In July 1857, William Clarke Quantrill wrote to his mother back home in Ohio. ‘I have but one wish, and that is that you were here,’ he told her, ‘for I cannot be happy here all alone; & it seems that I am the only person or thing that is not happy along this beautiful stream.’ Eight years later this apparently tender, lonely young man would die in a Louisville, Kentucky, prison, notorious for being one of the most vicious butchers in the Civil War.
Quantrill was born at Canal Dover, Ohio, on July 31, 1837, the oldest of 12 children. Even as a child, he evinced a twisted, cruel nature. He nailed snakes to trees, shot pigs through the ears to hear them squeal, and tied cats together by their tails and watched them claw each other to death. Walking through fields, he would stab horses and slice open cows.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Quantrill began teaching school at age 16. Not content to tutor others, in 1857 the restless young man moved to Kansas in search of his fortune.
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