A guerrilla conflict begins to wrack Missouri.Gangs…
1862 CE
Gangs of Confederate insurgents, commonly known as "bushwhackers", ambush and battled Union troops and Unionist state militia forces.
Much of the fighting is between Missourians of different persuasions; both sides carry out large-scale atrocities against civilians, ranging from forced resettlement to murder.
Historians estimate that the population of the state fell by one-third during the war; most survived but fled or were driven out by one side or the other.
Many of the most brutal bushwhacker leaders, such as William C. Quantrill and William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson, win national notoriety.
A group of their followers will remain under arms and carry out robberies and murders (which they may consider to be ongoing guerilla resistance) for sixteen years after the war, under the leadership of Jesse James, his brother Frank James, and Cole Younger and his brothers.
By most measures, the Confederate guerrilla insurgency in Missouri during the Civil War is the worst such conflict ever to occur on American soil.
By one calculation, nearly twenty-seven thousand Missourians die in the violence.
Historians will offer various explanations for the anomalously high level of guerrilla activity in Missouri, including the possibility that the violence was linked to thousands of court-ordered sales of property belonging to the state's Confederate sympathizers, beginning in 1862 and continuing throughout the war.
The property sales arise from court judgments for defaulted debts incurred early in the war to arm rebel troops.
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