Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Extreme Civil War
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.uttyler.edu/directory/history/stith.php * http://www.uttyler.edu/history/files/mattstith-cv-fall2017.pdf
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2011147679
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Stith, Matthew M.
Birth date: 1981-02-05
Found in: Social war, 2010: t.p. (Matthew M. Stith)
Extreme Civil War, 2016: ECIP t.p. (Matthew M. Stith) data
view (b. Feb. 5, 1981)
================================================================================
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
PERSONAL
Born February 5, 1981.
EDUCATION:Missouri Southern State University, B.A., 2003; University of Arkansas, M.A., 2004; University of Arkansas, Ph.D., 2010.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. University of Texas at Tyler, associate professor of history. Webb Historical Society, faculty advisor. Chronicles of Smith County, Texas, editor. Worked formerly as assistant editor at Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 2008-09; Instructor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2009-10; adjunct instructor in the department of history at the University of
Arkansas, Fort Smith, 2008-10; visiting assistant professor in the department of history, at the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith, 2010-11; and assistant professor in the department of history at the University of Texas at Tyler, 2011-17.
Spending time in nature. Fly fishing.
MEMBER:Center for Environment, Biodiversity, and Conservation, University of Texas at Tyler, member, 2015—; Center for Social Science Research, University of Texas at Tyler, 2016—.
WRITINGS
Contributor to books, including The Guerrilla Hunters: Irregular Conflicts During the Civil War, edited by Barton Myers and Brian McKnight, Louisiana State University Press (Baton Rouge, LA), 2017; and The Routledge History of Race and the American Military, edited by Geoffrey Jensen, Routledge Press (New York, NY), 2016.
Contributor of articles to scholarly journals, including Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Arkansas Review, Civil War History, Military History of the West, and Ozark Historical Review.
SIDELIGHTS
Matthew Stith is a writer and associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Tyler. He received his bachelor’s degree from Missouri Southern State University and both his master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas.
In addition to teaching and writing, Stith is the editor of Chronicles of Smith County, Texas. He has taught history at the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith, and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. His teaching interests center around American history, with a focus on environmental and military history. His principal historical research interest is the Civil War era, and his environmental research focus is on bears, specifically in relation to nineteenth-century American frontier identity and culture.
While there have been many books written about the Civil War, in Extreme Civil War: Guerrilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans-Mississippi Frontier, Stith attempts to provide a new perspective by including the role of characters often not considered. Specifically, Stith looks to the roles and impacts that Native American communities had on the outcomes of the war and style of warfare. He also examines how the natural environment of the land both influenced the Civil War and was utilized by the war’s various participants. Matthew C. Hulbert in Southern Historical Association wrote that Stith “underscores the role of the environment in the Civil War West and succeeds in adding a vibrant new cast of characters to guerrilla studies.”
The book is split into five chapters. Stith’s examinations address a large geographical region, focusing at points on Arkansas, Mississippi, Kansas, and Native territory. He writes about the ways in which the war affected or was influenced by the various groups of peoples that were located in these regions. Stith includes direct narratives from Federal soldiers, Choctaw and Chickasaw refugees, African American soldiers, guerrilla fighters, women, and children, to shed light on the diverse range of experiences of the war. Stith also describes the interactions between the various groups that populated the trans-Mississippi Western region.
With regards to the natural environment, Stith focuses on two forms of relationships. First, he discusses the ways in which the natural world affected the war, including discussions of flora, topographic features of the land, and weather. Secondly, he writes about how soldiers and guerrilla fighters used and altered the land to further their militaristic goals. A reviewer on the website Civil War Books and Authors wrote that the book “succeeds in making meaningful connections with newer branches of study (like environmental history).”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice, November, 2016, W.H. Mulligan, Jr., review of Extreme Civil War: Guerrilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans-Mississippi Frontier, p. 441.
Journal of Southern History, Volume 83, number 2, 2017, Matthew C. Hulbert, review of Extreme Civil War, p. 434.
ONLINE
Civil War Books and Authors, https://cwba.blogspot.com/ (June 16, 2016), review of Extreme Civil War.
Military Review, http://www.armyupress.army.mil/ (August 11, 2017), Thomas E. Ward II, review of Extreme Civil War.
University of Texas at Tyler Website, http://www.uttyler.edu/ (November 24, 2017), author faculty profile.
History
Matthew M. Stith
Title: Associate Professor
Department: History
Building: BUS 238
Email: mstith@uttyler.edu
Phone: 903.566.7430
Degrees
B.A., Missouri Southern State University
M.A., University of Arkansas
Ph.D., University of Arkansas
Biography
My teaching interests include a wide-range of themes and periods in American history with some focus on environmental and military history in the nineteenth century. In addition to teaching chronological courses on Antebellum America and the Civil War era, I also teach thematic classes regarding environmental, borderlands, military, and southern history. I am faculty advisor for the History Club (Webb Historical Society), and I currently serve as editor for the Chronicles of Smith County, Texas.
