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 Matthew E. Stanley, Albany State University

The First Sack of Lawrence occurred on May 21, 1856, when proslavery men attacked and looted the antislavery town of Lawrence, Kansas. The assault escalated the violence over slavery in Kansas Territory during a period that became known as “Bleeding Kansas.” The sacking coincided with South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks’s scandalous caning of abolitionist Republican senator Charles Sumner, which had occurred on May 20. The two events were paired and dramatized by the national media, constituting turning point in the lead up to the Civil War.

By Marc Reyes, University of Connecticut

On March 7, 1827, Colonel Henry Leavenworth received his order to proceed “with four companies of his regiment, ascend the Missouri,” and find a point “on its left bank near the mouth of the Little Platte River and within a range of twenty miles above or below its confluence.” From there, Colonel Leavenworth would “select such position as in his judgment is best calculated for the site a permanent cantonment.” After two months of surveying the area, Colonel Leavenworth found what he was looking for: an area located strategically near the Missouri River but not in danger of being flooded by it.

By Deborah Keating, University of Missouri—Kansas City

Kansas was officially opened to white settlers in 1854, and settlers, lured by promises of cheap land and easy wealth, rushed to the area. As settlements grew behind the westward movement of the frontier line, the federal government built roads and forts to accommodate the migration and to protect and assist the travelers along the trails that led southwest to Santa Fe and Denver, and northwest to Salt Lake City and The Dalles in Oregon. Fort Riley, Kansas, built on the Santa Fe Trail near the confluence of the Kansas and Republican Rivers in 1855, was one of those forts.

By William E. Fischer, Jr., Fort Scott National Historic Site

The town of Fort Scott, established in 1855 on the former frontier fort grounds, quickly became embroiled in the debate over slavery. Populated primarily by those favoring the institution, many townspeople participated in “Bleeding Kansas” chicanery with outlying Free-Staters and abolitionists. When the Civil War erupted in 1861, the town was militarized and fortified to defend the state’s vulnerable southern approaches. But Fort Scott’s rich history even pre-dates these events.

By Matthew E. Stanley, Albany State University

The Free-State Party was an antislavery political coalition that was organized in territorial Kansas in 1855 to oppose proslavery Democrats. From 1855 to 1859, party members thwarted the expansion of slavery into Kansas Territory by forcibly resisting proslavery forces on the ground and drafting antislavery legislation in conjunction with the national Republican Party.

By Zach Garrison, University of Cincinnati

John Charles Frémont became a popular national figure after leading a series of expeditions intended to survey the Far West in the 1840s. The newly formed Republican Party chose Frémont, an outspoken critic of slavery, as their first presidential candidate in 1856. During the first year of the Civil War, Frémont fervently and controversially attacked slavery and slaveholders in Missouri, culminating in his declaration of martial law, which directed that the property of any individual acting against the United States would be confiscated, including slaves. The order engendered outrage, causing President Lincoln to overturn it and relieve Frémont of his command.

By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati

When the elected governor and clandestine secessionist Claiborne Fox Jackson and pro-secession legislators were driven from Jefferson City by a federal foray under Nathaniel Lyon, the state's renewed constitutional convention declared the governor’s seat vacant and on August 1, 1861, chose Hamilton R. Gamble as the state’s provisional governor. As a wartime governor, Gamble found himself and his government caught between pressures of loyalty and disloyalty, national and state authority, military and civil imperatives, and unionist factions in his home state.

By Claire Wolnisty, Angelo State University

John Geary declared that Kansas Territory was in “a state of insurrection” when he became its Democratic governor on September 9, 1856. Clashes between proslavery and Free-Soil settlers threatened to tear Kansas apart. Guerrilla forces plundered homesteads, men raided towns, and neighbors slaughtered neighbors. Geary, who was appointed territorial governor by President Franklin Pierce, attempted to bridge Kansas’s proslavery and Free-State factions. He succeeded in pleasing neither.

By Jeremy Neely, Missouri State University

In a controversial attempt to quell guerrilla warfare along the Missouri-Kansas border, Union General Thomas Ewing issued General Order No. 11, exiling several thousand people from their homes in western Missouri. The August 25, 1863, orders required that “all persons” living in Jackson, Cass, Bates, and northern Vernon counties “remove from their present places of residence.”

By Matthew E. Stanley, Albany State University

Willard Preble Hall was a lawyer, Democratic politician, soldier, and crucial figure in Missouri politics during the tumultuous Civil War era. He served as United States congressman, general in the state militia during the Civil War, provisional lieutenant governor between 1861 and 1864, and 17th governor of the state in 1864-65.

By Russell S. Perkins, University of Saint Mary

Henry Wager Halleck was one of the most prominent Union generals in the American Civil War. Though primarily remembered for his bureaucratic leadership, poor handling of troops in the field, and often prickly relationships with subordinate army commanders, Halleck had a first-class mind that affected the course of the Civil War based on his first experience of large-scale command in Missouri.

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

The small skirmish that occurred on October 29, 1862 at Island Mound in Bates County, Missouri, was significant because it marked the first time during the American Civil War that a regiment of African American soldiers saw combat. The 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers who fought at Island Mound were in Kansas service prior to the Emancipation Proclamation’s implementation on January 1, 1863, but not in U.S. service because the Lincoln administration was reluctant to enroll black troops and risk tipping Union slave states, including Missouri, toward the Confederacy.

By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati

Claiborne Fox Jackson, the pro-Confederate governor of Missouri at the outset of the Civil War, was born in rural Fleming County, Kentucky on April 4, 1806. The son of a moderately prosperous tobacco farmer and slaveholder, Jackson received only slight formal education before migrating with three older brothers in 1826 to Franklin, Missouri, where he engaged in business.

By Deborah Keating, University of Missouri – Kansas City

The violence that erupted along the Missouri-Kansas border before the Civil War continued throughout the conflict as Union and Confederate sympathizers waged guerrilla warfare on behalf of their interests. Both sides instigated atrocities against the regular armies and against non-combatants, including women and children. This backdrop of brutality resulted in participants on either side being portrayed as heroes or villains, depending on one’s political perspective, and led to myth-making of a magnitude that is astonishing. Few participants better represent this dichotomy than Frank and Jesse James: they were either guerrillas, robbers, and vengeful murderers or victimized young Robin Hoods, seeking revenge for the atrocities they and their families suffered.

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

Before the start of the Civil War, the name “jayhawkers” applied to bands of robbers, associated with the Kansas Free-Stater cause, who rustled livestock and stole property on both sides of the state line. During this period, a jayhawker could be a hero or a villain, depending on individual circumstances or one’s opinion on the issue of slavery in Kansas Territory. By the time the war ended, however, the term “jayhawkers” became synonymous with Union troops led by abolitionists from Kansas, and "jayhawking" became the generic term for armies plundering and looting from civilian populations nationwide.

By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati

Charles R. Jennison, abolitionist and federal cavalry colonel, was born on June 6, 1834, in Antwerp, in upstate New York’s famed “Burned-Over District,” so named for its fervid evangelical religious revivals that were foundational to Northern antislavery reform. In 1857 he moved his young family to Osawatomie, Kansas, perhaps not coincidentally the home of John Brown, whose by then notorious radical politics Jennison would soon emulate.

By Zach Garrison, University of Cincinnati

In 1854, amid sectional tension over the future of slavery in the Western territories, Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which he believed would serve as a final compromise measure. Through the invocation of popular sovereignty, Douglas’s proposal would allow the citizens of the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, rather than the federal government, to decide whether to permit or prohibit slavery within their borders.

By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati

James Henry Lane, a U.S. congressman, senator, and federal general, was born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, the son of a lawyer and U.S. congressman.

By Kristen Epps, University of Central Arkansas

William Quantrill’s raid on the Free-State town of Lawrence, Kansas (also known as the Lawrence Massacre) was a defining moment in the border conflict. At dawn on August 21, 1863, Quantrill and his guerrillas rode into Lawrence, where they burned much of the town and killed between 160 and 190 men and boys.

By Marc Reyes, University of Connecticut

With language echoing the Declaration of Independence, the future state of Kansas considered the unprecedented measure of extending equal rights of citizenship to black males. Serving as an early example of Brandeisian thinking, wherein states, or in this case a territory, function as “laboratories of democracy,” the delegates who gathered in Leavenworth, Kansas, placed the enfranchisement of black males up for consideration a full decade before the federal government enacted the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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

Samuel D. Lecompte gained fame as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Kansas Territory and a prominent proslavery official during the “Bleeding Kansas” conflict of the 1850s. His association with the expansion of slavery into territorial Kansas was cemented when the town named in his honor—Lecompton—became the capital of the proslavery territorial government.

By Zach Garrison, University of Cincinnati

As Kansas Territory marched toward statehood following the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, its citizens, deeply divided along pro- and antislavery lines, rushed to construct a viable state constitution. Four constitutions were eventually proposed, with the second and most controversial emerging from a territorial convention held in Lecompton in 1857, in which the delegates intended to protect the institution of slavery.

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

The Battle of Lexington, Missouri, fought on September 18-20, 1861, was a victory for the Missouri State Guard (MSG) in the early stages of the Civil War. In the short term, the victory boosted the spirits of Missouri secessionists, but the State Guard failed to leverage any long-term gains from the “Battle of the Hemp Bales,” so called because the MSG used hemp bales to encircle the federal position at Lexington.

By Deborah Keating, University of Missouri – Kansas City

Although Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) led the Union to Civil War victory, his naïveté of the true political climate on the western border caused great turmoil, particularly in Missouri.

