"The Civil War was fought, and won, in the East by accepted rules, by chessboard maneuvers to gain position through surprise flank movements and well-planned and well-executed frontal attacks, and to hold position through fortification, troop placement, and anticipation of enemy moves. Many men from Kansas went off to be chessmen in those important plays, far more per capita than from any other Northern state. Every quota sent by the Union Kansas met doubly, for the new state was peopled by men who had come there to fight against slavery. Many Kansans were assigned to formal fighting, but others were incorporated under local commands and fought the war out in the same roles, now legalzied, that they had played in the curtain-raiser. Men who had been raiders were now authorized to wear the uniform of the Union Army. Many of them did not bother, any more than did their brothers across the border bother to don the gray of their Confederacy. Frontier dress lent itself well to guerrilla tactics."
January 1, 1970