Howard,

I concur with most of what you say. Frankly, I don't think anyone on earth is unbiased. I meet a lot of people who think they aren't, however. I imagine Englishmen blanch at our pompous, sanctimonious, and overblown descriptions of the Revolutionary War, fought by a large number of my family living in Raynham Town, Massachusetts,who participated in the local militia. Hitler's ex-officers probably think our histories are inaccurate, too, and they probably are. Napoleon is reputed to have said that "History is a lie agreed upon." And there is truth to his statement. Historians tend to almost codify their interpretations. Russians likely think our histories of World War II are self-serving. So if we can get away from this idea that we are all telling the truth and that everyone else is misguided, and then start thinking in terms of just how much we are all biased, then, there will be far fewer attacks and counterattacks in discussing history. I don't like to argue about history, honestly; I get nothing whatever out of verbally beating someone up. It gives me no enjoyment to counter other people's attacks. But when you are discussing a history, like that of the Border War, where a preponderance of the history written in the last 100 years is not the work of Missourians, but a lot of it is the work of Kansans or Northerners (perhaps 85 percent of my citations in my book are from Northern sources!), then, you need to realize that the Missouri side of the Border War has been neglected, and that possibly there needs to be corrections in the history of our area, even after 150 years, a lot of corrections. Just on the face of it, a considerable amount of outright propaganda terms are used concerning the Border War without acknowledgment of their propaganda nature. Terms like "Border Ruffian," "Bleeding Kansas," "bushwhackers" masquerade as objective terms. In actuality, they are century-old propaganda terms. We never called the Vietcong "Bushwhackers." The term "Border Ruffian" was coined by that master propagandist Horace Greeley himself. The term was never meant to be objective. And Bleeding Kansas: more Missourians died during that era than abolitionists: but that isn't the inference. Yet most, gosh, should I say it, "Northern-biased" historians, parade it out in every book, and expect no one to object to it. When you do, they become incensed (you know, from my perception) and start slinging dirt, but they think it's not dirt, it's just a reflection of their thoughts, which it no doubt is, but these thought are not always objective. Anyway, I've written two articles on the Border War, one of them in History Today, published in London, England, and another, in Journal of the West, a prize-winning article. But I don't intend to write any more on the Border War, so that will probably relieve a lot of people, fearful of what I may say next, because I really only got started, you know. Anyway, Howard, I enjoyed your remarks.

Best,

Don G.