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

The Battle of the Little Blue, fought just east of Independence in Jackson County, Missouri, on October 21, 1864, was part of Sterling Price’s “Missouri Expedition” and a prelude to the larger and more decisive Battle of Westport two days later. The Battle of the Little Blue was an attempt by the federal Army of the Border’s vanguard (led by Major General James G. Blunt) to delay the Confederate Army of Missouri (commanded by Major General Sterling Price) until the pursuing Union force of the Department of the Missouri, commanded by Major General Alfred Pleasonton, could hit the rebels from behind. Although the outcome of the Battle of the Little Blue was a tactical Confederate victory, Blunt’s delaying action bought valuable time for Pleasonton to catch up with Price’s rearguard two days later at Westport.

By Sarah Bell, University of Kansas

Julia Lovejoy and her family lived in Kansas Territory during the height of the “Bleeding Kansas” border tensions over the issue of slavery. She was a prolific writer and recorded the violent struggles between the Free-State and proslavery causes in letters she sent to Eastern newspapers. Her detailed descriptions of the events during this time provide important insight on the causes and consequences of the border wars.

By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati

Throughout his career, Union General Nathaniel Lyon exhibited a violent, hair-trigger temper and proved a contentious and nearly unpromotable subordinate, challenging authority at all levels. He is best known for his role in preserving Union control of Missouri in the early parts of the war, a cause for which he gave his life.

By Chris Rein, Combat Studies Institute, Army University

On May 19, 1858, proslavery “border ruffians” led by Charles Hamilton rounded up a number of suspected antislavery men near the town of Trading Post in modern Linn County, Kansas, marched 11 men into a secluded ravine, and opened fire on them, killing five and seriously wounding five others before escaping back across the border into Missouri.

By Russell S. Perkins, University of Saint Mary

John Sappington Marmaduke was born on March 14, 1833, in Saline County, Missouri, into a prominent political family. His father, Meredith Marmaduke, was the eighth governor of the state and a staunch Unionist before and during the Civil War. But it was the political lead of his uncle, a pro-secessionist governor of Missouri, Claiborne Fox Jackson, which Marmaduke followed in the critical opening months of the Civil War.

By Jeremy Prichard, University of Kansas

The New England Emigrant Aid Company (NEEAC) formed in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. That bill declared that eligible voting residents in Kansas Territory would determine whether the future state would allow or prohibit slavery as a requisite for admission to the Union, creating what became known as popular sovereignty. Antislavery Northerners denounced the act because it essentially repealed the Compromise of 1820, which barred slavery in the lands attained from the Louisiana Purchase above the 36°30’ parallel, including the area that would become Kansas.

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

The Battle of Mine Creek, fought on October 25, 1864, was a devastating defeat for Major General Sterling Price’s Confederate Army of Missouri.

By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati

Major General Sterling Price’s unsuccessful cavalry raid of September and October 1864, the largest Confederate cavalry raid of the war, sought to capture St. Louis and recover Missouri for the Confederacy. Price believed the expedition would spur recruiting, contribute to Abraham Lincoln’s defeat in the November presidential election, and perhaps end the war.

By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati

James Montgomery, abolitionist and federal army colonel, was born in Ashtabula County, Ohio, in Ohio’s deeply antislavery Western Reserve, on December 22, 1814. The deeply evangelical Montgomery was soon caught up in the controversy over slavery and popular sovereignty in the newly formed Kansas Territory. An ally of John Brown and Charles Jennison, Montgomery became notorious for antislavery guerrilla warfare along the Missouri-Kansas border.

By Jeremy Prichard, University of Kansas

The New England Emigrant Aid Company (NEEAC) formed in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. That bill declared that eligible voting residents in Kansas Territory would determine whether the future state would allow or prohibit slavery as a requisite for admission to the Union, creating what became known as popular sovereignty. Antislavery Northerners denounced the act because it essentially repealed the Compromise of 1820, which barred slavery in the lands attained from the Louisiana Purchase above the 36°30’ parallel, including the area that would become Kansas.

By Britney Crump, Colorado State University-Pueblo

Growing up in Vermont in the early 19th century, Clarina Howard (Nichols) recognized the need for women’s rights from an early age. Her mother and father taught her values of equality and self-sufficiency that stayed with her throughout her life. In 1828, she attended Timothy Cressy’s Select School in West Townshend, and at the age of 17, she gave her first speech, entitled “Comparative of a Scientific and an Ornamental Education to Females.” While attending school, however, Howard learned the harsh lesson that women in America, no matter how smart or dedicated, were treated as second-class citizens to their male counterparts.

By Jeremy Neely, Missouri State University

In a controversial attempt to quell guerrilla warfare along the Missouri-Kansas border, Union General Thomas Ewing issued General Order No. 11, exiling several thousand people from their homes in western Missouri. The August 25, 1863, orders required that “all persons” living in Jackson, Cass, Bates, and northern Vernon counties “remove from their present places of residence.”

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