Kansas in the American Civil War

Union states in the American Civil War

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At the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, Kansas was the newest U.S. state, admitted just months earlier in January. The state had formally rejected slavery by popular vote and vowed to fight on the side of the Union, though ideological divisions with neighboring Missouri, a slave state, had led to violent conflict in previous years and persisted for the duration of the war.

While Kansas was a rural frontier state, distant from the major theaters of war, and its Unionist government was never seriously threatened by Confederate military forces, several engagements did occur within its borders, as well as countless raids and skirmishes between local irregulars, including the Lawrence Massacre by pro-Confederate guerrillas under William Quantrill in August 1863. Later the state witnessed the defeat of Confederate General Sterling Price by Union General Alfred Pleasonton at the Battle of Mine Creek, the second-largest cavalry action of the war. Additionally, some of the Union's first Black regiments would form in the state of Kansas. These contributions would inform the complicated race relations in the state during the reconstruction era (1865–1877).

The decision of how Kansas would enter the Union was a pivotal one that forced the entire country to confront the political and social turmoil generated by the question of abolition and contributed to the strong division in sentiment that eventually erupted into war. The early violence there presaged the coming national conflict, and throughout the war, Kansas remained a staunchly loyal Union stronghold at the western edge of a border region otherwise populated by uneven governments and mixed sympathies.

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Today when people complain about the state of American politics, they often mention the dominance of the Democratic and Republican Parties, or the sharp split between red and blue states. But while it may seem like both of these things have been around forever, the situation looked quite different in 1850, with the Republican Party not yet existing, and support for the dominant Democrats and Whigs cutting across geographic divides. The collapse of this Second Party System was at the center of increasing regional tensions that would lead to the birth of the Republican Party, the rise of Abraham Lincoln as its leader, and a civil war that would claim over half a million lives. And if this collapse could be blamed on a single event, it would be the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The story starts with the Missouri Compromise of 1820. To balance the number of slave states and free states in the Union, it allowed slavery in the newly admitted state of Missouri, while making it off limits in the remaining federally administered Louisiana Territory. But compromises tend to last only as long as they're convenient, and by the early 1850s, a tenacious Democratic Senator from Illionis named Stephen A. Douglas found its terms very inconvenient. As an advocate of western expansion, he promoted constructing a transcontinental railroad across the Northern Plains with an eastern terminus in Chicago, where he happened to own real estate. For his proposal to succeed, Douglas felt that the territories through which the railroad passed, would have to be formally organized, which required the support of Southern politicians. He was also a believer in popular sovereignty, arguing that the status of slavery in a territory should be decided by its residents rather than Congress. So Douglas introduced a bill designed to kill two birds with one stone. It would divide the large chunk of incorporated land into two new organized territories: Nebraska and Kansas, each of which would be open to slavery if the population voted to allow it. While Douglas and his Southern supporters tried to frame the bill as protecting the political rights of settlers, horrified Northerners recognized it as repealing the 34-year-old Missouri Compromise and feared that its supporters' ultimate goal was to extend slavery to the entire nation. Congress was able to pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act, but at the huge cost of bitterly dividing the nation, with 91% of the opposition coming from Northerners. In the House of Representatives, politicians traded insults and brandished weapons until a Sargent at Arms restored order. President Pierce signed the bill into law amidst a storm of protest, while Georgia's Alexander Stephens, future Confederate Vice President, hailed the Act's passage as, "Glory enough for one day." The New York Tribune reported, "The unanimous sentiment of the North is indignant resistance." Douglas even admitted that he could travel from Washington D.C. to Chicago by the light of his own burning effigies. The political consequences of the Kansas-Nebraska Act were stunning. Previously, both Whigs and Democrats had included Northern and Southern lawmakers united around various issues, but now slavery became a dividing factor that could not be ignored. Congressmen from both parties spoke out against the act, including an Illinois Whig named Abraham Lincoln, denouncing "the monstrous injustice of slavery" in an 1854 speech. By this time the Whigs had all but ceased to exist, irreparably split between their Northern and Southern factions. In the same year, the new Republican Party was founded by the anti-slavery elements from both existing parties. Although Lincoln still ran for Senate as a Whig in 1854, he was an early supporter of the new party, and helped to recruit others to its cause. Meanwhile the Democratic Party was shaken when events in the newly formed Kansas Territory revealed the violent consequences of popular sovereignty. Advertisements appeared across the North imploring people to emigrate to Kansas to stem the advance of slavery. The South answered with Border Ruffians, pro-slavery Missourians who crossed state lines to vote in fraudulent elections and raid anti-slavery settlements. One northern abolitionist, John Brown, became notorious following the Pottawatomie Massacre of 1856 when he and his sons hacked to death five pro-slavery farmers with broad swords. In the end, more than 50 people died in Bleeding Kansas. While nominally still a national party, Douglas's Democrats were increasingly divided along sectional lines, and many Northern members left to join the Republicans. Abraham Lincoln finally took up the Republican Party banner in 1856 and never looked back. That year, John C. Fremont, the first Republican presidential candidate, lost to Democrat, James Buchanan, but garnered 33% of the popular vote all from Northern states. Two years later, Lincoln challenged Douglas for his Illinois Senate seat, and although he lost that contest, it elevated his status among Republicans. Lincoln would finally be vindicated in 1860, when he was elected President of the United States, defeating in his own home state, a certain Northern Democrat, who was finally undone by the disastrous aftermath of the law he had masterminded. Americans today continue to debate whether the Civil War was inevitable, but there is no doubt that the Kansas-Nebraska Act made the ghastly conflict much more likely. And for that reason, it should be remembered as one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in American history.

