed robberies. This group became known as the James-Younger Gang , after the death or capture of the older outlaws (including Clement) and the addition of former bushwhacker Cole Younger and his brothers. In December 1869, Jesse James became

476-768: The November 1864 "Copperhead Murders" in the San Joaquin Valley of three men they believed to be Republicans . Tom McCauley , known as "James" or "Jim Henry", was killed in a shootout with a posse from San Bernardino on September 14 of that year, in San Jacinto Canyon , in what was then San Diego County . John Mason was killed by a fellow gang member for the reward in April 1866 near Fort Tejon in Kern County . In 1867, near Nevada, Missouri ,

510-443: The attacks involved ambushes of individuals and house raids in rural areas. In the countryside, the actions were particularly inflammatory since they frequently amounted to fighting between neighbors, often to settle personal accounts. The term "bushwhacker" came into wide use during the American Civil War (1861–1865). It became particularly associated with the pro-Confederate secessionist guerrillas of Missouri , where such warfare

544-523: The bushwhackers was the Lawrence Massacre . William Quantrill led a raid in August 1863 on Lawrence, Kansas , burning the town and murdering some 150 men in Lawrence. Bushwhackers justified the raid as retaliation for the Sacking of Osceola , Missouri two years earlier, in which the town was set aflame and at least nine men killed, and for the deaths of five female relatives of bushwhackers killed in

578-517: The case of William Quantrill . Or they might receive written orders from a Confederate general, as "Bloody Bill" Anderson did in October 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

612-673: The collapse of a Kansas City, Missouri jail. To end guerrilla raids into Kansas, the Union commander of the District of the Border, which comprised counties along the Missouri-Kansas state line, Thomas Ewing, Jr. , ordered the total depopulation of Jackson, Cass, Bates, and northern Vernon counties in Missouri under his General Order No. 11 . Nearly twenty-five thousand rural inhabitants had to go to areas near Union camps or leave

646-559: The former militia officer.) Throughout James' criminal career, he often wrote to the newspapers portraying himself as a bushwhacker, and rallying the support of former Confederates and other Missourians who were harmed by Federal authorities during the Civil War and Reconstruction . After the end of the war in 1865, the Mason Henry Gang continued as outlaws in Southern California with a price on their heads for

680-463: The homes of guerrillas and those suspected of aiding or harboring them. If official credentials were doubted, the suspects were often executed, as in the case of Lt. Col. Frisby McCullough after the Battle of Kirksville . Bushwhackers retaliated by ambushing federal soldiers and frequently going house to house and executing Unionist sympathizers. One of the most vicious actions during the Civil War by

714-478: The most active and vigilant rebels in the Northeast Missouri [sic]. Honorable as he was, however, as a gentleman, he justly merited the fate he received, as a rebel, in unlawful and barbarous warfare against the authorities of the land. Had he engaged in the service of his country with the zeal he evinced against it, he would doubtless have risen to a high position of honor and renown." He was interred at

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748-608: The most famous of this group when he emerged as the prime suspect in the robbery of the Daviess County Savings Association in Gallatin, Missouri , and the murder of cashier John W. Sheets. During Jesse James's flight from the scene, he declared that he had killed Samuel P. Cox and had taken revenge for Bloody Bill Anderson's death. (Cox lived in Gallatin, and the killer apparently mistook Sheets for

782-587: The most part, however, Missouri's bushwhacker squads were self-organized groups of young men, predominantly from the slave -holding counties along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. They independently organized and fought against Federal forces and their Unionist neighbors, both in Kansas and Missouri. Their actions were in retaliation for what they considered a Federal invasion of their home state. The conflict with Confederate bushwhackers rapidly escalated into

816-513: The name in the same manner. Several bushwhacker bands operated in California in 1864. Pro-Union guerrilla fighters in Kansas were called " Jayhawkers ". They were involved in cross-border raids into Missouri. In most areas, guerrilla warfare operated as an adjunct to conventional military operations. The title adopted by the Confederate government in formally authorizing such insurgents

