Book Review: Union Guerillas of Civil War Kansas: Jayhawkers and Red Legs

Union Guerillas of Civil War Kansas: Jayhawkers and Red Legs. By Paul A. Thomas and Matt M. Matthews. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2025. Softcover, 160 pp. $24.99.

Reviewed by Jeff Kluever

Studies of Civil War-era Kansas and Missouri often focus on Confederate personalities like William Clark Quantrill, “Bloody” Bill Anderson, and Frank and Jesse James, and, as authors Paul Thomas and Matt Matthews argue, “[tend] to view [their Union adversaries] as a monolith.” (11) To remedy that tendency, Union Guerillas of Civil War Kansas profiles six Jayhawkers and Red Legs, “exploring how their actions both helped and hindered the Union cause and . . . the diverse reasons they embraced irregular military tactics.” (11) At 131 pages, this is far from a comprehensive study of these men or guerilla warfare in Kansas, but the book is a useful primer on key Union guerillas and how their actions shaped “Bleeding Kansas” and the border war.

Readers will likely recognize three of the men profiled: James H. Lane, Charles “Doc” Jennison, and James Montgomery. Though their names are familiar, many readers will find their short biographies revealing. George H. Hoyt, Marshall L. Cleveland, and William S. Tough will be new characters for most students of the Civil War, demonstrating the author’s point about how rarely Union guerillas receive mention in Civil War literature. More importantly, their combined stories reinforce the two key themes of this book.

First, these six biographies illustrate how irregular tactics utilized during the “Bleeding Kansas” period remained favored strategies during the war. Three of the six men profiled were active participants in the border wars of the late 1850’s and the other three readily, if not eagerly adopted tactics including theft, destruction of civilian property, and occasionally murder. If anything, the war allowed men like Jennison, to transition from “lawless vigilantes” to “Union soldiers.” (13) Though Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck considered Jennison and his men, “no better than a band of robbers . . . [that] disgrace the name and uniform of American soldiers,” (50-51) for example, Jennison rose to the rank of colonel before his court martial in 1865. The terms of engagement in Kansas and Missouri were set in the 1850’s and enlisting these men in the army did nothing to alter those terms.

Second, the authors write, “To be pithy, it is best to understand this book as the story of both good and bad men who did good and bad things.” (18) Pithy or not, it is perhaps the key lesson to be taken from the book. James Montgomery, for example, was a minister driven by his belief that slavery was evil. He was also a man who felt no compunction when “sacking homes, razing towns, or striking down his enemies,” (62) deeming the consequences of his actions a perfectly reasonable price to pay to bring the end of slavery. Readers can admire his dedication to ending slavery on one page and judge his decision to burn Osceola, Missouri and Darien, Georgia on the next.

Likewise, George Hoyt was a fervent abolitionist who, as a captain in the 7^th Kansas Cavalry and while serving as a provost marshal in Tennessee, refused to help citizens who requested his aid in capturing escaped slaves, banned slave hunting in his jurisdiction, and declared that “all men are regarded as Free and Equal at [his] office.” (89) And yet the book details multiple instances in which Hoyt likely killed unarmed individuals in cold blood, including one of his own men. Readers are left to decide if Montgomery and Hoyt are good men who do bad, or bad men who do good, fighting for a righteous cause, while being reminded that other men, like Cleveland, used the war as an opportunity to commit crimes against Unionists and Confederates alike.

Of course, the Civil War is full of characters we admire on one page and condemn on the next. Still, Union Guerillas of Civil War Kansas is a worthwhile read because of its unique, often stark examples of good and bad men doing good and bad things. Moreover, the six biographies are a valuable contribution in and of themselves, especially for those unfamiliar with the war on the Kansas-Missouri border. While readers won’t walk away with a thorough understanding of guerilla warfare in Kansas and Missouri, the book may whet their appetite to learn more about the border war and the men who fought it.

Jeff Kluever holds a bachelor’s degree in History from Grinnell College and master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Carroll University. He has worked as teacher, high school and college football coach, the Executive Director of a history museum, and Education Supervisor at a Civil War battlefield museum and living history plantation. He served on the board of directors of the Fort Des Moines Museum and Education Center and offers Civil War-themed tours of Woodland Cemetery for the City of Des Moines. In addition, Jeff has published a novel titled Waking the Shadows.