The Civil War Story of Bloody Bill Anderson

Book excerpt: When the Civil War broke out, Missouri was secured for the Union, but many Southern-leaning citizens in the border state resented the Federal occupation. Fighting along the border flared up again as hundreds of boys and young men took to the bush to champion the Rebel cause. Waging a particularly vicious brand of guerilla warfare, they stayed to fight long after regular Confederate forces had been driven from the state. Although William "Bloody Bill" Anderson always warrants special mention in books about Confederate Civil War guerrilla William Quantrill, Anderson's story has scarcely been told in its own right. In "The Civil War Story of Bloody Bill Anderson," Larry Wood aims to neither condemn nor to justify, but merely to tell a story that is fascinating-the story of perhaps the bloodiest man in America's bloodiest war.