Bucking the Railroads on the Kansas Frontier
Bucking the Railroads on the Kansas Frontier

Author: John N. Mack

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2013-01-07

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0786470291

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As the Civil War ended, thousands of Union veterans imagined Kansas as a place to make a new beginning. Many veterans settled in the southeastern part of the state. In their struggle to establish lawful, ordered communities the settlers came into conflict with railroads intent on building through southeast Kansas to reach warm-water ports in Texas. To the settlers the railroads represented both a promise and a threat. By linking farmers and businessmen with eastern markets, the railroads guaranteed the prospects of economic gain. However, when they claimed rights to the land that settlers had already claimed, railroad monopolies were identified as a new manifestation of the same threat to republican values they had fought against in the recently concluded War. This book tells the story of the settlers' opposition to and victory over railroads and the impact on the evolution of political thought in Kansas and the American west.

The Ioway Indians
The Ioway Indians

Author: Martha Royce Blaine

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780806127286

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This account is the first extensive ethnohistory of the Ioway Indians, whose influence - out of all proportion to their numbers - stemmed partly from the strategic location of their homeland between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Beginning with archaeological sites in northeast Iowa, Martha Royce Blaine traces Ioway history from ancient to modern times. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, French, Spanish, and English traders vied for the tribe's favor and for permission to cross their lands. The Ioways fought in the French and Indian War in New York, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, but ultimately their influence waned as they slowly lost control of their sovereignty and territory. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Ioways were separated in reservations in Nebraska, Kansas, and Indian Territory. A new preface by the author carries the story to modern times and discusses the present status of and issues concerning the Oklahoma and the Kansas and Nebraska Ioways.

Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border
Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border

Author: Donald Gilmore

Publisher: Pelican Publishing

Published: 2005-11-30

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9781455602308

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During the Civil War, the western front was the scene of some of that conflictï¿1/2s 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 bushwhackersï¿1/2 violent reactions were understandable, given the reign of terror they endured as a result of Lincolnï¿1/2s total war in the West. In reexamining many of the long-held historical assumptions about this period, Gilmore discusses President Lincolnï¿1/2s 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.

The American Soldier, 1866-1916
The American Soldier, 1866-1916

Author: John A. Haymond

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2018-03-22

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 147666725X

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In the years following the Civil War, the U.S. Army underwent a professional decline. Soldiers served their enlistments at remote, nameless posts from Arizona to Alaska. Harsh weather, bad food and poor conditions were adversaries as dangerous as Indian raiders. Yet under these circumstances, men continued to enlist for $13 a month. Drawing on soldiers' narratives, personal letters and official records, the author explores the common soldier's experience during the Reconstruction Era, the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War and the Punitive Expedition into Mexico.

The Revenger
The Revenger

Author: Aaron Woodard

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-06-29

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 149303393X

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The Revenger: The Life and Times of Wild Bill Hickok examines Wild Bill’s life in the context of 19th Century American history, from his birth, through his early manhood, and to his eventual demise. Woven into his life story are the significant role played by the Civil War in the development of his character and philosophy, the role played by popular media in the creation of his legendary status, and the changing of the western landscape and lifestyle that began to eliminate the need for gunmen such as Wild Bill. The book discusses Hickok’s early jobs in law enforcement and his associations with other significant westerners and recounts the events that transformed Hickok from a formidable lawman into a national celebrity and popular hero. Details of Hickok’s most famous gunfights, including weapons used and participants and outcomes and, of course, the end of his career including his famous death at the hands of an assassin in a saloon in Deadwood South Dakota are all explored. The book also incorporates changing views of historiographical interpretation of lawmen/gunmen in general and Wild Bill in particular. The book will have extensive illustrations—archival photos of Wild Bill, his contemporaries, his guns, etc.