I have two principal research and writing interests: the Civil War and bears. With the Civil War, I explore the nexus between environmental, social, and military history, especially how those factors shaped the conflict west of the Mississippi River. With regard to bruins (black and grizzly), I am chiefly interested in their place within the evolving nature of nineteenth-century American frontier culture and identity.
When not teaching or writing about the natural environment, I try my best to get out into it—mostly by way of wandering around in the woods and fly fishing.
Classes Taught:
HIST 1301: U.S. History I
HIST 1302: U.S. History II
HIST 3300: Historical Methods and Research
HIST 4322: The American South
HIST 4330: American Military History
HIST 4350: American Environmental History
HIST 4397: The Vietnam War (Special Topics)
HIST 4377/5377: American Borderlands
HIST 4379/5379: The Age of Jackson (Antebellum America)
HIST 4386/5386: Civil War and Reconstruction
1
MATTHEW M. STITH
Department of History
University of Texas at Tyler
3900 University Blvd.
Tyler, TX 75799
mstith@uttyler.edu
/
903
-
566
-
7430
EDUCATION_________________________________________________
_______________________
Ph.D., History, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2010
M.A., History, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2004
B.A., History,
Mis
souri Southern State University, 2003, with departmental honors
EMPLOYMENT______________________
_________________________________________
______
Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Texas at Tyler, 2017
-
present
Member, Center for Environment, Biodiversity, and Conservation, University of Texas at Tyler, 2015
-
Present
Member, Center
for Social Science Research, University of Texas at Tyler, 2016
-
Present
Assistant Professor, Department of History, University
of Texas at Tyler, 2011
-
2017
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of History, Univ
ersity of Arkansas,
Fort Smith,
2010
-
2011
Adjunct Instructor, Department of History, University of
Arkansas,
Fort Smith,
2008
-
2010
Instructor, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2009
-
2010
Assistant Editor,
Arkansas Historical Quarterly
, 2008
-
2009
Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2005
-
2008
TEACHING AWARDS AND
NOMINAT
IONS______________
____
_____________________
___
Kirkpatrick Award for Excellence in Teaching, Depart
ment of History, University of
Arkansas, 2010
“Outstanding Faculty Member for Excellence in Teac
hing,” Student Alumni Board and
Associated
Student Government, University of
Arkansas, 2010
Nominated for Most Outstanding Faculty Member at t
he University of Arkansas, 2010
FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AND RESEARCH AWARDS__________
_____________________
___
Lawrence T. Jones III Research Fellowship in Civil War Texas History, Texas State Historical
Association, 2014
Kentucky Historical Society Research Fellowship, 2013
Faculty Travel Grant, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Texas at Tyler, 2013
Fa
culty Development Grant, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Arkansas
-
Fort Smith,
2010
-
2011
History Department Travel Grant, University of Arkansas, 2010
William E. Foley Fellowship, Missouri State Archives, 2009
2
James J. Hudson Fello
wship, University of Arkansas, 2008
-
2009; 2009
-
2010
Alfred D. Bell Fellowship, Forest History Society, 2008
Graduate School Travel Grant, University of Arkansas, 2008; 2009
Willard B. Gatewood Fellowship in Southern History, University of Arkansas, 2007
-
20
08
Violet Gingles Award for Best Essay on Arkansas History, Arkansas Historical Association, 2006
PUBLICATIONS_______________________________________
_____________________________
BOOK
S
Editor
with Geoffrey W. Jensen,
Beyond the Quagmire:
New Interpretations of the Vietnam Conflict
(Denton:
U
niversity of North Texas Press
, Under Contract)
Extreme Civil War
: Guerrilla Warfare
, Environment, and Race on the Trans
-
Mississippi Frontier
(
Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press,
May
2016
)
ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS
(Peer Reviewed)
“
The Natural Environment and the American Military Experience in Vietnam,” in Geoffrey W. Jensen and
Matthew M. Stith, eds.,
Beyond the Quagmire: New Interpretations of the Vietnam Conflict
(
Denton: University
of Nor
th Texas Press, Under Contract)
“
Knights of the B
r
ush:
Guerrilla Warfare and the Environment in the Trans
-
Mississippi Theater,” in Barton
Myers and Brian McKnight, eds.
