Rating: 
Summary: This book a must if one wants an unbiased view of "Q"!
Review: After using Connelley's "Quantrill & The Border Wars" as my major source of information on Q, lo and behold, here comes Leslie with a fresh, unbiased slant on not only Q himself, but also on the terrible strife on the MO/KAN border during the civil war years! The book is well researched and carefully written in clear and concise narrative. This book was long overdue!
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Summary: The Most Comprehensive Biography of Quantrill yet
Review: Anyone who has read past biographies of Quantrill will realize that there are many conflicts between the books by Castel and Briehan, and of course, Connelly is obviously bias as a Union sympathizer. The writings of McCorkle and Burch are bent the other way, and Gregg's papers are hardly to be believed at all. Leslie has done a great job of reporting the real story of the bushwhackers which has to be done with very little primary material to work with that can be proved. A good book for civil war buffs, especially those like me who prefer the war on the western border as a topic.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Comprehensive Biography of Quantrill yet
Review: Anyone who has read past biographies of Quantrill will realize that there are many conflicts between the books by Castel and Briehan, and of course, Connelly is obviously bias as a Union sympathizer. The writings of McCorkle and Burch are bent the other way, and Gregg's papers are hardly to be believed at all. Leslie has done a great job of reporting the real story of the bushwhackers which has to be done with very little primary material to work with that can be proved. A good book for civil war buffs, especially those like me who prefer the war on the western border as a topic.
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Summary: Great Insight on why Kansas and Missouri were enemies
Review: Great Book
This is an excellently researched book about the pre-Civil War era along the Missouri and Kansas border and why their conflicts escalated into a all out war between them during the Civil War.
This book is well balanced and not a bunch of hyped up exaggerated stories about a notorious outlaw. Excellent read for any student or history buff desiring to better understand the turmoil and terror the local communities and people endured and suffered on both sides of the civil war.
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Summary: Outstanding book on the WFSI in Missouri
Review: In Missouri and Kansas, the War for Southern Independence was a brutal, inhuman, savage business. And, contrary to many of the history books, there was brutality, inhumanity, and savagery on both sides. William Clarke Quantrill's Lawrence raid was more than matched by the Union Army's Order #11, the depredations of Doc Jennison and other jawhawkers, the deliberate execution of Confederate prisoners by Union officers at Palmyra and St. Louis, and other atrocities.This book is one of the best books I've ever read on the War for Southern Independence in Missouri. Its description of Quantrill's early life is rather speculative, due, one supposes, to the lack of documentary material. But one really gets a feel for the Missouri war here, and Leslie does come up with some surprising information. For the benefit of those who thought Quantrill's Raiders were a sort of nascent Klan, Leslie points out(somewhat reluctantly, it seemed to me)that at least three free blacks rode with Quantrill and one of these scouted Lawrence prior to the raid. And his description of the fate of Quantrill's remains is interesting. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding book on the WFSI in Missouri
Review: In Missouri and Kansas, the War for Southern Independence was a brutal, inhuman, savage business. And, contrary to many of the history books, there was brutality, inhumanity, and savagery on both sides. William Clarke Quantrill's Lawrence raid was more than matched by the Union Army's Order #11, the depredations of Doc Jennison and other jawhawkers, the deliberate execution of Confederate prisoners by Union officers at Palmyra and St. Louis, and other atrocities. This book is one of the best books I've ever read on the War for Southern Independence in Missouri. Its description of Quantrill's early life is rather speculative, due, one supposes, to the lack of documentary material. But one really gets a feel for the Missouri war here, and Leslie does come up with some surprising information. For the benefit of those who thought Quantrill's Raiders were a sort of nascent Klan, Leslie points out(somewhat reluctantly, it seemed to me)that at least three free blacks rode with Quantrill and one of these scouted Lawrence prior to the raid. And his description of the fate of Quantrill's remains is interesting. Highly recommended.
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Summary: Entertaining new biography of William C. Quantrill.
