Customer Reviews

Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War

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This is a very interesting, useful study of mentalities in Civil War Missouri. It covers guerrillas (by which Fellman generally means Confederate guerrillas rather than Jayhawkers), civilians, and Union troops in all their various permutations.

I found Fellman's scholarship to be generally well-founded, though he is sometimes a little credulous of sources -- there's one case where he quotes an unsigned letter to a hostile newspaper as if it were good evidence for an event -- and he makes some mistakes with events outside his purview (misidentifying Early's raid on Washington as cavalry only). In general, though, I found the research credible.

What disappointed me here was the lack of conclusions. We have description, and some analysis, but the book seems short on results. Particularly in his analysis of the combatants' regular army and governmental reaction to guerrillas, Fellman seems to contradict himself: on the one hand he chastises the Confederates as elitist, perhaps prudish, for disapproving of guerrilla warfare, and on the other hand he makes every effort to show just how horrible such warfare really was. At times, he overanalyzes; I didn't find the characterization of Civil War Americans as "Manichaean" convincing. You don't need to be a Manichaean to dehumanize your enemies in a war.

Despite these quibbles, I found the book valuable, certainly worth looking at for the study of mentalities in a region where war was literally at every door.

Dr. Fellman has shown his expertise in the history field with this book. The author has done an excellent job of bringing to light the guerrilla conflict in Missouri. He has taken a previously unstudied event in history and made it available to all to study and become aware of. Backed up with innumerable quotes and primary documents, Dr. Fellman has provided the reader with undeniable evidence of his arguments and conclusions. "Inside War" is an excellent reference book concerning a specific aspect of the Civil War and can be read and understood by any college level student.

This was a rather difficult book to read; not so much from any fault of the author, but rather resulting from an effort to comprehensivly cover a topic for which relatively little is known. I found this book provactive from an emotional point of view; the primary sources certainly make the reader appreciate the devastation that must have occured to the (not so?) innocent by-stander. However, the book suffers from a whopping lack of focus in areas, and becomes somewhat repetitive. In addition, the theses of particular sections are often obscure, as are the conclusions. Despite this, "Inside War" is a wonderful book to read, although I felt that it was stuck in a nether region between a descriptive listing of primary sources and a thesis driven examination.

Few have tackled the problem of atrocities on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas border disputes that preceded and continued through America's war between the states. For that reason alone, Mr. Fellman's work is worth careful study. It is a great resource for the historian but not an easy read for those who are not passionate about the subject. The content is invaluable and it is only the difficult reading that takes away from its overall rating. For depth of study, there are few like it and it is therefore very highly recommended for study.

Other reviewer's have covered this book and what it is very well. I do study Missouri Civil War History and in particular the Guerrilla's (i.e. Bushwhacker/bushwacker). Missouri families and communities did indeed suffer in that we truly had brother against brother against brother,(Union, confederate, and (bushwackers/guerrillas')in many families. Both union and confederate soldiers and sympathizers raided, burned, killed, conscripted throughout missouri. Many towns were literally deserted of people and buildings during or by the end of the war. Fellman is truly one accepted scholar on this area of the Civil war. In spite of my knowledge and experience/research, I found the book a little bit difficult to read for any length of time. So much detail is given (some with questionable 'documentation') that a novice would probably get lost in trying to read Inside War if he didn't already have a pretty good understanding of Missouri, it's part in the Civil war, and the events that lead to the rise of guerrilla warfare here. I will keep this important writing as a part of my references because it is so thorough and I do pick it up frequently in my studies and my own writing about the Guerrillas of Missouri.

When I bought this book I thought there isn't much this guy can tell me about this end of the war. I have for many years felt the Western theater was neglected and this work really caught my eye. I was wrong. I learned a lot from this book and its very well educated author. And it is an Oxford Preess book which puts it high on my list.

If it is well done there is hardly an aspect of the Civil War that is more easily made fascinating than the Missouri problems. The guerrilla war is interesting by itself and when history is well written it becomes fascinating. The characterization makes this read like a novel, but one thoroughly researched. The trick in writing history is not only researching, but making the end result palatable to as many readers as possible. This work succeeds. I recomend this to any lever reader who is interested in the Civil War, American history, or just wants a good read.