,
The Guerrilla Hunters: Irregular Conflicts
During the Civil War
(Baton
Rouge: Louisiana
State
University Press,
forthcoming
April
2017
)
“Race and Irregular Warfare on the Trans
-
Mississippi Border,
1861
-
1865
” in Geoffrey Jensen, ed.,
The Routledge
History of Race
and
the American Military
(New York: Routledge Press,
2016
)
“‘Denizens of the Forest’: Hunting Black Bears and Identity in the Mississippi Delta,”
Arkansas Review: A
Journal of Delta Studies
(Winter 2015)
“The Environment and the Civil War,”
Essential Civil War Curri
culum
,
Virginia Tech University
(
Sept
. 2
015
)
“‘The Deplorable Condition of the Country’: Nature, Society, and War on the Trans
-
Mississippi Frontier,”
Civil
War History
58 (September 2012)
. Republished,
in part
,
in Hui Wu and Emily Standridge, eds.,
Reading
and
Writing about the Disciplines: A Rhetorical Approach
(Southlake, TX: Fountainhead Press, 2014)
“Guerrillas, Civilians, and the Union Response in Jasper County, Missouri, 1861
-
1865,”
Military History of the
West
38 (2008)
“‘Women Locked the Doors, Children Screamed, and Men Trembled in their Boots’: Black Bears, People, and
Extirpation in Arkansas,”
Arkansas Historical Quarterly
66 (Spring 2007). Winner of the Violet Gingles
Award for Best Essay, Arkansas Historical Associ
ation; Nominated for the Alice Hamilton Prize,
American Society for Environmental History.
“‘Ho! For California!’: Fort Smith, Van Buren, and the Rush to the Gold Fields,”
Ozark Historical Review
35
(2006); Student Journal, University of Arkansas.
BOOK
REVIEWS
Over 20 book r
eviews published or forthcoming in:
Journal of Southern History
,
Civil War History
,
Environmental
History
,
Agricultural History
,
H
-
Net
,
Civil War Book Review,
History: Reviews of New Books
,
Arkansas Historical
Quarterly
,
Register of
the Kentucky Historical Society
,
Missouri Historical Review
,
Chronicles of Oklahoma
,
Louisiana History
,
Arkansas Review
, and
Pacific Northwest Quarterly
.
3
ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRI
ES
“Black Bears in Arkansas,” in
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture
(Little Rock:
Central Arkansas Library System, 2009)
; Republished as “Black Bears” in Guy Lancaster, ed., and Ron
Wolfe, illus.,
Arkansas in Ink: Gunslingers, Ghosts, and Other Graphic Tales
(Little Rock: Butler Center
Books, 2014), 120
-
121.
“Civil Wa
r Action at Pott’s Hill,” in
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture
(Little Rock: Central
Arkansas Library System, 2007)
CURRENT
BOOK
PROJECT
S
Beyond the Quagmire:
New Interpretations of the Vietnam Conflict
Editor
,
with Geoffrey W. Jensen, and contributor
(Denton: University of North Texas Press,
under
review
); Chapter Title:
“
The Natural Environment and the American Military Experience in Vietn
am.”
My co
-
editor and I have gathered fifteen scholars, including many
nationally and internationally
respected historians, to contribute to an essay collection that will offer new and provocative insights on
the social, political, environmental, and military history of Vietnam War in both Southeast Asia and the
United States
.
The Nature of War:
An Environmental History of the Civil War in the Trans
-
Mississippi
Theater
(
Book
-
Length M
anuscript in Preparation)
I have completed research and am in the writing stages of
this narrative history that explores how the natural and built environments shaped the course of the
Civil War west of the Mississippi River.
Bears: An American History
(Book
-
Length Manuscript in Preparation)
This book explores the human
-
bear relationship from the
16
th
century to the 20
th
century. In narrative fashion, I examine the dynamic interplay between bruins
and humans with respect to culture, identity, and econom
ics.
PROFESSIONAL TALKS__________________________________________
_
____________________
CONFERENCE
PARTICIPATION
[Chair]
“The Nature of War: The Environment and Military Campaigns during the Civil War,” Society for Civil
War Historians, Chattanooga, TN, June 4, 2016.
“Nature and Guerrilla Warfare in the Trans
-
Mississippi Theater,” American Culture Association, Seattle, WA,
March 23, 2016.
“
War in the Margins:
Defining the Civil War on the Trans
-
Mississippi Border,” A
C
A
, New Orleans, LA, April
3, 2015.
[Chair]
“War and Politics in the West,” American Culture Association, New Orleans, LA, April 3, 2015
[Discussant]
“Manly Merrymaking with Sports and Music,” Gulf South History and Humanities Conference,
Galveston, TX,
October 9, 2014
“Swine, Beeves, and War: How Domesticated Animals Shaped the Civil War on the Border,”
Agricultural History Society Conference, Provo, UT, June 20, 2014
.
[Chair and Discussant]
“Perspectives of Government and Activ
ism in the Nineteenth Century,”
Southwestern
Historical Association, S
an Antonio, TX, April 17, 2014
“Defining the Southern Frontier: Black Bears and Culture in the Nineteenth
-
Century South,”
AUMLAC
—
Southern Studies Confere
nce, Montgomery, AL, February
8, 2014
.
4
“‘The Demonic Spirit of these Rebel Fiends’: Race and Revenge on the Trans
-
Mississippi Border,” Society
for Military History Conference,
New Orleans, LA, March 15, 2013. [Panel
Organizer]
“Hunters and Humorists in the Bear State: Fent Noland, Fr
iedrich Gerstaecker, and Frontier Identity in
Nineteenth
-
Century Arkansas,” Missouri Valley History Conference, Omaha, NE, March 8, 2013.
