"Prior to 1860, William McWaters moved with his parents from St. Charles County to Cedar County, Missouri, where he and his brothers took up bushwhacking early in the Civil War. In April 1862, William was arrested for stealing and "jayhawking" in neighboring Vernon County and placed in the guardhouse at Butler. One witness testified he'd heard McWaters brag about killing a "damned abolitionist," but the accused somehow managed to get free, because later that year he joined the regular Confederate Army.
After two and a half months, McWaters deserted and returned to his home territory. He resumed bushwhacking and started courting Jennie Mayfield of Vernon County, one of the Mayfield sisters of "bushwhacker belle" fame. Legend holds that McWaters accompanied William Quantrill during his infamous 1863 sacking of Lawrence, Kansas, and that he later rode with Bloody Bill Anderson, but these claims cannot be verified.
After the war, McWaters continued his outlawry. He was implicated in the March 1867 murder of Vernon County sheriff Joseph Bailey, and later that year, he got into a wild gunfight with a posse that was trying to arrest him at Humansville. Described at the time as "a daring desperado" and "an expert with his revolvers," McWaters escaped unscathed…"
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