Background

After the Territory of Kansas approved the anti-slavery Wyandotte Constitution, it was admitted to the Union on January 29, 1861, in the midst of the national secession crisis: six states had already seceded, and five more would follow in the coming months. The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 had rescinded the former Missouri Compromise and permitted the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to determine whether they would enter the Union as slave or free states by popular sovereignty. Violence between pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups began almost immediately. The conflict was especially bloody along the Kansas–Missouri border, where Missouri Border Ruffians and Kansas Free-Staters formed bands of partisan rangers to raid and pillage opposition strongholds, earning it the name "Bleeding Kansas". The Free-Staters included abolitionist John Brown, who in 1856 led a small militia with the goal to massacre five pro-slavery settlers in the territory. Upon hearing this news, Abraham Lincoln commented “We have a means provided for the expression of our belief in regard to Slavery—it is through the ballot box—the peaceful method provided by the Constitution.”^[1] Kansas' popular vote eventually chose against slavery, so Kansas would fight with the North.

As the local military organizations had fallen into disuse, the state's government had no well-organized militia, no arms, accouterments or supplies, nothing with which to meet Union Army demands except the united will of officials and citizens.

Military units

The first Kansas regiment was called on June 3, 1861, and the seventeenth, the last raised during the Civil War, on July 28, 1864. The entire quota assigned to Kansas was 16,654, and the number raised was 20,097, leaving a surplus of 3,443 to the credit of Kansas. About 1,000 Kansans joined Confederate forces since a number of people from the nation's south had settled in Kansas. There are no statistics on those serving the Confederacy, since some joined guerrilla units. This led to a 19th-century nickname for Kansas: the "Spartan State."