“Nature and War in Indian Territory, 1861
-
1865,” Southwestern Historical Association
Conference, San Diego, CA, Apri
l 7, 2012.
“‘Killed him a Ba’r’: Black Bears and Identity in the American South,” Missouri Valley History
Confer
ence, Omaha, NE, March 2, 2012.
“‘Beyond the Pale of Law’: Warfare on the Trans
-
Mississippi Frontier during the American Civil
War,” Great
Lakes History Conference, Grand Rapids, MI, October 9, 2010.
“On Bushwhackers,
Environment
, and War: Nature’s Influence on the Low
er Trans
-
Mississippi
Frontier,
1861
-
1865,” Missouri Valley History Conference, Omaha, NE, March 4, 2010.
“Nature and Irregula
r Warfare on the Trans
-
Mississippi Frontier,” American Society for
Environmental History, Annual Meeting, Tallahassee, FL, February 26, 2009.
“Overlooked Ubiquity: The Role of the Environment in the American Civil War,” Missouri Valley
History Conferenc
e, Omaha, NE, March 8, 2008.
“Black Bears, People, and Extirpation in Arkansas, 1860
-
1927,” Mid
-
America Conference on
History, Fayetteville, AR, September 15, 2006.
“Bulwark of Unionism: Benton County, Slavery, and the Coming of the Civil War,” Mid
-
Americ
a
Conference on History, Lawrence, KS, September 23, 2005.
“Guerrillas, Civilians, and Terr
or in Jasper County, Missouri,
1861
-
1865,” at Mid
-
America
Conference on History, Springfield, MO, September 30, 2004.
INVITED LECTURES
“Toward an Environmental H
istory of the Civil War,” Kentucky
Historical Society, August 7,
2013.
“‘Common Foe of Mankind’: Guerrillas, Civilians, and the Nature of War in 1863,” Wilson’s Creek National
Battlefield and Springfield
-
Greene County Library District Invited Speaker, Ju
ly 15, 2013.
“On Bruins, Humans, and the Merits of Environmental History,” Webb Historical Society, Tyler, TX,
October 28, 2011.
“The Civilian War in Jasper County, Missouri, 1861
-
1865,” Invited Lecture at the Powers Museum,
Carthage, Missouri, April 22,
2006,
“The Peculiar Institution in Northwest Arkansas,” Shiloh Museum of Ozark History, Springdale, AR,
February 15, 2006.
“Guerrilla War and Jasper County, Missouri: Localiz
ed Study of Total War,” Topeka
Civil War Roundtable,
Topeka, KS, September 22,
2005.
“A Battlefield A
ll Around Us: Guerrilla Warfare in the Ozarks during the Civil War,” Civil War
Roundtable of Nort
hwest Arkansas, April 28, 2005.
COURSES TAUGHT AT T
HE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT TYLER (2011
-
Present)
_____
______
HIST 1301: United States History I
HIST 1302: United States History II
HIST 3300: Historical Methods and Research
HIST 4322: The American South
HIST 4330:
Modern American Military History
HIST 4350: American Environmental History
5
HIST 4377: American Borderlands
HIST 4379: Age of Jackson (Antebellum America)
HIST 4386: Civil War and Reconstruction
HIST 4397: The Vietnam War
HIST 5386
: Civil War and
Reconstruction
(Grad)
HIST 5379:
Age of Jackson (Grad)
HIST 5377: American Borderlands (Grad)
M.A.
THESIS STUDENTS
AT UT
-
TYLER
(THESIS
DIRECTOR
)
____
_________________
_______
Aubrey O’Toole, Topic: History and Historical Archaeology rega
rding Mid
-
19
th
Century East Texas, in
progress.
Brent McClendon, Topic: Race and Violence in East Texas, 1960
-
1980, in progress.
Brittani Keith, “Mob Violence Against Union Sympathizers in East Texas during the Civil War,” M.A. Thesis,
University of Texa
s at Tyler, forthcoming.
Clinton Thompson, “The Forgotten Battle: The American Combat Experience in the Colmar Pocket, France,
January 1944
-
Feburary 1945,” M.A. Thesis, University of Texas at Tyler, forthcoming.
Elle Harvell, “Cope, Cooperate, Combat: C
ivilian Responses to Union Occupation in Saline County, Missouri,
During the Civil War,” M.A. Thesis, University of Texas at Tyler, 2012. [Ms. Harvell is currently
pursuing a Ph.D. in History at UCLA.
]
M.A. THESIS STUDENTS AT UT
-
TYLER (
THESIS
READER)_
_____
________________________
Robin Haynie, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Democracy: Comedy and Politics in the Twentieth
Century,” M.A. Thesis, University of Texas at Tyler, 2015.
Sharon Hughes, “Isaac Merritt Singer: A Womanizer Who Liberated W
omen,” M.A. Thesis, University of
Texas at Tyler, 2014.
