Department of Kansas | |
---|---|
Active | 1861, 1862, 1864 |
Country | United States of America |
Branch | United States Army |
Engagements | American Civil War |
Commanders | |
Notable commanders | David Hunter James G. Blunt Samuel R. Curtis |
The Department of Kansas was a Union Army command department in the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the American Civil War. This department existed in three different forms during the war.
The first "Department of Kansas" was created on November 9, 1861 from the Western Department. It included Kansas, Nebraska Territory, Colorado Territory, Dakota Territory and the Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma). On March 11, 1862 the department was absorbed into the Department of the Mississippi. Brigadier General David Hunter was the sole commander during this period. During this interlude a District of Kansas existed under the command of Brigadier General James W. Denver from March 19-April 10, 1862. [1]
Two months later the Department of Kansas was reformed out of the Dept. of Mississippi on May 2, 1862. This form of the department included all previous territories except Fort Garland, Colorado. Brigadier General James G. Blunt was appointed commander. On August 16, Blunt created the Army of Kansas which was virtually synonymous with the department. Nebraska and Dakota Territories were detached and transferred to the Department of the Northwest and shortly after on October 11 the Department of Kansas was absorbed into the Department of the Missouri.
The structure of the department during 1962 was as follows; [2]
On January 1, 1864 the third formation of the Department of Kansas was created. It included Kansas, Nebraska Territory, Colorado Territory (except Fort Garland), Indian Territory, and Fort Smith, Arkansas. Major General Samuel R. Curtis was appointed command. Fort Smith and the Indian Territory were transferred to the Department of Arkansas in April. On October 13 Curtis organized the Army of the Border, composed of troops from his department to confront Price's Missouri Raid. For the first time of the war troops from the Department of Kansas were involved in a major campaign, turning back Price's Confederates at the Battle of Westport. The Army of the Border was disbanded on November 9. It was also during this time that Colonel John M. Chivington, commander of the District of Colorado Territory, committed the Sand Creek massacre against the Cheyenne and Arapaho people on November 29, 1864. Shortly after Department of Kansas was merged into the Dept. of Missouri once again.
The 35th Infantry Division, formerly known as the 35th Division, is an infantry formation of the United States Army National Guard headquartered at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The New Mexico campaign was a military operation of the trans-Mississippi theater of the American Civil War from February to April 1862 in which Confederate Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley invaded the northern New Mexico Territory in an attempt to gain control of the Southwest, including the gold fields of Colorado and the ports of California. Historians regard this campaign as the most ambitious Confederate attempt to establish control of the American West and to open an additional theater in the war. It was an important campaign in the war's Trans-Mississippi Theater, and one of the major events in the history of the New Mexico Territory in the American Civil War.
Fort Ridgely was a frontier United States Army outpost from 1851 to 1867, built 1853–1854 in Minnesota Territory. The Sioux called it Esa Tonka. It was located overlooking the Minnesota River southwest of Fairfax, Minnesota. Half of the fort's land was part of the south reservation in the Minnesota river valley for the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute tribes. Fort Ridgely had no defensive wall, palisade, or guard towers. The Army referred to the fort as the "New Post on the Upper Minnesota" until it was named for two Maryland Army Officers named Ridgely, who died during the Mexican–American War.
The Powder River Expedition of 1865 also known as the Powder River War or Powder River Invasion, was a large and far-flung military operation of the United States Army against the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians in Montana Territory and Dakota Territory. Although soldiers destroyed one Arapaho village and established Fort Connor to protect gold miners on the Bozeman Trail, the expedition is considered a failure because it failed to defeat or intimidate the Indians.
The First Battle of Newtonia was fought on September 30, 1862, between Confederate soldiers commanded by Colonel Douglas H. Cooper and a Union column commanded by Brigadier General Frederick Salomon near Newtonia, Missouri, during the American Civil War. Cooper's force had moved into southwestern Missouri, and encamped near the town of Newtonia. The Confederate column was composed mostly of cavalry led by Colonel Joseph O. Shelby and a brigade of Native Americans. A Union force commanded by Brigadier General James G. Blunt moved to intercept Cooper's force. Blunt's advance force, led by Salomon, reached the vicinity of Newtonia on September 29, and attacked Cooper's position on September 30. A Union probing force commanded by Colonel Edward Lynde was driven out of Newtonia by Cooper's forces on the morning of the 30th.
XXII Corps was a corps in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was created on February 2, 1863, to consist of all troops garrisoned in Washington, D.C., and included three infantry divisions and one of cavalry. Many of its units were transferred to the Army of the Potomac during Grant's Overland Campaign.
