Bleeding Kansas, bleeding Missouri: the long Civil War on the border

Abstract

Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on Border. Edited by Jonathan Earle and Diane Mutti Burke. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013. Pp. [xiv], 346. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-7006 1929-0; cloth, $37.50, ISBN 978-0-7006-1928-3.) The border wars in Kansas and Missouri continue to complicate our understanding of Civil War. Building on work of scholars like late Michael Fellman, contributor to this volume, who interpreted border conflict as a war of against all and scene of the worst guerrilla war in American history, Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on Border confirms and extends recent scholarship on topic (p. 4). The collection breaks new ground by looking at border wars across geographical lines, and, by offering variety of approaches, essays help readers navigate complicated political and ideological world of people who lived through conflict. The book also considers how later generations have remembered war on border. Following useful introduction by editors, Fellman argues that violent guerrilla war on border resulted from long tradition of Christian crusading that motivated men to kill others in name of God. Victimizing their own, dehumanizing enemy, and fighting for cause that required blood sacrifice, warriors in border region descended into endless cycle of revenge (p. 13). Later historians sanitized cultural memory by making border one of exceptions to rule of civility in Civil War (p. 23). The editors divide remaining chapters into three parts, first of which looks at how issue of slavery changed border region. Kristen K. Epps argues that while slaveholding in region was relatively small-scale, it played an essential role in economic life of those who lived there before 1850s. Westward movement was seen as progress, and slavery was vital to that progress given scarcity of labor on sparsely settled frontier. Nicole Etcheson argues that concepts of law and order explain why proslavery citizens perceived influx of antislavery immigrants as threat. The proslavery side thought that its adherents followed rules and saw themselves as defenders of law and order, while they sincerely believed that those who opposed slavery were dangerous fanatics who brought anarchy to border region. Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel delves into intersection of race and gender in language used by participants who tried to demean manhood of other side. Pearl T. Ponce's political analysis of Lecompton constitution insightfully explores efforts and failures of leaders like James Buchanan. The essays in second part show how border wars escalated as national conflict began. Tony R. Mullis demonstrates that U.S. Army tried to respond to free-soil guerrillas in 1860, arguing that although army was largely ineffective, their efforts taught them important lessons that they later put to use against proslavery irregulars during Civil War. …