Download or read book Black Flag written by Thomas Goodrich and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1999-03-22 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1861 to 1865, the region along the Missouri-Kansas border was the scene of unbelievable death and destruction. Thousands died, millions of dollars in property was lost, entire populations were violently uprooted. It was here also that some of the greatest atrocities in American history occurred. Yet in the great national tragedy of the Civil War, this savage warfare has seemed a minor episode. Drawing from a wide array of contemporary documents - including diaries, letters, and firsthand newspaper accounts - Thomas Goodrich presents a hair-raising report of life in this merciless guerrilla war. Filled with dramatic detail, Black Flag reveals war at its very worst, told in the words of the participants themselves. Bushwhackers and Jayhawkers, soldiers and civilians, scouts, spies, runaway slaves, the generals and the guerrillas - all step forward to tell of their terrifying ordeals.

Download or read book The Good Country written by Jon K. Lauck and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2022-11-21 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the center of American history is a hole—a gap where some scholars’ indifference or disdain has too long stood in for the true story of the American Midwest. A first-ever chronicle of the Midwest’s formative century, The Good Country restores this American heartland to its central place in the nation’s history. Jon K. Lauck, the premier historian of the region, puts midwestern “squares” center stage—an unorthodox approach that leads to surprising conclusions. The American Midwest, in Lauck’s cogent account, was the most democratically advanced place in the world during the nineteenth century. The Good Country describes a rich civic culture that prized education, literature, libraries, and the arts; developed a stable social order grounded in Victorian norms, republican virtue, and Christian teachings; and generally put democratic ideals into practice to a greater extent than any nation to date. The outbreak of the Civil War and the fight against the slaveholding South only deepened the Midwest’s dedication to advancing a democratic culture and solidified its regional identity. The “good country” was, of course, not the “perfect country,” and Lauck devotes a chapter to the question of race in the Midwest, finding early examples of overt racism but also discovering a steady march toward racial progress. He also finds many instances of modest reforms enacted through the democratic process and designed to address particular social problems, as well as significant advances for women, who were active in civic affairs and took advantage of the Midwest’s openness to women in higher education. Lauck reaches his conclusions through a measured analysis that weighs historical achievements and injustices, rejects the acrimonious tones of the culture wars, and seeks a new historical discourse grounded in fair readings of the American past. In a trying time of contested politics and culture, his book locates a middle ground, fittingly, in the center of the country.

Download or read book The Guerrilla Hunters written by Brian D. McKnight and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2017-04-03 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the Civil War, irregular warfare—including the use of hit-and-run assaults, ambushes, and raiding tactics—thrived in localized guerrilla fights within the Border States and the Confederate South. The Guerrilla Hunters offers a comprehensive overview of the tactics, motives, and actors in these conflicts, from the Confederate-authorized Partisan Rangers, a military force directed to spy on, harass, and steal from Union forces, to men like John Gatewood, who deserted the Confederate army in favor of targeting Tennessee civilians believed to be in sympathy with the Union. With a foreword by Kenneth W. Noe and an afterword by Daniel E. Sutherland, this collection represents an impressive array of the foremost experts on guerrilla fighting in the Civil War. Providing new interpretations of this long-misconstrued aspect of warfare, these scholars go beyond the conventional battlefield to examine the stories of irregular combatants across all theaters of the Civil War, bringing geographic breadth to what is often treated as local and regional history. The Guerrilla Hunters shows that instances of unorthodox combat, once thought isolated and infrequent, were numerous, and many clashes defy easy categorization. Novel methodological approaches and a staggering diversity of research and topics allow this volume to support multiple areas for debate and discovery within this growing field of Civil War scholarship.

Download or read book The Ghosts of Guerrilla Memory written by Matthew C. Hulbert and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War tends to be remembered as a vast sequence of battles, with a turning point at Gettysburg and a culmination at Appomattox. But in the guerrilla theater, the conflict was a vast sequence of home invasions, local traumas, and social degeneration that did not necessarily end in 1865. This book chronicles the history of "guerrilla memory," the collision of the Civil War memory "industry" with the somber realities of irregular warfare in the borderlands of Missouri and Kansas. In the first accounting of its kind, Matthew Christopher Hulbert's book analyzes the cultural politics behind how Americans have remembered, misremembered, and re-remembered guerrilla warfare in political rhetoric, historical scholarship, literature, and film and at reunions and on the stage. By probing how memories of the guerrilla war were intentionally designed, created, silenced, updated, and even destroyed, Hulbert ultimately reveals a continent-wide story in which Confederate bushwhackers-pariahs of the eastern struggle over slavery-were transformed into the vanguards of American imperialism in the West.

