t had been many years since I’d last seen John McGee, a childhood friend of my dad’s. My memories were of a tall, slender man who was leisurely dressed during his summertime visit to my parents’ house at Lake Tapawingo so long ago. What I knew about John McGee then was that he was mild-mannered,

he Battle of the Little Blue was once regarded as nothing more than a prologue to the bigger Battle of Westport, the tragic end of Major General Sterling Price’s hope of reclaiming Missouri for the Confederacy. While the battle out west was no doubt greater in terms of troops, it was a daylong series of