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Title: Letters Sent (Provost Marshal, Northern District of Kansas)
Description: This notebook contains copies of correspondence sent by the Provost Marshal's Office, Northern District of Kansas in Leavenworth, Kansas, between August and December 1865. The correspondence addresses topics such as enrollment, desertions, and recruitment efforts. Participants in the correspondence include Quarter Master General M.C. Miegs; Assistant Secretary of War C.A. Dana; and Capt. J. McCahon, Provost Marshal for the Northern District of Kansas.
Date: August 1865-December 1865

Title: From J.M. Vincent to Thomas Carney
Description: This telegram, dated May 11, 1863, is from J.M. Vincent in Washington, D.C. to Kansas Gov. Thomas Carney. Vincent denies Carney’s request for authority to raise a Home Guard, and informs him that U.S. Secretary of War E.M. Stanton “does not wish to raise more negro regiments at present.”
Object Type: Telegram
Date: May 11, 1863

Title: From Lewis Stafford to Kate Newland
Description: This letter, dated October 10, 1861 is from Lewis Stafford in Chillicothe, Missouri to Kate Newland. Stafford, a member of the 1st Kansas Infantry, Company E, expresses pride in his regiment and mentions their participation in the Battle of Wilson’s Creek. He laments, however, that the regiment has lost a number of soldiers: “What sad havock war makes with the lives and health of men.”
Date: October 10, 1861

Title: Public Meeting!!
Description: This broadside announces a public meeting featuring a speech by Rev. Fred Starr, Jr., who was driven out of Kansas for his anti-slavery stance. Starr will address the audience about “the recent Outrages against the free Citizens of Kansas, by which the Right of Suffrage has been Invaded! The Pulpit Overthrown! The Missionaries Dispersed! The Press Destroyed! And the Liberty of Speech denied to Freemen.” The announcement was printed June 4, 1855 at the office of the Batavia Democrat, presumably in Batavia, New York.
Object Type: Broadside
Date: June 4, 1855

Title: From S.H. Woodson to George R. Smith
Description: On July 1, 1856, S.H. Woodson writes from Independence, Missouri to Gen. George R. Smith. Woodson denies the charge that he called Smith "as great an Abolitionist as there was in Massachusetts or in New York," declaring "There is not one word of truth in it."
Date: July 1, 1856

Title: Roger Brook Taney
Description: Portrait of Roger Brooke Taney, Chief Justice of the United States from 1836-1864. Taney is most remembered for his majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandrord case, which ruled that African-Americans, whether free or slave, could never be considered citizens of the United States and that Congress lacked the power to prohibit slavery in any federal territories.
Object Type: Image
Date: n.d.

Title: From Edward Bates to James L. McDowell
Description: This letter, dated July 23, 1861, was written by U.S. Attorney General Edward Bates to James L. McDowell, U.S. Marshal in Kansas. Bates replies to McDowell’s request for advice about enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law, declaring that no government official can choose to enforce the laws he likes and ignore those he dislikes. Bates adds that the recent “insurrectionary disorder” in Missouri does not alter its legal status as a member of the Union.
Date: July 23, 1861

Title: Resolutions of the Kansas Territorial Legislative Assembly
Description: These documents comprise 14 separate resolutions of the Kansas Territorial Legislative Assembly, dated between 1858 and 1861. The resolutions address a variety of topics, including support for admitting Kansas into the Union as a state; revision of county and township laws; protection of American Indian land rights; and maintaining peace with Missouri by denouncing any attempt by Kansans to interfere with slavery.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1858-1861

Title: Gettysburg Address
Description: This is a facsimile of President Lincoln’s handwritten copy of the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln delivered the famous speech on November 19, 1863 at the Soldiers National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In his address, Lincoln memorializes the Battle of Gettysburg and declares that the Declaration of Independence guarantees the liberty and equality of all people. He concludes by proclaiming that the “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Object Type: Speech
Date: November 19, 1863

Title: From John Tasmilen to John Ament
Description: This 1864 letter was written by John Tasmilen in Centralia, Missouri to John Ament. Declaring that “slavery is dead” and the war nearly over, John predicts that preachers will try to take credit for ending slavery, “but they lie, they sanctioned it as long as they could.” John encourages Ament to return to Cass County, Missouri: “I think you would find a great political change since you left…so that I think you might feel safe.”
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: 1860 Missouri Census Table
Description: This ca. 1860 printed document presents the results of the 1860 Missouri census, showing the population of whites, “free colored” and slaves in each county. The table lists the total state population as 1,182,012, with 1,063,599 whites, 3,572 Free Colored, and 114,931 slaves. Lafayette County has the largest slave population with 6,374 slaves. The table also reveals a small American Indian population in Gasconade and Jackson Counties.
Object Type: Government Document

Title: From Frederick Starr to Dear Father and All
Description: On October 30, 1854, Frederick Starr writes from Weston, Missouri to “Dear Father and all.” Starr describes the hostile atmosphere in Weston: “for 2 years I have lived in this community, and because I was born in the north, have been belied, opposed & persecuted…I have been stigmatized as an abolitionist, & everything done to drive me from the country that could be done.” Starr also writes about attending a meeting of the Self Defensive Association of Platte County, Missouri, to give his opinions on slavery and answer charges of abolitionism.
Date: October 30, 1854

Title: Reconstruction
Description: Lithograph of Horatio Bateman's allegorical illustration of the reconciliation between the North and the South following the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the Reconstruction Era.
Object Type: Image

Title: Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA General
Description: Carte de visite portrait of Confederate General and first Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest, circa 1863-1870.
Object Type: Image

Title: Emancipation Day Celebration
Description: Photograph of former Texas slaves celebrating Juneteenth in the "East Woods" on 24th Street in Austin, Texas, June 19, 1900.
Object Type: Image
Date: June 19, 1900

Title: A Negro Regiment in Action
Description: This is a print of a Thomas Nast wood engraving, originally published in Harper’s Weekly on March 14, 1863. It depicts the Battle of Island Mound, the first Civil War battle to include African-American troops. In that battle, the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers triumphed over a band of pro-Confederate guerrillas in Bates County, Missouri on October 29, 1862.
Object Type: Image
Date: March 14, 1863

Title: From R.C. Ewing to George R. Smith
Description: On June 18, 1856, R.C. Ewing writes from Lexington, Missouri to Gen. George R. Smith. Ewing warns Smith that his opinions regarding Kansas "are doing you…damage in Saline, Lafayette, and Jackson" counties in Missouri because "those who control matters here, say they are afraid of the effect of compromising anything on the Slavery question." Ewing predicts that these three counties will oppose Smith's nomination.
Date: June 18, 1856

Title: From Frederick Starr to Dear Father
Description: On February 26, 1855, Frederick Starr writes from Weston, Missouri to his father. Starr states that after the Self Defensive Association ordered all free blacks to leave the city within 30 days, the local citizens armed themselves to prevent the order being carried out. Ten days later, the citizens forced “a mulatto barber, who was in the habit of gambling & drinking with white men,” to leave the city; “To this no one made any objection for he was generally considered a bad citizen.” Starr adds that the community has turned against Gen. Stringfellow, who was accused of calling all servants “whores.”
Date: February 26, 1855

Title: Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, 1862
Description: This Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to take effect on Janurary 1st, 1863, only granted freedom to slaves residing in states in active rebellion. The document is so conditional that Union captured counties or cities of seceded states such as New Orleans were not subject to this Proclamation.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: September 22, 1862

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

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