and the brutalization effect of war. Early life William T. Anderson was born around 1840 in Hopkins County, Kentucky, to William C. and Martha Anderson. His siblings were Jim, Ellis, Mary Ellen, Josephine and Janie. His schoolmates recalled him as a well-behaved, reserved child. During his childhood, Anderson's family moved to Huntsville, Missouri, where his father found employment on a farm and the family became well-respected. In 1857, they relocated to the Kansas Territory, traveling southwest on the Santa Fe Trail and settling east of Council Grove. The Anderson family supported slavery, though they did not own slaves. Their move to Kansas was likely for economic rather than political reasons. Kansas was at the time embroiled in an ideological conflict regarding its admission to the Union as slave or free, and both pro-slavery activists and abolitionists had moved there in attempts to influence its ultimate status. Animosity and violence between the two sides quickly developed in what was called Bleeding Kansas, but there was little unrest in the Council Grove area. After settling there, the Anderson family became friends with A.I. Baker, a local judge who was a Confederate sympathizer. By 1860, the young William T. Anderson was a joint owner of a property that was worth $500; his family had a total net worth of around $1,000. On June 28, 1860, William's mother, Martha Anderson, died after being struck by lightning. In the late 1850s, Ellis Anderson fled to Iowa after killing a native American. Around the same time, William T. Anderson fatally shot a member of the Kaw tribe outside Council Grove; he claimed that the man had tried to rob him. He joined the freight shipping operation for which his father worked and was given a position known as "second boss" for a wagon trip to New Mexico. The trip was not successful and he returned to Missouri without the shipment, saying his horses had disappeared with the cargo. After he returned to Council Grove he began horse trading, taking horses from towns in Kansas, transporting them to Missouri and returning with more horses. Horse trading and outlawry After the Civil War began in 1861, the demand for horses increased and Anderson transitioned from trading horses to stealing them, reselling them as far away as New Mexico. He worked with his brother Jim, their friend Lee Griffith and several accomplices strung along the Santa Fe Trail. In