cover image The Devil Knows How to Ride:: The True Story of William Clark Quantrill and His Confederate Raiders

The Devil Knows How to Ride:: The True Story of William Clark Quantrill and His Confederate Raiders

E. Leslie Edward, Edward E. Leslie, E. Edward Leslie. Random House (NY), $35 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-679-42455-0

It's been 34 years since the publication of William Clarke Quantrill: His Life and Times, the last major biography of the legendary Confederate raider (1837-1865). But in one of those odd publishing events, here come two new lives of Quantrill in the same month--Duane Schultz's Quantrill's War, reviewed below, and this marginally better study by Leslie (Desperate Journeys: Abandoned Souls). The Kansas-Missouri border area was the scene of some of the Civil War's fiercest fighting and most savage atrocities. Leslie traces Quantrill's childhood in Ohio, and his family and prewar career (he taught school for a time), separating myth from reality to set the stage for the Confederate captain's wartime activities. Throughout his narrative, the author details how Quantrill's life and actions were falsified by numerous contemporaries, resulting in very inaccurate portrayals of the man. In a move likely to spur debate, Leslie contends that Quantrill was not quite the bloodthirsty demon of legend but, rather, a man who merely reacted with increasing ruthlessness to desperate Union measures to render his gang--as well as other Confederate irregulars--ineffective. The apex of the death and destruction wrought by Quantrill was his infamous raid on Lawrence, Kans., on August 21, 1863, during which over 150 civilians were killed and a great part of the town was sacked and burned. Leslie also traces the fates of Quantrill's men who survived the war (Quantrill himself died in a Union prison), as well as the strange journeys of Quantrill's bones and skull until their separate burials earlier in this decade. Even Hollywood's two films about Quantrill receive some space in this authoritative and well-written study. Photos and bibliography, not seen by PW. Author tour. (Oct.)