Download or read book Bloody Dawn written by Th Goodrich and published by Kent State University Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the events leading to the August, 1863 attack on Lawrence, Kansas by William Quantrill and his Confederate irregulars.

Download or read book The Civil War in Kansas written by Debra Goodrich Bisel and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1850s, the eyes of the world were on Kansas. The Civil War in Kansas will be an overview of the years 1854-1865, since the war began in Kansas nearly seven years before it spread to the rest of the nation. From the repeal of the Missouri Compromise to its entry in the Union, Kansas played a small role in the war as a whole, but its effects on the state were nonetheless important. With regards to the Kansas citizens who played a part, it would be an understatement to call them "colorful." From John Brown to Jim Lane, Kansans made headlines throughout the nation and the world. Bisel presents the history of Kansas during the Civil War years in an accessible way that will satisfy history buffs as well as enlighten novices.

Download or read book Kansas Forts Bases written by Debra Goodrich Bisel and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2013-02-19 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between Kansas and the science of war is ingrained, consistent and evident, yet it seems antithetical to the quiet, conservative farmer who is the quintessential image of the state. It is not. The same values created both, and both created Kansas. From early exploration of America, Bleeding Kansas, the Civil War and the Plains Indian wars to the world wars and the modern era, the forts and bases of the Sunflower State have been central to America's defense. Beginning with Fort de Cavagnial in 1744 through to the defunct fields of Cold War missile silos, historians Debra Goodrich Bisel and Michelle M. Martin provide a guide to the forts and posts throughout Kansas.

Download or read book Prairie Fires written by Caroline Fraser and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR The first comprehensive historical biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie books Millions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls—the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true saga of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser—the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series—masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books. The Little House books, for all the hardships they describe, are paeans to the pioneer spirit, portraying it as triumphant against all odds. But Wilder’s real life was harder and grittier than that, a story of relentless struggle, rootlessness, and poverty. It was only in her sixties, after losing nearly everything in the Great Depression, that she turned to children’s books, recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a celebratory vision of homesteading—and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches episodes in American letters. Spanning nearly a century of epochal change, from the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl, Wilder’s dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national mythology of self-reliance. With fresh insights and new discoveries, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman whose classic stories grip us to this day.

Download or read book Black Flag written by Th Goodrich and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1861 to 1865, the region along the Missouri-Kansas border was the scene of unbelievable death and destruction. Thousands died, millions of dollars in property was lost, entire populations were violently uprooted. It was here also that some of the greatest atrocities in American history occurred. Yet in the great national tragedy of the Civil War, this savage warfare has seemed a minor episode. Drawing from a wide array of contemporary documents - including diaries, letters, and firsthand newspaper accounts - Thomas Goodrich presents a hair-raising report of life in this merciless guerrilla war. Filled with dramatic detail, Black Flag reveals war at its very worst, told in the words of the participants themselves. Bushwhackers and Jayhawkers, soldiers and civilians, scouts, spies, runaway slaves, the generals and the guerrillas - all step forward to tell of their terrifying ordeals.

Download or read book Civil War on the Missouri Kansas Border written by Donald Gilmore and published by Pelican Publishing. This book was released on 2005-11-30 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Civil War, the western front was the scene of some of that conflictï¿1/2s bloodiest and most barbaric encounters as Union raiders and Confederate guerrillas pursued each other from farm to farm with equal disregard for civilian casualties. Historical accounts of these events overwhelmingly favor the victorious Union standpoint, characterizing the Southern fighters as wanton, unprincipled savages. But in fact, as the author, himself a descendant of Union soldiers, discovered, the bushwhackersï¿1/2 violent reactions were understandable, given the reign of terror they endured as a result of Lincolnï¿1/2s total war in the West. In reexamining many of the long-held historical assumptions about this period, Gilmore discusses President Lincolnï¿1/2s utmost desire to keep Missouri in the Union by any and all means. As early as 1858, Kansan and Union troops carried out unbridled confiscation or destruction of Missouri private property, until the state became known as "the burnt region." These outrages escalated to include martial law throughout Missouri and finally the infamous General Orders Number 11 of September 1863 in which Union general Thomas Ewing, federal commander of the region, ordered the deportation of the entire population of the border counties. It is no wonder that, faced with the loss of their farms and their livelihoods, Missourians struck back with equal force.

