Download or read book The Border Between Them written by Jeremy Neely and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most bitter guerrilla conflict in American history raged along the Kansas-Missouri border from 1856 to 1865, making that frontier the first battleground in the struggle over slavery. That fiercely contested boundary represented the most explosive political fault line in the United States, and its bitter divisions foreshadowed an entire nation torn asunder. Jeremy Neely now examines the significance of the border war on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri line and offers a comparative, cross-border analysis of its origins, meanings, and consequences. A narrative history of the border war and its impact on citizens of both states, The Border between Them recounts the exploits of John Brown, William Quantrill, and other notorious guerrillas, but it also uncovers the stories of everyday people who lived through that conflict. Examining the frontier period to the close of the nineteenth century, Neely frames the guerrilla conflict within the larger story of the developing West and squares that violent period with the more peaceful--though never tranquil--periods that preceded and followed it. Focusing on the countryside south of the big bend in the Missouri River, an area where there was no natural boundary separating the states, Neely examines three border counties in each state that together illustrate both sectional division and national reunion. He draws on the letters and diaries of ordinary citizens--as well as newspaper accounts, election results, and census data--to illuminate the complex strands that helped bind Kansas and Missouri together in post-Civil War America. He shows how people on both sides of the line were already linked by common racial attitudes, farming practices, and ambivalence toward railroad expansion; he then tells how emancipation, industrialization, and immigration eventually eroded wartime divisions and facilitated the reconciliation of old foes from each state. Today the "border war" survives in the form of interstate rivalries between collegiate Tigers and Jayhawks, allowing Neely to consider the limits of that reconciliation and the enduring power of identities forged in wartime. The Border between Them is a compelling account of the terrible first act of the American Civil War and its enduring legacy for the conflict's veterans, victims, and survivors, as well as subsequent generations.

Download or read book Inside War written by Michael Fellman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1990-04-19 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Civil War, the state of Missouri witnessed the most widespread, prolonged, and destructive guerrilla fighting in American history. With its horrific combination of robbery, arson, torture, murder, and swift and bloody raids on farms and settlements, the conflict approached total war, engulfing the whole populace and challenging any notion of civility. Michael Fellman's Inside War captures the conflict from "inside," drawing on a wealth of first-hand evidence, including letters, diaries, military reports, court-martial transcripts, depositions, and newspaper accounts. He gives us a clear picture of the ideological, social, and economic forces that divided the people and launched the conflict. Along with depicting how both Confederate and Union officials used the guerrilla fighters and their tactics to their own advantage, Fellman describes how ordinary civilian men and women struggled to survive amidst the random terror perpetuated by both sides; what drove the combatants themselves to commit atrocities and vicious acts of vengeance; and how the legend of Jesse James arose from this brutal episode in the American Civil War.

Download or read book A Savage Conflict written by Daniel E. Sutherland and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the Civil War is famous for epic battles involving massive armies engaged in conventional warfare, A Savage Conflict is the first work to treat guerrilla warfare as critical to understanding the course and outcome of the Civil War. Daniel Sutherland argues that irregular warfare took a large toll on the Confederate war effort by weakening support for state and national governments and diminishing the trust citizens had in their officials to protect them.

Download or read book Slavery on the Periphery written by Kristen Epps and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Slavery on the Periphery focuses on nineteen counties on the Kansas-Missouri border, tracing slavery's rise and fall from the earliest years of American settlement through the Civil War along this critical geographical, political, and social fault line.

