By Ian Spurgeon, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Washington, D.C.
Samuel D. Lecompte gained fame as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Kansas Territory and a prominent proslavery official during the “Bleeding Kansas” conflict of the 1850s. His association with the expansion of slavery into territorial Kansas was cemented when the town named in his honor—Lecompton—became the capital of the proslavery territorial government.
One of three proslavery "forts" in Douglas County, Kansas, Fort Titus met its doom in the Battle of Fort Titus, as Free-Staters sought retribution for the Sacking of Lawrence in 1856.
In a second referendum vote, this time with Free-Staters participating, Kansans vote down the proslavery Lecompton Constitution by a vote of 10,226 to 138.