Download or read book The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory written by Ramon Powers and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-09-13 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The exodus of the Northern Cheyennes in 1878 and 1879, an attempt to flee from Indian Territory to their Montana homeland, is an important event in American Indian history. It is equally important in the history of towns like Oberlin, Kansas, where Cheyenne warriors killed more than forty settlers. The Cheyennes, in turn, suffered losses through violent encounters with the U.S. Army. More than a century later, the story remains familiar because it has been told by historians and novelists, and on film. In The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory, James N. Leiker and Ramon Powers explore how the event has been remembered, told, and retold. They examine the recollections of Indians and settlers and their descendants, and they consider local history, mass-media treatments, and literature to draw thought-provoking conclusions about how this story has changed over time. The Cheyennes’ journey has always been recounted in melodramatic stereotypes, and for the last fifty years most versions have featured “noble savages” trying to reclaim their birthright. Here, Leiker and Powers deconstruct those stereotypes and transcend them, pointing out that history is never so simple. “The Cheyennes’ flight,” they write, “had left white and Indian bones alike scattered along its route from Oklahoma to Montana.” In this view, the descendants of the Cheyennes and the settlers they encountered are all westerners who need history as a “way of explaining the bones and arrowheads” that littered the plains. Leiker and Powers depict a rural West whose diverse peoples—Euro-American and Native American alike—seek to preserve their heritage through memory and history. Anyone who lives in the contemporary Great Plains or who wants to understand the West as a whole will find this book compelling.

Download or read book Bluecoat and Pioneer written by John Benton Hart and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2019-01-17 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1918, urged on by his son Harry, John Benton Hart began to tell stories of a three-year period in his youth. He recalled his days as a trooper in the Eleventh Kansas Cavalry, fighting in Missouri and on the frontier, and his time as a civilian jack-of-all-trades doing risky work for the U.S. Army on the Wyoming-Montana Bozeman Trail in the middle of the Indian resistance campaign known as Red Cloud’s War. Once started, John Benton Hart became an enthusiastic raconteur, describing events with an almost cinematic vividness, while his son, an aspiring writer, documented his father’s testimony in what became several manuscripts. Compiled and reproduced here, edited by historian John Hart, John Benton Hart’s great-grandson, this memoir is a singular document of living history. As a young Kansas cavalryman, John Benton Hart participated in two momentous episodes of the Civil War era—Sterling Price’s Missouri Expedition of 1864, including the Battle of Westport, and such engagements in the Plains Indian Wars as the Battle of Platte Bridge in July 1865 and the Hayfield Fight near Fort C. F. Smith in 1867. In the engaging style of a natural storyteller, Hart re-creates these events as he experienced them, giving readers a rare glimpse at moments of historical import from the point of view of the “ordinary” soldier. In arresting detail, he also tells of crossing the Plains as a bullwhacker, carrying the mail between the beleaguered forts on the Bozeman Trail, and befriending scout Jim Bridger and Mountain Crow Chief Blackfoot. Framed and supplemented with the editor’s biographical, historical, and explanatory notes, Hart’s memoir offers a new perspective on events long fixed in the historical imagination. As history writ large or on a personal scale, Bluecoat and Pioneer tells a remarkable story.

Download or read book Checklist of Official Publications of the State of Kansas Received by the State Library written by Kansas State Library. State Documents Division and published by . This book was released on 1954 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West written by Michael L. Tate and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2001-10-01 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reassessment of the military's role in developing the Western territories moves beyond combat stories and stereotypes to focus on more non-martial accomplishments such as exploration, gathering scientific data, and building towns.

Download or read book Colonel Richard Irving Dodge written by Wayne R. Kime and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 682 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Best known today as the author of The Plains of North American and Their Inhabitants (1877), Dodge recorded his observations and thoughts in volumes of journals, letters, and reports, as well as three popular published books. In this first biography of the soldier-author, Wayne R. Kime describes Dodge's early years, experiences as a writer, and forty-three-year career as an infantry officer in the U.s. Army, and sets his life in a rich historical context.

Download or read book Stephen A Douglas Western Man written by Reg Ankrom and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-04-23 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It didn't take long for freshman Congressman Stephen A. Douglas to see the truth of Senator Thomas Hart Benton's warning: slavery attached itself to every measure that came before the U.S. Congress. Douglas wanted to expand the nation into an ocean-bound republic. Yet slavery and the violent conflicts it stirred always interfered, as it did in 1844 with his first bill to organize Nebraska. In 1848, when America acquired 550,000 square miles after the Mexican War, the fight began over whether the territory would be free or slave. Henry Clay, a slave owner who favored gradual emancipation, packaged territorial bills from Douglas's committee with four others. But Clay's "Omnibus Bill" failed. Exhausted, he left the Senate, leaving Douglas in control. Within two weeks, Douglas won passage of all eight bills, and President Millard Fillmore signed the Compromise of 1850. It was Douglas's greatest legislative achievement. This book, a sequel to the author's Stephen A. Douglas: The Political Apprenticeship, 1833-1843, fully details Douglas's early congressional career. The text chronicles how Douglas moved the issue of slavery from Congress to the ballot box.

Download or read book Fighting Men of the Indian Wars written by Bill O'Neal and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: