William Quantrill - in Fiction

In Fiction

• Dark Command (1940), in which John Wayne opposes former schoolteacher turned guerrilla fighter "William Cantrell" in the early days of the Civil War. William Cantrell is a thinly veiled portrayal of William Quantrill.
• Quantrell's Flag (1940), by Frank Gruber, for Adventure Magazine (March through May, 1940), first book publication, as Quantrell's Raiders Ace Original, 954366 bound with Rebel Road.
• Renegade Girl (1946) deals with tension between Unionists and Confederates in Missouri.
• Kansas Raiders (1950), in which Jesse James (played by Audie Murphy) falls under the influence of Quantrill.
• Woman They Almost Lynched (1953), featuring Quantrill's wife Kate as a female gunslinger.
• The Stranger Wore a Gun (1953), in which a former Quantrill Raider becomes bank robber until his old comrades catch up with him.
• The actor Bruce Bennett played Quantrill in a 1954 episode of the syndicated television series Stories of the Century, starring Jim Davis as the railroad detective and narrator, Matt Clark.
• Gunsmoke's first television season episode "Reunion '78" features a showdown between cowboy Jerry Shand, who has just arrived in Dodge City, and long-time resident Andy Cully, hardware dealer, who was one of Quantrill's Raiders. Shand hails from Lawrence, Kansas, and has an old score to settle.
• Quantrill's Raiders (1958), focusing on the raid on Lawrence.
• A 1959 episode of the TV show The Rough Riders entitled "The Plot to Assassinate President Johnson", as the title suggests, involves Quantrill in a plot to assassinate President Andrew Johnson.
• Young Jesse James (1960), also depicts Quantrill's influence on Jesse James.
• Arizona Raiders (1965), in which Audie Murphy plays an ex-Quantrill Raider who is assigned the task of tracking down his former comrades.
• The TV series Hondo featured both Quantrill and Jesse James in the 1967 episode "Hondo and the Judas".
• In 1968's Bandolero!, Dean Martin plays Dee Bishop, a former Quantrill Raider who admits to participating in the attack on Lawrence. His brother Mace, played by James Stewart, was a member of the Union Army under General William Tecumseh Sherman.
• The Legend of the Golden Gun (1979), in which two men attempt to track down and kill Quantrill.
• A Belgian comic series, Les Tuniques Bleues ("The Blue Coats") depicts Quantrill as twisted, even psychotic.
• Lawrence: Free State Fortress (1998), depicts the attack on Lawrence.
• The 2000 episode entitled "The Ballad of Steeley Joe" on the series The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne depicted both Jesse James and William Quantrill.
• The USA Network's television show Psych, in an episode entitled "Weekend Warriors", featured a Civil War re-enactment that included William Quantrill. The episode spoke about Quantrill's actions in Lawrence, but the reenactment featured his death at the hands of a fictional nurse Jenny Winslow, whose family was killed at Lawrence.
• In the novel Gone to Texas, by Asa (aka Forrest) Carter, Josey Wales is a former member of a Confederate Raiding Party led by "Bloody Bill" Anderson, Quantrill's Lieutenant. The book is the basis of the Clint Eastwood film The Outlaw Josey Wales.
• Quantrill's Lawrence Massacre of 1863 is depicted in Spielberg's mini-series Into the West (2005)
• Depicted in Robert Schenkkan's play The Kentucky Cycle.
• The novel Woe To Live On (1987) by Daniel Woodrell was filmed as Ride With The Devil (1999) by Ang Lee. The film features a harrowing recreation of the Lawrence massacre and is notable for its overall authenticity. Quantrill, played by John Ales, makes brief appearances.
• In the novel True Grit by Charles Portis, and the 1969 and 2010 film versions thereof, Rooster Cogburn boasts of being a former member of Quantrill's Raiders, and LaBoeuf excoriates him for being part of the "border gang" that murdered men, women, and children alike during the raid on Lawrence, Kansas.
• In Bradley Denton's alternate history tale "The Territory", Samuel Clemens joins Quantrill's Raiders and is with them when they attack Lawrence, Kansas. It was nominated for a Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award for best novella.