William Quantrill - Guerrilla Leader

Guerrilla Leader

In 1861, Quantrill went to Texas with a slaveholder named Marcus Gill. There he met Joel B. Mayes and joined the Cherokee Nations. Joel B. Mayes was a Confederate sympathizer and a war chief of the Cherokee Nations in Texas. Mayes was half Scotch-Irish, half Cherokee Indian and had moved from Georgia to the old Indian Territory in 1838. Mayes enlisted and served as a private in Company A of the 1st Cherokee Regiment in the Confederate army. It was Mayes who taught William guerrilla warfare tactics. He would learn the ambush fighting tactics used by the Native Americans as well as sneak attacks and camouflage. Quantrill, in the company of Mayes and the Cherokee Nations, joined with General Sterling Price and fought at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek and Lexington in August and September of 1861.

William deserted General Price’s army and went to Blue Springs, Missouri to form his own ‘Army’ of loyal men who had great belief in him and the Confederates cause. By Christmas of 1861, he had ten men who would follow him full-time into his pro-Confederate guerrilla organization. These men were: William Haller, George Todd, Joseph Gilcrist, Perry Hoy, John Little, James Little, Joseph Baughan, William H. Gregg, James A. Hendricks, and John W. Koger. Later in 1862, the Younger brothers as well as William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson and the James brothers would join Quantrill’s army.

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