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Authors Introductions to the authors whose material is excerpted on Civil War St. Louis “The Struggle for Missouri," 1909In 1863, at the age of sixteen, John McElroy joined an Illinois cavalry regiment. Six months later he was taken prisoner and remained so until the end of the war, spending much of the time at the infamous Andersonville prison. In 1879 he wrote a book about his experiences, “Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons. Fifteen Months a Guest of the so-called Southern Confederacy”. In 1909 he was back with “Struggle for Missouri”, with little of his anti-Confederate heat dissipated. This book starts with a Missouri-centric history of the slavery controversy from the founding of the Republic and continues thru the Battle of Pea Ridge in March of 1862. “The Struggle for Missouri” is dedicated “To the Union Men of Missouri”, and they get the better end of every argument or controversy in its pages. According to McElroy, the viciousness of the guerrilla war in Missouri was due to one simple fact --the mass of non-slaveholding secessionists were “White Trash” with a “dog-like fidelity” to the slaveholding upper-class secessionists. Just in case the reader might miss this vital point the first time, McElroy drives it home again and again, using “White Trash” nine times in his first chapter before settling down to just the occasional mention thereafter. This class was so relatively numerous in Missouri, according to McElroy, because most of the nice folk who were pioneering in the first half of the 1800s shunned slaveholding Missouri for more civilized places like Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. Despite McElroy’s “White Trash” obsession, “The Struggle for Missouri” does have virtues. The plates in it are very nice, with large, striking black & white plates of Union heroes like Blair, Fremont, Sigel, Curtis, and Schofield. There are nice plates of Claiborne Fox Jackson and Sterling Price as well. There are also two beautiful color plates --one of the fateful meeting in June of 1861 at the Planter’s Hotel, and another of the St. Louis levy packed with steamboats before the war. McElroy supports his points liberally with more (and more complete) official documents than many other contemporary works on Missouri, though he usually fails to cite exactly where he found them. His description of the Planter’s Hotel confrontation between Lyon and Price has some poetry to it, and McElroy seems to respect Sterling Price as much as it is in him to respect any Confederate. Taming the Belles of St. Louis "Noted Guerrillas or the Warfare of the Border", 1877Major John Newman Edwards, CSA, was General Jo. Shelby’s adjutant and chronicler. At war’s end Edwards chose to share Mexican exile with Shelby as well. When they returned to the U.S. in 1867, Edwards rapidly published three large volumes of wartime experiences. Two dealt specifically with Shelby, "Shelby and his Men", 1867 and "Shelby’s Expedition to Mexico", 1872. In 1877 he published "Noted Guerrillas", a broad handling of the Confederate irregulars in Missouri during the war. Edwards also founded the Kansas City Times and was its editor for many years. Make no mistake, Major John N. Edwards was a Confederate and proud of it. You will not find more than passing reference to the other side of the coin in his pages. His flamboyantly purple prose is sometimes entertaining and sometimes tiresome, but is always used in defense of Confederate Missouri and its view of the world and "the recent unpleasantness". Edwards knew most of the Missouri Confederate guerrilla leaders personally, but did not actually participate in most of their raids in the same way he had as Shelby’s adjutant. So while his sources for "Noted Guerillas" are excellent, they are still mostly second-hand in that he is often reporting what he was told (sometimes months or years after the fact), and not what he saw. In addition to Major Edward’s clear partisanship, one must make allowance for the possibility that the guerillas themselves told him their stories the way they wanted them told, leaving out any inconvenient facts as they saw fit. For example, later historians have thoroughly demolished the tale given in the beginning of the book about Quantrill's early years in Kansas before the war. However, all agree that it was Quantrill, and not Edwards, who created the fabrication. Making of a Confederate Guerrilla Manly Missouri Cross-Dressers of the Civil War also quoted in: James-Younger Gang John Fiske - "The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War", 1900 John Fiske was a well-known chronicler of the history of the United States with many books to his credit. His "The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War" starts in St. Louis, but quickly moves elsewhere. This book originated from a series of lectures Fiske gave in St. Louis in 1886 in support of a fund dedicated to erecting a monument to U.S. Grant. These lectures were hosted by William Tecumseh Sherman. Fiske clearly believes that the Civil War was won in the West, and that the Union victories in Missouri in 1861-1862 were indispensable preconditions to that victory. Manly Missouri Cross-Dressers of the Civil War Galusha Anderson - "The Story of a Border City During the Civil War", 1908 Galusha Anderson was a Baptist minister in St. Louis from 1858-1866. His decidedly pro-Union "The Story of a