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Title: From Sumner Corbin to Frank Walker
Description: Sumner Corbin writes a letter from Linn County, Kansas to his friend Frank Walker on March 4, 1862. He tells Walker that many local men have enlisted in the 3rd and 4th Kansas Volunteer Regiments under the command of Col. Montgomery. He adds that a number of them no longer like Montgomery because he refused to commission Charles Jennison. Since then, Corbin says, Jennison became a Brigadier General of another regiment and has “cleaned out all the border counties of Missouri.”
Date: March 4, 1862

Title: Soldier, Eleventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry
Description: This sepia carte de visite, ca. 1861-1865, depicts an unidentified soldier who served in the Eleventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry. The carte de visite was produced by R.H. Kimball & Company of Leavenworth, Kansas. Carte de visites were small photographs that were often used as calling cards and became very popular during the Civil War.
Object Type: Image

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 F.R. Newell to Rev. H.D. Fisher
Description: This letter, dated August 30, 1863, was written by F.R. Newell in St. Louis, to Rev. H.D. Fisher. Newell offers sympathy to Fisher and his family in the wake of Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, Kansas, declaring, “God grant that the raid of Lawrence may be for the healing of the nation, even as his tender compassion alone, can bind up the hearts that are broken!" Newell states that he has plenty to do in St. Louis after the recent arrival of "contrabands."
Date: August 30, 1863

Title: Affidavit of Resolved Fuller
Description: Resolved Fuller of Jefferson County, Kansas swore this affidavit on or around September 20, 1856. He states that he was arrested the previous week by a group of men claiming to be Capt. Miller’s company. The company, Fuller says, also captured a Mr. Newell and his son, demanded information, and threatened to hang them. Fuller claims he was captured that morning by four strangers, held prisoner for a half hour, and then escaped.
Object Type: Legal Document

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 Samuel Ayres to Lyman Langdon
Description: Samuel Ayres writes a letter from Centreville, Linn County, Kansas, to Lyman Langdon on January 7, 1859. The letter includes a copy of a December 30, 1858 article from the Lawrence Republican titled “Who is Responsible?” The article argues that the guerrilla violence in Linn and Bourbon Counties is not the fault of the Free State supporters, as many have argued, but is rather the fault of the proslavery Democrats. The article also explains how Captain Montgomery has tried to defend Free Staters: “his practice has been to warn an offender to leave in a given time . . . If he does not leave at that time, a company of men called ‘jay-hawkers’ goes and takes a part of his property . . . and otherwise frightens him, thus compelling him to leave.” Ayres ends the letter with the news that he has been instructed to put Linn County under martial law.
Date: January 7, 1859

Title: Sara Tappan Lawrence Robinson
Description: Portrait of Sara Robinson taken in 1857. The wife of Dr. Charles Robinson, Sara Robinson was a notable Free-State activist and author of Kansas: Its Interior and Exterior Life.
Object Type: Image
Date: 1857

Title: Correspondence of the Kansas Territory Executive Department
Description: This correspondence, dated January 7, 1858 through April 6, 1858, relates to contracts between the Kansas Territorial government and Charles A. Perry, Findley Patterson, and F.J. Marshall, to construct the capital building at Lecompton, Kansas. Perry, Patterson, and Marshall each claim that they have not been paid for contracted work on the capital building. Patterson’s letter dated March 10, 1858 refers to an upcoming Congressional vote on the "Kansas question."
Date: January 7, 1858-April 6, 1858

Title: From Daniel Woodson to William P. Richardson
Description: This order, dated August 30, 1856, was sent by Acting Kansas Governor Daniel Woodson in Lecompton, Kansas, to Major General William P. Richardson, Kansas Militia, Northern Division. Woodson orders Richardson to occupy the area between Leavenworth and Lawrence to prevent General James Lane’s escape with his forces. Woodson states that he has ordered Major General Coffey, Kansas Militia, Southern Division, to proceed to or near Lawrence.
Date: August 30, 1856

