A Book by Chris Tabor

For my trip to the Battle of Island Mound Historic Site, I wanted to find something to read about the battle itself, but found that easier said than done. Thankfully I found a Missouri-based storefront for a museum I have yet to attend (so far) That has TONS of localized Civil War books, and this was on there. For some Trans-Mississippi (West of the River) battles, you will rarely find full-on books about them, many are fairly small and exist merely as footnotes in a lot of cases. I was happy to find this, despite it being a self-published book that you might find at a museum bookstore. The significance of this battle is fairly substantial on one very BIG topic – this was the first battle wherein an African American regiment was allowed fight. As with the historic site itself, I can see this chapter in history becoming more studied in the future as more become aware of it.

“Officially designated as the “Skirmish at Island Mound, Mo.”, the action fought by the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers on October 29th,1862, in Bates County, Missouri, marked the first time that an African-American regiment experienced combat during the Civil War. Written by Chris Tabor.”

While a short book, This has plenty of information here, and it’s a solid alternative to simply reading the Wikipedia page. This is written like a well-researched essay in many ways, so it was cool that the author decided to publish it to fill the hole in book scholarship on the topic. If you can find this, it’s really cheap, and was a great addition for my trip to the sit itself, considering that was fairly brisk on presentation with how new the park is (no visitor’s center currently). This is my no means a GREAT Civil war book, but it’s adequate for what it is, and I’m glad I found it.

This review is part of my 2021 series History Boy Summer, which you can read more of following this LINK. If you would like a copy of this book check HERE.