The Devil Knows How to Ride: The True Story of William Clarke Quantril and His Confederate Raiders

Summary

This definitive biography of William Clarke Quantrill reveals the characteristics and events that led a quiet Ohio schoolteacher to become the most feared and notorious guerrilla of the Civil War. A virulently pro-slavery Confederate soldier and a brilliant tactician, Quantrill was a charismatic warrior who attracted hundreds of followers to his side—notably the teenaged Frank James, Jesse James, and Cole Younger. The peak of his career came on August 21, 1863, when he led 450 men in a dawn raid on the staunchly Unionist town of Lawrence, Kansas, executing roughly 200 unarmed, unresisting men and teenage boys in what became the greatest atrocity of the Civil War.

Brilliantly weaving together eyewitness accounts, letters, memories, newspaper articles, and military reports into a riveting narrative, this groundbreaking work penetrates the myth of a cardboard-cutout psychopath to expose Quantrill in all his brutality and human complexity. It includes the most accurate account ever written of the Lawrence, Kansas massacre and also details the postwar outlaw careers of those who rode with him.