Product Description

During the Civil War, the western front was the scene of some of that conflict’s 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 bushwhackers’ violent reactions were understandable, given the reign of terror they endured as a result of Lincoln’s total war in the West.

In reexamining many of the long-held historical assumptions about this period, Gilmore discusses President Lincoln’s 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #255413 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Review
"...Gilmore's book focuses on depredations committed by Jayhawkers...as well as raids by Missourians into Kansas." -- Topeka Capital-Journal

"...none has dissected and disproved the whole dogma, item by item, beginning to end, quite as Gilmore has done." -- Nevada (MO) Daily Mail

"Donald Gilmore's 'Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border' bravely and patiently marshals its evidence ..." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Gilmore’s new book is a bombshell!" -- Armchair General Magazine, Dr. Jerry Morelock, Ph.D.

About the Author
Donald L. Gilmore’s lifelong interest in local history, evidenced by his antiques business, his genealogical research, and his Ozark cave exploration, led him to study the Civil War in his region. Despite the fact that Mr. Gilmore is a descendant of Union soldiers, he decided that previous history books judged the Confederate side too harshly and set out to write a more balanced account of the Border War.

In addition to writing articles about the Border War for Journal of the West, History Today, and Wild West, Mr. Gilmore served as technical consultant for Ride With the Devil. That movie, starring Tobey Maguire and Jewel, was filmed in Missouri among the very hills and fields where the war took place.

Mr. Gilmore earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He taught English at the college level then worked as an editor for seventeen years at the U.S. Army’s Combat Studies Institute, retiring in 2001. A veteran of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, he received the Commander’s Award for Civilian Service in 1997 and the Department of the Army Meritorious Civilian Service Medal in 2001.

Customer Reviews

IT IS ALWAYS REFRESHING TO VIEW HISTORY FROM A DIFFERENT ANGLE
I found this work to be quite informative, well researched and well written. The author's detailed accounts and quotations from original resources is quite refreshing. This aspect of the Civil War is often misunderstood in that the majority of what we know has been passed down to us from the "victors" point of view. In fact, these were very, very hard times and a good case can be made that there were indeed no real winners in this not so isolated, but under reported, part of the war. Horrible, barbaric actions were consummated by both sides of this conflict. If we attempt to place ourselves at that time and place in history, we can well see where both sides had their grievances, and both sides were able to justify their atrocities. This work simple gives more emphasis to one side than the other. To state the author is somehow trying to make an apology or to justify slavery in any way, is being rather naive. Things were what they were, right or wrong, and should be examined as such. Simply put, there were good guys and bad guys on both sides. In this I feel the author has done a very good job. I do feel there has been a dearth of research and work done in presenting the "Missourian" side of the story and do feel this author's work has done much to fill in this gap. After careful reading, I cannot classify this as revisionist history, it is quite too well researched for that, but rather a different slant. A student of these times really should give this work a try and draw their own conclusions. I highly recommend.

Missourians Redeemed
Tremendous historical analysis. Patrick Brophy, Vernon County Historical Society's newsletter editor, says in the Nevada, Missouri, Daily Mail:

"A few writers, over the years, have nibbled around the theme's edges [the Border War], timidly questioning those articles of politically correct faith; but none has dissected and disproved the whole dogma, item by item, beginning to end, quite as Gilmore has done."

