War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854-1861
Long before the secession crisis at Fort Sumter ignited the War between the States, men fought and died on the prairies of Kansas over the incendiary issue of slavery. "War to the knife and knife to the hilt," cried the Atchison Squatter Sovereign.

In 1854 a shooting war developed between proslavery men from Missouri and free-staters in Kansas over control of the territory. The prize was whether Kansas would become a slave or a free state when admitted to the Union, a question that could decide the balance of power in Washington. War to the Knife is an absorbing account of a bloody episode in our nation's past, told in the unforgettable words of the men and women involved: Robert E. Lee, William Tecumseh Sherman, Sara Robinson, Jeb Stuart, Abraham Lincoln, William F. Cody, and John Brown--hailed as a prophet by some, denounced as a madman by others.

Because the conflict soon spread east, events in "Bleeding Kansas" have largely been forgotten. But as historian Thomas Goodrich reveals in this compelling saga, what America's "first civil war" lacked in numbers, it more than made up for in ferocity.

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War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854-1861
Long before the secession crisis at Fort Sumter ignited the War between the States, men fought and died on the prairies of Kansas over the incendiary issue of slavery. "War to the knife and knife to the hilt," cried the Atchison Squatter Sovereign.

In 1854 a shooting war developed between proslavery men from Missouri and free-staters in Kansas over control of the territory. The prize was whether Kansas would become a slave or a free state when admitted to the Union, a question that could decide the balance of power in Washington. War to the Knife is an absorbing account of a bloody episode in our nation's past, told in the unforgettable words of the men and women involved: Robert E. Lee, William Tecumseh Sherman, Sara Robinson, Jeb Stuart, Abraham Lincoln, William F. Cody, and John Brown--hailed as a prophet by some, denounced as a madman by others.

Because the conflict soon spread east, events in "Bleeding Kansas" have largely been forgotten. But as historian Thomas Goodrich reveals in this compelling saga, what America's "first civil war" lacked in numbers, it more than made up for in ferocity.

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War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854-1861

War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854-1861

by Thomas Goodrich
War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854-1861

War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854-1861

by Thomas Goodrich

Paperback

$19.95 
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Overview

Long before the secession crisis at Fort Sumter ignited the War between the States, men fought and died on the prairies of Kansas over the incendiary issue of slavery. "War to the knife and knife to the hilt," cried the Atchison Squatter Sovereign.

In 1854 a shooting war developed between proslavery men from Missouri and free-staters in Kansas over control of the territory. The prize was whether Kansas would become a slave or a free state when admitted to the Union, a question that could decide the balance of power in Washington. War to the Knife is an absorbing account of a bloody episode in our nation's past, told in the unforgettable words of the men and women involved: Robert E. Lee, William Tecumseh Sherman, Sara Robinson, Jeb Stuart, Abraham Lincoln, William F. Cody, and John Brown--hailed as a prophet by some, denounced as a madman by others.

Because the conflict soon spread east, events in "Bleeding Kansas" have largely been forgotten. But as historian Thomas Goodrich reveals in this compelling saga, what America's "first civil war" lacked in numbers, it more than made up for in ferocity.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780803271142
Publisher: UNP - Bison Books
Publication date: 11/01/2004
Pages: 296
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Thomas Goodrich is the author of Black Flag: Guerrilla Warfare on the Western Border, 1861-1865 and the coauthor of The Day Dixie Died: Southern Occupation, 1865-1866.

Table of Contents

Prologue-December 2, 1859 1

Chapter 1 Islands in the Night 5

Chapter 2 In Awful Earnest 27

Chapter 3 To a Bloody Issue 41

Chapter 4 I Have Seen Suffering 59

Chapter 5 When Kansas Bleeds 73

Chapter 6 Jerusalem in Heaps 97

Chapter 7 Ordained from Eternity 123

Chapter 8 The Dogs of War 143

Chapter 9 Deliver Me from Honor 171

Chapter 10 Through the Lifting Smoke 187

Chapter 11 Minister of the Devil 213

Chapter 12 Bright Morning, Glorious Day 227

Epilogue-The Stranger 249

Notes 255

Bibliography 285

Index 293

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