Olathe Johnson Kansas United States
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The first major wagon train headed for the American Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail from Elm Grove, Missouri (or, more likely, in Elm Grove, Kansas, across the river in Olathe) with one thousand pioneers on May 22, 1843.
William Clarke Quantrill is among the more notorious of the proslavery men in Kansas: a young former Ohio schoolteacher who had moved to Kansas in 1856 and begun farming, though without much enthusiasm.
Violent by nature, had traveled to Utah with the Federal Army as a teamster in 1858, but left the army there to try his hand at professional gambling.
By the end of 1860 he had returned east.
Living near Lawrence, he had fallen into thievery and murder, had been charged with horse stealing, and began life on the run.
At the outbreak of the war, Quantrill claimed he was a native of Maryland and may have joined the Missouri State Guard under General Sterling Price.
Quantrill had fought eagerly with the Confederate army at Carthage, Wilson's Creek and Lexington, Missouri, but had soon become discouraged by the Confederate leadership, who he feels is soft on Union sympathizers, and his dislike of army discipline had led him to form an independent guerrilla band by Christmas 1861, leading his Bushwackers on thieving raids against Kansas and Missouri farmers and townspeople who favor the Union.
Quantrill’s bushwhacker company begins as a force of no more than a dozen men who stage raids into Kansas, harass Union soldiers, raid pro-Union towns, rob mail coaches, and attac Unionist civilians.
At times they skirmish with the Jayhawkers, undisciplined Union militia from Kansas who raid into Missouri.
The Union forces declare Quantrill's Raiders to be outlaws.
Quantrill's band, although mustered into official Confederate service in 1862 as partisan raiders, continues to operate independently, burning and looting such towns as Olathe.
When the Union Army orders all captured guerrillas to be shot, Quantrill ceases taking prisoners and starts doing the same.
Given the rank of captain, Quantrill earns infamy for murder, robbery and the mutilation of the dead.