PDF A Woman's Place: Yesterday's Women in Rural America by Norton Juster in History

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Most Civil War historians now agree that the guerrilla conflict shaped the entire war in significant ways. Some of these “bushwhackers”—Nathan Bedford Forrest; William Clarke Quantrill; John Singleton Mosby—have become quite infamous. Illiterate Sam Hildebrand; one of Missouri’s most notorious guerrillas—often compared to “Rob Roy;” and the subject of dime novels—was one of the few to survive the war and have his story taken down and published. Shortly after this he was killed in a barroom brawl.“I make no apology to mankind for my acts of retaliation; I make no whining appeal to the world for sympathy. I sought revenge and I found it; the key of hell was not suffered to rust in the lock while I was on the war path.”—Sam HildebrandHildebrand’s reign of terror gave the Union army fits and kept much of the Trans-Mississippi; especially Missouri; roiling in the 1860s. Over seven years of fighting he and his men killed dozens of soldiers and civilians; whites and blacks; he claimed to have killed nearly one hundred himself. He was accused of many heinous acts.The historical significance of Hildebrand’s story is substantial; but his bloody tale is eminently readable and stands quite well on its own as a cold-blooded portrait of a violent time in American history. Like the nightmarish and depraved world of the Kid in Cormac McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian; Hildebrand’s world is truly ruthless and his story is brutally descriptive in its coolly detached rendering of one man’s personal war.Published in 1870; Hildebrand’s autobiography has long been out of print and has been a rare and highly prized acquisition among Civil War