Quantrill and the Border Wars (Classic Reprint)

American history when two antagonistic fundamentals of government contended for supremacy. The devotion of adherents to respective principles was fanatical and fierce, and unusual animosities were engendered. By stormy conventions the two ideas of the destiny of our common country were reconciled in our growth to the Mississippi. Newly bound and hedged about, they were flung upon the soil of Missouri. But the compromise of a principle is a crime, and the feeble barriers set by time-serving statesmen became tense and strained. The advance-guard of a higher national life burst them asunder and emerged upon the Great Plains. There the contest to maintain itself became a grapple for the existence of the government, and ended in civil war. The story of the border is the history of preliminary forays and the shock of army upon army in the national contest. It covers ten years. In wealth of romantic incidents, stirring adventures, hair-breadth escapes, sanguinary ambuscades, deadly encounters, individual vengeance, relentless desolation of towns and communities, and bloody murder, no other part of America can compare with it. Some future Scott will make himself immortal by telling this wonderful story. This is the first effort, it is believed, to make any serious study of the conditions prevailing on the border. The state of society about Lawrence as shown in the year 1860 may be accepted as representative of the general conditions found in Kansas up to the Civil War, and no attempt to describe them has been found. The state of disorder in Missouri was the result in some degree of the reaction upon itself of its course inK
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.

Forgotten Books' Classic Repri