Michael Fellman is a renowned author and historian in the area of 19th Century American history. He has written several books regarding this era, specifically the Civil War. These books include The Unbounded Frame: Freedom and Community in 19th Century American Utopianism (1973), Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman (1995), and The Making of Robert E. Lee (2000). Fellman received his PhD. From Northwestern University in Illinois. He is currently a professor of history and director of the liberal arts program at Simon Fraser University in Canada.

The Civil War will probably always remain this nation's saddest saga. At no other time in United States history has the country so divided amongst itself. The issue was whether the federal government had the right to undermine the southern state's "right" to own slaves, an institution they saw as the southern way of life. The fighting was indeed bitter in the years 1860-1865, with families often being torn apart as sides were taken up. Innocent people often became casualties of war. Missouri's plight in this war was as bad as anywhere in the country. Missouri remained neutral officially during the war, but was full of Confederate sympathizers in both the civilian population and in the government. To combat this the federal government issued troops to move in and secure Missouri and a state militia was formed. Bands of Confederates both from Missouri and elsewhere performed raids against the Union all over the state; violent abolitionists and other pro-Unionists led similar raids against those Confederates and their sympathizers. Dr. Michael Fellman looks at the causes of the guerrilla raids in Missouri, the politics that played a role, and the devastating effects the warfare caused on ordinary Missourians in Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War.

At the onset of war Missouri was in a transition from an agrarian society to a more trade friendly, marketplace type of culture. The importance of the still emerging railroad system had promoted trade throughout the country, especially in the northern states. St. Louis was Missouri's center for industry and trade and the railroads help connect rural Missourians to the prospering city. While St. Louis was the heart of the economy of the state, Missouri was a state still primarily made up of small, rural farms that were worked by the owners and a few slaves. Slavery in Missouri was not nearly as severe as the deep South, in both numbers and treatment of the slaves. However, most of Missouri's inhabitants came from the South and brought their views on slavery with them in everyday life and in the government. The conflict between the southern states and the northern states over the issue of slavery kept growing in the years leading up to 1860. Tensions grew deadly in the 1850s. Nowhere were the tensions any higher than in Missouri and Kansas as thousands of northern abolitionists moved into Kansas and began leading raids on slave owners in Kansas and on their neighbors to the east in Missouri. The abolitionists from Kansas considered Missourians to be ignorant, near savage-like, poor people who had no education and lacked the capacity for rational thought. These raids and the counterattacks became very violent and was deemed "Bleeding Kansas" because of all the bloodshed.

Politics certainly came into play as the war started. Federal troops were called on to occupy Missouri and other border states, and a state militia was formed. Southern sympathizers in the government tried to make a Confederate government, and were able to receive help from the Confederacy. They had limited success, most notably in southern Missouri. One of the reasons the conflict was so severe in Missouri can be attributed to the conflicting opinions of the top brass in the Union army. Often military orders would contradict themselves when carried out on the battlefield in the overall goals of Union. After Union successes, there was also disagreement about whether to punish severely or to "go easy" on the guerrillas.

The moral issue of not just the existence of of slavery, but of the men taking part in the conflict to determine the fate of that institution, is illustrated with many examples throughout the book. The ideology and values of the guerrillas and of the militia men going into the conflict were challenged nearly everyday by this conflict. In a time of war, however, these men separated their actions from their conscience. Fellman describes Missourians of this time as "family-centered, property-owning farmers, evangelical Christians, and lovers of law and order". These traits did not stand out much in the time of the guerrilla raids. Even while the leaders of the armies considered themselves refined and saw the atrocities of the guerrilla warfare, they allowed it to continue because of its benefits regarding war positioning. Union military leaders saw the guerrillas as "beasts to be hunted down like other animals". Many others took advantage of the conflict and made money off of it, exploiting the civilians who were around the fighting and the soldiers themselves.

Backed up with innumerable quotes and primary documents, Dr. Fellman has done an excellent job of illustrating the guerrilla conflict in Missouri. Relatively few academic writers have studied Missouri's Civil War guerrilla warfare, as the issue is often taken up by local historians instead. Readers will almost certainly have an emotional reaction to this book. It is an account of murderous violence committed by both sides, violence that was barely regulated by restrictions put on by a higher authority, the public's outcries, or the basic concepts of right and wrong. But one must consider not just the obscenity of the acts themselves, but why they took place. The guerrillas were often avenging wrongful acts done by the abolitionists and by a conquering, occupying federal army. They were avenging harassment and attacks on their families, their property, and the way of life they thought was justifiable. But despite defending their homes and their way of life, they were defending the enslavement of humans. The focus of the war was slavery, this was especially clear on the Missouri-Kansas border. Thousands of people were enslaved on one side of the border while large numbers of militant abolitionists were on the other. Whatever their sympathies, each side was responsible for so many senseless misdeeds that any account of the Missouri guerrilla warfare is terrible--nothing to be proud of.

