"The history of the border wars on the American frontier, where the fighting was more like a battle than murder, and where the extent of the crimes against law became too large for the law to ever to undertake any settlement, would make a long series of bloody volumes. These wars of the frontier were sometimes political, as the Kansas anti-slavery warfare; or, again, they were fights over townsites, one-armed band against another, and both against the law. Wars over cows, as of the cattlemen against the rustlers and "little fellows," often took on the phase of large armed bodies of men meeting in a bloody encounter; though the bloodiest of these wars are those least known, and the opera bouffe wars those most widely advertised.
The state of Kansas, now so calm and peaceful, is difficult to picture as the scene of general bloodshed; yet wherever you scratch Kansas history you find a fight. No territory of equal size has had so much war over so many different causes. Her story in Indian fighting, gambler fighting, outlaw fighting, townsite fighting, and political fighting is one not approached by any other portion of the West; and if at times it was marked with fanaticism or with sordidness, it was none the less bitter and notable.
The border wars of Kansas and Missouri at the time immediately preceding the Civil War would be famed in song and story, had not the greater conflict between North and South wiped all that out of memory. Even the North was divided over the great question of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Alabama, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia gave a whole or a majority vote for this repeal of the Compromise. Against the repeal were Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Illinois and New Jersey voted a tie vote. Ohio cast four votes for the repeal measure, seventeen against it…"
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Armand
paints "four characterful figures that seem to come directly from a vintage vampire movie..."