Quantrill's ghosts
Another link I made in the 1980s was with the American Civil War Round Table Society of Australia. This post is primarily a historical one but does illustrate the research which goes hand in hand with the hobby. Again Paul Clarke, as a member of the Round Table Society was the common denominator. Why would Australians, myself included, be so interested in the American Civil War? Maybe it was because we did not have one of our own, nor a revolution for that matter, nor any wars on our own territory. Sure, the settlers had quite a bit of skirmishing with the natives, but nothing on the scale of the various American Indian Wars. We had the Eureka Stockade but that was over in fifteen minutes. We had a small uprising of Irish convicts in the early convict days but again that was put down in short time and involved little real fighting. We were a lucky country that way but not so interesting for wargamers! There were at least the bushrangers, most notably Ned Kelly, who is known to some overseas, probably due to his armour.
Yet it was Westerns that saturated our TVs in the 1960s and 70s. There were references to America's Civil War in those and plenty of movies about American history.
One historical event not so well known is that the Confederate ship and raider the Shenandoah visited Victoria. Allegedly the captain presented a pioneering family on Churchill Island, off Philip Island, with a cannon. This has been disputed by historians. The ship also visited Melbourne and managed to take on a significant number of new crew. As the ship went on to sink a number of US ships and some of its crew were British subjects the British government was sued after the war by the US.
Another link is that from Black Rock Beach in Melbourne you can see the breakwater wreck of the Cerberus, an ironclad reminiscent of those used in the ACW, although British in origin.
The Round Table newsletter researched the links between Australia and the ACW and documented the veterans who moved to Australia after the war.
One additional link I made via the Round Table was with Kimberly Calwell, a Kansas lady who edited the William Clarke Quantrill Society or the No Quarterly. Her aim was to redeem the name of Quantrill, not an easy task given his reputation.
Many a B-grade Western mentioned or featured Quantrill as merely some sort of opportunistic bandit who happened to link up with the Confederacy.
What Kimberly showed was that Quantrill had a colonel's commission from Confederate General Price and coordinated with regular Confederate forces. She also showed that combatants on both sides commited acts that could be construed as outside the rules of war but that Quantrill was not worse in this than many Federal forces, especialy the Federal Red Legs or Jayhawkers. Possibly the hatred in the region was worse but the blood feud worked here in a way that it did not in the East. Many of the combatants knew each other and had long memories of past actions. Prior to the ACW a mini-civil war had occured in Missouri between pro-slavery southerners and anti-slavery northerners. This was mainly about land, but flavoured with the sectional issue of slavery. John Brown is one of the most famous anti- slavery partizan of this period, ideaistic but brutal, also know for his killing of unarmed Southerners.
Although Quantrill and his men resorted to harsh and ruthless measures, including the shooting of prisoners and civilians suspected of looting Missouri, no-one had a monoply on such behaviour. (Even the allied forces in WW2, on occasion, shot prisoners, notably when they were behind enemy lines or at risk of being cut off.) Doesn't make it right, necessarily but puts it in context - the Feds won the ACW so only Quantrill's actions were decried and in many cases inaccuracies were recorded. Interestingly Quantrill made it clear that any of his men who harmed a woman would be killed. Yet, I still see Encyclopedias that state that Quantrill 'killed women and children'.
Among his men were Frank and Jesse James. James as a young teenager witnessed his stepdad being hung (short of killing him) by Federals trying to reveal the whereabouts of Frank, who was then in the Regular Confederate Army. What is clear is that many pro-South Missourians felt they had little option but to join Quantrill's Raiders after depradations by pro-Northern Jayhawkers. The Jayhawkers were not necessarily motivated by altruism towards the slaves. In fact sometimes slaves were killed by them. Movies that capture the Confederate side are Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Jose Wales and Ride With the Devil.
In any case Quantrill's men had a great deal of success and tied down many Federal forces. They were reknown for their horsemanship and their ability to shoot targets with pistols from horseback Raiders carried four to eight revolvers as well as shotguns and other firearms. They even carried spare chambers for quick changes of cylinders in the revolvers. (Revolvers then had to have each chamber 's paper cartridge contents rammed home, a slow process). Quantrill's men were masters of ambush and trickery, including deliberate wearing of enemy uniforms.
