Military History

The United States east of the Upper Mississippi River was opened to the white race by the settlers, who fought to locate their homes in the country of the Shawnees, the Mingos, the Delawares, the Potawatomis, and all.

The newer United States of the vast Louisiana Territory, west of the Upper Mississippi River, was for a long time thought to be of little value as a home land.  Its value seemed to lie in furs and in trade with the natives.

This website engages Civil War buffs, scholars, students, and local residents in research and discussion on the Missouri-Kansas Border War that shook the region from 1854 to 1865. Through a collaborative effort among libraries, museums, and historical societies across the greater Kansas City region, the project provides free access to selected primary source materials and adds unique interactive features and a thematic layer of original scholarly essays and topical encyclopedia entries. 

Fort Scott, Kansas is the outgrowth of a frontier military outpost, lies on the south bank of the Marmaton River, five miles west of the Missouri Line. A city of "jogging" streets and fine old trees, with buildings older than Kansas itself sandwiched in between modern structures, Fort Scott is a blend of pioneer and modern America.

As originally formed, Leavenworth County was a river district. By the creation of Wyandotte County, its southeastern portion was cut off, leaving the Missouri River for its northeastern boundary merely. Leavenworth is one of the flourishing northeastern counties of Kansas and has an area of 455 square miles.

Leavenworth, Kansas is on the west bank of the Missouri River, spreads out over high bluffs and rolling hills, overlooking the Big Muddy, its green "bottoms," and adjacent farm lands. The business district is on fairly level ground in the narrow valley of Three Mile Creek, a shallow stream which flows between steep banks and makes a natural line of demarcation between downtown Leavenworth and the south residential district.

The Plains Indians were losing out.  They saw their buffalo grounds growing smaller and smaller.  The Sioux and Northern Cheyennes had not stopped the Union Pacific Railroad.  It had cut the northern herd in two.  The Cheyennes and Arapahos and Dog Soldiers from other tribes had not stopped the Kansas Pacific Railroad.  In their last great raid they had been defeated at the battle of Beecher's Island, as the fight by Major Forsythe, at the Arikaree in September, 1868, was known.  The Kansas Pacific had cut the southern herd in two.  It was bringing swarms of white hunters into the Kansas buffalo range; they were slaughtering the game and wasting the meat.

Chapter XXV

The Militia.

§1. It is the practice of governments to keep their respective countries prepared to defend themselves against foreign enemies. For this purpose all men liable to do military duty are enrolled, and are required to meet on certain days every year for instruction in the art of war, in order to be ready for actual service whenever it shall be required. The body of soldiers thus enrolled are called the _militia_. There are other words which are sometimes applied to bodies of soldiers; as _infantry_, which means the soldiers or troops who serve on foot; _cavalry_, the troops on horses; _artillery_, those who manage the cannon and other heavy weapons of war. But all troops are comprehended in the general term, _militia_.

It might well be urged against the method employed in these pages that, although we undertook to speak of the last American frontier, all that we really thus far have done has been to describe a series of frontiers from the Missouri westward. In part this is true. But it was precisely in this large, loose, and irregular fashion that we actually arrived at our last frontier. Certainly our westbound civilization never advanced by any steady or regular process.

In 1853 Fillmore's term of office came to an end and Franklin Pierce became President.  He was only forty-eight, and was the youngest President who had been elected so far. He was the son of a soldier who had fought in the Mexican War.  But by profession he was a lawyer and not a soldier.