Civil War General and Indian Fighter James M. Williams: Leader of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry and 8th U.S. Cavalry
2013; Arkansas Historical Association; Volume: 72; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2327-1213
Autores Tópico(s)American History and Culture
ResumoCivil War General and Indian Fighter James M. Williams: Leader of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry and 8th U.S. Cavalry. By Robert W. Lull. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2013. Pp. xvii, 289. Pref- ace, acknowledgments, illustrations, maps, appendix, notes, bibliog- raphy, index. $24.95.)Although the Civil War ranks as the most heavily covered period in American history, many prominent soldiers of that conflict have yet to receive full-length biographies. While Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, William T. Sherman, and Thomas J. Jackson are frequently analyzed in excruciating detail by professional and independent scholars, a surprising number of their contemporaries languish in undeserved obscurity. This is especially true of officers who served outside of the Eastern Theater. Hence, the release of James Lull's book on James M. Williams, a Union officer who distinguished himself in some of the Trans-Mississippi's more dramatic engagements, is worthy of note.The youngest of thirteen children, James Monroe Williams was bom to a farm family in northern New York in September 1833. Beginning in 1844, Williams spent part of his youth in Wisconsin, and then moved to Kansas Territory twelve years later with an older brother to pursue success in business. The attempts of Missouri's violent Border Ruffians to force slavery on Kansas radicalized Williams politically. he later explained, As a citizen of Kansas since the year 1856,1 had learned to hate the in- stitution of slavery and I was taught to believe that every effort that could consistently be to crush the infamous institution should be made (p. 38). Thrust into the seething vortex of sectional strife, Williams gravi- tated into the orbit of James Henry Lane, the mercurial Kansas politician, and joined him in retaliatory jayhawker raids along the Missouri border.When the conflict that had ravaged Kansas for five years split the Unit- ed States into two hostile nations in 1861, Lane, now a U.S. senator, raised a brigade for the Union army, and Williams became one of his company commanders. Williams performed creditably in several border skirmishes, but he resigned his commission on May 8, 1862, rather than serve under a regimental commander who did not share his antislavery zeal.Senator Lane gave Williams a second chance at public service by appointing him as an army recruiter that July. Acting without authoriza- tion from the Lincoln Administration, Lane had his protege enlist former slaves. Williams tackled this assignment with gusto, ignoring the harass- ment of civil authorities opposed to the recruitment of black soldiers. …
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