Download or read book Man of Douglas Man of Lincoln written by Ian Michael Spurgeon and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Focusing on the last twelve years of James Henry Lane's life, Spurgeon delves into key aspects of his career such as his time as an Indiana congressman, his role in Kansas's constitutional conventions, and his evolving stance on slavery to challenge prevailing views on Lane's place in history"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind written by Todd Mildfelt and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2023-10-17 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A controversial character largely known (as depicted in the movie Glory) as a Union colonel who led Black soldiers in the Civil War, James Montgomery (1814–71) waged a far more personal and radical war against slavery than popular history suggests. It is the true story of this militant abolitionist that Todd Mildfelt and David D. Schafer tell in Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind, summoning a life fiercely lived in struggle against the expansion of slavery into the West and during the Civil War. This book follows a harrowing path through the turbulent world of the 1850s and 1860s as Montgomery, with the fervor of an Old Testament prophet, inflicts destructive retribution on Southern slaveholders wherever he finds them, crossing paths with notable abolitionists John Brown and Harriet Tubman along the way. During the tumultuous years of “Bleeding Kansas,” he became a guerilla chieftain of the antislavery vigilantes known as Jayhawkers. When the war broke out in 1861, Montgomery led a regiment of white troops who helped hundreds of enslaved people in Missouri reach freedom in Kansas. Drawing on regimental records in the National Archives, the authors provide new insights into the experiences of African American men who served in Montgomery’s next regiment, the Thirty-Fourth United States Colored Troops (formerly Second South Carolina Infantry). Montgomery helped enslaved men and women escape via one of the least-explored underground railways in the nation, from Arkansas and Missouri through Kansas and Nebraska. With support of abolitionists in Massachusetts, he spearheaded resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act in Kansas. And, when war came, he led Black soldiers in striking at the very heart of the Confederacy. His full story thus illuminates the actions of both militant abolitionists and the enslaved people fighting to destroy the peculiar institution.

Download or read book War to the Knife written by Thomas Goodrich and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2018-03-28 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marching armies, cavalry raids, guerilla warfare, massacres, towns and farms in flames—the American Civil War, 1861-1865? No—Kansas, 1854-1861. Before there was Bull Run or Gettysburg, there was Black Jack and Osawatomie. Long before events at Fort Sumter ignited the War Between the States, men fought and died on the Prairies of Kansas over the incendiary issue of slavery. “War to the knife and knife to the hilt,” cried the Atchison Squatter Sovereign. “ Let the watchword be ‘Extermination, total and complete.’” In 1854 a shooting war developed between proslavery men in Missouri and free-staters in Kansas over control of the territory. The prize was whether it would be a slave or free state when admitted to the Union, a question that could decide the balance of power in Washington. Told in the unforgettable words of the men and women involved, War to the Knife is an absorbing account of a bloody episode soon spread east, events in “Bleeding Kansas” have largely been forgotten. But as historian Thomas Goodrich reveals in this compelling saga, what America’s “first civil war” lacked in numbers it more than made up for in ferocity. War to the Knife is a riveting story of blood, fire, and death. It is also a story with an impressive cast of characters: Robert E Lee, William Tecumseh Sherman, Sara Robinson, Jeb Stuart, Abraham Lincoln, Horace Greeley, Julia Lovejoy, William F. Cody. These and more step forward to tell their tale. And casting his long, dark shadow over al is the strange, haunting figure of John Brown—hailed as a prophet by some, denounced as a madman by others.

Download or read book Lincoln the War President written by Gabor S. Boritt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1994-05-19 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Americans interested in history need to make the pilgrimage to Gettysburg," writes Gabor Boritt in the Acknowledgments. In this book seven historians make that journey, five of them Pulitzer laureates, looking for Lincoln. Kenneth Stampp explores the issue of national self-determination, comparing the South's struggle for independence to others in history (including the post-Soviets in eastern Europe). Arthur Schlessinger, Jr. offers a provocative comparison of how Lincoln and our other outstanding war president, FDR, went beyond the limits of the Constitution--and why. David Brion Davis focuses on the moment of emancipation. Boritt traces Lincoln's transition from a strident war opponent as a young man to resolute war leader as president. Carl Degler compares the American attempt at national unification with the unifications of Italy, Germany, and other nations. Robert Bruce contrasts premonitions of civil war with Lincoln's reluctance to accept war as a possibility. And James McPherson establishes once and for all the war president's brilliance as a national strategist. These outstanding essays--all but one published here for the first time--offer a new understanding of a revolutionary epoch in American history, and of the role of the leader who helped transform the nation forever.