Don Gilmore successfully breaks the old stereotypes that the victor's histories established over the past 140 years. The descendent of several Union soldiers and an Army veteran himself, Gilmore provides an analysis of the border "wars" between Missouri and Kansas that is backed by substantive facts; fresh, primary source documentation; and extensive knowledge gleaned from years of living in the middle of the border-wars area of operations. Gilmore bucks the "traditional" representation of the contestants by clearly demonstrating that the "war" between the Missourians and Kansans was much more complex than the "Kansans good", "Missourians bad" stereotypes that have been carefully cultivated by pro-Northern biased historians. So many of the atrocities committed by the Red Legs and Jayhawkers have been conveniently over-looked throughout the years. The reaction by Missourians fighting back against cruel depredations is somehow rationalized away by pro-Northern historians seeking to make the Missourians the villains in order to justify the illegal actions of the US Army against American citizens. Gilmore, a technical advisor for the Lee Ang film, "Ride With The Devil", goes into depth and context rarely covered by other historians of the border wars. As an example of the complexity, the portrayal of a black Confederate guerilla in the film "Ride With The Devil", was enough to cause the NAACP to censor the dust jacket and prevent the black guerilla "Holt" (based on the real character, John Noland, a black Confederate guerilla) from being shown on the front of the dust jacket. It was too much real history for them to handle and it did not conveniently fit the existing stereotypes. The fact that there were many pro-Confederate blacks, thousands serving with the Confederate Army --- is so politically incorrect, yet backed by extensive research of black historians such as Dr. Edward C. Smith of American University. Those with closed minds will automatically dismiss Gilmore's book out-of-hand without consideration of the evidence. They have their minds made up and won't want to be confused with the facts. For military scholars and diplomats, this book is an excellent study of how not to behave in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the Army of today forbids the conduct it expressly sanctioned 145 years ago. Our conduct today is intended to prevent the alienation of the population it fights to protect. At the Army's Command and General Staff College, we now emphasize the application of military power in a completely different manner so as not to turn the civil populace to the insurgents' sides. In 1860, this doctrine didn't exist even though the civil laws, military regulations and codes did. The U.S. Lieber Code of 1863 expressly forbade the actions taken by the U.S. Army that successfully turned thousands of Missourians against the government. It would be disingenuous to say that the Red Legs and Jayhawkers weren't representing the U.S. government, but as the Cheyenne found out in 1864, Colorado militia wearing U.S. Army uniforms were, for all intents and purposes, the U.S. Army, hence, the U.S. government. The incorporation of Red Legs and Jayhawkers into Kansas cavalry units did not mitigate against their crimes and behavior under the official auspices of the U.S. government's protection. Gilmore aptly demonstrates that the Missourians reacted as any people might have when faced with similar circumstances and that they were not, as a whole, treated kindly by pro-Northern historians who subsequently sought to rationalize the crimes against them. A number of devastating raids by pro-Northern guerillas against Missiourians occurred long before Quantrill's 1863 Lawrence raid, yet, they are given short shrift by many border historians. Depredations by the Red Legs were chronicled in the fictional movie, "The Outlaw Josey Wales". To most, it is an entertaining Western. Since most Americans have a limited knowledge of the War Between the States, and especially the war on the western frontier, the movie does less to educate than amuse. While it is a fictional account, its theme is real. Vengeance and retribution are powerful human emotions elicited from those living on the border frontier of the 1850s-1860s. Gilmore's explanations give greater understanding to the `root causes' of why things happened the way they did. He provides balance to the often stereotypical and biased histories of the 1856-1865 period. Every serving soldier and diplomat should place this book on their professional reading list to better understand U.S. policies dealing with insurgencies and how not to treat occupied peoples. While the specific circumstances are different, human nature is not.

The Civil War's Dark Side: Neither Side Owned a Monopoly on Civil War Terrorism
Meticulously researched and cogently written, Gilmore's bombshell book breaks new ground in describing what really happened during the brutal guerrilla war fought in America's heartland from 1854 to 1865. Finally, a dedicated historian of the fraticidal conflict in Missouri and Kansas steps forward with the courage to tell the unvarnished truth and with the scholarship to back it up.

For generations, the depredations of Confederate guerrillas such as William Clarke Quantrill, Frank and Jesse James, Cole Younger and "Bloody Bill" Anderson have been touted as the epitome of heartlessly cruel barbarians masquerading as soldiers. But what about the Union men whose equally barbaric brutality from the war's outset sparked the guerrillas' savage response? Gilmore documents the war crimes on both sides. He reveals the murderous actions of Union men such as Crazy Jim Lane, a US Senator from the new state of Kansas who led an army of thieves and killers on a bloody rampage of looting and killing in western Missouri in 1861, then furnished his Lawrence, Kansas, home with the stolen property; Colonel Charles Jennison, a psychopathic dwarf whose Kansas "Red Legs" periodically left the safety of their Lawrence refuge to indiscriminately murder and rob both pro- and anti-slavery Missourians; and, perhaps the conflict's most successful war criminal, Union Gen. Thomas Ewing, promulgator of the infamous General Orders Number 11, an atrocity that disposssed 20,000 civilians, left five Missouri counties in desolate ruin and probably killed hundreds of innocents (Ewing let the brutal "Red Legs" inforce the order's execution). Ewing practiced "Ethinic Cleansing" 130 years before it made world headlines in the 1990's Balkan conflict. Moreove, Gilmore's book documents Ewing's illegal imprisoning of civilians, murdering of prisoners and summary executions. Gilmore shows that neither side had a monopoly on terror.

Undoubtedly, those who have not yet heard the uncomfortable truth about Union atrocities during the bloody guerrilla war in Missouri and Kansas will be troubled to learn in Gilmore's book that Union men could be just as ruthless as the Confederate guerrillas. Predictably, some will "shoot the messenger", unfairly pilloring Gilmore for telling the harsh truth. Yet, Gilmore is certainly no "neo-Confederate" apologist, nor is this descendant of Union soldiers attempting to justify the ruthless actions of the Confederate guerrillas. Gilmore is a historian who is performing a valuable service by putting that brutal conflict within the framework of the era in which it occurred and very properly documenting the depredations committed by the Union side as well as the guerrilla side. It is a story that needs to be told and has for too long been merely a "dirty little secret," conveniently swept under the historical carpet. Instead of being condemned, Gilmore should be applauded for having the courage to step forward with the true story. Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border is an important new book and is highly recommended.