Title: Petition to the Constitutional Convention of Kansas
Description: This is a petition sent to the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention of Kansas in support of equal political rights for Kansas women. The petition, dated 1859, protests against “any Constitutional distinctions based upon sex,” and is signed by Charles Robinson and 14 others. A second copy of the petition from Auburn, Shawnee County, Kansas is signed by 69 men and women.
Object Type: Petition
Date: 1859

Title: William D. Matthews
Description: Sepia carte de visite of William Dominick Matthews, Captain of the First Kansas Colored Volunteers, posing in uniform with cavalry saber.
Object Type: Image

Title: From Daniel Woodson to John Sedgwick
Description: This dispatch, dated July 7, 1856, was sent by Acting Kansas Gov. Daniel Woodson in Lecompton, Kansas, to Major John Sedgwick. Woodson instructs Sedgwick to furnish Deputy Marshal William P. Fain with a small detachment of troops to assist him in issuing writs.
Date: July 7, 1856

Title: John Caldwell Calhoun
Description: John C. Calhoun, President of the Lecompton Constitutional Convention.
Object Type: Image
Date: n.d.

Title: Newell W. Spicer and Friend Dick
Description: This portrait, taken ca. 1861-1865, depicts Newell W. Spicer and his friend Dick. Both served in the First Kansas Volunteer Infantry.
Object Type: Image

Title: John Doy and Rescue Party
Description: Photograph taken by Amon Gilbert DaLee in Lawrence, Kansas Territory in the summer of 1859 depicting Dr. John Doy, his son Charles, and his rescue party, which freed him from the St. Joseph, MO jail on July 23, 1859, where he was being held on charges of abducting slaves.
Object Type: Image
Date: 1859

Title: William Jenkins
Description: This sepia carte de visite depicts Capt. William Jenkins, who served in Company C, Seventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry. The photograph, ca. 1861-1865, was produced by Armstead & White of Corinth, Mississippi.
Object Type: Image

Title: From Elias Stover to William Sayer Blakely
Description: Elias Stover writes a letter from Camp Blair, Kansas on March 25, 1862 to his friend William Sayer Blakely. Three days prior, Stover says, he marched into Missouri along with Maj. Pomeroy and 70 other men from the 2nd Kansas Cavalry Regiment. They ambushed a house where William Quantrill and his men were staying; they killed eight people, took six prisoner, stole horses and arms, and burned down the house, but Quantrill escaped.
Date: March 25, 1862

Title: From John M. Schofield to Thomas Carney
Description: This letter, written on the letterhead of Headquarters, Department of the Missouri and dated August 29, 1863, was sent by John M. Schofield in St. Louis to Kansas Governor Thomas Carney in Topeka, Kansas. Writing in the aftermath of Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, Kansas, Major General Schofield states his hope that President Lincoln will appoint a Court of Inquiry to investigate the raid. Schofield refers to a meeting proposed for September 8, 1863 in Paola, Kansas, in which participants plan to enter Missouri “to recover their stolen property.” Schofield emphasizes the need to preempt this potentially violent meeting.
Date: August 29, 1863

Title: From Florella Brown Adair to Samuel Lyle Adair and Emma Adair
Description: This letter was written by Florella Brown Adair on January 13 and 14, 1861 at Martha’s, to her husband Samuel Lyle Adair and daughter Emma Adair. Florella is glad to hear they received the barrels she sent, but was dismayed that they had to pay additional money for their delivery upon receipt, and that they had been broken open, seemingly on purpose. Florella writes of a man from Douglas County, Kansas who is in a nearby Ohio town collecting money to send home. She says he might collect so much from people they will not have as much to give to Osawatomie, Kansas; she also fears that Lykins County, Kansas will not receive its fair share of relief funds.
Date: January 13, 1861-January 14, 1861

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

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