Bushwhacker

Book excerpt: The story of Bill Wilson has been told and re-told throughout the Ozarks Mountains since he began his bloody career in 1861. He is a true folk hero from the time when the Ozarks were full of men who took to the bush and waged war on the Yankees who had invaded their state.In the summer of 1861, Bill was accused of stealing horses from the Union. He was questioned and released, but a few days later, while he was away from home, a group of Yankees, Red Legs, and Jawhawkers ejected his family from his house, stole everything worth stealing, and burned the house, barn, and outbuildings.From that day forward, Bill became a one-man army intent on killing every Yankee, or Yankee sympathizer, he could find. He became one of the best known Bushwhackers in Missouri, along with men like Sam Hildebrand, another Missouri Bushwhacker legend.After the war ended, with a $300 bounty on his head, Bill left Missouri. As did many ex-Confederates, he took off for Texas.The end of the Bill Wilson story is said to have come in Sherman, Texas. Two of his ex-comrades, former Missouri Partisan Rangers, apparently got the drop on him and murdered him for the cash he was carrying. The two men, William O. Blackmore and John Thompson, were apprehended, tried, and convicted of the murder. They ware hanged on 26 March, 1869 in Sherman, Texas at 1:00 p.m.