Caught Between Three Fires

For 11 years, astride the Missouri-Kansas border, Cass County

endured the vortex of our nation's most violent confl ict. Citizens

struggled between three raging fi res, Secessionism, Unionism, and

an undying Border War. Cass County's uncivil war, intimate, cruel, and

total, suffered no man, woman or child to escape loss or injury - their

individual stories weave history's fabric. Violent circumstances forged

leaders who shaped Missouri's political and military history. Caught

Between Three Fires, for the fi rst time, reconstructs a lost history, erased

by total destruction, Order No. 11, and time's purposeful neglect.

Tom Rafi ner, a Jackson County, Missouri native, has Cass County family ties stretching back 160 years. Rafi ner's ancestors lived outside Harrisonville through the Border War and well into the Civil War. He has invested six years pursuing each Cass County family's history and stories. Research has taken him to the National Archives four times. Rafi ner's reputation as a talented and engaging oral historian, and storyteller, rests upon meticulous knowledge of Order No. 11. He holds a BA degree from the University of Missouri - Columbia and an MA from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.