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Rivers of Conflict
Frontier America, River Towns, and the Road to Civil War
The Ohio, Wabash, Mississippi Rivers shaped the early frontier of the American Midwest long before the first shots of the Civil War were fired. These waterways carried settlers, soldiers, merchants, and enslaved people westward while also becoming dividing lines between free and slave states. Along their banks, small river towns grew into important centers of trade, politics, transportation, and conflict.
Rivers of Conflict is an ongoing historical series exploring the people, places, and events that helped shape the Western Frontier and the Western Theater of the Civil War. Through local history research, battlefield stories, historic towns, forgotten events, and firsthand visits to many of these locations, we trace how frontier expansion and political division transformed the Midwest during the years leading up to the Civil War and beyond.
Many of these stories are connected to places we have personally visited throughout Southern Indiana, Southern Illinois, and the Ohio River Valley. As the series grows, new chapters and locations will continue to be added.
Series Chapters
Civil War
Chapter 1 — The Road to Civil War
During the decades before the war, political division, economic change, and sectional conflict increased across the Midwest and the Ohio River Valley.
Topics in this chapter include:
Follow the Rivers of Conflict Series
The stories of the Ohio River Valley and the western frontier continue to unfold as we research historic towns, forgotten events, Civil War sites, and river communities connected to the changing history of the Midwest.
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