Civil War General and Indian Fighter James M. Williams: Leader of the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry and the 8th U.S. Cavalry.(Book review)

Williams is known primarily to historians of the trans-Mississippi theater because of his role as colonel of the First Kansas Colored Infantry, a regiment made up mostly of runaway slaves from Missouri and one of the first African American units to experience combat. Lull attempts to fill in the gaps, but these efforts are not always satisfying. Since there are few primary accounts that relate directly to Williams, the narrative drifts at times with the inclusion of irrelevant data, such as a lengthy passage about a skirmish that Williams did not even participate in at Second Cabin Creek.