The Grim Chieftain.

This is coolbert:

During the American Civil War, there existed "militias" that much to their discredit did not comport themselves in a manner that by today's standards would be within the grounds of what is normally referred to as the "The Rules of Land Warfare".

The most egregious of these militias fought in the area of Kansas and Missouri.

This had been an area of intermittent but intense hit and run warfare in the years prior to the war.

Both sides, abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates, were intent on bringing Kansas, at the time a territory, into the Union as a state friendly to their goals [no slavery for the abolitionists, and slave owning for the pro-slavery forces].

And both were willing to use force to accomplish their respective goals. In the years leading up to 1861, weapons were smuggled into Kansas by the abolitionists, free towns were built, and slaves were encouraged to flee to Kansas to populate the territory with forces friendly to the abolitionist cause. The slave owners of Missouri saw this as a real threat to their life style and their future aspirations and responded by forming "militias" to counter this threat. These militias, Union and pro-slavery, were a combination of disreputable persons and persons who were genuinely motivated from altruistic motives to "help" their state and the "cause"

There had been fighting in the years leading up to 1861 between the abolitionist militias and the pro-slavery militias back and forth between the borders of Missouri and Kansas. These back and forth cross border raids could be very destructive [during the Civil War, Lawrence, Kansas was burned to the ground three times!!!]. Lawrence was an especially tempting target for the pro-slavery forces as it was just across the border from Missouri, and was a hot-bed of abolitionist activity. The famous [infamous?] John Brown established his reputation by hacking five pro-slavery men to death with a broadsword after one incident when Lawrence was burned!!

Once the war was on, the level of violence escalated dramatically and from the outbreak of the war, it was no-holds-barred, as they say. Various militia groups on both sides proliferated, and the trend was for violence of an ever more dramatic and gratuitous nature. Much to the disgrace of all involved. Now, these militia groups were not regular army or uniformed troops of an organized military. On the Federal side were militias such as the "Regulators", and most famous [infamous?], the "Redlegs" [pro-Union units were known collectively as "Jayhawkers"]. On the pro-slavery side were "units" commanded by Quantrill or by "Bloody Billy" Anderson. Pro-slavery forces went under the rubric of "Bushwackers".

Some famous [infamous?] personalities from American history rode with the Redlegs and the Bushwackers.

Riding with the Redlegs were, such men as Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody.

The Redlegs were organized by a man named Jim Lane, who was a Senator from Kansas, and whose nickname was "The Grim Chieftain".

The Bushwackers included in their ranks such men as, William Quantrill, Jesse James, Cole Younger, and Bloody Bill Anderson.

Each side saw themselves in a favorable light that did not always correspond to reality. The Redlegs were obstensibly scouts and spies that would give advance warning to abolitionist communities in Kansas of predations by Bushwackers. And the Bushwackers saw themselves as defenders of their way of life and fighting against what they saw as Yankee aggression by "outsiders" [the abolitionists].

Once the Civil War began in earnest, both sides began to adopt tactics that were scorched earth in nature, take-no-prisoners being the rule [I would call this no-holds-barred warfare]. Bushwackers would attack abolitionist communities with lists of unarmed citizens to kill. And kill they did, murdering unarmed persons without qualms but rather with hate. And the Redlegs launched counter-guerilla attacks into Missouri that spared few, attacking isolated farm houses that were refuges for Bushwackers, leaving behind a Redleg trail of death and destruction. This sort of warfare was very well captured in the recent movie, "Ride With the Devil".

It was not only until the latter part of the war, when Union regular army units depopulated the southwest portion of Missouri with the intention of destroying the support base for the Bushwackers that these cross border raids and guerilla warfare and terrorism stopped.

Now, there are some pretty interesting web sites that detail the operations of the Redlegs and the Bushwackers. And I must note to the reader that these sites are very partisan and indicative to this day of the hate that existed between the combatants in this theatre of the war. Click here, here and here, to see web sites about these Civil War militias.

coolbert.