Book Review: Peacekeeping on the Plains: Army Operations in Bleeding Kansas

Authors

Samuel Watson, United States Military Academy

Date of this Version

2005

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 25:4 (Fall 2005). Copyright © 2005 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Abstract

In Bleeding Kansas, the u.s. Army was "the key instrument" in "the territorial governor's peacekeeping arsenal." There are many articles on the use of the Regular Army in domestic law enforcement, and a couple of books that treat several different case studies (Durwood Ball's Army Regulars [2001] and my own forthcoming work), but Peacekeeping on the Plains, the only book-length study of a single peacekeeping campaign during the nineteenth century, provides invaluable context and detail. As an Air Force officer, Mullis has brought the tools of today's doctrinal frameworks and language to his analysis, thereby strengthening his work by fostering greater specificity.