The Battle of Valverde, also known as the Battle of Valverde Ford, was fought from February 20 to 21, 1862, near the town of Val Verde at a ford of the Rio Grande in Union-held New Mexico Territory, in what is today the state of New Mexico. It is considered a major Confederate success in the New Mexico Campaign of the American Civil War, despite the invading force abandoning the field. The belligerents were Confederate cavalry from Texas and several companies of Arizona militia versus U.S. Army regulars and Union volunteers from northern New Mexico Territory and the Colorado Territory.
Thomas Moonlight was an American politician and soldier. Moonlight served as Governor of Wyoming Territory from 1887 to 1889.
The Battle of Old Fort Wayne, also known as Maysville, Beattie's Prairie, or Beaty's Prairie, was an American Civil War battle on October 22, 1862, in Delaware County in what is now eastern Oklahoma.
Fort Reno also known as Fort Connor or Old Fort Reno, was a wooden fort established on August 15, 1865 by the United States Army in Dakota Territory in present-day Johnson County, Wyoming. The fort was built to protect travelers on the Bozeman Trail from Native American tribes.
The Kansas Army National Guard is a component of the Army National Guard and the Kansas National Guard. Kansas Army National Guard units are trained and equipped as part of the United States Army. The same ranks and insignia are used and National Guardsmen are eligible to receive all United States military awards. The Kansas Guard also bestows a number of state awards for local services rendered in or to the state of Kansas. It is, along with the Kansas Air National Guard, an element of the Kansas National Guard.
Galvanized Yankees was a term from the American Civil War denoting former Confederate prisoners of war who swore allegiance to the United States and joined the Union Army. Approximately 5,600 former Confederate soldiers enlisted in the United States Volunteers, organized into six regiments of infantry between January 1864 and November 1866. Of those, more than 250 had begun their service as Union soldiers, were captured in battle, then enlisted in prison to join a regiment of the Confederate States Army. They surrendered to Union forces in December 1864 and were held by the United States as deserters, but were saved from prosecution by being enlisted in the 5th and 6th U.S. Volunteers. An additional 800 former Confederates served in volunteer regiments raised by the states, forming ten companies. Four of those companies saw combat in the Western Theater against the Confederate Army, two served on the western frontier, and one became an independent company of U.S. Volunteers, serving in Minnesota.
The Eighth Army Corps was formed on June 21, 1898, shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, in order to provide a ground contingent to exploit Commodore George Dewey's success in defeating the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay on May 1, 1898.
The area that eventually became the U.S. state of Montana played little direct role in the American Civil War. The closest the Confederate States Army ever came to the area was New Mexico and eastern Kansas, each over a thousand miles away. There was not even an organized territory using "Montana" until the Montana Territory was created on May 26, 1864, three years after the Battle of Fort Sumter. In 1861, the area was divided between the Dakota Territory and the Washington Territory, and in 1863, it was part of the Idaho Territory.
James Hobart Ford was a Union colonel and brevet brigadier general during the American Civil War, notable for his contributions in the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the war.
James Isham Gilbert (1823–1884) was a Union general during the American Civil War. He served with distinction in the Western theaters of the war as a regimental and brigade commander.
The Department of New Mexico was a department of the United States Army during the mid-19th century. It was created as the 9th Department, a geographical department, in 1848 following the successful conclusion of the Mexican–American War, and renamed Department of New Mexico in 1853. It had to contend with an invading Confederate force during the New Mexico Campaign of the American Civil War from mid-1861 to early 1862, then with Apache tribes during the remainder of the conflict. It was merged into the Department of California after the end of the war as the District of New Mexico.
Charles White Blair was a lawyer, and Union Army officer who served in three different regiments during the American Civil War. He fought primarily in the Trans-Mississippi Theater and was notable during Price's Missouri Raid.
James Monroe Williams was an American lawyer, soldier, and merchant. He served both as a cavalry and as an infantry officer in the Union Army within the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the American Civil War, and was breveted a brigadier general near the end of the conflict.
The First Battle of Cabin Creek occurred from July 1 to July 2, 1863, Mayes County, Oklahoma during the American Civil War. Confederate forces, led by Colonel Stand Watie, sought to ambush a Union supply convoy commanded by Colonel James Monroe Williams. However, Williams received advance warning of the attack. Despite the swollen waters of the creek due to rain, Williams launched a successful assault on the entrenched Confederate position, forcing them to retreat. Although a Confederate Army detachment attempted to raid a Union Army supply train bound for Fort Gibson in July 1863, they were unable to impede the Union detachment, which contributed to the Union's victory in the Battle of Honey Springs later that month. Notably, this battle marked the first instance of African American troops fighting alongside their white comrades.