Civil War

Long before the Civil War began violence was commonplace along the Missouri-Kansas border. There a recurring cycle of robbery, arson, torture, murder, and revenge was established over the same issues that would fuel the larger conflict. Jonathan Earle, associate professor of history at the Uni...

On the 150th anniversary of William Clarke Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, Tony R. Mullis of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, examines the notorious massacre and the years of back-and-forth atrocities by Confederate bushwackers and pro-Union Jayhawkers that...

William Quantrill’s August 21, 1863 Confederate raid on Lawrence, Kansas, left nearly 200 men and boys dead and the city in flames. Film expert John Tibbetts explores how that dramatic story has found its way onto celluloid in movies as varied as Dark Command (1940), Quantrill’s Raiders...

Military historian Terry Beckenbaugh examines the failed 1863 attack on the Confederacy’s Fort Wagner on Charleston Harbor – an incident that provided further evidence to both the North and South that African-American troops were ready to fight and die for the Union cause. Beckenbaugh is an as...

Historian Terry Beckenbaugh maintains that the Civil War was inevitable given the failure of the nation’s political leadership to resolve fundamental questions over the nature of the American republic and the meaning of constitutional liberty. Beckenbaugh examines the leaders of the North and...

The Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862 is the bloodiest day in American military history. Now, exactly 150 years later, a panel of historians discusses the events of that day. Leading his Confederate troops into Maryland for their first fight on Union soil, Robert E. Lee was met at Antietam Creek by Geor...

Historian Jim Denny examines the Battle of Island Mound, the first Civil War battle in which African-American soldiers engaged in combat and proved their courage. This event is keyed to the grand opening on October 27, 2012, of the new Battle of Island Mound State Historic Site near Butler, Missouri...

Historian Bud Bowie looks at economic miscalculations by Confederate President Jefferson Davis and other Southerners that in effect doomed their cause even as it was winning on the battlefield. Foremost among these was the belief that the North would never risk ruining the immensely important...

Musician/historian James Christopher Edwards brings the Civil War in Kansas and Missouri to life in this musical program about the notorious bushwacker “Bloody” Bill Anderson. Edwards’ program is drawn from his new CD Blood on the Border, a musical narrative about Qua...