For career criminal William Clarke Quantrill, the American Civil War was an opportunity to practice legitimately what he loved most: theft, destruction, and murder. He rampaged freely as a military hero, slaughtering hundreds, fighting under the flag of the Confederate Army. Few people realized that Quantrill had no personal convictions. He stood for no principles and believed no more in the Southern ideal than in the Union. He simply lived to kill.

Quantrill's War recounts the guerrilla raids William Quantrill carried out with dash and daring - the lightning ambushes he led on horseback, reins in his teeth, Navy Colt revolvers blazing in each hand. Union forces struggled to track him, without success. Eventually, Quantrill attracted a following of more than three hundred men, including Frank James (whose younger brother Jesse later joined them), Cole Younger, and Bloody Bill Anderson.

The climax of this disturbing book deals with Quantrill's bloodiest battle, the four-hour sacking of Lawrence, Kansas, where he ordered the massacre of 185 men and boys, killing "every man big enough to carry a gun!"