[Music] When the American Civil War is mentioned, many envision places like Gettysburg, and for good reason.

The spark of this conflict ignited with the question of whether Kansas would be slave or free.

And the answer, and newly minted state's contribution before, during, and after the war, would earn Kansas the title of the Soldier State.

[Music] This session of Cottonwood Connections is at the Cottonwood Ranch, and we're going to speak today with Dr.

Leo Oliva.

And today's subject is Kansas being a Soldier State.

It's been called that a long time, but we're going to discuss it on why it is known as a Soldier State.

And basically, as an overview, that started from after the Civil War, that a lot of Civil War veterans, Union veterans, came to Kansas to homestead.

After 1865 to about 1900 was the time that outsiders referred to Kansas as the Soldier State.

But my argument is that it has always been a Soldier State down to the present time.

The term Soldier State was applied mostly to Kansas after the Civil War as a large number of Union veterans came to Kansas to settle.

And they provided much of the leadership for local and county and even state government.

But I'm going to look at some background before that happened, because this area that is now Kansas has been dominated by soldiers ever since indigenous people were here.

There were warrior societies in most of these tribes that were here, such as the Osage and the Kaw, those that came from the east and moved in here.

There were indigenous soldiers that were an important part of that early history, so it goes back that far.

Then we get into the exploring expeditions of the military.

Much of the exploration of the Great Plains was carried out by the military.

And then we get into overland trails and military posts that were established in what is now Kansas.

And there were five military posts in what is now Kansas before it ever became a territory.

And so we had that presence of these troops that were stationed here to protect, in some cases, the Indian reservations from outsiders and also to protect the overland travelers on such trails as the Santa Fe Trail and Oregon-California Trail.

And then we get into Territorial Kansas and we have another type of soldier as we look at the pro-slavery free state conflict.

And there was a lot of fighting that went on, and most of these were militia units, citizen soldiers that disorganized to fight for one side or the other.

But that conflict went on and it led directly into the Civil War.

So from the beginning of the country, you had a division over whether or not slavery should be allowed.

From our very beginnings, we're talking about ending slavery or perpetuating it.

And while the slaveocracy, or many of the strong slaveholding states in the South, had so much power, there was always a concern about that balance of power in the federal government.

So one of the things that was maintaining that balance, the deal with the devil, was the Missouri Compromise, where if we brought in a slave state like Missouri, we would bring in a free state.

So the first part of that compromise was that Missouri would become a slave state and Maine would become a free state.

So Maine joins the Union in 1820, Missouri in 1821, and so that part settled.

But there were other things in that compromise.

First of all, it said that there would be no settlement of U.S.

citizens or of any non-indigenous people west of the western boundary of Missouri.

In other words, that whole area that's now Kansas was closed to settlement, but it was reserved for indigenous people.

Another part of that compromise of 1820 said that there can be no slavery any place west of the western boundary of Missouri and north of the southern boundary of Missouri.

The first thing that happens after California becomes a state is "Let's build a railroad to the Pacific Ocean."

Railroads were expanding westward rapidly.

But the problem is, back there in 1820, we closed all settlements west of Missouri.

We've got to change that.

And Senator Stephen Douglas, who was from a railroad state, Illinois, proposed that we change the compromise of 1820 and that we open this area to settlement so we can build a railroad from the northern states to California.

And then he discovered southern delegates weren't going to vote for that.

They said, "We've already got a route.

Why would we vote to give you a route?"

And so Douglas, he comes up with a new plan.

Remember, they closed that area to slavery.

He said, "Let's reopen that area west of Missouri to slavery."

And he came up with the idea of two territories, Kansas and Nebraska.

The idea was, "Well, maybe we can have one a slave state and the other a free state and everybody will be happy."

And we start arguing over slavery again.

And finally, President Pierce, God bless him.

His son had died tragically before he assumed office and he just wasn't there.

Ironically, the man who is in charge and takes over a lot of his duties is Jefferson Davis, who will become the president of the Confederate States.

So even though Pierce is a New Englander, he has a lot of sympathies with the South.

And he is the one who signs the Kansas-Nebraska Act that says these new territories, when they come into the Union, we're going to let the people that live there vote on whether they'll be slave or free.

Well, who could have a problem with that?

And they got the Southern votes for that to open this territory up.

But what they didn't anticipate was the opposition of the anti-slavery movement in the United States at that time.

And they turned Kansas into what became known as Bleeding Kansas, as the great fight between pro-slavery and free state people over how this state was going to come out.

Because it was decided that however the people in that territory voted when they became a state, it would be a slave or free.

Well, the problem is who's going to be voting?

The folks who were assumed to have been voting for whether or not Kansas would be free or slave would be Missourians.

Those folks are just going to come across the river.

All those slaveholding folks who've been eyeing all this free land for so long, they're the ones that are going to come over here and vote.

