Kansas's War e-bog

When the Civil War broke out in April 1861, Kansas was in a unique position. Although it had been a state for mere weeks, its residents were already intimately acquainted with civil strife. Since its organization as a territory in 1854, Kansas had been the focus of a national debate over the place of slavery in the Republic. By 1856, the ideological conflict developed into actual violence, earning the territory the sobriquet "e;Bleeding Kansas."e; Because of this recent territorial strife, the state's transition from peace to war was not as abrupt as that of other states.Kansas's War illuminates the new state's main preoccupations: the internal struggle for control of policy and patronage; border security; and issues of race-especially efforts to come to terms with the burgeoning African American population and American Indians' continuing claims to nearly one-fifth of the state's land. These documents demonstrate how politicians, soldiers, and ordinary Kansans understood the conflict and were transformed by the war.