Worse, despite the ongoing peace negotiations, both North and South “sponsor” partisan guerrillas in the region. These vicious outlaws have been known to put entire towns to the torch, killing every man, woman, and child in the area.

The most notorious of these ne’er-do-wells are Quantrill’s Raiders, led by “Bloody” Bill Quantrill, and the James Gang. Ostensibly a Confederate guerrilla, Quantrill is so bloodthirsty he’s reviled and feared throughout Kansas, regardless of which flag a body salutes. Not even women and children are safe from the depredations of this fiend. On the other hand, opinion on the James Gang is split. The James boys are famed for their hatred of anything north of the Mason-Dixon line, and many die-hard rebs hold them up as folk heroes. On the other hand, more sensible rebs—and just about any Union sympathiser you care to name—revile them.

Dodge City