Location of Rocheport - Scene of Massacres

Map depicting location of Rocheport, Missouri.

Rocheport was the scene of vicious killings by both sides in the Civil War. A biography about the Confederate partisan William Clarke Quantrill: His Life and Times (by Albert E. Castel) states (at page 193):

"...Anderson's followers were aroused over the slaying and scalping of six comrades by Federal troops near Rocheport..."

Conversely, according to the Dictionary of Missouri Biography (edited by Lawrence O. Christensen, et al), we note (at page 11):

The people of central Missouri lived in fear as Anderson moved from county to county. He robbed and murdered in Carroll and Chariton Counties and even in his hometown of Huntsville. He entered Shelby County and burned the railroad bridge at Salt River. In Rocheport his men killed, scalped, and slit the throats of Union troops. Anderson and his men committed unspeakable atrocities on both the living and the dead. The name "Bloody Bill" was more than justified."