“Blunt emerges as a competent, even imaginative, combat officer who was both highly political and personally corrupt. . . . Collins has presented a serviceable biography of a previously neglected figure and added to the literature of the Trans-Mississippi Theater.”
—The Civil War News
“An interesting and balanced treatment of Blunt’s life that may well appeal to Civil War enthusiasts.”
—The Journal of Southern History
“A first-rate discussion of the torturously complex interrelationship between political and military affairs in Kansas.”
—Great Plains Quarterly
“An interesting Kansas book [that] introduces us to a little known hero.”
—Territorial Magazine
This is the first biography of Kansas’s only major Civil War-era general. Despite his absence from most Civil War histories, Union general James Gilpatrick Blunt was an immensely successful leader. Not only did he defeat Confederate troops at Fort Wayne, Prairie Grove, and Cane Hill, but he was instrumental in helping John Brown assist escaped slaves to Canada.
Though his successful military campaigns were well-publicized in contemporary reports and he was viewed as a hero, Blunt’s reputation was later sullied by accusations of corruption and womanizing. Also, he was known for his egotistical tirades throughout his military career. This biography gives perspective on a complex and flawed, yet effective, leader, as well as on the western frontier of the Civil War.
General James G. Blunt includes previously unpublished photographs.