850-552: The orders of Union Colonel (later a general) John McNeil after the Battle of Kirksville . Born in New Castle County, Delaware , to James and Delia (Pennington) McCullough, he moved with his parents to Marion County, Missouri at the age of 12. McCullough went to California during the 1849 Gold Rush and remained there for 5 years. On November 26, 1856, he married Eloise Randolph in Marion County. They became

884-481: The parents of three children, including a son who went on to practice law in Edina, Missouri . At the outbreak of the war, McCullough joined the Confederate forces under General Thomas Green . He took part in the Battle of Lexington , before being sent by General Sterling Price to recruit in northeastern Missouri with Joseph C. Porter in the spring of 1862. During the guerrilla campaign in Northeast Missouri in

918-476: The state; their houses were burned to prevent them from returning; altogether, twenty-two hundred square miles of western Missouri became a desolation by the end of September 1863. A minister, George Miller, who lived in Kansas City, wrote, "For miles and miles we saw nothing but lone chimneys. It seemed like a vast cemetery – not a living thing to break the silence." The District of the Border became known as

952-422: The summer of 1862, McCullough sought unsuccessfully to persuade Colonel Porter to restrict himself to recruiting and not engage the Union forces. According to one of his men, Joseph Mudd (see references), this was because McCullough feared the retaliation Federal forces would inflict upon civilian Southern sympathizers. The observation may accurately reflect McCullough's character, which is universally praised, but it

986-638: Was "partisan ranger". One of them was Col. John Singleton Mosby , who carried out raids on Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley and northern Virginia. He also raided to the north in Kentucky and Tennessee. Partisan rangers were also authorized in Arkansas. In Missouri, however, secessionist bushwhackers operated outside of the Confederate chain of command. On occasion, a prominent bushwhacker commander might receive formal Confederate rank, as in

1020-525: Was discovered by Federal troops and surrendered. McCullough requested to be sent to Palmyra , rather than to Kirksville, possibly because he had already heard of the executions of prisoners there, but the request was denied. Although he had been treated well in Edina, according to eyewitnesses he was paraded up and down the streets of Kirksville to jeering crowds. He was accused of lacking a military commission, of fighting on his own authority — that is, of being

1054-411: Was found guilty and sentenced to be shot. The officer who read the death sentence did so with tears. McCullough made two requests before his execution: that he be allowed to write a letter to his wife, and for permission to give the firing squad orders to fire. Both were granted. After being taken west of Kirksville to be executed, he gave the order to the firing squad "What I have done, I have done as

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1088-642: Was lured into an ambush and killed in the ensuing battle by soldiers of the pro-Union Missouri State Militia under the command of Col. Samuel P. Cox . Anderson's body was displayed following his death. The guerrilla conflict in Missouri was, in many respects, a civil war within the Civil War. Jesse James began to fight as an insurgent in 1864. During months of often intense combat, he battled only fellow Missourians, ranging from Missouri regiments of U.S. Volunteer troops, to state militia , to unarmed Unionist civilians. The single confirmed instance of his exchanging fire with Federal troops from another state occurred

1122-477: Was most intense. Guerrilla warfare also wracked Kentucky , Tennessee , northern Georgia , Arkansas , and western Virginia (including the new state of West Virginia ), among other locations. In some areas, particularly the Appalachian regions of Tennessee and North Carolina , the term bushwhackers was used for Confederate partisans who attacked Union forces. Residents of southern Alabama used

1156-561: Was the Centralia Massacre of September 27, 1864, in which 24 unarmed Union soldiers were pulled from a train in Centralia, Missouri and murdered by a band of guerrillas under the command of "Bloody Bill" Anderson , in retaliation for the earlier execution of a number of Anderson's own men. In an ambush of pursuing Union forces shortly thereafter, the bushwhackers killed well over 100 Federal troops. In October 1864, Anderson

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