Review: Leslie's grass roots research into the shadowy life of Civil War guerrilla chieftain William Quantrill has produced a vivid picture of the realities of life on the Missouri-Kansas frontier from the late 1850's until Quantrill's death in Kentucky in 1865 and has resulted in a book which will become the resource work in the field. Leslie spent years as a professional researcher doing background work for other authors writing on various topics, both fiction and non-fiction. Some of his research can be found in the works of James A. Michner, and others. Leslie knows how to dig out the facts of a story.
On occasion, I accompanied him as he visited sites in both Missouri and Kansas where Quantrill stamped his name on the history of the War. I witnessed firsthand Leslie's feel for the subject material and his expertise and passion for fact-finding.
"The Devil Knows How to Ride" tells Quantrill's story from his Ohio childhood, thru his arrival on the Kansas frontier, to his development as the leader of a band of Missouri men and boys who became the guerrillas who sacked Lawrence, Kansas and caused the Union to divert troops and resources from war operations in the East. While the story of Quantrill and his band has been told and retold, Leslie's research covered many years and addresses questions not heretofore answered:
* Was Quantrill a recognized Confederate officer, or did he operate outside the rules and customs of "civilized" warfare"?
* How did he achieve leadership, and then lose that leadership role of the men and boys who had at first flocked to him?
* Why did he meet his death in Kentucky, and not on the Missouri-Kansas ground which he had terrorized?
* What brought his followers to the band, who were they, and what became of them afterwards?
* Did Quantrill teach Jesse and Frank James the lessons which led to their infamy?
* What effect did his activities in Missouri have on the Civil War?
* Was the man inherently evil, or was he a product of his times - fighting for what he took to be a just cause?
These questions and more have been previously discussed by other authors who have not returned to the primary source material which is essential to the accurate telling of a biography that has not been addressed for many years. "The Devil Knows How to Ride" has an extensive bibliography, along with photos of documents and personalities not previously published. The depth and breath of the story, which is told in a readable and entertaining style, sets forth previously untold facts which are essential to an understanding of the tragic guerrilla warfare which rocked and shocked Missouri and Kansas during the Civil War. The book is a monumental achievement and a good read! -James P. O'Connor Nov. '96
Rating:
Summary: Good history of the sad Kansas and Missouri war.
Review: Not bands playing and flags flying in this remote corner of the Civil War, but murder, arson, and looting; more like Balkan "ethnic cleansing" than the romantic stuff of legend.
The work is fast paced and eminently readable; with good notes and bibliography, marred only by inadequate maps. Highly recommended.
This reviewer disclaims rating "stars" - a silly requirement of the site.
Rating:
Summary: Good history of the sad Kansas and Missouri war.
Review: Not bands playing and flags flying in this remote corner of the Civil War, but murder, arson, and looting; more like Balkan "ethnic cleansing" than the romantic stuff of legend.
The work is fast paced and eminently readable; with good notes and bibliography, marred only by inadequate maps. Highly recommended.
This reviewer disclaims rating "stars" - a silly requirement of the site.
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Summary: The Truth is Wilder than Fiction
Review: Simply put, this is the best written history I've read since _A Distant Mirror_. The author manages an impressive work of scholarship, while maintaining a level of interest and readability that very few novels do, let alone works of historical research. The events told are compelling, wild, unlikely, and undisputably American--a mixture of romantic outlawry with stark atrocity. In presenting the conflicting views of Quantrill through the last hundred and fifty or so years, it also becomes something greater than just a recounting of the events: it becomes a compelling detective story, as the author hunts down the truth about Quantrill the man--a figure as paradoxical and vague as any post-modern fiction fan could ask for. The book begs the question: can we ever know the truth about anyone, especially such a mythologized figure as Quantrill? Alternately demonized and romanticized, obfuscated by bias, Quantrill is a fascinating figure. It seems all his biographers have found in him what they were looking for. This author has found a real man--and an enigma. The search is compelling. ---Steve Marsde
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