1 (2) | A (4) | B (20) | C (4) | D (2) | E (1) | F (9) | G (3) | H (2) | I (1) | J (4) | K (1) | L (10) | M (6) | N (2) | O (3) | P (9) | Q (3) | R (5) | S (10) | T (3) | U (2) | W (6)

By Tony R. Mullis, U. S. Army Command and General Staff College

With a minimal level of actual violence, the Wakarusa War was not a war by traditional definitions - or even a battle. But it did threaten the outbreak of violence and reflect the growing political tensions that would lead to Kansas Territory being known as "Bleeding Kansas."

By John Horner, Kansas City Public Library

In 1855 members of the Wattles family first settled in Kansas in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed territorial settlers to elect legislatures that would determine whether the territory would enter the Union as a free or slave state. The Wattles family came to Kansas with intentions of swaying these referendums toward the Free-State cause. Once they arrived, the family participated in Free-State Party politics, helped found the town of Moneka, edited an antislavery newspaper, connected with the radical abolitionist John Brown, and even advocated with some degree of success for women’s suffrage in Kansas.

By Terry Beckenbaugh, U. S. Air Force Command and Staff College

As the war turned against the Confederacy in late 1864, Confederate Major General Sterling Price led his cavalry forces on an epic raid into Missouri, hoping to install secessionist Thomas Reynolds as state governor in Jefferson City and to establish the Confederate state government’s legitimacy. Presumably, the loss of a border state would impede President Lincoln’s chances for reelection the following month and give the Confederacy an opportunity to negotiate a peaceful settlement.

By Ian Spurgeon, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Washington, D.C.

The Battle of Wilson’s Creek on August 10, 1861, was the first major engagement of the Civil War west of the Mississippi River. It pitted a smaller but aggressive Union army against a numerically superior force of Confederate soldiers and pro-secessionist Missouri State Guard for the future of Missouri. Despite surprising the Confederates that morning, the federals withdrew by mid-day in the face of repeated Southern counterattacks. The Southern victory bolstered Confederate sentiment in Missouri and set the stage for a bold campaign in September by the Missouri State Guard against federal forces further to the north.

By Matthew E. Stanley, University of Cincinnati

Daniel Woodson was a proslavery newspaper editor, secretary of Kansas Territory, and a five-time acting territorial governor of Kansas during the late 1850s.

By Tony O’ Bryan, University of Missouri—Kansas City

The Wyandotte Constitution was the fourth and final proposed Kansas constitution following the failed attempts of the Topeka, Lecompton, and Leavenworth conventions to create a state constitution that would pass Congress and be signed as a bill by the president. For its time, the constitution expressed progressive ideas of liberty by explicitly prohibiting slavery, granting a homestead exemption to protect settlers from bankruptcy, and offering limited suffrage to women. When the lame duck President James Buchanan signed the bill approving the Wyandotte Constitution on January 29, 1861, Kansas was admitted to the Union as the 34th state, and it marked the end of five years of bitter conflict over slavery in Kansas Territory.