xBy Andy Ostmeyer

aostmeyer@joplinglobe.com

Kansas author Robert Collins latched on to two political and military figures whose roles during the Civil War reverberated throughout the Four-State Area. The men, like some of the battles in which they fought, have been part of the overlooked Civil War, said Collins.

Collins will be in Joplin and Baxter Springs and Pittsburg, Kan., this week to discuss the latest book, “Jim Lane: Scoundrel, Statesman, Kansan.”

Lane, a veteran of the Mexican-American War, was one of Kansas’ first two U.S. Senators. Lane also served as a Union commander during the war and led some 600 troops from the Kansas Calvary Brigade during an engagement with former Missouri governor and Maj. Gen. Sterling Price on Sept. 2, 1861.

Known as the Battle of Big Dry Wood Creek, and also as the Battle of the Mules, that Vernon County fight was nothing more than an “indecisive skirmish,” said Collins, who describes himself as a professional author from Andover, Kan.

Collins’ previous book, “General James G. Blunt, Tarnished Glory,” followed the life of another Kansas Civil War general who led union troops at Newtonia, Prairie Grove, Ark., and Honey Springs, Okla.

Like Blunt, Lane was active in the heated pre-war politics along the Missouri-Kansas border, supporting the free-state movement. Lane also led troops during the sacking and burning of Osceola in 1861, in which a dozen or so residents were killed, said Collins.

Lane also helped raise one of the first black regiments during the war, and for all these reasons made William Quantrill’s shortlist when the latter man sacked and burned Lawrence, Kan., in 1863. Lane lived just west of Lawrence at that time.

“His first impulse was to fight it out with them, but his wife persuaded him to leave,” Collins explained.

Lane, who was re-elected to the U.S. Senate in 1864, would die by his own hand two years after the war.

In what Collins characterized as the “history wars” that followed the actual fighting, debate revolved around the question of who saved Kansas from slavery. Lane was viewed as one of the more radical players, like John Brown, said Collins, while Kansas’ first Gov. Charles Robinson got most of the credit.

“That’s starting to turn,” said Collins.