Download or read book Extreme Civil War written by Matthew M. Stith and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2016-05-18 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the American Civil War, the western Trans-Mississippi frontier was host to harsh environmental conditions, irregular warfare, and intense racial tensions that created extraordinarily difficult conditions for both combatants and civilians. Matthew M. Stith's Extreme Civil War focuses on Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Indian Territory to examine the physical and cultural frontiers that challenged Confederate and Union forces alike. A disturbing narrative emerges where conflict indiscriminately beset troops and families in a region that continually verged on social and political anarchy. With hundreds of small fights disbursed over the expansive borderland, fought by civilians— even some women and children—as much as by soldiers and guerrillas, this theater of war was especially savage. Despite connections to the political issues and military campaigns that drove the larger war, the irregular conflict in this border region represented a truly disparate war within a war. The blend of violence, racial unrest, and frontier culture presented distinct challenges to combatants, far from the aid of governmental services. Stith shows how white Confederate and Union civilians faced forces of warfare and the bleak environmental realities east of the Great Plains while barely coexisting with a number of other ethnicities and races, including Native Americans and African Americans. In addition to the brutal fighting and lack of basic infrastructure, the inherent mistrust among these communities intensified the suffering of all citizens on America's frontier. Extreme Civil War reveals the complex racial, environmental, and military dimensions that fueled the brutal guerrilla warfare and made the Trans-Mississippi frontier one of the most difficult and diverse pockets of violence during the Civil War.

Download or read book Portraits of Conflict written by Bobby Leon Roberts and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With over two hundred photographs and related documents the authors make indelibly real the physical and spiritual suffering of the ordinary soldier and his love for his country and its land. By carefully matching available written sources to photographs, the authors have created a unique opportunity for the reader to see the war on a human scale that may always elude traditional narratives. - Back cover.

Download or read book To Govern the Devil in Hell written by Pearl Ponce and published by Northern Illinois University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-30 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One hundred and fifty years after Kansas was admitted to the Union, we still find ourselves fascinated by the specter of "Bleeding Kansas" and the violence that preceded the American Civil War by five years. Although ample attention has been devoted to understanding why territorial violence broke out in Kansas in 1856, of equal concern but less illuminated is the question of why government, both local and national, allowed the violence to continue unstanched for so long. This question is fundamentally about governance-its existence, exercise, limits, and continuance-and its study has ramifications for understanding both Kansas events and why the American experiment in government failed in 1861. In addition, the book also sheds light on the nature of democracy, the challenges of implanting it in distant environs, the necessity of cooperation at the various levels of government, and the value of strong leadership. To Govern the Devil in Hell uses the prism of governance to investigate what went wrong in territorial Kansas. From the first elections in late 1854 and early 1855, local government was tarnished with cries of illegitimacy that territorial officials could not ameliorate. Soon after, a shadow government was created which further impeded local management of territorial challenges. Ultimately, this book addresses why Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan failed to act, what hindered Congress from stepping into the void, and why and how the lack of effective governance harmed Kansas and later the United States.

Download or read book Jayhawkers written by Bryce Benedict and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-11-19 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No person excited greater emotion in Kansas than James Henry Lane, the U.S. senator who led a volunteer brigade in 1861–1862. In fighting numerous skirmishes, liberating hundreds of slaves, burning portions of four towns, and murdering half a dozen men, Lane and his brigade garnered national attention as the saviors of Kansas and the terror of Missouri. This first book-length study of the “jayhawkers,” as the men of Lane’s brigade were known, takes a fresh look at their exploits and notoriety. Bryce Benedict draws on a wealth of previously unexploited sources, including letters by brigade members, to dramatically re-create the violence along the Kansas-Missouri border and challenge some of the time-honored depictions of Lane’s unit as bloodthirsty and indiscriminately violent. Bringing to life an era of guerillas, bushwhackers, and slave stealers, Jayhawkers also describes how Lane’s brigade was organized and equipped and provides details regarding staff and casualties. Assessing the extent to which the jayhawkers followed accepted rules of warfare, Benedict argues that Lane set a precedent for the Union Army’s eventual adoption of “hard” tactics toward civilians. An entertaining story rich in detail, Jayhawkers will captivate scholars and history enthusiasts as it sheds new light on the unfettered violence on this western fringe of the Civil War.

