Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War

by Michael Fellman

During the Civil War, the state of Missouri witnessed the most widespread, prolonged, and destructive guerrilla fighting in American history. With its horrific combination of robbery, arson, torture, murder, and swift and bloody raids on farms and settlements, the conflict approached total war, engulfing the whole populace and challenging any notion of civility. Michael Fellman's Inside War captures the conflict from "inside," drawing on a wealth of first-hand evidence, including letters, diaries, military reports, court-martial transcripts, depositions, and newspaper accounts. He gives us a clear picture of the ideological, social, and economic forces that divided the people and launched the conflict. Along with depicting how both Confederate and Union officials used the guerrilla fighters and their tactics to their own advantage, Fellman describes how ordinary civilian men and women struggled to survive amidst the random terror perpetuated by both sides; what drove the
combatants themselves to commit atrocities and vicious acts of vengeance; and how the legend of Jesse James arose from this brutal episode in the American Civil War.

Genres: History, Civil War, Nonfiction, War, American History, American Civil War, Military History

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Isidore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Brownlee's Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy is the standard narrative outline of the guerrilla war in Missouri; Fellman's classic book focuses on the psychology of the combatants. Thanks to an abundance of letters, memoirs, and, above all, Union legal documents, it is possible to glimpse something of their inner lives, and Fellman usually avoids the trap of filling the inevitable gaps in our knowledge with his own inventions and preconceptions.

Fellman does have an agenda, however, which is to demonstrate that Americans tend to "Manichaeanism", proclaiming their own virtuousness while dehumanizing and fanatically persecuting whatever group is the currently designated "other". This belief forces him to be even-handed in his interpretation of data: since both sides in this brutal guerrilla war were supposedly "Manichaean", he does not favour one over the other; he damns---and pities---with exemplary impartiality.

I share his view of the American character, since it is difficult to survey the past century-and-a half of American history without coming to much the same conclusion. However, I think he missteps in asserting that this way of thinking was already universal in 1861, and in doing so does not explore the possibility that the tendencies he is analyzing were then in the process of formation and consolidation.

According to his own account, the inhabitants of Missouri in 1861 favoured the Southern cause, but deplored secession and overwhelmingly preferred peace and neutrality in the looming conflict. Union forces in their St. Louis stronghold mounted what he calls a "coup d'état", forcing the legal government into exile, imposed martial law, and conferred quasi-official status on marauders from out of state who proceeded to ravage the countryside. When the population retaliated, the Union authorities responded with increasing violence and ruthlessness and finally mass deportations. By the end of the war, large sections of the state were an empty wasteland. The purpose of all this was, in the official phrase, to "save Missouri for the Union", anticipating the notorious Vietnam-era statement, "We had to burn the village in order to save it".

Fellman has plenty of evidence to show that what he calls "Manichaeanism" was present from the outset in the minds of radical Unionists, who scanned their neighbours' faces for inopportune smiles or grimaces, presumably indicative of their seditious natures, and then reported them to the military police. But he also makes clear that most Missourians were not radicals of any stripe who only wanted to go on working their farms and stay out of trouble, until the burning of their homes and slaughter of their relatives left them with three choices: stay put and try to endure the intolerable, flee to another state, or take to the hills. If, as the war degenerated, formerly neutral Missourians proved as pitiless and skilled at hating as their adversaries, it has to be said they had considerable justification.

Fellman admits that the existing evidence, although abundant, is slanted against the guerrillas, who mostly died in the field or on the scaffold, or were ultimately forced into into exile or silence. So, I feel he is careless in assuming that their mindset was always the same as that of their opponents. Given the resemblance of this particular guerrilla war to others in subsequent history, I kept wondering, would Fellman assume the same austere moral equivalency between invader and invaded if he were discussing the US Army versus Native Americans, or Filipinos, or Vietnamese, or Iraqis?

