Defending the Border

Saturday, February 21, 2009

By early 1864, defending the Kansas/Missouri Border with Union forces was becoming more organized and efficient. The main reason for this was that, once again and for the duration of the war the Department of Kansas had been created from and was entirely separate from the Department of Missouri. Headquarters for the Department of Kansas was at Fort Leavenworth and the headquarters for the Department of Missouri was in St. Louis. The state of Kansas was divided into the northern and southern districts and Missouri had been divided into multiple sub-districts with the fourth sub-district along the Missouri/Kansas Border. However, the most important facet of this reorganization was that Kansans would defend Kansas from within Kansas and Missourians would defend Missouri from within Missouri. Yes, they would defend their respective states from each other because they hated each other and were fond of killing each other even though they were Union troops. The Kansans simply believed that everyone in Missouri were enemies of the United States! In retrospect, this was simply not true, but the Kansans were a stubborn lot with memories that remembered the War of Bleeding Kansas.

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