Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border ed. by Jonathan Earle and Diana Mutti Burke (review)

Born out of a desire to overcome the historiographic border that has long separated Civil War historians in Missouri and Kansas, a group of scholars representing both sides of the divide came together in 2011, with the goal of correcting a persisting myth, namely, “all white Missourians supported slavery and the Confederacy and all Kansans were freedom-loving abolitionists who were victimized by Confederate guerrillas” (2). Organized and edited by Jonathan Earle and Diane Mutti Burke, the fifteen individual essays are presented collectively as Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri, indicating that blood was spilled on both sides of the border.

The essays begin with an introduction by the late Michael Fellman, whose passing not long after the conference is marked in the dedication page. Fellman’s groundbreaking Inside War influenced much of the book’s contents, and his essay, “I Came Not to Bring Peace, but a Sword,” is a powerful introduction to the violence that wreaked havoc along the border. By tracing the western tradition of the Christian war god, Fellman deconstructs America’s sense of Christian mission and duty, demonstrating how both Missourians and Kansans trusted that God was on their side, both fully believing they were “serving God and destroying the devil” (17).

From there, the chronology of the essays reveals the conflict’s deep roots, starting with the early presence of slavery on the border. Kristen Epps examines the desire of southern migrants to establish slavery in Missouri and their eventual success despite never adopting the large-scale plantation system associated with the Deep South. But rather than position Kansas as Missouri’s opposite, a land of freedom, Nicole Etcheson explains that pro-slavery forces in the western territory saw themselves as the only legitimate legislative power, fighting tooth and nail against free-state forces.

As with the topic of slavery, the goal of this collection is to upend conventional interpretations of the border. Tony R. Mullis outlines how Kansas militia units, initially formed in order to protect against Missouri Border Ruffians, went on the offensive by 1860, leading their own grizzly attacks on slaveholders. Christopher Phillips contends that many Missourians were not rabid secessionists but instead attempted to inhabit neutral ground. Federal occupation, however, drew a sharp line between loyal and disloyal, utilizing an oath of allegiance and curtailing civil liberties “as part of a broader strategy to establish control” (132). And Joseph Beilein Jr. argues that the Civil War was a “clash of divergent concepts of manhood,” and within this context, Missouri guerrillas are better understood as defenders of southern manhood, protecting hearth and home, which included women, children, and slaves (169). Brent M. S. Campney further flips the traditional narrative by demonstrating that postwar racial violence was not just a phenomenon of the South but also took place in Kansas—the lynching of thirty-three African Americans between 1864 and 1874 serves as stark evidence. Such activity flies in the face of the “free-state narrative” constructed by Kansans in the decades following the end of Reconstruction (227). After Missouri failed to pass the 1865 constitution, leaving freedmen without the right to vote, black leaders immediately organized, pushing back against claims of inferiority. Yet, much like the “free-state narrative,” Jeremy Neely tells of how Missouri guerrillas spent many postwar years defending, and in many ways celebrating, their actions through reunions and veteran meetings. And Aaron Aster’s close study of Lexington, Missouri’s Weekly Caucasian reveals the ways in which a language of white supremacy developed in opposition to Radical Republican rule. The concluding theme of memory, then, makes clear that while reconciliation proved uneven, the gradual understanding that white Kansans and Missourians both favored racial inequality served to reunite the two states and cross the border.

One common difficulty in arranging conference paper selections is finding a unifying thread. In...