Topics in Kansas History: War

Like people everywhere, Kansas men, women, and children have suffered and died as a result of the country's all too frequent involvement in war. The ancestors of the state's citizens served in and were affected by the nation's earliest conflicts, including the Revolution and the War of 1812. Some served in the Mexican War before making Kansas their home in the 1850s and 1860s. read more

Find resources on War:

• Territorial Kansas Online
• Willing to Die for Freedom online exhibit

• A Kansas Portrait
• Army City
• Battle of Arickaree
• Beecher Bibles
• Brown, John
• Buffalo Soldiers
• Butler, Pardee
• Kansas Forts Network
• Kansas History, "Bleeding Kansas: A Review Essay", Winter 2001/2002
• Kansas in the Civil War

Letters, documents, objects, photographs, and sites

"Bleeding Kansas"

• Box which held fraudulent ballots
• Cannon used to attack Lawrence
• Chair from Underground Railroad station
• Desk from Quindaro (Underground Railroad)
• Desk used by John Brown
• Diary by early Kansas pioneer
• Flag carried by proslavery group
• Flag for "Southern Rights" group
• Flag from 1856 presidential race
• Howitzer that defended Lawrence
• Melodeon associated with John Brown
• Pike commissioned by John Brown
• Portrait of a pioneer
• Pro-slavery leader's desk
• Sign from Boston free-state company
• Slave shackle
• Surveying compass used by John Brown
• Sword from proslavery figure
• Tintype of African American woman
• Tombstone of free-state settler
• Warletters, "Bleeding Kansas"


Sites
• Marais des Cygnes Massacre State Historic Site near Pleasanton

Civil War

• Flag, 1st Kansas Colored Infantry
• Flag, 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry
• Flag, 2nd Kansas Volunteer, "Springfield"
• Flag, 8th Kansas Infantry
• Flag from Quantrill's raid on Olathe
• Flag presented to James G. Blunt and Blunt's accouterments
• Flags, First Kansas Battery & Second Kansas Cavalry
• Hat found on battlefield
• Keep the Flag to the Front: Battle Flags of Kansas (an online exhibit)
• Price Raid painting by Samuel Reader
• Saber & Revolvers
• Surgeon's bloodletting tools
• Valentines
• Warletters, Civil War
• First Kansas Colored Infantry


Sites
• Mine Creek Battlefield State Historic Site near Pleasanton

Plains Indian Wars

• Beecher Island & 7th Cavalry Artifacts
• Cheyenne war lance
• Custer's Last Rally painting by John Mulvany
• George Armstrong Custer's boots
• George Armstrong Custer's dumbbell
• Warletters, Plains Indian Wars


Sites
• Fort Hays State Historic Site in Hays

Spanish American War

• Flag, 20th Kansas Infantry
• Flag quilt, Girl Cadets
• Warletters, Spanish American War

World War I

• Memorial card for fallen soldier
• Purple heart medal
• Sign, Influenza quarantine
• Souvenir handkerchief
• Uncle Sam "I Want You" recruitment poster
• Warletters, World War I

World War II

• Carvings from German P.O.W.s
• Coleman portable stove
• Ike's Jacket (Dwight D. Eisenhower)
• Medical supplies transport box
• Victory banner and flag
• Warletters, World War II

Korean Conflict

• 50th anniversary items
• Pajamas from Korean War
• Warletters, Korean Conflict

Vietnam Conflict

• Warletters, Vietnam Conflict

Cold War

• Civil Defense food kit from fallout shelter
• Radiation meter, 1950s

Persian Gulf Conflict

• "Desert Storm" Uniform
• Warletters, Persian Gulf

Bibliographies

• Mexican War Bibliography
• Bleeding Kansas Bibliography
• Civil War Bibliography
• World War I Bibliography
• World War II Bibliography

Finding aids and guides to the collections

• Military Pension Index Cards (Kansas), 1861-1900

"Bleeding Kansas"

• New England Emigrant Aid Company Papers

Civil War

• Civil War Pamphlets on Microfiche
• Civil War Veterans in Kansas database

Museum Store

• Books on trails
• Kansas Forts Books
• Fort Dodge: Sentry of the Western Plains
• Fort Harker: Defending the Journey West
• Fort Hays: Keeping Peace on the Plains
• Fort Larned: Guardian of the Santa Fe Trail
• Fort Leavenworth: Gateway to the West
• Fort Riley: Citadel of the Frontier West
• Fort Scott: Courage and Conflict on the Border
• Fort Wallace: Sentinel on the Smoky Hill Trail
• Cowboys & soldiers
• Pony Express
• Women of the West

Kansas Heritage, our popular history magazine

• "Remains To Be Seen: Territorial and Civil War Sites in Kansas," Summer 1996
• "Roads From Fear To Freedom: The Kansas Underground Railroad," Autumn 1996
• "Guardians of the Plains: Military Forts in Kansas," Winter 1996
• "Knowing No Fear: Buffalo Soldiers of the American West," Autumn 1997
• "The Crowning Glory and the Greatest Grief: Kansas in the Spanish-American War," Summer 1998
• "Stars & Stripes Forever: Saving the Battle Flags of Kansas," Autumn 1998
• "Atten-Hut!" Winter 2000
• "Comes A Horseman--The Soldiers--," Autumn 2002

Kansas History, our scholarly journal

• "'The free sons of the North' vs. 'The myridons of Border-Ruffianism': What Makes a Man in Bleeding Kansas?" Autumn 2002
• "Hometown Support in the Midst of War: Dwight Eisenhower's Wartime Correspondence With Abilene Friends," Spring 2002
• "Julie Courtwright," 'A Goblin That Drives Her Insane': Sara Robinson and the History Wars of Kansas, 1894-1911," Summer 2002
• "Welcoming 'Pa' on the Kaw: Kansas's 'Colored' Militia and the 1864 Price Raid," Summer 2002

Kansas Kaleidoscope, our children's magazine

• "Bleeding Kansas & the Civil War," February 1998
• " Revisit 1900 as we Ride into the New Millenium," December 1999/January 2000
• "The Making of Kansas: Territorial Days 1854-1861," December 2000/January 2001

• Reflections on the War: Women and Their Civil War Quilts