Dennis Boman's in-depth and nuanced study of Lincoln's policy on civil liberties in Missouri operates on a number of levels and in a variety of contexts. It surveys in great detail the evolution of a series of acts taken by the President, his field commanders, and unionist civilian authorities to ensure that secessionists did not gain control of the state and make cause with the Confederacy. Lincoln's first initiatives were to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and to establish martial law. The President knew that he walked a very fine line in Missouri. On the one hand, he needed to ensure that Missouri remained neutral; on the other, Lincoln was sensitive to the reality that extreme measures to guarantee that end would inflame and alienate the public and thus vitiate unionist sentiment there. His policies were at once consistent and, without contradiction, evolving. Restrictions on civil liberties, which included but were not limited to censoring the press and limiting freedom of speech (especially among the clergy and political dissenters), were for the most part proportionate to the perceived disunionist threat.

Although guerilla warfare made Lincoln's and his field commanders’ task difficult, state unionist politics made it nearly impossible. Unionists were irreparably divided between Radicals, who wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the war and immediate emancipation in Missouri, and Conservatives, who were more cautious about restriction of civil liberties and favored gradual, compensated emancipation. Radicals asserted that Conservatives were disloyal. Conservatives contended that their opponents (who were sometimes called “Charcoals”) were extremists, threatening the security of the state and the social order of Missourians. The pitched battles between these factions invariably put Lincoln's commanders in Missouri in their crosshairs. Boman argues that Samuel Curtis, who assumed command in 1862, imposed harsher restrictions on civil liberties that alienated and were at variance with Conservative policies, which “were upon a much clearer and realistic comprehension of the values and character of the people of Missouri [and] were calculated to encourage cooperation with the military and an expectation of a soon return to normalcy” (147). Curtis's activities were also in conflict with Lincoln's desire to reduce the federal presence in Missouri and to return the state to civilian control as soon as circumstances permitted. Opposed by the governor, Conservatives, the Missouri congressional delegation, and Attorney General Edward Bates, Curtis was relieved of command in 1863 and replaced by John M. Schofield, who fared little better.

Lincoln advised Schofield to assume a neutral position between the Unionist factions. It proved impossible. Radicals, angered by Curtis's removal, opposed Schofield from the outset of his command. As he would later remember, cooperation between the two factions was impossible, especially given the inflexibility and shifting demands of Radicals. Schofield found himself sympathetic to and in alliance with the Conservatives. So, too, does Boman. Although Missouri Radicals were unyielding in their demands for harsh treatment of those they considered disloyal, in their insistence on immediate emancipation, and eventually in Lincoln's conduct of the war, Boman seems to have internalized the Conservatives’ viewpoint and uses it as the standard to judge Radicals who invoked alternative values and embraced opposing policies. The Radical policy on emancipation did shift and might have been politically disingenuous. Readers might come to the conclusion, however, that the Conservatives’ bill for gradual emancipation, which would have only freed children born after its passage, or a later proposal that provided that slavery be abolished in 1870 but that those slaves over forty years old would remain “servants” for life and those under twelve would not achieve freedman status until the age of twenty-three, were inadequate responses to the immorality of the institution and out of step with Lincoln's shift in war aims from one to preserve the Union to a crusade to end slavery.

The conflicts within Missouri during the war were varied and complex. Although political factionalism was ascendant and constantly dragging the President into Missouri's domestic struggles, tensions between the Union forces and both disloyal guerillas and loyal militiamen made problematic field commanders’ ability to maintain order. Moreover, different sources and levels of governance – civilian and military – blurred lines of authority. Lincoln's secretary John Nicolay put it best. The state, he wrote, was “governed by too many different and conflicting authorities” (235). That Lincoln, his commanders in Missouri, and civilian authorities were able to maintain a semblance of order, avoid a military dictatorship, and keep the state in the Union was nothing short of remarkable. Dennis Boman's ability to weave this complex story into a coherent, revelatory analytical narrative is no less so.