Louis S. Gerteis is Professor of History at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He is the author or editor of four other books, including most recently St. Louis from Village to Metropolis: Essays from the Missouri Historical Review, 1906-2006. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
"Louis S. Gerteis sees two troubling and related developments in
the historiography of the Civil War in Missouri. First, recent
work...'has overemphasized the role of guerrillas' such as William
C. Quantrill and William T. 'Bill' Anderson, often to the neglect
of conventional military forces in the state (p. 1). This trend,
Gerteis maintains, has contributed to the second problem, the
marginalization of Missouri within many Civil War histories, which
overlook the part played by organized armies in a state seemingly
awash in brutal guerrilla violence. This single-volume narrative
history seeks to correct these trends by illuminating conventional
warfare in Missouri, which saw more Civil War battles than any
state except Virginia and Tennessee, and by assessing Missouri's
broader significance for the trans-Mississippi West and, indeed,
the entire nation."--Journal of Southern History "Gerteis' book
gives Missouri its due. He traces the characters, battles and
strategic geography of Missouri's war. He leaves the guerrilla
conflict to other authors unless it intersects directly with the
clashes of armies in uniform....He succeeds in his straightforward
goal - to explain a story that often gets left behind in thick
tomes about the war."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Will go down as the
definitive guide to Missouri's Civil War military history and will
prove indispensable for any readers interested in the complex
Trans-Mississippi theatre of the war."--Missouri Historical
Review"A very readable and well documented book enhanced by its
well-placed maps and pictures. Gerteis really shines in his
description of battles, the strategies of opposing generals, and
the battles' consequences."--Civil War Book Review "The Civil War
in Missouri is an easy read, and despite being primarily a military
treatment, Gerteis gives us an overview of the political background
and the Kansas-Missouri 'border war.' He does an effective job of
weaving political, economic, and local problems into the overall
picture. A useful read for anyone interested in the Civil
War."--The NYMAS Review "Making a case for the national importance
of Civil War military campaigns in Missouri, Louis Gerteis portrays
the operations of Union and Confederate armies in vivid detail.
Although Missouri was notable for the intensity of its guerrilla
warfare, this book demonstrates that conventional armies largely
determined developments in the state, forming the anchor of Union
control in the trans-Mississippi theater."--James M. McPherson,
author of This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War
"Gerteis knows Missouri history in the Civil War better than anyone
else. This book should bring about an important reconsideration of
Missouri's place in Civil War history. That reconsideration will
affect our view not only of the state's history but of the nature
of the whole Civil War."--Mark Neely, author of Lincoln and the
Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American
Civil War"With this well-written military history of the conflict
in Missouri, Louis S. Gerteis fills a long-standing void in state,
regional, and national history in relation to the Civil War. He
corrects the popular misconception that in Missouri conventional
fighting gave way almost entirely to guerrilla war after 1861.
Missouri was in fact the scene of the war's third largest number of
engagements (after Virginia and Tennessee), and it was the
interplay between conventional and unconventional war that gave the
conflict there its particularly horrific nature. This is a most
welcome addition to Civil War scholarship."--William Garrett
Piston, editor of A Rough
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