The Confederate government, which had granted Quantrill a field commission (Citation needed)under the Partisan Ranger Act, was outraged and withdrew support for such irregular forces.

The historian Albert Castel wrote: For over six years, ever since Kansas was opened up as a territory by Stephen A. Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854, its prairies had been the stage for an almost incessant series of political conventions, raids, massacres, pitched battles, and atrocities, all part of a fierce conflict between the Free State and pro-slavery forces that had come to Kansas to settle and to battle.

Unionists, led by regular US Army commander Nathaniel Lyon and Frank Blair of the politically-powerful Blair family, fought for political and military control across the state against the increasingly pro-secessionist forces, led by Governor Claiborne Jackson and future Confederate General Sterling Price.

[2] One historical work describes the situation in the state after Wilson's Creek: Unlike other border areas in Maryland and Kentucky, local conflicts, bushwhacking, sniping, and guerrilla fighting marked this period of Missouri history.

"When regular troops were absent, the improvised war often assumed a deadly guerrilla nature as local citizens took up arms spontaneously against their neighbors.

"[3]By August 1862, with the Union victory at the Battle of Pea Ridge, Missouri was free of significant regular Confederate troops, but the insurgent violence continued.

He and his men ambushed Union patrols and supply convoys, seized the mail, and occasionally struck towns on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri border.

Reflecting the internecine nature of the guerrilla conflict in Missouri, Quantrill directed much of his effort against pro-Union civilians by attempting to drive them from the territory that he operated.

Quantrill's guerrillas attacked Jayhawkers, Missouri State Militia, and Union troops and relied primarily on ambush and raids.

Co-ordinating across vast distances, small bands of partisans rode across 50 miles (80 km) of open prairie to rendezvous on Mount Oread in the early morning hours before the raid.

In Texas in 1864, two of Quantrill's Raiders, the Calhoun Brothers, were killed in a gunfight with Collin County Sheriff Captain James L. Read.

[12] Some Confederate officers appreciated the effectiveness of these irregulars against Union forces, which rarely gained the upper hand over them, especially Quantrill.

[13][14][15] In the 1999 film Ride with the Devil, which depicts a group of fictionalized Missouri bushwhackers, the character Daniel Holt was inspired by Noland.

Anderson's splinter group of guerrillas was assigned to duty in 1864 north of the Missouri River, during the General Sterling Price raid.

Todd's splinter group was attached to Major General Sterling Price's raid south of the Missouri River.

Todd died after being shot out of his saddle by a Union sniper, north of Independence, Missouri, a day before the Battle of Westport.

Captain William H. "Bill" "Stuart" [Stewart] of Quantrill's Raiders was shot and killed November 1864 in Howard County Missouri as he tried to rob a Union cattle drover.