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Title: The Union Volunteer
Description: Patriotic print created by the Currier & Ives Lithography Company in 1861, following the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter and President Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion.
Object Type: Image

Title: Election Results, 1860
Description: This document lists the results of an August 1860 election in Missouri. It shows Claiborne Fox Jackson receiving a large majority of the votes in the election for Governor. It also shows the results of elections for Congressman, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, Attorney General, and several other positions.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: August 1860

Title: From Elizabeth Peery to George F. Peery
Description: On January 1, 1856, Elizabeth Peery writes a letter from Edinburgh, Missouri to George F. Peery. Elizabeth describes local festivities for the Christmas holiday, including a large party held by slaves. She reports that friends and family in the area are well, and recounts some of their recent activities. Elizabeth writes that she has a new baby boy, as yet unnamed; she asks George to suggest a name.
Date: January 1, 1856

Title: From John Ordway to Dear Friend
Description: This letter, dated January 19, 1856, was written by John Ordway in Roxbury, Massachusetts, to a friend, presumably in Missouri. John inquires about the progress of the railroads in Missouri, explaining that the newspapers choose to focus on “the Kansas troubles” instead of Missouri’s “internal improvements.” Of political sentiment in Massachusetts, John writes: “The extreme men here are few but an antislavery feeling is universal and the Kansas difficulties have rather tended to give it deeper root.”
Date: January 19, 1856

Title: From William Clarke Quantrill to My Dear Mother
Description: This letter is from William Clarke Quantrill to his mother. Quantrill writes from Stanton, Kansas on January 26, 1860. He acknowledges "the wrongs committed" by the proslavery party, but argues that the abolitionists are "the most lawless set of people." He criticizes their sympathy for John Brown, calling him a murderer and a robber, and declaring that he "should have been hung years ago."
Date: January 26, 1860

Title: 1860 Presidential Election Returns from Mercer County, Missouri
Description: This document presents the election returns from Mercer County, Missouri for the Presidential election held on November 6, 1860: Stephen A. Douglas and Herschel V. Johnson received 682 votes; John Bell and Edward Everett received 491 votes; John C. Breckenridge and Joseph Lane received 169 votes; and Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin received 80 votes. On November 10, R.R. Ballew, Clerk of the Mercer County Court, certified the results.
Object Type: Legal Document
Date: November 10, 1860

Title: Resolutions Presented to the Missouri State Convention
Description: This document includes several resolutions presented to the Missouri State Convention held in Jefferson City, Missouri during February and March 1861. Mr. Linton suggests that “there exists no adequate cause why Missouri should secede from the Union,” while Mr. Hendrick declares that the secession of other states “is unauthorized in law and without adequate cause in fact.” Mr. Orr resolves “that we have the best government in the world and intend to keep it.” The signature of Secretary Samuel A. Lowe attests that the document is a true copy.
Object Type: Government Document

Title: From George M. Beebe to Jefferson Davis
Description: George M. Beebe writes a letter from Doniphan County, Kansas to Jefferson Davis on June 9, 1860. Beebe reacts to the news that Davis and A.G. Brown have "indefinitely postponed" his confirmation as Secretary of Kansas Territory. He defends his status as a Democrat, insisting that accusations of his alliance with the Free State Party are false. He claims that he has fought in favor of slavery and remains committed to the cause.
Date: June 9, 1860

Title: From Edward Fitch to Dear Father
Description: This unsigned May 20, 1858 letter is presumably from Edward Fitch of Lawrence, Kansas to his father in Massachusetts. Fitch criticizes the Lecompton Constitution and the English Bill due to their proslavery stance. He fears that those in the Kansas territory will accept the English Bill since it offers large amount of public lands to Kansas settlers. Though Fitch fears Kansas' entrance into the Union as a slave state, he ends his letter in an optimistic tone, remarking that it would be as impossible to make Kansas into a slave state “as it would be to make Hell out of Heaven.”
Object Type: Letter
Date: May 20, 1858

Title: Another Abolition Outrage
Description: The St. Louis Daily Bulletin printed this article on December 11, 1860, announcing that a party of abolitionists tried to steal forty slaves from Morgan Walker in Independence, Missouri. J.H. McMurray, author of the article, writes: "Walker told them to take the negroes, and commenced shooting. One of the gang fell dead on the steps; one was taken prisoner, and the messenger thought two others were killed."
Object Type: Newspaper Article
Date: December 11, 1860

