Bloody Bill Anderson: The Short, Savage Life of a Civil War Guerrilla

The truth is stranger than fiction. Great telling of our history. The story of Bill Anderson should have been made in to a movie.

An excellent account of the savage life of Bloody Bill Anderson, his life as a guerilla bushwhacker during the Civil War, and the atrocities committed by him and his men under the guise of the Confederacy. One understands after reading of their savagery how fellow guerilla riders Frank and Jesse James, and the Younger brother could continue a career of robbing and pillaging after the Civil War. One also, can understand better how they could kill so easily after being exposed to the butchery of Bill Anderson.The book is written in a cumbersome style, and the accounts seemingly could be better detailed. For example, several articles I have read state that Bloody Bill's body was dragged behind a horse after his death, and some state that he was beheaded and his head put on a telephone post. This account merely states that his body was placed in a decent coffin and buried. This may be true, but the authors surely must be aware of these other stories, and should have devoted some space to debunking them or confirming their version. Yet there is nothing said on this subject.I would have liked to see more text given to Frank and Jesse James and the Younger brothers, and their participation in the group. The author does mention their life after Bill Anderson, but more space would have been appreciated on their interaction with Bill Anderson and their contribution in the events, even though I understand this is not about them, they are the spawn of Bloody Bill and their experience here gives a basis of their later exploits.While Bill Anderson, Quantrill, Todd, and Clements are the brutal killers in Missouri, and the book makes several references that there was no other guerilla warfare as brutal as these men or as taken place in Missouri--I think this totally dismisses Champ Ferguson of Kentucky/Tennessee and his brutal vendetta against his "enemies" under the guise of the Civil War and guerilla warfare. The reader who like this book about Bloody Bill Anderson, may want to read Cumberland Blood: Champ Ferguson's Personal War". Champ was one of only two men executed after the Civil War for the atrocities that he committed and his war crimes. He was just as brutal and savage as Bill Anderson.

I have no problem with the author or book content. Interesting subject and appears to be well researched. The only drawback is that the print is so tiny it’s very difficult to read. The publisher shouldn’t be so tight - make the book a little longer, the pages bigger - whatever it takes to make the text larger. Not only for old folks with difficulty reading small print but would also be much easier for all readers. Shame on them !

Are they kidding with they hype already? Do they believe it? Real history is this -- who killed who and why. They don't get quite there, and the BS gets in the way.They seem to love the style of BS -- instead of saying who killed who and why, in an honest way, we are fed a lot of lines like this "A pungent reek of blood hung over the long line of horsemen riding westward from Fayette." Some like that style, I want to know what happened. Is there a law somewhere, a writing teacher someplace, that makes people put layer upon layer of nonsense in the way of what matters?"Nowhere was the Civil War as savage as Missouri..." kind of hype, not just on the cover. but in the text. I wish I had known, I would not have ordered the book. The actual truth of killings and what happened in Missouri and Kansas, is so much more compelling, that this manufacture prose, in style borrowed from junior college writing teachers.They do give a few words, but no clarity, about the origins of the violence. From 1855 on -- not 1861 -- Southern leaders hired killers to terrorize and murder in Kansas, and they bragged of it. The paid killers probably were around sooner, but we know what they bragged of 1855 on, and I doubt the authors know that. Southern leaders even bragged of their goal -- to spread slavery against the will of the citizens, who would vote 95% against slavery, when they finally got the change. They were paid to "carry the war for the entire South" 1855 on. It would be nice if either Castel or Goodrich knew that. The few sentences that even mention anything about "Trouble in Kansas" portrays the paid killers and citizens in Kansas, on the same footing -- as if the people being killed and tortured by paid killers, were somehow equally at fault, because eventually they did fight back. This is sadly, however, the narrative so often used, to "blame both sides" in Kansas, and paint those being tortured and killed with the same brush, no distinction whatsoever. You can not "blame both sides" if you know what you are talking about.Rather than anything about causes, we get the reverse -about Jesse James 30 years later. And "the spirit lives on".Furthermore, I find hard to swallow the phrases like "Southern sympathies". The authors seemed to purposely downplay any connection to slavery, though the leaders of the killers bragged as much as possible, it was about killing to spread slavery Castel and Goodrich claim the families "owned slaves, but few". How do they know? And anyway, it was not the slave OWNERS who got paid to kill and terrorize, they hired guys like Anderson to do the killing and terrorizing, Anderson got paid directly - from who he killed. David Rice Atchison, the US Senator who went to Kansas to leader the killers in 1855, paid his men by "allowing" then to keep what they stole. Atchison and the South failed, because he could not enough men, enough to keep killing enough other men.But if you want some guys hyping the story, but giving little context, of what caused it, this is your book about Anderson, it just won't give you much information about why it happened.

Good book, not much source material available. Good afternoon read.

christmas gift for my hubby looks lovely book

Very well written

Fast Moving ..does not make Anderson out to be hero.Leaves it to reader to make the choice

Very Good Read

I usually have little to no interest in the Civil War. But I am fascinated by how extreme Bloody Bill was. I really enjoyed this book. I found it difficult to put down at times. Bloody Bill was one of the most fearsome and deadly of the guerrilla leaders and this makes for anything but a dull read. It's great to finally have something close to a real biography on Bloody Bill. There are many biographies on other guerrilla leaders but not on Bloody Bill for some reason.Overall, this was a great read. The Centralia massacre was written about in great detail. That said, there are some things I didn't like:- The rape of a young servant girl was written about in a very romanticised way. Given the circumstances, it's safe to assume she was not "led into the bedroom". She was likely strong-armed in, by a man who had already been described as "drunk and getting drunker".- The rape of other female servants the next day was glossed over at breakneck speed, to the point where I wondered why the authors bothered mentioning it at all.-The authors could and should have included more detail leading up to Bloody Bill's demise. It felt very rushed after the harrowing account of what happened to Benjamin Lewis.- While the fact that Bill's finger was cut off after he died was mentioned (maybe because this can be clearly seen in the photo of his corpse they included), there was no acknowledgement of the report that his head was cut off and put on a telegraph pole. I have no idea if this happened or not, but it could have been mentioned.- The book goes on for quite a while after Bloody Bill dies. At one point I felt like the book almost turned into a mini biography on the James brothers, particularly Jesse James. I get that the authors are trying to let the reader know what happened to some of Bill's acolytes, but this could have been condensed somewhat.On the whole, it's well worth a read and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in Bloody Bill or the Civil War. It was quite short, but so was Bloody Bill's life.