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.