Civil War in Kansas Bibliography
Below are listed selected materials in our library collections on the Civil War west of the Mississippi. The source material contained in these lists consists of books, journals, and newspaper articles.
Barry, James P. Bloody Kansas, 1854-65; Guerilla Warfare Delays Peaceful American Settlement. New York: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1972. Very brief account for young readers, contains no bibliography or notes.
Barton, O. S., with notes by Albert Castel and commentary by Herman Hattaway. Three Years With Quantrell: A True Story Told by His Scout John McCorkle. Reprint. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992. Originally published by Armstrong Herald Print, Armstrong, Mo., about 1915, this is a personal account as told to the author by McCorkle, who became a respected and prosperous farmer in Howard County, Missouri, after his Civil War service.
Blunt, James G. "General Blunt's Account of His Civil War Experiences." Kansas Historical Quarterly 1 (May 1932): 211. A Kansan, Blunt commanded regular troops but he spent considerable time on the border and had first hand experience with effects of guerrilla warfare.
Britton, Wiley. Civil War on the Border. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1899. Britton was a veteran of military action in the region. Republished: Lawrence: Kansas Heritage Press, 1990.
Britton, Wiley. The Union Indian Brigade in the Civil War. Ottawa, Kans.: Kansas Heritage Press, 1995. Reprint of a 1922 volume that recounted the activities of regiments recruited in Kansas and Oklahoma.
Brownlee, Richard S. Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy: Guerrilla Warfare in the West, 1861-1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984. First published in 1958, this book focuses on guerrilla activity in Kansas and Missouri and features the notorious William Quantrill and "Bloody" Bill Anderson.
Buresh, Lumir F. October 25th and the Battle of Mine Creek. Kansas City, Mo.: Lowell Press, 1977. Far and away the most detailed study of the cavalry battle that occurred east of Mound City in Linn County.
Castel, Albert. A Frontier State at War: Kansas, 1861-1865. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958. An important study, reprinted in 1992 by Kansas Heritage Press, that focuses on political machinations in wartime Kansas.
Castel, Albert. "They Called Him 'Bloody Bill'." Journal of the West 3 (April 1964): 233. A Kansan from the Council Grove area, Bill Anderson followed a path similar to that of the infamous William C. Quantrill.
Castel, Albert. "Order No. 11 and the Civil War on the Border." Missouri Historical Quarterly 57 (July 1963): 357-368.
Castel, Albert. "War and Politics: The Price Raid of 1864." Kansas Historical Quarterly. 24 (Summer 1958): 129-143.
Castel, Albert. William Clarke Quantrill: His Life and Times. New York: Frederick Fell, Inc., 1962.
Civil War Pamphlets on Microfiche (KSHS microfiche no.186). Includes 1,758 pamphlet titles from the collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Report on the Nation's Civil War Battlefields. Washington: Civil War Sites Advisory Commission and National Park Service, 1993. Includes an assessment of the Mine Creek Battlefield Site.
Cheatham, Gary L. "'Desperate Characters': The Development and Impact of the Confederate Guerrilla Conflict in Kansas." Kansas History 14 (Autumn 1991): 144-161. Discusses the role played by Jayhawkers, Red Legs, and pro-Southern partisans like Bill Anderson and William Quantrill during the Civil War in Kansas, Missouri, and Indian Territory.
"A Chronology of Kansas Political and Military Events, 1859-1865." Kansas Historical Quarterly 25 (Autumn 1959): 283-300.
Connelley, William E. Quantrill and the Border Wars. Cedar Rapids: Torch Press, 1910. The most recent reprint of this still useful study is from Kansas Heritage Press, 1992, with introduction by Albert Castel.
Cornish, Dudley Taylor. "Kansas Negro Regiments in the Civil War." Kansas Historical Quarterly 20 (May 1953): 417-417. Story of two black regiments, very active militarily on western frontier; Kansas Sen. Jim Lane especially vocal in advocacy for using black troops.
Crawford, Samuel J. Kansas in the Sixties. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1911. Crawford, who became Kansas' third governor at the age of 29 in 1864, saw much active duty as an officer during the war; he offers a personal account of the Battle of Mine Creek, among other activities.
Danziger, Edmund J., Jr. "The Office of Indian Affairs and the Problem of Civil War Indian Refugees in Kansas." Kansas Historical Quarterly 35 (Autumn 1969): 257-275.
Decker, Eugene Donald. "A Selected, Annotated Bibliography of Sources in the Kansas State Historical Society Pertaining to Kansas in the Civil War." Emporia State Research Studies. Emporia, Ks.: Kansas State Teachers College, 1961.
