William Anderson "Bloody bill"

                 


                            William Anderson's blood-curdling crimes

     William Anderson, or  "Bloody Bill"  lived from 1840-October 26, 1864.
Bill Anderson served as a lieutenant in Confederate Captain William C. Quantrill's group of viscious murderers that rampaged through the states of Missouri and Kansas. Because of his violent reputation, Anderson had earned the name "Bloody Bill". But when one of his sisters was killed and another crippled he gained even more recognization as a psychotic cold-blooded killer. Anderson participated in Quantrill's murderous rampage in the town of Lawrence, Kansas in August 1863.

     By the next spring he had argued with Quantrill and, taking many members of the band with him, set out to cause more havoc. He and his 100 raiders preyed on any Union detachments or easy targets that came within their reach. Federal soldiers would often be found scalped, with their throats slit. One of the dead soldiers had a note pinned to him signed by Bill Anderson that said, "You come to hunt bush whackers. Now you are skelpt." Anderson decorated his horse's bridle with the scalps he collected.

     On the morning of September 27, 1864, Anderson and his men rode into the small railroad town of Centralia, Missouri, and began looting, burning buildings and getting drunk. They stopped a passing train, robbed the passengers, and lined up and murdered 24 unarmed Union soldiers. Laughing, they rode out of town. Soon after, 150 Union cavalry men set out after Anderson, only to be ambushed and massacred themselves. 116 blue troopers killed were found shot through the head, then scalped, bayonets thrust through them, ears and noses cut off. One month later, "Bloody Bill" was killed by two bullets in the back of his head in a fight with Union militia in northwest Missouri. Anderson's killers propped him up in a chair and had his picture taken. Then they cut off his head and mounted it on a telegraph pole.