Topic: William Quantrill

American Civil War

William Clarke Quantrill (July 31, 1837 – June 6, 1865), was a Confederate guerrilla leader during the American Civil War. After leading a Confederate bushwhacker unit along the Missouri-Kansas border in the early 1860s, which included the infamous raid and sacking of Lawrence, Kansas in 1863, Quantrill eventually ended up in Kentucky where he was mortally wounded in a Union ambush in May 1865, aged 27.

Quantrill, the oldest of 8 children, was born at Canal Dover (now just Dover), Ohio, on July 31, 1837. His father was Thomas Quantrill, formerly of Hagerstown, Maryland. His mother, Caroline Cornelia Clark, was a native of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. They were married on October 11, 1836, and moved to Canal Dover the following December. Thomas Quantrill died December 7, 1854, apparently of tuberculosis.