COURSES TAUGHT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS
—
FORT SMITH (2008
-
2011)
_____
History of the American People to 1877
History of the American People from 1877
Civilizations of the World t
o 1500
American Environmental History
The American South
Civil W
ar and Reconstruction
COURSES TAUGHT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS, FAYETTEVILLE (2005
-
2010)
___
History of the American People to 1877
History of the
American People from 1877
Institutions and Ideas of Western Civilization I
Institutions and Ideas of Western Civilization II
MANUSCRIPT AND PROPOSAL REFEREE_______
__________________
___________________
Oxford University Press (2013)
Rout
ledge Press (2013)
Arkansas Historical Quarterly
(
2014;
2011)
DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY, AND PROFESSIONAL
SERVICE___
______________________
Library Advisory Committee, UT
-
Tyler, 2016
-
present
Faculty Advisor, Walter Prescott Webb Historical Society (History
Club),
UT
-
Tyler, 2011
-
present
Curriculum Committee, College of Arts and Sciences, UT
-
Tyler, 2014
-
2016
External Reviewer, Department of History, Defiance College, OH, Fall 2015
Library Strategic Planning Focus Group, UT
-
Tyler, Spring 2014
Tenure
-
track
Search Committee, Department of Social Sciences, University of Texas at Tyler, 2013
6
Tenure
-
track Search Committee, Department of History and Political Science
,
UT
-
Tyler, 2012
History Department
Faculty
Representative
,
Globa
l Quiz Night, November 13, 2012
H
istory Department
Faculty
Representative, Majors Preview Day,
University of Texas at Tyler,
Fall 2011;
Spring 2012; Fall 2012
; Spring 2014
; Fall 2014
; Summer 2015
PUBLIC HISTORY AND COMMUNITY SERVICE
_____________
__________
________________
Editor,
Chronicles
of Smith County
, Texas
,
Smith County Historical Society, Texas (2014
-
Present)
As chief editor for the county historical journal, I oversee the general editorial operations for the
publication, all editing duties, publication decisions, design, l
ayout, and final printing.
Editorial Advisor,
Chronicles of Smith
County
, Texas
,
Smith County Historical Society, Texas
(2012
-
2014
)
AP Exam Rubric Study Participant, Spring 2014
AP Exam Reader, World History, Salt Lake City, Utah (June 2012; June 2013
; June 2015
)
Lead Planner/Evaluator, Cane Hill Battlefield Interpretation Project (2007
-
2013)
Treasurer, Northwest Arkansas Civil War Heritage Trail (2007
-
2010)
Humanities Advisor, Fort Smith Historical Society (2010
-
2011)
National Register Nomination, Fir
st Battle of Newtonia, Missou
ri, 1862. National Register of
Historic
Places, Listed 2004.
National Register Nomination, Second Battle of Newtonia, Missou
ri, 1864. National Register of
Historic
Places, Listed 2004.
TEACHING AND ADVISING WORKSHOPS AND
TRAINING_____________________________
PATSS Training, May 2016
Global Awareness Through Education (GATE) Instructor, UT
-
Tyler, Fall 2013
-
2015
Staying Connected Online Training, Spring 2015
Master Advisor Certificate, University of Texas at Tyler, August 20
13
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
___________________________
___________________________
_
Society of Civil War Historians
Southern Historical Association
Agricultural History Association
Arkansas Historical Association
Phi Alpha Theta
Smith County Historical
Society (Texas)
Walter Prescott Webb Historical Society (History Club; University of Texas at Tyler)
Newtonia Battlefields Protection Association (Honorary Lifetime Member)
7
Extreme Civil War: Guerrilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans Mississippi Frontier
Matthew C. Hulbert
83.2 (May 2017): p434.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Southern Historical Association
http://www.uga.edu/~sha
Extreme Civil War: Guerrilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans Mississippi Frontier. By Matthew M. Stith. Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2016. Pp. xii, 218. $42.50, ISBN 978-0-8071-6314-6.)
Serious scholarly attention paid to Civil War guerrillas has increased dramatically within the last decade. In keeping with this movement to better understand the war's irregular underbelly, Matthew M. Stith's Extreme Civil War: Guerrilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans-Mississippi Frontier is a deeply researched attempt at integrating new characters--mainly Native Americans--as well as the environment itself into the guerrilla equation.
While most studies of guerrilla violence have focused on a specific state, border zone, or part of a feature-defined area. Stith's coverage of the trans-Mississippi West is more geographically ambitious. Throughout the book, Stith moves back and forth between Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and the Indian Territory. To accommodate this wider reach. Extreme Civil War is divided chronologically into five chapters. The book begins in 1860 with a brief overview of life on the western frontier before the outbreak of regular war, and it ends--somewhat abruptly--in 1865 with the official collapse of the Confederacy.
