Border War: Fighting over Slavery before the Civil War

by Stanley Harrold

Overview

During the 1840s and 1850s, a dangerous ferment afflicted the North-South border region, pitting the slave states of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri against the free states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Aspects of this struggle—the underground railroad, enforcement of the fugitive slave laws, mob actions, and sectional politics—are well known as parts of other stories. Here, Stanley Harrold explores the border struggle itself, the dramatic incidents that comprised it, and its role in the complex dynamics leading to the Civil War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469606859
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	02/01/2013
Series:	Civil War America
Edition description:	1
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Stanley Harrold is professor of history at South Carolina State University and author of numerous books on the antislavery movement and the Civil War era.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Writing with admirable clarity and passion, Harrold vividly re-creates the violent and chaotic decade of the 1850s. Harrold's devastating portrait of a nation already at war along the contested border should appeal to all readers of history. His research, both archival and secondary, is exceptional.—Douglas R. Egerton, Le Moyne College

Arguing for a broader definition of politics, Stanley Harrold successfully takes us into relatively uncharted waters, insisting that, by running away, slaves had a profound effect on the politics of slavery both on the border between slavery and freedom where it was most vulnerable and on the national level.—Richard J. M. Blackett, Vanderbilt University

Editorial Reviews

A good addition to all Civil War collections.—Library Journal



This work forces historians to reconsider the fault lines of the origins of the Civil War and promises new directions for research. Highly recommended.—Choice



Stanley Harrold has written an excellent book that is sure to prompt debate and additional research. It will be required reading for historians of the slavery controversy in the United States.—Civil War Book Review



Fast-paced, lucid, and well-researched.—American Historical Review



[This book] can help those trying to develop a better understanding of the issues that led to secession. . . . Highly recommended.—Blue & Gray Magazine



[This book] should immediately be standard reading for all historians of antebellum America.—Journal of Southern History



A sobering, meticulously researched and astutely presented historical analysis, highly recommended especially for college library collections.—Midwest Book Review



This book is important in understanding the intense feelings on both sides of the conflict that help lead to the start of our American Civil War. . . . Excellent.—Lone Star Book Review



Border War is a must-have for anyone seeking to understand the small-scale underlying fights that snowballed the Civil War. . . . Textbooks and many leading historical works leave gaps by portraying the sweeping movements, but Harrold fills in the details without which a true and thorough understanding of the slavery issue and the Civil War is impossible.—Virginia Libraries



[Border War] is a solid, detailed narrative of the violent conflict that developed along the border between the North and South in the decades before the Civil War.—The Annals of Iowa

From the Publisher

Bleeding Kansas may be well known, but the fuller extent of pre-Civil War border violence is likely to surprise many readers. There were raids across all the border states, in both directions, for two decades before secession. There were hotbeds of abolitionist and proslavery strife in Maryland and Kentucky, for instance, as well as Virginia, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Harrold (history, South Carolina State Univ.) covers the many fights across these North-South borders, as well as newspaper writing that fanned the flames on both sides. A good addition to all Civil War collections.

Library Journal