This book was not the easiest of reads; not so much from any fault of the author, but rather from his effort to comprehensively cover a topic for which relatively little is known. The book succeeds because of its emotional point of view based on primary sources that make the reader appreciate the devastation that happened to the innocent bystander in Missouri. Inside War presents some excellent examples of the horrors of the guerrilla war in Missouri, horrors that exceeded those in any other state. It would have been helpful if Dr. Fellman could have better described the factors that produced these horrors, beyond the issue of slavery. The reader will also notice that the specificity of the topic of the book tends to make concepts repetitive. In addition, the theses of particular sections are sometimes obscure, as are the conclusions. The reader can be confused whether the book is a survey or a thesis-driven analysis. Despite this, Inside War is a wonderful book to read and sheds light on a very specific, often forgotten about aspect of the Civil War.

First published in 1989 by Oxford University Press, this is much more than a simple history of guerrilla fighting in Missouri. This book presents an in-depth analysis of the psycho-social interrelationships between the two sides in conflict and the civilian population caught in-between. As such it is a valued read in the context of helping to understand current conflicts.

The author's introduction could be establishing the perspective for examining current events:

"My subjects were neither heroic nor contemptible, but ordinary people trying to sort out personal and cultural experience in an overwhelmingly stressful situation."

The book, when read in the context of current ops, makes for very enlightening reading - especially the sections on "Loyalty, Neutrality and Survival Lies" and "Collapse of the Sense of Security" in the chapter on Civilians in Guerrilla War. The perspective of ordinary local national civilians seems to be completely lost in the whirlwind of events, as various factions and minority groups loudly take center stage; we need to be reminded that we forget them at our peril.

Something the book mentions, that is an obvious development in many American attitudes since 9/11 is:

"...intense loyalism and hatred of the enemy were the means to keep alive a sense of moral and cultural shape in the atmosphere of guerrilla war and terror, yet they were developed at the expense of charity and toleration."

The vicious terrorist acts that continue to fester on at a low level across the theaters of operations is an attempt by the threat to exacerbate this aspect of US character in furtherance of their goals.

The book studies official attitudes of both sides, and compares them with the combatant's perception of self and others in the context of the conflict. There is much of value to be gained from this study in viewing the current operational environment. Cross-cultural perceptions between our forces and the various players are far more complex than those in 1860's Missouri during the Civil War - yet the author clearly demonstrates how those relatively minor differences in perceptions added fuel to the fires of war and brutalized the conflict at that time.

This book is highly recommended - but don't just take it in for what it seems to be. It deserves to be read with thought and consideration for comparing the author's narrative with current context.

The first book I have found that explains the whys and not just the hows of the slaughter that took place in Missouri during the Civil War. The author contends that, while most residents had pro-slavery sentiments, they were also pro-Union. Therefore, most of them were not pure enough ideologically for either side, and thus subject to punitive raids from both sides. I haven't finished it yet, but it is definitely the most incisive analysis I have read thus far.

I usually loathe any historical book which puts its subject on the couch, but this is a notable exception. Fellman infuses this book with his own spin on certain matters, but much of the interpretation is accurate! If you enjoy a "National Enquirer" approach to biography, then this is your bag, though a more intellectual, sobering and accurate analysis of events than a tabloid rag. Fellman delves deeply into Sherman's womanizing and the reasons behind it: Ellen, WTS's wife, was a passionless prig, obsessed with Catholicism and being the type of prim, straight-laced wife that Sherman would ultimately abhor. Can we blame him for repeatedly cheating on Ellen? Of course not.

There is a plethora of new information about Sherman's various affairs: he kept the handkerchief of one of his conquests after their rendezvous and wrote to thank her for the article. There are numerous excerpts from love letters to Sherman from his paramours and they make for some unintended hilarious reading.

Fellman is much weaker on the military end of the biography and his limitations show. There are numerous factual gaffes and the author is on safer ground when restricting himself to purely personal matters. This is hardly the definitive treatment of Sherman, try instead John Marszalek's biography (available on Amazon) for an exceptional and scholarly approach. But if you want a book focused primarily on the private life of Sherman, this nicely fits the bill.