Bleeding Kansas: Slavery, Expansion, and Sectional Conflict in the Civil War Era

231 Pages·2017·2.403 MB·English

by  Michael E. Woods

Bleeding Kansas
Between 1854 and 1861, the struggle between pro- and anti-slavery
factions over Kansas Territory captivated Americans nationwide and con -
tributed directly to the Civil War. Combining political, social, and military
history, Bleeding Kansas contextualizes and analyzes pre-war and wartime
clashes in Kansas and Missouri and traces how these conflicts have been
remembered ever since. Michael E. Woods’s compelling narrative of the
Kansas–Missouri border struggle embraces the diverse perspectives of
white northerners and southerners, women, Native Americans, and African
Americans. This wide-ranging and engaging text is ideal for undergraduate
courses on the Civil War era, westward expansion, Kansas and/or Missouri
history, nineteenth-century US history, and other related subjects.
Supported by primary source documents and a robust companion website,
this text allows readers to engage with and draw their own conclusions
about this contentious era in American history.
Michael E. Woods is Assistant Professor of History at Marshall University.
He is the author of Emotional and Sectional Conflict in the Antebellum United
States(2014), which received the 2015 James A. Rawley Award from the
Southern Historical Association.
Critical Moments in American History
Edited by William Thomas Allison, Georgia Southern University
The Homestead Strike
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The Flu Epidemic of 1918
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The Emergence of Rock and Roll
Music and the Rise of American Youth Culture
Mitchell K. Hall
Transforming Civil War Prisons
Lincoln, Lieber, and the Politics of Captivity
Paul J. Springer and Glenn Robins
The Battle of Fort Sumter
The First Shots of the American Civil War
Wesley Moody
The WPA
Creating Jobs and Hope in the Great Depression
Sandra Opdyck
The California Gold Rush
The Stampede that Changed the World
Mark Eifler
Bleeding Kansas
Slavery, Sectionalism, and Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border
Michael E. Woods
Bleeding Kansas
Slavery, Sectionalism,
and Civil War on the
Missouri–Kansas Border
Michael E. Woods
First published 2017
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Taylor & Francis
The right of Michael E. Woods to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification
and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Woods, Michael E., author.
Title: Bleeding Kansas : slavery, sectionalism, and Civil War
on the Missouri-Kansas border / Michael E. Woods.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. |
Series: Critical moments in American history |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016010936| ISBN 9781138958500 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781138958548 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315661117 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Kansas—History—1854–1861. | Kansas—History—
Civil War, 1861–1865—Social aspects. | Missouri—History—Civil War,
1861–1865—Social aspects. | Borderlands—Kansas—History—
19th century. | Borderlands—Missouri—History—19th century. |
Slavery—Political aspects—Kansas—History—19th century. |
Slavery—Political aspects—Missouri—History—19th century.
Classification: LCC F685 .W84 2016 | DDC 978.1/02—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016010936
ISBN: 978-1-138-95850-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-95854-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-66111-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo and Helvetica Neue
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon
For Beth
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Contents
Series Introduction viii
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments x
Timeline xi
1 Three Roads to Kansas 1
2 Kansas Bleeds 30
3 Bleeding Kansas and the Nation 61
4 The Civil War on the Border 92
5 Remembering the Bloodshed 124
Documents 155
Bibliography 203
Index 213
Series Introduction
Welcome to the Routledge Critical Moments in American Historyseries. The
purpose of this new series is to give students a window into the historian’s
craft through concise, readable books by leading scholars, who bring
together the best scholarship and engaging primary sources to explore a
critical moment in the American past. In discovering the principal points
of the story in these books, gaining a sense of historiography, following a
fresh trail of primary documents, and exploring suggested readings, students
can then set out on their own journey, to debate the ideas presented, interpret
primary sources, and reach their own conclusions—just like the historian.
A critical moment in history can be a range of things—a pivotal year,
the pinnacle of a movement or trend, or an important event such as the
passage of a piece of legislation, an election, a court decision, a battle. It
can be social, cultural, political, or economic. It can be heroic or tragic.
Whatever they are, such moments are by definition “game changers,”
momentous changes in the pattern of the American fabric, paradigm shifts
in the American experience. Many of the critical moments explored in
this series are familiar; some less so.
There is no ultimate list of critical moments in American history—
any group of students, historians, or other scholars may come up with a
different catalog of topics. These differences of view, however, are what
make history itself and the study of history so important and so fascinating.
Therein can be found the utility of historical inquiry—to explore, to
challenge, to understand, and to realize the legacy of the past through its
influence of the present. It is the hope of this series to help students realize
this intrinsic value of our past and of studying our past.
William Thomas Allison
Georgia Southern University
Figures
1.1 “Reynolds’s Political Map of the United States” (1856) 24
2.1 Map: The Long Civil War on the Kansas–Missouri Border 31
3.1 “Democratic Platform Illustrated” (1856) 78
4.1 “The Destruction of the City of Lawrence, Kansas” (1863) 110
5.1 “Reunion of William Quantrill’s Band” (ca. 1897) 125