Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy: Guerrilla Warfare in the West 1861-1865.

McDonough, James L. War In Kentucky: From Shiloh to Perryville. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994

During the American Civil War, there were such things called guerrillas. No, I am not talking about the muscular black creatures that hide in the jungle. Though that is exactly how the Confederate independent companies got there name. Where and when did guerrilla warfare begin? Who did it involve? Who were these so called guerrillas and what was there strategy? Did certain Military commanders in Arkansas make an impact on the use of guerrillas? What were the strategies that Federals and Unionists used to stop guerrilla warfare? Daniel Sutherland’s Guerrillas: The Real War In Arkansas explains how partisan fighters helped shape the strategic and tactical patterns of the war. Shows us the reasons men became

James M. McPherson sets out to discover what motivated the Confederate and Union soldiers to continue fighting in the Civil War in his book What They Fought For. McPherson analyses nearly a thousand letters, journals, and diary of Union and Confederate soldiers to determine what urged them to fight is this defining American Conflict. McPherson reads and groups together the common thoughts of the everyday soldier, from their letters and journals that none of which had been subjected to any sort of censorship, in that time period. He then generalizes the motivations that they used to fight for their country. Whether it be for slavery or for the Union, the author views both sides of the fighting to analysis their ideological issues, how deep their belief coursed through their veins to continue fighting, and how the soldiers held their convictions close to heart in the time of war.

The romanticized version of the Civil War creates a picture of the North versus the South with the North imposing on the South. However, after reading “The Making of a Confederate” by William L. Barney, one can see that subdivisions existed before the war was declared. The documents analyzed by Barney primarily focus on the experiences of Walter Lenoir, a southern confederate and a member of the planter elite. His experiences tell a vivid story of a passionate and strongly opinioned participant of the Civil War as well as demonstrate a noticeably different view involving his reasoning when choosing a side. Between analyzing this fantastic piece of literature and other resourceful documents from “Voices of Freedom” by Eric Foner, one

The American Civil war is considered to be one of the most defining moments in American history. It is the war that shaped the social, political and economic structure with a broader prospect of unifying the states and hence leading to this ideal nation of unified states as it is today. In the book “Confederates in the Attic”, the author Tony Horwitz gives an account of his year long exploration through the places where the U.S. Civil War was fought. He took his childhood interest in the Civil War to a new level by traveling around the South in search of Civil War relics, battle fields, and most importantly stories. The title “Confederates in the Attic”: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War carries two meanings in Tony Horwitz’s

The South vs. The South by William Freehling is a narrative that focuses on the civil war that affected a vast number of Southerners who opposed the Confederacy regardless of whether they were white or black. These “anti-Confederates,” as termed by Freehling comprised Slaves and Boarder state whites who together formed half the southern population and were significant to the Union victory. By weakening the Confederacy military, contributing manpower and resources to the Union and dividing the southern home front, the anti-Confederates made a critical contribution to the Union war efforts that hastened the end of the war leading to the Union’s victory. The U.S was not the only house that was divided; Divisions between pro-and anti-Confederates, white and black, and the loyalty of both upper and lower states to slavery contributed a lot to the downfall of the confederates. “Divisions within the South helped pave the path toward war. The same divisions behind army lines helped turn the war against the slaveholders.”(p.10). William Freehling argues that more than 450,000 Union troops from the South, especially southern blacks and border state whites, helped in the defeat of the confederates. Further, when the southern Border States rejected the Confederacy, more than a half of the South’s capacity swelled the North’s advantage.

During the Civil War, there were two sides, the Confederate Army and the Union Army. While the Confederates fought for slavery, the Union fought for their freedom. While the

In the Military sides, Willson’s Creek battle involved thousand of troops. Both sides of federalists and Confederates used thousands of men from many different units in Willson’s Creek. As being said earlier that Willson’s creek battle was the first battle that actually started the civil war in Missouri. Logically speaking, It had a tremendous amount of impact to the aspect of military in Missouri, Springfield in particular. Prior to the battle, every troop from both sides of parties was well prepared. They were trained in many aspects

James M. McPherson, author of For Cause and Comrades, uses more than 25,000 unaltered letters and closely 250 private journals from Civil War soldiers—both Union and Confederate—in his attempt to explain what possessed these men to endure the roaring, gruesome chaos of war. What better way to express the motivation behind fighting than words straight from the pens of the men who were physically there and experienced the Civil War to its fullest? I personally feel as though McPherson succeeded in his explanation of the different driving forces that kept each man going during these difficult years of battle. The Wall Street Journal describes McPherson’s work as “an extraordinary book, full of fascinating details and moving self-portraits.”

Besides being the first Kansas senator, Lane was also a Union general during the Civil War. Leading attacks into Missouri, Lane looted buildings, stole valuables, burned bridges and houses, and liberated Missouri slaves. The Jayhawkers and their leader frequently raided stores and storehouses, took what they wanted, and burned what was left. Jayhawkers showed no mercy. Despite supposedly fighting for the Union, Jayhawkers did not care whether Missourians were Union or Confederate. According to Jayhawkers, if a person lived in Missouri, that was enough to justify attacking

The Civil War of America has been discussed as the first modern war of the new industrial age. Army’s of such a large size had yet to meet head on, face to face in the battle field with weapons of such mass destruction and deadly force. America had not yet seen casualties of this magnitude to

But in Springfield you have one of the most radicalized towns in the United States it is abolitionists from head to toe. A few years before at the Sanford street free church was formed where Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison had spoken. Then in 1850 the fugitive slave act became a thing. So now slave catchers are gonna be able to catch slaves from the north and bring them back to the south. This is when you decided to form the league of gileadites, which is suppose to mean the defenders of evil. The next big event for you would be in 1855. But in 1854 Kansas- Nebraska act adopted the same as the compromise of 1850 adopted in terms of solving the problem with slavery in the new territories in popular sovereignty. Which means you would vote on slavery. Kansas is preparing to vote on slavery, but you knew you had a couple sons out of the 20 of you that live in Kansas. So you gave the communication that these “border ruffians” are endangering you and your sons. So from Massachusetts you hiked all the way to Kansas. This later became known as “Bloody Kansas”. The. You see violence uses on their side with the whole Charles Sumter

John Keegan’s The American Civil War, published in 2009 is one of two sources that will be primarily relied upon. In regard to the origin, the source was chosen because of the meticulous research done by the author, who is an expert in military history and is recognized internationally. Sir John Keegan has been knighted, was a war correspondent, an editor

of fighting. Very few wore uniforms or were even formally in any army. In most cases it was

One of the most prominent armies of the civil war the Army of Northern Virginia is one of the most commonly analyzed aspects of the confederacy. In J. Tracy Power’s Lee’s Miserables, Power evaluates the mindset of the soldiers by following their correspondence to family members as well as their use of diaries. The book is designed to demonstrate the psychological changes of the soldiers from The Battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania to the eventual surrender of the army at Appomattox. Power effectively describes the spectrum of physiological states exhibited by the soldier while maintaining a theme of respect for the generalship of Robert E. Lee. While the work exhibits countless examples that become repetitive, the sentiments of the