US map 1856 shows free and slave states and populations; this is "Reynolds's Political Map of the United States" (1856) from Library of Congress collection. Shows slave states (gray), free states (pink), and territories (green) in the United States, with the Kansas Territory in center (white).

Mandatory Supplementary Reading (M1-A):

Not many people nowadays realize that the insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare of the Iraq War played out in the Kansas/Missouri borderlands before and during the American Civil War. Armies, militias, armed gangs, and terrorists of Union and Confederate allegiance and sympathy wrought terror on their respective enemies in this region, substituting Iraq's tribal, clan, or sect affiliation for designations (often on a whim) of Yankee or Rebel or jayhawker or bushwhacker as motivations.

Names like John Brown, Paul Quantrill, "Bloody" Bill Anderson, and Frank and Jesse James built their deadly reputations during his fight and left hundreds of dead and untold homes, businesses, and farms looted and destroyed in their wakes. The cruelty and the blood flowed deep and law and order was a pipe dream. Indeed, the counties that bore the brunt of this guerilla warfare and lawlessness are impacted to this day, less developed and prosperous than neighboring counties.

Thomas Goodrich, Black Flag: Guerrilla Warfare on the Western Border, 1861-1865 (Indiana University Press): Chs. 6-8.pdf

Please contact the instructor at the beginning of the semester if you need a more accessible version.