Stith's decision to examine the trans-Mississippi West as a bloc is double-edged. This expansive approach allows him to produce a more intricate account of how regular and irregular military forces interacted in the region. Taken together, the narratives of Federal soldiers, Choctaw and Chickasaw refugees, African American troops, guerrillas, women, and even children shed new light on the region-wide cause-and-effect relationships triggered by policy decisions, military outcomes, and environmental factors in each individual state or territory. That said, Stith does occasionally imply a level of real-time connectedness between people, places, and events that did not exist during the war.
On the environmental front, Stith examines two types of exchange. The first involves variables of the natural world--flora, fauna, topographical features, weather--influencing the waging of war. The second consists of cases wherein people physically altered the landscape or their use of it to affect the outcome of the war. These latter instances, though less frequent in the book, are fascinating, Stith explores efforts to burn acre upon acre of underbrush to neutralize guerrillas' home-field advantage and the establishment of militarized communes to cope simultaneously with safety concerns and food shortages. At times these environmental explorations would benefit from comparative contextualization; Stith could have parsed to what extent these exchanges were unique to the irregular conflict of the trans-Mississippi region. Regardless, Stith has sounded the call for further investigation of how irregular war interacted with the environment.
When dealing specifically with irregular violence, Stith effectively captures the degree to which terror constituted a central part of daily life for trans-Mississippians. In other ways, however, the book's coverage of guerrilla warfare lags behind current scholarship. Distinctions drawn between combatants and civilians are inconsistent, which begs the deeper question of whether civilian status, conventionally conceived, was really possible in a place where the traditional line between battlefront and home front did not seem to exist. Though women were depicted by both sides as involuntary victims of war, they played a critical role in waging war from the household. The study would have benefited from deeper coverage of women as primary agents of irregular violence. More problematic still is how Extreme Civil War appears to revive an outmoded "blood sport theory" in which irregulars are stripped of their legitimate motivations to violence. Instead, Stith portrays guerrilla warfare as random and brutal and its practitioners as universally uncivilized--either in the form of revenge-bent sociopaths or opportunistic thugs. To be sure, bushwhackers had unorthodox rules of engagement, but even theirs was not a war conducted indiscriminately or without political inflection. While the war was fundamentally brutal, what "hard war"--regular or irregular--was not?
In the end, Stith does underscore the role of the environment in the Civil War West and succeeds in adding a vibrant new cast of characters to guerrilla studies. Students interested in those subjects, as well as Native American involvement in the war, will find much of interest in Extreme Civil War
Matthew C. Hulbert
Texas A&M University-Kingsville
Hulbert, Matthew C.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Hulbert, Matthew C. "Extreme Civil War: Guerrilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans Mississippi Frontier." Journal of Southern History, vol. 83, no. 2, 2017, p. 434+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA495476238&it=r&asid=e71b21b8f69a91df4bf27395ed2efa9b. Accessed 23 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495476238
Stith, Matthew M.: Extreme Civil War: guerrilla warfare, environment, and race on the trans-Mississippi frontier
W.H. Mulligan, Jr.
54.3 (Nov. 2016): p441.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Stith, Matthew M. Extreme Civil War: guerrilla warfare, environment, and race on the trans-Mississippi frontier. Louisiana State, 2016. 218p bibl index afp ISBN 9780807163146 cloth, $42.50; ISBN 9780807163160 ebook, $42.50
54-1386
E470
2015-42804 CIP
Despite the vast amount written on the Civil War, imaginative scholars find new aspects of the conflict and sources to explore them. Stith (Univ. of Texas at Tyler) takes on several of these topics. The trans-Mississippi, long neglected, was the site of more action than older accounts recognized, and by bringing in the also long-neglected topic of guerrilla warfare, Stith makes an important contribution to understanding the region and enriches understanding of the Civil War. His focus is the borderland where Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Indian Territory met. This was a diverse area where Native Americans and (mostly enslaved) African Americans made up 30 percent of the population. Much of this conflict predated the outbreak of war and was a carry-over from the debate, often violent, over the expansion of slavery into the territories. Stith takes a very broad approach, bringing environmental issues, such as drought and harsh winter weather, into the discussion. While the area studied is small and seemingly on the fringe of the Civil War, the issues Stith raises have much to say about the nature of the conflict between North and South. Summing Up: *** Highly recommended. Most levels/libraries.--W. H. Mulligan Jr., Murray State University
Mulligan, W.H., Jr.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Mulligan, W.H., Jr. "Stith, Matthew M.: Extreme Civil War: guerrilla warfare, environment, and race on the trans-Mississippi frontier." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Nov. 2016, p. 441. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA469640814&it=r&asid=b22a45faea3de430e5a63dfcaa62339d. Accessed 23 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A469640814
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Stith: "EXTREME CIVIL WAR: Guerrilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans-Mississippi Frontier"
[Extreme Civil War: Guerrilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans-Mississippi Frontier by Matthew M. Stith (Louisiana State University Press, 2016). Hardcover, map, photos, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:177/230. ISBN:978-0-8071-6314-6. $42.50]
With the horrific and well documented excesses of the wars of the twentieth century serving as the benchmark for many when describing mankind at its worst, most observers are loath to place the American Civil War in the same category. However, there were pockets of Civil War conflict that did approach what some might call "total war," and one such area is examined in historian Matthew Stith's Extreme Civil War. Instead of once again revisiting the bloody lower Kansas-Missouri border, Stith's study shifts the nexus of people and events southward in a fresher direction to encompass not only those sections of Kansas and Missouri but also large swaths of NE Indian Territory and NW Arkansas. If ever there was a true Civil War "no man's land", one with a near complete breakdown of society, commerce, law, and order within its boundaries, it was this rugged and largely underdeveloped borderland shared by Kansas, Missouri, Indian Territory and Arkansas.
