Thank You for your kind welcome to this board. I very much appreciate finding a website that is as serious about finding the truth in our nation's history as I am. My background is very much American mutt--everything from Massachusetts colonial stock to Northwest Territories to Luxembourgh immigrants in the 1850s to Germans from Russia in the 1870s. My Civil War ancestors served in Iowa, Ohio and Wisconsin regiments. I freely and honestly confess to being a Union Man. No matter what differences caused the tragedy of the Civil War, I firmly believe that all of us are much better off today as one united nation--strong and free, and willing to spit in the eye of anyone who would take our freedom from us.

For many years now I have collected biographical information on veterans who resided in Ellis County, Kansas. Some five hundred of these veterans served in the Civil War. The vast majority are Union men, but about a dozen Confederates managed to find their way to Ellis County. Being a veteran myself, I hold every man's service valuable--Union or Confederate. It was a dark time when one had to make a choice of what they believed. My ancestors made their choices and I am proud of them. I cannot, therefore, do anything else but respect the choice made by others to travel a different path.

Most of my research and writing is in post-Civil War American West. But the Civil War shaped the post-war expansion of our nation and created the mythology of the Western Gunfighter. The Union side provided us with J. B. "Wild Bill" Hickok, Jack Bridges and a slew of other notables. But the Confederate side gave us Jesse and Frank James, Ben and Bill Thompson and many others. I cannot write accurately about these men without understanding the single dominent event that shaped their lives: The Civil War. Hence my presence on this board.

Once again, Mr. Russell, I Thank Your for your kind words of welcome.

Jim
JAMES D. DREES