{"product_id":"inside-war-the-guerrilla-conflict-in-missouri-during-the-american-civil-war-9780195051988","title":"Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War","description":"\u003cp\u003eDuring the Civil War years  the state of Missouri was plunged into the most widespread  prolonged  and destructive guerrilla fighting in American history. Robbery  arson  torture  murder  swift and bloody raids on farms and settlements--these were the ingredients of the conflict. Approaching total war  the fighting engulfed the populace and challenged any notion of civility. A slave state that rejected secession  Missouri was beset before the war by divisive tensions that exploded into extraordinary violence once the war began. \"The guerrilla conflict \" Michael Fellman writes  \"truly was a spontaneous creation of the people  by the people  for the people  and against the people.\" It was a \"natural \" popular war  rather than a planned  disciplined one. Its \"rules\" grew directly out of local circumstances and bore scant relation to the history and traditions of martial order or to the dreams of a Christian Confederacy or a democratic United States. Little remained under control; little remained forbidden. Fellman captures the conflict from the \"inside \" drawing on a wealth of first-hand evidence--letters  diaries  military reports  court-martial transcripts  depositions  and newspaper accounts. We gain a clear picture of the ideological  social  and economic forces that divided the populace and launched the conflict. We witness ordinary civilian men and women struggling to survive amid the random terror perpetuated by both sides. We learn how both Confederate and Union officials  contemptuous of guerrilla fighters and their tactics  nevertheless sought to use them to their own advantage. And we see at close hand what the combatants themselves were like--how they saw themselves  how others saw them  what drove them so often to commit atrocities and brutal acts of vengeance--and we learn about the beginnings of the legend of Jesse James and its origins in guerrilla war. Vivid  probing  and often horrifying  Inside War illuminates a crucial episode of the American Civil War  shedding light not only on the institutional  strategic  and tactical elements but also the physical  emotional  and moral experiences of a people fully at war with themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45279494570037,"sku":"ByrdShop_019505198X","price":49.26,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780195051988.jpg?v=1780600696","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/inside-war-the-guerrilla-conflict-in-missouri-during-the-american-civil-war-9780195051988","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}