Publisher's Synopsis
Massachusetts abolitionist George Henry Hoyt treated the Civil War as a John Brown raid on an epic scale. A young Boston lawyer who briefly represented Old Brown following the Harper's Ferry Affair, Hoyt followed John Brown's son back to Kansas, where he joined the Kansas Seventh Volunteer Cavalry, known contemptuously in Missouri as Jennison's Jayhawkers. While rising from Second Lieutenant at the war's beginning to Brevet Brigadier General at its end, Hoyt consistently treated the Union army as a mere tool for pursuing abolition through direct action. As the chief of the Red Legs - Kansas' most feared and hated irregular outfit - Hoyt used the power of the Union to punish regular Missourians for the evils of slavery.
