The 116 is the definitive account of the Frontier Guards who defended President Lincoln from a kidnapping and assassination plot in the opening days of the Civil War. The 116 delves into the lives of these 116 men and their charismatic leader--Kansas "free state" advocate and lawyer Jim Lane. It paints a provocative portrait of the "civil war" between Free-State and Pro-Slavery forces that tore Missouri and the Kansas Territory apart in the 1850s and provides a vivid portrayal of the battles pertaining to the protection and abolition of slavery that riled Congress on both a federal and state level, eventually leading to the eruption of war in 1861.
Contents
Prologue -- 1. The White House is turned into barracks -- 2. "The judgment of heaven on a country" -- 3. Bloody Kansas -- 4. Army of the North -- 5. The forty-eighters -- 6. Gold fever -- 7. Lincoln looks west -- 8. The road to the White House -- 9. The Jayhawks -- 10. The "men who stood off an entire army" -- 11. "They would as soon fight the devil as to fight Kansas men" -- 12. The fighting McCooks -- Epilogue -- The 116 timeline -- Appendix I. Author's transcript of the Frontier Guard roll and other proceedings -- Appendix II. Frontier Guard timelines.