Black Regiments

Further Information: Military history of African Americans in the American Civil War

Kansas was the first state in the Union to enlist free Black men into the military. These units were consisted primarily of Black freedmen who had recently escaped slavery in Missouri and other surrounding slave states. While many were eager to fight, others were forced into enlistment by local authorities in the municipalities, mirroring the draft policies President Lincoln had implemented in 1863.^[3] Black Kansans ended up being enlisted into three regiments, the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment, and the 83rd United States Colored Infantry. The 83rd would fight in Arkansas campaigns against Confederate troops in the area, notably at the Battle of Jenkins' Ferry.^[3]

Lawrence Massacre

The first action in Kansas was not between the rival Union and Confederate armies; it was an 1863 guerrilla raid by pro-slavery "bushwhackers", led by William C. Quantrill, who descended on Lawrence, a center of anti-slavery Unionist sentiment, and proceeded to sack the town, burning numerous buildings and executing about 180 men and boys. As the raiders could be heard shouting "Remember Osceola!", the attack was taken to be a reprisal for an earlier raid by anti-slavery "Jayhawkers" on Osceola, Missouri. Some believed that it was also a response to the recent deaths of some of the raiders' imprisoned womenfolk, when their jailhouse collapsed, perhaps by design, though recent research shows that the collapse was almost certainly accidental.^[4] The massacre outraged the Confederate government, which had granted recognition to Quantrill under the Partisan Ranger Act, but now withdrew support from irregular forces.

Later engagements

The Battle of Baxter Springs, sometimes called the Baxter Springs Massacre, was a minor battle fought on October 6, 1863, near where the city of Baxter Springs now sits.

On October 25, 1864, a series of three battles occurred, the first two in Linn County, Kansas, with the final in Vernon County, Missouri. The first was the Battle of Marais des Cygnes (also called the "Battle of Trading Post"), the second, a cavalry battle, was the Battle of Mine Creek, a significant battle between mounted cavalry for Confederate forces and several brigades of Union cavalry that were pursuing General Price. They were between Major General Sterling Price, leading the Missouri expedition, against Union forces under Major General Alfred Pleasonton. Price, after going south from Kansas City, was initially met by Pleasonton at Marais des Cygnes. At the end of the day, the Confederate army as an effective fighting force was decimated and forced to withdraw into Arkansas.

Kansas during Reconstruction

Since Kansas was part of the Union during the Civil War, federal troops were not stationed in Kansas as they were in the former Confederacy during Reconstruction. The perceived radical politics of the state led to many emancipated African Americans to migrate from the south to Kansas. Known as Exodusters, these migrants were received well by some and negatively by others. While Kansas was always a free state, there were still incidents of mob violence and Lynching by white Kansans for alleged crimes against white citizens by Black settlers.^[5] This violence was both condemned by pro-Black newspapers such as The Smokey Hill and the Republican Union, and encouraged by other media outlets run by journalists who were anti-slavery but also anti-black at the same time.^[5]

While some differences did occur, moderate and radical Republicans in Kansas largely agreed on bettering the condition of African American settlers on the basis of it being "a moral imperative." These efforts included expanding voting rights in the area to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment, but also opening schools for Black children; however, these schools were still segregated by race, and would legally remain so until the 20th century with the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.^[5]

References

^ Burlingame, Michael (April 1, 2013). Abraham Lincoln: A Life: Volume 1. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 575. ISBN 978-1421409733.
^ McPherson, James M. (January 1, 2010). Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN 978-0077430351.
^ ^a ^b Castel, Albert (1966). "Civil War Kansas and the Negro". The Journal of African American History. 51 (2): 125–138 – via JSTOR.
^ Harris, Charles F. "Catalyst for Terror: The Collapse of the Women's Prison In Kansas City", Missouri Historical Review, April 1995, pp. 302, 303
^ ^a ^b ^c Campney, Brent M. S. (2010). ""Light is bursting upon the world!": White Supremacy and Racist Violence against Blacks in Reconstruction Kansas". Western Historical Quarterly. 41 (2): 171–194. doi:10.2307/westhistquar.41.2.0171. ISSN 0043-3810.

External links

Kansas in the American Civil War

Origins

Combatants

Union

Campaigns

Missouri

Battles

1861	Osceola
1863	Lawrence Brooklyn Baxter Springs
1864	Marais des Cygnes Mine Creek

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