Gain Quantrill At Lawrence: The Untold Story By Paul R. Petersen Represented In E-Text

is hardly the definitive book on Lawrence or the border/Civil War in MissouriKansas but does present the atrocities by the Kansans even as it glosses over what the Missourians were up to prior to the Lawrence raid.
I don't doubt that it is basically accurate about the Jayhawkers and Redlegs and the destruction in Missouri caused by Kansans.
There's lots of local history for those who live in this area which I found fascinating, There are lots of references of the Kansas destruction of Osceola and mentions of Butler and Dayton.

For me the 'takeaways' from this book is to marvel over how terrible things were in the this part of the countryyears ago, and yet today, it's distilled down mainly to sports rivalries and a 'war of words' such as this book, nursing resentments.
Yes, the fortunes of many were changed, but people seem to have moved on for the most part.
The other 'takeaway' I offer modern writers who defend slavery as 'lawfully owned property,' simply sound stupid.
I've been doing a lot of research on this subject and this book amounts to excessively biased, subjective, revisionist muck.
There is a reason it is "The Untold Story" because it is barely history and rather a distorted fiction that actually made my stomach turn with the embellishments.
Note that the "rave reviews" are not by historians, I am going to guess because none would attach their name to this, Oh, it sounds at first like a fresh look but the language used by the author is extremely slanted to the point where I had to set it down and snicker.
With my mind countering just about every pointed with established fact, it was extremely hard to get through.
I kept waiting to be told that it was fiction because no serious hitorian would actually consider this to be solid fact.
The amount of credit given to what the author thinks might be in people's heads rather than facts and actions.
Motives are given where none existed, To know the difference in motive and action between a raid and a massacre Justification for one of the most horrendous and violent actions against an unarmed civilian population based in flawed logic.
If you can objectively view the Civil War and understand what happened on the two sides as a scholar, this book isn't for you.
If you call the war "The War of Northern Aggression" and consider the rebel flag to be a source of pride, then you might appreciate this book.
But I viewed the perspective as vulgar and revisionist, Unless the author is psychic, there is not only nothing new it is a distortion of events.
Anyone that has researched this as I have with books, lectures and independent sources cannot help but consider this literary trash.
I ended up being rather disgusted with this author, And I do find it amusing that the one reviewer used in the synapsis was from Missouri.
I guess an author needs to take his book to a particular audience for dust jacket quotes and knew he wouldn't find it either in a history department or at a university outside

of Missouri.
Impress me and get such feedback from university professors in Ohio or Pennsylvania or here's a challenge Kansas.


Added: I have to laugh even though it isn't funny, I made the comments about bias and calling the Civil War "The War of Northern Aggression", Then I read the jacket bio on the author, He belongs to the William Clarke Quantrill Society, Checking the mission statement for this group, I found not only does it exist to glorify Quantrill but the group ACTUALLY DOES use the "alternate" term for the war.
So, there is a clear bias and intent in play and it isn't true history, It is perpetuating a fiction and glorifying someone that was condemned by both the North AND South no matter what the author spins in his fantasy world.


This book should be listed as fiction, And poor fiction at that,

There's bias and then there's extreme prejudice, This is an intense rewrite of history with no actual basis for it other than a refusal to accept that the war endedyears ago, The South lost and that publishing a book with a fiction framed as reality doesn't "create" truth.
The Lawrence raid of August,, was considered one of the bloodiest events of the Civil War, The actions that brought on the raid are researched and explored in depth here for the very first time.
What is discovered is a collusion in a "legacy of lies" that surrounded the stories of the raid.
.