Border Ruffian - The Border Ruffians in The Civil War

The Border Ruffians in The Civil War

During the Civil War, the violence in this area not only continued, but escalated tremendously. Many of the former Ruffians became pro-Confederate guerrillas. They operated in western Missouri, sometimes raiding into Kansas, and Union forces campaigned to suppress them. Farms were burned and looted. Suspected guerrillas were killed; guerrillas killed Union sympathizers and suspected informers. (See Bushwhacker.)

Many of the Union troops involved were Kansas Jayhawkers, and had deep grudges against Missourians. Jayhawkers destroyed several towns in Missouri, such as Osceola. The destruction of Osceola is depicted in the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Read more about this topic:  Border Ruffian

Famous quotes containing the words civil war, border, ruffians, civil and/or war:

    “They have been waiting for us in a foetor
    Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
    Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
    Of the expropriated mycologist.”
    —Derek Mahon (b. 1941)

    “Swift while the woof is whole,
    turn now my spirit, swift,
    and tear the pattern there,
    the flowers so deftly wrought,
    the border of sea-blue,
    the sea-blue coast of home.”
    —Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)

    “The bay-trees in our country are all withered,
    And meteors fright the fixèd stars of heaven.
    The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth,
    And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change.
    Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap;
    The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
    The other to enjoy by rage and war.
    These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    “... one of the blind spots of most Negroes is their failure to realize that small overtures from whites have a large significance ... I now realize that this feeling inevitably takes possession of one in the bitter struggle for equality. Indeed, I share it. Yet I wonder how we can expect total acceptance to step full grown from the womb of prejudice, with no embryo or infancy or childhood stages.”
    —Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)

    “That is what war is and dancing it is forward and back, when one is out walking one wants not to go back the way they came but in dancing and in war it is forward and back.”
    —Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)