In border states where the issue of to secede or not to secede had never been definitively settled, the Civil War was a precarious time. With territory claimed by both the Union and the Confederacy, and citizens themselves at odds, guerrilla warfare was commonplace, and citizens were often harrassed by both the side they opposed and the side with which they sympathized.
Of the bushwhackers who fought to gain control of border states, none were as notorious or feared as Quantrill’s Raiders, who supported the Confederacy by terrorizing Union sympathizers on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas border for the duration of the war, and gave birth to the gang led by Frank and Jesse James.
Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on Quantrill’s Raiders
“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” Lincoln’s ‘House-Divided’ Speech in Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858.
Lincoln’s speech during his campaign for president was, like many of his observations, both prescient and profound. Lincoln had expressed the feeling that had been fomenting in both the north and the south for almost three decades – that slavery had created a chasm between the two regions, setting the two at odds, and that this untenable situation could not continue much longer.
Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on A House Divided – The Winter of Secession
