William T. Anderson - Legacy

Legacy

After the war, information about Anderson initially spread through memoirs of Civil War combatants and works by amateur historians. He was later discussed in biographies of Quantrill, which typically cast him as an inveterate murderer. Three biographies of Anderson were written after 1975. Asa Earl Carter's novel The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales features Anderson as a main character. In 1976, the book was adapted into a film, The Outlaw Josey Wales, which portrays a man who joins Anderson's gang after his wife is killed by Union-backed raiders. Anderson also appears as a character in several films about Jesse James.

Historians have been mixed in their appraisal of Anderson. Wood describes him as the "bloodiest man in America's deadliest war" and characterizes him as the clearest example of the war's "dehumanizing influence". Castel and Goodrich view Anderson as one of the war's most savage and bitter combatants, but they also argue that the war made savages of many others. According to journalist T. J. Stiles, Anderson was not necessarily a "sadistic fiend", but illustrated how young men became part of a "culture of atrocity" during the war. He maintains that Anderson's acts were seen as particularly shocking in part because his cruelty was directed towards white Americans of equivalent social standing, rather than targets deemed acceptable by American society, such as Native Americans or foreigners.

In a study of 19th-century warfare, historian James Reid posits that Anderson suffered from delusional paranoia, which exacerbated his aggressive, sadistic personality. He sees Anderson as obsessed with, and greatly enjoying, the ability to inflict fear and suffering in his victims, and suggests he suffered from the most severe type of sadistic personality disorder. Reid draws a parallel between the bashi-bazouks and Anderson's group, arguing that they behaved similarly.