Border City During the Civil War" has many faults. Anderson’s opinion of his own importance in events is exaggerated, and at times the reader would be forgiven for thinking that Blair, Lyon, Fremont, Schofield, Rosecrans, et al could have just stayed in bed --it was really Galusha who held the fate of the Union cause in Missouri in his strong hands. At one point he has an agitated southerner blame his preaching for the Union seizure of Camp Jackson. One suspects Anderson would not want to discourage his readers from reaching the same conclusion. Describing his first blast from a St. Louis pulpit against the heresy of secession, Galusha reports the event with a freighted solemnity and attention to minute detail most historians would reserve for the third day at Gettysburg or the final scene at Appomattox. On the plus side, Anderson does have a fine eye for detail and his book is filled with many interesting anecdotes of life in St. Louis during the Civil War. Galusha’s Union sources (men like James O. Broadhead were his parishioners) seem to be excellent and allow the reader a valuable insight into the thinking of the pro-Union population of St. Louis. For those interested in the topic, Rev. Anderson’s book has many revealing stories of the stresses –and sometimes fractures-- that can occur in "Christian fellowship" during a time of political upheaval. "The Fight For Missouri", 1886Thomas L. Snead was, successively, a pro-Breckinridge newspaperman, aide to Governor Claiborne Jackson, adjutant to General Sterling Price, and CSA Congressman from Missouri. His "The Fight for Missouri: From the Election of Lincoln to the Death of Lyon" is the best first hand account of events in Missouri from late 1860 until August of 1861. Predictably, many Pro-Union partisans regard Snead as hopelessly biased towards the secessionist’s point of view. More surprisingly, some Pro-Confederate partisans consider that by 1886 Snead was too much of a "reconstructed Rebel" and not strident enough in defending the secessionist point of view. Snead himself was not above playing hardball during the war, signing the order in 1863 on behalf of General Sterling Price directing Captain Thomas E. Courtenay to raise a corps of 20 men for secret service to engage in sabotage behind Union lines in the Trans-Mississippi. William T. Sherman - Memoirs of General William T. Sherman", Volume 1, 1875 Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, along with Gen. U.S. Grant, is usually considered one of the two greatest Union heroes of the war. Confederate partisans, however, often see Sherman as something of a devil figure for the way he “burned his way to the sea” through Georgia, finally reaching the coast at Savannah. The other thing Sherman is noted for is coining the definitive American rejection of the smallest possibility that he might be a candidate for President of the United States. Quoth Sherman, “If nominated I will not run; if elected I will not serve.” To this day, any American politician who is serious about removing his name from presidential speculation must make a “Shermanesque” statement. U. S. Grant - "Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Volume 1", 1885 Gen. U.S. Grant (later the 18th President of the United States from 1869-1877), along with Gen. W.T. Sherman, is usually considered one of the two greatest Union heroes of the war. His wife, Julia Dent Grant, was the daughter of a prominent St. Louis slaveholding family. Grant’s well-known failures in business prior to the war can be partly attributed to the odd midway position he held between Secessionists and Unionists in the decade before the war. The Unionists did not fully trust him because of his in-laws, and the Secessionists could not trust him because he was known to be a Union man. Absalom C. Grimes - "Confederate Mail Runner", edited by M. M. Quaife, 1926 Absalom C. Grimes was a steamer pilot on the upper Mississippi river until the spring of 1861. At the outbreak of the war he joined the Confederate side, first as a private in the cavalry. After a capture and escape, he returned to his unit in the south with a load of mail from families in Missouri to their loved ones in the Confederate army. This began his primary war-time career when, with a commission as a major on detached secret service duty, he acted as a mail carrier between north and south, spy, and courier. After the war's end he returned to river piloting. Late in his life, at his daughter's insistence, he partly wrote, partly dictated his memoirs which were edited by both his daughter, Lottie Grimes Mitchell, and fifteen years after Grimes' death re-edited by M. M. Quaife and published in book form. Grimes book contains errors in dating particularly in the years 1862 and 1863, but the events told are true and largely verifiable from contemporary sources. More on Grimes. Manly Missouri Cross-Dressers of the Civil War Cole Younger - “The Story of Cole Younger”, by Himself, 1903 Captain Thomas Coleman Younger was a guerrilla under Quantrill, later in the Confederate army under Shelby. He is most known for his post-war career as a bank and train robber. His autobiography was written in 1903 after his release from prison in Minnesota. In it he denies most of the criminal activity usually attributed to him. Cole Younger also tells of his war-time activities. Manly Missouri Cross-Dressers of the Civil War ©2001 D. H. 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