In Extreme Civil War: Guerrilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans-Mississippi Frontier, Stith traces the near absolute disintegration of a frontier border society only recently placed on the road to prosperity. Railroads were still absent from the region in 1860, but white settlements and some industrial developments (like the lead mines at Granby) were prospering and tribes traumatically resettled to the Indian Territory (like the relatively populous Cherokee) were regaining their footing. As the book amply shows, the war dramatically halted this shared growth and progress, changing all of it for the worse.
As Daniel Sutherland and Clay Mountcastle persuasively demonstrated in their recent breakthrough studies of the irregular Civil War, Stith reveals that all the elements of what would come to be known as "hard war," including the targeting of civilians, were present on the Trans-Mississippi's western border from the conflict's earliest moments. Although the regular forces of both sides traversed the area on an infrequent basis (and Union garrisons permanently occupied key points), the guerrilla war was the war for the vast majority of the civilian population, one often characterized by daily terrors. As Stith notes, attacks by southern sympathizing guerrillas only encouraged harsher and more indiscriminate Union measures aimed at controlling the population and eradicating bushwhackers. Sutherland's view (in A Savage Conflict) of guerrilla warfare as generally counterproductive to Confederate national interests (in a military sense as well as in alienating the civilian population) is well borne out by Stith's research regarding this particular region. Routinely engaging in the same brand of murder, arson, and robbery, the Union occupiers did not enhance their own case as upholders of social justice and order. In exploring this widespread terrorization of non-combatants, Stith reaches deep into the archives, with every facet of his book enriched by firsthand accounts written by soldiers and civilians from both sides. Some are penned by figures familiar to students of the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi but many are not.
By the war's midpoint, society at the western edge of Trans-Mississippi settlement had devolved into the kind of nihilistic free-for-all that Michael Fellman described so vividly in Inside War, his classic study of Missouri's guerrilla conflict. A natural response to this scale of human disaster is to flee, and Stith's book also documents well the refugee crisis (white, black, and Indian) that engulfed the region, one that depopulated entire areas and often overpowered the civilian aid resources of Union military authorities. In terms of death, desolation, and displacement, Stith's study reinforces arguments put forth by previous scholars (most recently by Clarissa Confer, Mary Jane Warde, and others) that the tribes residing in Indian Territory suffered more than any other segment of American society from the ravages of the Civil War, ironically a conflict none of them wanted in the first place.
The war's connection with the environment, both in terms of the natural surroundings and attempts by both sides to alter (or take advantage of) existing terrain, is another important theme of Extreme Civil War. Bruce Nichols's colossal four-volume history of Missouri's guerrilla conflict perhaps best illustrates the seasonal nature of that mode of warfare in the state, and Stith's findings clearly suggest that the phenomenon held true in other parts of the Trans-Mississippi. With refugees of all races pouring into Union safe havens in Kansas and elsewhere, depopulation meant an explosion of the feral hog population and the return of wildlife, ironically increasing the available food supply for foraging soldiers and guerrillas. As part of their counterguerrilla strategy, Union soldiers and militia also set fire to forest land in an unsuccessful attempt to rob enemy bushwhackers of their cover. Non-combatants sought to alter their surroundings, as well. As an act of self-preservation, pro-Union civilians who wished to remain in the region sometimes banded together into fortified farm colonies, their stockade defenses and armed guards deterring both bushwhackers and less discriminant Union army foragers seeking easy targets for supplies and plunder. Weather also played a role in how the irregular war was fought. The winter of 1863-64 was the coldest in two decades and an extended drought meant that supply ships could not reach Union garrisons situated along the upper reaches of the Arkansas River. Coinciding with the period when the guerrilla conflict was at its worst, these factors severely limited the distance Union military expeditions could operate from their bases and also meant the needs of suffering refugees could not be met.
Was this frontier indeed where the Civil War was at its most "extreme"? With the region's civilian population already living a precarious existence before being targeted by the armed supporters of both sides and subjected to daily terrors (including the very real threats of murder, torture, robbery, and arson) that only increased in frequency as the war progressed, one is hard pressed to imagine a worse situation for non-combatants. While certainly a more rare occurrence, even women could not escape the worst of fates in this lawless frontier. From the evidence provided in Stith's book, an argument can certainly be made that all of this, combined with an unforgiving environment, did indeed create the Civil War's closest approximation to a "total war."
