Civil War

Title: Examination of John Menefee
Description: This is John Menefee's Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Menefee, a 70-year-old resident of Liberty, Missouri, states that he was born in Kentucky and that he demonstrated his loyalty to the Union during the Civil War by feeding U.S. troops and furnishing them with supplies. The oath, labeled No. 51 in a bound volume, was signed by Menefee in 1866.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: From William H. Doah to Robert M. Stewart
Description: This letter was written on August 16, 1859 by Capt. William H. Doah, Company B, Missouri Militia, in Butler, Missouri, to Missouri Gov. Robert M. Stewart. Doah states that after Kansan William Wright (alias Pickles) was imprisoned for murder and robbery in Vernon County, Missouri, the citizens of that county “were threatened with violence by the outlaws of Kansas.” Doah says that James Montgomery later sent a letter demanding Pickles’ immediate release. Doah writes that he plans to “repel invasion and meet out justice” to the Kansas guerrillas; if Stewart does not approve of this plan, Doah says he will resign as Captain of Company B.
Date: August 16, 1859

Title: Examination of Karl Faller
Description: This is Karl Faller's Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Faller, a 56-year-old resident of Liberty, Missouri, states that he served in the Missouri State Militia during the Civil War. The oath, labeled No. 31 in a bound volume, was signed by Faller in 1866.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: Constitution Hall, Lecompton, Kansas
Description: Photograph of Constitution Hall, site of the Lecompton Constitutional Convention on January 12, 1857. Constitution Hall was built in 1856 and restored in 1991.
Object Type: Image
Date: 1933

Title: Examination of Timothy Noonan
Description: This is Timothy Noonan's 1866 Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Noonan, a 30-year-old native of Ireland, states that he has lived in Missouri for 11 years, and was enrolled by the military authorities as "loyal" in 1862. The oath is No. 232 in a bound volume.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: Andrew H. Reeder
Description: Portrait of Andrew H. Reeder, first governor of the Kansas Territory.
Object Type: Image
Date: n.d.

Title: John Brown Brought Out for Execution
Description: Pencil drawing by Albert Berghaus of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper depicting Abolitionist John Brown being brought out of jail in Charles Town, Virgina, to be executed for his failed raid on Harpers Ferry.
Object Type: Image

Title: From Florella Brown Adair to Samuel Lyle Adair and Emma Adair
Description: This undated letter was written by Florella Brown Adair to her husband Samuel Lyle Adair and daughter Emma Adair. Florella describes her recent trip to Ashtabula, Ohio to visit friends and relatives. She writes of visiting the “great oil county where all seemed to be alive pumping oil from the bowels of the earth…Their are now five hundred wells sunk & most in opperation, they are worked by steam engines & yeald from five to therty barrels of oil in its crude state.”

Title: Examination of James Gates
Description: This is James Gates's Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Gates, a 21-year-old resident of Clay County, Missouri, states that he was born in Kentucky and that he demonstrated his loyalty to the United States Government during the Civil War by staying at home. The oath, labeled No. 75 in a bound volume, was signed by Gates in 1866.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: Memorial to the President of the United States
Description: This 1854 broadside, entitled “Memorial to the President of the United States,” was drafted “on behalf of the settlers upon lands in Kansas Territory, ceded to the United States in July last, by the Delaware Indians.” The memorandum protests against a new treaty between the U.S. government and the Delaware Indians, because it will result in white settlers being driven from Kansas Territory and “will benefit none but speculators.” The document’s authors beg the President to reconsider the treaty.
Object Type: Broadside
Date: 1854

Title: Lydia Maria Francis Child
Description: Silhouette of Lydia Maria Francis Child by Auguste Edouart, 1841. Child published the poem, "The Kansas Emigrants," in the New York Daily Tribune on October 23, 1856, in reponse to the caning of Senator Charles Sumner by Representative Preston Brooks.
Object Type: Image
Date: 1841

Title: From Charles W. Graeff to Robert M. Stewart
Description: This letter, dated July 29, 1858, is from Charles W. Graeff to Missouri Gov. Robert M. Stewart. Graeff reports that he has just arrived in Polk County, Missouri and will soon travel to Jefferson City, Missouri. He tells Stewart that several hundred men are hiding in a place called “Osage rocks” in Kansas Territory. These men, he states, have invaded Missouri, robbed citizens, driven families away from their homes, murdered a man, and injured several others.
Object Type: Letter
Date: July 29, 1858

Title: Examination of William Bailey
Description: This unsigned Oath of Loyalty comes from a bound volume of oaths sworn between 1866-1888 by Clay County, Missouri voters. The document bears the name of William Bailey, a 22-year-old resident of Clay County who was born in Illinois.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: The Arrest of Governor Robinson by Marshall Donaldson
Description: Illustration of the arrest of Governor Charles Robinson by Marshall Donaldson in Lexington, Missouri on May 10, 1856. Charles Robinson, then considered the Kansas Territorial Governor by the Free-Staters' illegitimate Topeka legislature, was arrested for treason in Lexington, Missouri due to his faux "governorship" and his denouncements of the proslavery "Bogus Legislature." He was imprisoned at Lecompton, Kansas before being released on September 10, 1856. He was finally acquitted of the charges of treason on August 20, 1857. This image was originally published in the 1856 publication of "True History of the Kansas Wars" by O. N. Merrill.
Object Type: Image
Date: 1856

Title: Examination of H.C. Everett
Description: This is H.C. Everett's Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Everett, a 39-year-old resident of Clay County, Missouri, states that he obeyed all the laws of the United States during the Civil War, and sympathized with both parties in the War because "I had friends in both." The oath, labeled No. 69 in a bound volume, was signed by Everett on September 29, 1866.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: September 29, 1866

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: Examination of Larkin Bradford
Description: This is Larkin Bradford's 1866 Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Bradford, a 52-year-old Tennessee native, states that he has lived in Missouri for 18 years and manifested his loyalty during the war by "attending to my own business and letting everything else alone." Bradford declares that he cannot recall his feelings about the Federal defeat at Bull Run in 1861, and describes the question as "irrelevant." The oath is No. 179 in a bound volume.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: Petition of Sundry Citizens of Pottawatomie Creek
Description: This petition, dated September 19, 1856, is addressed to Kansas Gov. John W. Geary and is signed by 32 Kansas citizens living near the Pottawatomie, Sugar, and Middle Creeks and the Osage River. The petitioners describe several recent guerrilla attacks in their region, including the Battle of Osawatomie, and ask for Geary to take action. They complain that the attacks, launched by Missourians and “guided by a few desperate men in our midst,” have succeeded in “sacking and burning houses and in robbing and plundering and menacing the lives of our citizens.”
Object Type: Petition
Date: September 19, 1856

Title: From Edward Fitch to Dear Parents
Description: In a May 18, 1856 letter to his parents in Massachusetts, Edward Fitch of Lawrence, Kansas announces that “the blow has been struck, the war has begun.” He reports that two men have been killed near Lawrence and that several, including Governor Robinson, have been captured. He expresses concern that Kansas does not have adequate resources for defense, and he appeals for support: “Tell every one who has the least interest in Kansas that now we want help-–men money and arms.”

Title: Examination of W.H. Ellis
Description: This is W.H. Ellis's Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Ellis, a 35-year-old resident of Clay County, Missouri, states that he was born in Tennessee and that he demonstrated his loyalty to the United States Government during the Civil War by "taking care of my family the best I could." The oath, labeled No. 120 in a bound volume, was signed by Ellis in 1866.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

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

Error message

In collections

Pages

Pages

Object Type

Local Subject

People

Geographic Subject

Owning Organization