I read at least six books about Quantrill and consulted with Kim Calwell on matters of the raiders' clothing before I depicted them in miniature. I wrote an article for Plastic Warrior on the topic of the history and my figure conversions. I also found out why Quantrill fought for the South; his family were Southerners, even though he had come from Ohio. His experiences in Kansas and Missouri prior to the ACW swayed him to the Southern side. Once decided he stayed with that side until the end. A true opportunist would have switched sides or at least abandoned the struggle.
The history of the ACW and Quantrill is something I'll cover in more detail later but I shall make, lastly some observations about the causes of the Civil War and the motives of the participants. Some apparently conflicting comments can be made about the war; without slavery it probably would not have happened yet it resulted in an end of slavery but it was not fought with the purpose of ending slavery. It was triggered with the Northern desire to stop slavery spreading to new territory and to preserve the Union. This was partly motivated by free settlers not wanting to have to compete with slaves.
The South wished to preserve States' Rights (which included the right to own slaves and the right to leave the Union, new state or not). The majority of Federal soldiers fought to preserve the Union. The majority of Southern soldiers did not own slaves but supported slavery as an institution. Not all Southerners who fought for the Confederacy supported slavery. General Robert E Lee fought for his beloved Virginia even though he opposed slavery personally. Abraham Lincon was not prepared to go to war to abolish slavery but he was prepared to oppose slavery in the new territories and to fight southern Americans to keep them in the Union.
To add another complexity and moral ambiguity, the slaves themselves often sided with their masters or at least refrained from rebellion. The sentimentality between slave owners and their slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind has truth in it. Most of us are familiar with US Coloured regiments - think of the film Glory - but how many are aware that there were, albeit in smaller numbers, black Confederates? There is even a statue commemorating them. Even Quantrill had an armed negro cook who acted as his spy. To add to the complexity he was a free negro married to a slave who was killed by Federal Jayhawkers in one of their raids. A character in Ride With the Devil appears to be loosely based on him. This is not to ignore the Underground Railway and the abuses inflicted on slaves but it does show that issues were not clear cut. When Southern lands were occupied by invading Yankees often the slaves made common cause with their masters against the intruders and the threat to life and property.
My next post is going to be about ACW wargames I had which I have nicknamed the War of the Tennis Court and 'The War of the Flowerpots'. the last occured on a friend's driveway and why it received this name will remain to be seen.
Yet it was Westerns that saturated our TVs in the 1960s and 70s. There were references to America's Civil War in those and plenty of movies about American history.
One historical event not so well known is that the Confederate ship and raider the Shenandoah visited Victoria. Allegedly the captain presented a pioneering family on Churchill Island, off Philip Island, with a cannon. This has been disputed by historians. The ship also visited Melbourne and managed to take on a significant number of new crew. As the ship went on to sink a number of US ships and some of its crew were British subjects the British government was sued after the war by the US.
Another link is that from Black Rock Beach in Melbourne you can see the breakwater wreck of the Cerberus, an ironclad reminiscent of those used in the ACW, although British in origin.
The Round Table newsletter researched the links between Australia and the ACW and documented the veterans who moved to Australia after the war.
One additional link I made via the Round Table was with Kimberly Calwell, a Kansas lady who edited the William Clarke Quantrill Society or the No Quarterly. Her aim was to redeem the name of Quantrill, not an easy task given his reputation.
Many a B-grade Western mentioned or featured Quantrill as merely some sort of opportunistic bandit who happened to link up with the Confederacy.
What Kimberly showed was that Quantrill had a colonel's commission from Confederate General Price and coordinated with regular Confederate forces. She also showed that combatants on both sides commited acts that could be construed as outside the rules of war but that Quantrill was not worse in this than many Federal forces, especialy the Federal Red Legs or Jayhawkers. Possibly the hatred in the region was worse but the blood feud worked here in a way that it did not in the East. Many of the combatants knew each other and had long memories of past actions. Prior to the ACW a mini-civil war had occured in Missouri between pro-slavery southerners and anti-slavery northerners. This was mainly about land, but flavoured with the sectional issue of slavery. John Brown is one of the most famous anti- slavery partizan of this period, ideaistic but brutal, also know for his killing of unarmed Southerners.