As I see it, all one can confidently say is that the "Manichaean" template he describes was present in those who won the war in Missouri, who then bequeathed it to subsequent generations of conquerors.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The guerrilla war of Missouri illustrated the psychological impact war can have on a society. The harsh realities of war were brought close to home for many of the settlers. These harsh realities caused many to question their pre-war beliefs as they sought to struggle with the continuous threat around them. Fellman relied heavily on diaries, newspaper reports, and official army documents to tell the story of Missouri under the threat of guerrilla warfare. The focus was not on specific activities and battles, but on the cultural change the native population underwent as the fighting intensified. Fellman specifically focused on the internal conflict many Christian Missourians had as they sought to protect their homes and way of life. Missourians resorted to behaviors sharply opposed to their peacetime convictions. Some lied, stole, and killed in order to protect their property and loved ones, while some decided to move further west.
Fellman’s main focus was on the social and cultural affect of guerrilla warfare on society (pp.xvi-xvii). The guerrilla war held Missourians in a constant state of stress. Anyone at any time could have been a victim of bands of guerrilla fighters. While the guerrilla fighters were for the most part comprised of pro-Southerners, eventually Union soldiers and militia countered with guerrilla tactics of their own. The uncertainty of being raided by either side left Missourians in a quandary over whom they should support. Many chose to support both sides not for the sake of the cause, but to enable their own survival.
Fellman finished with an extensive look at the post-war affects of guerrilla warfare. Many of the Southern guerrillas and bushwhackers became seen as heroes. Their struggle was romanticized in stories and eventually movies. Fellman concluded that the emblematic view of the guerrilla soldiers as heroes reinforced the social plight felt by the farmer as he became increasingly pressed by the railroad and Northern industry (p. 263).
Fellman used first-hand accounts to tell the story of Missourians trying to survive in a place where life and happiness seemed to be sucked away. This was where the book succeeds. The raw emotion expressed in the diaries and letters of those involved enhanced the narrative. The change in Missourian’s attitude toward destruction was drastic. Social behaviors that would have been unacceptable in pre-war society became commonplace. Fellman accurately represented the change undergone by those impacted by the guerrilla war of Missouri. Citizens, government officials, professional soldiers, all changed through their experience in Missouri. The devastating impact of war on Missouri allowed the reader to view the Civil War in greater depth through the analysis of the psychological impact on the inhabitants.

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 1989 by Oxford University Press, this is much more than a simple history of guerrilla fighting in Missouri. This book presents an in-depth analysis of the psycho-social interrelationships between the two sides in conflict and the civilian population caught in-between. As such it is a valued read in the context of helping to understand our unending war on terrorism.

For example, the author's introduction could be read as establishing the perspective for examining America's conflicts since 9/11:

"My subjects were neither heroic nor contemptible, but ordinary people trying to sort out personal and cultural experience in an overwhelmingly stressful situation."

The book, when read in the context of recent ops, makes for very enlightening reading - especially the sections on "Loyalty, Neutrality and Survival Lies" and "Collapse of the Sense of Security" in the chapter on Civilians in Guerrilla War. The perspective of ordinary local national civilians seems to be completely lost in the whirlwind of events, as various factions and minority groups loudly take center stage; we should be reminded that we forget them at our peril.

Something the book mentions, that is an obvious development in many American attitudes since 9/11 is:

"...intense loyalism and hatred of the enemy were the means to keep alive a sense of moral and cultural shape in the atmosphere of guerrilla war and terror, yet they were developed at the expense of charity and toleration."

The vicious terrorist acts that continue to fester on at a low level across the theaters of operations is an attempt by the threat to exacerbate this aspect of US character in furtherance of their goals.

The book studies official attitudes of both sides, and compares them with the combatant's perception of self and others in the context of the conflict. There is much of value to be gained from this study in viewing the global operational environment. Cross-cultural perceptions between our forces and the various players are far more complex than those in 1860's Missouri during the Civil War - yet the author clearly demonstrates how those relatively minor differences in perceptions added fuel to the fires of war and brutalized the conflict at that time.

This book is highly recommended - but don't just take it in for what it seems to be. It deserves to be read with thought and consideration for comparing the author's narrative to the modern operational context.

[Catharine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This surely little-known book is almost certainly the most enlightening, fascinating, horrifying, and (sadly) relevant book I have read in a long while. I picked it up out of genealogical curiosity to learn more about the social conditions of my and my husband's ancestors in Missouri in the 19th century. It turns out to be (while well-researched and entirely non-fictional history) an account of a dystopian past that is alarmingly easy to imagine as our nation's near future.

[Rhuff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging, excellently written, and probing look at guerrilla warfare. Its proper title should be "Insight War": it lays bare the mythology of men in combat in any context. The self-validating pretexts for brutality are still with us, whether emanating from commissioned combatants or "terrorists." Indeed, Michael Fellman's work is as much psychological study as historic monograph on Missouri guerrillas of the 1860s. The self-image of chivalrous warriors who "must" commit atrocity as the collateral damage of warfare - mitigated in later life by memorials to their nobility of purpose and spirit - sound familiar to any modern reader; and can still be challenged only by the bravest in appealing to the real record.

Recommended not only for American Civil War buffs, but for all those wishing to know "men in battle" as they are.

[Elizabeth Marr · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gut-wrenching well-researched examination of the psycho-social aspects of the American Civil War in Missouri.

[Mhd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I knew nothing about any of this.
No direct genealogical info but lots on guerrilla war in Missouri and a lot in Kansas. Surprisingly, parallels terrorism of today.