Kansas S War

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.

"This multi-faceted study gives readers a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the violence that erupted--long before the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter--along the Missouri-Kansas border by blending the political and military with the social and intellectual history of the populace. The fifteen essays together explain why the divisiveness was so bitter and persisted so long, still influencing attitudes 150 years later"--

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.

"My purpose in writing this book was twofold: first, to supply a long-standing deficiency in Kansas historical literature (which has concentrated almost exclusively on the pre-Civil War period) by describing the political, military, social and economic events and developments of the state's first four years -- an era even more dramatic, and hardly less significant, than the one which preceded it; and, secondly, to contribute to a better understanding of the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi West through a realistic presentation and analysis of the Kansas-Missouri border conflict, the operations of the Missouri guerrillas under Quantrill, and the Union and Confederate military campaigns in Missouri, Arkansas, the Indian Territory, and Kansas itself. My primary focus throughout the book is on Kansas, and if I have emphasized political and military matters, it is only because this period of Kansas history was essentially political and military in character"--Preface of original edition.

When the Civil War broke out in April 1861, Kansas was in a unique position. Although it had been a state for mere weeks, its residents were already intimately acquainted with civil strife. Since its organization as a territory in 1854, Kansas had been the focus of a national debate over the place of slavery in the Republic. By 1856, the ideological conflict developed into actual violence, earning the territory the sobriquet “Bleeding Kansas.” Because of this recent territorial strife, the state’s transition from peace to war was not as abrupt as that of other states. Kansas’s War illuminates the new state’s main preoccupations: the internal struggle for control of policy and patronage; border security; and issues of race—especially efforts to come to terms with the burgeoning African American population and American Indians’ continuing claims to nearly one-fifth of the state’s land. These documents demonstrate how politicians, soldiers, and ordinary Kansans understood the conflict and were transformed by the war.

Few people would have expected bloodshed in Kansas Territory. After all, it had few slaves and showed few signs that slavery would even flourish. But civil war tore this territory apart in the 1850s and 60s, and "Bleeding Kansas" became a forbidding symbol for the nationwide clash over slavery that followed. Many free-state Kansans seemed to care little about slaves, and many proslavery Kansans owned not a single slave. But the failed promise of the Kansas-Nebraska Act-when fraud in local elections subverted the settlers' right to choose whether Kansas would be a slave or free state-fanned the flames of war. While other writers have cited slavery or economics as the cause of unrest, Nicole Etcheson seeks to revise our understanding of this era by focusing on whites' concerns over their political liberties. The first comprehensive account of "Bleeding Kansas" in more than thirty years, her study re-examines the debate over slavery expansion to emphasize issues of popular sovereignty rather than slavery's moral or economic dimensions. The free-state movement was a coalition of settlers who favored black rights and others who wanted the territory only for whites, but all were united by the conviction that their political rights were violated by nonresident voting and by Democratic presidents' heavy-handed administration of the territories. Etcheson argues that participants on both sides of the Kansas conflict believed they fought to preserve the liberties secured by the American Revolution and that violence erupted because each side feared the loss of meaningful self-governance. Bleeding Kansas is a gripping account of events and people-rabble-rousing Jim Lane, zealot John Brown, Sheriff Sam Jones, and others-that examines the social milieu of the settlers along with the political ideas they developed. Covering the period from the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act to the 1879 Exoduster Migration, it traces the complex interactions among groups inside and outside the territory, creating a comprehensive political, social, and intellectual history of this tumultuous period in the state's history. As Etcheson demonstrates, the struggle over the political liberties of whites may have heightened the turmoil but led eventually to a broadening of the definition of freedom to include blacks. Her insightful re-examination sheds new light on this era and is essential reading for anyone interested in the ideological origins of the Civil War.