So by signing that, he's de facto making Kansas a slave state.

And that is why there is so much anger in the Northeast.

And New England starts organizing folks to come and settle as well and to vote.

Kansas, as far as I can see, is the only state where people moved here to vote.

And that's an amazing history.

That's just an incredible history.

And they loved voting.

You know, we had 6,000 votes and only 3,000 eligible voters in one of those first elections.

So they loved voting.

So we have this migration of people from the South, of people from the North, starting with some New Englanders, a lot of people from the Midwest.

And we have this conflict that goes on called Bleeding Kansas.

Again, a lot of citizen militia units that fight each other.

It just is the match that lights the flame in America.

You know, all of that, all those ideas and the worst of us and the best of us just come together in the Kansas territory and it explodes.

We have such things as the Potawatomi Massacre, the Battle of Osawatomie, which the pro-slavery people win.

And this fight goes on back and forth down to statehood.

And of course, with immigration, the free-staters finally win and Kansas becomes a free state in 1861.

Just a few weeks before the Civil War breaks out.

You cannot make up Bleeding Kansas.

It is violent.

It is, you've got lofty ideals with just down in the dirt violence.

And it's just the oddest group of characters you could possibly throw together.

Those of us in Kansas often say the first battle of the Civil War was the Battle of Blackjack fought on June the 2nd of 1856, east of present of Baldwin City, between the militia force of John Brown, who had come to Kansas to fight for a free state, and Henry Clay Pates pro-slavery force, and they had this little battle.

It didn't last very long, and Pates' force was defeated.

The whole thing spread from the Missouri-Kansas border into a national war because of Lincoln's election in 1861.

So the very entry of Kansas into the Union is divisive because it has upset the apple part, that division of slave and free.

And it has done it in a way that some perceived an act of war.

A lot of people perceive that the New Englanders coming in and claiming land and trying to take over was an act of war.

So it's a brave thing for Kansas to come into the Union as a free state.

I might just mention that there were troops involved with the protection of Lincoln when he was taking office.

There was a rumor that Lincoln would be assassinated on his railroad trip to Washington, D.C.

from Illinois.

So they rerouted, and he got into Washington, D.C.

safely.

But there were still rumors that he might be assassinated before he was inaugurated.

And there was a new senator from Kansas, James H. Lane, who was in Washington, D.C.

He was a very great admirer of Lincoln, and he was determined that he should provide protection.

So he gathered up all the Kansas people he could in D.C.

He claimed it was a completely Kansas unit, 116 men.

This got a lot of publicity.

These volunteer soldiers from Kansas are protecting the President of the United States.

This was another example of how Kansas became known as the Soldier State.

Those same activists that moved to Kansas to vote enlist in the Army in record numbers.

Per capita, Kansas sends more men to the Union Army than any other state.

That's incredible.

There's just so much commitment in Kansas toward winning this war and keeping the Union together and freeing the slaves.

I think all of those ideas about what the war is about are hotly debated in other places, but here they're very clear.

And that's why men are enlisting.

So we're on the battlefields at Chickamauga, at Vicksburg, all over.

Then, of course, we've got this insane war on the border right here.

It's ironic that one of the reasons for this war is slavery, and the people that have most to gain are not able to fight in this war.

And there is a lot of discussion about that, but it's Jim Lane, our colorful U.S.

Senator, that decides he is going to form a black regiment.

The first Kansas colored.

The first Kansas colored were the first African American troops organized that went into combat or battle in the Civil War.

I know we have a tendency at times to talk about the 54th Massachusetts, because that's what we've learned from Hollywood.

But the first Kansas colored were the real first group of African American soldiers that volunteered and participated in combat.

They were organized at Fort Scott, and they went into battle almost immediately at the Battle of Island Mound, which is just over the border into Missouri.

So that was the first battle that African Americans actually participated in.

It wasn't Fort Wagner and the 54th Massachusetts.

But for the African American men, I think that gave them an opportunity to really think about freedom in a way that they could participate in making it happen.

When I think about Kansas history and what I know, it's amazing to me how Kansas is the pivotal state, its pivotal moment that sparked the Civil War.

Kansas coming into the Union as a free state or a slave state.

At that time, it was a critical time in American history, and there was enough people that were willing to tip the scales.

And I think that's what happened.

You have Lane organizing the push to organize the first Kansas colored and you know, Let's get these troops organized and let's defend what we really want to see happen as we move forward here in America.

I'm not sure the first time Kansas was referred to as the soldier state, but it was long before it was the sunflower state.

It might have even been during the Civil War because we again, we have such a high percentage of men serving.

It was definitely in place not long after the Civil War.

Civil War ends and we have this great influx of the veterans moving into Kansas.

Homestead Act was passed in 1862 provided that any citizen of the United States or who had applied for citizenship could get free land.

You had to build a house there.

You had to bring some of that land into cultivation and you had to survive there for five years.

