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War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854-1861

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It was just a coincidence that shortly after reading the book I met the author at a civil war reenactment. This book is mainly constructed through letters and diaries from the period, and little is left to the imagination as the author chillingly describes the savagery of this particular time. An excellent read for those interested in Civil War history, and to hear a knock at the door in the middle of the night, being asked if you are "Pro-slavery or a Jayhawker", and knowing that a wrong answer would probably mean death is harrowing just thinking about it.

A native Kansan, Goodrich obviously knows the history of his state. War to the Knife provides a very vivid look at the conflict between pro-slavery and free state settlers in Kansas in the lead up to the Civil War, drawing heavily from personal accounts and local newspaper reports. This approach also helps Goodrich maintain a balance in presenting the views of both sides of the conflict, their hatred of each other and their diametrically opposed agendas. The one area where the book was lacking was in its discussion of the role of the federal military and government in the conflict. Goodrich does discuss the few times the military did intervene in the conflict and the lack of power that the multiple territorial governors had over the settlers, but I found myself wanting to know more about why the military and government did not take a stronger role in preserving law and order in the territory. Despite that, the motives of the various free state and pro-slavery leaders are discected fairly well -- especially John Brown whose raid on Harpers Ferry is used to open and close the book.

Goodrich adds to his works on US Western history with a well-paced history of the guerilla warfare between abolitionist and pro-slavery forces in the struggle for statehood in Kansas. The author relys extensively on personal accounts of the violent and brutal actions of both sides of the conflict. Readers will find his impartial examination a valuable asset. The more experienced historian may find the book long on drama, short on analysis, particulary the impact of these events on the Eastern political establishment. Nonetheless, a valuable addition to the literature and a great follow-on to his earlier "Black Flag" which describes the events that follow in the Civil War itself. I found this a timely book to read after Russell Banks "Cloudsplitter", a fictional account of John Brown which includes many events found in "War to the Knife".

The book provides a decent background on the strife between Kansas and Missouri. There are numerous problems with the book, however, that cause me to not give a higher rating. For starters, as mentioned in another review, the book is decidedly pro-Missouri to the point it is blatant. There are numerous situations where the Kansans are shown as roving madmen while the Missourians only wanted peace and to live out their lives quietly after the initial problems (this is especially obvious when he talks about the Jayhawkers). He even goes so far as to claim that blacks were better off as slaves in Missouri than free.

In addition to that large fault, the book provided little background information outside of what the author found in letters and newspaper clippings. Given the heavy bias of both, it would have been nice if the author provided some voice to the truth behind the matter (but given his bias, it may not have mattered). I found it very frustrating to read about an individual committing an act or to read that X was occurring in a local's letter but to not hear from the author whether this was true or what happened to the indivduals. The only information given is through newspapers and letters so if you want the backstory on events or the relative "truth" behind a claim, this isn't the book for you.

In sum, if you want a simple and entertaining, if flawed, book about the general background between the MO and KS 'war', this is a good book. However if you are looking for history about the conflict and research into what was taking place - outside of what was being claimed - look someplace else.

This book has a strong anti-abolitionist bias in general and an anti-John Brown bias in particular. The author seems to have skipped over the last sixty years of careful research and publications by historians and relied chiefly on the long-discredited anti-Brown book by Professor James Malin, "John Brown and The Legend of Fifty-Six" (1942). Brown was a complicated person, not the madman that Goodrich makes him. A good example of the author's flights of fancy without attribution or historical basis is the murderous vision he attributes to Brown on page 96. If the reader wants a respected, balanced biography of John Brown, that would be Stephen Oates's "To Purge This Land Wilth Blood (1970)," a meticulously researched work that is still considered the definitive biography.
Even more troubling than Goodrich's false picture of Brown is his attitude toward slavery. He devotes three pages (101-103) to quoting with approval a slaveholder's defense of slavery in western Missouri as benign, and the slaves as happy and better off than free blacks. At the same time there is almost nothing in the book that tells how horrible slavery really was. He sounds a little like the Southern apologists of a generation or two ago -- before books like Stampp's "The Peculiar Institution" (1956) set the record straight -- who claimed that the civil war was not about slavery at all, but rather about "states' rights" or "economics." You might as well say that the Revolutionary War was about the price of tea.