Show-Me Atrocities

The guerrilla conflict in Missouri during the Civil War gave rise to an atmosphere of rancor that carried over into the post-war years and often led to violent incidents in the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many other notorious episodes in the state grew not out of gigantic social upheaval like civil war but out of everyday passions like greed, envy, lust, and racial hatred. Most of the incidents chronicled in Show-Me Atrocities are of the latter type. They happened in Missouri, but they could have happened almost anywhere, because the ugly aspects of human nature know no boundaries. Many of the incidents detailed here are not particularly well known, but that makes them no less interesting. Sometimes the obscure stories are the most curious.