Preview: Fitch & Fitch, “Postmarked: Bleeding Kansas”

Kansans (and Missourians, for that matter) are quick to point out that the Civil War started in that state, and there’s plenty of evidence to support the claim. The internecine character of the conflict out that way makes the history that much more gnarly to study and to follow. Chad Lawhorn, a writer with the Lawrence Journal-World, has gathered and published the letters of Edward and Sarah Fitch, abolitionist residents of Lawrence, in Postmarked: Bleeding Kansas, Letters from the Birthplace of the Civil War. This is a collection of more than 150 letters written from 1855 to 1863, which describe the bitter conflict as well as the day-to-day travails of pioneer life, and culminate with the August, 1863, raid on Lawrence by William Quantrill. All the terror of the raid seems captured in Sarah Fitch’s final letter, a fitting, if horrific, ending to the collection.

Note – This book is essentially a reprint of Yours for Freedom in Kansas, published by the Douglas County Historical Society in 1997.