PROGRAM
“Reaping the Whirlwind: The Guerrilla Conflict“ Reaping the Whirlwind: The Guerrilla Conflictin Civil War Missouri”

Popular focus on notorious guerillas has obscured the complexity of Missouri’s civil war within the Civil War. The consequences of the conflict were not limited to those who took up arms. Historian and author William Garrett Piston will focus on the disorder that engulfed Missouri’s social structures, economic systems, and political institutions between 1861 and 1865. Although the war was a great tragedy, it overturned gender and racial norms in ways that produced opportunities for women and African Americans even amid hardship.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. William Garrett Piston is a native of Tennessee who moved to Springfield in 1988 and taught history at Missouri State University until he retired in 2017. He is the author, co-author, and editor of numerous books and articles, most of which focus on the Civil War in Missouri. He has twice been awarded the State Historical Society of Missouri’s Annual Book Award and has been a frequent speaker at professional, educational, and civic venues across the nation. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield Foundation and the Friends of the Missouri State Archives.

Additional Information
If you want to hear more about the prequel to “Reaping the Whirlwind,” Dr. Piston will be speaking on “Sowing the Whirlwind” on Saturday, July 8, 2023 at the Watkins Woolen Mill State Historic Site, 26600 Park Road N., Lawson, MO at 2:00 p.m. He will explore Missouri’s role in the famous compromises of 1820 and 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and the Dred Scott decision of 1857 to examine how and why the Constitution and the American political system were unable to meet the stresses accompanying the expansion of slavery into the West.