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Title: From Samuel R. Ayres to Lyman Langdon
Description: This letter from Samuel R. Ayres to Lyman Langdon is dated January 1, 1863, the day that President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. In his letter, Ayres expresses support for the proclamation, but mentions the possibility of it being revoked and questions whether or not slaves will indeed be set free. Ayres also reports that his two sons are in Gen. Grant’s division of the 7th Kansas Cavalry Regiment and have had to fight nearly every day.
Object Type: Letter
Date: January 1, 1863

Title: From Thomas Ewing to A.O. Runyan and Family
Description: This extract of Special Order No. 64 is addressed to A. O. Runyan and his family in Independence, Missouri. The order, issued from Headquarters, District of the Border in Kansas City, Missouri on August 29, 1863, instructs Runyan's family "to remove from this District within ten days," and forbids them from going to reside in Platte, Clay, Ray, or Carroll counties in Missouri. The order is issued by Brig. Gen. Thomas Ewing and signed by Maj. Preston B. Plumb, Chief of Staff.
Date: August 29, 1863

Title: Examination of John Leonard
Description: This 1866 Oath of Loyalty document bears the name of John Leonard. Leonard, a 34-year-old native of Ireland, states that he has lived in Missouri for 13 years, and served in the Curbstone Militia during the war. He says he is willing to take "about half of" the Oath of Loyalty. When asked which side he was on during the war, he replies, "On the side of the state of Mo." The document is contained in a bound volume.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: Examination of J.J. Armstrong
Description: This is J.J. Armstrong's 1866 Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Armstrong, a 56-year-old Pennsylvania native, states that he has resided in Missouri for 12 years and was enrolled by the military authorities as "loyal" in 1862. The oath is No. 144 in a bound volume.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: Examination of David Thorp
Description: This is David Thorp's 1866 Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Thorp, a 21-year-old Missouri native, states that he was never required to give bond during the war. The oath is No. 239 in a bound volume.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: From Mattie Jane Tate to Cousin Mary
Description: This letter of December 14, 1864, is from Mattie Jane Tate in Jackson County, Missouri, to her cousin Mary. While Mattie’s family was vacating their home under Order No. 11 in September 1863, “some soldiers from Kansas” shot and killed her husband and five others. “I am left with three small children to take care of [and] am not able a great part of my time to take care of myself,” she writes. Blaming the massacre on anti-slavery factions, Mattie declares “I can never have any love for any of that side or stripe again.”
Date: December 14, 1864

Title: From Mary E. Bedford to A.M. Bedford
Description: This letter, dated May 1, 1864, is from Mary E. Bedford in Savannah, Missouri to her husband, Lieut. Alex M. Bedford, at the Officers Prison in Point Lookout, Maryland. Mary updates him on the health of family members and on her tenant’s upkeep of her farm. She reports that two acquaintances who joined the army the previous spring have both recently died. Missouri, she states, “is peaceable . . . and I hope it will remain so.”
Object Type: Letter
Date: May 1, 1864

Title: Examination of William Haverty
Description: This is William Haverty's 1866 Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Haverty, a 27-year-old Pennsylvania native, states that he has resided in Missouri for 2 years and was enrolled by the military authorities as "loyal" in 1862. The oath is No. 156 in a bound volume.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: Oath of Loyalty of Stephen Blanchard
Description: This document establishes that Stephen Blanchard has taken an oath of loyalty to the United States and to the state of Missouri. It declares that Blanchard will support the Constitution and “protect and defend the union of the United States.” The oath is dated October 28, 1867 and is signed by Blanchard, two witnesses, and a clerk of the Holt County Court.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: October 28, 1867

Title: Application of Catharine Richmond
Description: This is Catharine Richmond’s application for compensation from the United States government for the military service of her slave, Basil Hayden. The application, dated November 26, 1866, includes an oath of allegiance to the United States, a statement that Richmond lawfully obtained her slave, and the signatures of two witnesses and a notary public in Marion County, Missouri.
Object Type: Legal Document
Date: November 26, 1866

