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Title: From Morse to Joseph H. Trego
Description: This letter, dated October 28, 1862, is from a soldier named Morse to Lieut. Joseph Trego of the 5th Kansas Cavalry Regiment. Morse says that he was elected to Trego’s position after Trego left the company. He updates Trego on daily life at Camp Vandiver, informing him that Col. Clayton is planning to build barracks and that Lieut. Cox, who had gone AWOL, returned to camp drunk. He also mentions that rebels recently attacked an Illinois regiment and took 70 prisoners.
Date: October 28, 1862

Title: From Mary Savage to Jane Simpson
Description: This is an excerpt from a November 29, 1863 letter that Mary Savage wrote to Jane Simpson about Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence. She describes watching two bushwhackers murder her neighbor: “I can never efface from my memory the look and cry of anguish that he gave as he fell, the blood running in streams from his wounds.” Mary says the bushwhackers also threatened to kill her husband, but she saved his life by convincing them that he was sick and was not a member of the Kansas Militia. She writes that nearly every house in town burned down, but some “heroic” women put out a few of the fires. After the raid, she says, downtown Lawrence was reduced to “a heap of ashes.”
Object Type: Letter
Date: November 29, 1863

Title: From John M. Schofield to Thomas Carney
Description: This letter, written on the letterhead of Headquarters, Department of the Missouri and dated September 3, 1863, was sent by John M. Schofield in Kansas City, Missouri, to Kansas Governor Thomas Carney. Major General Schofield expresses his agreement with Gov. Carney on the necessity of preempting a potentially violent meeting in Paola, Kansas. Schofield states that he will issue an order preventing armed men not in the U.S. service from entering Missouri. He also accepts Carney’s offer of the services of the militia to help avert “any irregular action.”
Date: September 3, 1863

Title: From the Kansas State Central Committee to Philip St. George Cooke
Description: This September 3, 1856 letter is from the Kansas State Central Committee to Lieut. Col. Philip St. George Cooke. The committee members state that Free State supporters have been forced to take up arms to defend themselves against “the inhuman atrocities of organized bands of assassins” from Missouri. They claim that the civil authorities have not helped, and they ask Cooke for protection. The letter is signed by H. Miles Moore, secretary of the committee, as well as W.R. Frost, Morris Hunt, and J. Lawson.
Date: September 3, 1856

Title: From John M. Schofield to Thomas Carney
Description: This letter, dated September 3, 1863, is from Major General John M. Schofield to Kansas Governor Thomas Carney. Schofield thanks Carney for offering the assistance of the Kansas Militia in protecting Lawrence and other border towns from Missouri rebels. Many of Schofield’s troops, he says, have left to fight with the regiments of Generals Grant, Steele, and Blunt. Schofield expresses a desire to avenge Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence, and he hopes that the extra troops will be able to “destroy the guerrilla bands which have so long savaged the border.”
Date: September 3, 1863

Title: William Clarke Quantrill
Description: Portrait of William Clarke Quantrill from the book "Quantrill and the Border Wars" by William Elsey Connelley (1st Ed., 1909).
Object Type: Image

Title: From Z.M. Hadly to Edmund G. Ross
Description: This 1864 telegram was sent by Capt. Z.M. Hadly in Kansas City, Missouri, to Capt. Edmund G. Ross in Lawrence, Kansas. Hadly states that between 150 and 200 guerrillas crossed into Kansas the previous night, heading in the direction of Olathe, Kansas. Hadly reports that 350 cavalry were immediately dispatched from Kansas City to Olathe.
Object Type: Telegram
Date: 1864

Title: From W.W. Thayer to James Montgomery
Description: On April 16, 1861, W.W. Thayer of Boston writes a letter to James Montgomery, encouraging him to mount an insurrection in the South and help liberate the slaves. Thayer argues that an organized slave rebellion could bring a swift end to the war: “a bloody war full of horrors concentrated into a few days or months would be far preferable to one consuming time, money, lives.” He warns Montgomery that the people of the South are brave and that they “will fight to the bitter End.” A note from R.J. Hinton at the bottom of the letter states that James Lane was recently put in command of 1,000 troops in Washington.
Date: April 16, 1861

Title: Quantrill's Flag
Description: Small cotton and wool flag dropped during Quantrill's raid on Olathe on September 7, 1862. The flag resembles the Confederate First National Flag, nicknamed the "Stars and Bars," however, the canton displays either a fist or palmetto tree and "Quant" for Quantrill.
Object Type: Image

Title: From Leigh R. Webber to Mrs. Brown
Description: This letter, dated September 5, 1863 is from Leigh R. Webber in Natchez, Mississippi to Mrs. Brown. Webber claims that in Natchez, "Nearly everybody has protection papers though they are avowed rebels of the deepest dye…It is an unendurable wrong and insult to the Union soldiers and foolish and wicked leniency to traitors for the Government and its generals thus to manage the war." Webber also expresses sadness about Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence: "It exceeds in atrocity our worst fears."
Date: September 5, 1863

