Dear Jody, Here is what I have received so far about bushwackers and I am posting this message to the Scott County Mailing List: MESSAGE 1 Hi! I, too had ancestors who were killed by Bushwackers. If you would like to see the stories, let me know and I will send them to you. I found some interesting iformation at the following link on the Internet. http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/other/other/acwguer.htm or http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/civlink.htm and I emagine you can find info under other Civil War links. Basically, I believe, they were guerrillas during the Civil War, or outlaws acting as guerrillas, who raided homesteads, killing and pillaging the land for no good reason than for the pleasure of the killing (at least that seems to be the case in what happened to my ancestors. Two families that I know of on both sides. One in Newton County and the other in Scott County.) Let me know if you want to see those stories. Charlene Holland gwhstamp@presys.com MESSAGE 2 Bryan, I think this is the answer to your question. Quantrill's Raiders of Kansas during the Civil War were referred to as Quantrill's Bushwackers. It means to ambush or massacre as Quantrill did at the Lawrence, Kansas massacre. The source of this information is found in: A Frontier State at War: Kansas, 1861-1865, by Albert Castel. CORNELL UP, 1958. Your wife's relatives may have been killed in a similar raid. Hope this is what your looking for. Marvin Janeway mjaneway@vegas.infi.net MESSAGE 3 Bryan: I know a little about the Bushwackers, and hope someone can add to it The "Bushwacker War" began during the Civil War but continued into the Reconstruction. There was a Bushwacker War raging in Sebastian County and it must have been similar in Scott County. Phase #1: The Confederate majority pick on the Union women and children while the Union men are away with the Union army. The Union men did not remove their families from the area because they did not anticipate a long war. Phase #2: After the Battle of Pea Ridge and the fall of Ft. Smith and Little Rock to Union forces, the Union army drives the Confederate military from Western Arkansas and takes over. Angered by the way Union families have been treated they get back at Confederate families and property. The local Confederate soldiers in the "Army-of-the-West" do not leave with the army. They fall from ranks and remain behind to try to defend their families. They hide in the hills. The Union dominates and raids the countryside. Confederate families flee south to Southern Arkansas and Texas....and the Dierks area. The Confederates in the hills are starving and must resort to raiding and robbing themselves. Phase #3: The War is over. Confederate families and soldiers return. When the Union army is gone, they are in the majority again, and seek revenge on the now Union minority. This is the bloodiest phase. Raping, plundering, burning and killing are rampant. Fields are unattended. Horses, cattle and hogs disappear--they are driven off or shot. Houses are burned and families are living in lean-tos or brush arbor shacks. Pact of Silence: the Bushwacker War comes to an end when the Confederates tire of the senseless destruction. They stop their acts of revenge and both sides realize that to put the whole thing to rest, they must not enflame the issue by verbally rehashing it. In talking about the events of the Bushwacker War they became careful to avoid naming names, dates, and other gory details. Even within families they do not talk of these things. This information does not get passed down to their children. They may mention that someone was killed by Bushwackers but they do not pass on much additional information about it. Sorry this is so long. Can any one add to it. This information is from and old issue of "The Key" by the Sebastian Co. Hist. Soc.; vol. 7 issue 1, Spring 1972, page 4. kathy duncan <ppskdd2@airmail.net> ************* I am glad you were interested, Bryan Fuxa ********************************************* Bryan Fuxa Instructor of Mathematics Northwestern Oklahoma State University bdfuxa@ranger2.nwalva.edu ------------------------------