By Matthew M. Stith
During the American Civil War the western Trans-Mississippi
frontier was host to harsh environmental conditions, irregular warfare, and
intense racial tensions that created extraordinarily difficult conditions for
both combatants and civilians. Matthew M. Stith's Extreme Civil War focuses on
Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Indian Territory to examine the physical and
cultural frontiers that challenged Confederate and Union forces alike. A
disturbing narrative emerges where conflict indiscriminately beset troops and
families in a region that continually verged on social and political anarchy.
With hundreds of small fights disbursed over the expansive borderland, fought
by civilians -- even some women and children -- as much as by soldiers and
guerrillas, this theater of war was especially savage.
Despite connections to the political issues and military
campaigns that drove the larger war, the irregular conflict in this border
region represented a truly disparate war within a war. The blend of violence,
racial unrest, and frontier culture presented distinct challenges to
combatants, far from the aid of governmental services. Stith shows how white
Confederate and Union civilians faced forces of warfare and the bleak environmental
realities east of the Great Plains while barely coexisting with a number of
other ethnicities and races, including Native Americans and African Americans.
In addition to the brutal fighting and lack of basic infrastructure, the
inherent mistrust among these communities intensified the suffering of all
citizens on America's frontier.
Extreme Civil War reveals the complex racial, environmental,
and military dimensions that fueled the brutal guerrilla warfare and made the
Trans-Mississippi frontier one of the most difficult and diverse pockets of
violence during the Civil War.
ISBN 978-0807163146, LSU Press, © 2016, Hardcover, 232
pages, Photographs, End Notes, Bibliography &Index. $42.50. To
purchase this book click HERE.
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