In recent years, there's been an explosion of scholarly interest in contested Civil War borderlands, especially involving areas touching Missouri, Kentucky, and (West)ern Virginia. By directing its own focus much more to the west, to a Trans-Mississippi frontier that encompassed Indian Territory and the bleeding edge of the harshest brand of hard war experienced by both sides, Extreme Civil War considerably expands the geographical area under consideration by border war scholars and enhances our understanding of just how frightening and deadly the war could be for civilians The book also succeeds in making meaningful connections with newer branches of study (like environmental history). For all the reasons stated above, Extreme Civil War is highly recommended reading.
Extreme Civil War
Guerilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans-Mississippi Frontier
Matthew M. Stith
Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 2016, 232 pages
Book Review published on: August 11, 2017
A few years ago, I wrote a review on a book in which the author’s thesis was that the level of violence in the U.S. Civil War was limited and restrained, primarily because the vast majority of combat engagements were “white on white” conflicts that lacked elements of racial animosity. That author chose, however, to ignore the Shenandoah Valley Campaign and Sherman’s march from Atlanta to the sea, thereby, excluding the vast majority of contradictory evidence and perpetuating enormous researcher bias. Matthew M. Stith makes no such mistake in Extreme Civil War. His examination of the events in the Trans-Mississippi region, defined as the areas of western Missouri and Arkansas, and eastern Kansas and Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) is well balanced, thoroughly researched, and convincing. The book’s thesis is that the region, although the site of few major conventional battles, was ravaged by constant guerilla and counterguerilla conflict. This protracted conflict produced often random and senseless retribution upon civilians by Union and secessionist regulars, militias, and sympathizers; neighbor-on-neighbor warfare; and the creation of a huge ungoverned space in which bands of outlaws operated freely, while justifying their actions as contributions to a cause. In this region, the Civil War was not just a military and political war, it was an economic and social war, in which the production of the region, especially foodstuffs, was the prize, but the support of the indigenous civilian population was the center of gravity. The region was complex terrain: topographically, politically, demographically, and sociologically. It was the site of a fracture line between slavers and abolitionists, confederates and unionists, Native Americans, and European settlers.
During the Civil War, in most of the rest of the country, if you were unfortunate enough to live at or near the site of a major battle, the conflict arrived at your doorstep and mayhem reigned for a relatively short period, and then moved on, enabling recovery. There were exceptions, of course, such as Manassas. In the Trans-Mississippi region near the Ozark Plateau, the war never moved on, even after the major battles at Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove. Although the Union established nominal dominance in the region, it never established control.
In the absence of a restraining hand provided by lawful, legitimate government, the region became an extremely dangerous place, not only for military forces, but also for civilians. The region remained contested, in every meaning of the word, with conflict between Union regular forces and Confederate guerillas, militias of every stripe, and civilian settlers attempting to survive the predations of foragers, militias, outlaws, and the environment. Civilians in the area did not simply observe or experience a battle and recover in the aftermath; they experienced four long years of devastation from the conflict. Men who had not enlisted or been conscripted were executed in the doorways of their homes for being sympathizers—one way or another, depending on the sympathies of whoever rode up. Jealous or envious neighbors used the chaos as a cover to inflict retribution for other neighbors’ offenses, real or imagined. The region experienced depopulation as civilians fled the chaotic, unpredictable violence, reluctantly abandoning years of effort to establish their homesteads. Women defended their husbands, hiding them from assassins and bloodthirsty outlaws. Women also became the defenders of the homesteads where the men were absent, either because they were fighting with forces elsewhere or had become casualties of the war.
Stith’s work, as part of the Louisiana State University Press series, “Conflicting Worlds; New Dimension of the American Civil War,” is a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge surrounding the Civil War. It is also a worthwhile study for any student of warfare in general. As students of military history, we tend to focus on the strategy and tactics surrounding the great battles and the great leaders of those battles. We have a tendency to neglect the relatively minor players and regions, while virtually ignoring the civilians caught up in the conflict. Stith closes much of that gap with his examination of this extremely hostile and dangerous environment, where the threat to civilians was arguably greater over time than the threat to military forces in the region. Readers may note similarities to the experiences of civilians and Union forces in the Trans-Mississippi region, and those encountered in Vietnam, in Northern Ireland, and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This book is also a cautionary tale for those who hold the belief that war is manageable, that it is predictably neat, clean, precise, and largely bloodless. Conflict has a way of spinning out of control, especially around the edges. It can, and does, escalate in unpredictable ways, often entangling civilian populations in protracted violence that is even more devastating than major battles. Because of its protracted nature, guerilla warfare can be especially devastating to civilians, as was the case in the Trans-Mississippi region during the Civil War. Stith has done a great service by shining a light in a dark, neglected corner.
Book Review written by: Thomas E. Ward II, PhD, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas