Willaim "Bloody Bill" Anderson's Grave - Richmond, MO - Roadside Attractions on Waymarking.com

County of site: Ray County
Location of site: N. Thornton St & Crispin St., Pioneer Cemetery, Richmond
Marker Erected By: Ray County Historical Society

Marker:

"Born in Kentucky in 1839 before moving to Missouri and eventually living in Kansas when the Civil War started, Bill Anderson soon earned the nom de plume “Bloody Bill.”

"An unusual event made a guerrilla out of William Anderson. His family had been living in Council Grove, Territory of Kansas at the start of the war. After William Quantrill’s raid on Aubry, Kansas on March 7, 1862, a Federal company from Olathe, Kansas sent a patrol from Company D, Eighth Kansas Jayhawker Regiment to investigate. Southern sympathizers living nearby were sought out and accused of aiding the raiders. William Anderson’s father and uncle were named as such. When the Jayhawker company arrived at the Anderson farm on March 11th, William and his younger brother Jim were delivering 15 head of cattle to the U.S. commissary agent at Fort Leavenworth. When the brothers returned to their farm they found their father and uncle hanged in retaliation, their home burned to the ground, and all their possessions were stolen.

"By 1863, all Bill had left was a brother and two sisters that miraculously survived the August 13 Union jail collapse in Kansas City when Union guards from the 9th Kansas Jayhawker Regiment, serving as provost guards in town, intentionally collapsed a three-story brick building on a number of young Southern female prisoners. Fourteen-year-old Josephine Anderson was killed in the collapse. Bill’s ten-year-old sister Martha’s legs were horribly crushed crippling her for life while his sixteen-year-old sister Molly suffered serious back injuries and facial lacerations. Both girls would carry their battered bodies and emotional scars for years to come.

"One month later, on October 26, Anderson was killed near Orrick, Missouri leading a charge against 300 Federals led by Major Samuel P. Cox of the 1st Regiment, Missouri State Militia. Cox’s soldiers cut off Anderson’s finger in order to steal his wedding ring. After photographing his dead body they cut off his head and mounted it on top of a telegraph pole in town. Later Anderson’s body was buried in the Old City Cemetery of Richmond, Missouri.

"Jayhawker Colonel Charles Jennison’s soldiers from Kansas stopped at the cemetery within a week after Anderson was buried. Southern sympathizers among the local women had carried flowers to decorate the grave. The Jayhawkers seeing the flowers alighted from their horses and proceeded to stamp the bouquets into the ground, kicking the soft mound and stamping it down to an even level, resulting in the difficulty in later years as to its location. Other accounts report that the Jayhawkers relieved themselves over Anderson’s grave in an act of sheer depravity.

"The true explanations surrounding the horrible acts directed towards William “Bloody Bill” Anderson are much more interesting than the irresponsible sensationalized accounts of his actions that his detractors have tried to perpetuate since his death." ~ Legends of America