Bursheba Fristoe Younger knew better than perhaps anyone the thorough devastation wrought by nearly a decade of guerrilla warfare along the Missouri-Kansas border. The Youngers, like many households, traced their hardships back to the partisan violence of the 1850s. A slaveholding family of southern descent, they owned a dry goods store in Cass County, Missouri, which was repeatedly robbed by antislavery bands of Kansas “jayhawkers.” At the outbreak of the national Civil War, Bursheba’s husband, Henry, remained an avowed Union man, but in July 1862, Unionist militia ambushed, robbed, and murdered the family patriarch as he traveled home from Westport.
The violence that erupted along the Missouri-Kansas border before the Civil War continued throughout the conflict as Union and Confederate sympathizers waged guerrilla warfare on behalf of their interests. Both sides instigated atrocities against the regular armies and against non-combatants, including women and children. This backdrop of brutality resulted in participants on either side being portrayed as heroes or villains, depending on one’s political perspective, and led to myth-making of a magnitude that is astonishing. Few participants better represent this dichotomy than Frank and Jesse James: they were either guerrillas, robbers, and vengeful murderers or victimized young Robin Hoods, seeking revenge for the atrocities they and their families suffered.
The Mormon War, otherwise known as the Utah War or Mormon Rebellion, describes the violence surrounding an armed confrontation between Mormon settlers in Utah Territory and the U.S. Army, which lasts from March 1857 to July 1858.
A bridge named after and maintained by Napolean Bonaparte Blanton spanned the Wakarusa River to the south of Lawrence and was the site of several border war events.
William Clarke Quantrill was a prominent Confederate guerrilla leader during the American Civil War who is most famous for having led a raid on the Unionist town of Lawrence, Kansas, in August 1863.
William Quantrill’s raid on the Free-State town of Lawrence, Kansas (also known as the Lawrence Massacre) was a defining moment in the border conflict. At dawn on August 21, 1863, Quantrill and his guerrillas rode into Lawrence, where they burned much of the town and killed between 160 and 190 men and boys.
A makeshift Union prison in Kansas City, Missouri collapsed on August 13, 1863, killing four of its female prisoners and enraging proslavery Missouri bushwhackers who would attack Lawrence eight days later.
Before William Clarke Quantrill was a feared Missouri bushwhacker, he joined with jayhawkers to plan a raid that would liberate slaves from a slaveholding Missouri farm.