And at the end of that five years, you got that 160 acres of land.

Now the military could count their military service in that five years.

This was attractive to the Union veterans and they were probably more successful than just the general public that founded Homesteads because many people weren't able to make it five years.

I have a question.

When Kansas was open to homesteading after the Civil War, the Union soldiers, I believe they might have been getting a pension.

I'm wondering where people that were not veterans and came out even in the 1870s weren't getting a pension and they had to depend entirely on the crops they grew and stuff like that.

And with the grasshopper plagues and storms and stuff, did the pension, although it was probably less than $20 a month, would that be enough as kind of the pension or announced to get these people through?

Very much so.

And they did get pensions and it certainly was helpful for them.

They had a shorter time period to fulfill because of their military service and then they had that income, that pension income that the regular settlers didn't have.

And so at the end of the war, a lot of veterans are taking advantage of that to come west and settle.

So I think it's 128,000 Civil War veterans were settled in Kansas, which is a pretty large portion compared to the general population.

I know here in Nicodemus, the cemetery is filled with them.

All three cemeteries are filled with Civil War vets.

And I think even the concept of one of the promotional flyers that they had to promote Nicodemus, it actually says that they were going to be accompanied by the militia.

Well, I think those militia were the men that were the Civil War vets.

They had just come out of the Civil War and now here they are.

And they're ready to take on the world in a new way.

Go west.

Become landowners.

That was appealing and appealing to especially the mind of those that had gone beyond the box and helped to take the lid off.

Also, the state legislature of Kansas after the Civil War was the great influx of veterans.

Two-thirds of the members of the state legislature of Kansas were Civil War veterans until 1898.

That's how predominant the soldier control was of Kansas.

And it's during that period that Kansas was known elsewhere as the soldier state.

At that time, right after the Civil War and on into actually early the next century, the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union Veterans of the Civil War, is the biggest lobby in this nation.

In fact, I don't know if there is any lobbying group in this nation since that holds a candle to the numbers and the power that that lobby had.

There were 488 GAR posts in Kansas.

This is the local post.

In 105 counties.

Yeah.

You're going to have the GAR reunions.

You're going to have the GAR encampments.

You're going to have the railroads.

The railroads would give them free passage, you know, for the state or the national reunions.

So their identity as soldiers was very well known.

So all of these things combined together make a case for Kansas being a soldier state from a time of pre-colonialism, through colonialism, through territorial period, through statehood, civil war, Indian wars.

So in a very real sense, Kansas, I think, is still be called a soldier state today because we have two of the major military posts in the United States, Fort Leavenworth and Fort Riley.

And we have not only those two military posts, but we have two former posts that are national parks today.

We have a state park at Fort Hays.

We have Fort Wallace, which is a Fort Wallace organization, Fort Harker, which is a Fort Harker organization.

So in addition to active military posts, we have these monuments to the time of the military occupation of Kansas that attest to this Kansas as a soldier state.

That is who we our.... who we are.

We can no more divorce ourselves from that than you could claim your mother's DNA and not your father's.

You know, that is who we are.

We are shaped by it.

You know, as I've been delving into the history of the Civil War vets, I can proudly say that, you know, quite a few of my grandfathers and great-great uncles participated in the Civil War.

When I walk the cemeteries and I see Perry Bates, who was my great-great grandfather on my dad's side, and then to know here recently that Tom Johnson, my great-great grandfather on my mother's side, knowing that he participated in the 116th colored infantry and they were at Appomattox.

I mean, to know that he was possibly there hearing that the war is over and that Lee has surrendered, that brings it all to life to me.

I mean, to know that they were there, to know that they participated in their own fight for freedom, and then it actually happens.

And then I could go to the West.

I could go to Kansas and become a homesteader.

I could apply for my pension that will help me to continue to survive.

Most of the people who organize these towns across central and western Kansas are veterans.

As this part of Kansas is settled, who are they naming the counties for?

You know, we're sitting here in Wallace County.

William Harvey Lamb Wallace, who died at the Battle of Shiloh.

Logan County, John Logan, General Logan.

Actually, not all just officers.

I live in Rooks County.

It's the only county in Kansas named after Civil War private.

And Pratt was a lieutenant.

And there might be others like that.

Most of the more officers, at least, of some rank.

Yeah, when you get to Grant and Thomas.

Sheridan, Sherman.

There's just so many Ellsworth, you know, the first, maybe the first man to die in the Civil War.

We still have that soldier heritage in the names, the geographic names that we have today.

You know, we've got all these names because the people who chose those names knew those stories, are served with those men, are served in those battles.

And we are being formed.

We're being created in the midst of the Civil War.

We are shaped by the Civil War like no other state.

So they carried that mantle of having been a soldier for the rest of their lives, of having saved the Union, of having freed the slaves.

This is something they carry proudly from then on.

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