Booknotes: Moonlit Mayhem

New Arrival:
• Moonlit Mayhem: Quantrill's Raid of Olathe, Kansas by Jonathan A. Jones (Floating Spark Pub, 2021).

Pro-Confederate guerrilla leader William C. Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas in 1863 is by far the most infamous event of the Missouri-Kansas Border War than extended into the Civil War years. However, it certainly wasn't the only time Quantrill and his men crossed the border. In early September 1862, nearly a year before Lawrence was sacked and a great many of its civilian male inhabitants killed, Quantrill raided Olathe, a Kansas town located southwest of Kansas City and just across the border. With chapters also addressing Border War context at some length, both before and after that September, Jonathan Jones's Moonlit Mayhem: Quantrill's Raid of Olathe, Kansas provides the first book-length account of event.

From the description: "Quantrill's raid is an event that would shape Olathe's history for many years to come. Most locals have little knowledge of this event that so heavily impacted the history of their town. Moonlit Mayhem provides a view of life, on both sides of the border. In addition, short summaries of events before and after the Olathe Raid, give the reader a complete picture of the time and key players on both sides. Moonlit Mayhem is packed with over 100 color images and maps showing the modern locations of historic events."

As noted above, the book is full of visual goodies, including a superabundance of photographs and charts, and there is seemingly a map of some kind (typically historical overlays of modern maps) on nearly every other page. I am well familiar with the Lawrence Raid but don't recall much about the Olathe Raid from prior reading, so I am looking forward to checking this one out.