Title: From Calvin Iserman to Brother William
Description: In this letter of October 3, 1858, Calvin Iserman writes from Independence, Missouri to his brother William. Calvin wants to leave Independence, where non-slaveholders are “counted just nobody at all," and “a poor man, and mechanic is looked upon as no better than a slave.” He declares that “any man East that upholds Slavery…should be made to live in a Slave State all of his life time.” Calvin plans to go to Kansas Territory and “take a look around.”
Object Type: Letter
Date: October 3, 1858

Title: From Edward Fitch to Dear Parents
Description: Edward Fitch writes a letter to his parents from Lawrence, Kansas on May 5, 1861. He tells them that if Missouri secedes, Kansas will have to fight. He asks how people in Massachusetts feel about the war, and expresses hope that the “Yankees” will go to battle with the South and not stop until slavery is eradicated. “War is terrible,” he says, “but sometimes it is necessary for the good of the whole world.”
Date: May 5, 1861

Title: 1860 Presidential Election Returns from Caldwell, Carroll, Chariton, and Clay Counties, Missouri
Description: These are the election returns from Caldwell, Carroll, Chariton, and Clay Counties in Missouri for the Presidential election held on November 6, 1860. In Caldwell County, Bell received 367 votes; Douglas 263 votes; Breckenridge 186 votes; and Lincoln 43 votes. In Carroll County, Douglas received 752 votes; Bell 552 votes; Breckenridge 276 votes; and Lincoln 3 votes. In Clay County, Bell received 1,045 votes; Douglas 528 votes; Breckenridge 305 votes; and Lincoln “Nairy Vote.” The Chariton County document accounts for votes from each electoral precinct in the county, but does not provide a list of votes for the individual candidates.
Object Type: Legal Document
Date: November 7, 1860-November 10, 1860

Title: John R. Boyd Handbill
Description: This handbill, signed by John R. Boyd, urges the citizens of Buchanan County, Missouri to join arms and fight against the “usurping invader, Fremont.” Boyd instructs them to bring their shot guns and rifles to Rock House Prairie, where hundreds of men have set up camp and plan to fight until they achieve freedom, “or be buried beneath the dead bodies of men who would rather die than be slaves.”
Object Type: Leaflet

Title: Dividing the National Map
Description: Satirical illustration parodying the four candidates of the 1860 presidential election. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas tear at the western part of the country, John C. Breckinridge tears at the southern part of the map, while John Bell attempts to glue the map back together with a comically small jar of glue.
Object Type: Image

Title: From James Griffing to Augusta
Description: This April 6, 1855 letter was written by James Griffing in Wakarusa, Kansas, to Augusta. James has been helping some new “pioneer friends” stake a claim and become settled in Kansas Territory, remarking, “You can hardly think how fast the emigration is pouring in from the free states.” James describes a recent episode of election fraud: “armed forces from Missouri came and took possession of the ballot boxes and pretty much carried on the election as they pleased. Their proceedings will only work against them.”
Date: April 6, 1855

Title: Union Pacific Railway Co., Wyandotte, Kansas
Description: Stereograph of the Union Pacific Railway Co. building in present day Kansas City, Kansas. The back of the print states, "Office U. Pacific Railway Co. E. D. Wyandotte, Kansas, 286 miles west of St. Louis, Mo." The Wyandotte Constitutional Convention was most likely held in this building.
Object Type: Image
Date: 1867

Title: From Edward Fitch to Dear Parents
Description: Edward Fitch writes a letter from Lawrence, Kansas to his parents in Massachusetts on February 24, 1856. He says that the Free State Legislature plans to meet next month in Topeka, and that President Pierce has proclaimed them traitors. Fitch predicts that the Missourians will attack Kansas, “but if they try it we shall have a bloody time out here.” He finishes the letter on March 9 and tells his parents that the Legislature met in Topeka, and that no violence occurred.
Date: February 24, 1856-March 9, 1856

Title: From James Griffing to Augusta
Description: This July 9, 1855 letter was written by James Griffing at Ottawa Creek, Kansas, to Augusta. James writes that he is “travelling the rounds of another preacher’s circuit,” currently staying with an Ottawa Indian named “Jones” (possibly “Ottawa Jones”). James criticizes the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Bogus Legislature, and describes an inspiring speech given by Charles Robinson in Lawrence, Kansas on Independence Day.
Date: July 9, 1855

Title: Texas Ordinance of Secession
Description: Photograph of the Texas Ordinance of Secession from February 1, 1861. Image courtesy of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
Object Type: Image
Date: February 1, 1861

Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865

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