Dobak, William A., ed. "Civil War on the Kansas-Missouri Border: The Narrative of Former Slave Andrew Williams." Kansas History 6 (Winter 1983/84): 237.
Fellman, Michael. Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Focus is primarily the impact of unconventional warfare on Missouri residents.
Goodrich, Thomas. Black Flag: Guerrilla Warfare on the Western Border, 1861-1865. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. Lively, colorful prose, much of it in the form of lengthy quotations, make for some interesting reading about the bloody war on the Kansas/Missouri border; unfortunately, the volume contains no notes or bibliography.
Goodrich, Thomas. Bloody Dawn: The Story of the Lawrence Massacre. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991. In addition to William C. Quantrill's August 1863 raid itself, Goodrich focuses on well-known events and people connected with territorial strife and Civil War in Kansas, before and after "Bloody Dawn."
Hatcher, Richard W., and William Garrett Piston, editors/ "Kansans Go to War: The Wilson's Creek Campaign as Reported By the Leavenworth Daily Times." Part I, Kansas History 16 (Autumn 1993): 180-199; Part II, Kansas History 16 (Winter 1993): 224-247. This exceptional series of letters written by seven different correspondents between June 13 and September 6, 1861, offers a fascinating perspective on an early but important western campaign; each writer was in some way connected to the First or Second Kansas Volunteers.
Hatley, Paul B., and Noor Ampsslar. "Army General Order Number 11: Final Valid Option or Wanton Act of Brutality? The Missouri Question in the American Civil War." Journal of the West 33 (July 1994): 77-87. Holds that the order kept Kansans from conducting indiscriminate reprisals against Missourians.
Hinton, Richard J. Rebel Invasion of Missouri and Kansas, and the Campaign of the Army of the Border Against General Sterling Price in October and November, 1864. Chicago: Church & Goodman, 1865.
Josephy, Alvin M., Jr. The Civil War in the American West. New York: Knopf, 1991. In the historiography of the Civil War, Josephy finds a regrettable neglect of the war in the trans-Mississippi West; included are many helpful maps.
Langsdorf, Edgar. "Jim Lane and the Frontier Guard." Kansas Historical Quarterly 9 (February 1940): 13-25. Soon after arriving in Washington (April 1861) as one of Kansas' first U.S. senators, Lane, a veteran of the Kansas struggle, organized a military company of mostly Kansas men to guard White House.
Langsdorf, Edgar. "Price's Raid and the Battle of Mine Creek." Kansas Historical Quarterly 30 (Autumn 1964): 281-306.
Monaghan, Jay. Civil War on the Western Border, 1854-65. Boston Little, Brown & Co., 1955. Reprinted in paper, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Neb., 1984.
[McAfee, J. B.]. Official Military History of the Kansas Regiments during the War for the Suppression of the Great Rebellion. Leavenworth, Kans.: W. S. Burke, 1870.
Rea, Ralph R. Sterling Price: The Lee of the West. Little Rock: Pioneer Press, 1959. His chapter "The Retreat" (p. 146.) deals with Mine Creek.
Scott, William F. The Story of a Cavalry Regiment: The Career of the Fourth Iowa Veteran Volunteers: From Kansas to Georgia, 1861-65. G. P. Putnam's Sons, N.Y., 1893.
Shea, William L., and Earl J. Hess. Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Detailed study of this important spring and summer (1862) campaign and battle conducted in northwestern Arkansas, involving many Kansas troops.
Starr, Stephen Z. Jennison's Jayhawkers: A Civil War Cavalry Regiment and its Commander. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973. An extensive study of the Seventh Kansas Regiment. Jennison was probably the most notorious "jayhawker" on the border.
Unrau, William E., ed. "In Pursuit of Quantrill: An Enlisted Man's Response." Kansas Historical Quarterly 39 (Autumn 1973): 379. Letters written by an Ohio soldier who participated in pursuit of Quantrill's guerrillas after Lawrence Raid, August 1863, with introductory essay.
The War of the Rebellion: A Complication of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1893. This is a multi-volume work that contains reports of operations throughout the country for the duration. Price's Raid of 1864 is included in Series 1, Vol. 41, part 1.
White, Christine Schultz, and Benton R. White. Now the Wolf Has Come: The Creek Nation in the Civil War. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1996. The authors focus on the Muskogee traditionalists, whose aging leader, Opothleyahola, led them to an unhappy and ultimately tragic refuge in Kansas.
Williams, Burton J. "Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence: A Question of Complicity." Kansas Historical Quarterly 34 (Summer 1968): 143-149.