Title: Battle of Osawatomie
Description: In this excerpt of a ca. 1856-1861 document, Orville Chester Brown describes the August 30, 1856 Battle of Osawatomie. In the middle of the night, Brown states, John Reid led his men towards Osawatomie. At dawn they marched into the town armed with bayonets, and the men of the town “flew to arms – whilst the women in their night clothes bearing their children in their arms fled to the woods.” Brown's house was burned down in the battle and his son was taken prisoner.
Object Type: Document

Title: From John W. Geary to F.J. Marshall
Description: This dispatch, dated September 16, 1856, was sent by Kansas Gov. John W. Geary in Lecompton, Kansas, to Gen. F.J. Marshall, 1st Division, Northern Kansas Militia. Geary received Marshall’s dispatch about the threatened invasion of Gen. Lane’s troops and his proposal to station regiments of the Kansas Militia along the northern Kansas line. Geary replies that if such an invasion occurs, he will first employ U.S. troops to combat it, and then call upon Kansas Militia troops if necessary.
Date: September 16, 1856

Title: From Abishai Stowell to "Dear Sister"
Description: On September 24, 1863, Abishai Stowell writes from camp in Springfield, Missouri to his sister. Stowell says he has been at home on furlough and that the family is "tolerably well." He reports that there is great excitement in Kansas about William Quantrill: "he burned Lawrence a week ago last Friday & killed about two hundred (200) citizens[.] The people blame Gens. Schofield & Ewing for letting them into Kansas."
Object Type: Letter
Date: September 24, 1863

Title: Tender of Service of Martin White
Description: In this document, created October 5, 1856, a volunteer company of mounted riflemen in Lykins County, Kansas, tenders its service to the Governor of Kansas Territory. The document includes a list of the company’s officers, including Captain Martin White.
Date: October 5, 1856

Title: From John Montgomery and C.H. Withington to John W. Geary
Description: John Montgomery and C.H. Withington write a letter to Kansas Gov. John W. Geary on September 16, 1856. They inform Geary that a group of armed abolitionists belonging to Gen. Lane’s army invaded their settlement in Allen County, robbed stores, destroyed property, and declared that anyone who refused to join them “may expect to meet a bitter fate.” Montgomery and Withington claim that their community has no means of self-defense and they ask Geary for protection.
Date: September 16, 1856

Title: Instructions to Gen. P.F. Smith
Description: This document comprises a series of instructions given by the Secretary of War to Gen. P.F. Smith, Commander of the Department of the West, between February 15, 1856 and September 5, 1856. Smith is instructed to “make every exertion in your power with the force under your orders to preserve the peace and prevent bloodshed.” The Secretary of War empowers Smith to act if armed resistance is made by citizens of any political persuasion. Smith is instructed not to interfere with the activities of the Kansas Militia.
Date: February 15, 1856-September 5, 1856

Title: Kansas Territorial Records
Description: These documents include letters and affidavits documenting election fraud that occurred in Leavenworth, Johnson, Coffey, and Linn Counties in Kansas Territory. Kansas citizens voted on January 4, 1858 to determine the fate of the Lecompton Constitution and to elect state officials. These documents refer to incidents of “enormous fraud” including men voting repeatedly under false names, falsifying poll books, and destroying ballot boxes “by violence and force.”
Object Type: Government Document
Date: January 5, 1858-March 15, 1858

Title: From Samuel R. Ayres to Lyman Langdon
Description: This letter was written on August 24 and 27, 1863 by Samuel R. Ayres in Moneka, Kansas, to Lyman Langdon. Ayres writes that “along our Missouri border we are subject to almost constant raids from the Bushwhackers over the line who rob our citizens burn their houses and murder prominent men.” Ayres offers a description of Quantrill’s recent raid on Lawrence, Kansas, calling it “an act of barbarity but seldom if ever equaled by the most savage tribes.” Ayres says that he and other local citizens are organizing to defend Mound City, Kansas from guerrilla attacks.
Date: August 24, 1863-August 27, 1863

Title: From Mary Savage to Dear Mother and Sister
Description: Mary Savage writes a letter to her mother and sister on October 10 and 12, 1863, describing Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence. She writes of the “fiendish pleasure” the attackers took in “witnessing the death agonies of our best citizens Murdered in cold blood.” She mentions helping soldiers and taking care of her minister’s family after their house was burned down in the raid. Mary says she fears an imminent guerrilla attack and tells her family, “we live in a state of constant excitement . . . our citizens are all armed . . . but their mode of warfare is so treacherous that we cannot have a fair fight.”
Date: October 10, 1863-October 12, 1863

Title: From Thomas E. Ewing to Thomas Carney
Description: This telegram, dated August 27, 1863 was sent by Brig. Gen. Thomas E. Ewing in Kansas City, Missouri, to Kansas Gov. Thomas Carney. Ewing writes: “I ask you to use your influence & authority to prevent any expedition of citizens or militia organizing in Leavenworth for a Raid into Missouri.”
Object Type: Telegram
Date: August 27, 1863

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

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