Although Quantrill and his men resorted to harsh and ruthless measures, including the shooting of prisoners and civilians suspected of looting Missouri, no-one had a monoply on such behaviour. (Even the allied forces in WW2, on occasion, shot prisoners, notably when they were behind enemy lines or at risk of being cut off.) Doesn't make it right, necessarily but puts it in context - the Feds won the ACW so only Quantrill's actions were decried and in many cases inaccuracies were recorded. Interestingly Quantrill made it clear that any of his men who harmed a woman would be killed. Yet, I still see Encyclopedias that state that Quantrill 'killed women and children'.
Among his men were Frank and Jesse James. James as a young teenager witnessed his stepdad being hung (short of killing him) by Federals trying to reveal the whereabouts of Frank, who was then in the Regular Confederate Army. What is clear is that many pro-South Missourians felt they had little option but to join Quantrill's Raiders after depradations by pro-Northern Jayhawkers. The Jayhawkers were not necessarily motivated by altruism towards the slaves. In fact sometimes slaves were killed by them. Movies that capture the Confederate side are Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Jose Wales and Ride With the Devil.
In any case Quantrill's men had a great deal of success and tied down many Federal forces. They were reknown for their horsemanship and their ability to shoot targets with pistols from horseback Raiders carried four to eight revolvers as well as shotguns and other firearms. They even carried spare chambers for quick changes of cylinders in the revolvers. (Revolvers then had to have each chamber 's paper cartridge contents rammed home, a slow process). Quantrill's men were masters of ambush and trickery, including deliberate wearing of enemy uniforms.
I read at least six books about Quantrill and consulted with Kim Calwell on matters of the raiders' clothing before I depicted them in miniature. I wrote an article for Plastic Warrior on the topic of the history and my figure conversions. I also found out why Quantrill fought for the South; his family were Southerners, even though he had come from Ohio. His experiences in Kansas and Missouri prior to the ACW swayed him to the Southern side. Once decided he stayed with that side until the end. A true opportunist would have switched sides or at least abandoned the struggle.
The history of the ACW and Quantrill is something I'll cover in more detail later but I shall make, lastly some observations about the causes of the Civil War and the motives of the participants. Some apparently conflicting comments can be made about the war; without slavery it probably would not have happened yet it resulted in an end of slavery but it was not fought with the purpose of ending slavery. It was triggered with the Northern desire to stop slavery spreading to new territory and to preserve the Union. This was partly motivated by free settlers not wanting to have to compete with slaves.
The South wished to preserve States' Rights (which included the right to own slaves and the right to leave the Union, new state or not). The majority of Federal soldiers fought to preserve the Union. The majority of Southern soldiers did not own slaves but supported slavery as an institution. Not all Southerners who fought for the Confederacy supported slavery. General Robert E Lee fought for his beloved Virginia even though he opposed slavery personally. Abraham Lincon was not prepared to go to war to abolish slavery but he was prepared to oppose slavery in the new territories and to fight southern Americans to keep them in the Union.
To add another complexity and moral ambiguity, the slaves themselves often sided with their masters or at least refrained from rebellion. The sentimentality between slave owners and their slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind has truth in it. Most of us are familiar with US Coloured regiments - think of the film Glory - but how many are aware that there were, albeit in smaller numbers, black Confederates? There is even a statue commemorating them. Even Quantrill had an armed negro cook who acted as his spy. To add to the complexity he was a free negro married to a slave who was killed by Federal Jayhawkers in one of their raids. A character in Ride With the Devil appears to be loosely based on him. This is not to ignore the Underground Railway and the abuses inflicted on slaves but it does show that issues were not clear cut. When Southern lands were occupied by invading Yankees often the slaves made common cause with their masters against the intruders and the threat to life and property.
My next post is going to be about ACW wargames I had which I have nicknamed the War of the Tennis Court and 'The War of the Flowerpots'. the last occured on a friend's driveway and why it received this name will remain to be seen.
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