Sir:
You say:
"Just because one belongs to the "elite" doesn't provide that same elite the rationalization or excuse to commit crimes. It would be one thing if all members of that social class and economic standing behaved in similiar fashion, but they didn't-most notably General Shelby. Also, during the early part of the Civil War, officers were elected and thus were chosen primarily because they were the biggest names in the community-this does not necessarily translate into military competence"

I don't understand how you can equate Shelby with ordinary guerrilas and expect ordinary guerrillas to act like Shelby. With the search and destroy policy implemented by the Union Army over a three year and more period, where guerrillas were executed on capture, why would such guerrilas, pyscholgically, have that much in common with Shelby or act like Shelby? They didn't of course, and like some of our troops in Iraq and in Vietnam, they began to suffer posttraumatic stress disorder, some of them went berserk, like Anderson and became extremely violent. Your attempt to explain the guerrillas by comparing them with regular soldiers would only have validity if the same soldiers you refer to had the same experiences as the guerrilas you refer to, which they didn't. Your attempt to provide a simplistic explanation for the guerrillas, that they are thugs in your book, doesn't explain the reality of the Border War. It doesn't explain how elite young men ALL became violent men. You have no real explanation for the Missouri guerrillas at all but a simplistic one based on little understanding of fighting men and the effects of great stress.

Don Gilmore