Title: Examination of Joseph R. Hicks
Description: This is Joseph R. Hicks's 1866 Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Hicks, a native of Virginia, states that he has lived in Missouri for 23 years and served in the Curbstone Militia during the war. The oath is No. 203 in a bound volume.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: From George Collamore to G.L. Stearns
Description: This letter was written on May 2 and 7, 1861 by George Collamore in Leavenworth, Kansas to G.L. Stearns in Boston. Collamore writes that Kansas is under threat of attack from Missouri and the Cherokee and Osage Indians, and that Kansas’s defenses are weak. He reports that Gov. Robinson offered him the position of Quartermaster General of the Kansas Militia, which he temporarily accepted. Collamore asks Stearns to send “thick colored blankets” and other items to Kansas, urging Stearns to keep his activities secret and to be cautious about what he writes in future letters.
Object Type: Letter
Date: May 2, 1861 and May 7, 1861

Title: From H.D. Palmer to Isaac Feback
Description: This letter, dated December 20, 1862, was written by H.D. Palmer in Independence, Missouri, to Isaac Feback. Palmer thanks Feback for his kindness, lamenting that he has few friends left who can rise above “political prejudice” as Feback has done. Palmer says he has done everything “to keep down jayhawking & protect my Union friends,” but has been betrayed by those friends and the militia who took his livestock without proper payment. Palmer notes that the oath of allegiance is meaningless unless it offers government protection for those who take it.
Object Type: Letter
Date: December 20, 1862

Title: Examination of Joseph Simms
Description: This is Joseph Simms's 1866 Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Simms, a 61-year-old Virginia native, states that he has lived in Missouri for 36 years and was enrolled by the military authorities as "loyal" in 1862. The oath is No. 170 in a bound volume.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: Examination of Michael Fraher
Description: This is Michael Fraher's 1866 Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Fraher, a 49-year-old native of Ireland, states that he has resided in Missouri for 16 years, and served in the Curbstone Militia during the war. He also confirms he "did give bond against my consent. I claimed to be loyal." The oath is No. 189 in a bound volume.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1866

Title: Examination of Hugh McGowan
Description: This is Hugh McGowan's Oath of Loyalty to the United States. McGowan describes himself as a 48-year-old resident of Clay County, Missouri who was born in Ireland. He states that he demonstrated his loyalty to the United States Government by "coming to the Court House here with my gun in my hand." The oath, labeled No. 110 in a bound volume, was signed by McGowan on October 6, 1866.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: October 6, 1866

Title: Application of William H.H. Isaacs
Description: This is William H.H. Isaacs’s application for compensation from the United States government for the military service of his slave, Thomas Johnson. The application, dated November 16, 1866, includes an oath of allegiance to the United States, a power of attorney transfer to Isaac C. Dodge, and the signatures of four witnesses, a notary public, and a justice of the peace in Saline County, Missouri.
Object Type: Legal Document
Date: November 16, 1866

Title: Historical Note
Description: This historical note explains that the state of Missouri's second Constitution, adopted at the end of the Civil War, declared that any citizens who had ever "engaged in exciting or carrying on rebellion against the United States" would not be allowed to vote. Any person intending to vote would thus have to swear an "oath of loyalty" to the United States. This note, written by James M. Sandusky in 1916, appears at the front of a bound volume of loyalty oaths given by citizens of Liberty Township in Clay County, Missouri from 1866 to 1868.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1916

Title: Baxter Springs Civil War Monument
Description: Monument commemorating the casualties of Quantrill's attack on Fort Blair in Baxter Springs, Kansas on October 6, 1863.
Object Type: Image
Date: May 31, 1886

Title: From John C. Gage to Dear Friends
Description: This letter, dated September 1, 1862, was written by John C. Gage in Kansas City, Missouri to friends in Pelham, New Hampshire. John states that Confederate forces camped nearby have retreated to Arkansas, leaving the area vulnerable to guerrilla attacks. The biggest threat comes from Jim Lane’s brigade under Jennison, which is “raising and arming negroes in Kansas to plunder good citizens in Missouri.” Of Jennison, John declares, “He ought to be killed and I would esteem it the best act of my life to do it.”
Date: September 1, 1862

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

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