I think also that it is very appropriate to look at both the causes and results of the Civil War. What let up to this terrible failure in the political system and resulted in the justifications of the actions of the nation even now at the present time. In researching the 1853-1863 letters of Margaret and Upton Hays of Westport, Jackson Co., MO I wonder how these hard-working young people, both descendents of early Colonial pioneer families and "American" by their heritage and conviction could have choosen to align themselves with the Confederacy. The letters, beginning in 1861, are traumatic to read. Upton Hays. a wagonmaster and farmer, had been involved in the Border War in some way that I have not been able to determine and by the late 1850's his life was in danger. He was, by all accounts, an honorable man, a very blunt plainspoken native Missourian and a natural leader of men. He led his first wagon train to Santa Fe at the age of 12. He joined the MO State Guards to defend the legally elected Missouri government and he fought in a number of battles during 1861 and early 1862. When Jayhawker raids threatened his home area he formed a company of men from the area to defend the people from the raids. The Hays home was plundered and burned in late 1861 and his company chased the raiders back into Kansas. Except for his service with the MSG there is no evidence that Col. Hays attacked without provocation. He never killed indescrimitately, plundered or conducted himself other than honorably. Several authorities indicate that he was Capt. Quantrill's superior both as a Partisian Ranger and Col. of the 2nd MO Cav., CSA. The only time he took an iniatative action was when he led his men into Westport and "liberated" the Union flag. He was so effective in fighting off the Union plunderers and recruiting men that the Union authorties vowed to kill him. The local people called him the "Robin Hood of Jackson Co.". Many of Upton and Margaret's relatives served with Col. Hays in the MSG, the 2nd and 12 th MO Cav and with Quantrill's guerillas. There were some fierce fighters in that group - Ike and Dick Berry, Dick Yager, Muir's, Scholl's, Boone's - but they were not in the fight for plunder. They were men under attack and responded acordingly. Col. Hays was killed in Aug. 1862 and was buried with the Americah flag which he had sewn into the lining of his coat. He had been reluctant to join the fight, as one historian wrote and he was a loyal American. After Charles Jennison consficated one of his wagon trains and he lost his Government freighting contracts he defended his legally elected government. When he lost his house and farm he lost the ablity to make a living. The Jayhawkers had vowed to kill him so he could not return home as many men did when the MSG was driven out of Missouri. He was unable to get his family out of Jackson Co. as they were watching his wife closely hoping to capture him, and threatening to imprison her, and he had to abandon the plan of taking his family to a farm he had rented in Texas. He had the choice of leaving his family in danger by leaving the area or joining the Confederate Army. It seems likely that he chose the CSA to remain as near to his wife and 4 children as possible.

Even after Col. Hays left the area, and after he was dead, the Jayhawkers and Union forces in Missouri continued to harrass Margaret Hays. She lived in an older house on their farm and the house was burned, everything was plundered or destroyed, the livestock all killed, the fences torn down. Friends and relatives put up a small house for her on the farm and after she was exiled and left in late 1863 they burned that house with the furniture that her friends and relatives had donated. Not long after that they killed her cousin Dick Yager. Margaret was a 2nd cousin of Abraham Lincoln who was also killed as a result of this conflict as were numerous relatives, both soldiers and civillians.

The story of how this young couple got caught in the Civil War in Missouri is not particularly unusual.