Download or read book The Hardest Lot of Men written by Joseph C. Fitzharris and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outstanding in appearance, discipline, and precision at drill, the Third Minnesota Volunteer Infantry was often mistaken for a regular army unit. Rebel Colonel Ponder described the regiment as “the hardest lot of men he’d ever run against.” Betrayed by its higher commanders, the Third Minnesota was surrendered to Nathan Bedford Forrest on July 13, 1862, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Through letters, personal accounts of the men, and other sources, author Joseph C. Fitzharris recounts how the Minnesotans, prisoners of war, broken in spirit and morale, went home and found redemption and renewed purpose fighting the Dakota Indians. They were then sent south to fight guerrillas along the Tennessee River. In the process, the regiment was forged anew as a superbly drilled and disciplined unit that participated in the siege of Vicksburg and in the Arkansas Expedition that took Little Rock. At Pine Bluff, Arkansas, sickness so reduced its numbers that the Third was twice unable to muster enough men to bury its own dead, but the men never wavered in battle. In both Tennessee and Arkansas, the Minnesotans actively supported the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) and provided many officers for USCT units. The Hardest Lot of Men follows the Third through occupation to war’s end, when the returning men, deeming the citizens of St. Paul insufficiently appreciative, spurned a celebration in their honor. In this first full account of the regiment, Fitzharris brings to light the true story long obscured by the official histories illustrating aspects of a nineteenth-century soldier’s life—enlisted and commissioned alike—from recruitment and training to the rigors of active duty. The Hardest Lot of Men gives us an authentic picture of the Third Minnesota, at once both singular and representative of its historical moment.

Download or read book The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on Arkansas written by Carl H. Moneyhon and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking study, first published in 1994, draws on a rich variety of primary sources to describe Arkansas society before, during, and after the Civil War. While the Civil War devastated the state, this book shows how those who were powerful before the war reclaimed their dominance during Reconstruction. Most importantly, the white elite's postwar commitment to a cotton economy led them to set up a sharecropping system very much like slavery, in which workers had little control over their own labor. In arguing for both change and continuity, Moneyhon reconciles contemporary accounts of the war's effects while addressing ongoing debates within the historical literature.

Download or read book Soldiers in the Army of Freedom written by Ian Michael Spurgeon and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-10-22 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was 1862, the second year of the Civil War, though Kansans and Missourians had been fighting over slavery for almost a decade. For the 250 Union soldiers facing down rebel irregulars on Enoch Toothman’s farm near Butler, Missouri, this was no battle over abstract principles. These were men of the First Kansas Colored Infantry, and they were fighting for their own freedom and that of their families. They belonged to the first black regiment raised in a northern state, and the first black unit to see combat during the Civil War. Soldiers in the Army of Freedom is the first published account of this largely forgotten regiment and, in particular, its contribution to Union victory in the trans-Mississippi theater of the Civil War. As such, it restores the First Kansas Colored Infantry to its rightful place in American history. Composed primarily of former slaves, the First Kansas Colored saw major combat in Missouri, Indian Territory, and Arkansas. Ian Michael Spurgeon draws upon a wealth of little-known sources—including soldiers’ pension applications—to chart the intersection of race and military service, and to reveal the regiment’s role in countering white prejudices by defying stereotypes. Despite naysayers’ bigoted predictions—and a merciless slaughter at the Battle of Poison Spring—these black soldiers proved themselves as capable as their white counterparts, and so helped shape the evolving attitudes of leading politicians, such as Kansas senator James Henry Lane and President Abraham Lincoln. A long-overdue reconstruction of the regiment’s remarkable combat record, Spurgeon’s book brings to life the men of the First Kansas Colored Infantry in their doubly desperate battle against the Confederate forces and skepticism within Union ranks.

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 Mississippi Valley Historical Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1952-06 with total page 902 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: