437 pages, 15 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 23 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-239) and index.
Summary
This book is an account of the Frontier Guards who defended President Lincoln from a kidnapping and assassination plot in the opening days of the Civil War. It looks into the lives of these 116 men and their leader, the Kansas "free state" advocate and lawyer, James Henry Lane. It is a portrait of the free-state and pro-slavery forces that tore Missouri and the Kansas Territory apart in the 1850s. It describes the battles pertaining to the protection and abolition of slavery that riled Congress on both a federal and state level, eventually leading to war in 1861.